Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: Crafting Your Personal Statement For The Common Application

This webinar was conducted on July 8, 2021. Please note that specific details may have changed by the time you read this article. A recording of this webinar is available here. 

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Anthony Su: Hey, good evening everyone. Thanks for joining us, and thanks for joining the latest installment of our webinar series. We’re continuing this conversation we're having about college essays as a lot of seniors are going through this process of starting their first drafts.

Today we’re talking about the personal statement, but you might also be looking at the UC questions, since that's a place where we like to point students to start off first. But today we'll give you a crash course about the personal statement, how you're gonna pick your prompt. You're gonna work out of seven.

Today we have Katie and Alexis joining us to give us this crash course. Katie, would you like to introduce yourself, first and then Alexis after?

Katie Young: I would love to. Hi everyone. You all know me but I did cut my hair.

My name is Katie Young. I am an associate consulting director here at ILUMIN. And I've been doing this for like 10 years.

And I think that all my seniors right now are in this stage where they're panicking about what they're going to write for this essay. So I think this is a really good time to have this webinar, and hopefully we can squash some of your fears today!

Alexis Jeffries: Hi everyone. I’m Alexis Jeffries. I'm one of ILUMIN’s essay specialists.

I have, similarly, been editing essays for about a decade now. I started my career as a professional writer. So I’ve got a lot of experience in that space. And I’m super happy to be talking to you today.

Anthony Su: Awesome. So we'll go through this presentation first. As usual, of course, if you have any questions – if you have something you want to ask us – you can put it in Q&A. I'll take a look at it, and if it's relevant, I'll throw it back to Alexis and Katie to comment on. But we'll also do a Q&A section at the end, so feel free to just put your thoughts there, and we'll get back to it at the end.

Okay. I'll toss it to Katie to get us started.

Katie Young: Yep, here we go!

So last month we did a presentation that was called “College Essays 101.” If anybody missed it, we do have a recording of the webinar up on ILUMIN's website – and Anthony's putting that link in the chat right now. I'm just going to do a real quick recap of that because I think it's important context for what we're going to talk about today.

So what are college essays? Basically, the role that they play in this process is that they allow students to speak directly to admissions officers. That's not an opportunity that most students get otherwise! Not all colleges have interviews. Not all colleges have the bandwidth to send their admissions representatives to every school. So the essays are really the one chance that students have to make their case in their own voice, and in their own words.

It's important to know that college essays are reviewed by admissions staff. These are people whose career is to be an admissions officer. They are not necessarily professors at the school, or subject matter experts. So you don't really know these people. It's really important that you write in a way so that a lot of different people can understand what you're saying and relate to you because you don't know who it is!

Essays are weighted differently at different colleges, which means they are more important at some schools, less important at other schools. If you want a little bit more detail on that, you can reference our previous presentation but essentially the higher you go in the rankings, and the more competitive the school is, the more your essay is going to play a significant role in your acceptance.

Essays will help admissions officers determine fit. A lot of students have similar looking résumés, similar looking GPAs, similar majors… But what they're looking for is a person who they feel like can be successful and fit into the culture on their campus. Essays give the readers that chance to get to know students on a more personal level and select students whom they know will kill it!

One challenge that we have every year with our students, working on these essays, is that they're very used to writing academic papers. They're very used to using academic language. And we want to be very clear that these are stories. These are narratives. These are not persuasive essays or five paragraph essays.

You should use things like the word “I.” And we'll go more into that later but it's hard to overcome, when you've been spending sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth and eleventh grade writing in this specific style. And now we're asking you to drop it! We'll go more into that later.

And then, at the end of the day, you really want to make sure that all of your essays – regardless of the prompt – are showing your passion for something, your personality, and your perspective on the world. I think that should be clear… but, again, we have a whole presentation on it. You can go watch it on the website.

So specifically about the Common Application and the main personal statement – which is what we're going to talk about today.

What is the Common Application?

The Common Application is a central platform that over 900 colleges use to host their applications, which means you will make one account, fill it out one time, and submit it to various colleges.

Is your college on the Common App? Probably. It's going to be really hard to get through the admissions process without applying to at least one college that's hosted on the Common App. And here’s just a list, if I just picked random schools, but, essentially, if you go on the website, or if you go on the college's individual websites, you can see what platforms they use; likely they're going to use the Common App.

So Stanford, Cornell… UIUC is a new introduction this year, which I, personally, am very excited about. NYU. Boston U. A lot of the really popular schools.

What's not on the Common App is the UCs. UC Berkeley has its own application. The UC platform is separate.

The main personal statement is the central essay on this platform, and it will be sent to all of the colleges that you apply to using the platform. There are some colleges that say it's optional, but you have to write it for the majority of schools. So the likelihood is this essay goes everywhere.

How long does it need to be? The limit is 650 words. You don't have to hit 650, but if you're not maximizing your space at around at least 500, it's going to feel like you kind of gave up, or you didn't try very hard. So our advice is to aim for at least 500 out of 650 words.

And how will it be reviewed? Each college will use every bit of information that you include on this central platform, as well as individualized questions that they have. Again, they're trying to get at your fit and your preparedness for their specific university. So Stanford will have a set of separate questions. UIUC will have a set of separate questions.

In addition to this main essay, you'll also be submitting your résumé. Your teachers will submit letters of recommendation. They'll see your transcript. Everything will go together in one long PDF document – and they'll review it all together.

