College Essay Mistakes When Writing About Your Extracurriculars

Webinar Transcription

2024-08-05 – College Essay Mistakes When Writing About Your Extracurriculars

Lydia: Hello!

Anna: Hello everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisors webinar on, “College Essay Mistakes When You’re Writing About Your Extracurriculars.” We’re so excited you’re here. Um, myself and Lydia are going to take a moment to introduce ourselves and then we’ll get into things. So I’m Anna Vande Velde. I’ve been a CollegeAdvisor for three years as a senior advisor and also a captain on our essay review team.

For my undergrad, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. Ended up at Harvard Law School, uh, where I graduated a couple years ago, and I’m situated in Ottawa, Ontario.

Lydia: Hi everyone, my name is Lydia Hollon, uh, I’m also co-captain of the SA review team here at CollegeAdvisor. I’ve been with CollegeAdvisor for about three years now.

Outside of CollegeAdvisor, I work as an education policy consultant, working with different non profits and state education departments and school districts. A little background about me is I went to NYU for undergrad. I majored in political science and also did a master’s in public administration. Uh, and then I worked in their advising offices, uh, for a few years before becoming a high school English teacher and obtained my Master of Arts in teaching.

And like I said, then I became an education consultant. So I’m excited to talk to you all about college essays as someone who once taught high school English and has read many essays, myself also on the essay review team, and to give you all some helpful tips.

Anna: Awesome. Well, Lydia, before we get started, maybe one more thing, I thought it could be helpful to get a sense of who’s joining us. So I’m going to open this poll, if y’all could just let us know what grade you are in. And if it’s summer vacation, you can let us know what grade you’ll be entering in the fall.

If you’re here as a support person, feel free to select other. And while we wait for your responses to come in, Lydia, we didn’t chat about this. So I’m wondering if I can put you on the spot. Do you remember, did you write about any extracurriculars in your application essays?

Lydia: So I did to some extent. Um, so, uh, I, my whole essay was about how I feel like the idea that The saying life’s not fair, how it always bothered me, and how even as a kid, it would really upset me when adults would say, like, just deal with it, life’s not fair, get over it, um, and so, I ended up writing my essay about that whole theme, and when I was in high school, I was really passionate about, um, Like social justice and equality and things like that.

So I’d started a black student union at my high school as well as a club called girl up, which partners with the United Nations to give girls in developing countries access to education. Um, and so those were like the two extracurriculars that I talked about that kind of tied into that theme of. life’s not fair and me wanting to fight for equality and fairness across the world.

Anna: That’s awesome. I didn’t know that about you. Um, thanks for sharing. And I think those will be helpful examples to keep in mind as we, as we chat more tonight. So, um, before I turn it over to you, we have about 70% Uh, 12th graders with us, 15 percent 11th, and then a couple 10th graders along with some others.

So I’m assuming parents, educators, that sort of thing. So I’ll close the poll and then I believe I’ll turn it over to you.

Lydia: Okay. So thank you all for being here tonight. Um, so before we get into the common mistakes, I think it’s helpful for us to talk first about the type of college essays. Because That exist and that most of you are going to have to respond to.

So the two main buckets. that fall, that college essays fall into is first the personal statement. Um, for most of you, that’s going to be your common app personal statement that you write that is roughly 500 to 650 words where you basically just write about who you are and it can be pretty open ended.

I’ve read essays that are about all sorts of topics, um, from their things that their family eats, a hobby that they’re part of, extracurriculars that they are part of, um, weird quirks that they have, things that they believe in, all sorts of things. And then there is the supplemental essay. For some colleges, for example, University of Chicago, sometimes those prompts can be a little bit quirkier and more philosophical, but for some schools, most schools, it tends to be a more direct, maybe why do you want to pursue the major that you’re pursuing?

Or why do you want to attend this school? Um, sometimes those supplemental essays are required. Oftentimes they are, but sometimes they’re optional essays that can really, um, allow you to show even more interest in a school because not every student that’s applying necessarily has to write. So those are the two buckets.

And in all of those essays, there’s definitely an opportunity for you to tie in your extracurriculars, especially if that’s something that you’re proud of or that is related to the major that you intend on pursuing when you’re in college.

Anna: So before we dive into our tips on writing your essays, we can Thought it was only fair for us to share why we think college essays are so important that they deserve their own webinar. Uh, your college essay is really your chance to show the admissions readers your voice, your personality, your unique story.

If there’s anything you feel it needs explained that maybe isn’t evident just from the activities list or your transcript, This is also the opportunity to do that. Uh, I really like to think about how human memory works, and I’m pretty confident that there are very few, if any, admissions readers who at the end of the day are remembering someone’s entire activities list, or what grade they got in calculus versus physics.

Humans remember stories. Thank you. And the essay is where you can really tell a story and tie your whole application together. Um, so Lydia and I both think they’re a really important part of the application. And I think that’s all I have to say on this slide. But the shortness of what I’m saying doesn’t undermine the importance that they’re, they’re a big part of the application.

