001hello hello everyone um welcome to our college essay panel we're so excited to have a chance to hear from from some great experts um you should be able to for people tuning in um we'll give you some time to kind of roll in um and then we're just gonna kind of get started this is very exciting um and also this is our first time at the rodeo using this platform so everyone's doing great um feeling very professional we okay i see we've got six people joining us welcome welcome please feel free to drop your chats your comments in the chat um and without further ado i'm gonna introduce our first speaker tom um and we'll have a chance to hear from everyone today and then we'll do questions at the end but feel free to
002drop questions in as we're going thanks hey thank you thanks for having me everyone my name is tom roberts i'm an admissions counselor at the new school in new york city i'm just going to share my screen here and all right just making sure i can actually do that all right it might not be working super well for me so um we will just kind of do this um spoken word style um so again i'm tom roberts um i work at the new school um so i just wanted to give some insight into what colleges are looking for in the essay and supplements within the context of performing in visual arts colleges we have a lot of students coming to us looking to do things like art and design um playing an instrument being an
003actor or a playwright something along those lines and so we get a lot of questions about you know from students who are working so hard on preparing auditions portfolios things like that like what is the importance of the college essay and so our admissions committees at programs like ours and other institutions that are similar do value the creative components of the application but they also want to see your writing ability as well and that essay helps them to get to know you understand what is important to you um learn more about your passions kind of the context for why you may be interested in pursuing a creative field like for performing arts or in design and it kind of helps us also to see see what makes you unique um and and really that kind
004of just ties into also how important the college essay is so for us specifically we do have a holistic application review process so um we kind of evaluate all the admissions credentials um all together and so it's not like we're making an admissions decision um just based off of someone's portfolio alone or just based off of that audition we are looking at all the other application credentials including the essay and often that essay does give us a lot of great context for why you're doing what you're doing or you want to continue doing what you're doing while you're maybe pursuing this creative field through a very serious four-year degree so yeah and some things that we like students to think about um some of my colleagues and i are kind of interested in essay writing
005i myself uh really enjoyed writing when i was in college pursuing my bfa and i find myself helping friends uh do things like writing grant applications residency applications so i often look at essays from creative professionals who were writing kind of for part of their job as creative professionals and so some things that we like students to think about is how the essay is sort of a way to show us who you are and so when you're thinking about that in the context of our admissions committee we're looking at your writing style how you adhere to essay limitations on how you approach showing us who you are creatively uh creating like a concrete theme or topic of your essay so some colleagues and i kind of created a short workshop so i just have a
006few notes from kind of a snapshot of that normally we'd spend like an hour going over these kinds of things but i know my time is a little short but just some things to think about when coming up with ways to brainstorm your topic um we definitely recommend uh thinking about maybe things like who are people who have made a significant impact on your life and maybe your creative pursuit um thinking about what you're passionate about um and why are you passionate about that thing you're applying to college or for doing something like performing arts or visual arts and so our admissions committee is going to know that you're passionate about it but what makes you passionate about it perhaps you could also tie in things like important events or moments in your life um
007i was working with someone who applied to our fashion design program and the specific collection from designer raf simmons totally changed their perspective of how fashion designers could make fashion and that was a really interesting thing that they introduced in their essay because it kind of showed us the shift that they had in their perspective on making fashion why they wanted to pursue that seriously um some things to to you know obvious tips and tricks um you know helping getting someone to help you proofread and edit your essay and then also helping others proofread and edit their essays can be a really great tool to kind of improve your own writing you know if you've ever taught someone maybe you are a creative person yourself and you've like mentored a music student and the instrument
008that you're an expert in that can kind of help you become better at that instrument it really works the same way with exercising your betting muscles and then just some things to avoid uh specifically for us you know writing it all is often something that we see students do kind of talking about how like ever since they were a kid and kind of giving us when they started drawing when they were three years old to where they are now in high school creating a portfolio we don't necessarily need that early early early story you know maybe there's something funny that you share a sentence about and then you kind of pivot to where you're at now but that's something we see students do that we'd like to see them maybe avoid or give us a