So it's important that your essay makes sense in the context of the rest of your application. We'll go into more about this right now with Alexis, who is going to take us through the prompts.

What are the Common Application’s prompts?

Alexis Jeffries: Totally. Thank you, Katie; I think that's a great transition. Because you want to talk about, “What are the prompts and, specifically, what are they really asking?”

I think some of you may have heard that there's always a bit of a question behind the question. So we're going to talk through what some of those questions may be – and what you can write about.

“Are you self-aware?”

All right. So the first prompt is really asking you, “Are you self-aware?” The actual prompt #1 for the Common App is, “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.”

What does that really mean? Maybe there are specific identities that you feel really speak to you, or specific talents or interests that just make you so unique. They don't really fit nicely into one of the other prompts. But it's super important to understand who you are – and it's really core to who you are.

So if you have the opportunity to share a little bit about whatever that unique bit about you is, this is the right prompt to do that. You are answering one of the particular questions in there, where it says “identity, interest, talent, or background,” so make sure that you're elevating one of those particular points in the question.

“Can you be resilient?”

Now the second question is really trying to get at: can you be resilient? The prompt #2 for the Common App is, “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

Basically it's just saying: are you self-aware enough, and resilient enough, to recognize that we all make mistakes. We're human beings. None of us are perfect. But we want to see your ability to identify that you do make mistakes. Your ability to push past those mistakes and overcome and be resilient.

The really critical part that I think a lot of people forget about when they're writing their essays is, “What did you learn from the experience?” It's not enough to just recount a time where you made a mistake, and talk about how it made you feel, or how it made others feel without having some key understanding about yourself and or the world, and how you would do things differently if the situation were to arise again.

“Will you speak up?”

The third prompt for the Common App essay this year is, “Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”

Seems simple… but, actually, I think a lot of students may find this one particularly challenging. Because they're like, “I don't necessarily know that there's something that I can think of off the top of my head that's like a really core belief or idea.” But the reality is that there are certain principles in life – or values or ideas – that are really core to who we are. That we firmly believe in. Like, “freedom, justice, and liberty for all.”

If there are things that are really core to you, and you believe that you can tell a really great story about them, this is an opportunity for you to elevate those points. Paint a picture for us on how you will, essentially, advocate for your points and your beliefs – and for other students who similarly believe the same, when you get to school.

Because it's always better to have a student who has a really strong point of view about the world. And those are the type of students that we want to see admitted into schools.

I'm sorry if you hear any background noise. It's a little noisy. It's summertime; people are out!

“Are you practicing gratitude?”

The fourth Common App essay prompt is actually new for the class of 2022 – so it's an opportunity to be one of the first ones to write this particular essay. It's asking, really, “Are you practicing gratitude – and if so, how?” The question is. “Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?”

So what is that really asking about? Was there an instance that you can recall where someone did something really, really special for you? Maybe it's that someone was an organ donor for you and your family. Or maybe it's that someone gave you a really, really special gift: a family heirloom that you didn't know existed until you received it on your sixteenth birthday.

What's something that really surprised you – that really made you grateful and appreciative for that act, and for general humanity? Share those opportunities in this essay – because it will allow the admissions committee who is reviewing your application to really get a sense for the fact that you are a grateful person. And, specifically, that gratitude motivates you enough for you to be giving and gracious to others in the future.

So it’s a really great essay for you to write if you feel like you have a pretty good example of when someone did something really, really great for you.

“Can you be open-minded?”

The next prompt, prompt #5, is, essentially, “Can you be open-minded?” It says, “Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.”

This is what I like to call with my students the “enlightenment question.” When did you have “Aha!” moments, where it’s like, “This is something that is core and true and real to me; I'm having a moment of personal growth and understanding.”

So talk about a time when you realize that either you needed to change, or that things needed to change in and around you. We want students to reflect some semblance of maturity and an understanding of themselves: that they can see the forest for the trees. So when you are able to recall times and examples around specific accomplishments, events, or realizations?

This is a great essay for you to just highlight that you're really self-aware – and that you care about continuing to grow, and continue to learn more about yourself and the world around you.

“Are you curious?”

Essay prompt #6 really gets at the heart of: “Are you actually a curious person?” We all say, “Of course I'm curious, and I want to explore more about my curiosities when I get to college!” We all get that, right? But the reality is that we want to see if you're curious about something really, really specific.

So this topic asks, “Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or whom do you turn to when you want to learn more?”

A really, really critical part of the question that, again, a lot of students don't necessarily get at when they write this essay  is, “Whom do you turn to, or what do you turn to, when you want to learn more?” That's a signal to the admissions committee that it's something you're truly passionate about and engaged in, because you are continuously learning and pursuing it.

It showcases what it's really like to be inside of your brain. If you're super passionate about video games, do you research cheat codes online? Do you research how to build video games? Do you talk to other people or read books about game developers and their histories and their experiences building a particular game? How interested are you in this topic beyond just playing the games? That's what the admissions committee really wants to get at.

“Topic of Your Choice”

Prompt #7 is essentially the free-write of the Common App essays – the “topic of your choice.” The prompt asks, “Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.”

This, essentially, is like an optional essay – in the sense that there isn't a particular topic that it's steering you towards. It's not necessarily trying to get anything out of you, but allowing you to share something that you did not feel like you could cover in any of the other six prompts that were offered.

