When we ask students what part of the application process makes them the most nervous, frequently the answer is the essay. It can make students feel vulnerable and exposed. They wonder how much to reveal about themselves, and what story would be the most effective. Often, they just want to know what colleges are looking for.
Guests: Gabrielle Dorsey, Executive Director, Bridges Educational Consulting in California, and Kelly Herrington, Director of College Counseling, University Preparatory Academy in Washington State. Moderated by NACAC member Eddie Pickett, a college counselor and dean at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California.
Eddie Pickett: Hello, new and old friends, and welcome to the College Admissions Decoded podcast, an occasional series from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC.
NACAC is an association of more than 25,000 professionals at high schools, colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations, as well as independent counselors who support and advise students and families through the college admission process. I'm your host, Eddie Pickett. I'm a longtime NACAC member and a College Counselor and Dean at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California.
In today's episode, we'll discuss writing college essays. When I ask students what part of the application process makes them the most nervous, the two most frequent answers are getting in and the essay. Essays can make students feel vulnerable and exposed, and students wonder how much to reveal about themselves, what story might be the most effective, and how an admissions officer might digest their information. Often, students just want to know what colleges are looking for. We'll delve into those subjects today.
I'm joined by two NACAC members with a lot of experience in helping students with their college essays. They are Gabrielle Dorsey, Executive Director for the Bridges Educational Consulting in California.
Gabrielle Dorsey:
Hello.
Pickett: Hi, old friend. Nice to see you again.
Dorsey: Nice to see you too, Eddie. Thank you.
Pickett: And Kelly Herrington, the Director of College Counseling at University of Preparatory Academy in Washington State.
Kelly Herrington:
Hello. Great to be here.
Pickett: New friends, let's do this. So we're going to jump on in and point blank, what's your go-to best piece of advice about writing a college essay?
Dorsey: For me, it's always be yourself. I can't stress that enough for students. We talk a lot about this essay and students feel like it is kind of the end-all, be-all in the process, but they also think that they have to be something specific that they think is expected of them. So I always remind them to be themselves and to be genuine in the essay.
Pickett: What does genuine look like in an essay?
Dorsey: Oh, well that's when we start to talk about authenticity and how they're presenting themselves. And so when I read essays from a student where I can tell that they are trying to present a specific topic or present an element of themselves that isn't necessarily important to them, it often comes off as flat, as boring, or overdone, maybe just doesn't sound like a teenager in a lot of cases.
So I always remind them that if they were to lose their essay, for example, in the library, back in the days when we used to print these things out, that if one of their friends found it they should be able to figure out that it was them. So that's the type of authenticity and genuine approach that they should be taking in approaching their essay.
Pickett: We're going to talk a lot about this theme of authenticity as we go through this podcast, but I'm going to kick it over to Kelly. Best piece of advice?
Herrington: The theme of authenticity ties into my best piece of advice, which is write from the heart. And what your grandmother told you to do when you were little and you were struggling writing an essay rings true today with the college essay. I also have another piece of advice that I often give and that's show, don't tell. Use the senses, smell, touch, taste, hear, what you see, and that connects with one's heart really easily.
Pickett: Both of you talked about the personal voice. What does that mean?
Dorsey: The personal voice, I think, can mean a lot of things. Every student, of course, is different. They have their own perspective, they have their own experience, but the purpose of the personal statement is to share something about themselves that isn't necessarily obvious in other parts of their application. So, in my opinion, the personal voice includes something that isn't a summary of their activities. It isn't a summary of their academics. It's something that speaks to their experience, speaks to their perspective in a way that we wouldn't otherwise be able to get to know them.
Herrington: I think the personal voice is also their style...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... how they talk, how they communicate, how they interact with others.
Pickett: I always tell students they can see what you're doing, but they can't ever see why and how you do those certain things. And so your personal statement or your supplement is always the time to talk about your whys. And so focusing on your whys instead of the whats.
Herrington: I think that's fantastic.
Dorsey: Yeah. I love that.
Herrington: I love that. So great. We also tell students you want the reader to be able to answer what has shaped you, why has it shaped you, and where might that take you in the future? It's what we call the three W's of finding your voice and writing your essay.
Pickett: Can you repeat those three W's again?
