MIT Supplemental Essays Workshop

Webinar Transcription

2023-11-29 – MIT Supplemental Essays Workshop

Lonnie: Hello, everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisor.com webinar, “Strategizing Your MIT Application Essays.” To orient everyone with the webinar timing. We’re first going to begin with a really great presentation in regards to the application for MIT In regards to the essays, and then we’ll be able to answer your questions in a live Q&A.

Um, if, you know, at any time, if you want to go ahead and start submitting your questions, you can go ahead and do so in the Q&A tab, and then we also will have the handout for you to download for your convenience within the handout. So, before we jump into our presentation, let’s first introduce our panelists.

Lisa: Okay. Am I good to go? Hi. So everyone, my name is Lisa Lozano. I graduated from MIT in 2017. So about six years ago, I have a bachelor’s degree in brain and cognitive science. Fancy word for neuroscience, um, at MIT. And I’m really excited to be here tonight.

Lonnie: Awesome. Okay. So let’s first start with getting a sense of grade levels for our audience.

So let us know. It allows us to find ways to just speak directly to you based on your grade level or whether you’re a parent or a guardian. And I was looking at the title of your major and I said, I think this is neuroscience.

Lisa: It is. It’s just, I don’t know why they can’t just call it neuroscience.

Lonnie: Yeah.

Awesome, awesome. Okay, I’m gonna give it a few more seconds to see if there’s more response that coming. Okay, cool. So now we have, we have 45 percent of our audience currently are in the 11th grade. Followed by that we have 29 percent 10th grade, 15 percent 12th grade, and then we have about under 9 percent 9th grade and other.

So great representation of all grade levels, high school grade levels, and then a few other.

Lisa: Awesome.

Lonnie: Yeah. So I will turn it over to you to get us started into, you know, what different essays do you submit for the MIT application?

Lisa: So, um, to give more background, I’m an advisor for CollegeAdvisor. I help on the essay team for CollegeAdvisor, and I have students who are doing the MIT application.

I’m very familiar with it. Um, the prompts did change somewhat from last year and so they could change again next year too. Um, word count also changed this year as well, so just be mindful of it if you’re watching this in 2024 or 2025. Um, the essays, MIT officially, I think they listed five, but I count six.

Uh, there is one that’s optional. It is the one on the right in the middle information about your family, and I count that as a sixth essay with my students and I tell ’em to try not to leave it blank. Um, they do have an essay tab in the application dedicated for essays, and they only have three essays there.

The ones that you see on your left, the describe your community essay, the contributing to your community essay, and the learning from challenges essay. Then they have three hidden essays in other tabs on this application. Um, why are you doing this major? Tell us about your family and what do you do for fun?

So I like to put them all together for my students. Um, there we go. It’s in the short responses tab. If you have an account, if you’re a 12th grader, you, you’ve seen this tab before and you can also create a dummy account or just a fake account and explore it. If you’re an 11, 10th, ninth, uh, whatever grade.

Um, so these are going to be in the short responses tab and then these are within the application. This is not going to, they’re, they don’t put the essays together, even though I feel like they should to make it easier, but it is what it is. Um, So let’s get started. The first essay students will see is called the describe your community essay.

The prompt is how has the world you come from, including your opportunities, experiences, challenges, shaped your dreams and aspirations. And my students always kind of feel overwhelmed with this prompt. There are so many nouns and there’s so much being asked in the prompt, right? Opportunities, experiences, challenges, dreams, aspirations, the world, like what’s going on.

Um, and essentially. It’s just to tell us about your background. What is meaningful about your background that has led you to your current dream or goal right now? What are your dreams? What are your aspirations? Um, what I tell my students is how they’re going to go about these essays. There’s a lot of resources online regarding what to write about and to brainstorm the what.

I think the students, my students typically struggle with the how, and so this presentation is going to be very how based. How do we get the content, and then how do we get the essay after pulling out the content? Um, so an example, and maybe a student already knows what they want to do, and that example is to become an aerospace engineer.

I want to return to Houston, Texas, which is my home, and then give back to the extracurriculars. that had served me while I was in high school. And then there are other students who don’t really know what they want to do. Maybe they have an inkling or they have an idea of what they want. And in those cases, you can say that, and I kind of recommend that you be genuine and honest about that experience, too.

Ideally, you want to have an idea, whether that is STEM or like the arts or something in literature, just a very broad idea. The example being, IDK what I want, exactly, but I hope it’s something that allows me to use math and then support my family. Pretty broad, but also honest. Okay. So then, I had students, uh, brainstorm all of these things.

Um, I put the two examples here of the aerospace engineer example of that, like somebody who knows what they want to major in, and I have the other example of somebody who’s not really sure. And so, what I’ll have students do is brainstorm the opportunity experiences and challenges. Um, so for example, maybe I’ll go to the one on the left to balance it out.

Um, the left being the one about the student with math opportunities. What are some opportunities that led me to want to pursue math? Well, I took AP calculus, I took AP statistics, I’ve been a part of the math team, and I’ve been tutoring people in math. I really like math. Then what are some experiences?

And for this one, it’s kind of a broad question, and I try to ask students to tell me about positive or good experiences that came out of this. Um, for example, I joined the math team in fourth grade and then stayed until junior year. And then my best friends came from this team, and we attended state and national competitions, and we met all these new people who enjoyed math like us, and we would eat breakfast tacos on Saturday morning.

