Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process

35 College Essays?! The Overlooked Prompts that Unlock Acceptance

Share episode

Struggling with supplemental essays like “Why Us?” or “Diverse Community”? You’re not alone—and these underrated prompts can make or break an application. In this episode, I’m joined by experts Joanna Graham, Holly Schreiber, Alex Greco, and Andrew Friedman to uncover what colleges are really looking for, how to avoid common clichés, and how to craft responses that feel authentic, specific, and powerful. Tune in to get the strategies that will help your student’s application stand out where it counts.

Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Joanna Graham:

Designed to share something with the admissions committee that they're not necessarily going to know about you otherwise, and the supplements allow you to be a little bit more surgically precise about what it is you're actually talking about you.

Sheila Akbar:

Speaker. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Everyone. Today, I'm talking with a group of really experienced writing coaches and college consultants about supplemental essays. I'm always excited to have this discussion. We do it every August, I would say, because it is something that is often really overlooked by parents and students as they're going through the process. When they imagine the college admissions process, they're imagining, oh, I just got to write this one big and important college essay, and that's the thing that they're really focused on. But oftentimes, when we roll around to this time of year, they're in a good place with their college essay, and then all of a sudden they start seeing these supplemental essays crop up and pile up to just an enormous number. And it can get really stressful and overwhelming, both to just know what you need to do and to know how to do it. So I love convening some of my writing experts to discuss this and help families know where to start, how to keep it organized, and how to streamline this process so that it doesn't just kill the end of your summer. All right, with that, I'm gonna tune you into our panel discussion. I'm Sheila. I'm the CEO of Signet education. I run the business, but I do take on a number of students, and I work with this team. I'll let themselves introduce themselves in just a moment, to help students and their families through the application process from start to finish. So we do a ton of college application work with rising seniors. Now that the school year has started for some of you that are officially seniors, but we also start much earlier than that, helping students plan their courses, prepare for standardized tests, plan extracurriculars, maybe get some executive function support, or, you know, regular old subject tutoring to get through a difficult class in high school. So we like to think of ourselves as a one stop shop for anything you need to navigate High School. First, I'm going to ask my co presenters, my panelists, to introduce themselves, and I'll just call on you in the order you are on my screen. Joanna, tell us a little bit about what you do at Cigna and your background.

Joanna Graham:

Hi everyone. Wonderful to connect with you all. I'm Joanna Graham. This is my second full admission cycle, working with the Cigna team. But this is actually my 23rd cycle, working with high school students on undergrad applications. My background is in, is in standardized testing, higher ed and random smattering of certification products. In a former life, I was also a chief marketing and product officer, and so really love bringing a lot of that, that richness around branding and storytelling, to working with with students on the college admissions process. Thank you, Holly, you're next.

Holly Schreiber:

All right, I'm Holly Shriver. Wonderful to be here with you all. So I've been with Signet, I think six years now. There Beth over the five. Well, I'll

Sheila Akbar:

debate about that later. I dug you up during the pandemic because you finally got Facebook. Okay, we've known each other forever, but she was out of touch for a little while, until

Holly Schreiber:

I was I was and I do admissions work, the writing and consulting, academic coaching and test prep work. In my previous life, I was a professor of Communication and Journalism, and I also studied comparative literature. So I love working with future college students on getting them prepared and ready for college, and I think these applications are one of the best ways we have to really get them ready.

Sheila Akbar:

Thank you, Alex.

Alex Greco:

Hey everybody. I'm Alex Greco, and I've been with Signet for a little over a year now. So this is my second cycle. I previously was a teacher of literature and writing, especially creative writing, at the secondary level, for a little over a decade before joining the Signet team. And I'm really happy to be here.

Sheila Akbar:

Thank you. And last but not least, Andy bring us home.

Andrew Friedman:

Sure. Andy Friedman, I'm very happy to be here as well. I like Holly. I'm a recovering academic. I've been here one more year than Holly, and I think I wear one less hat than Holly. I don't do college consulting, but I do do the writing part of it, as well as a bunch of test prep and academic coaching and humanities coaching generally. And this is, I think, my fourth or fifth season with Signet the application

Sheila Akbar:

season. Great. Well, you all in the audience are really lucky. You really have the Signet all stars here, and they do amazing work with students, and I'm so excited for them to share a little of their insight with you today and answer some of your questions. So before we get into that, I am going to just ground us in, like, what are we talking about? As I. Mentioned in kind of my introduction. We are talking about the supplemental essays today, the overlooked prompts that really do unlock accepted and I'll explain why in just a moment, when we think of the college application, we think of the college essay, the personal essay, or the personal statement, Common App essay, whatever you may call it. It's the one kind of main essay that's really about who the student is. It's not about any particular school. And if you're using a platform like the common application, it's going to go to all the schools that you apply to, right? So it really does need to be about the student and not one school, because that would be weird to send it to a school that you're not writing about. We did a session on the personal essay at the beginning of the summer, which is when I recommend students start that though I know the reality is, many of them are probably just starting now, or maybe thinking about starting if they haven't started yet. So if that's the situation, please go to our YouTube channel or email me and I'll send you the link and take a look at that earlier session where we talk about what's the purpose of this essay. What are they really looking to hear? How can students get started? What happens when you're stuck? How do you know when you're done? And some really great questions from the audience as well. On the personal essay, in addition to the personal essay, there are other little bits and bobs of writing that go into the college application. On the Common Application, in particular, there's a section called additional info. This year, they've shortened it to 300 words, and that's really for an objective treatment of, you know, things that may not be clear in the application. This is not an additional personal statement or some other kind of persuasive essay. This is I got hit in the head at a soccer game, and I had a concussion, and I was out for two weeks, and then I was a little behind in my classes, but I worked really hard, and I worked with my teachers, and I caught up, and I maintained my grades right. It's for factual information that will help an admissions officer understand the context that they're seeing. Everything else in the common app also has what's called a challenges and circumstances essay. This was actually introduced during covid, and they called it the covid interruption essay, or something like that. And then it became like a community disruption essay. This year, they've changed it to challenges and circumstances. And these are meant to be things like there was a natural disaster, there was a global pandemic, things like this that are affecting my ability to go to school, and the more specific sort of I got a late diagnosis of ADHD really belongs in the Additional Information section. Now, this is all very nuanced, and this is someone you really want to talk to an expert with about your specific situation. So if anything I've said here kind of like rings a bell for you, please reach out. We're happy to coach you through how to use these and how your student might write something for those sections, but today we're going to talk about the supplemental essays. Now, these are not required by every college. Some colleges have lots of these. Some colleges have zero, or maybe one, or maybe they have two, but they're optional, and that doesn't mean they're not important, right? Whether a college has supplemental essays at all, and how many they have is really part of their strategic decision making. Of, how do we set up the right barriers so that the right students are applying and we don't just get spammed with a lot of bad applications that are not a good fit for our university? Or how do we remove those barriers so we get as many applications as possible, and we can drive our admittance rate down and look more selective in the rankings, right? So it's not that they're not important. It's just a tool that colleges use to build or erase barriers and get to know your student in a less formal way than that personal essay, and in a more specific way than that personal essay, as you'll hear, we talk about some of the prompts and what are the keys to writing these essays there, we're looking for specific information that shows that a student understands the school that they're applying to, and, more importantly, understands how they fit in that community, right? This is really about belonging in terms of you have the programs I want to study, or you bring these sorts of people together, and I feel like I'm one of those people. Let me totally tell you stories that really prove that I belong on your campus, or your mission statement really resonates with me. And let me tell you why these are the kinds of specific things you want to be able to say in response to a supplemental prompt. Okay, we have some grounding. And I'm going to open my first question to the panel. I told you a little bit about the purpose of these supplements, but let's get into a little more detail. And I want to start with you, Joanna, if we can, when you're reading applications, and I know you were reading at Georgetown, which technically doesn't have supplemental applications, because until this year, they were not on the common application. So everything you wrote to Georgetown was specifically to Georgetown. But when you were looking at an essay that was sort of of this supplemental type, what were you looking for? What were you hoping to hear from students?

Joanna Graham:

The number one thing that I was looking for was you kind of hit. Hit the nail on the head. Earlier, Sheila was fit. But what fit means is I. I was looking for specifically, has the student done their homework? Have they been to the website? Do they know what our values are? Do they understand what the mission of the university is, and can they tie that to them? Are there things in their background? Are there activities, but Georgetown, I'll give you a perfect example. The number one extracurricular activity for admitted students for the last 20 years and counting now is community service or volunteer work. And if you've researched Georgetown, you will know that that aligns very closely with these values around curate personnel. Is the Jesuit philosophy, so much about what the university sort of holds to be true. And so when you're thinking about supplemental essays, and when you're thinking about what you can do to sort of stand out, the number one thing you can do is actually sort of use some of that research muscle memory that you've been building on. You've been building up in high school and start treating the university as your next research project.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. Andy, since you're next on my screen, would you add anything to that?

Andrew Friedman:

I certainly wouldn't change anything that's that's a pretty perfect summary. I think that for many of the supplements, and I'm sure we'll talk about the standard sort of collection of supplement types, though, why us? Why do you want to come to this university? Is obviously the most pertinent here. You know, my first step with students is do your research. And there's a number of great ways to do research, and some not so great ways. Obviously the school website is central, but it's also the outward facing part of university. Sometimes it can feel rather opaque. A lot of university websites missions or university mission statements and the language all over the websites are basically the same, just different permutations of the same words like community, intellectualism and values and stuff like that. So you do have to dig a bit deeper. Sometimes. The other ways to do research is obviously the campus tour, if possible, college fairs. And another one that I really like is to go on sites like Reddit and Quora, where a lot of alums will talk about, oh, this is kind of the nitty gritty, the behind the scenes stuff, where you can really get a sense of what a school is really about, and that helps sort of cut through what can be, you know, the sort of opaque, homogenized language that you'll get elsewhere.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's a really great point. Sometimes I'm sitting with my students and they're like, every college says the same thing. How do I tell them apart beyond what you just said there? I always encourage them to talk to people they know who've gone there, right? So like, Reddit or quorum might be a way to do that if you don't know anybody. But those websites can be a bit of a rabbit hole. So we want to be careful.

Andrew Friedman:

Be careful about, yeah, yeah.

Sheila Akbar:

For sure. But no, that's a great it's a great source, right? Because we want multiple sources, and you can't just take the college for their word of a work grade at, you know, X, like you really want to hear from a lot of other sources to corroborate that, so that that's great. Thank you for for dropping us into sort of, how do we get this information in the first place. Holly, tell me what you think about supplemental essay.

Holly Schreiber:

Yeah, I'll underline something Joanna said as well as values. You know, in doing your research, you'll you'll hopefully understand the values of the school, but also make sure that you have a pretty firm grasp on what you think your your primary values are, and how those might connect with the school's mission to rather than just parroting back their their value statement, making sure that you're very clear about how the things you do and the things you care about align in a unique way, hopefully. And so it doesn't sound like every other supplemental essay out there.