Lydia: Yes. So yes, they’re definitely incredibly important, which is why you want to really take some time to think about how you’re going to approach the essay before you start writing. I noticed that, granted, for some people, Like doing a brain dump and just starting and just writing whatever comes to your mind for some people that works But I find for most students especially because the personal statement or just essays for college applications in general Require you to be so reflective about who you are and how you became the person that you are It’s it’s a really good to try and brainstorm a variety of ideas and write them down in like bullet point type form before you get really invested into writing a full essay about anything.

And that’s because once you write down all the things about all the interesting anecdotes that have happened in your life, all the lessons that you’ve learned in your life, the things that have shaped you, you may find that there’s a general theme. or a general trend that is compelling to you versus if you just picked one story and said, I’m going to just write about this story, you may not realize until about halfway through that it’s really the right fit or that it’s something that you really care about.

So I always tell my students, like, think about a lesson that, You learn that has really stuck with you your whole life or think about the kind of person that you want to portray yourself to be In your application and I don’t mean that in a i’m trying to make myself seem different than how I actually am But rather who are you?

What are the things that you feel like someone has to understand about you in order to truly know you? So going back to the example of what I wrote about wrote about for my personal statement At the time when I was in high school You Something that I felt was core to who I am is that I was really passionate about equality.

I was really passionate about justice, fairness, and things like that. I wanted to pursue law at the time. And so I felt like my application wouldn’t be complete without talking about that. So knowing that that was my personal narrative, my candidate profile, I was able to then pull from my memory and think about, okay, well, what is the origin story for why I am like that?

Was there a specific moment that I felt really exemplified that value that I have? Was there some, a lesson that I learned at some point in my life or something that someone told me, a person in my life who taught me those values that I should talk about? Like, that’s kind of what you want to think about is.

What is the end message that you’d want the admissions officer to walk away with? And then from there, decide what the anecdote, what the lesson is, or lessons or stories that you’re going to pull from to help you build that case. So I always think it’s better to try and work backwards, and then think of the different options that you can work with to help get to that end point, rather than just pulling out one, like the most interesting story.

And for most students, honestly, the, the wildest, craziest, most interesting anecdote or story often isn’t actually the one that is most effective at answering the questions that you’re trying to answer in a college application. Because we’re not asking for the most interesting moment in your life, we’re actually trying to understand who you are.

And for most of us, The moments that best define who we are are mundane things that maybe aren’t super interesting. They’re not usually the things that we do on the wildest, craziest days of our life.

Anna: Absolutely. Um, so I saw there was a question about this in the chat. I’m glad you’re asking. This is the timeline that CollegeAdvisors suggest for writing your college essays. I would like to say it, share it with a caveat bet. If what you’ve done does not align with this timeline, please don’t worry. Um, there is time and I know we have a lot of seniors here, uh, rising seniors.

So what we would recommend is in the spring of your junior year to start brainstorming topics for your personal statement as Lydia just discussed. Then to start writing it, really use this summer before your school year starts. to draft and workshop that personal statement. Um, so right now, Rising Seniors is one we would suggest that you be working on your personal statement.

The reason is, if you can get that mostly finalized, it’s okay if you do need a little bit of polishing, but if you can get that mostly wrapped up this summer, That means you’re going to have time in the early fall to write your supplemental essays, as we had discussed earlier, and that leaves your senior fall to make sure you have all the pieces of your application put together to allow you to focus on your academics because those continue to be important throughout senior year.

and also to enjoy your senior year because there are so many fun things that happen that you want to be able to be present to. So starting now, if you haven’t already, on your essays, I promise you, future you, will thank you for doing that. Uh, and it will really, uh, help your, your application process and make it less stressful.

I didn’t do it and I was okay, but I wish I had.

Lydia: You will never regret starting early on something like a personal statement, but you will definitely put yourself at risk of regretting starting too late. I’ve never worked with a student who was upset that they had their personal statement written before school started. So, um, just keep that in mind.

Um, so the next thing that we wanted to talk about is how you can highlight your extracurricular during the essay writing process, which I think that this is a question that a lot of students have because For most students, especially if it’s an extracurricular that really represents like why they want to major and what they’re majoring in or why they want to pursue the career path that they’re pursuing or something like that, they want to include that in their essay in some capacity.

But some students really struggle with finding a way To do that, because you’ve probably heard this before, but you don’t want your personal statement to say the exact same thing that you heard in your activity list or say the exact same thing that an admissions officer could see when they look at your resume and things like that.

Every piece of your application should serve a different kind of purpose and communicate different details than what we would see looking at any other part of your application. So the best way to highlight your extracurricular activities is to is through storytelling because a resume or an activity list is never going to be able to tell a complete story.

It’s not going to be able, even if your activity list, for example, says that I won my state track meet. In the 400 or something like that, we may be able to see that accomplishment and the award section of your college application, but only your personal statement would be able to actually tell the story of how you got there.