Um, those are the experiences, and those are fun, and those are things you can include in the content of your essay. And then challenges. I struggled immensely to conceptualize integrals. Like, you can be honest about it, like maybe math used to be difficult for this person. Or I scored 11th out of 12th at my first, um, math meet.

And this is actually based on me, I did score 11th out of 12th in my very first math meet. Um, So, I have students break these down and just brainstorm and throw whatever comes to their mind. There is no, there are no perfect examples yet and we don’t know what’s going to be needed or required or necessary for the prompt, for the essay.

And then finally putting it into a coherent story. And then creating an outline to detail how the past led to the aspirations. Ideally, and I really hope students have a hook. You want to have an introduction that includes some imagery or just something that pulls the reader in. They’re going to be looking at thousands and thousands of essays, and a lot of them are probably going to start with, I want to be this because I am good at this.

A lot of students don’t really, may not put the time or effort into really cultivating A page of their book or a chapter of their book, you’re giving the AOs, the admissions officers, just a snapshot of who you are and your experiences. An example of an intro with a hook, I remember feeling tiny looking up at the space shuttle at Space Center Houston on a trip with my family.

I couldn’t vocalize the feeling of being insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I was mesmerized by the shuttle, knowing it had been in space. As my mom walked me to the next exhibit, I kept turning back, not knowing this moment would define my future dream to build machines that could journey to space.

Um, so if you can break this down, I’m pulling the reader with me to this memory, um, this snapshot memory that has stuck with me. And you can kind of envision like a child just turning back to this space shuttle. The body, this is essentially going to be a summary of. The experiences and the challenges that you brainstorm.

Um, I love working on this part with my students and helping them make the flow coherent. Uh, the example being, I felt right at home when I joined rocketry in ninth grade. I enjoyed learning physics and calculus, um, before peers my age and running simulations of rockets. I live for the Thursday evenings when my team would work four to nine While our coach applied pizza and ice cream and Beatles music in the background um I also appreciate the kindness and support I received throughout my time in the team for instance Though my first rocket was a flop the president of the club took it upon herself to tutor me one on one As long as I did readings so you’re really Walking the reader through some of the things that you loved about rocketry or about this experience.

I’m walking Them through these milestones These pertinent and important events that occurred that are very telling of me. It shows that I enjoy physics and calculus. It shows that by the 4 to 9 p. m. that I’m willing to put in the time to do something that I love. Um, with the pizza, ice cream and Beatles, it shows that, like, I’m chill.

Like, I can eat pizza and ice cream while doing work. Uh, something that’s going to be really important for college. Um, and in the conclusion, this is going to be a summary of all the meaningful activities. Um, and just a few sentences that directly state your dreams and aspirations. The example being, I would love to believe that my four year old self knew I was destined to be an engineer, destined to engineer technology that could travel beyond our atmosphere.

I’m going to pause right there. So what I’m doing there is I’m doing a technique where we’re bringing the reader like 180, or 360, whichever you prefer. And I’m reminding them of the introduction and bringing them back, and bringing it back to the conclusion. I’m Um, it is a little cliche, but it’s also powerful and it also still works, and I’m going to continue.

I have enjoyed learning how to make rockets go faster, higher, and further depending on the need of rocketry and better comprehending the physics. Ultimately, I hope to one day work as an aerospace engineer helping design space shuttles that are more durable, resilient, and may one day get humans to other worlds.

I want to return to rocketry and potentially coach future engineers and help them fall in love with the process of problem solving and building in the same way I have. So I was able to summarize my experiences in rocketry and tie it back to like, these are my dreams and aspirations. Very directly, I’m holding the reader’s hand to make sure that they’re following along with me.

Never leave anything to be inferred or assumed because they may not infer or assume it. The second prompt is the contributing to your community prompt. What is this? So the prompt says, MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to help lending a helping hand.

Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, Or contribute to your community together. Um, so time and time again, students read this essay, and the very first thing they go to is a leadership experience. And that, that’s okay. However, sometimes this leadership experience is more so the student telling other people what to do.

Or maybe delegating things too. Um, but the prompt is saying that you’re learning from them, with them, and contributing together. So if this leadership role is kind of just you directing other people, that may not be the best example. And I’m emphasizing this because I have seen it time and time again with my students.

Whenever they see this prompt, the first thing they go to is a time they kind of led. It’s 50 50, not, uh, sometimes they don’t really collaborate, they’re just leading. Um, so thinking of a time that you worked in a group to complete a common goal. And this may take some digging, uh, to remember a time that you worked with people who were diverse or different.

And I’ll give examples of diverse and different in the next slide. Um, and also, like, that experience is going to be different for different students. For example, maybe this collaboration was an easy process. You got put in a group and all of you had your stuff together and you all knew what you wanted to do.

And the outcome was great. For some of you, maybe the group started out kind of chaotic and confusing. Maybe you didn’t like your teammates. Maybe you all had very different personalities. Maybe some of where everyone was an alpha. What do you do? Um, and I put a little asterisk there because those essays can show a lot about growth.

Um, not everybody needs this kind of story, but it is a little more compelling, in my opinion. Um, and in whatever the story, try to ensure it includes people with different backgrounds. And now I’ll go to those examples. Okay, so some examples. By diverse backgrounds, it can be diverse. It doesn’t necessarily have to be, um, About race or ethnicity, about age.

Uh, for example, students at X high school with diverse strengths come together to build an electric car. We have somebody who enjoys coding, somebody else who wants to build, somebody who wants to do the leading, somebody who wants to write the documents up for the competition. So that’s an example of people, just a diverse group of people using diverse strengths.

