How to Write a College Essay: A Brown Graduate’s 7 Easy Steps

Knowing how to write a college essay adds value to your application. However, writing college essays and constructing captivating narratives isn’t always simple. Thankfully, our admissions experts are here to help with insightful college essay tips!

How to Write a College Essay: A Brown Graduate’s 7 Easy Steps

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Welcome, everyone. My name is Halley Caldwell, and I work at quad education. And I want to welcome you all to our webinar on how to approach college essays. Quad Education is a company that consults with students and families who are going through the college application process, the goal of getting students into their dream schools. And we help with everything from pre application candidacy development to choosing schools, writing essays, filling out applications, really until you're accepted and in the school that you want to go to. We have two great panelists here with us today who are admissions consultants on our team, and they're fantastic. So we're lucky to have them. I'll take a second just to go through our agenda for today. So I'll introduce our panelists. We'll talk about common college essay prompts that you might see. We'll talk about the purpose of these essays, and then go through a step by step framework on how to approach them. And then we'll go through some extra tips and tricks, and then open up some time for question and answer. So as you have questions through this, feel free to pop them in the Q&A box, and we'll get to them at the end.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

And yeah, we're excited to have you all. So we have Daryl Tiggle and Kayla Kirk here today. Daryl, can you introduce yourself?

Daryl Tiggle

Sure. Hi, my name is Daryl Tiggle, and I've been a senior admissions consultant with quash for a couple of years and have really enjoyed the work that I do. For a long time, I worked on the other side of college admissions. I did college admissions at several institutions, but most recently, Tufts University, before I jumped over to the college counseling side of the desk. I really enjoyed working with students and families. And for a long time, ran the College Counseling Office at French School of Baltimore, where we've got a great group of students who've helped teach me how to do college counseling. So looking forward to talk with you all today.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Thanks for being here, Daryl. Kayla, can you introduce yourself?

Kayla Kirk

Hi, everybody. So happy to be here today. My name is Kayla Kirk. I'm coming to you from my experiences. I did my undergraduate at Brown University, and while I was there completing my studies, I began working with the admissions department. I became very fascinated with the work that they do, and participated in several mock application cycles, getting to look at what separates students who have similar academic backgrounds, what makes one student stand out over the other. And so I worked in admissions there for a little bit. And since then, I've really enjoyed spending time with students on their essays, in particular, making sure that the student's personality really pops on that application page. So happy to be here today.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Thanks so much, Kayla. We're excited to have you. All right, we'll dive right in and talk about common essay prompts and examples that you're likely to see. Daryl, you want to start us off?

Daryl Tiggle

Sure. So if we're thinking about the why our school, you'll become familiar as you begin the college application process. There's two sets of essays. The one you'll first focused on, we'll do some coverage of that as well, is the common application personal statement where the lion share of schools that you'll likely consider for admissions have the common app personal statement. And I tell students that statement in so much as schools are going to ask, why our school, which we'll talk about now, you're going to write why you in your common application personal statement. And then the colleges really want to know why is their school compelling to you? And lots of schools have great research and beautiful campuses and students study abroad. But they want to know things that go deeper than the surface level of knowing about the college, especially so that when you're writing about the college, you couldn't subplant another school's name in that essay and then have the essay still ring true. You want the essay to really be tailored towards the school that you're writing about. So that's something that we're really happy to address as we work with US students to help you both identify and articulate the things that schools are going to want to hear in the why Northwestern, for instance, or why Brown essay so that you're addressing those issues and writing unique to those institution essays.

Daryl Tiggle

Kayla, do you agree?

Kayla Kirk

Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Yeah.

Kayla Kirk

And along those lines, you're going to get a similar question type. Pretty often we come across this question, why did you choose this major? And this can be somewhat similar to the why our school prompts, but the goal here is to communicate what you've done so far to cultivate your interests, to prepare your sofa your studies in this particular field. The top colleges and their admissions offices, they're going to want to see what you've done to pursue your passion so far, and maybe what you're going to do in the future with the foundation you build at this university. They want to get the sense that you, as an applicant, are a curious individual who is already taking the initiative to challenge yourself, to explore something that you might take on in a professional level in the future. So this is another essay to be specific on in giving your background and maybe looking ahead as well at what you'll do within that major.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Great. Daryl, do you have anything to add there?

Daryl Tiggle

Briefly, I often, and Brown, Kayla knows, the open curriculum. I often tell our students, look, that question about the open curriculum, does it They don't want to know that you're undecided and you can come there and study anything you want. They want to know that you enjoy the freedom of choosing and being encouraged to choose from the curriculum, right? So we'll also try to help you address the tone and the angle in which you might address those questions.