Herrington: Sure. What has shaped you? Why has it shaped you? And where might it take you in the future?
Pickett: What are colleges looking for in essays? What do they want to read? What don't they want to read? Is there something specific that everybody's looking for, or is it really to get to know them?
Dorsey: Yeah. The essay is my favorite part of the application, personally. Ever since I worked in admissions myself, I always looked forward to that part of the application because that was the one time I got to hear from the student directly. Most of the times you didn't get to meet the student. So hearing from them, their own voice about their own perspective, not hearing from a teacher, not just looking at their grades on a piece of paper, but actually getting to hear them explain why they want to continue on with their education or to understand a particular moment and experience that they had is so helpful in understanding how this student might contribute to your campus.
So I think that for students they think that they have to speak about some specific topic or that some topics are completely off the table. You know, mine has to be the most one-of-a-kind essay that there ever was. And the reality is you're 17. There's only a limited amount of things that you've done with your life. And that's okay. It's just about the way that you present it. It's the type of information that you share and how you do that versus the topic itself.
I always encourage students to, of course, be mindful about the topics that they choose because there's certainly some that can become cliche, but it's, again, just more about the way in which they're going to share that.
Herrington: I have a confession. Can I share my confession?
Dorsey: Oh my gosh.
Herrington: Likewise, I worked in college admissions and the essay was the first thing that I would read in every application that I opened up because, as we've already talked about, so much of the application is somebody else assessing the student, the transcript, the teacher recommendations, the counselor recommendation. It's somebody else's input into who the student is. So their own voice was really powerful.
And I used to sit in an apartment and I know that the listeners out there picture some distinguished-looking person behind an Oak table reading an application, reading the essay. The reality, it was somebody like me in my slippers with my Cheerios. And a sign of a good essay was when I got really excited and I could kind of spill the milk and the Cheerios onto that essay. And that's how old I am. I was reading on paper. And the essays that really stood out weren't about some seminal moment in a student's life. They weren't about the big game. They weren't about acing a test. They were often about smaller moments that the student can then expand upon to talk about themes in their lives.
Pickett: What you don't see right now is we're all over here nodding our heads. It's eight of us in this room nodding our heads along like, yeah, speak that Kelly. Speak that.
Dorsey: I love that image, Kelly. I wore a purple snuggie myself when I was reading. So definitely not the distinguished look that people think of.
Herrington: Well, I think students often think that a college admissions counselor is their grandparent. And the demographic that they're writing to is that 22 to 30 year age. And so when we tell them to use their voice and to write like they talk, they don't believe us.
Pickett: As we're talking about the authentic voice and owning your own essay and your personality, can you talk about the importance of revision, proofreading, and also getting advice?
Herrington: Absolutely. So first, don't over edit. You should pick one or two trusted people that you know to review your essay. Be careful of having a parent over edit the essay. We do not want an essay that looks like a middle-aged woman or man wrote it. I also believe that students should not use a thesaurus when they're writing their essay as well. And don't get so wrapped up in the story that you forget the analysis. I think an important part of the editing process is to reflect back and think, does my theme about who I am come across in this essay?
Pickett: Yeah. I always ask them the same. What would an admissions officer need to know about you through this essay? And if you can't articulate that to me in 30 seconds, you're not going to be able to do that in this essay, so is that here?
Dorsey: And to Kelly's point about being careful about having folks over edit, I always say you don't want too many cooks in the kitchen. The essay is very subjective, and so you could have five people read your essay and give you five sets of totally different feedback. So you do need to be selective about who you invite to be an editor. I always recommend having someone that knows you well, like a close friend, peer, and then having someone that has a more expert lens, like a counselor or a teacher who can give you kind of both grammatical feedback but who can also give you some feedback in terms of if this essay is going in the right direction, if there's a clear through line. And the takeaways that they tell you should align with the takeaways that you had the goal of sharing with the admission officer when you began the essay.
So making sure that you are clear and presenting your points is so important. This should be a really clean and well-written essay, but not a paper, of course. It's a different vibe from that. And I think that's a really important point to note as well.
Herrington: I think you also want to throw out the five-paragraph essay style.
Dorsey: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Herrington: A lot of times when students edit their essays, they think it has to be five paragraphs. I have to have a thesis statement at the beginning. And as a result, who they are gets lost in that.