Another example, a team of volunteers from the community build a house after a hurricane. Uh, maybe. You’re this volunteer and you notice children are helping build this house, adults from the neighborhood, elderly people, like, it’s a diverse group of people who come together to build a house together. Uh, the other example, peers from very different, from very different personalities and work ethics are assigned to complete a video project together.

Um, you have to learn how to delegate tasks to different people, and then compromises may need to be made. And this is another example in which you had to work with a diverse group. So, non examples. Um, writing about a time you told your team what to do and they did it. Your team won the prize, but you never asked for their input or suggestions.

Um, non example. This is not what you want to do. And, describe, yes. So I put this here, again, to emphasize the points. You want an example where you learned from your teammates, you learned with your teammates, or you contributed together. Um, and I’m very big on asking my students and my advisees questions to build insight.

Sometimes they’re totally, totally lost as to what content to even bring up. So, you can ask, what did I learn from this experience? Did I learn anything? And if you didn’t learn anything, maybe find another experience. Um, what did I learn from my teammates? Did they teach me patience? Um, maybe they did if they were really rough to work with.

Um, did they teach me about calculus or physics or some other content that I was less familiar with? Um, what did we all learn together through the experience? As a team, collectively, was there anything you learned together? Maybe how to work with people with very different personalities or very different mindsets.

And then, essentially, what was the end product? What did you contribute? Other guiding questions I’ve asked my own advisees. How did you feel after you initially met your team? How did you feel working with them? And how did you feel after working with them? I try to tell my, encourage my students to include emotions, so that way the essay is more personable, so that way they’re getting, the admissions officers are getting a picture of your academic potential and what you can do academically, but also who you are as a person, um, and how you experience, how you experience this event emotionally.

Um, and I asked them, do you have a favorite memory from this experience? And then what was the hardest part of the collaboration? Um, more often than not, those kind of things, like the favorite part, or like the best part of this thing, and the hardest part, tend to make the cut with the essay. And they tend to get included in the content of the Contributing to Your Community essay.

Okay. I think that’s a duplicate. Yep. Okay. The last essay in the official essay tab is the Learning from Challenges. How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? And what did you learn from it? Um, so there’s two questions being asked, uh, and sometimes students are so nervous or anxious that they only focus on the first or the second, but they forget to do both.

That’s okay. That’s normal. So two part question, and I ask students to break it down into two, and we literally will write the first bullet point, what was the challenge? The second bullet point, what did you learn from the challenge? I tell students to aim for a healthy balance of the 40. 30 40 percent is explaining the situation and explaining the challenge.

And why is that? That is so the other 60-70 percent can be used to describe how you overcame the challenge, what you learned, and how you grew. The second half of the essay really needs to be focused on your growth as a student. Um, sometimes students When they write this essay, they think about this challenging event, and sometimes they haven’t processed it, and sometimes this essay turns out being very, coming off as very bitter or upset about the event, like they haven’t had time to vent about it or be angry about it, um, and that’s not really appropriate either.

Um, when this does occur, I do allow the student to write it all out, and then we kind of reframe and ask them, hey, can you write more about, um, what you learned from it and how you grew from it. And then we’ll kind of start evening out the proportion so that way it’s not a majority dedicated to the hardship and the challenge and the rant.

We also want to be careful with not ranting either. For example, a student might say like, I learned life is not fair and everything sucks and that is also not appropriate. Maybe These, this is true, but again, the admissions officers are getting a snapshot of you. You may not want to end your essay on life sucks or everything sucks and nothing is fair because then it shows that you didn’t learn from the experience.

So not the snapshot you want to leave with admissions officers. And imagery is still important. Aim to describe your experience in such a way that the readers can place themselves in your shoes. An example, sitting in a cold university desk in a room with 30 other competitors. I stared at the proctor in front of the room giving instructions, but could not hear him through the thoughts racing around my head.

I felt my anxiety rising knowing that in 60 minutes from now I would either be the state math champion or not, and clenched my pencil more tightly as he counted down. Three, two, one, go. So from this very brief, um, introduction. You kind of get an idea, this person is about to compete to be math champion or not.

Because it’s learning from challenges prompts, they probably did not become the math champion. And the rest of the prompt needs to be dedicated to explaining the challenge. Maybe the person went into some, like, a small depression or sadness or anxiety from losing. And then what they learned from that. I decided to practice more.

Um, I learned that I was competing with the other top ten people in the state and I needed to go easy on myself. Like, um, I need to be kind to myself. I got second or third place out of the ten top in the state. Um, and then this is a space where MIT can see your growth mindset and how you react to challenges.

Um, I have, I have seen essays where students are describing a fixed mindset, like, again, like, I learned that this competition is rigged. I mean, that’s not how you want to end it. Maybe it is rigged, but then you may want to end on a growth mindset of, like, I want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, or that one day I can be a proctor and make sure that things are more fair.

Um, or because of this experience, I was able to advocate for myself and report the rigging, right? So this is showing that despite the hardship or the challenge or the difficulty, you did something about it and you wanted to improve on it. Um, so before deciding on an experience, reflect on whether your reaction was a desire to get better, uh, because if it wasn’t, and you didn’t, this may not be the strongest idea for the essay.

Um, an example, I decided to avoid, I don’t, maybe, um, the math team forever and began to withdraw from everything and everyone. As opposed to, I acknowledge that I may have failed this time, but I can work on improving in the future. And then some guiding questions I ask my students. What was an experience in which you failed?