Kayla Kirk

Absolutely.

Daryl Tiggle

On that, extra curricular activity exploration. Please briefly elaborate on one of your extra curricular activities or work experiences. This one apparently is from the Harvard supplemental essay questions. Most every college is going to ask a variety of this question. And I'll pick on a place like Harvard. Most of the students, I'd imagine 80 %, 90 % of the students who are applying to Harvard may likely academically be well qualified. Be in the ballpark in terms of academic prowess. But often at Harvard and all other colleges, they want to find out how you've distinguished yourself, made an impact in your community, and how will you affect their community. So what you've done thus far and being able to speak to that will give them good evidence of the type of person you are as a whole human being, but also the type of person you're likely to be when you come to their institution.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Fantastic. Kayla, do you have anything else to add there?

Kayla Kirk

I think it's good to think being well rounded, of course. We hear a lot about being well rounded in your activity exploration, and that's important. But also there's benefit to considering showing depth in a particular extra curricular activity. And so when it comes to elaborating on these in your essays, it can be an opportunity to show a side of you that you haven't shown as much in your activities list, or to really double down and say, This is what I'm passionate about. So whichever route you go, specificity and really giving your background super important. The next common essay prompt that we will be talking about are the prompts that are more community focused and more diversity focused, perhaps. What I mean by that, we can perhaps see in these essay prompts, the first one from Columbia, a hallmark of the Columbia experience is being able to learn and thrive in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives. Tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint, or lived experience that is important to you, and describe how it has shaped the way you would learn from and contribute to Columbia's diverse and collaborative community.

Kayla Kirk

I think it's really important to point out that this is a two part question. It's primarily, tell us about you. What's your background? Where do you come from? What's your what elements of your family experience or cultural experience do you feel are relevant to share? Whether they have shaped your educational pathway to this point or just shape your interests academically or otherwise, it's worth sharing that information in this type of prompt. The second part of this question, though, that we don't want to exclude when we answer this is how are you going to learn from and contribute to Columbia's collaborative community or whatever school's community? In other words, they want to know that you're willing to go beyond your own experiences up to this point. They want to know that you're going to be a productive and positive contribution to their student body, that you'll be willing to engage with people whose experiences are different from your own. So don't forget, don't neglect either part of this. It is about your own experience. It's also about how you're going to engage with other perspectives in the future. We also see this MIT prompt here, describe the world you come from, how has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Kayla Kirk

Again, sharing stories that are unique to you, focusing on your lived experiences and then also looking beyond to the greater community, maybe it's like, growing up with my family, our cuisine was really important to us. We make all sorts of cultural dishes together. And even something as small as that, if that's important to you and that's a story that tells us more about your experience, that's something you can turn outwards as well and say, Hey, when I get to Columbia's campus, I can't wait to share some of the food that makes me feel like home. And I look forward to connecting with people who can teach me about where they come from a little bit. So that's what I would start by saying. Anything to add, Darrell?

Daryl Tiggle

I would just play back what you said. Excellent. Nice. All right. The intellectual curiosity prompt. It's cool to love learning. What excites your curiosity? Tufts University. And you don't necessarily have to pick something that's related to your intended major, although it's possible to do so. Intell curiosity, that goes beyond what do you want to study? What do you want to major in? It really speaks to how do you want to grow as a scholar, as a student. And you might want to go to medical school, and you absolutely know that you want to go to medical school, but you're super interested in literature. You're super interested in the fine arts. You're a dancer, but you're a STEM oriented dancer. Intell curiosity talks about what you want to do with your mind and your intellect and what your passions are. And it can be tied to your major, but it could and maybe should be, since you'll talk about your major in other places, talk about what excites you and what you super want to learn. I know some of my friends were doctors who didn't love chemistry. There are things about it. They heard about their major, about premed, they didn't love.

Daryl Tiggle

But since they were theater majors, they were able to feed their intellectual curiosity. And colleges want to know that. They want to know what turns your mind on. And they totally know how good they are at the academic things that they provide. So they want to know how you want to make use of what they're providing as academic toys when you get to campus.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Absolutely.

Kayla Kirk

I also think extra curriculars could come into play here. Let's say if we're responding to this tough prompt, what excites your intellectual curiosity? You can also look ahead and make it specific to T UPS. Maybe it's, I love volcanoes and I am so passionate about visiting volcanic sites. I've had a student like this, and maybe there's a geology club on campus and you can look ahead to that and say, if you want to admit it to TUPS, I would love to participate in this group. So don't be afraid to look ahead as well. Great.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Actually, I think I'm realizing that we skipped the what major slides. I'm going to.

