Workshop: Writing a College Essay

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We will go ahead and get started. My name is Jace. I will introduce myself in just a moment. Um, welcome, welcome. We are excited to have you with us this afternoon to discuss writing a college essay. We are both admission officers at McAllister college, a small liberal arts college located in the Metropolitan area called the Twin Cities Minneapolis and St Paul, MN, Minneapolis and Saint Paul are on the ancestral homelands.

Of the Dakota people we speak and name this land acknowledgement to honor the people as well as to acknowledge the continued thriving of indigenous peoples across North America. Despite ongoing and persistent colonialism, this is part of trying to have uncomfortable, honest conversations that are real at McAllister are important to both near and I as well as the mission of our institution. I encourage you to investigate and learn more about the indigenous land within your own state.

If you are here in the United States or about the indigenous peoples in your home nations, wherever you may join us from.

So excited to have you here today. Again my name is Jayce Reagan. I use he, him, his as well as they them personal pronouns. I'm an admission officer here at McAllister big shout out to all of the students coming from North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois and in southern Minnesota. You are all of my students that I work with here at McAllister and I'm happy to be a resource for you. I'll let niara introduce herself.

Hawaii. Thank you jay's. My name is me R Williams. I use the pronouns she, her, hers, and I'm an admissions officer at McAllister College as well. I am also a recent 2018 graduate and my territory includes many states, but you can kind of make a map of it from Ramsey County in Minnesota. I'm down to Iowa, moved to Kentucky towards Tennessee and then all the way will hit the coast at West Virginia. So if you're in that span of area.

Then I'm your admissions counselor, but you can also feel free to email me at anytime if you have any questions, regardless of whether or not you're in my territory.

Awesome, thank you so much today we are going to be talking a lot about your college essay, how to use it in your application. We're going to be together for a little bit over an hour and we encourage you to use the question box to ask questions. We will try to answer those as we go throughout the program, but will for sure reserve time at the end to get to questions and we'll answer them as honestly and candidly as we can from our experience. Today, we're going to discuss.

And review in uh, in review what's in an application for admission and what we look at in the essay. We're going to talk about the particular role in SA plays within the application. We're going to help you think about how to choose your essay topic.

As well as brainstorm a few potential essay topics in workshop, those topics together using a technique that you can use moving forward with other essay topics, we're going to offer some pro tips for you to take away. Those were in the email that was sent out in in relation to the registration for this. Those are all resources for you to use during this program, as well as afterward. And like I said, We're going to answer those questions, so feel free to put them in the box as we move throughout the program.

And they are and myself will be more than happy to help out.

To start off, Nara is going to tell us a little bit more about the application in all of the parts.

Thanks James. I'm well as you can see here there are five main parts to a college application. Personal information which is just sort of your basic personal info. You know what makes up you demographically? Your citizenship, the basic tenants of your identity and location and that information can be very helpful to our offices in terms of understanding whether you are a student who is a part of a group that's historically underrepresented on our campuses.

If you are an international student, if you're a first generation college student hour if you're a part of any other special interest group, then there's your academic information, which would include things like your transcript in your standardized test scores. If you are applying to a school that requires them, or if you were still sending your scores to end test optional school.

Next, you have your teacher and counselor recommendation letters in their kind of exactly how they sound. The teachers of your choosing an your accounts there will be able to speak more about you from their own perspective, and at that outsider perspective of someone who has seen you in an academic space. Next you have your extracurricular activities which can span from things such as your personal responsibilities at home that take up significant time to your organized activities at school too.

Any cool experiences that you may have had that relate to your education or personal development and even things such as service?

Last and the part that we will be discussing today is your personal statement and short essays and juice will be able to tell you a little bit about why that is a significant part of your application.

Awesome, thanks tiara. Zooming in on that application portion that is the essay. Uhm, we like to talk about this in terms of why does the essay matter? Well, to be quite honest and we should have moved this directly to the top, I'll take responsibility. I built the slide. It's your opportunity to stand out and be unique. This is really the chance you have to take control of your application. In reality we don't have a lot of control over our transcripts. We don't have a lot of control.

Over our standardized test scores, and in fact, those are the pieces which we might be the most anxious about as part of our application. This allows for you to really control the narrative and tell us about those individual pieces of your application that like a dip in grades or a challenge that you had at a particular time that affected your academic journey. This is your opportunity to be unique and tell us about those individual pieces where we really don't get to see that.

Elsewhere in the application.

Thinking about the other big things that we're looking for in a college application essay is the quality of the writing, the quality of the writing is huge and we kind of break that into three areas when we're thinking about that. The first is your content. What are you choosing to write about? Is it accessible? Is it? Is it understandable? And does it do what we're looking for you to do to tell us about yourself? To tell us a little bit about how you align with the institution, you may be applying for, and why you are a good candidate.

Um, that's that content. This can be in the biography format of being very narrative, or it can be in the creative prose, the peace where I'm given an image or a metaphor, and the student is wanting to excuse me, draw a conclusion, or have me make make some type of inference by that pros or that image given both are great ways to an essay, but both come with the need to be more specific in your content.

The other one is the context. Thinking about the quality of the writing as well as thinking about issues of framing within the academic essay itself, is this using any devices, or is this a well well framed in regards to using an intro or outro? Lastly is the composition. These are those nuts and bolts issues of grammar. Did the student use proper grammar? Is the formatting acceptable?

I'm not referring to a direct 5 paragraph essay, but does it make sense for the type of format the student wanted to use? Secondly, the essay is really important because it allows for you to demonstrate your personality and show your personal character. It allows for you to tell us who you are, and I encourage you. That's exactly what we're looking for. You won't appear over bold or precocious when you do that. It's something that we want to get to know you a little bit more in this essay is a opportunity to do to do that.

It's an opportunity to advocate for yourself to tell the college how you align with their mission or their values. We talked a lot about how it's that opportunity to be unique. And Lastly, I do want to re emphasize and end on the fact that you have control over this part. It's the opportunity for you to really frame your narrative to tell us about what you value, why you've chosen to apply to a particular institution, and dig in a part of your story that you've chosen that is important.

Next, we're going to chat a little bit about common application questions that come through the common app and the best friend to do that is Niara.

Thank you jay's. So we have some common application essay prompts in front of us, and while I won't go down the list and read all of them verbatim, you can see that I have a few that are highlighted here and 1st I want to go over the ones three and four that are highlighted in orange. Um, now before I go into these, I just want to re emphasize that this is about you. These essays are about you. Don't be shy on, you know.

I would say that questions three and four can sometimes be oversimplified or not answered with enough context, specially about your own personal experience, because regardless of what the main topic or the overall theme of your essay is, you always want to come back to your own unique experience. Something that you've grown from something that you have been able to learn centering around you.

I'm and a great way to get to the heart of that is through looking at the first prompt and it speaks more specifically about some students having a particular background identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. and I can pretty much guarantee that it might not be immediately obvious to you with every single person has at least one of those things that is incredibly meaningful to understanding who they are.