009little bit more insight into where they are now um and then lastly just you know thinking about once you've written your college essay um you know some students might think this is the last time i have to write like this um and the last thing i wanted to share is that you will still be writing a lot um you will have to be writing for your degree program creating critical analysis of art music and performance history often in design and music history classes you'll be writing cover letters for internships and jobs application as essays for residency programs post grad programs grants and scholarship opportunities maybe you're drafting your own artist statements or press releases for music you're putting out there um so you'll definitely still be writing so try to look at this process as
010kind of like training for what you will be continuing to do um after you get into your degree program pursue your degree like i said i help my friends out with that kind of thing uh post-graduate uh so um but yeah looking forward to hearing from you your questions and giving some other insights from my colleagues thanks again nicole hello everyone my name is noah grozetsky i'm one of the assistant directors of admission at kenyon college in gambier ohio this is usually such a delightful time of year for all of us in the admissions industry not just to um visit with our prospective students and prospective families but also seeing fellow admissions professionals on the road with that being said i'm very glad that we can all uh be here whatever here means um together
011via the the miracle of modern technology um and i definitely look forward to uh conversing uh together um with respect to uh to the personal um essay aspect of the application um to sort of practice our conversation together um i definitely like to know that all of us who work in admissions find a lot of joy through the opportunity that we have to be in touch with young people during a time in their lives when uh whether they know it or not they are engaging in a lot of high-intensity soul-searching right thinking about who they are who they aspire to be as well as which environments are going to be most conducive uh to becoming the sort of person that they aspire to be um and finding the intellectual and personal growth that they're looking
012for um and with all that in mind i think that what i like most about the personal essay portion of the the application is that it really exemplifies the the humanness and the individuality of the college search which um at its best is uh guided by a desire to be true to who you are um and seek out a place where uh for all the ways in which you will be challenged for all the ways in which you will grow for the ways in which you will surprise yourself um you will also may feel at home um through that process um i love all the brainstorming tips topic brainstorming tips that uh that tom had to share um i think one of the things that is is that once both very challenging but also very
013liberating when it comes to to the personal essay is the fact that there are an innumerable number of subjects uh that could be the topic of an essay that complements the rest of an application very well um and perhaps even boosts the the overall strength of the application um it could be it could be an object it could be a person uh it could be a fictional character an experience a quote a relationship a favorite book favorite movie a favorite tv show it could be something quirky it could be something uh very every day um anything in any one of those categories has the potential to be uh the topic of an essay that complements the rest of a given application very very well um it's very much not the case that uh essays about
014a meaningful relationship are automatically given this grade and essays about you know a favorite song are given this grade um that's because ultimately what we on the admissions committee are looking for in an essay um as tom alluded to is an illustration of uh the student's identity uh through the topic that they choose so if you're brainstorming topics i recommend all students ask themselves not necessarily is this a cool topic is this an interesting topic but rather is this a topic through which i would be able to communicate an important part of who i am as an individual in writing um so let's say you know through playing video games you've learned lessons that really inform how you think about life and how you process the world around you that might be a very good
015topic if classical music is something about which you are passionate if it's a passion that you share with a parent and it's been a cornerstone of a relationship with that parent classical music might be a very good topic your essay one of the most significant keys i think to um once you have your topic actually writing an essay that that complements the rest of your application particularly well is making sure that it is clear that your topic is a vehicle for communicating a feature of your identity um instead of on the other hand being uh the sole focus of your essay such that the admissions committee doesn't actually end up learning a whole lot about who you are um it sounds like a very subtle distinction um but as you continue to reread and to
016rewrite um that is something that i would be particularly sensitive to um for instance if the topic of your essay is is yoga um ask yourself is this an essay about yoga or is this an essay in which i am using yoga as a means to communicate a central part of my identity because again that's ultimately what we are looking for while we are reading essays our hope is not to learn more about whichever topic you ended up choosing um but it is to learn more about who you are um through the written word and and through the topic um that that you choose um again look forward to being in conversation with you all on this afternoon through the modern miracle of technology and with that i will pass the mic off to katie
017all right hello speaking of modern miraculogy i um i was having some trouble with my microphone so i hope you can all hear and see me okay um thank you so much for having me and granny alcala today i'm an assistant director of admission at grinnell also a graduate of grinnell i worked as a writing mentor all through college and the essay is by far my favorite part of the application just a little bit about grinnell so we're a selective small liberal arts college that is very writing intensive so i always tell students whether you major in english or biological chemistry you will graduate a stronger writer um and to echo what my colleagues have already said that is such a life skill it's one of those transferable skills that you'll need wherever you go
