Common Application Prompts and Essay Writing

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Hi everyone, see lots of numbers logging in. Shiro is going to put this in the chat, but as you log in, feel free to introduce yourself using the chat box feature so you'll be able to type that in and we will be approving introductions in questions as you do that.

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Yes, don't be shy. Thank you it to those couple of introductions. We've gotten love to know where you're from.

Multipoint lantes

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multiple Georgia.

And yes, I love that you guys are including pronouns of super helpful.

International students as well.

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Welcome, these could be your future classmates, so it's good to see some names.

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Awesome, thanks guys for introducing yourselves on on that same vein, I'll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Cheryl Burnett. I am one of the admission counselors here in the office at Swanee. I'm just wanting graduate. I graduated from spawning in 2018 and came to the office a little bit after graduation this past July and so both Taylor and I recruit in separate territories, but so you may have seen our faces or emails.

In your inbox is already, but if you haven't hello and welcome again, but I'll go ahead and let Taylor introduce herself as well.

Yes hi everyone, thanks Sharrow.

Next time we're back in the office pretty much full time and so shower and I aren't on the same screen, but we're in the office together, which is exciting. I'm Taylor Baird and my counselor here in the office. Also an alumna of Swanee. So I graduated in 2015 and I've been working in college admission ever since, so at another university and then came back to Swanee so it's always fun for us to connect with you all.

In this way, most of you are in between your junior and senior year. Rising seniors, or a senior kind of just kind of putting that hat on thinking about your college shares process. So this is a really fun time of year to dive into. A lot of these questions and hopefully we'll have a really productive session today.

Awesome, thanks Taylor and so just a little bit of housekeeping. You guys have all already found the chat box, which is great. One quick note about that is it is moderated and So what that means is any chat or question or comment that you put in there. It won't show up immediately, but Taylor and I will both be looking to that throughout the event to approve those and then you'll see it kind of populate into the main.

Stream, but all throughout the event. Feel free to put any questions that you guys have relating to the topic in that chat box and we'll go through them as we can, but will also make sure to leave a little bit of time at the end to go through more questions and then if you have throughout the event any type of sound problems, video problems, just feel free to refresh the page. Usually that kind of fixes most of the problems through this platform, but if you're still having some problems, just let us know in the chat and we'll we'll troubleshoot with you on that.

And so diving deeper into our topic, and so if you guys have been following the series along, this is another tiger tip. And so tiger tips. If you haven't been following this series, is a campaign that we started in our office to help people in students in your position right now that are starting the college search process and so trying to figure out how to find colleges, research them, find their priorities that you're looking for as well as starting your college search list. Those two were the past two tiger tips.

And that we focused on and then transitioning now too. If you are looking into the common app and you're already in the meat of everything, what is those prompts look like and how to go about that process of essay writing and so. Throughout this session, we're going to focus on these topics down below. So breaking down the role of the college essay.

Colleges require it. What does that look like when we're reviewing choosing a topic on the R7 prompts on the common app and then how to take that topic? Start your process, organize your essay and then finally submitting the final product along with all of your other materials that we hope to unpack as well within the future tiger tips and will give some more information about those at the end.

And so just starting right ahead. I'm diving in the role of the college essay and so why do colleges require the college essay? Depending on where you're applying, whether using the common app or different application, there may be multiple essays, but in general the essay along with your application itself is an indication of your academic preparation, and so how successful you'll be in a college environment and making sure that you have those fundamental skills.

And so with that, those first two are really important. You know, written communication skills as well as being able to provide a clarity of your thinking and so particularly a place like Swanee where writing is a huge component. Both Taylor and I. You know, we both attended Swanee and you know we both went through that process of writing intensively across the entire curriculum that we have here at 20. But you know, that's not solely indicative Swanee writing in and of itself is a huge hallmark of your college experience.

And so your essay is kind of like your first piece of evidence to be able to do that successfully moving forward. But it's also important to realize that that's just one part of your entire application, and so there are other materials, and so being able to use this as an opportunity to both expand upon other things in your application, but also build on to add something new. So if it can expand on things that you mentioned in your extra curriculars, but it also can provide it.

Brand new lens into your personality or interests that we haven't seen yet and so this is, you know, 250 to 650 words. And we'll look at that in a bit as well. You know to give us that piece of the story and add more substance to everything that we're reading. Anything to expand upon with that Taylor.

I and if shower and I when we were prepping for this and had a conversation about like at this point in your high school career and maybe thinking of applying to college. This might be one of the most intimidating pieces and hopefully through the session today we want to sort of demystify that, or hopefully you know, assure you or kind of boost your confidence that.

You know the point that Shara said about this is adding fabric to your application. This is that really dynamic piece that you have control over, so there's so much in your application that you kind of already done right. You've already invested time and activities. You've already done three years.

Exactly, yeah, and I think that's a really good point, especially when you know demystifying it, a lot of conversations that I've had with students after they've submitted their application, and that their essay is something that they've already talked about a lot. You know, it's a story that they tell all the time, or you know something that they already touched with their counselor about, or they've already just talked with friends about and so really just kind of being. Like Taylor said, reflective of you know everything that's already happening.

In your life and then just essentially, the essay is putting that on paper and doing it in a way that makes sense to someone you've never met. And that's where those written communication skills really come into play, as well as clarity of thinking, so making sure that comes across in a written form.