Not just as a person or as a full fleshed out human being, but as an applicant who is applying to a college.

And now James will be able to tell you a little bit more about college specific essay questions.

Awesome.

On perfect, this is the second type of essay question that you will likely encounter if applying to college through the common app. This is a secondary essay that colleges ask for you to write in order to get to know you a little bit more than just the simple common application essay or the sample that you chose to submit this. I encourage you to think about is just as important as that first essay. Don't take it lightly. It's often used as a way to assess your quick writing. Because colleges know that students might be rushing to complete the application, just throw.

Something together here not trying to scare you, but take this one seriously. Do an edit. Do it, do a rough draft version for sure. The goals of these types of college specific essay questions are one to understand how you, the student, may navigate their particular community or institution. What they mean by that is their thinking about how you may, as as a student, thrive on their campus, access their resources, or feel a particular sense of belonging.

On their campus, given the location, given the values given the background of many of the students who are attracted to the college, this is an opportunity to really hear out. If you thought in depth about the particular aspects of that school, this directly relates to that second point of reflecting on the mission. The values in the setting of an institution liberal arts colleges are small, generally, but they're located in places across the United States and the reason why I mentioned liberal arts colleges in particular is McAllister is one of those types of colleges.

And what that means in the yard? I did a whole session on this, so if you're curious to learn more, that's been pre recorded in his back up on the website where you registered for this session, but I'll just give it away quickly. It Simply put means you have a broad based education In addition to whatever you've chosen to major in you've been exposed to math. You've been exposed to science, literature, politics, as well as arts and the humanities as part of earning your degree. All In addition to whatever your chosen major is. So they're wanting to know why do you want that type of Education?

And why do you want that type of education in a particular place in an urban setting like McAllister 3.5 million people in a suburban setting, I'll confess I was trying to brainstorm and authentically suburban school and just one just doesn't come to the top of my mind. And so if one of you can think of a suburban school, put it in the chat box and the R and I would be happy to be like, yeah, that's for sure. A suburban school I went to a rural college called Gustavus Adolphus College, out in the cornfields. It was in a town similar in size to the college.

A man I enjoyed that however I needed to access resources in the cities a lot so there are there are challenges, an pluses and minuses to all of those locations in schools. Want you to think about that? Lastly, they use these questions to identify who's really interested in the school and plans to ultimately attend there. Right now, students are applying to on average over 7 schools and their admitted to maybe half of those 3.5 four, 3.54. One of those and those schools.

Need to compete to enroll that student and so these institutions are trying to figure out who is really interested in coming versus who might just be throwing an application out there to do so. Below are two examples of college specific essays that we feel demonstrate thing. Two things really, well. The first one is demonstrating a question focusing on the location of an institution. Answer that question. Do it. Talk about why you might want to go to that location. Some challenges that you might anticipate for yourself and how you plan to overcome them.

But be sure to talk about also the mission and values. That's a way to make sure you're not a 2 dimensional candidate and that you have an extra part of your application. Second, one focus is a little bit more on the people, the Etho's, the values, the culture of the institution. Yes, answer that question talk about why you're attracted to that type of a place with individuals from diverse backgrounds, beliefs and upbringing is coming together to learn with one another, but also talk about why the setting is advantageous to you.

Again, making you a 3 dimensional applicant that is really the big things to remember about thinking about college specific essays. Take your time, answer them completely, be authentic, be yourself and these are the ones that will also help you figure out if you're just applying to apply versus really want to apply to an institution. Next, we're going to have a really great activity that will help you think about How do I elaborate on my particular experience and Nara is going to lead you through that.

Banking chase now for us we have two sample students with limited information and I want to say before we start this exercise. This is not what admissions offices do. This is not what we're doing when we look at your your application. We have a much more holistic approach, but for all intents and purposes all of you are going to be the admissions officers right now and just looking at these students basic information by both had some academic successes.

They both have no significant extracurricular activities, and they both have a personal statement. Topics that are fairly easy to relate to, and so just based on this limited information. How do these students look? How much do you really know about them, and which one would you admit? I highly encourage you to put your choice into the chat box.

Also, while you're doing that, Jason, if you look here we do have some suggestions as to suburban colleges and universities.

Yeah, I was seeing some cool ones come in um, I approved several that just like popped out to me is for sure being suburban. There's a few in here that I'm like.

One is is Carlton Carlton is in a town of about 1415 thousand people and that seems kind of rural to me, but it's close to a Metropolitan area and they do say there in the suburbs. So in Northfield in Minnesota is considered a suburb, but if you're coming from Boston, that's going to be like what the heck? Not a suburb. Small village, and so we're hitting up into some of those issues of perspective, and I think that's why we are. and I were like what's a suburban college. I'm not sure.

So I think it's a Gray area, I think, uh, the other one was Berkeley is Berkeley suburban? That's urban as heck for me so.

Thoughts from Uniara.

You know, I pretty much agree with you James. I'm also seeing some really interesting choices coming through the chat box. I feel like we have, you know, a significant number of votes for B, but at the same time I am seeing significant numbers on the side of Team A.

I'm so let's go to the next slide and see how we can really flush these students out through their personal narratives.

Alright, so now we have the sample students plus their stories. We have more information about them, were able to learn more about what makes them unique. Applicants you know there are more activities that were just as important to their unique story and there are various experiences that are placed interesting. Lee in different places within their application. For example, College, African a had such a significant experience of volunteering.

That they made it a part of their personal statement. College applicant be also had significant experience with volunteering at a local hospital every week, month and kept it to their extracurricular activities because they felt as though they had a more personal and unique significant experience that their application would be complete without.

Something interesting to notice is also the ways in which we categorize those extracurricular activities. Like I was saying earlier, there are plenty of things that we spend significant time doing in high school that we may not realize are important to our context. Is applicants describing what we've been up to throughout our high school career? For example, babysitting neighborhood kids is an example of leadership and responsibility.

Own responsibilities are incredibly important, especially if you feel and so your list of extracurricular activities that I've been organized by outside institutions are a little bit sparse. It's important to know the context in which you are doing very important work at home. You are very important responsibilities at home, which is why you may not have joined as many clubs as the next applicant.

Part time work is very important. Any youth groups you've been a part of? Volunteering in the context of that volunteering, you can share any and all of this information in your extracurricular list, and your essay and the additional information section of your application.

Your recommenders can also help give context to your academic record and personal situations. You know if you are going through your extracurricular list when you're putting your application together, be sure that you know the exact names of the activities that you were involved in. If you were involved in specific organizations, be sure to list any leadership positions you may have had within those organizations. It's always great to know how long you were part of them, and how often you participated in them.

All those help to create a more full understanding of who you are, because writing and writing about yourself doesn't just happen in your personal statement. You're also the person who describes your extracurricular activities.

Now Jason is going to take us through.

And tell us a little bit more about why your essay should be about you.