So just be aware that while a lot of students gravitate towards this particular prompt, because it means, in some ways, you can copy and paste an essay that you've written previously into this framework, the reality is that it is such an open-ended topic that you want to make sure you're really getting the valuable points across. Be mindful about that. Sometimes people get themselves into a little bit of hot water – because it's so open-ended – that they end up writing about anything, and it may not be necessarily reflective of sharing who you are and what you can bring to a university.

How to Choose a Prompt

Here's a little bit, really quickly, about how to choose a prompt. There are essentially seven to choose from.

Colleges, first off, don't have a preference. You can choose any of them that you feel resonates best with you. The caveat is that some say that colleges don't actually like #7 – the “topic of your choice” because it is so open-ended. They don't always get out of it what students think they're putting into it because it didn't reveal anything about the student that would help them make an admissions decision.

Really, what you want to think about is: what trait do you want to demonstrate? Which structure does your story really fit into? Sometimes there are stories that you can tell that fit into multiple prompts, and you want to get at the core of, “What's the message that I'm trying to get across?”

Feel free to outline a couple different versions to see what feels right for you and which prompt allows you to write the fullest story that you feel like is going to be reflective of that example and of yourself and your candidacy for schools.

The most popular essays from the 2018-2019 school year – and when we say “most popular,” we mean essays that the majority of students wanted to to write about – are the “topic of your choice,” or the personal growth and failure essays. And then the most-liked prompt from this past application season – and when we say “most-liked,” we mean the majority of people surveyed said it was their favorite, not necessarily the admissions committee's favorite – is around background and identity.

So that's a little bit about the essays. I'll pass it back to Katie to share about, “What should I write about?”

Katie Young: Yeah. I think you made a really good point around the story fitting into multiple prompts. And I think that's one pro tip we can leave you with today: if you feel like your story is just not working, and you can't get it to work, try to fit it into another prompt. Try to have a different moral to the story that you're telling. Surprisingly, that works really well – at least with my students in the past. So thanks for that.

All right, so you get it. There are lots of prompts! They all are asking for a different thing. And students have to make a hard choice here: “What should I write about? What should I address?” So we're going to dig into that a little bit right now.

What Should I Write About?

The most common response, when I ask students what they want to write about, is, “I have nothing to write about.” I would say that this is the first thing out of everyone's mouth – even if they are the number one student in their class, and they had an internship at NASA, and they raised a cat-dog hybrid in their backyard, and they've worked six jobs while maintaining a 4.0! Anyone will just tell me that they have nothing to write about.

And the honest truth is you're wrong. You absolutely have something to write about. What you need is a chance to consider what's valuable about you outside of the context of what's valuable about everybody else. And I know that that can be really hard, but you really have to start to get to know yourself. I know I sound like a therapist right now: “So, journaling…” [Laughs.]

“A Moment Is as Important as You Make It”

So news flash: a moment is as important as you make it. What we really want to talk about in the next few slides is maximizing small things: maximizing small moments. Illustrating really tiny things that meant a lot to you – that on the outside might not really look that significant.

The example that I made up the last time I wrote a blog – which I think is a pretty good example – is let's say that you came into my house and, right up on my mantelpiece, right in the middle for everyone to see, is a super ugly old cracked nasty-looking teapot. And you're thinking, “Why on Earth would you display that so prominently in your house?” You don't ask me. You just walk by and it's sitting there.

If I don't tell you why that teapot is valuable, or why it's meaningful to me, you're gonna think it's just an ugly teapot. But if I sit you down and I explain, “That's my grandmother's teapot. She brought it from our homeland over here. And every time I used to be sad and think that I wasn't strong enough, she would pour me a cup of tea.” If I tell you the story of that teapot, then you're going to understand the significance of that teapot.

So your job is not to find a superhero moment here. Your job is to convince me that your moment is valuable. It's a different kind of approach. It's a different kind of thing. And I don't want everyone to get hooked on trying to find this incredible story, because the reality is you're seventeen years old, and you probably don't have an incredible story or an incredible life-changing moment. And that's probably a good thing!

Honestly what you're looking for is something that meant something to you – that you can really transform into an essay here. 

Connect With the Reader

So your mission – connect with the reader. I think this is mine, Alexis. I changed it at the last minute!

Alexis Jeffries: Go for it.

Katie Young: All right. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to connect with the reader! We all as people feel most connected to somebody else when they're being vulnerable with us. What I mean by that is if your friend sits you down and says, “I have to tell you something,” in that moment you drop everything in your own head and you really pay attention to what's going on in that moment. And you can really start to feel something for another person.

So what we're looking for in this essay is you to connect with us, and to trust us enough to share who you really are. If you can do that – if you can drop your guard down and just be a real person – that's what's gonna get you further in this process. Creating that feeling of trust in your essay is really important versus narrating your résumé.

And I want to make it clear that you will get a chance to highlight a lot of the key points from your résumé. But that will be done in your supplemental essays. Remember, I said that every school has a separate section that they're going to ask you to populate. A lot of those are going to be essays, like, “Why did you choose your major?” or, “Tell us about an accomplishment that's important to you.” So you'll have a chance to do that.

This is a moment where you really want them to get to know you personally. And if I could give you three words to guide you as you're selecting your topic: be really honest, be really personal, and be introspective.

Tell Your Origin Story

All right. Now it’s you.