018um i find it something that students often either really love or they have a lot of appreciation about um but i would you know just encourage you to dive in follow those great tips that my colleagues shared a few other things that um i really look for in s are often gifted are uh think about what activities get you in flow i find that a lot of students feel a little stuck at the beginning of that brainstorming process so i'm a psych major such a nerd out about this a little bit but it's not familiar with the concept of flow it's those experiences when you lose track of time and you get fully immersed in what you're doing and you kind of lose your ego but then you come out with a stronger sense of
019connection maybe for you that's a chemistry experiment or playing soccer or cello or even a really road trip i love a good transportation essay but that can often be a good place to start if you feel like you haven't defined your quote-unquote passion just being mindful and paying attention to those moments where you feel like you're fully immersed and engaged in what you are doing another thing i often look for in essays is of this student's system maybe a more thoughtful or provocative way to put this is who are you when no one is around to offer praise or criticism and what matters to you so i like to see that through and as i said we really look at the essay as a vehicle so you want to pick the topic that allows you
020to express those you know values and character system it's something that um oftentimes really helps to do a bunch of pre-writing before trying to just self-reflect really before you construct an essay and put that out shoot that out into the world of a college admissions committee you really want to be clear on what's important to you and what will round out your application as well some tips that i think are maybe a little more technical would be first of all just start writing embrace crappy first drafts a writer i love says that with a little more profanity but i think often times you write your way into your topic and even if it comes out kind of gerberish at the beginning keep writing and then read it until you hit on something that feels like
021truth i think teenagers have really good bs detectors that feel part in my language if you read your essay when it's done or when it's partially done and you feel like that sense of okay i think i'm saying what they want to hear that's not your topic uh you want to write something that you not only have on it technical article level but something that you feel like the reader would know um something about you as a person that they couldn't tell from your resume or just from looking at you when they finish i will view with is i often find that it's really um you can pick up a lot of insights by reading your completed essay from the bottom up often students will they just said right their way down to their point
022so you totally don't have to follow like that traditional five paragraph essay model but if you have the whole theme of your essay and you've gotten to it in paragraph number five or four or six um oftentimes reading it backwards can help you make sense of what the organization and the flow of your writing looks like to a reader so that's all i have thank you again for posting this amherst poem and i look forward to your questions all right well thank you tom noe and katie for some really wonderful points of wisdom i'm going to try and share new and different i always hate meetings where we just say the same thing over and over so i'm going to try and share new and different so i think the first thing i would share
023is always have a so what i think this was already touched on a little bit but as you're sharing any information why are you sharing it with me why is this important um you get to choose why it's important but being explicit i think that's certainly okay of what this activity is and why it's important to you and what it speaks about you tell me the so what um being authentic and being genuine if you're funny be funny if maybe you're not the person who's got the best jokes don't force it maybe that might not come off the most authentic for supplemental essays quite often supplemental essays are asking you why would you like to study at this college or what about this college or university excites you do your research google use the admissions
024website there's a ton of online published information if you write about boston university's nursing program and how excited you are to study nursing at bu i will know you did not do your research we do not have a nursing program so if you name drop a program that a college or university doesn't have that's not going to be a great look so you want to make sure you do your research our admissions websites have so much information whether about professors or student life academics dorms traditions you can use this to your advantage it will make your application stand out when you do your research um proofread proofread proofread um i can't tell you how many times that all my colleagues and i have read something where you like they're very excited about going to collage
025not college but collage usually something that's kind of more artistic related i'm not kidding you it's a simple mistake but you need to proofread because it's the incorrect words spelt correctly words not going to pick that up for you or your spell check's not going to correct that um so you want to make sure you can address that by reading it out loud having a friend read it having somebody who cares about you read it somebody who's not your best friend read it um you're going to get some really good honest feedback there i already see there's a ton of great questions coming through the comments so rather than me just go on and on i'll actually just kind of pass it off so we can get into q a because i think anything beyond