Awesome, thank you so much niara. Thinking about RSA an beginning to hone in on our topic and in one it should be about you fundamentally absolutely 100% about you. In order to stand out from many other applicants that admission counselors are reviewing in a cycle, you need to tell your experience. Be authentic to yourself and also find a way to stand out and be unique and ways that you can do this are by focusing in on one particular experience.

That illustrates who you are and then directly relating that back to the institution itself and why you'd be a great fit there. You can use one of the common application essay prompts or the college specific essays. To get started. You could also say in the common app. I don't want to use the common application essay prompt and I want to write about my own topic. This is something often that students do when they write in prose or poetry as a way that they want to express themselves in their applications.

My only warning about that is to be careful. Make sure it is clear how your poem is, what your poem is demonstrating or illustrating. Sometimes it's left to ambiguously for the reader to infer. Be clear, you can definitely use pros. I enjoy it as an application reviewer, and I think we are at is 2 but we like to be told what we were supposed to take away from it, not just assume to help this be illustrated a little more, I'm going to use an example and we'll come back to this again.

The example we want to use is about an applicant who grew up in rural America in a very rural place in a very small town her whole life, and she had never traveled more than 60 miles away from that small town, and the focus of her essay an the unique aspect was how she had never been anywhere in the world and how she wanted to travel and to see the world. But she couldn't, and she decided to read and how she had read many, many books and had experienced.

Cultures and different places and different parts of the world through literature. And therefore she knew that she wanted to go to a University that valued like McAllister, multiculturalism as well as international cooperation. There are other schools that have those values too, and she applied to those in our in our setting. But she was able to use her story. Her love of reading an where she grew up to clearly articulate who she was, what she valued, and why she'd be a good fit.

At the particular institution.

To think, I'll help you think a little bit more about choosing your essay topic, it niara is going to go over some of the common essay topics that students choose from. This will help you maybe know to avoid those topics or think about how you can work extra hard to be unique.

Thank you James. I'm as you can see here we have a list of common essay topics and while we are very common and you know it is difficult to stand out from a crowd when you do go to some of these topics, you still can stand out. You will have to work harder to make it about you though, but in that same vein, the context in which you speak about them can change everything. For example, when it comes to big issues or a success, tails or the sport essay.

You can end up talking about something that is sort of vague with in relation to your own life, but you could dig in deeper by talking about how that topic has personally affected you and how you were able to engage with it. The autobiography can get him a little bit dicey because it can sort of sometimes sound like you're just explaining the sequential events of your life without necessarily coming to an ultimate lesson or conclusion that relates to growth.

A certain things like moving the trip, the academic risk they can all end up being about subjects that may not show you either in the best light or it can be about just, you know, explaining a particular situation or experience that may not necessarily have to do with the person that you are today or in the applicant who is trying to come to this school. Oh, and one that I want to not forget and forget to mention is.

A significant relationship.

It is wonderful and deeply important to have people who love you and mentor you and change your life and positive in significant ways. And there are ways to speak to those people's involvement in your life. But the pitfall with that in writing your college testing is that you may end up writing all about that person and not enough about yourself and not enough about your experience, not enough about what makes you unique, not about your own characteristics.

There are significant for your community around you and your loved ones around you, so you want to make sure that with any of these essay topics, I mean, you see here in any batch you develop personally.

That you use it as an opportunity to engage with your peers with their teachers and mentors with your parents to give them involved to gain input and insight and perspective about what you want to write about. And you know, I am only one person. You are only one person. Jace is only one person. I can't tell you by myself. Have been nesting topic is a good one or a bad one. You really want to lean upon the network around you.

To help ask you questions to get deeper into why this topic is able to represent you in a way that will be engaging to admissions offices in Israeli, able to communicate at the core who you are and why you should be a part of this new community that you were trying to join.

Um now chase is going to take us on to a very fun activity.

Awesome, thanks so much. The next one is, well, we're going to pick our topics and start to dive into. How do we zoom in to the story in that topic an plot it out. So as we get going, this is a time to be vulnerable. I encourage you to take a piece of paper and a writing utensil. And please please write down on that piece of paper. Two or three potential topics that you want to consider writing about.

Again, you will only share these in the chat box if you want to. You are the only one seeing these right now, but it's really important that you think about two to three topics that you potentially would want to write about. That allows for you to talk about yourself in a unique way.

Will give you some time to enter those into the chat box. Um again, they can be 1 words. Writing about the time I got a dog. UM, writing about.

Like writing about the time my stepfather, whose whose Native American got pulled over and I as a white person needing to reflect on that. Um, writing about a big move, I know that was one of our topics to avoid, but I'm telling you, you can write about it, but how are you going to make that unique? Was there a particular resource you learned to access at your high school? And now you know that that's something that you can do when you go off to college. That's the type of thing we're talking about. So will give you some time to enter those.

In, UM, just going to look over the chat box to see if there are any urgent pressing questions that we need to get to right now. I think many of them we can wait until the end of the program, but just wanting to make sure nyara feel free to take a peek as well.

As we're approving some of these, I will just take a moment to address 1 of the questions, which focuses on illness or a setback. I struggle with anxiety and did a lot when I was in high school and didn't know how to approach that. An essay topic. I also lost a parent and had no idea if I should or should not approach that subject in an essay topic. And my answer for you is there's not a right or wrong answer.

It is incredibly up to you and how you want to talk about that experience, how you deem it important. If your illness has really shaped how you look at the world, be clear about that's the topic of the essay. Actually, it's how you look at the world. The topic isn't your illness. If the loss of my father really made me question my faith, the topic is the questioning of my faith and how I reconciled that. It's not the loss of my father, so you notice what I'm doing there. I'm flipping the script.

And I would encourage you to do the same with that question is is this appropriate topic? Only you can answer that and the answer might be held within maybe the topic really isn't about the loss or the illness, it's about that inner lesson that you're wanting to talk about instead.

We're going to take some time just to approve these next few ones and you are if you want to get started on the zooming in exercises I approve, feel free. These are great essay topics I'm seeing come in just phenomenal, and I think this is another thing. Is this part of a brain storming in work shopping together is you get to see what other people are being vulnerable and thinking about. And so I'm just I'm really excited about all these essay topics.

Yeah, these are wonderful essay topics and I just want to pair it a little bit of what chase just said. It's important that you know whatever the surrounding context or narrative is in your story. Make sure it comes back to how it is made, you who you are today, or how it shaped the perspective that you have. Now you know you are the star of your essay.

Um now angasi wanted to move to the next exercise.

Perfect.

OK, so choosing a topic you are going to zoom in from the big picture some number one, think of a broad topic and I'm very sure that most of you have done that. I seen that quite a bit. If you've already done that, but you want to think of what comes to mind right away, there are some pretty big topics that can be pretty significant in your daily life that immediately pop into your head like family or significant world events or social activism.

Or social justice? It's totally fine to start being because we are about to zoom in. Now you want to specify a circumstance about that topic. Maddie is unique to you. How is this topic influenced you? How did you engage with it? Why did you choose to write about it?

I mean, we have 3 examples on the screen right here. Example one, your family moved to the US for better educational opportunities to I babysit my siblings while my parents are at work and three I am passionate about poverty alleviation.

