between and welcome back to college crazy a show to help answer commonly questions students and parents have about the life after high school and options available to students my name is at least at all and i'm currently a senior at the high school i'm here with mr  who is an english teacher and we're going to be discussing how to write an essay for your college application personally i have gone through this process this year and know just how challenging and how many questions can come up during this time of apply so first i want to start by prompt is some students have a background identity interest or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application will be incomplete without it if this sounds like you then please share your story so how would students go about writing this as a ok i think the first thing that they need to do is they need to read it carefully address everything that's in it and keep in mind that schools are looking for you to leave your personal imprint on something so if you want to set your part of yourself apart from other applicants then you need to be honest and you really need to take your time and think about what is it that sets you apart and i think that particular problem to address is that so focus in on the thing that allows you to stand out and is authentic so would you suggest if a student says per se has sport in their resume would you say explain that or something that's not your resume that goes a little deeper into yourself as a person i think it's important if you're going to respond to college writings like that that you do not repeat things that are simply something that they could have found elsewhere on an application rule or on your resume so i think if you want to mention the sport that's ok but i would never repeat what i had already said that it could be found just in a laundry list of what i did or what i accomplished or what team i was on ok i think that i would address the sport from a different perspective if there is something that the sport did for you that left a great impact on your life and absolutely address the sport but don't just mention it you have to go much deeper into it ok so the second prompt is lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success because instead of our time when you experience family are how did it affect you and what did you learn from the experience are you asking me personally yes so where would you go from here ok well i would make a list of all of the failures that i have my life which absolutely have been quite a few in my age and i would look at them and assess them and say ok what did i learn from them and i would literally make a list down wh what i failed at or what i didn't succeed in in my mind what i learned from the experience and after i looked at that list as a whole i would pick the one that left the most impression on me the one that i felt was the one that best demonstrated who i am now as a person and where i've grown from having made those mistakes so you think it would be beneficial for even to see your failures the college would see that you can grow from that or learn from those mistakes i think that is absolutely what they're looking over you because you don't want to picture yourself or paint yourself as everything is rosy because that's not accurate so i think that i would be more apt to accept someone into a college if i were that admissions director if i said ok yes they may have messed up or maybe they didn't do something that they wanted to do but they learn from it that's the kind of person i want coming to my school because beyond school they'll make a good employee one day worker a good spouse a good friend everybody learns from their mistakes but him the third pro does reflect on a time when you challenge a belief or idea what prompted you to act and would you make the same decision again ok where would i do if i were going to write that there are several things that would look at i'm telling my students and on a daily basis we're studying literature now is the time for ascertain what are your beliefs it's just as important for you to understand what you believe in as what you do not believe in and get that down on paper and show them who you are i think the more honest that you are in your application and in your writings the better fit you will be for that school when the more likely you will be to stay at that school once you are once you get into it ok and the fourth problem describe a problem that you solve your problem you'd like to solve and it can be an intellectual challenge a research project or an ethical dilemma anything of it's personal importance no matter of the scale explain it significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution ok this is something i think that is critical for your age especially going into the workforce the number one thing that you're going to have to do is learn to think on your feet and critical thinking is absolutely essential there's a lot of places to look for information but once you have the information the internet or what have you what do i do with it that's something i do on a daily basis you have to think on your feet and i think that colleges as well as employers want to see that so the last prompt is discussed an accomplishment a vent formal or informal those marks are a transition from adulthood from childhood to adulthood within your culture community or family ok if i were to write it that are you asking me as an adult from your perspective either it doesn't matter just how you age because it's been a while my transition from adolescent hood to adulthood but i would have to say there are so many choices that you have now if your age in high school things that you could choose for that particular one that's really an intimate thing that if you keep a journal or if you keep a record or if you have other papers that you've written for former teachers narratives and cetera that documented something in your life that was personal i would use those as my