Alexis Jeffries: I think Katie makes a really good point. When we're talking about telling your “origin story,” we use this example: think about the flashback in a superhero movie, where at some point they reveal the ways in which they got their powers. Unless you're Batman and you don't actually have any powers; you're just rich! But Spiderman definitely got bit by a spider at some point in time. You have to go back in time and look for that realization, or that revelation: “What is the thing or that moment – that true, defining moment that is core to who I am – that helped me transition into my own version of a superhero?”

What that means is that your writing should really shape around your personality: who you are, your passions for things, your perspectives and points of view, and the values and the things that you truly believe in, from religious practices or cultural experiences. Your ambitions: what really motivates you to do the things that you want to do? And what spawns some of those things? Who do you want to be?

It's not always about trying to define who exactly you are. I mean, sure, that would be great – but I don't know, if you're seventeen or eighteen years old, that you necessarily know that! You have a lot more time to figure that out. But who do you want to be? And what are some of the experiences in your life that have shaped you into who you are now? So that they can help you transition into that person in the future.

It's about – as per Katie's point – being really vulnerable, being really open, and sharing this moment with the admissions committee. That way you get them sitting there reading your essay like, “Yeah, you know what I want? I want this kid to succeed!” We want to be able to share that same sort of passion and zest for life with you.

So that's something to keep in mind.

Brainstorm!

Next I will just say: brainstorming – and brainstorming again. I tell all of my students that good writing doesn't come from writing; it comes from editing. So it's really about coming up with the story first, and just writing it. And if you feel like that particular story doesn't work, spend time coming up with another one.

Make as many lists or outlines of stories that you think could be compelling, and share evidence about who you are. And then we'll get to making it a really, really great essay down the line. So talk about those moments that stand out vividly in your mind. Until you are able to map out your life – from when you first learn how to tie your shoes, all the way up to you having a passion for designing sneakers! Whatever it is.

Make sure that you're telling about those moments that really reflect some of your previous experiences. Share moments with people who have impacted you most. And not necessarily just your family members or some of your friends. It could be mentors or people whom you just really admire, from scientists to celebrities to authors. Whoever has really had some sort of impact on you or imparted some wisdom on you. You can make a list of those people and some of those experiences to help you brainstorm some ideas to write about.

Brainstorm some ideas around moments before and after a change. This is for one of those prompts that we were talking about: being really self-reflective, or showing your resilience and showing your ability to grow. Talk about that: how you transition from, maybe, not being that great of an athlete to spending a lot of time practicing and next thing you know you won the state championship! Things of that nature.

And then brainstorms the moments where you learned an important lesson about yourself or the world around you. There are some ways of thinking that we learn as children, but we don't necessarily learn whether or not they are right or wrong until we face some of those experiences for ourselves. So think about some of those times where you started to think, “I don't necessarily know that I believe that anymore,” or, “I actually believe that more now than I ever did before, when other people were trying to impart that wisdom onto me.”

Think about those instances. And expand on each idea in a free write. That's why I say good writing doesn't come from writing. It comes from editing. Just write it – get it out of your brain. You can tell the story with editing help later.

Now I'll pass back to Katie.

Example Ideas

Katie Young:  Bringing it to some student examples… I think this is always really helpful. We give you these lofty ideas about what your essay should be, and it's kind of hard to associate it – until you see some of the things that our real students have done in the past.

I am not making up anything on the next three slides. These are examples from our students at ILUMIN. So here are some example ideas over the past few years – I would say since 2018, all of these essays have existed, and worked well.

So I've helped a student write an essay about getting lost in a foreign country. I've helped a student write an essay about going on camping trips with her dad. I've helped a student write about riding the train to school every day. I've helped a student write about walking around his neighborhood after dinner. And I've helped a student write about a day when he got locked out of the house.

I know what you're saying in your head, which is, “These seem really boring.” I get that. This is what I mean when I say everyone has a story to tell. These people didn't come into ILUMIN and start to meet with me and think this was what they were gonna write about! Okay, maybe the foreign country guy – that's kind of a dynamic story. But all of these other ones are just random moments that are common among human beings – that all of us have experienced, right?

So why did they choose these topics, and why did these topics work? We'll get into that.

Reflection Leads to Ideas

So in these essays – and as Alexis mentioned, the editing will get you here – the reflection is more important than the idea itself, very often. Again, the moment is what you make of it. Your reflection is you making something out of the story, and out of the moment that you're discussing.

For the student who got lost in the foreign country, the significance of that is the heart of his essay. It's not the fact that he got lost. That's not the point; that's not going to get him into school! It's about the lesson that he learned from that experience and how it influenced him moving forward. For this student getting lost in a foreign country, it taught him how to trust himself, and how to gain the courage to go after what he wants. For the student who went on camping trips with her dad, it helped her gain the confidence and grace to recover from mistakes.

And if you start to visualize these stories, you can kind of understand what I mean. If you get lost in a foreign country, you have to figure it out for yourself, right? So you have to trust yourself to make decisions and make snap judgments, and figure out how to get yourself out of this situation. If you're on a camping trip you're probably out of your comfort zone: there's a spider over there, and you fell in a creek, and whatever, right? You have to resolve these mistakes and problems and move on; you can't just go home. You're in the middle of the woods!

Riding the train showed the student that he can create a community wherever he goes. So, again, you can kind of envision this. He's on the train for an hour going to school. What is he going to do with that? Sure, he could read a book, but he could also talk to people. He could also create interesting relationships with people he never otherwise would have met!