Right, and so this is like I said, the essay is just one piece of writing on the common app, and so there's going to be lots of other places where you can write different things, and so it's important to realize what those are beforehand. That way you can maximize the information that you give us without being or other colleges as well, maximize the information in those areas without being redundant or repetitive, and so you know you may be able to do a deep dive into a certain facet.

If your identity or personality or interests within the personal essay component, but you can also provide little tidbits as well in the additional information section, which is optional, but it is there if you would like to give another piece.

Starting beforehand and starting early really allows you to plan out something for each of these categories, and that way you can submit your application with a lot of information which you know from a reading standpoint is always beneficial, especially if you haven't made a personal content with your college admissions counselor through our virtual appointment or phone call or anything like that. These written components when we're reading the application kind of going back to that first slide, is really that fabric and not substantive.

Piece of information into you as we're reading, and so it always helps to have you know those personal anecdotes, wherever those may be, and so you'll also see writing supplements and college specific questions if applicable. And so some colleges and institutions as you're selecting them on the common app, they will populate those additional questions if they don't have additional questions required then you won't see them pop up. But if you do, you'll see them as well as.

Individual school, so it'll say you know, for us Swanee, the University of the South. Specific questions.

And so forth, and so those will breakdown and every school you know goes about that differently. And they add different pieces of information.

You also see in the past round as well as this round of the common app, the COVID specific question, and specifically what that's getting at is it's labeled as community disruption, and so colleges definitely take into consideration you know things like this that may have had an impact on one year schooling your classes, how that affected your grades in terms of like potential virtual or hybrid schedules, but also how it's impacted your college search process.

We definitely look at that and and you know want to take in that personal component and so you can also use that that written field to explain those situations and those particularity's, but anything else with that Taylor.

Yes, this is one of those slides that seems like very condensed, but there's a lot to unpack so I can go into a little bit more of the detail like what the common app screen might look like.

Law and we actually just got a great question that I'll go ahead and put in the chat. There's a couple more in there. So again, like Sharon mentioned, with housekeeping, we might hold some questions like a different section or the open Q&A, but there is one about. If it's says optional isn't really optional, so I'm gonna prove that and hopefully get that my response.

When you're looking at this slide kind of the first three bullet points that Schira mentioned, the personal essay college specific questions in writing supplements. You can kind of group those together, so when you're working through the common app and you're in the writing section, those are kind of the what we do. Like big hitters, right? So you most of the schools that you perhaps are going to be applying to will have the personal essay as a requirement. If it's not required, then you might still be able to send that and attach that with your application.

But knowing that there are some schools that may be more like GPA or test score, kind of threshold driven, or they may not be looking for an essay specifically, so that might be a smaller component on your list, or perhaps no schools are going to fall in that category. But I would say that the personal essay is kind of the college essay that comes to mind when you think of that and sitting down to work on the common application platform specifically.

Updated

College specific questions and writing supplements. That's really going to vary per school like she already mentioned, and so when you're actually in common app, which I think part of this, the tiger tip series in this, the preparation in this session is to hopefully get you comfortable like working in the common app so you could go ahead if you haven't already. And we've mentioned this in previous tips it go ahead and set up an account and kind of get familiar with that online platform and then a lot of colleges, including Swanee will open up.

For for your senior year, free to apply by August 1st, so you've kind of got a month to pace yourself and play around a little bit and then applications will actually be active for you to work on and start applying like hitting submit.

So that is really helpful because you can actually look every school that utilizes the common application. You can look and see what their requirements are before you even add them to your college list. Or you know, put them in your queue or your list within the common application platform. So that's really helpful and you'll know exactly. Do they have college specific questions? If so, are they required or optional? And then the same with any supplements so.

This might be like intuitive, but there are some schools that are just going to have the personal essay Swanee would be a great example of that. So we just have the one essay component.

And then there are some schools where you might see all three or like for an example of school, kind of like in similar to Swanee that we see a lot of cross applications. For example would be Davidson. Davidson doesn't have a college specific question, but they do have writing supplements, so you can kind of see what that might look like. And I was just playing around and looking at different schools. Yale for example. It's going to have all three of those that are, say, optional or required for each section.

So it's just schools that maybe interest you as you visit. Just maybe see what those requirements are and prepare yourself for the fall.

For college specific questions, those can really vary and might be something specific to their curriculum or their schools mission or the identity of the college. University writing supplements could be anywhere from, you know why this college or what books have you read in the past year? Outside of school? You know for fun, or it could be. You know what really excites you, so things that might still come out in your personal essay. But some schools are going to want like very specific questions that typically.

Maybe like faculty and staff or students or the office admissions have worked really hard to think of those questions.

So hopefully that helps.

Just kind of break those bullet points down and then, like Shara mentioned, the other three are going to be optional. Disciplinary history if you've never had a disciplinary.

Interaction, or if you don't have to report that per your high school or if the college isn't asking for any of that information, that might not show up, and it might not be applicable to you.

So.

I think that hopefully is a good overview of those particular sections.

And then just to really reiterate the additional information section is free, right? So you can put anything in there to kind of bolster your application or provide more context for whoever might be reading your application. So if that is something, maybe it's.

Accessability concern? Or maybe it's just family context or anything medical like things that you would still feel comfortable disclosing that help help us understand your high school experience. Don't feel like you have to use their personal essay space, you know, kind of protect those 250 to 600 yards for who you are and then add in that context if you'd like. If that's you know something you want to share an application using that other section. So you've really got a lot of space to kind of, tell us.

Who you are?