What was something that you did that did not go according to plan? How did you feel throughout this experience? I really hone in on this one with my students. Like, were you anxious about it? Were, were you depressed about it? Were you worried about it? Were you concerned? Were you ecstatic when things turned out well?

Um, give the admissions officers a more holistic view of who you are as a person. Um, and I’m going to continue to be mindful of time. There is another essay I didn’t really include. It’s kind of the seventh essay, and this is the more of an extenuating circumstances essay. The prompt is, no application can meet the needs of every individual.

If there’s a significant, if there’s significant information that you were not able to include elsewhere in the application, you may include it here. And many students will leave this section blank and that’s okay. In other words, what were extenuating circumstances you may have experienced during your education?

And in other words, if, what were some factors that may have impacted your academic performance or your progress? So, examples that you can include, because of appendicitis in my sophomore year, my grades in the fall took a dip. And so that’s why you’ll see the few B’s I made in my AP classes, or that’s why you’ll see that my, my grades went down on my transcript.

Another example, I had to take a 20 hour job in junior year to support my family after a parent passed away, and that’s why I couldn’t take, um, I couldn’t take AP calculus or physics, even though they were offered. Um, another example, let me see if I can see it. Okay. Because of appendicitis in my sophomore, you know, wrong one, uh, through calculus two and pharma calculus two in pharmacology were offered at the same time.

And I had intended to take both. I decided to take pharmacology as it’s aligned more closely with my goal of attending pharmacy school and regret me a license as a pharmacy technician. Um, so that the admissions officers are going to get a list of the classes that were available at your school. Um, MIT appreciates when students are challenging themselves.

If they know that you had the opportunity to take physics, but then you chose to take this elective course of pharmacology, they may question why and you don’t want to have them curious or like not sure why this happened. And so this is the space where you would include things about health history, hindrances, maybe learning disorders, um, reasons for why you took this course.

Some classes as opposed to others. Um, I’ve spoken to many admissions officers in through CollegeAdvisor And they really emphasize using this space to explain extenuating circumstances This should not be another place to include in from a second personal statement or another essay about an extracurricular That should have been placed strategically throughout the application or mentioned somewhere else um And let’s see, it’s not here yet.

Okay, so if there are factors that might look concerning, this is a space to address them. If you had an AP Computer Science class that was available as an elective, but shows AP Chemistry, uh, Chemistry, and you wanted to major in Computer Science, what is your rationale? Why did you pick, um, AP Chemistry as opposed to AP Computer Science?

Maybe it was, like, the time. If you received some Bs or some Cs on your transcript in your freshman, junior, sophomore, senior year, what was going on during this period? They’re going to see your transcript, and you want to really make sure that they know the full story, because they’re going to be comparing your transcript with somebody else’s transcript, and maybe that other person did not have the same hardships you did.

And that’s not really fair to you. Uh, some students do not feel that these are worth mentioning, these type of hardships. However, they provide more context regarding what you are or what you’re going through. And, and if you are being honest and genuine and share these things, it helps to demonstrate skills.

Like, this may show that some perseverance, or that you value working hard, or that you’re a responsible person, or that you’re strategic and intentional about your coursework. Um, And that’s something that may not have been able to be included in other essays, but because you are being vulnerable here and explaining your circumstances and how you overcame these circumstances or working on overcoming them, they’re seeing another side of you, too, and that that could be helpful and work in your advantage.

Um, MIT already has other platforms to submit research experiences. And so the reason I included this is because I have read and seen that some schools do allow for this, um, extenuating circumstances or this additional information prompt to be used to describe, um, a project you worked on or research.

But in the MIT application, they do have a stipulation or like a little comment that says, if you want to write about research or about a project, we have another application for that. So please use that other application. And so there are, supplemental applications to the MIT application where you can go into depth on research experiences, a creative project you’ve done, or some of your artistic works.

But this is not the place, this is recommended as not the place for that. Um, okay, then we’re going to go with the within the applications. These ones are a little bit shorter. Why this major? Information about your family. And then what do you do for fun? So the first one, tell us more about the field of study at MIT.

Um, why it appeals to you. A hundred words max. It’s not, it’s not a lot. And I know that. And I think because it’s not a lot, this is one of the harder essays to work on. This is not a why MIT essay. I’ve seen this dozens of times. This is not the place of why do you want to study at MIT? This prompt is why do you want to study the field, the field you selected, whether that’s neuroscience or biochemistry or music or computer science.

Why this field? And you want to aim to integrate detail or emotions that demonstrate interest. So what not to do. I’m really good at math. I’ve won many competitions. I’m also in the Math Honor Society and Math Counts and I would succeed in a major like math because it comes easy to me and I’m good at it.

That’s a non example. Another, an ideal example, I appreciate the challenge of working through proofs that show us how we arrived at popular well known equations like a squared plus b squared equals c squared. I love the feeling of figuring out proofs on my own, my hands covered in chalk, and the chalkboard full of mathematical sentences and symbols.

My second language. Um, That’s a lot more personal. There’s depth there. I don’t know if you, do you feel that? Like, um, you’re able to visualize what the student likes. You can kind of visualize the equation. There’s emotion in here. I love figuring out proofs. I love the challenge of that. I like when my hands are dirty with chalk and math.

Like, you can kind of see the passion, as opposed to the first one where you’re just telling them that you’re good at math. Tell us more about why the field appeals to you. Be careful not to overlap this with other essays. For example, with the essay about rocketry, um, it’s easy to kind of for these things to overlap.