Walking around the neighborhood, you could just walk. You could just listen to music. But in this case the student chose to use that time to teach himself lessons about mundane things – regular things, everyday things – being beautiful. This would fit well into that gratitude prompt: practicing gratitude for just the little things that he has in his life, and the beauty of the world, and just teaching him how to be more appreciative and more aware of things around him.

The kid who got locked out of the house was able to get in. So it showed him that he'd been underestimating himself this whole time. And he was able to apply that lesson in other aspects of his life.

So, yes, these are small moments. Yes, they sound stupid at face value. I get that. When I say this in a call with a new student, they look at me like I'm crazy.

But when you read the real essay, you see how these ideas transform into these beautiful life lessons for these students. It takes a lot. It takes a lot of drafts. It takes a lot of questions – asking yourself questions about what these things really meant to you to land on these ideas.

And I think what it does for the admissions officers is it gives them a chance to see, “Okay, she had this experience and she wrote about it; she showed me what it meant to her, and that gives me an idea of the kind of person that she's going to be on our campus. So the student who got lost and learned to be confident and go after what he wants, he's going to take advantage of the resources that our campus offers. That's the type of student that we're looking for! The girl who went camping, when she messes up and she gets a B on her first test, she's not going to have a complete and total meltdown and go running back home. She's going to be able to figure it out. She's made mistakes before. She's recovered from them. I want that student on my campus. The guy who rode the train – I know that he's not shy. I know he's gonna be outgoing and make these connections with all kinds of people – and make our campus feel more inclusive and more like a home.”

I can read the last two, but I think you guys get the point at this juncture. Every moment leads to a lesson, and every lesson is a demonstration of the type of person that you're going to be.

So the moment is what you make of it and present to the admissions officers.

Okay, anybody like blowing up the phone on the Q&A that I need to deal with?

Anthony Su: Nothing crazy on Q&A. I'll get to that. But I really love that it is about emphasizing these small moments. It's not a Superman story or anything like that. It is about observing these small details. And I like how we're tying this to the campus: seeing, “How can I read into this? What will they be on my campus?”

Alexis Jeffries: Although if you are like Spiderman, and you do get bit by a spider and then end up with superpowers, definitely write about that!

Katie Young: Exactly! I was gonna say, that kind of goes back to what you were saying – the flashback to the superhero movie. Even that moment – getting bit by a spider – is, in itself, really small right. But the consequences… Captain America’s is the moment during boot camp. And all it is is he stands up to his bully for the first time. So it's these really small things, but they shape these people's entire character and it’s their defining feature. You need to find that superhero moment – even if you're not a superhero!

So how should I write this now? I have my idea. I've chosen my prompt. What next?

General Writing Tips

Alexis Jeffries:

These are just some general writing tips. We already discussed, don't choose the prompt yet just. Write. Just free-write. Once you've figured out some of the stories that you think are interesting, go through the exercise of just telling that story – and then you can see afterwards if it fits nicely into a prompt, or if it doesn't. Then you can work on that at a later date. But just make sure you tell your story.

And when you're telling your story, it's okay to use “I.” I know that's very uncommon. We learn in our high school courses, “No, you're not supposed to say things in the first person.” But the reality is that this is about you. Your name, your résumé, your transcripts, your test scores – all of those things are being sent. This is a picture snapshot of you. So it's okay to talk about yourself in this essay.

Make sure to use active versus the passive voice. That's not necessarily to say that you shouldn't use past tense versus present tense. That's not quite what we're saying. But be actively engaged in this experience, and actively write in a current-state voice.

Also use your authentic voice. Don't try to be someone who you're not. I know we're all fresh off of the SAT, and so we've got these big SAT words floating around in the head. Don't try to use this language and talk like Shakespeare or Tolstoy: “Oh, deleterious!” No one wants that language, because it's not necessarily the most refreshing to read. Sorry to the people who love Shakespeare, but the reality is it's not the easiest thing to get through! So let's make sure that we're just being authentic: using our voice and writing in a way that we would normally speak to tell our story.

Also, again, engage with the reader. Be creative in that sense. And – to one of Katie's points – you may not feel that creative, but you are. Everyone has a story to tell. And that automatically makes you a storyteller! So be sure to put that out there: be authentic, and use your creativity to share your personal experience.

And then don't try to emulate someone else's essay. As they say, you can only be yourself, because everyone else is taken! So don't try to emulate or copy the language or style of someone else's essay because that won't necessarily land well. It's not going to reflect who you really are. So, definitely, your authentic voice. If you don't feel like you have found your authentic voice yet, whatever you write is your authentic voice! Just make sure that you're being yourself throughout this process.

Katie Young: Those are such lovely tips, thank you! That's wonderful.

How Can ILUMIN Help?

So now you know all this stuff. You're empowered. You go. You write your essay! But if you need some help, we're here for you.

We would love to invite you to join us at ILUMIN. We have a team of essay specialists ready to help you out. You can sign up for one-on-one coaching from your assigned specialists. You'll work with the same person all the way through for five hours or ten hours, depending on how much support you think you need.

This package is really cool if you need a flexible schedule – or if you're just not really needing a hand to hold for the whole time, this is a really great choice. Those sorts of students who are independent and driven and busy, but just need somebody to reassure them or push them in the right direction – this is a really great fit for you.