You know these are all more specific situations, but there are also several different people who could write about the same sort of situation, so will want to zoom in even further.

Hone in on that topic and what makes your point unique. There are plenty of people who babysit for their siblings well. What about that experience shape to you? How did you engage with it? When did you learn specifically? How did your particular siblings influence the way that you were able to grow and work within that experience? I'm, you know your family moved for a better educational opportunities, but with those educational opportunities?

What does she want to pursue? What specific opportunities were you able to experience that were given to you through that topic of moving for better educational opportunities?

And you know, for example, three you were passionate. You go from big topic, you're passionate about a particular social justice issue to more general topic that relates to your life and many others of passion for poverty alleviation. But when you zoom into what makes that particular point meet, working out of food pantry teaching you about working poverty in the US and deepening your passion for social activism. How that experience help you to understand how systems.

Impact people on an individual level and how you can influence change in your local community.

That's a very specific experience to have, especially if you can specify it down to what working at a food pantry looks like in your specific community, and the specific lessons that you were able to learn from working with for specific community. So this helps to just add greater detail and.

Awesome, I was enjoying approving all of the essay topics. Great questions we will. I promise we'll get to those questions about those essay topics at the end of the program. They're very specific, nuanced questions, good questions, and so I just don't want to discourage you if you ask those. But to get going, we are going to engage in our big exercise, which is a story map. Guided group exercise. This is a great tool.

For you to use to map out many of your stories, I'll be honest, I use a similar method for all of my academic essays in college. I'm guessing niara has her own approach to outlining stories, essays, important events. In fact, I also do this roughly when I have conversations with students to map out my response to them. What things are important to have them be included for them? Excuse me in my response to them, so here is some of the reasons we're going to use this. It is going to allow for.

You to explore the entire landscape of your experience. It's going to allow for you to recall details of that experience, the chosen topic that you have. It's going to allow for you to identify and Mark out potentially vivid an engaging topics within your chosen essay topic. It creates a visual reference for you to return to over and over again as you refine your essay topic and write it. It's also going to allow for Yuan interviews in the future.

As well as when you answer those pesky scholarship application questions to zoom in very quickly on maybe one or two paragraphs of your refined story, and know that that's a great way I can answer that question. Or if you are in an interview for some type of situation, I use this for job interviews thinking about. OK, this is my story. This part of my story answers their question really well, and I know that like the back of my hand. Lastly it. This exercise will allow for you to find.

Parts of the story or actual other stories within the topic you chose that you may have overlooked why? And you're going to hear me say this over and over again. Our memories fail us. It's part of being human. When we tell our stories, we articulate them in different ways and they make meaning for us in new ways. And that's just again, part of being a human being and having a brain. And so that's why these exercises are so helpful to plot out the story in such a visual way so.

As we get started.

I would love for you to use a writing utensil and a sheet of paper. Use whatever note taking method that you have that's most comfortable for you and you're going to draw in a long gated Oval on your piece of paper.

On the piece of paper and through that Oval you're going to make a line across as you see in the photo.

And you're going to label one end of that then and one end of it now, and that allows for you to create a rough timeline.

Remember, again, we're not going to include all of the happening events on our timeline. We're going to slowly fill that in. I'm going to help you think about that.

I'm gonna give everybody a minute to make sure we've gotten this far.

Perfect.

So the next piece and step is populating our story man.

After you've marked San labeled, then and now on the story map, make sure that you began to think about the important parts of the story and we're going to label those with X is on the timeline.

Think about the obvious things, the place. Thinking back to that story I told you before about the young woman who read books to explore the world. What was her place?

It was rural. It was a rural part of the country. You didn't have a city. You can include a city name if you want to, but think about the imagery that was drawn up for you. That the reader was allowed to use. We didn't get where they were born, how long they had lived there. We just knew they lived in a rural place their whole life. Think about the other parts of the setting that are important to the experience that there is a library that she hadn't driven more than 60 miles away from her home. Those are your first few axes to think about.

To start setting out what's important for the reader to understand the next is to populate your map. There weren't extra people in the story about the young woman, however, are people In addition to yourself important to include in your story?

Place those important people on your map. Think about it critically. Do we need to know those people as the reader? I've seen great stories about how family members overcame poverty to raise them, how your parents are inspirations to you because of how hard they work. This is the opportunity to briefly give us an image of your parents. Don't put the whole focus on them again, it's about what you learned in about your internal reflection in feelings.

Next, Lee began to populate.

There's storyline with those feelings. The point, what do we need to know about you? What's the takeaway?

And your conclusion should, if you've had an intro tie in with your intro and tell me why you use that quote, why you use that metaphor? Why was it important for me to learn about your parents? If that was your intro telling me about your parents and directly relate that back to why you are applying for college or why I'm supposed to know that about you as a college applicant. The second piece I'm in last piece that I want to focus on is what this story map can help you do.

It's going to help you focus your on your essay messages like that young woman. The key message was growing up in a rural place. The second key message was not having been exposed to many other parts of the world an wanting to the third key part was she read. She visited other places of the world through books and literature and the last point was that that made her understand that she desired to learn in a place that valued multiculturalism that valued international cooperation.

And a place where she could engage with those values. I know it seems really lofty, but I hope that this is helpful to help you begin to map out how you can fit all of these different parts of your story together.

Lastly, this is a starting point. This is the starting point for you to begin to build your paragraphs to write more in depth about the setting, the characters, the lesson, your values, and why you told us that in your essay, by using those little touch points to know how to organize your essay. I hope that this has been helpful and I would encourage you to make one of these Maps for each of the topics that you put down today.

And that will help you think about how to refine those stories. How to maybe write about them in different ways and it will allow for you to do something really concrete before you sit down and do the overwhelming step of putting words to paper. I know that feels so. So, uh, such like a big step. So often. I hope this might be a helpful in between.

Next, niara an IR niara is going to offer you some pro tips as you begin to engage in the actual writing from your story map.

All right?

Thank you for the intro, Jason, thank you for guiding us through that exercise so I do have some essay pro tips here in the first. Once I would like to offer have to do with content you want to show that you are a positive, engaged community member. Demonstrate that college isn't just a stepping stone to a high paying job and it's absolutely OK if you want to go to college and get a good job to support yourself and your family. I think that's a call that.

The majority of us had, that's great.

But you also want to show what you're going to contribute because most colleges are looking for students who also be involved in the campus community outside of the classroom. And what will you be able to contribute outside of the classroom?

In your essay, you want to show and not tell that. For example, if you want to show that you are passionate about food, justice and urban agriculture, you don't just say I am really passionate about working with this organization.

And I have helped develop five community gardens in my city.

Do you wanna talk about your experience of going to a community garden for the first time? Or maybe the one that she worked at for the first time? What you experienced being there? What you learned from working in that particular environment, the values that you've learned from that, how you've grown from baton, how it informs what you want to do in the future, and the way that you feel about the work that's being done right now.