Right? So you really want to focus on a story of that extracurricular, but it shouldn’t just be a story of. Here’s, you know, the process of me being president necessarily, but there should be an actual moment of learning and growth that you have to go through. So if you’re talking about being president of a club, let’s say the debate team, Rather than it being like, oh, well, we had meetings once a week, and I did presentations and things like that, it shouldn’t be a list of your responsibilities.

It should be about maybe some sort of conflict that you encountered, and it doesn’t have to be between you and another person. It could be an internal conflict, but some sort of thing that forced you to grow. So maybe if you were the president of your debate club, You realize that maybe there weren’t that many people that were interested, and you realized that you had to get creative about how you were going to get people involved, and that pushed you to learn how to actually use your debate skills to get people to join the debate team, and that’s what made you realize that you were even more passionate about it, because debate applied to so many different things in your life, not just talking about these hypothetical situations, right?

That’s just a random example. But see how that was a way for you to talk about your extracurricular in a way that you wouldn’t be able to talk about in any other aspect of your application. And it allows you to demonstrate certain levels of growth and certain skills that we wouldn’t always necessarily assume that you’ve developed by being in that extracurricular.

And it also allows you to show that the real why behind your passion for that extracurricular. So we may be able to see that you did debate all four years, for example, but only your personal statement can help us understand why did you do it all four years? What made you fall in love with it? Was there a specific moment in that activity that maybe opened your eyes and made you realize, you know, Oh, this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, or this is the impact that I can make if this is the way that I spend my time.

So usually picking one to two experiences that you think really capture why you love that activity or really capture a core learning moment for you, or a moment that was really pivotal. in your development. Those are the kinds of things that you want to center your essay around and provide additional information that can’t be found in the rest of your application.

So

Anna: how do you know what activities to write about and what to showcase in your essays? Lydia explained earlier how important it is to have a candidate profile. Sometimes I use the brand. Some schema, some high level themes. What makes you, you uniquely you? Um, so looking for activities that sort of highlight that, that picture you want to paint of yourself.

Um, that’s a really good way to start some questions to ask of where have I learned and what, where have I grown the most, um, also look at what you’re most passionate about, because those core traits of yours that you want to highlight are probably evident in your passions. You might also want to look at how your activities align with your academic and career goals.

Those might be something you want to highlight. Alternatively, maybe you are engaged in an activity that is really unique and you want to share that. So something you might spend a lot of time doing that people might not. Um, for example, if you breed and train dogs, that’s something most folks your age do not do.

Um, that’s really interesting. That’s something you might want to share. And again, focusing on like what it is about you that makes that interesting to you. What do you learn through doing it? What have you, how have you grown through it?

Discussing an activity that stands out, that highlights something different about your profile can add a nice depth to your application. I think it’s a really humanizing thing to do. Um, as I said earlier, these admissions readers aren’t going to remember every single thing on your application, but they’ll remember the unique stories, um, and the things that make you unique.

So, just some thoughts on how to decide what to write about in your essays.

Lydia: Great. So, uh, our next question is, where are you in that college application process? Go ahead and open the poll now. And Anna, while we give people a chance to answer this question, I’ll ask you the same question that you asked me earlier, which is, for your personal statement, did you spend any time talking about your extracurriculars?

And if so, how did you cover it?

Anna: Yeah. So in my undergrad application, I wrote about a pretty personal family, I don’t believe I covered them there, but in my law school personal statement, which frankly is the same as an undergrad personal statement. Um, I, I have been working for three years after undergrad.

I was really on a path towards clinical psychology, just based on the jobs I was working, the activities I was involved in. And with each job and each activity, I started to realize. that that wasn’t the path I wanted to go down, that I was more interested in law school. Um, so in that essay, I actually went through pretty much all of the activities I had been involved in that helped me learn what I really wanted to do.

Um, so yeah, I, I kind of just went through them all in chronological order, um, focusing not so much on like, the jobs themselves or the activities themselves, but what I learned through that and how I like took each step closer and closer to law school.

Lydia: That’s great, and I think that’s a really good example of how to talk about extracurriculars if maybe the path that you took to deciding on your intended major is a little bit different, um, because I know I’ve definitely worked with students who you know, they kind of freak out a little bit because they realize, Oh, I want to major in something that’s kind of different than how I spent like the first two years or first three years of high school.

Um, and I think there are definitely like some good ways to incorporate your extracurriculars, even if it isn’t super related to, uh, what you intend on majoring in. Um, so before we move back into the presentation, I’m going to close the poll and just go over our responses. So we’ve got. 7 percent of attendees who say they haven’t started, 37 percent are researching schools, 36 percent are working on essays, 18 percent are getting their application materials together, and 2 percent say they’re almost done, and it’s only August, so good for you, those 2 percent that are almost done already.

Anna: Yes, that’s awesome. Um, well, thank you, Lydia, for that. We wanted to share some common mistakes that we see. Lydia and I read hundreds of essays every application season. So some themes that we have identified. The first thing, the lack of that personal narrative candidate profile that Lydia talked about, that is really essential to have some overarching themes that tie your whole application together.