Pickett: I like that too many cooks in the kitchen metaphor too. So on one of the themes that I noticed as you're talking about that, you talk about the who's and who's editing. So I want to ask what advice do you have for parents and their role during the essay process?
Dorsey: Hmm. I can't wait to answer. So when I worked in schools, I used to give, as part of our introductory presentation to parents about starting the process, I always used the analogy of riding in a car, right? Where the student is in the driver's seat of the car, very much like it was very much happening in the real world for them with students trying to get their license around the same time. But I made it very clear that we as their counselor were actually the ones in the passenger seat and parents needed to take a step back and ride in the back and they needed to trust their student to learn how to navigate and to figure out the process with their support, but not to overtake that process. So my advice is the same when it comes specifically to the essay, which is they need to take a step back. As Kelly mentioned, sometimes parents can get over eager and over edit the essay to the point that it's not recognizable as the student's anymore.
It's a much bigger issue than I think students necessarily even realize. I see two ends of the spectrum when it comes to parents because sometimes students really want to share with their parents. They have a really great relationship, and they want them to read the essays and give them feedback. And other times where students are like I never ever want my parent to see this essay. And then I think there's a happy medium in there in the middle where parents can provide some helpful feedback because they know their kid very well and it's helpful to have their perspective, but at the same time making sure that the student feels like this essay is representative of themselves and not from their parent.
Herrington: That was fabulous. I would also add parents should understand that their children are 17 or 18, that they are not 40. They are not 50. This is not a doctoral thesis. And I love that parents want to be involved and engaged. That's a beautiful part of our job to see that and we want to foster that. But too much involvement means that the essay doesn't have the student's voice. And therefore, the student, when they gain acceptance to college, feel that it isn't their own work. And the gift that we can give students as we launch them off to college and as they gain acceptance to college is the power of their own work and the power of their own voice.
Pickett: We've talked a lot of macro so far. Let's get into some of the nitty-gritty, some of the micro of this. And so can you talk about the importance of the first paragraph and what's going to grab a reader during that first paragraph?
Dorsey: Yeah. The first paragraph is usually the part that I edit the most when I'm working with students because it's so important to grab the reader's attention right away. And students hear this a lot about admission officers having a limited amount of time to review essays. And I'll be the first to admit as readers you become master skimmers. Yes, you're reading it, but you're reading pretty quickly. I tell my students you want to have the goal of trying to slow the reader down and make them read every word of your essay. So, that first sentence should be something intriguing. It doesn't have to be shocking because sometimes I see wild things happening there. But even if it's dialogue, if it's narrative, something that's going to really draw the reader in and make them want to learn more about the story is the best way to start the essay.
Herrington: I think you also want to have a hook to get the reader excited about reading further into the essay, and some of the best essays that I've read have had that hook. One of my favorite essays was a student who started off saying the person I admired most in life is a convicted felon, and I'm spilling my Cheerios because I want to find out who this felon is...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... what they did. And the student had done an internship where he had worked with the public defender's office and talked about egregious things that transpired in criminal justice. And it was just so beautifully written. He had a hook, he told what shaped him, why it shaped him, where it was going to take him, and I was hungry to get to the end of that essay.
Pickett: Earlier, Kelly, you said something about the analysis portion of the essay. And so thinking about the analysis portion, what percentage would you say needs to be story and what percentage would you say analysis? Or, just in general, how do you go about the analysis during the essay? Is it idea, analysis, idea, analysis, or idea then analysis at the end? What are your thoughts on that for both of you?
Herrington: Great question. I think I'll give you the standard admission counselor's response. It depends.
Dorsey: Yes.
Herrington: A lot of us in admissions joke that on our tombstone it's going to have our name and it depends.
Pickett: Touche.
Dorsey: Yep.
Pickett: And for some students, starting off with that story and having that be the bulk of their essay is fine as long as there's a paragraph of analysis at the end. If a student gets too into the details, for example, I was a camp counselor, here's what we ate, here's where we slept, it doesn't take a step back and reflect on the life lessons learned, then the analysis piece is a missed opportunity.