That can really inform who you are as a person in terms of your personal characteristics and goals, but in a way that shows it without saying it flat out without giving any images or examples when we say show, we mean images and examples.

Now we also want you to demonstrate maturity.

No matter what the topic is, but particularly if you choose to write about obstacles, challenges or difficult experiences you want to use a mature and composed tone. Avoid language that you wouldn't want your grandma to see, or if not your grandma, someone in your personal life who is sensitive and that you care deeply for, avoid that language.

You want to make sure that you're not using overly negative or critical language. Either you want to be able to show growth you want to show what you've learned from that particular experience. If it is something that is particularly painful, you want to move your statement into a positive direction to show what you've learned from those challenges. Try to show the reader your inner strength and growth outweigh any frustration or anger.

You know, and if you are concerned that this topic may inspire a certain level of pity or compassion that you aren't trying to evoke in the people who are reading your essay, you don't have to approach it from a standpoint that you might personally interpret as complaining or well was me. You can always speak to this is what I experienced. This is how I have grown from it, and this is how it does or does not define ME.

But I am still worthwhile in can contribute positively to the spaces around me.

I'm, which is also absolutely true. As a sidebar, no matter what you've been through, no matter what obstacles you have faced or experience, no matter what painful situations that you've had to endure, you are absolutely still worthwhile and important, and you have so much to offer to the environment around you in that can offer that can definitely come through in your essay, so you know you don't want your admissions officer to finish reading your essay and feel concerned about you. Instead, you want to show them that you're a positive thinker.

Who is prepared to handle the challenge of college always end on a positive and hopeful note?

And if it comes down to it that you're worried that you're not able to write about a particular topic with a mature tone, or show that you have internally resolved and recovered from any related issues, that's fine, but you may also want to choose a different topic or to work with the people close enough to you until you can get it to a place where you feel satisfied.

Um next my essay pro tips have to do with format. First and foremost. Do not wait until the last minute. Do not wait until the last week. Do not wait until the last thing you wanna give yourself as much time as possible to work on your essay to make sure that it's in the place where you want it to be and that it communicates the things that you want to have in it, but also to allow for some time to edit and to ask for feedback.

And when it comes to editing and asking for feedback, you want to be consider it and that you give the people who you are asking enough time to do a good job and to discuss your essay with you.

I'm, you know, so that you're able to edit and proofread with them to go through the stages of the essay to be able to have the time to drop a story map and you know it's totally fine to have an A middle of beginning, a middle and an end. It's also fine to have a middle beginning and an end, but make sure you have it in the correct order.

Reading drafts allowed to yourself can be incredibly helpful just in terms of checking up on any grammar or spelling errors that you might not immediately pick out just by reading it. Also, if you don't necessarily have a place to read aloud to yourself, and you may feel self conscious speaking in front of other people, change your font, make it bigger, make it smaller, use comic sands. Just having that different visual format can help you register it as something new so you're able to pick out new things from inside of it.

Capitalize I.

It seems simple.

But you really want to capitalize I because you don't look through for those capitalize eyes, and you have an eye by itself that is in capitalized. You aren't gonna feel great about it. I know that I wouldn't feel great about it, which is why you need to proofread and have people around you to proofread to catch those little entirely avoidable typos are mistakes.

Avoid the hours words and cliches.

If you needed to look up the word in a thesaurus, it probably doesn't speak accurately to the way that you experienced. What you're writing about, because when you were experiencing it, you weren't using those words to think about it or describe it because you just found that word enough. The source and it can also end up sounding an authentic to who you are in the rest of the tone of your essay.

You also going to avoid cliches, and that isn't to say that you know if a particular experience you have sounds cliched, but it's authentic to who you are and how that actually happened. I am not here to, you know, rock your boat in that particular manner. I'm just saying that you know you don't have to neatly wrapped up a story in a particular cliched phrase or an idea. You just need to be authentic to yourself.

And make sure that it comes through. And again that comes with proofreading and have other people giving you feedback.

Now this is something that I've seen a little bit in the chat here, but your trusted editors, your friends, family members, teachers, counselors, mentors, people that you work with on a daily basis. Trusted family, friends, anyone that you you know. Trust you read your essay and give you honest, constructive criticism. Also, being affirming of the experiences that you've had.

Can be a trusted editor.

Make sure that your voice still comes through despite whenever trusted editors you use.

There are some people who really care about you and make your about you so much they might want to take over your essay for you. Don't let that happen. You know it's important to have people proofread your essay to make sure that things track in terms of content, grammar, spelling that they understand what you're trying to communicate. But you ultimately want the words to be your own. You want the experience to come out the way in which you understood it in the way that you personally would communicate it.

And there is a pretty big one. It might seem kind of obvious, but I think we should say it not use abbreviations or text lingo. Uhm, you know if you are very specifically and obviously voting something that you read in a text message, you use quotation Marks and you say so in so texted me quotation Mark Elo LBRB uhm.

IJC quotation mark. We can understand that that is literally what happened. But if you end your essay with, you know.

And that is how I truly found when I was most passionate about.

Ello L.

That I yeah it can. It can come off as a little bit weird and I know that isn't, you know, a very good example of how someone might end up interjecting that into an essay at a potentially inappropriate time, but you want to be more formal with this kind of writing. You want to make sure that you do everything that you can to make sure that it comes across in a way that is.

Best communicated and most easily communicated in the language you are writing in.

Now, when it comes to format.

Be mindful of how the device you are using formats text, just depending on the device that you're using when you actually go to submit your essay, you can find that perhaps their words spaces in the way that you wanted. They weren't spaces in the places that you wanted them to be. Perhaps the punctuation came through in a strange way. There are some devices and some Internet browsers through which maybe you're on your phone and you put an apostrophe.

But when someone goes to read it, it actually looks like an and sign and a percentage symbol.

You want to make sure that what you're writing comes through in the way that you wanted it to.

I'm next you wanna have paragraphs A5 paragraph essay is not necessary or even necessarily desirable, but you want to be sure that you are breaking up your ideas in a way that logically makes sense, and something that admissions officers do read into is that when they do see just a large block of text, it's hard for it to stand out or one and two. It makes it more difficult to read. And three, perhaps most importantly, it ends up looking a little bit.

Rushed, it looks like you didn't necessarily put in the time here or effort to be able to separate those ideas in a coherent manner.

And those are the essay pro tips and I have to offer you now. James will lead us through our next exercise.

Awesome, thank you so much. So we did send out two sample essays for you and these are going to be two really great ways for you to engage in self reflection.

Using the following questions, looking at each essay, what do you like about the essays? What stood out to you?

Thinking about each essay.

What strengths do you see an each essay?

Can you identify what specifically makes P each applicant unique? This is the big thing to ask yourselves about each of those essays. One of them focuses on the students families. In one of them focuses more on the student, their thoughts, their feelings.

That's the big one. These are two really great examples of what a student focused essay looks like, and what an essay that focuses on a student's family looks like.