Sheila Akbar:

Perfect. Alex. Anything to add?

Alex Greco:

Yeah, yeah. I think What's lovely about the supplementals is that you have the opportunity to hit on some information that may, as we've kind of said, allow the school to project into the future and imagine who you'll be on campus in a way that's a little bit more intimate and more colorful than just relying on the one central essay. And I think for students, although there might be a lot of or might feel like there's a lot of supplemental essays to write, what can be really empowering is if there are bits and pieces of themselves that don't get captured in that main personal essay. This is the perfect opportunity to recycle those little bits. There's tidbits about yourself that are still important elsewhere in the application.

Sheila Akbar:

You set me up perfectly. I promise we didn't plan this, but that's literally the next question. You know, a lot of students are worried about trying to cram in this, like very full, robust picture of themselves in the personal essay, and sometimes it just doesn't fit, right? We can't put every story, impactful value or experience into one 650, word essay. I mean, that would be a bad essay, right? So we tend to focus on sort of a small moment that reveals something significant about a student. We keep it to kind of one story, but all of that other. Great stuff should go somewhere. And the supplements are, as you said, Alex, a great opportunity to do that, right? So let's talk about some of the prompts. You guys have all mentioned the why this school prompt, right? And I know there was a specific question about that in the chat already, somebody is like, really struggling with that, which is totally common. Don't worry, you're right on track. But let's talk about what some of the other prompts look like, Alex, since you were just sharing with us, what are some of your other favorite or most common supplemental prompts that you see.

Alex Greco:

I don't know if it's very common, but I saw one last cycle that I thought was interesting and maybe a little bit challenging, that asked a student to describe in very few words, like what their like recent Saturday was like. And I think that that one could potentially be a little bit tricky, because students are actually inclined to just word for word explain what they did on a Saturday. But I think it is prompts like that that could potentially give them a flavor for who a student is on a day to day basis, and welcome the reader into their personal life. And so I know with the student that I that I worked on that prompt with, we ended up talking really about the relationship with her and her younger brother, especially as she's getting ready to go off to college, through the lens of like them making waffles one morning. So I think those, those kind of interesting, colorful prompts, might throw you at first, but they can really offer the opportunity to give glimpses into things that students wouldn't necessarily think they should be writing about, but actually give a lot of good information about who they are as a person and what their relationships are like.

Sheila Akbar:

You're so right, and I it's probably wise to mention that these supplemental prompts can look like, write us a 300 word essay on your ideal college experience. They could be give us, you know, 25 words on your Saturday or, you know, I have seen a couple that are like, you know, what are the five words you'd use to describe yourself? But there's a college that asks for a top 10 list, and it can be your top 10 list about anything like your top 10 favorite shows, or your top 10 favorite shoe brands, you know, whatever it may be. So they are really throwing different formats out there to try to get a different sense of the student. That's really great. I'm glad you brought that up, Holly. What are some of your favorite prompts?

Holly Schreiber:

I think the most common one that I've seen is some version of our campus is a diverse community. Please describe one community that you're part of and how you'll contribute to campus I've seen. You know, it feels like that that shows up for almost every student that's that's applying to schools that has supplemental and I like for people to see that. Like, I think sometimes people shoot ahead to be like, Oh no. They want to ask, like, how am I diverse? Or, you know, like, Okay, I know what they want. I'm gonna I don't know how to do it. And they panic a little. But that question is really about, how do you treat other people around you? What? How do you see yourself as part of something larger than yourself? It could be family, a team. It could be a friend group, you know, you keep going larger and larger. So I think that sometimes, again, going back to values and the kind of person you are, even if you're the shy person that's not, you know, doesn't join clubs, doesn't feel like you're any part of a group. What is the next largest concentric circle around you that you relate with, and that you you contribute to, and you can write that essay. So I think sometimes like and you can write actually really beautiful and unique essay that's going to be very different from other people's so but anyway, that's a common type. Starting last year. I think it was, it was extremely common. And I think it's most of those have remained this year as well.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's a good one to bring up. It is super common. And to your point about, you know, the shy kid who's not that involved. I had one of those a couple years ago, and she ended up writing about how she's part of this global community of ice cream fanatics. And it's, you know, she wasn't really like, you know, message board, you know, making friends and whatever. But you know, she went to every ice cream parlor she possibly could, and she always saw people who loved ice cream just as much as she did, and you know, it was a really interesting way to address that, because she did feel part of that community. Joanna, talk to us about some of the supplements you've seen.

Joanna Graham:

I'll go with the what do you want to study and why? Or tell us about something that you know, academic that excites you about our university, because I think this one can be exciting for students, because when they're thinking about their personal statement, so many students are thinking, Well, again, you kind of talked about, sort of like kitchen sink mentality earlier. You're like, well, I have to cram at everything. What if they don't know I want to study astronomy, and I want to study and be a liberal arts major, and they want to do this. This essay is now your opportunity to talk about the things that you are passionate about from an academic perspective. On the flip side, for students who are undecided this this essay honestly, can be their worst nightmare, because they don't know how, in a very, you know, sort of creative and succinct way to explain that there are a lot of different things that they're interested in, especially if they're limited on word count. And so this is one of those essays that I really encourage students to think about when it comes to intellectual curiosity. You know, really think. Thinking about digging deeply and thinking about, what are the things that do excite you? Because that sometimes is very different from what do you actually want to be when you grow up, and what it what do you actually want to study? And for many students, you know, especially those who are who are struggling to pick between two. And I know, and we'll probably get into this at some point too, I know that sometimes you'll have students who are applying as a different major to different schools, and they're thinking a little bit about the strategy, and potentially, if there's a gameplay angle there, I really encourage students to try to dig deep and think about more so than the topics. So it's not necessarily about saying I want to be a psychology major, or I want to be, you know, I want to study astronomy, but really think about what is it about these topics or these subjects that really does inspire and make you curious about learning, and focus a little bit more on that, because that will now show a school that you're not necessarily going in with just one with just one thing in mind. And if you do end up going potentially undeclared, it helps the school understand a little bit more about your mindset, on the things that do, that do inspire you, the things that are you know, that you do find interesting, and so they'll be less likely to sort of perceive you potentially as someone who just, you know doesn't, doesn't have it quite figured out just yet, but rather, maybe someone who does have some, some diverse interests that are connected, maybe in some very unique ways.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great advice. Andy talk to us about another prompt that we haven't talked about yet.

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, I think we've done a good job of covering some of the most common ones, and we actually do behind the scenes have, I think Holly initiated this project of categorizing every supplement into a type, whether it's the diversity slash community one, whether it's the academic interest one, whether it's something about Your background or an extracurricular that's especially important to you, or what brings you joy, right? These are sort of, they're right there, sort of, and the why us are probably the five most common. But then there's the fun ones that are really one offs. The one that comes to mind, I don't think it really exists in the same form anymore, is University of Vermont, the Ben and Jerry's question. If you were to design a Ben and Jerry's style ice cream, and speaking of ice cream, ice cream flavor that you know embodies you, what would it be? And I remember they gave you quite a lot of room, at least three or 400 words. And it was just a wonderful opportunity for students to to have some fun for once in this process, and be creative, but also be strategic. And what does this kind of flavor say? What aspect of my background or identity, you know, maybe they took sort of an ethnic cultural approach to something. Maybe they they made some sort of texture metaphor with grit and resilience. I don't know, but there were a lot of cool ways to answer that question. They still have an ice cream question, but it has to do now with sort of how you would bring attention to some social or environment of some problem in the world. So it's lost a little bit of its fun. The sprinkles have been shed, so to speak. But it's still ice cream, after all.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, and, I mean, I think what you were just saying made me think of what I would bring up that's separate from what all of you have said about these very common prompts. Colleges, more and more are wanting to see if students are in touch with the world, right? They're asking questions about what is a social issue that is important to you, and how have you been involved in trying to remedy it? Or USC asked this question that feels so impossible to kids. If you had 10 minutes in the attention of a million people, what would you talk about? Jeez, wow. What a question. And then, you know, there are other questions that are sort of like that, that are really trying to see. Is this a student who is just kind of in their own bubble and just doing, you know, what is asked of them? Or are they curious about the larger world? Do they understand or have a vision for how they want to be involved in the broader world? Right? So that's another piece of this that I think is important to keep in mind. So as we're talking about these prompts, I imagine a lot of the parents on this call are like, Oh, but we're writing about the academic interest in the personal essay, or my student is writing about their most favorite extracurricular in their main essay. How do we go about deciding what belongs in a personal essay and what might be better for a supplement? I know that is very nuanced and is going to be very dependent on each student. But, you know, I think that's a broader question that maybe we could shed some light on. Joanna, what do you think about that?

Joanna Graham:

I think it is very student specific, and a lot of students that I work with will sometimes have slightly, will have maybe two versions of a personal statement. They'll have one that they write that is for schools that that has, that have no supplements, because they want to be able to talk a little bit more about about an area of academic interest. For example, I think that's a great example. And actually, and I'll just build on that for a moment, there are sometimes students you know, will start down a path in high school, and they'll think that I really want to be a STEM major. I'm all about engineering and computer science. Their profile reads that way. And then all. Of a sudden, junior year, they go off and they take a psychology course or an English, you know, a creative writing course, and they come back and it's all liberal arts, and it's challenging because their profile doesn't necessarily match with what they now want to study. And so sometimes students can use the personal statement there to maybe talk about that pivot or that change, but again, through the lens of that evolution in the journey. And so it's a little bit less sort of why I want to be an English major, but more about, hey, I started off really hardcore stem and, you know, I had this wonderful period of reflection and transformation, and that's what the personal statement addresses, in some ways. And then other students, you know, if you have the luxury of having those supplements where you you know, where you can sort of spread out a lot of these ideas and these different points, I think the biggest differentiator is when you think about the personal statement, the personal statement is just that it's it is it is personal. It is talking about. It's designed to share something with the admissions committee that they're not necessarily going to know about you otherwise, and the supplements allow you to be a little bit more surgically precise about what it is you're actually talking about. So when they ask about things like, what do you want to study and why you can be a little bit more tactical you This is where sometimes, where students, you know, if there's a professor that they are dying to study with and who's doing research in an area that they you know that they're really interested in, this might be where some of that research comes in. You wouldn't necessarily cite that in your personal statement, but you could cite that, for example, in a supplemental essay. And the one caveat I'll throw out there is, I always tell students, it's students, it's not about showing a school how great of a researcher you are. So you don't want to just go out and list like seven random facts you found on their website. But it's you know, less is more here. So if you found a professor who's doing research in an area, for example, that you're really passionate about, mention that. But then talk about your passion area, passion in that particular area. So again, it's coming back and tying to something that is really core to your values and something that's really important to you. And I think Holly mentioned this in her first set of remarks, that it's, you know, it's really kind of, it's really bringing to life and making you a bit more three dimensional as an as an applicant, and showing your passions and values.