The maybe easiest way to like drive that home is in the essay because it’s so freeform. Um, so make sure you’re doing that work, uh, for the college and also frankly for yourself. Um, I think a huge part of the college application process, or let me say this, I think the students who are the most successful in their college admissions are the students who introspect.

And who really actually ask themselves genuine and hard questions about what they want to do and why and who they are. Um, and what makes them unique. So make sure you do that work. It will really level up your applications. Another thing we see, especially when writing about extracurriculars, is students sort of just listing their accomplishments.

Thanks! Or maybe even listing, describing at length what the organization does. So your list of accomplishments is fantastic. You absolutely want it in your application, but it should go in the activities section. That’s where that belongs. The essay is for you to go more in depth on. If you’re writing about an extracurricular, go in depth on Maybe one accomplishment, um, or one experience that you had again.

Um, like I said, you also don’t want to spend too much time or too many words describing what the organization or the club is, especially if it’s model UN, if it’s three club, if it’s the Bay club, if it’s, if it’s the name of a club that I’ve heard on week or on a TV show, right, like you can probably assume.

The readers know what it is. They don’t need you to tell them what chess club is. What they want to know is why, why did you do chess club? Why was it important to you? What did you learn? That sort of thing. Um, I also have negativity and unconstructive critique on here, but I want to give a big caveat here.

It is really okay and can be powerful, to write about things that you consider a failure, failure, or maybe that didn’t go the way that you hoped. But what’s really important is framing. So I think where students get stuck on this one is, let’s say, um, you join a club and you don’t think it’s run very well.

I would advise you against framing that in an essay as like, our advisor was terrible, or this club had no organization. Instead, I would advise you and I would challenge my students to take a step back, think about it, be really specific. Okay, you joined this club. What were you hoping to get out of it?

What did you notice that wasn’t going how you wanted it to? And then what did you do about it? Really focusing on that last part. What did you do about it? How did you respond, um, to something that wasn’t the way you thought it should? That’s how I, uh, in general recommend handling failure or negativity or anything like that.

with a more positive and forward looking framing.

Lydia: So, how can I revise and refine my essays to avoid these common mistakes? So, one of the main ways is taking time to step away from your essay, and then come back to it and look at it. And that is, The most important thing when you’re thinking about the timeline of drafting your essay, right? If you wait until a few days before the deadline for applying to a college to start writing your essay, then you’re not going to have time to step away from the essay and then come back with fresher eyes.

You’re not going to have time to share your essay with other people and really implement the feedback in meaningful ways, right? So the sooner that you see that Um, and the easier it is for you to really revise your essays to avoid those kinds of mistakes. And so, um, I think whether you’re having someone else look at your essay or you’re coming back to it after being away from it for a few days, you want to make sure that you’re able to really identify what the core message is here.

And I think, you know, especially if you’re the kind of person who you’re writing about your extracurricular and extracurricular. You kind of air towards the side of like, okay, I’m just going to tell them about what I do when I’m in modeling model UN. And I’m just going to describe, yeah. So I like wake up early in the morning and then I brush my teeth and then I go, and then I have to research my, my country that I’m representing and then we debate about things and stuff like that.

That just sounds like a routine and while routines are meaningful and they can tell us about. If the person that is reading it can’t identify what the deeper message is or what that’s supposed to tell us about you, then you may want to rethink it, right? So when you’re going back and looking at your essay or when you’re having someone look at your essay, Ask them, really, when you read the information that I share in the essay, what do you feel like the message is that I’m trying to convey?

Do you think that there is a message that’s being conveyed here? Or is it just kind of an amalgamation, like, um, in a set of, achievements, responsibilities, um, and things like that. So definitely be mindful of what the theme is. And even as you’re writing your essay, you should be going through each sentence, each paragraph, and thinking, What is the actual purpose of what I’m sharing here?

If I’m sharing this detail, what is it helping me to communicate? What is it connecting to? What is the larger message? Because you only have up to 650 words when it comes to the personal statement. The supplemental essays are usually even less than that. Sometimes as little as a hundred words. So you want to make sure that every single word that you’re using is helping to Contribute towards that theme, contribute towards that message.

And then also in the same vein, when you’re going back and looking at your essay or having someone else look at your essay, especially for you, when you’re looking at it yourself, because you know what’s in your application as a whole, better than anyone else. Sometimes when you share your essay with other people, they’re just looking at the essay.

They don’t know what’s on your activities list. They don’t know what you have listed in the awards. You want to be thinking. What is this adding to my application? Am I sharing information that can’t be found anywhere else? Because again, you only have so much room, so much space to share details about you.

So you want to be strategic with every opportunity that you have to share information with an admissions officer. If your essay is saying the same things that they could conclude when they look at other parts of your application, then they’re not really getting an opportunity to really benefit from reading your personal statement or benefit from reading your supplemental essay.