And the last question, I really encourage you to think about as you do some review and self critical reflection on those essays would be what could be improved in the essays. How could the student who focus more on their family focus more on how that impacted them, what they were thinking their values is the.

Now we have some next steps for you. We want to strongly encourage you to continue to workshop your essay. An personal statements. I'm especially with the ideas that you have today and we just I just want to say just because you came up with an essay prompt today and ideas today. It doesn't mean you have to use it. We won't be mad if you won't use it.

Well, this is just to give you some.

Some fuel for the fire that will be used to move along the train of writing your essay. You know, we really want you too.

Find people to be able to work. Shop your essays with. We want you to be able to ask yourself in other cells. Important questions to get to the heart of what makes your story or your essay unique and I want to say.

The people that you definitely shouldn't send your essay 2 for proofreading or editing our admissions offices. Admissions offices do not encourage you to submit your essay for editing. You know, just because it's a surface they cannot offer to everybody. So it's not necessarily fair to offer it to just you and also just for the purposes of trying not to be biased. It would be sort of unfair if out of everyone in their applicant pool.

Your essay is the one that the office is most familiar with, so just in the interests of fairness.

And also just for now looking weird with the Admissions Office of the school that you're applying to.

Those are not your trusted editors. But Lastly, I just want to say again, begin early as about are a fact now you are here in this workshop because you were obviously very pertinently interested in writing a college essay, and we've offered you some tools to be able to start. I'm so please use them. Please keep on reviewing your essay topics and workshopping them an yeah.

Thank you so much for being a part of this presentation today.

Awesome, yes, thank you so much for joining us. All of you for participating in the web and our former students for allowing us to modify and share their essays as well as their stories to questbridge for generously sharing content. Questbridge is a partner of ours. They are a college access and equity focused organization. Living proof is the adapted version of the story map that you saw that comes from directly from a textbook and the last one.

Uh, the tips on writing a college essay by hairy bald. Uhm, I do want to briefly mention that we would welcome an application from you at McAllister College. We are nest now, test optional, which means that we welcome students to apply with or without their test scores. There are many reasons a student may choose to apply, not using their test scores. Sometimes students feel that they do not align with their academic ability. We welcome students to apply again with.

Or without test scores, we do not require any further materials or essays from students not submitting their standardized test scores. Lastly, I would just like to mention there is no application fee at McAllister College. We see that as part of our ongoing mission for equity and access, and strongly encourage if you, if you feel that McAllister is a good fit to reach out to niara myself or apply the application will open here in August, turning things over to you all.

Any questions for us? We will spend the next 20 minutes or so together. Um, we will have to cut out at about four 2425 um. However, we're happy to spend that time remaining with you and me are and I will work our hardest to answer your questions just to kick us off. There is an easy one.

Is there a word limit for the essay? Yeah, there's a range of word limits. The common application is 650 words. That is the limit, not the goal. I have read fantastic three paragraph, probably 150 word essays. I've read horrible short essays. I've read the phenomenal long essays and I've read essays that I've needed to make sure I read twice to make sure I didn't get lost in the long essay.

And I did do diligence for the applicant. So again, it's the limit, not the goal as part of my answer this question, I'm going to answer another one I saw, which was, is there a particular format such as Emily or a PA that you need to write your essay in no, no, no no. It is not needing to be in a particular format. We're asking for adherence to proper grammar using a structure Anna layout that makes sense. What we're talking about is framing having an introduction.

Having a closer that let's us know why you use that introduction, that's what we're talking about, so please don't feel like you need to have headers or footers or page numbers and citations, not at all necessary in are in a college essay or in response to any of the common application prompts.

Are you seeing any?

Perfect, perfect next question is a straightforward one. Do we at McAllister have a college specific essay? Yes yes yes yes we do.

We have, um, that college specific essay that allows.

Students to talk about why they want to be at McAllister, why they want to be in an urban environment, and so I hope I hope that that's answering the question is helpful. Take time for that. We read those extra careful and they help us get to know why. Why you've chosen Mac.

I would just love to take a crack quickly at the 150 character limit and how to do that. It's tricky 150. Words is not a lot. I had a really great professor who helped me a scholarship application. I was in you're going to need to have a review or help you probably if you're struggling to narrow it down that second set of eyes that second point of view is really going to help you by asking questions of was it necessary that you told me that is this one sentence necessary are those 2 words necessary.

Um, an unfortunately you might have to say no there not and let go of those words because they have fresh eyes. They know they know what your messages and they they've read it a few times likely and you have to work on that with them. There's not like a silver bullet answer to that question, it's just workshopping that gets you down to cut down those word counts.

Oh, I see a question here that asks when writing a college essay. People often suggest either taking the pitiful or gleeful approach. Which type of content slash tone might be more preferred? Uhm, well, you know I'd say in terms of trying to present yourself best. Self belief alone is always preferable, preferable to pitiful. But I think that you are absolutely allowed to an encouraged to, you know, live in the ambiguity or not, the ambiguity.

But the complexity and the multi faceted Ness of your experience, it might be a very difficult experience that may have inspired fitting in some people, but you're able to find the growth and lesson in Glee and it it might be an objectively gleeful experience, but you want to be able to bring it back down to Earth and talk about how specifically that experience has shaped who you are, or your worldview, or the way that you present yourself or act within the world. So I would say that you know.

You can trend towards both directions, but it is absolutely fine to rest in the complexity of life in your own experience.

I'm asked you whether it would be possible to get a recording of this presentation as well as a copy of the slide. You will be able to see a recording of this presentation once it is finished in the same place where you registered for this presentation, but genius, I'm not sure whether or not they will receive a copy of the more slides, will they?

TBD to be determined right now. We're still forming our follow up. Thank you email and I think we should be able to include it. I know that seems like a simple ask. If you really want it, email niara or myself and we can provide it to individually and the issue is just how do we most efficiently get that out to you? All so I hope that's helpful. Sorry I can't give you a definitive yes or no.

Question is, can we add a poem to our personal statement given that we elaborate on the poem, you can what I was referencing about a poem is a poem you had written, not a poem from someone else. I don't recommend you inserting a long poem that you like or even a short poem that you like to then explain to an admission office. I would really encourage you to write your own words and your own. That's what more so I was thinking about when I talked about poetry or prose.

That's helpful, um.

Looking at some other questions here.

I think there's kind of a meta question about writing about writing the essay. Uhm, I hope I understand that correctly. I guess there's nothing wrong with that. That subject from my point of view, as long as it really is telling me something about you telling me something unique about you. Anne isn't just a narrative of the writing process of writing the essay, again, trying to be unique. Trying to tell the reader what the point is, it would be may be disappointing to read an essay about writing an essay.

And not know what the point was if I I don't. I'm not trying to be sassy, but that would be the critical element for me is an essay review or it would be to be told why you chose that topic?

Sing another one. Is there an individual essay for every college? If you only use the common app, how do you show that you have interest in a particular institution? If the other schools feeling as though you are not interested? Assuming that all the schools are the common app, that is a challenge. Not mentioning a school by name in that common application essay and needing to be really authentic to yourself, I would say you shouldn't be applying A2 schools that are polar opposites.