Dorsey: So there's never a formula that would work for every single student. I think it really depends on the student's writing style, this type of story that they're trying to tell. I've seen students who have been very successful in telling the story first and then including the analysis in the conclusion, and other students who really weave it very well into the story as they're going along. So I don't think there's any way to give a specific percentage or a specific recommendation. It'll really depend on the student and what their writing abilities and gifts are.
Herrington: So great that you mentioned the word formula...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... because so often in college admissions, families, students want to know what's the formula? And there's thousands of books out there about writing your college essay. And I think that sometimes they do a disservice for students because they try to fit themselves into a formula they think that the reader wants.
Dorsey: One of my other very popular answers other than it depends is there is no formula.
Herrington: And there's no formula around the topic either.
Dorsey:: At all.
Herrington: And a lot of times families want to know what is the topic I should write about?
Dorsey: The magical topic.
Herrington: Yeah. And admissions committees are admitting a range of students in terms of their interests. They want to see a wide range of topics.
Dorsey: Yeah.
Pickett: While we're sitting there, we've all sat around reading admissions essays before. So what are your two essays that really stuck out now that you're just sitting on this side and not in the admissions? We all remember some essays. So give two essays, maybe more. Do you remember?
Dorsey: One that jumps to mind was actually a super simple essay. It was about the student's daily routine. So it kind of took me through his day, from getting up in the morning when the alarm went off to specifically what he had for breakfast, his favorite breakfast. It was so simple, but at the same time gave me the clearest window into this student's life, and therefore really helped me feel connected to who that student was and how they go about their daily activities. So I really appreciated having that essay, and I thought it was successful because of how simple it was but also was so authentic.
Herrington: My favorite essay was a student who had hosted an exchange student, and she started off talking about being at the breakfast table that first morning with the exchange student and watching the bananas disappear, one, two, three, four. And the exchange student had never had a banana in her life. And the analysis piece was how different our world would be if we all sat around a table and ate a shared meal together.
Dorsey: That's beautiful.
Herrington: Yeah. That's a wonderful thing about working on the high school side, working on the college side is it's an honor, it's a gift to read these essays. And we laugh and we cry...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... and we jump up and down. And that honesty and authenticity is life-affirming. Our jobs are life-affirming. And the essay really, most of the time, is the most life-affirming part of the college application.
Dorsey: Yeah. It's the most human part. And your comment about how we laugh and cry and we jump up and down, it always reminds me of a concern that students have is that they think that there's supposed to be this huge emotional response to their essays. And that's a myth I always like to debunk as well. And I usually start my essay workshops with students by reminding them if you're not normally funny, this is not the time to start. If you don't have a story that was super impactful, that's very sad, or something like that, you don't need to somehow make that up or throw that together; it's not something that needs to happen. We may not laugh, we may not cry during your essay, but that doesn't mean that we don't feel anything when we're reading it or connect with the reader. So I think it's important for students to know that there doesn't have to be a huge emotional response for it to be a really excellent essay too.
Herrington: There are times when students don't write great essays...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... and they still gained admission to college...
Dorsey: That too.
Herrington: ... because it is one piece of this process and no piece of this process hinges on one particular thing.
Dorsey: Yes. Great point.
Pickett: That's a lovely point for sure. I think my favorite essay was actually by a suburban girl. And the suburban kids usually ask I just live in a bubble, what am I going to talk about? And it's like, you actually have more to say than you realize, so say something about yourself. And she just talked about being the cul-de-sac mom, how everybody called it such a derogatory thing to be the cul-de-sac mom but she took it as a badge of honor. She's like, "People look up to me and I respect that, so I want to make sure I'm doing my best for them." And the way she analyzed it was beautiful. And she wasn't some creative writer. Honestly, she was a very to the point... It was a sweet essay that talked about who she was and why that mattered to her. And the why it matters to you is the most important piece as an admission's reader, at least in my perspective.
Dorsey: And sometimes students forget it's more than just something crazy that happened to them or something dramatic. It could be as simple as reflecting on your own values and how that's played into their lives, what that looks like for them. It could be something very easy in that way.
Pickett: Let's get into the closing paragraph. What are things that are positive and/or negative in the closing paragraph, and where should students be leaving this essay for the admission's reader?