So you need to be asking yourself, what is this adding to my application? What information is this sharing that couldn’t be found anywhere else? Um, also looking at her passive language, this is incredibly important, especially when talking about extracurriculars, because you want to sound like you are in the driver’s seat.

when it comes to the activities and the ways that you spend your time. So if it sounds like everyone else is doing things to you, then it’s a lot harder to communicate how you are actively engaging in the hobby that you’re doing. So avoiding passive language, um, and then also when, especially when you have someone else read it, get them to, think about if you didn’t know me, what kind of person would you imagine me to be based on the information that I shared?

Does it sound like how you imagine me to be? Does it sound like someone else? Sometimes, especially if we’re trying to be particularly vulnerable, or sometimes we’re making, you know, assumptions about the person that’s reading it, we can come off in a way that may be. isn’t so great. Um, sometimes we might be a little bit more negative than we intended to be, or we might sound a little bit more sarcastic than we intended to be.

And so having someone else look at it, they might be able to cap certain things that you wouldn’t be able to notice just looking at your essay yourself. Um, And having that feedback about how you come off in your essay can really be helpful because you may not have really thought about how you wanted to portray yourself, but once you hear someone say, oh, this is how you seem, you can reflect on if you feel like that’s an actual accurate portrayal of who you actually are or who you want to be seen as.

Anna: Absolutely. Uh, so how do you write creatively? Because we keep saying to tell stories. How do you do that while still being clear and concise? Um, we’ve both said this before, but it’s so important. I’m going to say it again. Show us, don’t tell, put us in your shoes. That first person narrative is so powerful.

Um, I remember an essay a student of mine was working on Um, they, they fixed up old cars, like I don’t know how they did that, I find that so impressive. Um, but in their spare time, that did it. Um, a really cool and unique extracurricular activity. And their essay at first was, was pretty, I don’t know, like something you’d read in the newspaper, or like a scientific paper, right?

Like, I fixed cars and I learned this. Um, not very personal, um, and really wasn’t highlighting what they did day to day on these cars. Um, I, by the end, um, I’m remembering their, their intro went something like, I slide under the car, I smell the oil, and like, I come alive. So they’re really putting the reader in their shoes.

In a way that’s a lot clearer because the reader can picture it and it’s honestly more concise than describing it the other way. I forgot I had this on the slide and mentioned it earlier. Um, it is a pet peeve of mine. Don’t over explain your extracurricular organization. Um, you are really limited in the amount of content you can share.

It’s like there are word count limits. So don’t explain what you don’t need to. And one rule I give my students, I call it the copy and paste rule. Um, and this applies more broadly than when talking about your extracurricular organization. But if there’s a sentence in your essay that I could copy and paste into someone else’s essay, and it could make sense in there, it’s probably not personal enough.

It’s probably not specific enough. So in the example I gave a minute ago, where the student said something like, I work on cars, there are others who work on cars. I could copy and paste that into another person’s essay and it could make sense, but that feeling they get when they roll under the car and they smell the oil, that’s a really specific moment and experience that they’ve had.

That’s not going to make sense by copying and pasting into someone else’s essay.

It also can be powerful to share your origin story. Uh, and what we mean by that is if you are just absolutely in love with an activity, think back to where that interest started. There are a lot of good stories that come from telling how you, how you became interested in something. Um, so if you’re looking for a moment in time to, to discuss when it comes to your extracurricular involvement, consider how you, you first came to love this.

Lydia: And so when trying to think about how to make your extracurricular experiences really stand out, similar to what Anna was saying, you want to make sure that anything that you’re sharing in your essay is something that couldn’t go into any other person’s personal statement. So rather than saying, I play basketball and I really love basketball.

I love running up and down the court. I love shooting and making a big score. Like those are things pretty much any person that plays basketball could probably say very similar things. Like I love being able to score a big, like score for the game. I love being able to get a double double or triple double or whatever.

Right. Like. Those are things that most people can say. Um, but you want to go beyond what you’ve done or beyond what you’ve accomplished. Even with something that’s really impressive, like we won the state championship or something like that, or I’m the team captain. There are still multiple students out there.

When we think about the context of students who are applying to a college all over the world, there are going to be other kids. that are applying to that college who can say the same thing, who they were the state champ, or they were the captain of their team, right? So even though those things are impressive and you definitely want to include them on your activity list, those are not the things that are going to make your extracurricular experience stand out.

What’s going to make your essay stand out is about the way that you are able to communicate your passion for that extracurricular. What is it that you are specifically feeling when you are doing that thing? What is the thing that drives you to continue to participate in that? So like, going back to the example that I have, Of, you know, the essay that I wrote, um, I, I talked about, you know, my being in the Black Student Union, founding the Black Student Union, and being the founder of the girl up chapter at my high school, right?

There are other students who are part of a Black student union in the United States. There are other students who had girl up chapters in the country, right? I’m sure I was not the only person that applied to college that year, that cycle, who had a similar profile as I did. But I was the only person that could say that I did those things and that I had a very specific.

reason, a very specific experience that motivated me to do those things. And so you want to think about what is the motivation that you had to pursue whatever it is that you’re pursuing. So even if it’s something like playing a sport, maybe it’s a memory that you have of like waking up and going and playing with your dad.