Daryl Tiggle

Pop.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Back to that one really quick. All right, let's see it. There we go.

Daryl Tiggle

All right. Should we take a little bite out of this one? Kayla, give it a shot and then I'll follow up. Absolutely.

Kayla Kirk

Yeah. Why did you choose this major? Again, this is all about what work have you done up to this point to prepare yourself, maybe for a particular major? It could be a student who wants to study engineering. They could use this opportunity, this particular essay, to talk about their experience with their robotics club that they've been so passionate about. And through those background experiences, we'll start to get the sense as an admissions officer that you're passionate, that you're an independent student who's done work up to this point to lay the foundation for whatever your course of study will be.

Daryl Tiggle

And often I think students sometimes have some agenda because they may not yet have a major. They're undecided. They may not know how to attack this question. And that's something that we can counsel them through. But know that in your application, and I think I've discovered recently, I forget which school I was, I think I was visiting University of Southern California, where they will no longer, and I don't know if I like this, they will no longer allow you to put undecided as a first or second choice major. And I was blown away. I was shocked. But why you chose this major helps tell a story about you, helps fulfill the narrative because a lot of what we're going to counsel you through is how to make your application shine in a holistic and super competitive admissions landscape. And you being able to tell the colleges why you want to study something, what turns you on intellectually, tell us about your background and your interests, it gives a narrative that helps them understand you. And if you don't yet have a major, there is a way to talk about your interest in a variety of different disciplines.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Awesome. Yeah. I think this one I know would have terrified me when I was in high school. I don't think I knew what I wanted to study yet. So I think knowing that there's ways around that as well is very helpful.

Daryl Tiggle

We all can do this one. We can all do this one.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

All right, we'll bounce back to where we were.

Kayla Kirk

Yes, I believe we left off. We were about to talk about the quirky essay. So these are the essays where you can have a little bit more fun with it, as you can see from the way that they're phrased. U Chicago, University of Chicago is pretty well known for having these types of prompts. You can see we might have, What advice would a wisdom tooth have? They're having fun with it. Or a question about, If you were on an expedition to Mars and you met a group of Martians, what one image or memory or song might you present to them to share and show that humanity is worth their time? Obviously, these are more creative prompts, and you should feel free to be creative in your responses to them. Sometimes these can look like fill in the blank prompts. Maybe like, if I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be... You'd be amazed, but sometimes they're like that. Or sometimes they're just more short answer one sentence responses. Don't let that scare you. Don't get in your head about having to cram a bunch of worthwhile info in there.

Kayla Kirk

They've kept the word limit small for a reason, and you can just answer these in a slightly more conversational way sometimes. Keep it formal, keep your writing professional, but feel free to be creative in these responses. This is a chance to showcase your writing skills, how you think, how you uniquely approach these types of thought experiments. And so I would encourage you on these essays more than any others to play with format. For example, if you have an idea to write something like a script, more of a script format, like a screenplay or a play for one of these prompts. Even, let's say it's a prompt about having a conversation, feel free to do that. There's no rule that you cannot do that, especially for these open ended quirky prompts. If you see an opportunity to share your sense of humor in a way that is appropriate to the prompt, do that. They want to get a sense of your unique voice and your writing. So these quirky essays are the perfect place to do that.

Daryl Tiggle

Amen. I agree completely. And one of the things that I was, I don't know if I was told this or I made it up as I was counseling my students. I said, look, when you see these essays, if they don't turn you on in some way, that school may not be a good match for you. They're trying to find someone who's not necessarily quirky but understands quirk, can write eloquently about something outside the narrow confines of street academia. So know that may speak or definitely speaks to the way in which they evaluate students and what they want to know. And if you're like, Wow, I'm horrified. Wisdom teeth, are you kidding me? Then Chicago's essays may not be for you. But I've read, I was working on this, I think we're done with it, the most brilliant wisdom to the essay for one of my children this fall. That's just amazing.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Great. All right. So let's move on to talk about the purpose of these essays. We've walked through a lot of really standard and unique essay formats. Why are schools asking these?

Daryl Tiggle

You want to take one? We can take these one at a time?

Kayla Kirk

Absolutely.