Herrington: I think they really want to leave the reader with an image of what that student will do in the future. What will they do on the campus? What might they do post graduation? That image, that final image is really important. And making sure that that last paragraph circles back to the opening of the essay, I think is really helpful to the reader as well so that they complete the circle of that essay.
Dorsey: Yes. The connection to where the essay began I think is very critical. And I think one of the things that students also worry about in that concluding paragraph is this kind of nice and tidy ending, where they think everything has to be wrapped up really cleanly. And I remind students again you're 17. We know you're not done growing. We know you haven't figured everything out. It's okay.
So the conclusion isn't so much of a conclusion of whatever this topic was as it is just a conclusion of the essay. You're wrapping us up with where you are in your growth, what you learned from this particular experience that you might have been sharing. It's an analysis that is more specific to the story that you're sharing versus an analysis of kind of your life or where your life is heading in the grand scheme of things. So it isn't that big. It just needs to tie into the theme or the through line that you started with, and it needs to give us a sense of who would this person be if they were on my campus.
Herrington: And Eddie, back to your example of the cul-de-sac mom. You picture that student on your campus...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... being the RA, being the quiet leader. That's a really good image to leave the reader with.
Dorsey: Exactly. Yeah.
Pickett: Do they have to prove something in this essay? Because sometimes I get to the end of the essays and they say, well, that's how I learned hard work or persistence or some other skill. Do they have to do that in this essay?
Dorsey: No.
Herrington: No.
Dorsey: And sometimes I wish they wouldn't. Some of the conclusions that are the least successful are just very trite and very concrete ideas that just kind of summarize, oversimplify the summary of and that's how I learned blank, or and this is why now I work hard, or something very simplistic that doesn't show any depth or real reflection.
Herrington: This isn't Shark Tank. You don't have to close with a statement that everybody's going to remember.
Dorsey: Nice.
Pickett: What are some other common mistakes that you've seen in written essays?
Herrington: The student feels more comfortable talking about somebody that's not them. They write all about mom or dad or grandma or their best friend, and you as the admission's reader want to pick up the phone and admit grandma. But at the end of the day, it is their statement, their personal statement. And I think that's the number one mistake that I see. And I get that. It is hard. It takes a lot of courage to write about yourself. And it's lovely to see them write about people so positively. You see that they're empathetic. But this is their personal statement.
Dorsey: That's the number one mistake that I see. A few other mistakes are some of the more cliche topics that students just want to be cognizant of. I think another big one that I see where students don't show depth or reflection in particular in their conclusion is the international service trip. You know, we are very privileged that as a country that many of our students get to participate in these types of experiences, but any admission counselor would be able to tell you what those essays look like. And it takes me three sentences to summarize, and that is I went to X country. They were very poor. We did blank work. I was amazed how happy they are even though they're poor. And now I'm more grateful for my things. Right? That's the essay that we've read a million times. It doesn't really tell us anything about the student, and it also doesn't really show a depth or maturity or a reflection or growth. And that's really what we would want to see from a student no matter the type of experience that they were sharing.
Herrington: I think sometimes students want to write something that will maybe shock the reader...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... so they will therefore be memorable. I remember a student writing their college essay about how applying to college was like losing their virginity.
Dorsey: Oh no.
Pickett: Please no.
Herrington: And I threw up a little bit in my Cheerios. And although the student was wonderful, I couldn't get that image out of my head. We are not looking for shock value in the essay so that therefore you are memorable.
Students also will sometimes write about something that is so shocking that you can't get to the substance of what they wanted to say in the first place. For example, I had a student who wrote about a really terrible injury that they suffered and went into detail about the surgery and the blood. But at the end, we didn't learn what they had gained as a result of that. So be careful if you feel like you need to shock the reader with something.
Dorsey:: Right. And I think the biggest mistake really comes down to if there's no takeaway from the essay, if there's nothing that I can walk away with and say I now understand XYZ about a student, I have a better understanding of their personal context, their growth, their experience. Those are the essays that fail, if they are not able to present that information to us. So the story itself, it doesn't really matter what that is as long as they can still present us with information that we can use to understand who they are as a person. That's really what it comes down to.