And maybe that was the one way that you were able to bond. You guys were different. in every way possible. But basketball was the one time that you all were able to connect. And so that’s what made you, you know, really passionate about it. So thinking about what does this thing make you feel? And then also, what do you learn?

So we are all different people. We all come to the extracurriculars that we participate in with different perspectives. And so something that is eye opening for you, may not be eye opening for another person. So if you’re participating in something like basketball, for some people, maybe the lesson that they learn is that, you know, it’s really important to practice how you play.

For other people, it may be about learning how to lose graciously. Um, there are all sorts of lessons that you can learn, so being really specific about what you took away from that experience also allows your extracurricular to stand out. And, um, also thinking about how it informs your future goals. And so, I know we talked about, you know, choosing extracurriculars that align with your profile.

And I think sometimes students assume that that means, well, if I’m going to major in biology, then I need to talk about how I did science Olympia or if I’m going to do pre med, then I need to talk about how I was a candy striper at the hospital. I don’t even think candy stripers are a thing anymore, but like volunteering at the hospital.

Right. But it doesn’t always have to be a one to one correlation like that. It could be something as simple as like, Um, maybe you want to be a doctor, but the reason that you want to do it is maybe you have, um, like a younger sibling that you always have to take care of, and you’ve realized that in taking care of your younger sibling, you really enjoy So, tending to people.

You enjoy listening to their problems. You enjoy being able to be like that nurturing figure. Um, and so it doesn’t have to be this direct connection. Think creatively about how every experience that you have somehow led you to this moment and really lean as much as possible on the story, on the journey, because the journey is what makes the story unique, not the final destination.

There are plenty of people that end up in the same. final destination that you are in.

Anna: Yes, absolutely. Um, so we, I don’t, Lydia and I have both worked with students who are humble and humble tends to be seen as a positive trait. I get that. Um, and sometimes because of that humility, students say, I feel uncomfortable maybe doing any self promotion or writing about their accomplishments. So we wanted to share some tips for how to do that and Spoiler alert, they’re similar to tips on other slides, uh, because I, I do really think that these are some of the core tips for writing a strong essay.

Um, so we’ve said it before, focus on the growth and the learning. Um, that might help you if you are a student who feels maybe self conscious or worried about sounding like you’re bragging or doing too much self promotion. If your framing is, I accomplished this and I learned X, Y, and Z, then the emphasis is really on your growth and your learning.

I think that’s a much more humble approach. Reminder that that copy and paste rule definitely applies to the parts of your essay focused on growth and learning. Um, so I played basketball for four years and I learned how to be a good teammate. Copy and paste, that can go into any basketball player’s essay.

That’s not specific enough. Another thing that I think can help, uh, help humanize accomplishments, make them come off in in a humble way. Um, you’ve heard it before is to put the reader in your shoes. So for example, you could say, I’m an accomplished figure skater who’s won 12 medals in eight years. Wow, that’s amazing, right?

Um, maybe doesn’t sound as humble as you would like to. And also It’s not very specific. I could probably copy and paste that sentence into a couple other students essays in the country, right? Maybe not a lot, but some. Um, so compare that to something like, as the judge placed the gold medal around my neck, I locked eyes with my mom in the audience, feeling a deep connection to our family’s skating culture and a rush of gratitude.

For the hundreds of lessons she arranged for me. So you’re telling a story of you winning a gold medal, but because it’s in your shoes from your perspective, feels less obnoxious than saying, I’ve won 12 medals. I’m a great skater. It also pulls out and highlights what might be some of your themes in your application, right?

There’s the student, I’m sure will go on. to explain what their family skating culture is. What is that connection? But it, it tells me up front, okay, family’s important to the student. There’s something here. There’s some history. Um, we’ve gone to hundreds of lessons. That’s kind of a creative way to say, I’ve practiced hours and hours and hours and hours without saying that so obnoxiously, right?

Um, so just an example, um, and some tips on how to balance humility while also highlighting what you’ve done, because you do want to highlight some things that you have done in your applications, um, because that’s kind of the point, right, is to show who you are, what you’ve done, and why an admissions reader should want to see you walking on their campus next year.

Um, why. They should want, uh, to have you join their community. So, that’s that.

Lydia: Yeah, thanks. Um, yeah, I would just say, like, um, not to beat a dead horse, but like, when you’re talking about extracurriculars, I think a good rule of thumb, in addition to what Anna said about, you know, it shouldn’t be something that could be copy pasted into another person’s essay.

If I can take a sentence in your essay and convert it into a bullet point on a resume, then it probably isn’t. super effective, right? Like I could take, earn 12 medals in a span of eight years. I can turn that into a bullet point, but I can’t turn, you know, looking out into the audience and as the medal is put on your neck and seeing your family, like that’s not something that can be a bullet point on our resume that has actual heart, actual soul to it.