Daryl Tiggle

All right. I say it allows the admissions committee to learn more about you. And one of the things I'd like to use as an example, and I hope this movie is still available and something you can Netflix or something. But there's a movie years ago that Tina Faye did. It was called Admission, and they were mocking, I think, admissions at Princeton. And most of it was satire. But there was a time at which they'd show the committee table where they sat around the committee table. And if someone got in, confetti would fall down. They'd get the kid head. They'd pull a ledge and the child would fall through the ground. That doesn't happen. But there is something called committee where colleges talk about you. And that should not be horrifying. And the thing I often say to my students is I go, look, when they're doing the admissions committee talk, and they go, listen quickly. When they talk about academics, they'll say, Daryl Tegel, 4.87, 37 ACT. Then they're moving on to something else. The conversation about academics is very short. The conversation, if you were so lucky to be at the committee table, that's where they're going to talk about you, and they're going to go back to your essay.

Daryl Tiggle

They are not going back to how many APIs you took. That got you to the table.

Kayla Kirk

That is so well said. I think you're absolutely right. And it really leads into this second point about the purpose of these essays. When you write your essay, this is an opportunity to differentiate yourself further from the other students who might be being discussed at that very committee. When you're applying to these selective schools, these top schools, most applicants are going to have the scores. They're going to have an impressive GPA. They are going to have taken a bunch of AP classes, and that's great. But the essay is an opportunity to show a personal side of yourself that makes you a little more human, makes you more than just the grave on your report card. So this is why these colleges want the essays. They want to understand who you are as a human, not just an academic. Perfect.

Daryl Tiggle

And fit. That's why you have a quad counselor because that's what we do. Name, we get it. And if I'm going to have a good fun with this, oftentimes, families will say to me, I or my child would like to go. I want to go Ivy League. I go, perfect. But I think what you mean is good school because the Ivy League schools are super different from each other. And I mean, super different. Some are in the city, some are literally in the woods. Some have super strict core curriculum. Some say come and take it if you like. So I believe I'm saying means good. And if I'm right when I say good, there's only eight. So there's about 80, maybe 800 good ones. So we want to find out what place is a good fit for you. That's exactly what the colleges are doing. Academically, they don't even have to think about whether or not they're going to get academic quality. It's baked into the process. The fit thing, they can only ascertain from non numerical stuff. And your essay is one of the best things that give them that info. All right.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Well said. All right. What.

Daryl Tiggle

Else we got?

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

So we're going to go and talk through a seven step framework for writing college essays. And this is going to approach the majority of them. So this is just an overview of what we'll talk about, but we'll talk about research, understanding your motives, how to brainstorm, impactful introductions, the body of your essay, how to wrap it up, and then go into editing a little bit. So you never have too much editing.

Kayla Kirk

I am particularly excited to talk about this slide, do your research. The reason I'm excited to talk about it is I've been working with a lot of students on their essays recently, and this is the step that I find many students want to skimp on, which is interesting. Don't be afraid to show you've done the research. In fact, they need to know you've done the research. It's like what Darrell was saying before, we don't want to be able to say, I want to go to Cornell and have that essay be interchangeable, something that you also use for Dartmouth and Columbia. They want to know that you specifically research what their school has to offer. And these things can include classes that you're interested in taking. Look up their course catalog within a department that you may be interested in. Drop the name of that class. Drop the name of a professor who you saw on the website. Even if you didn't know them beforehand, if you really want to go to this school, take that time. Look at some of the professors who are working in a field that you're interested in, and you might find projects that they've worked on or articles they've published or research that they're working on.

Kayla Kirk

Get those specific details and mention those tied in to what your interests are. This can include specialized programs or degrees. If there's a dual degree program that allows you to get an art degree and Egyptology degree. And that's particularly interesting to you, mention it because not every school has it. So this is a good opportunity to do that research online. And also, maybe remember, take notes if you have the chance to tour some of these schools, take notes in the info session, ask questions.

Daryl Tiggle

Awesome.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Daryl, do you have anything to add before we move on to the next step?

Daryl Tiggle

I don't want to give away all the goods in the webinar, but the one thing I would say is the universal thing I tell my students to do, and every college has this, you go to the About page on every college. It's in the top right or left hand corner on every college's website. And you find, and every college has this and they love it, the mission statements. Don't restate the mission statement to them, but go and see what the mission statement says it's trying to do. Provide more access to more students. Elevate Women in the Sciences. Make an impact in the community outside of our campus. Find out what their mission statement is because A, they love it. They paid a bunch of money just for that statement. And that is where they're going to put all of their energy and effort in the time that's going to be forthcoming as when you're a student.

Kayla Kirk

That is a good tip. That's on the house.

Daryl Tiggle

That one's on the house.