Like maybe you would want to write about or like you’re tempted to write about rocketry here too. Um, because that did influence your decision to do aerospace engineering. However, you don’t want to be repetitive. Um, instead, and I, I mentioned this here, while you’re describing your community essay focus on the rocketry community, this one could focus on the coursework anticipated of someone who might do aerospace engineering, and asking yourself questions.

What were instances I lost track of time learning the coursework, learning the physics, learning the math, learning about, um, trajectories, um, and flights? What courses were compelling and interesting to you? What, um, that helped you build this interest in aerospace engineering? Why do I find them interesting?

Um, is it that flying is cool? Like, is it that the challenge of getting an object to fly is very appealing to you? It makes you lose track of time. And then how do you feel when you’re learning about this content? Does it make you excited? Uh, does it, is it thrilling? Does it make you happy? Like, show them these things.

And This is the information about your family prompt. It’s 100 words. It’s optional. What additional information about your family do you think is important for us to know? Please include it here. And it is optional. However, it provides admissions officers more information about your background or your parents.

You can talk about culture, maybe like how your family and you do cultural dances together during holidays or festivals. Maybe you can talk about religion and how your family and you go to, um, pray or do some religious activity together as a unit. You could talk about socioeconomic status and how that’s been of help or hindrance to you and give the admissions officers that context.

What your family as a whole does for fun, um, because this, it would show admissions officers like, hey, this person is family centric, loves their family, can do fun things with their family. Maybe some of the values you learn from them and then whatever may not have been mentioned yet. An example being, uh, my multi generational household makes for really interesting and fun conflicts.

While my Abuelita, grandma’s convinced vix, uh, we call it vaporub, can cure any ailment, my mother is only half convinced. On the other hand, I’m aware of its, uh, limitations, but will never say no when Abuelita passes the vaporub. I appreciate that I’ve gotten to learn values and traditions through my parents and parents, allowing me to form my own beliefs and carry on theirs for the next future generations to come.

So this is showing that I live in a household with grandparents, parents, and myself. Um, I’m showing that despite the different, um, about the different beliefs about Vicks, we kind of respect each other’s beliefs as well. Um, and I respect Abuelita. Um, and then I ended with, I appreciate I’ve gotten to learn these values and traditions.

Very short, sweet, to the point. Um, so if there’s something about your family that is unique, this is the place to put it. And then there’s the what do you do for fun? Essay. And this is not a trick question, this is not a trick prompt. This is not a place of like, let’s see if they put that they like to study for fun.

Um, they legitimately wanna make sure that you know how to have fun, that you have coping skills, um, that you can turn to activities, that you can do something that makes you happy. Smile, laugh. When things get hard, things are going to get really difficult at MIT. It was a difficult experience, um, and a lot of students struggled.

So what are you going to do for fun when you’re at MIT on the struggle bus? During midterms, during finals? What’s going to help, what’s a coping skill for you? Um, don’t underestimate overused topics. Um, you can make anything interesting with the right imagery and phrasing. So a lot of students will be like, well, I like to cook, but everybody says that, or, well, I like to draw, but I bet, like, a thousand other students are going to do that.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe a thousand other students will. But they’re not going to write it all the same way. And so, this is where it’s helpful to have an advisor, or to have somebody else, um, to collaborate with. And I’ll show you what I mean. So here’s some examples. Um, I had a student who said, like, I like spending time with my pet, but I bet that’s overused.

Maybe. Um, here’s an example, um, that I drafted. It’s 6 a. m. on a Saturday and I’m laying in bed too tired to get up. I feel one tap on my shoulders and I feel two taps. My cat Josie’s waking me up very early, unable to differentiate between weekends and weekdays. I’ll have to teach her the difference one day.

She wants food and afterwards she wants to spend time with me. Something I will never turn down. So, pause. There’s imagery. Um, I’m showing, I’m not telling. My cat, my cat legitimately does do that, when he’ll tap me on the shoulder. Um, I add a little bit of humor. I’ll have to teach my cat how to tell the days of the week one day.

Um, and this is how I would personally phrase my story about spending time with your pet. It doesn’t have to be like, I really like spending time with my pet, she’s really nice, very furry, I like the way she purrs. So, another example that students think is overused is cooking. Um, and again, like it depends on the way that you’re showing this, you’re showing them your interest in cooking or why you like it.

An example being, I crack two eggs into my skillet and open the spice cabinet slowly, deciding what kind of mood I’m in in the morning. I wonder if I’m feeling bull for a paprika sprinkle, or shill for a simple salt and pepper drizzle upon my cooked eggs. I decide on experimenting with a mixture of garlic salt thyme and paprika, and plan on tossing cilantro after it’s finished cooking.

I have no idea what to anticipate, but some of my greatest creations came from this act of putting random things together like Dr. Frankenstein had done. And so from this example, again, we have imagery. Um, I’m showing them the process, my thinking process of how I get through cooking. And then I mentioned that I’m like Frankenstein.

And just by mentioning this, um, by mentioning Frankenstein, it kind of alludes to like, oh yeah, Frankenstein’s, uh, monster is made of these weird different parts. And that’s probably what this, um, this reader is doing. So just by men name dropping that I get a lot of points across. And let’s see. It looks like I, we’re on question and answers.

Lonnie: Yes, we are. Thank you so much Lisa for going over the essays for MIT and providing a really thorough understanding and how to approach it. Good examples, um, opportunities for growth and some other examples. Um, so with that, we’re not going to move into our live questions and answers. So, for our audience, you can now begin placing your questions in the Q& A tab, and then I will paste them, um, I’ll copy them over to our public chat so you can be able to see them.