026that i'll just get repetitious awesome thanks everybody um i'm just coming on real quick to say all of our panelists are magically transcending time and space right now in one uh digital ether and i'm gonna hop out but let folks kind of work through the questions in the chat there's some really great things in there already um but as more questions come up um we'll just keep going does that sound good for everybody cool all right thanks all right do we want to start towards the top of the chat maybe work our way down oh my god there's questions already that's great sounds like a plan sounds like a plan [Music] um so the the question with respect to holistic admission i can i can take the lead on that and y'all can jump in
027to fill in all the things that i miss i'm sure i will miss a lot um yeah with respect to um you know how much that yeah how much weight the essay has i mean i think that um for most most institutions um you know the the the high school transcript is going to be the piece that's going to carry the single most way because that is the list and gold best indicator of how prepared that student is um to to handle the academic rate of the institution to which um they are applying um and i think by and large most applications um you know the final you know rating or grade that um admissions companies arrive at um is not going to be you know radically far off um from transcript the transcript usually
028ends up guiding the final rating um but at the same time the final rating very rarely um is just that same rating of the transcript i mean the other pieces of the application um very much affect the final rating um but i would definitely think of it as you know the yeah the transcript is you know the piece that most often will will guide the rating to begin with um and then the the other pieces the essay the letters of support the co-curricular activities um those are going to you know move the rating um up up or down um after that so uh yeah i would definitely say that they're it's yeah it's definitely hard to put a number on it in terms of how much weight um the sa and the other pieces have
029um i would say that they the final rating of the application is definitely going to to reflect the the strength of the transcript to a certain degree um but at the same time the final rating will not um be radically different from uh from the transcript which i think for which i hope for most students is a liberating notion when it comes to the essay knowing that um you know if your your transcript is already very very strong um you know an essay that is not going to you know radically bring down uh your rating um for as far as the application goes so um again sort of um building off of what um my fellow admissions colleagues have shared already um using the essay as an opportunity to really engage in self-exploration and introduce
030yourself into the to the admissions committee in a way um to present yourself in a way that can only be communicated through the written word um in a way that's you know showing a side of yourself that isn't necessarily reflected through other pieces of your application um that is a fantastic approach and often you know yields essays that end up confirming the rest of the application uh very well i was just going to kind of tie this into a ladder question i know someone also asked about suggestions for esl students and i do want to touch on that too but someone also asked about how we weigh supplemental essays against the common app essay and just specifically where i work um we don't require the common application essay so we do our main essay is
031like an essay that's institution specific why you're interested in coming to our institution um so for us we're definitely looking more at that supplemental essay that's specific to us if you've chosen to include the common app essay that's awesome we'd love to see like another example of you writing um but it's not that's not specific specifically going to really changed that overall admissions rating that that noah was talking about so that's just for us but but yeah and sticking out that point of writing tips for an esl student um i think these are writing tips that i would share really with any student it's make sure you give yourself the appropriate time make sure you know that your first version isn't your best version um and when you need help this is the best time
032to ask for help the students i think in university and college usually do the best are the ones who seek out the most help so use your resources whether that's your english teachers or your college counselors folks who are here to support you they're excited so make the time make sure you provide appropriate time asking the day before your application is due i would say that's an inappropriate amount of time you want to make sure that they can give their full attention so asking the night before something is due that's probably not appropriate uh but maybe you know like three weeks out four weeks out so they can schedule like enough time to really review and consider and chat with you i think that will help so use your resources and use your resources appropriately
033that's i think i i think i caught a couple questions in the chat with respect to to word count um so just on that subject um yes that is correct that the yeah the the common app essay the maximum word count is 650. um there is no minimum word count for the common app essay um and i mean you know generally speaking within the the universe of writing right more words doesn't mean better right an 800 page book is not necessarily better than a 200 page book obviously because without saying um within the context of the the common essay though i think that one one thing that admissions committees are looking for in the essay is a sense that the applicant has really made the most of the opportunity to express themselves on paper and
034communicate their identity through the written word and i think just a very a very easy way to show the admissions committee that you've done that is by getting very close to the 650 word uh 650 max word count um admissions counselors we don't have time to you know we're not going to like count every single word and see you know if it's 645 words or 646 words um but i will just say you know a very easy way to show the admissions company that you have um invested a lot of time in in your essay and really made the most of that opportunity is by by getting by getting close to that 650 uh word count and um you get to echo the remarks of my colleagues already i think you know once you get