Yeah, I definitely just to answer a quick question that just came in Keene. Put a structured essay into the additional information section. I've definitely seen it before and so like Taylor said, it's really just just a free right. But thinking of that?

As yes it says additional information, but that additional information should also support and go within everything else that you're also submitting, and so really once again helping us get a full and complete image of your interest. And so if you kind of do a deep dive into one particular aspect of your interest in your personal essay, then the additional information could maybe offer like a smaller but still important.

No.

Like addition to that, but also not necessarily and we'll talk about this later, but not necessarily adding like an example of like a in class essay or more academic writing, or just any type of structured writing, but it should be specific to you know your interest and your background and things like that. I've seen before that a student has really had interest in creative writing and poetry, and things like that, and they've used the additional information to give a sample of their poetry. And so, thinking about, you know.

How they can work together can always be pretty beneficial.

And before we move on, I realized we didn't. I didn't answer the full optional question, so this will probably come up throughout this session, but anytime that you see optional, I think think of it in alins, like Sharad. Instead of adding that additional context information, I think that is the benefit of starting this process early and for you to be on this call and be thinking about your essay in these components is if you're budgeting enough time to get that optional component done, I think we would. We would encourage you to do that.

Again, we can't speak for every school, but if a school has taken enough time to create that prompt and put it on the common application or another application platform to have you think about it, if you're able to work that into your college process for that application, I think that would be helpful.

So I know that's if it's if it says required, it is absolutely required. If it says optional then I would say at this point in time really kind of put that on your list of a thing to do.

And kind of work with that in mind.

Yeah, that's great advice and like I said earlier, especially if you already haven't had contact with your counselor, all of these extra pieces can really help you know. Build that image and really understand you on a deeper level.

Right?

Going forward and so just with you, know how there's all these different types of writing sections. There's also different processes in which colleges are going to start to unpack them and start to review them, and so the nice thing about the common app is that you can get all of these pieces of information to those colleges at the same time, but the process in which they receive them they start to review them is going to look a little bit different, and so also that's going to reflect when you hear back from them and how you hear back.

Into that first one, the holistic review process. You know, that's what we do here at Swanee. And then you'll also probably find that a lot as well with other small liberal arts colleges. But that's really taking all of these pieces that we were talking about and reading them. It's like kind of like a complete work and so not one necessarily has a greater weight than the other. And so you know, if there's a course like a personal essay, but also if there's a personal statement specific question, supplemental essays, really, you know, looking at all of those.

To get that piece of information, but like Taylor said it beginning there also maybe colleges that maybe a little bit more GPA focused or test score focus and so if those have some type of automatic admission policy, you know you may hear back a little bit sooner as opposed to someone who's doing a holistic review process where it's not just your soul admission counselor reading your application, but they're also subsequent committees and other counselors that are kind of doing.

Additional due diligence throughout the process. Also down at the bottom you'll see scholarship and fellowship processes, and so another piece of writing that may come up is if you have to apply for a named scholarship, for instance, and so writing an essay with another specific topic that may be an association with that donor or that particular organization on campus. Be sure to also plan and allocate time for those and.

In addition to everything else that you're writing, and so your personal essay and things like that, sometimes colleges they'll say if you can use the same essay for those, but also it may be different, and so if it is different than it's kind of the same skills that we're kind of going through out here but allocated elsewhere, and so also additional time management and things like that. But yeah, so can you speak to open admission and hybrid process?

Yes, I can, and there's a question kind of relates that process. So let's say Kathryn asked a question about automatic admission and it could impact hybrid.

About what a college rejection application, if it doesn't meet its standard for test scores and GPA so we can unpack that. It's not like assisting to answer, but hopefully work that in together for, UM, automatic admission like shower already mentioned, it's going to be more like threshold driven for GPA and test scores when you encounter this type of like application review or admission. It's perhaps could be through a large state institution or of any size.

But it might be where they're serving predominantly students in that state, and so the state is going to set kind of a mandate. Or maybe they're like border regions or board of trustees would set a threshold of. Here is the level of academic preparedness or cutoff that we're looking for, and so that maybe, you know, funnel down from that state level.

Two different institutions within the State University system, so and it's a lot of jargon, but essentially it means perhaps that admission office isn't setting those standards. It's going to be for the whole state. However, say you didn't meet that score or you didn't meet that baseline GPA. A lot of colleges will have maybe a bridge program or other options for admission, or how this relates to hybrid process is they may have kind of an alternate Ave for admission where you could.

So uhm, submit supporting documents such as short answers or personal statement or personal essay to provide a little bit more context about the situation in your academic preparedness, just so they can get to know you in a little bit of a broader context. So the hybrid is maybe they have those automatic admission requirements, but there's still bringing in some aspects of holistic review, so that's where you're getting that kind of hybrid process.

Again, that could be a multitude of schools, but I would say from my experience it's going to be perhaps schools within public State University systems. And again, those can can differ per school, so that's it. That is the thing you'll hear a lot, which is not always easy to hear that it really does depend per the school and so kind of doing that research in the summer and looking on the website or having conversations can be helpful to know and then open admission would maybe be your Community College or a Technical College where it's open enrollment essentially.

To attend and take classes and continue your education in that setting.

So hopefully that breaks down a little bit about that. UM, and it looks like we've gotten some questions they want to look into this about.

