What to write my college essay on
please watch this before you write your college essay
hello guys so I have made a ton of
videos on college essay so I don't want
to rehash just things that I said
previously and stuff that I'm gonna
touch on in this video I definitely said
previously but basically those videos
were super long and I wanted to make a
shorter video that just consolidates the
two most important pieces of advice that
I have for writing essays because as I'm
sure a lot of you know I essays and I
was editing right now and I just see
some of the same things over and over
and I just don't want some of my viewers
or anybody honestly who's going through
that as a writing process to make the
same mistakes just because they don't
know what it looks like so I'm fortunate
enough to have the opportunity to read a
lot of college essay so there's a bunch
of things that I maybe didn't know we're
ineffective when I was writing my essay
but now I know they're ineffective
because there's so many people use them
so anyway the first thing is and I can't
underscore this enough do not make vague
references to some like life change that
you had or something so many students
that send me essays they make references
to like some realization that they had
some perspective that changed without
really going into details like how that
perspective changed how they maintain
that perspective and the compelling part
of any story where you talk about
changing your perspective or changing a
feeling or taking a new direction with
your life or whatever the compelling
part of that story is how you did it and
that's the part that reveals stuff about
you and I feel like I read so many
essays where students are just like oh I
realized that I don't have to worry
about what other people think about me
because this event happened at the
beginning and that this event happened
at the end without really articulating
what the internal change was and how the
event affected them how they processed
it and how they continue to maintain
that belief despite the challenges that
they have in the future so when you
write your essay don't assume that the
admissions officer is going to give you
the benefit of the doubt and like
understand where you're coming from just
because you're telling your story like
you have to know that like in the eyes
of an admissions officer
you can't like your story can't possibly
be that special just because they've
seen so many other essays that tell
similar stories so you can't leave any
room for them to MIT to like give you
the benefit of the doubt or like try to
extrapolate based on what you're saying
and like for them to you know feel that
oh you must have a good story here
if you don't very clearly articulate
your story because they can't make any
extrapolations about anybody's story
they can't assume that your story that
your life is cool just based on what you
wrote because they read so much of what
students write and if they did it for
you they would have to do it for
everyone which they can't do and then
the second biggest point that I have is
that a lot of students write their
essays like they're really trying to
write like an author or something they
write in a really sort of theatrical way
and kind of tend to overdramatize
what's happening in their essays and
even though it is okay to focus in on a
small moment and it's really important
to illustrate what you're doing if
you're like giving context that isn't
relevant or you're like going into a
super a lot of detail about like what
the meal that you ate was that isn't
really relevant to the point of your
story
or when people try to use make these
like really dramatic statements or just
use any kind of like theatrics in their
essay it comes across really poorly most
of the time and it's just kind of
annoying to read and it makes me like
zone out and an essay because it when
you write things like that it loses the
personal ability they the opportunity
that you have to sound like you're being
personable with the reader so what I
would highly highly encourage everybody
who's writing a college essay to do is
think of it like there's a person on the
other side of this I think reading it
and that person is just like any of
person that I would be talking to and
you're sharing really personal
information with them so treat it like
as if you were telling this story to
somebody that is close to you to some
adult that you trust or to a close
friend and that doesn't mean that you're
not going to tell it like it's a story
it just means that you're not going to
write as if you're writing like action
novel or like teen drama or something so
a lot of people what I'm just trying to
say is they lose the connection that
they have with the reader to trying to
sound like they're better at writing but
this essay is not about sounding like
you're a good writer it's about telling
conveying some of who you are through
your essay and you really don't have to
convey all of who you are that would be
impossible in an essay you really just
have to give the reader a snapshot of
your personality something that is
important and special about you and once
you've done that you've accomplished
what your job is yeah anyway so I just
want to give us advice while I was
editing to anybody who's gonna write
their college essays to anybody who
might want to submit an essay to me best
of luck to everybody who is going on the
college process this year thanks so much
for your support guys and I hope you
have a good good rest of your day