You can also purchase access to our “Essay Bootcamp” curriculum, which we do with our package students. That curriculum will walk you through outlining your UC essays – and we will do another webinar about the UC essays, don't worry – and your Main Personal Statement. For this one, the curriculum there is in line with a lot of what we've talked about today – and we'll give you support with whatever you need on whichever essays you choose. We can support you with coming up with ideas, outlining your ideas, and editing and polishing your ideas. We're here to help!

You can sign up directly on our website.

And Alexis is one of our superstar essay specialists whom I would love to introduce you to. So head to our website; you can sign up for a 15 minute call with me. I'll explain a little bit more. Or if you're ready to go, you can just go ahead and sign up right there on the website, and Alexis is available – along with Angela and Rob and Zoe and our whole team, happy to help you.

Anthony Su: Perfect. Just a few questions so far, so if anyone has any other kind of questions, feel free, of course, to put it in the Q&A. We do have an example essay to go through as well, so you're not going to be bored! We have other things to go through if there are no questions.

Let's start with this: topics not to write about. Are there any things that you would want to say, “You should try to stay away from these particular ones,” or, “These are really challenging to write about; you should be really careful when trying to touch base on them”?

Alexis Jeffries: I can start. Here’s just one off the top of my head: politics. And I say that because those topics can be very polarizing. So, short of you having the opportunity to intern at your local representative's office, or your local representative is a parent or a family member and you can speak to the experiences – that's totally fine. But what I’m talking about here is whether or not you are choosing sides politically, or taking firm stances on things that are very contentious in the world. Like whether or not you believe people should or should not get vaccinated.

Things like that are topics that are widely debated and discussed – and they may not reflect you. It may be a firm footing that you may have, but it's not necessarily telling a story about you and how you look at the world. So things in the political realm, I would stay away from – just because you want to make sure that you're telling an accurate story that’s a reflection of you and your experiences. These aren't speech and debate papers where you're choosing a side; the whole thing is about you.

Katie Young: I think that's right. There's no particular prompt to avoid. No particular topic to avoid. But just think about the impression that you're making on other people – and remember that you don't know exactly who's going to be reading your essay! So you want to make sure that the story you tell is something that anybody could connect with on some level, rather than being in their face about something.

Anthony Su: Yeah. The next thing was, “How are you supposed to connect it to how you're gonna contribute to campus without sounding awkward, or like you're bragging?” 

I think with the main statement, it's a little bit different, right? Since you're not going to directly talk about the school, or the program, or the major. Usually you're just talking about yourself – since this is the essay going to everyone.

But how would you approach this idea of “humble bragging,” I guess, and how to make sure that it doesn't come across as strange?

Katie Young: Yeah. Just as a reminder, this essay is going to go to all the colleges. So it's important not to be too specific! I think where the cheesiness comes in is with the specificity  where you're like, “I will join the a capella group and I will contribute to Dr. Jones's research lab.” It really sounds inauthentic because you don't know what you're going to be doing when you get there! And that's the stuff that's usually in the supplemental essays.

I would say, for this essay, what you're trying to do is give them an underlying trait or an underlying idea of the kind of person that you're going to be. So if you show that you're optimistic, they can get a sense of what you're going to get involved in on campus. Or if you show that you're really compassionate. The values or the traits that you show are going to be the most important here.

In your supplements, when you're writing about that kind of stuff, I think it's important to make the connection to you really clear. If you're going to say that you want to join Dr. Jones's research lab, it can't just be because Dr. Jones's research is really cool. It has to be because of some research that you did, a book that you read, an article that meant something to you, or the presentation that you gave in your history class. It has to be relevant to something that you did before and then the essay kind of shifts its focus to you automatically, and you're not being so cheesy!

But, again, that's for supplements. Don't do that here. Here you should be talking about yourself, not your résumé!

Alexis Jeffries: I’m going to piggyback on this one, and that probably helps to support one of the next questions: “Should this essay set the ground for any of the extracurriculars that the student is involved in?” Per Katie's point, if there are things that you will naturally be involved in, and that's why you want to go to college – not a specific college, but why you want to go to college – you should absolutely feel free to write about that.

Let's say that you want to major in or study secondary education. It would probably make sense for you to write about how you want to volunteer to tutor high school students or college students while you're in school. That's a very natural transition; it's not necessarily speaking to any specific school, but it's speaking to some of the things that you are passionate about and you'd like to get involved in throughout your college experience as a whole.

So I think that your essays don't necessarily have to set up specific extracurriculars so much as they have to reflect a story that you are telling about yourself: who you are, who you want to be, and what you want to do. And if some of the extracurriculars play nicely into that, then, sure, feel free to elevate those and bring those up. But you shouldn't feel pressured to do that!

Anthony Su: Awesome. Tying to a third question: do you need to directly state how you're going to be on a particular campus, or should you be subtly trying to imply, giving these other stories to get the answer there. Is there a go-to way between the two, in your guys' opinions?

Katie Young: Yeah. For this essay, definitely the subtle implication is best.

I think that what you'll find, as you start to pick your colleges and gather all your essay prompts together, is you'll need to brainstorm them all at once to make sure that you're not overlapping ideas and saying too much in one essay over the other one. So if you are going to talk about, let's say, your bio lab internship in the main essay because it illustrates your point the best and that's the moment that's significant to you – great. But then you're not gonna be able to write about that when they ask you why you want to study your major. You can, sure, go ahead and repeat the story, but it's gonna feel really repetitive and really boring!