035started with brainstorming and drafting um you'll find that 650 words is oftentimes not enough and the problem is you know usually more cutting down your essay instead of adding on to it so um definitely don't be intimidated by that 650 uh number um i think you know yeah again just a very easy way to show the admissions committee that you invested a lot of time in the essay is to you know get get get fairly close to uh to that 650 max on a similar topic there's a question about uh what's the approximate layout for an essay whether it's five paragraph or three paragraph at least from my perspective um there's no specified layout um i think if things aren't formatted whatsoever if it's just a big square block of text that doesn't look great
036just aesthetically even if the content is wonderful uh and it's the most amazing pros i've ever read um it just shows that you didn't like space things out you didn't indent and use your margins appropriately um so you want to make sure that you do just double check even the formatting um i wouldn't say that you have to use five paragraphs some students kind of do a narrative so it's broken up into lots of little bits of text over the course of those 650-some words it it's really what makes most sense for your writing but you want to make sure you have thought about it just a little bit um five paragraph is perfectly fine if it's three i think that's also fine um but that's again going to be just another way that you
037you can kind of put the effort in and we can see the effort quite literally how is it presented to us when we're reading it so it's not just one big block of writing uh yes and and to griffin's point just one thing yeah that's yeah it's definitely definitely not the case that the only essays that we receive are five paragraph essays and it's also not the case that the the best essays are you know the standard five paragraph format um we definitely get um you know narrative stream of consciousness essays um you know i i think the thinking back to girlfriend's remarks earlier about you know being true to yourself just like you know if you're not a comedian the comment personal statement essay is usually not the best time to try your hand
038at stand-up comedy um same way with sort of stream of consciousness writing um if it is you know a format that you're very comfortable with um you know it might it could very well end up being a strong strong essay um i think you know as you as you spend more time writing the style that you feel most comfortable with and you feel um allows you to um you know engage with your topic and communicate yourself through that topic um just being sensitive to how you feel during the during the drafting and during the revising process is very helpful and chances are if you if you feel very very comfortable while writing within a given format that's a format that's going to be going to be very effective in terms of getting you close to
039that to that final draft that you're looking for screenplay format personal statement oh my gosh yeah those can be very fun as well we love yeah yeah we love when students are just being being true to who they are and true um and reflecting that through uh through the format so yeah if you if you are a creative person who just has you know is comfortable writing in a variety of different formats um don't be afraid to try those different formats out through the through the drafting and revision process um one of them might end up being the final draft that you want to submit so yeah definitely don't but um don't let you know creative you know creative and impulsive definitely don't ignore your creative impulses as you go through the drafting process um
040i've noticed over the course of many of my high school visits virtual high school visits this fall a lot of students have been asking about how can they share about covid um it's something that's impacted quite literally everyone that's why we're not in person doing this presentation but all over the us um and just so do know it impacts everyone including us on the board of admissions so we're aware there's going to be lots of changes um and those are being communicated clearly and accurately by your counselors but there might be additional information that you feel like is relevant to share i think it's important to kind of discern what should you be sharing and what might just be kind of an understand under understood given i should say um so i think if there's
041a curriculum change that's impacting your entire school well that's probably shared by your counselors in a document called the school profile so do you need to share that in the additional information section well probably not i'll understand when i look at your transcript why that exception might be there if there's a particular circumstance that's unique to you your family something that's immediately specific to you that wouldn't impact your larger community i think that's worth sharing but that's just my perspective i don't know if noah or tom have other ideas on this very new relevant topic yeah i would just kind of share that for us um again if it specifically and uniquely impacted you and and you want to share about that i've also seen students already starting to respond to covet in their like
042portfolios for example making work about it and that's been like a really special unique way to kind of see their response to like making quarantine like not having access to practice spaces um or studio spaces in the way that they normally would and so using like the essay section to kind of contextualize that like could be a really cool thing um but definitely there's no need to you can trust that our admissions committees will be looking into understanding like what's going on at your school and how it specifically impacted your school so you don't need to tell us what you might already know which is really just a good strategy in general for the essays you'll have other pieces of information in the application if you're just repeating that in your essay you know you're