So now we’re going to jump into the question and answer portion of our presentation. So I definitely encourage you all to submit any questions that you feel still need to be answered based off of our presentation. You can access it by clicking the Q& A tab on the side of your screen. If you’re not able to see it, try logging in through the custom link in your email and then it should be able to pop up.

So the first question that I’m going to ask Should we use figurative language that’s up to interpretation, almost like it’s a poem? Um, I would personally say that you can use figurative language. I know a lot of students like to have some sort of metaphor, um, as like kind of a recurring holds their whole essay together.

But I think that if it’s going to be something that’s up to interpretation, that can be a little bit risky because you can never fully assume. What someone is going to take away from your essay and you because it’s a personal statement and the whole point of your essay is that you’re supposed to be conveying who you are, you really don’t want to leave that up to interpretation.

You want to be as clear as possible. So some students are able to have really great metaphors that are really strong and actually add clarity. But if you feel like you’re putting a metaphor in there just because you feel like it’s cool and it’s hip and it’s different. That’s not necessarily going to be more effective.

Like sometimes I’ll see students use a metaphor, but they find themselves having to like explain it every time they use the metaphor. And the whole point of a metaphor is that it’s actually supposed to clarify something that is otherwise difficult to explain. So figurative language can be fine in my opinion, but don’t feel like it’s something that you have to do in order to stand out.

But I’m curious what you think, Anna.

Anna: I agree completely. I really challenged my students that Every sentence in an essay should be telling the reader something new about you. So if the metaphor makes it clear who you are, how you think, how you feel, um, that can be really helpful and really great. If you get a little lost in it, um, or it’s maybe superfluous, um, then it’s just a missed opportunity to share more about yourself.

Any time a student is trying something creative like that, something maybe less traditional, I think it just makes even more important, uh, the tip we gave earlier, which is to ask for feedback. From your CollegeAdvisor from an educator or someone who you trust to read it and tell you if it sounds like you and if it paints an accurate picture of who you are.

Um, I see Lydia is answering a question in the chat. So I’m thinking now, Lydia might be a great time for me to share this slide. Um, so I just want to pause and talk a bit about CollegeAdvisor. All right. For those in the room who are not already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be.

CollegeVisor has a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the admissions process in a one on one advising, advising session. We’ve already helped over 8, 000 families in their college journeys. And I’m excited to share after analyzing our data from 2021 to 2024, we found that CollegeAdvisor students are 2.4 times more likely to get into Harvard, 2.9 times more likely to get into Stanford, and 1.98 times more likely to get into Princeton. So increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 60 minute strategy session. With an admission specialist on our team, you can do that by scanning the QR code on the screen.

Uh, and during that meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to scan. At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and so much more.

Um, I’ll just note that if you are joining from a cell phone and therefore are unable to scan the QR code right now, when the webinar closes, you should automatically be redirected to the page where you can schedule that free strategy session. Also, the handouts are available for you, or the slides are available for you to download in the handouts tab, and those also have the QR code in them.

Um, we have a few more minutes left for Q& A, but that QR code is going to stay on the screen. Um, and looking for another question. There was, oh, maybe Lydia answered it. Lydia, do you have thoughts on where we should go next?

Lydia: Uh, yeah, so I know one question that I thought was interesting was basically like, how should the personal statement be structured?

What is the flow for how we should write it?

Anna: Yeah. Um,

Lydia: so I like to start with something that’s gonna grab their attention. So usually that’s some sort of interesting story to kind of get the person immediately caught up into your world or into this story. core moment that’s really important to you because usually starting with a story is going to be more engaging than starting with, you know, I really like debate team and here’s why I like debate team and then talking about the story later on.

Um, so usually starting with some sort of anecdote is an effective way to start or starting with some sort of, you know, Quote that like it was really pivotal, like something that someone said to you that had a really big impact on you. And then once you have that story getting into the reflection about that moment and what that meant to you or what that thing that that person said to you, what that meant to you, uh, and then connecting it to your extracurricular, um, and the things that you’re currently doing and then moving into the future and what you want to do, uh, moving forward based on the things that you’ve done.

in the present and the experiences that you’ve had. So that, that’s how I usually like to structure essays.

Anna: I agree and I have noticed, uh, for a lot of my students and definitely for myself as a writer, sometimes finding that or that story is difficult and, um, waiting until I have the story to start writing is often not that effective for me.

So I encourage you. If you’re not sure what story to start with, but you know, like, generally what extracurricular you want to write about, or what topic. Start writing, um, and you’ll be surprised how often a story emerges, and then just be open to editing and moving that, that story to the, to the top, as Lydia said, to have that really engaging introduction.

Um, oh, go ahead.

Lydia: Um, so, another question that’s kind of similar to one that, uh, we didn’t get. Um, just a second ago, but do you, do personal statements have to be like an essay or can they be in the structure of like a poem or a novel or something like that? Can you go a more alternative route with your structure?