Sheila Akbar:

Thanks. Let's go to Holly. Holly, what do you think about this question? How do you decide what's in the supplement what?

Holly Schreiber:

And this is like, so typically me, I say, keep it loose for a little while. Don't be too rigid until, like in saying the personal statement is done, until you've looked at all the supplement prompts, right? You know, I do have a usually meetings with students where we put all of the supplemental prompts and we look at them, and it's a lot, and it's daunting, but you can go through and say, like, we have these, these threads repeat a lot. Look how many essays are talking about academic interests. Uh oh, you know, not, not disaster, but like, I always say, like resonate and don't repeat. Can we write an essay about academic interests that is going to resonate but not repeat information from the personal statement. Is it different enough? Or do we have to pull from the personal statement? And then, I'd say sometimes, in the process of looking at supplementals, an idea crops up that could be a second idea for personal statement that was perhaps actually more original and unexpected and surprising. And so it has happened with, you know, some of some of my most successful applicants that they they did, end up shifting to a different personal statement idea. Once we looked at at their application packages, especially if it's the school that has significant number of of supplements, then it's worthwhile to consider. And by the time, I say, by the time you've written a personal statement and then edited it, it's going to take half as long. It's going to take half as long or less to do the next one. You've learned how to do it. You know what's expected of you? It's not like you're going back and doing the same exact thing over again. So I'm sorry if that happens, if you find those, those like repeats, but it happens quite often in our work, and it's not the end of the world at all.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah. In fact, Holly and I have a student we just did this with. She had an idea she really wanted to share, but she just didn't have that much to say about it, whereas this other idea, she had a ton to say. And we were like, Hey, let's just swim. And she freaked out for like, maybe five seconds, and then she was like, Oh, I see. I see how this is gonna work, right? So Holly's advice of looking at everything together. It's a constellation of content that we are putting together. And I love that phrase resonate, don't repeat, right? We don't want to waste space. It's such valuable real estate to be able to speak in your own words directly to an admissions officer about what's important to you. You don't need to say it twice. You don't need to repeat what's on your activity list. You don't need to repeat what's in your transcript, because that's there already for them to look at. This is a place to give them something new and a little bit more depth and and so considering all these things together, I think can be really, really helpful. Let's keep moving, because I want to leave some time for questions, though, of course, Andy or Alex, if you have something you have something you really want to say, we can come back to it. Let's talk about some do's and don'ts for supplements. So Alex and Andy, we'll start with you both. Let's go Alex, do's and don'ts, just a couple. What comes to mind.

Alex Greco:

I mean, I think one really, maybe obvious. One is like, don't feel like you need to shove everything into one of these smaller prompts. I think. Joanna's advice, of like, surgical precision, especially if you understand what exactly the prompt is asking of you, which is sometimes clear, and sometimes it's like, for the example, that Saturday prompt, like, sometimes it's a little bit more hidden, but understanding with what are they trying to elicit from you, and really giving that information and giving quality, rather than quantity of examples is probably a good way to go.

Sheila Akbar:

It's a great one. Andy, what are your do's and don'ts?

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, this is sort of touched on, I think, by Joanna. Don't try to flatter the university. Don't try to kiss up. They know everything about themselves. Those essays are all about, I think, as Joanna said, is showing that you are aligned in some deep ways, whether it's values, whether it's opportunities, academic or campus life and stuff like that. So don't, don't waste time just sort of telling them stuff that they already know. Avoid cliches. I mean, this is just advice for life, but all the more so for both the personal essay and any any supplements, we don't want any eye rolling when these, these admissions officers are reading these essays. I can go on, but

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, no, let's, let's cap it there. Holly, what do you what would you say? What's your best advice?

Holly Schreiber:

I would say, well, while knowing what the question is asking, definitely don't just say what you think they want you to say, right, like, I if it doesn't feel like it's backed up by your actual convictions and personal experience. So there's, like, a civility essay, we sort of say that that's floating around. It's like, how do you handle difficult conversations with people you disagree, and if you don't, if you don't do right if you shy away from disagreement or something, you don't have to make up something or stretch, you know, find a way to answer a question that is situated in your own experience and values, and that challenge of doing that will make it stand out more than having a very flimsy or unsupported, you know, answer to the question that doesn't really fit you.

Sheila Akbar:

That's a good point. I have so many kids looking at that prompt being like, but I don't fight with my teachers. I don't get into like, you know, these big debates online or whatever, and I'm like, but I bet you don't always agree with your parents. I bet you get really annoyed with your little brother. Let's talk about these times. And they're like, Oh, I'm not my best self. And I'm like, Well, let's talk about the self you wish you were in those moments. We're not gonna lie. We're not gonna sugarcoat it, but like, this is a great opportunity to reflect on that, right? How do you handle conflict, and what are you gonna bring to this campus as your principles for for kind of navigating that? Joanna, do you have any do's and don'ts.

Joanna Graham:

Tangentially related to this. But I always tell students, don't hijack the prompt and tell a story that you think that you know some some random detail that didn't make it into your personal statement. Or maybe it's that, maybe it's a supplemental essay you wrote for another school that you love, because it really highlights a great experience or an accomplishment. Don't hijack the prompt and shoehorn another essay or some other content in there to try to make it fit, you know. So, square peg, round hole type of mentality. I have a lot of students who will who will be really bummed because they're like, Well, I want to talk about this really great research, you know, project that I did, or something that I'm really proud of, and I don't have anywhere to, you know. So let me put it in the Civility essay and talk about how initially, maybe my parents didn't want me to go off and do this project, and I did it anyway. It anyway. And it's, it's, it's very, very tenuous at best. And so, you know, really, I think this, again, aligns very nicely with what some of my other wonderful colleagues have said is, you know, answer, the answer, the prompt, as it's written, don't, don't try to manipulate it to something else.