So the degree to which you should really be specific about your résumé in the main essay is hopefully minimal if you've got a college with a lot of supplemental questions because you're going to need a reserve. You need a backup, like a reserved set of topics that you're going to be able to address. But you need to balance it out yourself. If the main essay gives you the best opportunity – like let's say that the only questions the college asks are like, “What's your favorite movie that you watched this past year?” and, “Who's your hero?” and that doesn't give you any chance at all to talk about what you're interested in doing in the future – then, yeah, you can use your Main Personal Statement to do that. But, remember, if you do that you might need to change it for other colleges!

So what we're trying to do is save you time and get you to focus on something that is not really going to come up in another essay prompt. So you're not repeating yourself, or stepping on your own toes with these essays. I think that answers your question.

Anthony Su: Okay. A question about how you would recommend approaching the first draft? I think this person was specifically asking about the structure – as we were saying it's not a five-paragraph essay. Should they be organizing by paragraphs, or should they just let it all out? What would you recommend there?

Alexis Jeffries: I'm gonna say – you know what I'm gonna say, right? I'm gonna say good writing doesn't come from writing. It comes from editing!

That just means that you don't start an essay thinking about the structure. That's an editing framework. You think about, “Let me make sure that I get the story out of my brain and tell it on the paper.”

Now what you can do is certainly feel empowered to outline. This is a very contentious point – some people love outlines, some people hate outlines. They're just like, “I don't want to be put in this box of having to write these things and these points.” Whatever works best for you.

But I do recommend jotting down some bullet points as you're brainstorming and then writing your essay, perhaps, in that format or framework to start. Like, I know that I walk to school in the morning, and then after that I grab breakfast at the cafeteria. Obviously, your essay will not be that boring! But the reality is you want to get your points down on paper and there isn't a particular structure that you should feel compelled to follow!

Once you get to the point where you are ready to frame up and refine your story – and to get it under the 650 word count limit – there will be some traditional structural paragraph frameworks that we're working within. But you don't have to worry about whether or not your first sentence pops, or if it's just one word or three words, if you're writing haikus. 

You just need to focus on making sure that you are telling the story that you want to tell.I don't necessarily know that we said this – and that you're answering the prompt! Because a lot of folks start to write these great grandiose essays and they're like, “Yes, this is going to knock it out the park!” And they found they didn't actually answer the question. So make sure that you are reading what you write, and that it’s actually sufficient for answering that particular prompt.

Anthony Su: Could you imagine trying to write your first draft and fit it into haiku form?

Alexis Jeffries: That’d be an impressive feat, I would say.

Anthony Su: I’m sure it’s hard!

Katie Young: I’m sure it’s hard.

While you were talking, I remembered we had this slide and we cut it. So I thought it would be a good chance to put it up. Again, we don't want you to focus on structure yet. But if you need a kickstart as you're outlining, this is very general.

Not every essay looks like this, but we're talking to a big audience. Obviously this would be personalized advice per your essay. But, first draft, just write your story. As you get closer to the end, let's try a hook. Let's provide some. You don't have to have a hook; a hook is not required. It's just an idea.

Provide important background in context that leads to your important moment. Describe your moment. Describe what you realize as a result of your moment. Reflect on your moment. Make it matter; make your moment important, and show them why you're telling them this story. And then try to connect back to the hook so that the hook has a purpose. So it’s not just like the teapot, and then you just never say “teapot” again!

Make sure that your essay feels cohesive. The other option, if you don't use a hook, is to sort of look into the future. Like, “I'll keep this in mind as I join Doctors Without Borders in Uganda.” Whatever it is.

This is very general. This is not for every essay – and you don't need to fit into this essay. I just wanted to put this up here because I know someone has a question about this.

Anthony Su: Awesome. Yeah, we came prepared. There are a lot of things to look at.

Let's see. Here’s a question about, “Should you write an essay about a passion if it's not at all related to your major?” Again, thinking about, yeah, this personal statement is not going to be writing about your major, right? It is not writing about which school you want to go to. This essay goes to all the schools, right? So you can write about things that you don't necessarily want to major in, or something you like to do but don't want to major in?

Alexis Jeffries: I can give you an example, actually. I mentioned that I was a professional writer, and I did study journalism in college, right? So I was writing all the time.

Rather than spend all of my time in my essays writing about how I wanted to work on the student newspaper, or be on the local television station, the reality is I wrote my essay about dance – and the things that dancing growing up, and taking dance classes, actually taught me. It's a personal passion of mine.

But there are times when I was able to write about injuries that I had to overcome and persevere from. And that showed a lot more, I think, about my personality – and my resilience and my desires and who I am at my core – than just saying what I wanted to do and what I wanted to study.

So feel free to talk about the things that you care about that are core to you. Because what you want to study may not be that thing, and that's okay. We're just looking for tidbits into the depths of your soul and those are going to be the things that are going to to really resonate with the admissions committee!

Anthony Su: I'm gonna put another poll – just about a free consultation, if you'd like to, continuing this conversation about essays or any other questions you have about admissions.

There are some other questions regarding, I think in general, “How does an admissions officer read the essay?” Or how impactful is the actual essay for the application process?

Katie Young: Unfortunately I have to give you a really general answer, as it's different at every school. But they will read it. A lot of colleges do something called “holistic review” – or, I would say, every college does something called “holistic review” – where they're going to look at all the components of your application together as a whole.