Um, if you notice that the Q& A tab is not working, perhaps try logging out and logging back in through the custom link that was sent to your email. Okay, so our first question that we have is, When’s the best time during high school years to begin working on applications to universities?

Lisa: What a beautifully loaded question.

So I love that. Um, in regards to like the actual common app, my students don’t typically start until senior year or so. However, you can start as early as freshman year, um, getting prepared. For example, with my freshman or sophomore, I may have them start tracking out their extracurricular activities or build a resume really early.

Um, so that way that their extracurriculars are tracked somewhere along with the descriptions along with their growth. When we revisit the resume the following year, they’re adding, um, now I’m the president, or now I’m the co president, or now I’m the secretary, and this is what I do. And so we have a live document where things are getting updated to keep track of extracurriculars.

Um, through CollegeAdvisor, I know that we have activities and programming too to start helping students think through their experience, their extracurricular experiences, or their life experiences, or their values. And I start these activities with my sophomores and juniors as well. Um, asking yourself like, I did this extracurricular, but what have I learned from it so far?

What has been really hard about it? Um, if you’re a student and CollegeAdvisor, we try to find themes in some of the things that you do. Like, I volunteered a nursing home. I also, I work at a homeless shelter. I also volunteer at an animal hospital. What do all of these things have in common? Um, what does that say about me?

Um, that I’m altruistic, that I like to help, that maybe I’m, I’m leaning towards the medical field. I don’t really know. So with an advisor, we’re able to like, look at your experiences together, kind of like a detective with those pins in the background, and kind of figure out where are you headed to and who are you.

Um, and so those kind of activities and brainstorming on your own of like, What have I learned from my extracurriculars? Um, who am I? If I could define myself in a few words, who am I? Um, are some important questions you can begin experimenting with and thinking about sophomore, junior year. Um, any year, freshman, junior, sophomore, freshman, sophomore, junior, you can also begin Practicing these essays.

However, there is no guarantee that these essays are going to be the same later on. You can start, and you can start drafting them and seeing what comes up for you. However, again, you may change your prompts by senior year. So, you can start practicing, but at the very, very least, I recommend starting to track extracurriculars.

And making sure that you’re getting involved with the extracurriculars that align with your future goals and your dreams and aspirations and potentially future major. Do you have anything else you want to add, Lonnie?

Lonnie: Oh, no. No, you have it. You have it all covered. Um, okay. Are you ready for the next question?

Sure. Yes. Okay. Uh, so this question asks, how does this work for international students?

Lisa: Huh? I mean, it’s the same way. I would think, I’m not a specialist, uh, for international students. There are advisors who like, that is their specialty, but I have worked with AOs that specialize with international students.

It’s the same advice. That they should be keeping track of extracurriculars in their high schools. That you should be getting involved with extracurriculars early on. Um, that you should be demonstrating leadership as you get a little bit older. Showing that you have a growth mindset. Showing that you have leadership capabilities.

It’s the same thing. Um, so I don’t foresee any differences with the preparation for applications.

Lonnie: Absolutely. Our next question is, how different is it to answer for MIT versus other universities?

Lisa: Oh, what a great question. Yeah, I love that. I see you NR. How different is it to apply to MIT than other universities?

Okay, first big difference I’ve seen is that MIT keeps their prompts very short. I think the 225, maybe 250, but I’m pretty sure it’s 225. Okay. Like nothing was more than 225 except the extenuating circumstances essay. Um, they keep it short and to the point. Why is that? I can only speculate that it’s because longer essays, it’s harder to keep one’s focus.

An MIT admissions officer, they want to get like a really holistic snapshot of you. Notice there’s like five, six, six different prompts. They’re all getting a different snapshot of you. We have family, we have contributing to community, we have major. Um. Six different snapshots. Whereas other schools, what I see with my students is that they may ask for these one or two big essays.

Maybe it’s one 500 word essay about why do you want to major in this thing? And so it’s all the content is dedicated for them, uh, to why you want to major in the thing. Um, maybe the other essay is like write a 300 word essay about how you’ve been a leader in the past, um, or demonstrated leadership skills.

And in my opinion, they don’t, that it’s great to ask for the supplemental essays, but I think I admire the MIT application because it gets a more holistic view of the student, whereas these other schools with their one or two or maybe even three supplemental essays, um, they do go more in depth, but I guess I have a preference because I’m from MIT too, um, and so typically you will, you tend to write more for other schools.

Um, and then sometimes too, those other schools will have small prompts as well. Um, sometimes the prompts are as small as like, tell us about what you did last Tuesday in 50 words or less. Um, and those are fun. Uh, but I would say that MIT essays, they, you need to be really concise and precise. And I think that’s what makes this it hard because it is really hard to conceptualize and summarize and experience in 225 words versus another school asking for 500 or 600.

Okay. Any, any other thing you want to add in Lonnie or I don’t know, did I cover it?

Lonnie: Yeah, it definitely is going to. It’s going to vary by each each school, you know, so each school is going to have different supplementals, different word counts that are required. Some schools have no supplemental essay. So you’re just doing the general common app that will come and have essay that will apply to, you know, every school that you apply to under the common app.

And then again, depending on the type of institution, they may have their own application. So then you have to do those essays are required for that application, such as the University of California. Yeah. Where you have to write four short essays that are no longer than 350 words. Okay, so let’s read our, let’s go into our next question.

Let’s see. Okay, so this question reads, like, what are, um, What are the main topics that most colleges will ask for in an essay?