Kayla Kirk

That's a really good one. That's a.

Daryl Tiggle

Good one. Start muting me. Okay.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

All right. Well, maybe you won't give too much away here then.

Daryl Tiggle

Understand your whys. Okay. Why did you pursue this major? Why did you pick this school? What was the rationale behind your choices and your accomplishment so far? Kayla, which one do you want?

Kayla Kirk

I'll take, why did you pursue this major? Look, this is an opportunity to look inwards, really be introspective. And I don't want to say self critical, but self aware. So this is not a lot of the times I get to these essays with students and they do get stunned, like, oh, well, I don't know, just chemical engineering seems good. I heard that chemical engineering is a good field to go into. We want to have specifics here and we want to show passion. So even if you didn't ask yourself this question ever before now, this is the time to ask, why do I want to do chemical engineering? What am I hoping to do with this once I get this foundational knowledge? What is my motivating factor in here? Maybe for you it's purely financial. And for some people that is a huge motivator in why they pursue certain studies. But try to go deeper than that and try to show an element of your character in these prompts.

Daryl Tiggle

All right. I believe, and Holly, tell me if I'm correct, incorrect. Why did you pick this school? That means if you're applying to a place like T upsey, the School of Arts and Sciences as opposed to the School of Engineering? That type of question?

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

I think this is more of a.

Kayla Kirk

Why.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Knowing your values and who you are and why, the motivations behind your choices of applying to this school, applying to this major, and as something that you can weave through your essays.

Daryl Tiggle

Got you. Again, I think this is perfect. This, again, is one of those situations where because it's a top school, especially the super selective schools, they already know that. They know they're a top school. They do things, but they want to know what is it about their academic approach, their ethos, what place it's like. And this is just glib, but it's the stuff that for the quick. They used to say University of Chicago is the place that fun goes to die. Not really. It's a different fun. So know about their academic environment, their lived ethos, and what students do, what lives they live, what access they have to faculty, what impact they're making on campus and in their community. And schools, and I've got a very good friend who runs the show at Dartmouth, and the students there love it. And I mean, absolutely, they couldn't be more happy. I do not think they would like NYU or Columbia or Georgetown. And there's reasons they were able to describe why they wanted a school that was up in the freezing woods. And they were able to describe that in their essay. And to get into Dartmouth, they had to because it's super hard to get in.

Kayla Kirk

Well said.

Daryl Tiggle

The last one.

Kayla Kirk

Yeah. What was the rationale behind all your choices and accomplishments so far? I have a great example for this big question. I have a student who I'm working with who's applying to engineering schools, and he was able to take us back to a story from his childhood about his grandma had a hip surgery and had a really difficult recovery. She lost her mobility, she used to enjoy playing tennis, and she had a bit of a difficult recovery. And this student was able to point to this memory and childhood experience as a bit of a motivator in his academic interest. So he wants to work on creating engineering exoskeleton of sorts that might assist mobility. In other words, he's able to connect his future aspirations to a personal empathy building anecdote from his life. And it didn't feel forced. It felt personal to him. It wasn't a sad story focused just on his grandma. It was just saying, this is real to me. This is my personal connection to this work and maybe gives you some insight into why I want to keep doing this work.

Daryl Tiggle

Awesome. Excellent.

Kayla Kirk

Okay. So moving right along to brainstorming. This is a huge part of the process. We always want to have an outline of sorts and have notes for going off of, regardless of our prompt. This is a chance to think about experiences that have been impactful to you and might show not tell who you are in an effective way. So the best way to add differentiation when it comes to and show off your writing skills as well is to pull meaningful experiences and stories and reflect on them. Don't be afraid to share how you're feeling.

Daryl Tiggle

I agree. And this is at the front end, most of the work, right? Doing the brainstorming is how you come up with the ideas. And that's something else that we do. And we're just fortunate to have gone through a lot of storms. So if you can give us an idea of what you would like to express. That's a lot of the work that we do in building your essay and the narrative that you're going to tell. The brainstorming is essential. And for us, and Kayla, tell me if I'm incorrect. It's easy.

Daryl Tiggle

If you tell us what you're thinking about, the brainstorming ideas, you'll ask us to stop.

Kayla Kirk

Agreed.

Daryl Tiggle

Okay.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

There's just a little bit more on brainstorming here.

Daryl Tiggle

All right. How to pick the most impactful topics, traits, experiences. If you have a choice between prompts, which do you have the most or most compelling topics for? If you don't have much content for a prompt, consider another one. I think that just reads as it is. Follow that advice. You want to write one that's within what they used to call, I think, in baseball, your wheelhouse, one that calls your name.