Sheila Akbar:

That's a good one. Yeah, if I have to add one thing, something I often tell students is that your supplemental essay should tell the school more about you than about the school, right? We want to check the balance of that right so you can mention the major you want to do, the professors you want to study with, the clubs you want to join, but we have to have more of the essay talking about the why you want to do those things, like what you've done that's similar to that already in high school, or, you know, a club that you've gotten involved with, and you have gotten so just passionate about whatever that thing is that you want to continue doing it. You want to continue being involved in it. And by the way, you know, University of Michigan has this great club where I can do that, right? It's, it's kind of like a two thirds, 1/3 balance. We really want to be learning about the student, not about, you know, some obscure thing you found about the university. But it's important that these things match, right? So you can't write a supplemental essay about how much you love field hockey for a school that doesn't have a field hockey team or a club or intramural field hockey, right? They'll be like, Well, why are you applying here? You should go, you know, wherever, right? So doing a research is another really, really important one. The research comes first, right? So we have really concrete things to to organize our thoughts around. Okay, we have alluded to the fact that there are so many essays to write. I'm working with a student this year. This actually where the title for this webinar came from. He actually has 54 separate supplemental essays to write. But as we looked at them and kind of identified those themes that Andy was talking about, Holly you've talked about as well, it came down to, I think 15, which is so much more manageable, right? But how do we figure out those categories and how we can reuse information? And, more importantly, how do we keep it organized so we know what the plan is for each of those schools? And how do you I'm putting like five questions into this one question, but how do you sequence it right? Because there are going to be some early schools. They're going to be some regular decision schools. There are going to be some schools that have a longer version of the academic interest, essay and some shorter. So where do we start once we've kind of identified all right, these are the themes I need to write about. How do you create a project plan essentially around these supplements? Joanna, I'll start with you because I know you love being organized.

Joanna Graham:

I'm very type A. I'm actually going to start, I think, by by just calling out the fact that one of the things that I do, before we even start getting once we sort of organize, kind of by content or sort of by subject area. I actually have students prioritize schools into tiers. And the reason being that is, as you all probably know, students are applying to more and more schools every year. And I tell every student you know it, it doesn't matter who you are, the very best students are going to run out of steam at some point. And so it's really, really important that you know if you're if you're tier one, if you're a school, you know, has seven, has seven prompts, then we probably need to be prioritizing that and then obviously recognizing, you know, are there other places where we can use that content? And we build sort of a matrix to sort of align all this, but it's really important, before you do any of this, to sort of chunk schools out. And I usually will suggest to students that we that they pick anywhere from three to five tiers, and they prioritize the schools, and there are different factors that can go into how you prioritize them. But for some students, you know, and I'll use a school like Stanford as a great example, they're, you know, they're incredibly selective, and they also have a handful of short answer and supplemental essays. I believe last year, it was somewhere around six or seven for many students, because they're looking for some of these questions are also very, very specific. So I will suggest to students for some of these schools, like the Stanfords or the Yale's of the world or the Browns of the world, where there are several short answer questions. It's not to say don't apply to these schools, but mix them up. Don't put all of those super selective schools in tier one, because at some point you are going to run out of steam, and it would stink if you got to sort of your tier two or your target schools that you really, really do love, and where we feel like you are a really strong match, and you are just and you're starting to burn out because you've been writing so many supplemental essays that all belong with some of these other schools. So I think that's, that's probably the first step I always encourage students to really think about is, how do you organize the schools in terms of, sort of your personal order of preference or your priorities, so that you don't run out of steam by the time you get to November or December. And honestly, a lot of my students that last tier. So whether it's tier three or it's tier five, sometimes they call that sort of the punting lot, which is a horrible pun on parking lot, but they'll say, you know, hey, if we get here and I'm just frazzled and burnt out, I'm just going to punt these schools. And sometimes for the early schools, it may mean punting to regular decision, but for the regular decision, if you're they're bumping up again, it's all about trade offs. If they're bumping up against final exams or, you know, or other commitments they have at school, it may just mean saying goodbye to some of those schools as well, too, so that they can invest more time and energy into other schools that really do matter. So it's really important to not spread yourself too thinly. So I'll offer up that sort of piece of piece of organization, even as a is it even sort of the predecessor, we're precursor to all the other organization. But I'll pause there because I want to make sure that I can give my colleagues some airtime as well too. But hopefully that's helpful.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. Yeah, Alex, I'm curious how you think about this.

Alex Greco:

I mean, I have to defer to the consultants on the webinar today, but I think as a writing specialist, and just as someone who also requires some some visual strategy, I think that one thing that we do really well is support students through like actually having a visual mapping of the schools, the timelines, the prompts. And I think that it's something that helps. When I get in there and try to work on the writing, it's one less thing that I and the student have to worry about when we talk about the actual ideation and the drafting, knowing that we already have that in a spreadsheet. It's like color coded. It's really clear. That's so helpful. It puts us at ease, and then we can really focus on the work that we're there to do. And it actually thanks everybody who creates those with the students, because I think then it allows us to like, actually have fun when we're writing and talking, and it allows the student to see possibilities and to like, maybe even enjoy themselves a little bit.