Personal statements, and then what's the difference between a personal statement and a personal essay? Again, you're not going to see both of those at every college, so that's where kind of as requirements within the common app or with honest schools, particularly mission website, will be the most helpful to guide you and what's going to be required.

But the personal essay for us in this set, the context of this particular session, were thinking of that common application, personal essay, kind of. The longer essay format and so that is going to be based on a prompt or you're responding to a certain question, whereas a personal statement may be more of like your long term view for yourself or your long term view of your education, or why you really think that you want to be part of that school community, or how that.

Particular school is going to further your education, so they're both about you, but the lens and what you're writing is going to differ, and the length might differ as well.

And this would perhaps come into play in that hybrid process where maybe you're not writing a full on essay, but they might have some like short answer paragraphs. So it may say like answer in five to seven sentences, or they may just want that personal statement to provide a little bit more context of why you release yourself in that educational setting.

Yeah, a good way to kind of think about your personal. A personal statement is if you ever written a cover letter for a job or an internship. It's really kind of more biographical and going back into like table saying like your history and things that you've done and accomplished along the way that situate you as a good candidate. For this, you know in the context of a cover letter for this job, but in the context been institution, you know forward, Commission and so you know having XYZ skills.

As demonstrated through these opportunities and how you can bring that forward and then also how you see yourself in the future. Or as you know, that personal essay is a lot more a direct response to those prompts that will look at here in just a second and really kind of staying on topic with that. And I think there's a little bit more of a creative outlet that's possible with the personal essay, whereas the personal statement is traditionally probably a little bit more.

Somewhat formulaic and there's certain pieces that someone may be looking for when they're going straight down through that.

And again, just just because we've gotten a few questions on the topic, so I don't we're kind of going through this just to let you know all the options that could exist, so we don't want this to cause any undue panic. It would be rare that a school is going to like require all of these, or you know there is no one answer of what a school require. Both or is one more important than the other.

I think kind of a good rule of thumb is if a school is asking for, it's important in that context or it's important to them and their review process. So kind of use that as your baseline or your kind of your guiding principle. But in and every school is going to guide you. There will be instructions and and or a prompt. So as you think about this now, it might seem kind of high level, a little overwhelming, but know that every application you're going to work on is going to provide you that information, so as long as you just take a moment, breathe.

You know that you can do it and read those instructions and were asked questions. If it doesn't make sense, please feel comfortable doing that. That will really guide you to the process.

Yeah good, so with that I'll go ahead and move forward to so we can show you guys what those prompts would be and we're not going to go through them each individually. But feel free to take a screenshot of those and we can also link to these prompts and the chat, but I think it's just a good opportunity for you to see what these prompts are going to look like before hand, and so we'll talk about this a little bit in a second, but for every person there's going to be a different.

Routes, you know, as far as how you answered it, and you know they're not short questions. They all have. You know, some meat to them, and so with that there's going to be individual things. That kind of call out to. Once again, things that happened in your experiences, things that may be specific to your identity, your interest, things you're currently involved in, and so part of this process of choosing an essay and starting writing is really looking to each of these questions and seeing which ones not.

Only you know, quote unquote speak to me, but which one of them can speak to an experience to an interest that I have, and I have the capacity to relate that and a written format this when I come across, you know, come to an admission counselor to someone who's reading. This has never read it before.

But yet still are just put those in on the actual common web common app website, so you can also look to those therapy. You haven't been able to screenshot those here, but looking at that last one, share an essay on any topic of your choice. It could be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. This ones, of course a lot more open-ended than the other ones, and so you know if you have an interest in creative writing, this can really be your moment.

To really, you know, take a deep dive into that one piece of advice. I would say is if you are choosing this topic just still, make sure that you know to someone who doesn't know you know the inner workings of your head, that it comes off and you know we can understand it and grasp it and still understand a piece of you without a prompt telling us what we should expect necessarily. But yeah, anything to add on that Taylor.

Just if you guys were kind of looking at these, maybe as a very eager sophomore or junior, maybe your school did like some workshops for orienting you the end of your junior year. They the only change for these seven prompts is the let's see the fifth one, I believe.

We actually go back share. I think I messed it up. It's the reflect on something that someone who's done for you. So the top of this one that is the new product and so that link that I put in the chat will kind of talk you through why they made that change. It's really neat to see or kind of remember if you didn't know that common app is run by individuals who really care about the college going process and they are real, you know high school, college counselors and college admission officers and different advisors who help. Kind of, you know.

Come together and think of these prompts so they're supposed to be really intentional, and something that hopefully kind of draws out an interesting detail or fast of your life, and so there's, you know it's human beings creating these and putting some thought into it, so knowing a little bit of that context on that link of why they made that change was eat and kind of see them there. But just so you know, that's the only change. If you were looking at the seven last year, the one that got removed was the one about solving a specific problem. So I think the answer rate.

And that was pretty low. A lot of students didn't choose that prompt, and so that is the one they chose to edit or replace to just one change there.

And I think the only thing I want to add here was one question whether we got about do answer. Should you only answer one prompt or is it best to write to each of the prompts to get the best essay to share with colleges? So we'll talk a little bit about how you might discern, like pick, which prompt is the best fit for you, or which one you might choose. But the short answer to that question is you will only be able to choose one. So again, like kind of the logistics in common app, it's there's seven bubble dots and you will click.

That one and then that is the profit you will write about and the school or the office or whomever is reading your application is able to see the prompt that you chose in so we know what you're you're responding to, so you won't be able to.