Kayla Kirk

And as you're picking experiences to share, you might think back to which traits did you already showcase in your recommendation letters, in your personal statement? Are there traits about yourself that you want to show? For example, maybe you've not yet shown that you... Maybe you want to say, I'm really independent, I'm a self starter, but I haven't shown that yet. This is a great opportunity to do that. And when you're picking an example to show, but not tell explicitly that you are independent, don't worry too much about whether it's super impressive or you won an award for it, or you geared a disease, or you started a company. It doesn't have to be impressive on paper necessarily. These are more about how you reflect on an experience. So if I'm trying to show that I'm independent, I don't necessarily have to have to explicitly say, I started this company in 2015 and I got an award for being the most independent young high schooler. That's great if you have that. It's probably on your resume as well if you have that. Maybe this would be better off to take a small anecdote and reflect on that.

Kayla Kirk

So maybe it's like, there was a bug in my room and nobody was willing to kill it for me. So I biked all the way to the store and I picked up the pestic and I biked all the way back home and I was scared but I pushed through. That's a pretty mundane story. But if you are a strong writer and you focus on what you want to show about yourself, you can use any story to reflect who you are.

Daryl Tiggle

Perfect. All right. Does the topic, anecdote you selected, clearly answer the prompt? Super important. And this is one of the... And we get it. Sometimes you might get tripped up and say, All right, this essay that I wrote for someone else sounds like the topic they're asking about for the other school. So you might engineer it a little bit for that one. We're going to make sure that you're focusing on what they're asking about. I didn't want to dial back to this, but the comment at prompt, and I might make some enemies here. I do not like option seven, where you choose your topic because typically when I start reading that essay, I know it's one of those because it can ramble. But when students anchor their essay in a topic, oftentimes for the common app personal statement, I think it reads better. For the college specific essays, it's required. You've got to tell them what they're asking. That's right.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

All right, we'll keep moving through. We have about 20 minutes left and we want to leave some time for Q&A, so we'll keep trucking along here.

Kayla Kirk

Very nice. Well, now, one of the last things to think about as we're wrapping or winding down is how to make sure your introduction is impactful. Keep in mind, you don't want to have a starting sentence that's just there for the shock factor. We know that it's important to hook people in the first sentence, but don't do anything just to do it. It can be very powerful and effective to plop the reader in mid story, set the scene, or drop the reader right into the action. That can be a great way to get them hooked. Another thing to keep in mind is use vivid description and imagery. This is a chance to get You don't want it to read like poetry or too flowery in your language in the end, but you do want to show off your writing skills. And if this starts to read a little bit more like a short story at times, that's okay. That's a good way to get them invested in your essay and also a way to help you stand out.

Daryl Tiggle

Right on. Don't lose sight of your goal in the essay's body. This is where you include the necessary ideas that propel your narrative. Like Kayla said, when you jump into your story and you might have something that's impactful to grab the reader's attention, don't leave them stranded. And that vivid imagery and the like is really important. I often give an example about, and this is an essay I read a long, long, long time ago, but I named it, I entitled it Dirty Boots and sweaty socks. Because a student was talking about his relationship with a parent who was a manual laborer. So he talked about these things in very vivid ways, and he was reflecting. He was thinking about the experience he had with his dad from the time he started school until the time he started writing his college essay. So he wasn't curing cancer or have anything particularly exciting happening in his life. But he was able to reflect on it in a way that he could really write vividly about what he was talking about. And he never lost sight of the prompt. He was talking about the value of education and hard work.

Daryl Tiggle

And that's when he understood that he made the transition from childhood to adulthood. He understood that he would like to work with his mind as hard as his father worked with their body. Vivid never left the prompt and wrote a fire essay.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Absolutely.

Kayla Kirk

And of course, we need to wrap up with a strong conclusion. Start strong, end strong. This can be a great opportunity to refer back to your introduction if it makes sense to do that. For example, I had a student who was writing about his relationship with his brother. Early on in the essay, he talks about how they talk about seemingly mundane things. They argue about whether Lay's potato chips are better than Hein's potato chips. Then we get the whole rest of this beautiful essay. Then the very last sentence ends up being something like, and we're still trying to figure out or no word yet on the potato chip thing. They come back to it like, and to this day, we're debating which potato chips are better. So you can reference something early on, even if it's a small, seemingly silly thing. It can be really impactful if it's tied into something personal. And last thing to keep in mind here is just it could be good to talk about your goals for the future in your conclusion, what you hope to accomplish.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Great. All right, it's time to step 7, our last step here, which is a three, four part step at least, edit, edit, edit, and edit.