Lisa: Ooh, what are the main topics they’ll ask for? Okay, um, what are the main topics? So, before I lose my train of thought, Why this school and why this major? So typically, those are the biggest ones I always see, very, very common.

Why do you want to attend, I don’t know, Yale University, or UT Austin, or Texas A& M?

Lonnie: Um, and then why

Lisa: do you want to major in computer science, or the physics, or the one you selected? Those are the most common ones I see. And I think because the why this school, why this program, why Austin, Texas, or Boston, Massachusetts, I think because it’s so prevalent, is why students confuse the why this major essay in MIT.

Thank you. Um, because it’s not a why MIT essay. It’s a why this major essay. Um, and then the other one being why this major, what experiences led you to want to do this major at the institution that you’re applying for. I think that was the question about what’s common. Okay,

Lonnie: so Lisa, we’re going to take a short pause to share, and I know you’ve been doing a lot of speaking, um, I want to share with our audience more about the work that we do within CollegeAdvisors.

So for those who are in the room who aren’t working with us, we know how overwhelming the admission process can be, especially for competitive applicants like yourselves. Our team of over 300 former admission officers and admission experts are ready to help you and your family navigate it all in one on one advising sessions.

Take the next step in your college admission journey by signing up for a free consultation using the QR code on the screen. During the consultation, a member of our team will review your current extracurricular list, discuss how it aligns with your college goals, and help you find opportunities for growth and leadership.

Check it out. After scanning the QR code, you will be able to select a date and time for a phone conversation with a member of our team so that you can learn more about the one on one personalized advising that we give, we provide to our, um, to our client. All right, so the QR code will remain on the screen as we move forward with our second half of our questions.

Um, so the next question

What would you say is like the difference between like applications? Um, like, are there any differences, you know, between different types of applications?

Lisa: Huh. Um, I think, so that question is kind of maybe addressing the California application portal versus MIT versus Common App, maybe? We can take it that

Lonnie: way.

Lisa: Yeah. Okay, I guess, yeah, I guess that’s what they’re asking. Um, so there’s, um, All these different portals that you may have to keep track of when you’re a senior. For example, I live in Texas, and because Texas is so big, we have a portal to apply to public schools in Texas, Apply Texas. There’s also the Common App, which I think has over 500 colleges as well, um, from across the country.

There’s also the California one as well. it’s its own portal. Um, and then there are some schools that they’re like, they’re like on their own. They have their own portal on their own website. They’re lone wolves. And so that’s a whole other portal. Um, it’s a lot of portals to keep track of. It’s a lot of passwords to keep track of as well.

So get a notebook, get someplace to keep those, the passwords. Um, cause it, it gets overwhelming. Um, what I will say is that they all have their different web interface. Okay. They’re all going to have different ways of asking for essays, different places to put extracurriculars, um, and Yeah, so essentially they’re asking for, they’re going to ask for the same thing.

Um, a difference might be that An example is in Apply Texas, I believe students can’t describe, uh, their extracurricular in depth. Like, I think they can only list out the name of the extracurricular and then the title that they took on, something along those lines. But for Common App, you’re only allowed 150 characters to describe your extracurricular activity.

And this may be different from California as well. And this is also different from MIT as well, that they only allow you a certain character count. And so, that’s why I have my students use resumes, so that way they can always reference the resume and copy and paste, or edit what’s necessary for the, the 50 word, um, prompt, or the 150 character limit, or, uh, this other one that allows for 500 characters.

Um, So all these applications are essentially, typically going to ask for essays, they’re typically going to ask for extracurricular activities. They’re going to ask for demographics, for backgrounds, for addresses, for parents, uh, information. And it’s a lot to track as well, I will say that. I really wish there was just a one place to have it all, but there is not.

Lonnie: Okay, our next question is Is there any value in mentioning a supplemental application that your grades were lower in a class due to being on a varsity sport team and missing classes for the games?

Lisa: Okay, um, yeah, I’m reading it here too. This is helpful. Yes, if you can also demonstrate that you were able to balance time a little bit better after this event.

Um, ideally you want to show growth or you want to show that you are able to improve yourself in some way despite this challenge. So, I think, like, we’re human, we make mistakes, we make errors. Um, I think I got a B in high school, like, but, for, to B, how do I, how should I word this? If you’re going to include it, I would really reflect on how you’ve grown from this experience or how you plan to grow from this experience.

Um, I don’t know if this happened freshman year or if it’s happening now, but if you were freshman year and you got better time management skills, or you learned how to, when to do homework, um, or balance everything, or maybe you cut down an extracurricular, You can mention it and you can say like, my grades did take a dip because of these things, but here are things that I learned because of it and these are things that I’ve implemented and now my grades did improve.

So you want to make sure that there is growth if you’re going to include it. Um, otherwise it just, it may not be, it may not strengthen your essay. I don’t think it’s going to help.

Lonnie: Absolutely, I agree. Um, so this is kind of going back to the last question about the difference in applications. And so, um, the audience members shared that There are many different applications.

Is it a physical piece of paper that you grab, fill it out, then turn it in? Do you turn them in all at once or separately?

Lisa: Oh, um, everything is going to be done online. It is, it’s amazing. Everything’s going to be done with a computer or laptop, some sort of form of technology, um, on different website platforms.

So they do have paper copies online if you want to print them out early and just kind of view what it looks like. Maybe you’re more of a tangible visual kind of learner. You want to see it in front of you and that’s fine. Um, however, all the information will need to be put in virtually or through, through, through the computer, through the online.