To toggle or click multiple, so you will need to kind of think about that and just pick one to write about for your personal essay.

Yeah, and just kind of adding onto that. Even with picking just one, and though you've seen them all, I would still advise trying to stay within that directive of that singular prompt. That just really helps us again. Like, I keep saying the information you know come to us. Connect with us that we're able to understand what you're writing, and so that's the best way to make it both clear and concise.

Once again, it's just 250 to 650 words which at the forefront you know may seem like a lot of work and a lot of writing. But once you finally pick a topic and you've picked up what you would like to write about, it may be more difficult to actually condense. And so if you're trying to conceptualize and add on multiple different prompts into one, it can very quickly get confusing both to yourself and then to us as a reader. This trying to unpack and, you know, find those pieces of information about.

Yourself.

Yes, and Shiro transitions the screen over. I did just chat in the link to the writing requirements by college and we've got a couple of questions that reference like that. August 1st turnover within com application. So again year to year. Some colleges will update those questions or their requirements and so there is kind of a reset period in the summer. Once we've closed application from last year and we're going to, you know, all colleges in the common app will open for you guys to apply August 1st.

So we've got a question about like any updated writing requirements, like yes, those could change between July 1 when you're looking at this list to August 1, probably not significantly. So if you want to get a jump start and then some information would roll over. If you've already started a common app account, but as far as like picking the application term so for fall of 2022, when you might, you know most of you would anticipate enrolling in college campus, that term, you wouldn't be able to select that for that particular application.

The talk is 1, so kind of combining a couple of questions there, but you are definitely able to kind of get into common app. Make your account put a lot of basic information in, go ahead and use this link to like research and writing requirements. But yes, there are a few things that could change prior to that. August 1 reset just to tell you all now.

Yes, and so this slide, we really just kind of giving examples of ways than what you may respond to. These different prompts, and so once again everyone is going to have their own process, their own peace within that prompt. This one to speak to them, and that's when I allow them to respond effectively. But that maybe, you know, through a narrative component and you know, I'm sure you guys have heard your English teachers already explained all of these different types of essays, but just to kind of reiterate, or could be more descriptive.

You know, really, describing a particular event that happened one summer, you know when you went on a particular trip or experience bride anything like that exposes. Sorry, just you know that would be a little bit more of an academic style of writing some more factual based of breaking down particular.

Pieces of information from one thing I would advise is if you do go this route's try to still have a piece of yourself within it. So it's one thing to have an entire essay explaining geological structures and things like that versus having that, but then explaining why you chose to go that route or explaining what that means to you and your particular experiences. If you go slowly the academic route, we don't really always get a full picture of you or your connection to that.

Topics so really trying to find that balance and then lastly persuasive, not too many of the prompts are really geared towards being persuasive, but you may still have that response. And if you know it feels natural to you and that's the way in which you choose to go about it, definitely feel free to lean into that, but also still like we've said before, being clear, being concise and still making sure that parts of you in parts of our identity are still able to shine.

True, as opposed to solely being persuasive for the sake of being persuasive or solely being exposit Tori for the sake of being exposit Tori, and so whichever route that you choose, and these four aren't the only ones that you can choose. But whichever route that you choose, always making sure that you have a clear understanding of why you're responding in that way, and it's clear why you're responding that way to us.

Yeah, send make sense Taylor anything else.

No, I think that's good for that side.

Perfect, awesome and so with that.

Kind of going into the actual process, and you know, once you've identified the topic, you know starting phase one so that brainstorming process and so reading like we said, each of these essay prompts finding the ones that you would like to address and taking it apart and so seeing Oh well with prompt wine, I can do this. I can maybe talk about this experience prompt to I can do that and then really viewing those together and deciding on one that kind of ultimately gives that.

Image but also once again keeping in mind that you'll have additional information. You'll have other parts of the application where you can still make sure that your interests are shining through, but after you selected that prompt, you know just really taking opportunities to just brainstorm and you know maybe that's a lot of people try like times you know, just like brain jotting things down. And you know, setting 15 minutes and just write whatever comes to mind. And then after that 15 minutes unpacking, you know.

These things, why did you write that? Is there something there's? There's some meat here and then using that as a process to slowly narrow down all the things that you would like to discuss and making sure that there's a clear structure. And so, like every piece of writing, there should be some type of introductory points. There should be somebody. There should be some type of ending reflection that is 1 to yourself, but also maybe to us and things like that. And then you can also feel free to chat with this with other people.

Like I said before, you know, a lot of times when we've talked with students after this process, they've are there. Essay with things that they already tide talks about with, you know people at church or their friends or school. Anything like that and so sharing that back with people that you may have already talked with and they can kind of be your fact checkers and you'd be people who can say, Oh yes, that's a great route to go. And that's definitely something there you should absolutely share that with someone. And ultimately, that should lead you to that final.

Point on this slide is that you should love your topic passion and I think it's really important when it comes to writing, and it's very clear when you're writing about something that you're passionate about. Same as if it's clear that when you're talking about something, your passion comes very clear through your speech and your tone, your intonation. Same exact thing in writing and so making sure that you're using your writing as a tool to communicate your passions. I think is kind of step one.

Within the application process and then later on in college as well. And when we talk about academic writing and academic preparation done, that's kind of step one of what we're looking at when we're reviewing files.

Let's see any questions that have come through.

I'm trying to work on a couple if they relate to the to the side we're on and we can tackle them, but I know there's a couple I'm trying to get through.