043really just repeating yourself so yeah there's another question that popped up a lot um about like appropriate topics of what might be okay to write about and what might not be okay and uh trauma has come up quite often of um when is it appropriate to share and to what extent um i often kind of would phrase it as is this something you would share or feel comfortable sharing um with the teacher and um how how does it present you kind of like what do we learn from this in a positive way we want to always view you in the best life possible so where's the growth and what's the takeaway um everyone's going to go through all sorts of experiences in life and that's okay you shouldn't feel like you have to share the
044heaviest story that you've been through because sometimes that's very personal and you shouldn't have to feel like you need to share that you need to share the story that you're most excited about sharing so sometimes yeah it can be a hard moment but it doesn't have to be so don't feel compelled to share what might be the most challenging moment you've ever been through um because maybe you want to present yourself in a different light you shouldn't be defined by a kind of traumatic experience of course it will impact you but that shouldn't be your only story so it's your choice i know that's not really the most specific answer but i just want to relieve any anxiety if students feel pressured into sharing a certain type of narrative please know that all sorts of
045narratives are accepted because that's who you are you should be accepted for whatever stories you want to share absolutely no yeah i'm so glad you you brought that up and yeah we will never um yeah we will never you know read an essay and be like oh that wasn't sad enough so we're not going to give it a high rating that's just not you know how how the application how the essay process as an essay review process goes um and as much as the common fsa is a wonderful opportunity for um you know introducing yourself um to the admissions committee you know we also realized that you are you are more than whatever you put down on your essay we're not going to reduce you to um that single feature um but it is just
046a wonderful opportunity for you to um share about something that is meaningful to you and um not yeah and not letting the you know where it falls on the spectrum of emotions being the sole consideration that you have um with respect to the topic that you choose is is helpful um is helpful to you to to keep in mind um yes yeah um essays that deal with trauma definitely aren't going to um you know either you know get guaranteed one way or the other in terms of you know what the overall rating is um again going back to what we've been talking about earlier you know it's uh you know how does it communicate who who you are and you know how does it how effective is it as a vehicle or um giving us
047in the emissions can be an idea of who you are beyond the other pieces um of the application um but yes definitely definitely don't feel like you have to um you have to um yeah produce an essay that um you know that generates a um or lists a certain emotion from um from the readers that that are going to be taking a look at it katie is still with us um via our chat um so she was able to chime in and i'm just gonna read back um approximately what she shared a piece of advice that she often shares is to focus on how students have grown um through moments of challenge and trauma and how they have coped with it um so how do they kind of prepare themselves for challenging situations in the
048future um college you're transitioning from high school a home environment you may have been around for many many years to a new home a new community so how are you going to cope and what resources are you going to use to make sure you kind of lock in your mental well-being so that was from katie yeah uh thinking of uh i know we've mentioned something more essays before um earlier earlier on in our conversation um uh yeah i mean full disclosure attending is not an institution that requires supplemental essays but i mean just anecdotally from um you know working in admissions and being in conversation with other colleagues i think generally the the advice that i i tend to hear most often is to um if you're applying to um a common app uh if
049you're applying to common app institutions to work on your common app essay first um and then um work on supplemental essays afterwards um i think that can you know from a time time perspective um that can be helpful um and i think also just from a writing creative perspective it can be really really nice to you know have have your common app essay uh done and sort of use you know the brainstorming um and creative energy that you um that you um exercise during that process to um sort of inform your process of going through on the supplemental essays um as well um and i think yeah um yeah in terms of timeline wise perhaps you know working working on your comment essay um at the beginning of the summer if possible um and then
050perhaps doing the the supplemental essays um in the fall or later in the summer um i think yeah at this point in high school um yeah the students will generally know how they you know how long it takes them to write a certain amount um so for me i'd probably have to finish my common app essay spring of my junior year and start my supplements at the beginning of the summer because i just take a long time um so just being very very cognizant of you know your your own personal and work and co-curricular responsibilities um at different points of the year um it's definitely a good thing to keep in mind as you go into the spring of your junior year in anticipation of writing your essays if you have a lot of false
051sports commitments for instance um maybe trying to work on the supplements over the summer as well um would be would be helpful um but generally i think the the advice that i tend to hear is to um yeah work on your combat essay first have that finished and use that to sort um a base to sort of guide your work through through the supplemental essays afterwards i was also thinking about this when griffin brought up kind of essays that mention things that are that might be specific to a different school than the one that the sa is landing um at and so definitely i love like a beautiful spreadsheet moment and if you want to just like track like each individual college's specific requirements with regards to the essays or other things about their application