Lonnie: Yes. Everything is done, um, online. I, yeah. No paper applications. Um, so this question is a little different from essay, but it’s related to MIT. So feel free if you have information, if you don’t, it’s totally fine. Um, but it asks, is there a recommended number of AP classes, um, one should take when trying to get into, um, a university like MIT?

Lisa: There isn’t a recommended number. That question, it’s a good question and it does come up very often. And it would be nice to have like a quantity or like a number that we can look at. Um, to know that we’re on, in, we’re doing the right thing. However, it’s more about, it’s more about, did you have that AP class available, and did you choose to take it or not?

So MIT will be getting a list of the classes that were available at your school, and for example, if you had AP Physics available junior year, and you also had AP, pre AP Physics, so like, the less intense version, and then you chose the less intense version, um, It may, may not show that you weren’t willing to challenge yourself.

Um, so if your school has, or maybe your school doesn’t have some AP classes, but at least MIT will know like, well, um, this student wasn’t able to take AP calculus because it wasn’t even offered. And we can’t blame them for that. Like it wasn’t offered at their school or this, they didn’t have AP biology.

Again, we can’t really blame the student for that if it wasn’t offered. Um, but if it was offered and then you chose to take. a less intense version, maybe to boost GPA, or maybe it’s an easy A, it doesn’t look that great. Um, and that’s my, that’s what I tell students. I also tell students too, that to be careful over doing it, um, making sure that they’re taking an adequate amount.

Maybe they could take eight, but they can like physically only handle five. And I would rather have them handle the five and do well on those AP exams than have eight and spread themselves thin and not get a five, four, three, anything. Um, so you need to be honest with yourself about that too.

Lonnie: Yeah. Um, so this question reads, um, the student watches, you know, different YouTube channels such as like the tech, a tech YouTuber, um, a philanthropist for fun, and they wanted to know how could they pleasantly write this in their essay.

So any recommendations on, on, on this?

Lisa: Sure. So my first question is, Recommendation or like some of the things I mentioned it in the presentation or like what’s your emotional experience reading? Um, watching these people like Are you laughing? Are they humorous? Uh, do they make you happy? Um, do they elicit, I don’t, it’s a philanthropist, right?

Yeah, do, do they make you want to go out and do, and give as well? Do you watch these YouTubers with friends? Do you watch them with family? Um, do you watch it when, um, In the background while you’re doing homework, like talking about how you, you do engage with that media. Um, like you would be showing the admissions officer when you’re, when you’re watching it.

Maybe you’ve had a long day at school and you’re like, after a long day at school, I like to just sit on the sofa, put on Mr. Beast. I think that was the philanthropist that you mentioned and, uh, eat some popcorn. while I relax before starting homework. Um, I think there’s a lot of angle, a lot of things you can do with that, but just talking about how, why you find it fun or why you find it entertaining because you may find Mr.

Beast or these people entertaining for different reasons than somebody else. Additionally, um, I’m also a little curious as to whether they influence you or, or if they’ve ever influenced you to like also make videos or like that kind of thing. And so that could also be worth mentioning. Like, they’re really fun.

And like, because of them, like I’ve started making YouTube videos, like that’s a, that’s an angle you can go.

Lonnie: Okay. So this question is about SAT scores. Okay. Um, and it just says, um, what about SAT scores, especially for international students? I know you shared that’s not your, your area of specialty. Um, but especially for international students who have gotten many opportunities to take the test more than once.

So this is, About admissions, maybe, into MIT?

Lisa: What about SAT scores? So, I, I can only answer that super broadly. Yeah, you can also answer it broadly. Yeah, so the SAT scores, um, you include them in the MIT application and there’s different deadlines. For example, with early action, if that application is due November 1st, I believe you’re the latest you’re allowed to submit the SAT scores is November 30th.

And then if you’re doing regular decision, I believe you have to submit the SAT scores by December 30, 31st, while the application is due January 3rd or 4th, um, there is a place in the application to include those scores. Um, and then you’re mentioning, I think I know, I think I know what you’re trying to say.

Um, for students who haven’t gotten to take the test more than once. Um, so it seems like there’s like maybe a concern or a fear that like, your SAT score may not be reflective of your true potential. And like, it’s making me wonder whether this is something you can include in the extenuating circumstances prompt.

Um, that’s where my mind went. And I would say the answer might be yes. Like, this could be a place that you’re like, um, I did want to take the SAT again, but because of time or money or these other circumstances I wasn’t able to. Like, it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna, it’s not gonna hurt you. Like, it’s either gonna be neutral or it’s gonna help a little bit.

Lonnie: Okay. All righty. Well, with that, that actually is going to be our last question for this evening. Great work. Great work, Lisa, providing all this in depth information to our audience in regards to essays for MIT and just, uh, announcement for our audience that we do have our, we have announced our December webinars.

And so for the month of December. We’ll have webinars that are ranging from masterclasses on how to edit your essays. We’ll do a really cool question and answer with former admission officers so you can get even more of an insight into just like the selection process. Um, we’ll have some webinars in regards to pre med, nursing, BSMD programs.

Um, and then also some webinars in regards to college visits and college interviews. And also we have an MBA, um, webinar too. Really good mixture of webinars that are coming in December. So we really hope to see you in a webinar, maybe one, maybe two or more, um, for December. So with that, thank you so much for your participation.

And thank you again, Lisa. And that now concludes our webinar.

Lisa: Thank you everyone. Good night.

Lonnie: Good night.