Daryl Tiggle

And this is most of our... Absolutely the author's work, the student's work. But this is a lot of the work that we're doing also as your counselor, both helping you as you're writing this, but also when we go back and read it in our own thoughtful time, being able to make sure that the tone and the grammar and the flow are things that are going to read well, capture the reader, and make sure that they leave knowing something about you. The editing. Again, applying to college, you're doing it already. If you're in high school, applying to college is writing essays. Few visits, few interviews, but writing essays.

Kayla Kirk

All right.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

We'll hit some few tips for success while writing these essays, and then we'll jump into a Q&A. So if you have any questions, feel free to pop them in the Q&A box, and we'll get thinking on those as we finish up this last slide here.

Kayla Kirk

Yeah. And I'll highlight the things that we haven't already covered. For example, even if the supplemental essays are optional, it is in your best interest to write them. Again, we talked so much about how the essays differentiate you from the other students based on grades and GPA. Write those supplemental essays. Why not? Ensure as well that you're answering the entire prompt. Leave no question unanswered if it's posed in there. Stay true to your voice. You don't have to make this overly formal or stiff or stuffy if that's not how you talk. Keep it professional. Keep your tone professional and academic, but be yourself. Start early. That's so important. You don't want to find yourself scrambling at the last second. And oftentimes with these essays, you're going to go through several drafts. You want that time in between edits to take a breather, and then that way you come back to your essay with slightly fresher eyes next time. Final thing in here is just focus on you. Even if this essay mentions somebody else, somebody who had a strong impact on you, remember, this is primarily an essay about you.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Daryl, any other thoughts here?

Daryl Tiggle

Let's see if we can handle their questions. Let's see if we can handle their questions.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

All right. So while we wait for some questions to pop in, do you have any other tips, Daryl and Kayla, that we didn't cover here that you think is essential now?

Daryl Tiggle

I think the starting early is super important because if you aspire to the type of schools that we're going to likely be counseling you towards, you've already done the academic work. You've already got the academic prowess to write effectively about the things you got As in on your history and English and other papers. And hopefully, you had to do some research and some examination to get the right words to say in those essays you've been writing forever. This research for your essays, you've already done. You've already done it. The ones that are about you, it's a lot about the brainstorming and thinking about yourself and like Kayla said, focusing on you. But that research you've already done. It's work you're used to doing. And then you're going to do a little research about colleges and tell them why they resonate.

Kayla Kirk

Looks like we had somebody maybe raising their hand in the chat. Oh, a couple of people.

Daryl Tiggle

All right. Oh, you're in the chat. I didn't go ahead.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

All right. So we have a question here. How early should one start writing their essays?

Kayla Kirk

I would say I work with a lot of students who are in their final year of high school, so senior year. I think it's a good idea to get started maybe with the first draft of your essay, if you can, the summer before senior year. You're going to be in great shape if you have a first draft already in that summer. Then we can make sure to not only polish off your common app essay, but making sure that you have time for all those school specific essays that will come up. Some of them are longer than others. So you don't want to be surprised by those before the night before November first when that big deadline is coming up. So if you can start summer before senior year.

Daryl Tiggle

I agree. And I like that summer before senior year because then you have the fall to write the college specific essays because they're going to start coming on your radar summer, spring of your junior year and then moving forward. All right.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Here's a question I like. What's one college essay that you both have read that really stood out to you?

Daryl Tiggle

Kayla, you want to go first?

Kayla Kirk

I'm going to keep thinking on that one.

Daryl Tiggle

So the one I read for one of my students last year that I just thought was brilliant. And again, it talks about the narrative and how you use an essay. She was a child of two moms, so she talked about that. And so it speaks to the background she had, the perspective she brings, the diversity of her experience. But she talks about the way in which people ask questions. And from the time she started school and everyone has to do this at some point, but she had to do it sooner, she had to answer the question, why about her family all the time? Why don't you have a dad? Why are there two moms? Why do your siblings look different? That's disruptive, I think. But it did really help her understand over time, a lot of things that some people may not understand everything, but some people are super curious. So I said, Wow, that's brilliant. I thought that was about two moms, but it was about human nature.