Pickett: It just dawned on me also that we keep talking about the essay, the essay, the essay, but there are multiple types of essays during this process. And so can we talk about the difference between the personal statements and a school-specific supplement. I'm in California. We have the UC Personal Insight Questions. I know Gabrielle, you're in California as well. So can we talk about that? But just the differences in these different types of essays.
Dorsey: So they're all quite different and have different purposes. The personal statement, of course, as the title suggests, is about a personal element of the student's life or experience. And the supplements in some ways are much more important because they are specific to a school. They represent the school's values, their mission, the types of questions that they really want to ask a student, and often directly relate to why this student is interested in going to that particular college or something that is related to their mission or values that a student has to be able to speak about well. And so those essays are really important in understanding words that we use all the time, which is fit. And is this a student that's going to be successful on the campus? Is this a student that's going to be able to contribute on the campus? Those questions often answer that more specifically.
And to speak to the UC system, entirely different in that there is no personal statement in the UC application, but instead the four insight questions that are essentially UC-specific supplements and are much shorter. So 350 words is not a lot compared to the 650 for the personal statement. So those questions you are actually encouraged to be more direct in your response. You're not going to spend a lot of time telling a story to help get us to the point. You just kind of need to tell us. You need to answer the question with examples when you can. But you need to answer that a little bit more directly.
Herrington: I think it might be helpful for us to share with our listeners the history of the supplemental essays. They were not common in the 70s, the 80s, or even the 90s, but in the early aughts they proliferated. And the reason that they proliferated was applications going online...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... and it was easier for students to apply to lots and lots of colleges. So the number one supplemental essay asked by colleges is why are you applying to our institution? Because it allows them to figure out is this a stealth applicant that's flown in out of nowhere, or is this a student who really has done their homework about the institution? And when students write the why are you applying to our college, what is it that intrigues you about X college, they really need to be specific. And they're looking for the academic fit, back to the word that Gabrielle just used, the social fit. If they are applying to a school in a large city, they want to make sure that they're not saying, oh, I'm attracted to the urban location with lots of internships and museums close by because that could be Boston, that could be New York City, that could be Washington DC, that could be Chicago, that could be LA.
Pickett: Gabrielle, do you want to add to that why essay? It's a really important essay for a lot of colleges who have it, so you want to add any thoughts on that?
Dorsey: Absolutely. I always encourage students to make sure they've done their research before they answer that question, to use all of their resources, to try to figure out why this is the right school for them. Because if they have an answer that's super generic, then they really haven't been very reflective about this process. The students who are lucky enough to be advised early on in the process, who start their research well before senior year, there's really no excuse that you haven't spent some time being able to figure out why this is the type of school that fits your goals, your values, the opportunities that you want to experience in college. That should all be very well reflected in that response and you should have a pretty articulate answer to that question.
And, of course, now there are limitations due to COVID in terms of visiting campuses, but anytime that you can engage with an admission rep, a student that goes to that school, if you've visited the campus, if you've participated in any type of college event specific to that college, use those experiences to give yourself examples that you can provide in that answer. So if a current student tells you about something really cool, a tradition or an internship or something that they go out to experience that you would love too, that's a great example to be able to provide in that answer.
Herrington: What Gabrielle just did so beautifully is describe what we call the phone-a-friend phenomenon in answering the why us question. Colleges have so many resources where students, even if they don't have a friend on that campus, can make a friend through the online information session, through their virtual tour that will help them write that why us question.
Pickett: And then past the why us question, I always tell students to pay attention to the questions. They're asking you this for a reason. And so they're also telling you what they value, what they care about. And as you see those essays, if there's one question past why us, pay attention. Any thoughts on the supplements past the why us questions? Any fun ones you've seen maybe, or just some general advice about writing the supplements in that space?
Herrington: So glad that you brought that up. Students really stress over the questions that require a ton of creativity. If you were a fictitious character, who would you be? And they think that they've got to come up with something super creative. And I always say don't spend a lot of time on that. This is just a quick take that they're trying to get to know you. You do not have to do hours of research to find the best cartoon character that describes who you are. Don't overthink some of those questions.
Dorsey: I think it's really helpful to remember, again, that these are other humans that are reading your application on the other end. The system is not designed to set you up for failure. It's really something where admission officers are looking for more reasons to advocate for you and they're looking for more information about you. So those creative responses are really just that. Have fun with it.