For example, McAllister is a very inclusive uhm.

Campus where our students value dialogue and um, ideas over status and are generally progressive in their outlook. And if that Jives With You, you should be applying to McAllister in schools like it. If it doesn't jive with you, you shouldn't be pretending you want to be at a school like McAllister. And so I hope that helps you understand that you can be specific to a college by being specific to your values and who you are. The second piece is colleges like Mac know that there's two essays and that's why we have the specific college.

Essay and that shows up in that common app, essay section, and so you're always going to have the prompt to fill out the college specific essay In addition to whatever your common application essay is. I hope that answers your question.

I'm getting a little lost in here because there are so many good questions.

Hum.

Well, I guess there is one that's a little bit more simple. How would you start it? Of- it being the essay addressing the administration, I would say no, you don't necessarily need to address anyone in your essay. We just want you to describe an experience or a situation or a particular topic that helps us get to know you better as an individual. Your worldview, your character in which you are.

Able to contribute to your community into the world so it doesn't need to start of- as hello Sir or Madam. Hello admissions professional. Hello Dean of student life, you don't need any of that. Feel free to just jump into your personal statement.

Are you there is a good way to write an essay about your relationship with someone. If you focus on yourself and your growth enough, you know. For example, my friend chase is a really cool person and we both work at McAllister and through my work with Chase, I have learned that I do. I really like you know this Davis Adolphus graduates and this reflects on me. I someone who were.

Graduated from a liberal arts school in showing that I have affinity for other liberal arts graduates and that really informs my own personal, you know, dedication to the value of a broad based education, critical thinking skills and open mindedness. Now is able to speak about Jace and the way that he's impacted me, but I was able to relate it back to myself and how I see the world and how he has impacted me. So there are definitely ways to do that.

I'm seeing some questions. Thank you now. That was actually a great just a great dive in there because he talked about me. Know I'm kidding, kidding.

Looking at the questions, trying to honor a lot of these, uhm.

Something that makes them stand out less OK. Sample essay. Giving a second essay was on a big trip topic. What would you say the student did well and differentiate themselves, something that makes it stand out less? That's a hard question.

I think that in the sample essay, the student worked hard to talk about their values and how they were thinking about it. It was, it was focusing on their internal reflection, and I think that's what they did really well there. In that second sample essay. Again, it's subjective. Its objective. What we do know is that they did stand out, they were unique, and I think you're touching on something really important. There's that they used a big trip topic, which can be a hard thing to stand out doing, but the focus in there was about their thinking, their internal dialogue, the thoughts they were having about values about.

Issues, I hope that's helpful Sarah. I'm just going to prove that right now.

One is can you clarify about the option to choose your own essay topic instead of the common app? Yes, I can't good question. So when you select one of those many essay topics, there literally will be a box that says I'm choosing to submit my own sample of writing.

That is something you can do I don't recommend you submit a paper you've written. It's not specific enough. It appears as obviously an academic paper that you wrote for something else. I just I don't recommend you do it. It's a mistake I made. I submitted a previously written academic paper when I was applying for college, and I think to directly answer one of those questions that's being asked is, what would I do differently? What was my essay topic on some of them? I was specific. I answered their college specific essays.

Other ones I just submitted academic writing. I wish I would have submitted an actual essay to that college.

I hope that's that's helpful. Is there a way to write a good essay about your relationship with someone if you focus on yourself and your growth enough? Yes, yes. But the trick is making sure that other readers who read it.

Understand it's about you and and take those same takeaways with you. So the checkpoint on that to drive through. If you're choosing that is your essay topic would be to have other people read it and make sure they're getting the same. Take away that you intent and that's hard. That's part of that sender receiver thing. am I putting out messages into the world that are being received in the way I want them too? And that's part of the core part of reviewing an essay.

I think 2 questions uh about challenges right next to one another. Uh, one student asks, you know, should I write about one challenge after another in paragraphs? In my essay, I would say that you know, if the challenges are related analogical wingan, you are able to Expound on them in a manner that communicates more about yourself and who you are in your understanding and perspective on the world around you.

I say go for it. I also say that that can be a very difficult way to format an essay in a way that stays engaging and coherent, and you would end up needing a lot of feedback on how to make it all mesh together. Uh, another question that I see about challenges. Is it bad if I don't write about overcoming challenges?

That's totally fine, but I think you know. Also you can expand your idea of what a challenge is. A challenge doesn't necessarily have to be a traumatic experience. A challenge doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, a very difficult situation that you had to scrap and fight and get your way out of. Those are definitely real and more obvious examples of challenges. But even overcoming a personal fear.

And what you learned in that process overcoming an anxiety about trying something new and being able to speak about that in a specific manner. And you know, once you've learned and trying to overcome that.

Basically, anytime you've learned a lesson, anytime that you've been pushed to grow, you have overcome something, whether that be large or small, it can still be significant, especially in the way that you're able to relate that, and especially in the way that you're able to tell us about how that has informed who you are, what you want to put into the world, and how you view the your community and your environment surrounding you.

So when it comes to whether or not to write about overcoming the challenge, you don't have to talk about. You know the most difficult thing that you've ever experienced or feel like you have nothing to talk about. If you feel like you haven't had some extremely difficult personal experiences right about growth, right about lessons right about the ways you've learned that you can impact the people around you in a positive way. Uhm, yeah, I think there are so many ways to talk about.

Overcoming that don't have to do with personally experiencing pain.

Awesome, um seeing some questions about quality academic writing quality, excuse me, grammar errors, those types of things, and how important are they? They're critical.

They are critical. UM, in some ways, if a student is borderline as an applicant, meaning their test scores, or they had a down year and there's some questions about, are they ready to thrive? Are they ready to really take it? Take off at the institution or does the college have the resources to support them? The quality of the writing?

Can be make or break and letting admission team know that that student is able is capable and so there was sometimes framing as like how does that relate to activities or personal achievements or other stats. If you have an applicant who has great test scores, great GPA an you get a really really poor writing sample with grammar errors.

And and conventions, words that are not being used correctly. It brings things into question. It makes you wonder if we're writing this way, how? Why are we receiving grades in this way? And so yes, making sure all your ducks in a row that you've edited that you catch grammar errors and mistakes is incredibly important in for that reason. Having a proofreader for your essay is incredibly important. Seeing another question about.

Limit word count limit. Don't exceed the word count limit. Don't do it.

Like full stop don't? Why? Because we won't read it and not because were nasty or rude. Common application doesn't send it to us. It cuts off the words in. It will literally stop your essay mid sentence. Many other essay platforms do that as well and so don't exceed the word count because that's all we will be able to read. I might want to keep reading. I will never know what you wrote because it is not set to us. I know that's a scary thing so just don't exceed the word count. Don't do it.

Um?

Yeah.