Anna: I think you can, um, I would want to ask the student and challenge them why, what, what is the value add of doing that? Um, if you have a strong answer to that, and the answer involves because that helps me explain who I am better, then, then I could be convinced, um, and I think it’s, it’s a path you want to approach thoughtfully and definitely get feedback on.

So I would start writing for sure early so you have time if you’re doing the feedback I’m not sure if this works, um, consider trying this. I don’t see it done too often, but I don’t want to be an essayer and say it can’t be done well. I just think it’s, it’s difficult. Uh, what do you, what are your thoughts on that one?

Lydia: Yeah. I, I say it, never say never, um, but you always want to lead with authenticity, right? So your essay shouldn’t feel like a gimmick. If you’re writing your essay in the style of a poem because you want them to just remember it, then. you know, it, it, it doesn’t, that’s not really the key to success necessarily.

But if you’re someone like, poetry is the, the thing that you’re passionate about, maybe you want to pursue creative writing, you write poetry a lot anyway, then I could see that being a solid way to approach it. But if you have never sat down and written a poem before, and then you decide I’m going to write my personal statement as a poem, because it’s going to be different, probably not.

Um, Another question that we’ve got is, uh, I saw it and then I lost it. So, yeah, so, um, what is a good way to structure your essay so that you can show personal growth.

Anna: Well, I think the first question is how have you grown and how does that show through your story? And then I would, I would structure the story around that, um, to tie it into another question, which is about concluding without sounding arrogant or immature. Um, I, I think it can be powerful if you’re not sure how to end to think with a forward looking lens.

So where. Here’s a story I’ve told, here’s what I’ve learned, where do I want to go, where am I going next, why am I applying to college sort of thing, um, or beyond college, right, what do I want to do, be doing when I’m 30 or 40, um, I think that gives it sort of like an aspirational tone, and it takes it out of the arrogance and highlights how your personal growth is changing.

Finding your, your goals, which are good things to have.

Lydia: Yeah, I think that, yeah, it definitely depends on the lesson that you’ve learned and how you have grown, how you’re going to talk about it. But I think, you know, if you’re in the early stage, like the most important thing is like spend a lot of time really reflecting, like almost do like a study. Like I’ve even had students that have bought like little like self help like therapy books almost like stuff that gets you really thinking about who you are and you know, who you want to be and all that kind of stuff.

Doing all that kind of thinking will help you think about how to express the growth that you’ve had. Um, I’m just going to like rapid fire answer some of these so that people feel like they’ve gotten their answer questions answered. But like, Should I try to avoid technical terms and over explanations of specific accomplishments or projects?

I would say, if you don’t have to get really technical, try not to get really technical. For example, if I have a student that is in robotics, I usually tell them, like, I don’t necessarily need to know all the little things that you did to get your robot to do X, Y, and Z. Because that’s not going to help me learn anything.

substantial about you. It’s more so for me to get an idea of like, how much effort were you putting into this? What did it mean to you? So if you don’t have to get super technical in order to convey the effort, the time, the meaning, the importance, then try to avoid it. Um, and that’s why we say like, you want to try to keep it more focused on your feelings and the experience and the reflection.

rather than the technical aspect so that you don’t have to over explain things. Obviously, some people have hobbies that are not super popular. And so there is going to be some amount of explanation that you have to do. But even with something that is really common, like football, if you’re talking about football, you’re not going to be specific about these are the drills that I did and stuff like that, right?

You’re probably going to talk about really general things that relate to a specific experience. Um, Eye catching ways to begin a personal statement. Like I said, I think, um, talking about like a really specific story or anecdote from the beginning can be really eye catching. If there’s a specific thing someone said that’s kind of jarring, um, that can be a good way to get someone interested.

Um, and, um, I think starting with really detailed, like, interesting imagery can also be a great way to get someone interested. Like, anything that’s gonna get someone feeling like they’re truly enveloped in your world from the, from the beginning. Um, what is a good way to conclude your essay without sounding immature or arrogant?

I think always finishing with like a reflection about okay, like this is what this all culminated into. Like, I think that that’s the right way. Like, I think most people don’t sound super arrogant or immature by the end of their essay, honestly. Unless they’re just ending with here, I’m going to list all of the things that I accomplished, which That’s usually not how you want to finish anyway.

So if you reflect and think about, okay, with all of this considered, this is where I want to go, this is who I am now. That usually is not going to sound immature or arrogant. So, um, yeah, I will pass it back to you, Anna, to wrap us up.

Anna: Yeah, not much to say other than thank you all for being here. Um, you just by showing up.

You are committing to yourself and to this process, and I commend you for that. Thank you, Lydia, for joining and sharing all of your wisdom and tag teaming this with me. Please make sure you check out our website because we do webinars on all sorts of topics pretty frequently. Um, so you can see we have a bunch upcoming this month, uh, one about early decision, early action, uh, one with an admissions officer, your college list and more, check them out and thank you again so much for joining us.

We hope you all have a great night and don’t forget to scan that QR code to sign up for your free strategy session. Take good care, everyone.