For this slide, I wanted to add and track. I've already sections in, in other words, but if you are looking at a prompt and you start to write on it, your brain storming and you just cannot get going even after kind of trying some of these these tricks and will add some more, but it may just not be a topic that you are passionate about, and so it might take that brainstorming or trial and error to say I really thought I could write 600 words about this, but it's just not. I'm not fired up about it. I am not passionate.

And so if you can't really get going on that, and you're not gonna be excited about it, it probably at the end of the day isn't going to be an exciting essay crew to finish, or for someone else to read. So that is another component of his brain storming session like to know it's OK to think of something or have that personal reflection and maybe toss in the trash.

That is not time wasted. You are getting, you know you do not have to get this perfect on the right. The first try there is no grade on this right now. It's just you taking your time to really feel like what's exciting is that you want to share.

Yeah, another really helpful piece can also be revisiting things that you may have written before. I know, especially you know for myself, you know when I was in school. If it's been awhile since I've written a paper or anything like that, I would just read old things that I had written to one kind of like find my voice. And you know how I come off in writing and looking at that? You know on that other. On the flip side, which I think can sometimes be weird, it's almost like you know, listening to yourself as a recording.

With seeing how you come across and seeing also the things that you were really excited to write and how that came across to the person that you submitted it to, so that could be another really effective tool.

Alright, so then looking at step two, phase two, once you have found that topic and it's really speaking to you, really understand the meat of the prompt and what is it really asking? Is it asking about a specific experience? Is it asking about a specific identity, anything that it could be just really making sure that you can find the meat of that and that you're able to respond to it, and so through the brainstorming process you can pick out the things that most appropriately.

Answer it and so when we receive, you know essays, we're going to see the prompt that you selected that you toggled, and so will understand immediately what you're writing to. And then from there thinking of it as a story. As I keep saying, you know, if this is our first introduction to you as a student, using this opportunity to tell us a story and have all of those things that kind of encapsulates, good storytelling, and so once again, those are things like having a great.

Look, you know leading into the story and really being descriptive and describing all of those things that we may not have personal insight on. Whether that's your school structure, your family structure, things like that. So think about all of those unsaid things that's important to describe in order for us to really get that final piece or the final message of your essay, and then also thinking about in your first draft. If you're thinking things.

Through your head instead of trying to automatically make that translate into your writing style, just you know, getting all out on paper and that way it can easily come through as opposed to you trying to both brainstorm and edit and proof and do all of steps one through 5 at the same time. This will also help the process go through a little bit quicker and so that also kind of goes into just, you know, throughout the process, being yourself and not making sure that you have to check yourself or do you have to.

You alter your behavior two fits the certain. You know whatever process you think you have to do, and then once you finally get all of that down and you have that first full draft, that's when you start the editing process and that way you don't have to do it. Like I said, the forefront which you can do it afterwards when you have everything that you want to say on paper within the next step is just making sure that it's all cleaned up. It's concise, it makes sense to a third party.

Let's see. So then after that proofing, this is really like I said, just you know editing but also just like in the brainstorming process, having conversations with other people. Feel free to invite people to the proofing process and so depending on how sensitive about the topic that you may have, this can be a friend. This can be a teacher who is OK with this. If your college counselor has opened the door for proofing, you know essays and things like that. Definitely feel free to use that.

Is a resource. Sometimes things like I said, may make perfect sense to us, but if someone doesn't have all of those unsaid, you know pieces of information or descriptive elements. The meat of the story isn't as strong as it could be otherwise, and so feel free to share that have lots of printed copies, maybe, and let people just write and edit. I did that all throughout college, so it's it's a great tool. And then once you get that, you know just really taking in that feedback and editing it.

Making sure that everything can just be as clear and concise as possible, and so once again 650 words sounds like it could be alive. But once you have so much information, it's really about condensing it and then doing that all over again and then all over again. The more proofing, the better you know so.

Sometimes a point can be lost if you have lots of typos or lots of grammar mistakes, because then you know, just as when you're speaking. Sometimes if you stop and start and stop and start it, it doesn't flow naturally all the time, and so that's another effective tool is taking every single proof and copy that you have and reading it out loud and anywhere where there seems to be a natural stop one checking to see if they're appropriate punctuation is there.

Or if something isn't unnatural, stop try to figure out what in the sentence made you do. That is the sentence too long? Is there too many ideas in this sentence? Think about things like that, and then when you have all of this information in the common app, making sure that the formatting is correct and so what's submitted in that text box is what we're going to see. And so there are limited options to kind of help it make be more condensed and concise. So I think you can only like bold and italic size.

Things, but there's also an integration with Google Drive, and so if you are using that integration with Google Drive, making sure that you aren't adding a lot of tech or excuse me images or tables in that, because once you copy and paste that over the formatting flow get messed up and so really paying attention to how it's formatted in that text box, because that's going to be how we see it once your application is submitted.

And then.

These are just kind of some common oversights that you know you may not think of when you're going throughout this process and I'll let you all read that, but just picking out a few overuse of cliches, cliches in and of himself aren't a bad thing, but too many cliches can also put you as the person that we're trying to learn more about on the back burner, and so there's nothing wrong with, you know you writing about what could be a cliche topic, but making sure that.

You are still at the center of it and your identity, your involvements, your personality within that particular situation, is still able to come through, and so I think I saw a question at some point that said what makes a particular essay unique, and I think that component note one student is exactly the same that component that where you're able to talk about you yourself and your interest in your identity. That's always going to be the most, I think unique factor as opposed to trying to think of what's this new and inventive.