Oh, if I could interject a question I see here, will students be disadvantaged in any way for those extenuating circumstances? They might want to speak about? Would it be seen as a red flag? and I would say yes and no. You won't be disadvantaged in that we will be judging you as a student in an applicant based on those extenuating circumstances. But depending on what you write about and how you write about it.

It can call into question, you know well this person be able to survive in a particular way on our campus, given you know whether or not this situation sounds person revolve personally resolved and if they sound like they will be personally coming to our campus, you know it isn't necessarily a likely set before with your essay, we don't want you to have your admissions officer coming away from which you wrote feeling concerned about you.

Uhm, you know we're not going to think you're a bad person based on what we're reading, we're not going to think that you are weak or that you know you don't deserve to come here. We might just think that with certain extenuating circumstances, if we feel as though you have not been able to resolve them in such a way that you could be successful in certain spaces.

He would be concerned about you and be concerned that we were doing a disservice to you to put you in a situation that we felt personally that you could not handle. Based on the information that you've given us about how you were able to adapt to India with and learn from a particular situation.

And along with that, someone asked would comparing yourself to other students be inappropriate as I go to one of the best schools on the East Coast and that can leave me feeling not confident?

Comparing yourself to others in a way that doesn't have any resolution about your own self awareness and self confidence can be a red flag. It can come afas somewhat jealous it can come off as somewhat envious. It can come off as somewhat better if you aren't able to show us that you've come to a conclusion about your own self worth because you know.

Comparing yourself to other students is natural, but you shouldn't necessarily get you down. You are absolutely worthwhile, and if you're doing the best that you can, that is absolutely anyone can ask of you. Um, and I would say that you know, if you have gone through a process of comparing yourself to someone in that left, you feeling less confident, it might be good to do some self exploration as to how you can become more confident and your differences, how you can be more confident and the ways in which you are handling the challenges that you feel like the students around you might not.

Yeah, do you have anything to add to that Chase?

No, I I think that that's a really good overview and it it relates again back to, I think some of these hard questions about disclosure of medical illnesses. Mental health challenges is wanting to make sure that.

Um?

It's not just the story itself that you're not just comparing yourself to other students as a purpose. For that, and you're directly stating that purpose. I want to be sensitive to the person asking this question, so I'm not going to approve the question to be publicly viewable, but I'm going to ask the question answer it. Somebody's asking about if sexual assault is an appropriate essay topic, and that's up to you that firmly fits into. I feel this category of.

Disclosure around mental health challenges, health struggles, as well as being a survivor and uh, or victim of an event. And so I would encourage you in that question. It's obvious that you may feel that there's something important for a reader to know. Clearly, state why and what you want them to know. If that's shaped something important in your life, if it has changed how you move through the world, which I anticipated has.

As well as if it impacted directly greats within a portion of your academic experience. That's why you're likely sharing that with us and we'd appreciate being directly told that disclosure is such an individual decision, and so I can't tell you yes or no because the answer isn't yes or no. It's really yuan in up to you, and making sure that it's clear why you're disclosing it so that you can have control over your story.

You are narrative and why you want it to be red and how you want it to be understood. It's OK if you're sharing something so personal and powerful to tell me as the reader. I want you to take this away from. It doesn't need to be framed that way exactly, but it can. It can be as I learned this an I want the world to know these things. Uhm, it is fundamentally OK to write about those types of experiences.

Somebody's been asking about politics and this is a perfect example. I do want to, but yeah.

Please.

Jason just interrupt you just a little bit to go back to the question on sexual assault just to speak to an essay I read from a student this past cycle, in which they discussed being bullied and sexually assaulted by a class leading to an interruption in their education. Having to take time away from school and having to integrate themselves into a new high school environment and build trust with new people, but also talking about.

The new perspective it had given them personally, and the ways in which it informed the advocacy that they were now deeply involved in, and in the ways that they find strength and hope, and being able to help others who've experienced a similar situation. And, you know, you may not be in that place yet, but there is still plenty of ways, as Jay said, to talk about it in a way that is beneficial for you and for your application.

Thank you so much niara.

Thinking about a few questions, I'll answer these and I'll throw it back to the R to pick another one and then we'll have to go. But just focusing on the question about one, can we talk about politics in our college application essays? And it's directly related to a question I saw that's not about the college essay, but the students wanted to know how we supported the black lives matter movement here in the Twin Cities, as well as our students who were engaging in protests and civil disobedience during that time. McAllister.

Is firmly committed to engaging in difficult conversations about equity, diversity, inclusion, as well as the history of police violence within our country as well as within our Metropolitan area. For that reason, McAllister, as continued and has agreed to pay the bail as well as legal fees for all students, faculty, and staff who are exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble, protest, and engage in civil disobedience. Second, yes, politics is something I encourage you to write about.

Come get to know your colleges. I've told you a little bit about McAllister. Uhm, if this is the type of place you at want to be at, don't be shy about your values. Uhm, I have read many essays about the 2016 election, the processing and reflection that students have done, how this wasn't awakening for them to become involved in politics, as well as essays in the opposite direction. Questioning why people had a reaction to the 2016 election.

This helps me understand who people are, why they're coming to the institution, and so be you. Be authentic to your values. Don't be vulgar. That's not the point. That's not going to get you anywhere, no matter your point of view, or if it aligns with the institution. But it's going to help that institution identify. Is this the place they want to be? Are we a good fit and it will also help you figure out is this the place I want to live and learn for four years. So yeah, politics is definitely allowed. I encourage it.

I would encourage you to be authentic to your values. Again, be respectful though, because whether or not I agree with you, I'll be really frustrated with your disrespectful.

Any other questions?

Well, I'm looking through an. I guess some one, then I will go back into that, goes over something that we discussed earlier in today's workshop, is wouldn't essay which discuss is broader topics like escapism and your experience with the afor mentioned topic he favored are one which deals with very specific and MIDI gritty details. And to that I say.

You know, maybe pretty details are important to any particular essay, but you can get into the nitty grading while zooming in from a broad topic you know escapism. For example, in my youth, and still to this day, I like to escape through watching anime and watching some cartoons and in watching anime and cartoons I've learned a lot about the power of friendship and hope.

An believing in oneself, and I try to incorporate those values into my daily life by honoring my own boundaries and honoring those of my friends. Being supportive to them and to always set personal goals and look towards the future and believe in myself from the power of positive visualization and maybe some um important mantra is that I can say to myself over and over and screaming from the mountaintops.

You can go from something large like escapism to what is scaphism mean to you too? OK, so how specifically do I engage in that escape in some? What does it do for me personally? How do I engage with it and how does it change influence away then I see myself and embody those characteristics and interact with the world. So like I said, zoom in, zoom in, zoom in. You can start with a big topic but then bring it all the way.

Back to the personal to the unique to the experiential to the detailed.

Awesome, thank you so much niara. Thank you so much for joining us. We are and I are happy to answer. Your questions will be reaching out shortly within the coming days are emails are here on the screen really thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for the great conversation and the wonderful questions. It was really a privilege and a pleasure to be here. Take care.

Thank you, take care. Bye bye.