Sheila Akbar:

I love hearing that, because I am always the big proponent of the spreadsheet. And you know, so many of my students are like, Why do we need a spreadsheet for this? I'm like, You will thank me at some point, maybe not in this process. Andy, what do you think about this topic?

Andrew Friedman:

I echo everything that Alex says. You know, I think the for this particular question, it's the the proper consultants that that are doing the lion's share of the work. And shout out to Mackenzie, who is often compiling the actual supplemental question. So there we do have someone behind the scenes who plays a huge role in this. I'll just say something from the writing perspective. And Alex couldn't be more. It makes what we do really possible to have that kind of organization. But one particular thing that comes up is you'll have an academic interest supplement or seven of them, and they're all different sizes. So how do you deal with the 150 Word version and the 500 word version and the 300 word version as well? So putting aside where those particular colleges rank and those priorities, obviously that that would take precedent, but let's just even the playing field and say you need all of these at the same time. What I like to do is start with the biggest one, because we'll get everything out there that we need. And then the process of distillation is a whole lot easier than the process of amendation. Assuming that's a word. Probably know whether that's a word or not. Given that I'm a writing person, you get the idea. So I think it's much easier to go from big and to distill than to go from the 100 word version and then try to flesh that out.

Sheila Akbar:

That's good advice. I actually think I learned that from working with Holly. At some point she also does the same thing. Holly, what else would you add?

Holly Schreiber:

When my goal is to be as efficient as possible with the writing, especially if that's going to be a block with a student I look among like the early schools, what has the most common prompt and the longest word count? And I will start with that one. So it might be the diverse communities essay, 400 words, that'll be the first one that we're working on. And that way, you know, you're knocking out an essay that's going to work for five or six schools and go from there. But I like no first looking at all the prompts and trying, if you can, to come up with topics for each of them, and brainstorming that I like to do that before writing in general, is just to, like, have these, and it's okay if there's some blank spots I find sometimes during the writing process, ideas will come up and the spreadsheet will fill itself out with the content ideas. But yeah, I completely agree. Write long and then distill these essays really have to pack a punch, and the best way to do that, in my experience, is to write twice as much as you need, and then condense.

Sheila Akbar:

We don't care about the word count on these early drafts. So many students are sort of blocked by that. Okay, in the interest of time, I want to go to some questions from the audience, so please, if you have questions, type them in the chat or raise your hand and I can call on you to speak it out loud. We have one in the chat right now from Carmen, her son is applying to UVA. That's his first choice. This year, they got rid of their supplemental essays. There is one for the School of Nursing only, but otherwise there are no supplemental essays for UVA. So how can he make sure to get all this sort of specific enthusiasm for that particular university across Joanna, let's go to you first.

Joanna Graham:

Thanks, Sheila, that is, that's definitely a tough one. I mean, you know, I'll tell students. And, you know, coming out of the gate, I think that the number one thing you can do to signal your interest, your strong interest, is if schools have an early action or an early decision window, is to obviously apply during that window for to, you know, to send that message, particularly if a school is early decision. Obviously UVA isn't. That's not the case for UVA, but for but for other schools, though, that is a great way to send that signal that this is my, this is my top choice, you know, for, I think, for other in other cases like this, you know. And again, UVA is kind of a tough one. If students have, if students have, you know, if there are family ties, this is an area sometimes where students might allude to, when they think about some of their activities, that there are things that they've been are things that they've been involved with. I've had students who have sometimes referenced, subtly reference things in their personal statement, if they're talking about if it aligns with the topic that they've chosen for their personal statement. But I think the above all else you know, going to campus, certainly, if you're able to and taking a tour, you can certainly request meetings with the admissions office. At some schools, there are some schools, you know, again, UVA doesn't offer the interview. But again, even just being able to show or show up on campus and see who you might be able to meet, certainly could help. A lot of these things are kind of hypotheticals, because, again, not every school is going to take into consideration demonstrated interest, and they're not necessarily going to be tracking all of this, you know, sort of with a with a with a with a fine tooth comb, either. But I think most importantly, you know, for the student, is really to think about as you submit your application and as you think about your personal statement. In particular, probably for UVA, it would be to think again, do that research. Think about the values in this particular case. If there is, as I mentioned earlier, if there are parts of your story that really resonate with UVA value, trying to think about how you can really show alignment and fit, if it has to be through your personal statement. And maybe that does mean that your personal statement now is you're going to have a different derivative of that personal statement for for a specific school, and it does create a little bit more work, but that's really going to be the best way to sort of signal that to a particular school. I think it's really, you really have to hand. On a student, case by case basis. And I would love to get Holly and Sheila's thoughts on this too, because, especially for students that have so many schools on their list, you're now talking about really exponentially increasing the amount of work. But if this is, in fact, your your son's top choice, you know, I might think about, you know, if the topic of that personal statement, you know, again, it doesn't have to be overt, but thinking about things that are important to UVA their values. Again, all that research trying to pick some a topic for the personal statement that maybe is does align a little bit more closely with some of those values, I think could certainly be one way to signal fit as well.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, I'm I'm also interested in what Holly's take is on this. But what I want to stress is they made a very intentional decision to get rid of their supplements, right? They've been kind of playing with the format. There were like 11 short answers, and then it was like, pick one of these, and now they're just all gone. So they have thought very long and hard about whether they need these or not. There's some strategic reason that they've decided to get rid of them, or maybe it's a political reason, because they have been the subject of a lot of scrutiny, so don't try to cheat it. And like, use the additional information session or send in an email, which is actually a supplemental essay, right? They don't want them. If they wanted them, they would have asked for it. So I think Joanna's advice is, is really sound here. Holly, anything to add here?