Thing that I can do in my essay that no one's ever done before. The one thing that you can do that no one's ever done before is right about you. And so unless you're very popular and you're a celebrity in your town and someone's writing about you know how you inspire them. Hopefully you're probably gonna be the first person that writes about you as an applicant. Also, another big one is not paying attention to length, and so anything that you know if you copy and paste over if you went over those 650 words, it's just going to cut off. And so we've seen that.

Before where you know it's mid sentence and there's no conclusion to an essay or an essay is just way too short. You know definitely give us more than four sentences or two sentences. That's the benefit again of starting early and you know, really planning out your time wisely and going throughout these processes. And you know, going through phase one to phase three.

And then lastly, I'll pick out the rehashing resume grades, activity list again, thinking about every piece of your application is just that. It's a piece, and so we're going to have your complete application. When we're reading that, and so not being redundant or repetitive and really maximizing your essay as an opportunity to tell us something new, or tell us something different because we're already going to have your resume. We're already going to have your grades just a few pages prior. And so, really.

Paying attention to everything as a whole as opposed to them as individual factors or individual pieces.

And then just last pieces of advice. Like I said, the beginning not really focusing on, you know, a research paper, because that's not going to tell us too much about you and your of yourself and so going with that second point, this should be an opportunity to tell us your story and to engage us into something specific about you as opposed to engaging us specific about a topic. If it is that about a topic, it should be about your buy in into that topic or your connection to that topic.

And then you know, focusing on that as the primary factor, and that's the most important piece, because that's what you were reading for.

And then lastly, these are just more kind of like Taylor said. If you're going through these processes and you're still stuck. If you're still trying to figure out how to get past, you know, for instance the you know my life is boring mentality. You know, practice. If like an elevator pitch. If he only had two or three minutes to tell someone about a really cool experience that you think only you had, how would you do that? And so things like this can give you good skills and.

One having things like a hook and having a body and then also having that ending you know reflection and ending message that I said earlier. But yeah, anything else Taylor.

No, I think that it's a lot to think about again, don't be overwhelmed like we've said before, we're recording this. All of the slides and the chat will be in the recording and we should have that up by the end of the week. So throughout the summer or even that fall, if you wanted to reference doctor this, you're able to.

So I think the main thing that a lot of this captures is meaning the high school setting is so driven in like you have the direct. If you get it done and you get the grade, or there's a particularly right way to do something. And so I think that's why this can feel like a little jolting because.

He

You know there's a lot of it depends, and a lot of leeway and and personal reflection in a way that you're not always doing and academic papers. So just like being comfortable in that space that it you know you don't have to turn that draft in if you don't want anyone to see it, you don't have to show that to appear, or a parent or a teacher to edit if you're not ready to.

Pace yourself and then my shower mentioned. I think that peer editing having a friend read your essay is really important.

I think sometimes you know you should have good like academic friendships and partnerships there too, that you're feeling comfortable to share that academic component in your friend group.

It may be something you're not always do, but your friends are around you, perhaps more than your teachers or even your parents or guardians. And so if they're with you, you know the whole school day and do activities, and hanging out socializing. They're really going to know your personality and tone more than anyone else, and so if your friend reads your essay and says this doesn't sound like you, or you would never make this joke again, knowing that some essays are really personal and vulnerable, so you might not always want to do that, but.

You know, I think that feedback can really be helpful because they know you really well and that true sins in the way that every adult or admission counselor might not. And our goal is really to we know that you are a high school student coming into a really transitional environment. You don't have to be perfect, and so we're really just getting the essence of like what's important to you. What you might bring to our campus, how we could serve you as a student on our campus, and your personality, and so that's kind of the takeaway. And you're hopefully remembering that that you don't have to be like a certain mold, or you don't have to create.

Yourself as a college student, yet really just writing is who you are right now. In 1618 years old is, I hope, helpful advice.

Definitely, and so starting to unpack some of the questions that we have already in the chat, so I'll go ahead and put this slide up so we aren't able to get to all of your questions this evening. Definitely feel free to email us and I'll have this slide up so you can take a screenshot of our email addresses and reach out to us anytime as well as you could schedule a virtual appointment.

But looking at one of these questions right now.

You know what triggers the person understanding between the applicant and the reviewer? Is it the amount of vulnerability within the essay or the tone? That essay and bodies? I don't think there's one set answer, but I think the biggest thing that kind of.

You know, triggers in like let's us understand who we're talking to is to a certain extent, yes vulnerability. But also understanding that there's layers to vulnerability and there's layers to identity. And so when we say vulnerability, we don't necessarily mean that you have to go into, you know, an extremely traumatic event or anything like that, but understanding that there's still layers on top of that that are just as valid, and that can still speak to who you are and what you're interested in.

Why you do things in a certain way, and there's often there's a story to that, and so part of this is this whole process is that reflection of one you know? Who am I? What are? What are my identifying factors? But then also understanding what am I comfortable with and to what extent in my.

At this point in your experience and your life, is a student willing to share and so also not just with mission counselors, but along the way. If you have some peer reviewers, if you have a high school counselor, teacher, friend, parent, reading this information that you are also comfortable in that shape or form as well. And so I think anything that you know you can immediately identify with and say this is me. I think we to whatever variant layer that is, we will identify that.

As well, and so as long as that's clear and concise, I think that's the best way to kind of bridge that relationship between the writer and the reviewer.