Kayla Kirk

I'm also seeing this question about are there any topics that a student should steer clear of? Somebody asked specifically, like politics, they asked. I would say that there are some topics that just come up pretty often. These are the things like sports injury. An athlete gets hurt and then has an injury and that changes their whole life. That can be really powerful. But just know when you're writing that that that's a topic that's been written about many, many times. As you're writing about that, if you choose to speak about that, really focus on what is unique to me in this story. What qualities of my character is this story sharing? Because I guarantee they've read a lot of other football players essays about their injury and how they recovered. Not to minimize that experience, just to say that we are trying to help you stand out here. Questions? Sometimes applicants have lost somebody in their life and they choose to write about that person. That can be super effective, can be beautiful and moving and personal. Just remember with something like that, if you are writing about somebody else, don't completely center them. They're not applying to college.

Kayla Kirk

You're applying to college. So if it is relevant to your story, feel free to talk about it. But with any of these topics, make it personal to you. And I wouldn't necessarily say politics is off limits just because politics and political engagement can be very important to some schools. It can actually be part of their mission statement, some of them. They want to see engaged, socially aware students. So if that's part of the school's character and mission, nothing's off limits.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

I will say we did do a webinar a while back on the personal statement part of the common app, and we do talk quite a bit about cliched topics, what to steer clear of, and that thing. So we'll link that in an email that we'll send with a recording of this webinar early next week. But you can also find that on our website and on YouTube. So feel free to go reference that. It has some great resources that apply to these essays as well.

Kayla Kirk

Great.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

How many essays might one expect typically?

Daryl Tiggle

I love this. This one is from I think this is Alphabet 1, and I'm definitely not going to get the math right. So it's 1 plus X being the number of colleges that you're applying to in parenthesis 2. So you're going to write your common application personal statement. And then if you apply to five colleges, you should expect to write at least five Y, those colleges essays. But some of them might want two essays for themselves. So that's some of the math that we do in the council. You're like, yeah, Ms. Kirk, I want to apply to 30 schools and these are they. Ms. Kirk is going to say, well, you've got 75 essays to write between now and January 1. Can we reevaluate? But typically, I'm sorry, the answer is, and Gayle, you tell me, 10 to 20?

Kayla Kirk

Sure. Yeah, about two or three essays per school.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Let's combine these two questions here. They're pretty much on the same topic. So when picking an essay topic or experience, is it better to choose a more goal related essay or topic or one with personal experiences or activities? And then what do schools focus more on when reading them? Are they looking at their vocabulary and their technical writing pieces? Or are they looking at the content and ideas within them?

Kayla Kirk

To respond to that second question about is it more about the writing and vocabulary? Is it more about the ideas? I'm going to say it's more about the ideas. And here's why. Admissions officers, they're getting your full academic profile. So if English is your second language, or if you move to a school in another country and you were catching up for that reason, they're going to have that information and they will take that into account. So showing your ideas and sense of yourself is probably the more important thing to focus on, especially with your first draft. Don't worry so much about if the writing sounds beautiful. You can start by focusing on... A great way to start with brainstorming can be, What good qualities about myself do I really want to display in this essay? And then you can go from there in terms of thinking about, oh, yeah, what's the story that tells that I'm a leader? Or what's the story I can talk about where I was looking out for other people?

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Great. So then this other piece, Darrell, pitch to you is it better to choose an essay or experience talking about goals or personal experiences and activities?

Daryl Tiggle

Yeah. Truth is, you're probably going to have to write about both. College will very likely be asking a version of both of those questions. But whenever given the opportunity, and I always tell my students and clients, think about authenticity not being unique. Because the schools that receive more than 10,000 applications unique dwindles. So you want to find the essays that... Again, you're going to tell your own unique story. But if given the option, don't try to think, what do they want to hear? Think what you can say best.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

That's a great answer. So we have a couple of questions here that are about personal statistics and likelihood of getting into schools. And instead of answering those, I'd say to set up a consultation on our website with our team, and they'll be able to give you more specialized advice as it pertains to you, better than the three of us can do here in the brief time that we have. But there's a schedule a consultation button right on our website and you can schedule a free 30 minute consultation with our team.

Daryl Tiggle

Awesome. And do that. Do that. That is very good time spent, people and free.

Halley Caldwell (HOST)

Well, I think that brings us to the end of our webinar today. I want to say thank you to Daryl and to Kayla. You two are amazing and we appreciate your time. And to everyone that joined, thank you so much. You have great questions and we're excited to work with you in the future. Be on a lookout for an email in the coming days that will have the recording of this webinar for you to look back on. And then our website also has other webinars that we've done that might be helpful to you as well. Thank you so much for spending your Saturday afternoon with us. Hope everyone has a great rest of their weekends.

Daryl Tiggle

Have a great weekend.

Kayla Kirk

Thanks all. Bye.