Some colleges will weigh each of those factors differently in their decisions. So at some colleges the essay matters a great deal – and that's usually at a top college where everyone is already kind of self-selecting themselves to be there. So they're all already pretty similar on a lot of the other facets. They're super accomplished, and they have great GPAs. They were the best in their school, #1, the first in their family, whatever. What the essay does is sort of separate those people for fit.

Again, they're looking for fit. For smaller schools, and more elite, selective schools, the essay is going to matter a lot. At a huge public school – I'll just use Purdue as an example. Each of their essays is 100 words. You know why? They don't have time. This is your opportunity to give us some context, like “Why do you want to study your major?” and “Why do you want to go here?” 100 words for each of those; good luck, goodbye. They're going to read that real fast, and it's not going to make or break your application. It's just to help them ground what they're reading and understand why you've applied. So the creativity level there should be very low.

The creativity at Stanford – where they say, “Write a letter to your future roommate and tell them something you want them to know about you” – the creativity level should be really high.

We can help you. Our essay specialist program distinguish between which colleges care more and what colleges are looking for on a more individual basis.

Anthony Su: Great pitch!

Katie Young: Readers will review it. They'll read your essay. Usually it's multiple people reading your essay and sort of giving a rating on your whole application. And then debating together in committees.

You can read about it. There's an essay or a book called “A for Admission” that really delves into the admissions office culture, and what goes on behind the scenes. So if you really want to know that stuff…

Our job is on the other side of the desk. We're not in that room. So it would be best to read a book, or read perspectives from admissions officers.

Anthony Su: We're also doing webinars with admissions readers – all of those are on our website. You can take a look there, where they talk a little bit about how they go through committees and look at each application and things like that.

Just a few minutes left, but one more question: “Should you try to link your separate passion to an unconnected major for that particular essay?” Again, in this part of the Main Personal Statement, you don't have to talk about major. But, Alexis, how would you put those together?

Alexis Jeffries: I'll say it pretty plainly: if they link, you won't have to force it. If it doesn't necessarily make sense, what's the saying? “Don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole.” Any sense of trying to force a story out of yourself in order to make it fit into a box is going to feel that way. And that's not necessarily the message that you're trying to send to the admissions committee – that you are the type of person who's trying to force something to happen that just isn't going to happen! You want some level of discernment.

So I would just say, look, if you have a particular passion for something, and maybe it doesn't relate directly to what you want to study… like dance. If you’re not like, “I'm going to major in or minor in dance,” that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't bring it up. In my case, I didn't want to do this, but if I wanted to be a dance journalist, or an arts reviewer for the New York Times to write about those things, that's absolutely a way that I could naturally link those two passions together.

But if they don't fit pretty, that's totally okay. Just make sure that you're talking about yourself, and telling the stories that you really want to tell.

Anthony Su: Awesome. Yeah, don't force it if it doesn't work. Again, there are seven different prompts to look at. You don't have to think about necessarily fitting that together.

Just two final questions. We'll hit these and then we'll be on our way! A question about the Coalition App: another option besides the Common App. Just someone asking, “I've only got one college on Coalition. How does that differ from the Common App?

Katie Young: That always happens; it sucks! There's always one school you gotta do on the other platform.

So they do have a central essay as well. They have different prompts compared to the Common App; however, they do also have that “topic of your choice” option over there. So if the majority of your schools are on the Common App, what I would do is just write the Common App essay, and then move it over onto Coalition as the “topic of your choice.”

The only exception to that is if you're doing UT Austin. UT Austin has a supplement that says, “Tell us a story that's really meaningful to you.” It's also 500 to 700 words. So you have to juggle these two! It's stupid.

Anyway, we'll give you this advice! I think, for the most part, you can easily translate your Common App essay over to fit the Coalition prompt. So don't reinvent the wheel!

Anthony Su: And then just a quick question, just asking about letters of rec as well – of how this fits into the evaluation process. Are all schools going to ask for this? How should they prepare for this?

Katie Young: Sure. Letters of rec are not required by all schools. At the schools that they are required by, usually you'll have one teacher and your counselor. Sometimes two teachers and your counselor. On occasion you can include another recommender – such as maybe an arts teacher or a coach or your pastor. Somebody who knows you in a different setting.

The letters will be attached to your application form. The only ones that they will definitely read and take into account are the counselor and teacher. The other ones are optional; so they may not read those.

But they say a lot, because they talk about how you behave in a school environment, and how you compare to all of the other students at your school. So it does give them some context to understand how you're going to function on campus.

And you won't know what they're saying. You're not allowed to read those letters. But if you really are not sure what your teacher is going to say, you can sit down with them and do an interview, or you can send them your résumé; offer to provide them with information if they don't really know you. I know that's the case with a lot of school counselors.

So your school will give you this info in the fall. They'll tell you how to request your letter. So just hang in there till August!

Anthony Su: Cool. And I think we got all the questions in Q&A! So definitely appreciate it; Katie and Alexis. Thanks for giving us your thoughts and helping us through this process of thinking about the Common App essay.

We'll be talking about UCs, I believe, next month, or some time soon. And, of course, we always have some more webinars coming up. So definitely, please, take a look at our website. You can see what's coming up next.

Any last thoughts, Katie, Alexis?

Katie Young: Good luck everybody. Please do as much work as you can in the summer – you won't regret it!

Alexis Jeffries: Thank you for joining. If you have any questions, we're here. If you work with us, it'd be great!

Anthony Su: All right. Thanks so much. Everyone have a good evening.

Everyone: Bye!