Herrington: I think often students have written something in the past...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: ... in a class that they can use as a starting point. I'd say nine times out of 10 I can tell a student to tell me something that you've written in the past that you're really proud of, or that a teacher has said that is really good. Bring that to me and we can use that as the starting point. Often, what they need is right there in front of them, and they've done it in the past.
Pickett: I guess two last questions as well. One on timing. When's a good time to start the essays? When's a good time to be editing? And then also just the work, as you work across your entire list in finishing those?
Herrington: I love when students start their essay in the summer before their senior year.
Dorsey: Yes.
Herrington: I have little hair left and what little hair I have is gray, and I lose so much sleep and so much hair over the students who wait to the very last minute. The senior year is busy and we want students to be leaders and engaged in their rigorous curriculum and fully living their senior year best life. And if they wait to write their essays, that is not going to transpire. So start early.
Dorsey: Yes. The summer before your senior year is the ideal time to write your essay. You have some space away from school. You have some time to reflect on the year that just passed and what you learned and gained from that. So I think that's the perfect time to really sit down and work on it. Although, I've seen students start their essays as early as February or March of their junior year. I don't recommend that. I think that's too early to start, and I also think you don't really have the space to fully engage with that work when you're still in the thick of the school year. So if at all possible, start the summer before senior year.
Pickett: Yeah. Reflection is key. That is the most important piece about the essay is reflection. And you have the time to do it over the summer. You don't really have time to do it when you're taking classes in your junior year. That actually leads into the last question I have. And it's just any advice for students experiencing writer's block or anxiety about their essays?
Dorsey: Hmm. So I actually majored in creative writing in college. And the one thing that always helped me, because that blank page and that blinking cursor is the sum of all my nightmares, so I used to just paste old writing into the page just because for some reason psychologically if I could see that there was things on the page, I could start revising or editing or thinking. It would get my brain going. I've seen that work for some students.
Other times, it's just do a free write. Just literally write what's in your subconscious, what's going on in your brain. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to be in any sort of order. Just start, spend a few minutes just doing that, and then go back through and see what actually came out because sometimes students surprise themselves.
Sometimes you need to show it to someone else. So I'll have students write paragraphs of free writes, oh, this is nonsense. And I look at it and I'm like, hey, this is actually a really interesting line, or what a really fun fact that you wrote. Let's see what we can do with that. And you can pull out those one-liners and then do another free write on those alone and tell a whole new story that you didn't expect to or you didn't think of immediately.
Herrington: I think some students are much better about sharing who they are verbally.
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Herrington: And so I would encourage students to sit down with mom or dad or a friend and start talking with some guided questions. I often find myself in my office asking questions to students, having them say the responses out loud, and I start to type. And by 20 minutes, we have a bulk of an essay there. So we need to respect kind of neurodiverse learners and that a lot of times when it comes to something personal it is easier to say it out loud.
Pickett: What I do though is I have them open their phone and record it. So that way when you go home, you can remember the conversation because I can't type as fast as you can speak.
Herrington: That shows our age difference here, bud.
Pickett: Well, yeah, that happens sometimes. I mean, I got a bald spot coming too. It's new, but it's coming.
Dorsey: For the record, I still have all of my hair.
Pickett: The other piece I would say just in that space is that sometimes you stare at the personal statement, that's the part that is stopping you, but the supplements are specific questions...
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pickett: ... and so if you're having a hard time with the personal statement, just go to a supplement because answering a specific question will get the ball rolling. And the goal at this point is just to get the ball rolling.
Dorsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pickett: I'm afraid to say we're out of time today. Many thanks to Gabrielle and Kelly for a great conversation. And thanks to our audience for joining us for this episode on the college essay.
College Admissions Decoded is a podcast from NACAC, the National Association for College Admission Counseling. It is produced by LWC. Kojin Tashiro produced this episode. If you would like to learn more about NACAC's guests, our organization, and the college admissions process, visit our website at www.nacacnet.org, or spelled out N-A-C-A-C-N-E-T.org. Please leave a review and rate us on Apple Podcasts. See you next time on College Admissions Decoded.
CITATION: National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Strategies for Acing the College Essay.” NACAC College Admissions Decoded, National Association for College Admissions Counseling, November 10, 2021.