052process that can be a really great kind of organizational tool to just kind of keep track of which schools are looking for which things and making sure that you're submitting the correct things to the correct schools so that they get the things that are written for them and made for them and they know that you're putting a lot of thought into your application for that school um on a similar note uh this again is um from katie um when you are writing your supplemental essays don't put it so far off uh that the quality of the writing is significantly different where you have a very polished essay with your common app and your supplemental essays um for her institution she mentions quest bridge applications where the essays there's a discrepancy between the two um and
053then again when you're writing your supplemental essay where the prompt might ask you um why would you like to attend this institution don't just write a laundry list of things that the institution has but rather how you'll engage with them that is so much more relevant and it shows that students are going beyond just um all right this college has this type of first year student program or this type of dorm but how you actually engage with those resources um and then a piece of advice that i would share when you're responding to supplemental essays kind of think about what the question is and what you're really trying to share so why you want to study here yep that's a pretty straightforward one but maybe it's an honors college that has a specific mission or
054learning style well how are you going to display that you have that maybe it's in interdisciplinary learning how are you going to put that on display or if it's maybe a scholarship supplemental essay they might ask about like critical thinking well how are you going to put your critical thinking on display you have to kind of link it all together so someone like myself can understand how you actually view a problem how you challenge it how do you present ideas and kind of put it all together in a package that i can follow along with so different supplemental essays will have different kind of goals at the end of it and it's up to you to kind of define what's the goal of this essay and what should i be sharing there's not necessarily a
055right or wrong answer but some might be a little more helpful than others it looks like we're being prompted to share any final tips or takeaways um so i think my final tip would just be really try to find that voice that like internal dialogue this voice i think somebody had mentioned it before when you're by yourself without kind of criticism or praise from anyone who are you in your own eyes and how can you best share that with us um all sorts of different ways to do that i think that's the most exciting part about the college essays is it's your own words all the other parts of the application you really don't get to say exactly your own words um so really have fun with this opportunity to take that voice from here
056and share it into that essay yes and uh i'll uh i'll bring in katie's advice first before i sharing my own so from katie i'm from a colleague of katie's um don't write an essay about discovering um that other people are also human um this applies to especially the essays from uh privileged students about about service trips um yeah very very good thing to uh to be to be cognizant of while you're going through the brainstorming process and um in the drafting process uh as well um in terms of uh yeah in terms of final tips for me i mean i think perhaps this isn't necessarily college essay advice but for advice related to the college essay um in terms of the the introspection that goes on while you're drafting your comment essay um don't
057feel like this has to be the only time in your life when you think about you know when you are happiest and think about when you are um you know truly yourself and what makes you you um i think that the the introspection involved in the commentary is just a very good part of living living a good human life at any stage even when you're not applying for college um and i think that if you can think about the uh the brainstorming and the drafting and the revising process as something that you're not just doing to um you know get into college but um you're doing as you know an exercise for her personal and emotional well-being i think that can make it um you know a particularly rewarding process and um can you even
058lead to to a great essay as well so i think um yeah framing the common app essay in that in that light as an opportunity to to engage in introspection that is good for at any point um that is important for um being being well at any point in your life um really helps um to facilitate the um the brainstorming the drafting up revising process in such a way that you end up with a final draft that not only are you proud of from a stylistic standpoint but really brings out who you are as an individual uh i just want to say so much so many great things have been shared today so i i hope i'm not like repeating anything that might have like disappeared from my brain in the last few minutes but
059i just really think that just remembering that this is kind of your moment of like where you have the most agency in your application i know for us there's also some other supplemental things uh where you're doing things a little bit more creatively but don't forget about this moment too if you are someone who's adding those other things and you know just take that step back from your other application credentials and think about what's missing um because that can be a really great thing to sort of lean into uh and helping admissions committees understand um more about who you are um but yeah thanks again for all of the really amazing questions everyone yeah just wanted to hop in and say thank you so much to griffin and tom and noah and katie um for
060your time and wisdom today this was really helpful um and also thanks for getting creative and figuring out how to make it work so everyone can participate even with the tech issues i think you all really killed it on the fly um so thank you all so much for spending some time with us this afternoon and i hope everyone has a great rest of their day thank you okay you