Holly Schreiber:

Yep, they don't track demonstrated interest as well. So like, you know, among them, it's like, that's that's not an important admissions category. And so I think the subtle approach that that Joanna mentioned, if you really feel feel the need to articulate match, you might not be able to tell that story. That might seem too direct, but alignment with values might be the way to go.

Sheila Akbar:

Great while we wait for more questions from the audience. There was one that came in earlier, which is, when should students really be writing the supplements? When is the crunch of writing? When does that begin? I mean, we're having this webinar right now for a reason. It's usually August. A lot of students want to get as much done as they can before the school year starts, when they're going to be really busy and their extracurriculars are going to start up again. But, you know, I've seen people start to tackle these in October, or if they're only applying to regular decision, it may be later than that, November or December. Anyone else want to chime in on when the crunch

Joanna Graham:

You know, a lot of rising seniors want to, you know, want to leverage summer as much as possible. And it's tough, because obviously, common app doesn't open until August 1. And every time a student, you know, is like, Oh, I'm going to write these really, really specific supplements for my for my Ed School, and then, oops, the supplements change in August 1. But I do tell students, you know, again, Holly's earlier point, there are a lot of themes in Andy's, there are a lot of themes that we see, you know. And so it's not, it's not a bad idea if you're especially, you know, if you if they were working over the summer, or if maybe, you know, your child hasn't gone back to school just yet and has a little more time to start, you know, they can certainly start working on sort of brainstorming more general topics. And this is probably going to be relevant for folks with younger students. You can start brainstorming some some broader, more general topics, certainly earlier in the summer, so things like, my favorite extracurricular, my academic interest, essay, civility, community, things like that. But what I would suggest, though, is, you know, especially going into the school year where you're starting to balance all of this sort of, you know, with with the rigors of senior year two, I would encourage students to to not try to tackle too much. And so to, you know, don't necessarily take on maybe more than two or three essays at a time, because if you try to, if you try to do everything at once, or if you tell yourself, hey, I'm just going to take this one weekend, carve it out and try to knock everything out, you know, again, you'll hit a point of sort of diminishing returns, too. And so again, I would go through and try to prioritize and and pick maybe two at a time to work on, and really try to be methodical. Again, that surgical precision is going to be really important here work on content that you feel really good about before moving on to the to the next essay topic, especially because each of these, again, as they get more school specific, are going to require more incremental research as well.

Sheila Akbar:

Thank you. So just in the interest of time, I would like to tackle Esteban's question, because, as you just said, that surgical precision is so important, Joanna, and that's, I think, what Esteban is really asking about, like, how do we talk about certain things in a specific way and avoid the thing that everybody else is going to say about a specific school? Who wants to chime in on this one?

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, so I guess the surgical precision idea is a close neighbor to that is specificity. So it's not a problem, per se, to reference big things like values. The key thing, as Sheila was saying earlier, is making the connection with the student unique, right? So it's okay if you're talking about something that is maybe non unique about the university or that other universities share, but it's all about making that connection sincere, emphasizing emphasizing the right fit. Yeah, nothing wrong with talking about how UMich is a great sports school, and that's really exciting, but make that. Don't just say that, right? Let's connect that with something that is sort of really important about the about the student and their values.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's a great point. I would add that you want to make sure whatever you're saying can't be applied to another university, right? So if you're only talking about location and size, well, they're probably lot. I mean, it's. Especially if we're, you know, talking about a major city, there are other colleges that are there, right? So location may not actually be something super unique, but if there is something about that location that connects to the student and like that part of Philadelphia versus this part of Philadelphia, right? If we want to get that specific, you could go there and make that unique. Alex, anything? Any thoughts on this?

Alex Greco:

Yeah, I think what you just said, Sheila, makes sense, and also possibly even like the interaction or the interplay between a couple of those larger features, right? So it's, it's not just all dependent on location, but it's this location combined with these other specific things that make this the place that feels like an academic home. For me, an academic and a social home.

Sheila Akbar:

I know we're we're at the end of our of our talk, but I did want to share a couple of little tidbits and one opportunity. So some major takeaways here. We want to showcase the students strengths and fit. We want to piece all the essay content together and think about this as a content plan, right the supplements and the personal statement and the activity list, what are they all coming together to say about this student and make sure they resonate, not repeat. We also need to make sure we get everything done and done well. So we talked about priorities and timeline and organization. We want to make this fun a growth opportunity for the student to reflect on what their actual values are, and how they articulate that, how they've demonstrated that in the past. And then, you know, one of my big things is, I want to reduce the stress in your household, right? So investing in a plan upfront, getting some help from someone like Holly or Joanna or Alex or Andy can really, really help. And it's not that every student needs hand holding throughout the whole thing. Maybe it's just a little bit of strategic advice up front, or maybe it's help in the revision process, or help choosing the topic. But don't be afraid to ask for help. Probably have people in your life that you could also ask English teachers, friends who've been through the process recently, etc, etc. So think about that. And again, please get in touch with any questions you have, and we're here to help you. Good luck to you and your students. Thanks everybody. Thank you panelists. Well, I hope you found that helpful. All of my team is ready to help if you need it. So please don't be shy in asking for help. This is a tough time of year. School is starting. Transitions are always hard, and the college application deadlines are starting to loom for for some students. So we really want to make sure you get the support you need. If you're an educator or counselor. Of course, feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to connect. All right, everybody, take care, and we'll see you next time.