Let's see if there's any others.

I think we tried to save a couple that are probably best to talk out then type. I'm working on one but I don't know if you want to pick another one, let's see.

Yeah, so one. Do you think that we should spend time working on essays were initially choose the one that we want to use. Such only work on an essay that answers the prompt and make it very good. I think this will differ from person to person. Some people kind of going full out.

Throughout that entire process could be helpful, and then you know someone may want to see all of those different prompts answered right in front of them, and then they can analyze it and see which one's best fits. I would definitely say that it's probably a very extensive process, and that would be a lot of work. I would say probably a little bit more easier, but if the other one is the way it works for you, that's the way it works for you. But the easier is just being really spending time unpacking each of those prompts. Like I said at the beginning, and really focusing on.

What asks and then understanding if you have some type of immediate thing that can respond to that, and if there's not an immediate response to that.

You know, understanding that that's OK and don't necessarily feel like you have to force an experience to fit into a topic where it may not necessarily fit, and so that's also the benefit of that very last prompt where it's just writing about essentially an open ended topic. If you find it throughout that brainstorming process that none of those prompts are really having anything that immediately fits, and it would be somewhat forcing.

And experience into that prompt. Really unpacking. You know what an open-ended topic would look like for you, and kind of then doing more of that reflective style of you know who am I? What would I like to write about and then responding to an internal prompt that you kind of set for yourself? I think that could be a really good response to that.

And as we move on to the next one.

I'm going to chat in the link to like a common app, sort of a guide. It's an application guide for first time students, so if you haven't already spent any time on app or this particular link, this will kind of breakdown like each section of the common app. One of those would be writing, so that is just helpful like it's assisting to Web page to kind of pull that all together.

So.

We can do one more as we wrap up there. Really, I think a lot of the questions. Hopefully we were able to kind of integrate into the content.

Sure, if you maybe want to tackle genders question and I will type in response for Gibby.

Do you see that?

OK.

Yes, yes. How much of your paper should tackle showing your identity and growth in an essay in comparison to telling a story, I would say whichever one feels more natural to you and so guess at the beginning I talked about storytelling as an element of getting your point across, but I think there's also other ways to story tell and you know, like I said in the styles of writing, there's more descriptive writing. There's more narrative writing.

And so really finding that balance that feels natural. And that's again where pure editing I think can come in and in handy. Because if someone else is reading it, that knows you pretty well. They know how you speak. They know how you casually and formally tell stories, and so they can be able to be your best. Your best critic. In that instance, it's in terms of saying this seems a little bit off, or this seems a little bit forced and so not necessarily trying to find. I think a ratio of.

You know 60 to 40 storytelling or 5050 identity versus growth, but really, focusing on what seems natural and what seems less forced as you're presenting information about yourself and really just like a set of beginning, leaning and into what that feels like for you because you know we're going to read.

You know multiple essays in multiple different problems, and so there's no. There's never a formula or a magic number that's going to be right for everyone, but what is right is what's right for you, and so focusing on that but just just because if it is forced, that comes off in writing, and that can be seen and read and heard. And then that ultimately will let your mission and your.

Your entire point of your essay not come through as clearly as it would normally.

Yes, and I think just as we wrap up.

This session and on that question please don't get lost in writing for the reader.

He

Uhm, I know that can be challenging, right? But uhm, one I think kind of like piece of consolation or hopefully comfort is that it's very rare that a school that's going to require an essay or writing components would just have like one person reviewing that. So there may be one initial reader, but a lot of schools. It's going to like multiple eyes and human beings are going to see that, and so that's a lot of work that we do. And like trainings that hopefully happen in addition, offices that if there's any level of like.

Bias, or you know disagreement, or if there's really like a lack of understanding or you don't relate to that particular essay like that, is the point of having multiple people read knowing that you're sharing different life experiences and vulnerabilities that you know. A big question that we get is like what if my reader like disagrees with my point of view? Well, you know, I think that may also happen on a college campus like our goal is to create a diverse student body with different backgrounds and different perspectives and have that discourse.

In a classroom, and so we we need to to know. Kind of that background for students and know that we're admitting a really healthy balance of students. So it's not really about design reader. Agree with me. It's are you being true to yourself and your identity and sharing who you're going to be on that campus. So I, I hope that offers some clarity. It can be scary knowing that people are reading it up, but.

Again, most people who like work in this field who want to work with high school students who are on their way to college were not expecting you to write a thesis for an expected you to write the next novel right now. You might eventually, but it's really, you know, just sharing who you are, and if you don't feel comfortable doing that in the essay to a particular school, are you really going to feel comfortable living and spending four or more years on that college campus? So kind of think through that too, as you think about your list. And as you're writing.

Yeah.

It's great advice and so, like I said before, if you guys have other questions and we're running out of time, but feel free to take a screenshot of our email addresses. And like I said, you can schedule a virtual counselor appointment and so we can talk through these things via phone, Google Hangouts, Zoom, whatever works for you and your schedule, and then also like I said, the beginning. This event is a series of tiger tips and so a series of sequential events that's helping you.

Throughout this color search process and so this session is recorded and it'll be on that website, but will also have six other tips along the way leading up to you submitting an application, and so that's through different formats like this, like an online session or blogs, podcasts and all of that will live on that central website that Taylor shared but still feel free to visit that. But other than that, thank you all for joining us this evening.

Yes, thank you and good luck.