inspiration for writing  paper and then just an essay and when do you think students should start writing these essays or thinking about or anything like that i think that you need to research your particular school and see if they require you to do the essay and you should really start thinking about this i would say the summer before your senior year start to focus and start to hone in on the things that you want to speak about specifically that gives you a little bit of an edge over anyone else that's handing in they're going to be thousands of applicants so i would recommend probably the summer before your senior year and if not then once you get into schools today you have an opportunity to talk to other teachers your guidance counselor someone that you trust that could look over this for you now i know a lot of students kind of get stuck on the five hundred word limit because that's what the common app limits you to would you suggest quantity or quality i would you know just quality over quantity for sure but i think there's a reason why they put the fiber here because i think they have of the best minds in america are doing more than imagining american dream foundation seeking to find cures for life without brain disease isn't just something we can imagine something we can my grandfather served in world war two spending time with him were the best memories of my life i became a physician because of my grandfather i can help others like him i can't imagine working with better doctors or more dedicated  i'm fulfilling my life's mission with the help of my team and thanks to these veterans i'm proud to be a doctor and be a proud to honor my grandfather every day search for careers to find out more here something we bet you didn't know nearly half of all cancers can be prevented that's right nearly fifty percent mostly by making small everyday changes in your diet and controlling your weight walking more eating less and eating foods that help you and your family to seriously reduce the risk of cancer and of course by not smoking visit the cancer prevention together we can website and get a free thirty day planner filled with tips recipes stats and more about protecting your family go to prevent gone through three ball the first thing was that i had to figure out which ones were on the common because if you do your common app first then what you can do through that is you write one a safe or just how many colleges whatever so i applied to you in c and you on and the same essay was to both schools so i had to write one for both of those schools and then i had to write segments and open ended questions for the rest of them so it was a lot easier to have one essay go to these schools and then focus like have you have a main school that you're focusing on like i want to go to penn state i focused all of my attention on that and then want to head with the other essay common that now you said you had open ended questions and or the like essay so  ld you prefer would you like doing better i prefer the open ended question because it was a lot less formal of us a lot more like you could be a little bit more yourself with it but the essay it's a lot like the school simon you have your five paragraphs you're telling everything in between you have to make sure it's like completely perfect but with the open ended questions you can relax a little bit and show more of your personality a rather thin this is me as a student this is what i i want to go to the school i have to get everything straight off the book ok now you know when you were beginning your essays how exactly did you start them well for one moment to get my get off my back about it so i had and then i want to comment out and figure out which product was most easy for me to write and relate to and then i just kind of wrote from there and then continued going through the process of writing a typical specifically like put into the situation well when you're writing an essay you don't want to put all of the same information that you put on your resume and in your school records because if you say like oh i was a captain of this i was president of that they already know that so it's going on and on about it yes that's great going on about it if it's affected your life greatly if that's important but if it's something that was very vague and you want to know borat there's not a lot of purpose to that and they already know that they're like ok well there's no reason for her to mention this again so you want to try and focus away from your academics a little bit more to your personality because it is based off of your students and help they will go fit into the college campus and the people that are attending there so know now when you would would you ever include and he personally things that you've done like have that would that would work for it or i mean there are some things that apply if nature like you say you're going into photography and you fit a photography officer president in all of this and you want to put that in there yes you put that in there because it applies to major unfortunately i applied i decided it so i couldn't put a lot of the specifics into my say so i played a little bit more vague about how i what their school how i tried my best and how even if i came through barriers which i have had a lot i focused on i got through those and i continue succeeding now how how much over how much of an impact do you think college essay has on get like getting accepted into schools honestly i feel like a has a huge impact on it because when you have a piece of paper in front of you with all your statistics you're curious on it you're just a student when you have arrested a you have the person behind the student and that is really important for colleges to see that you're and not just like going to sit in your dorm and continue to do your homework every single day like you should do that you know obviously that want some dynamic and have some characteristics to that show that you're going to be a good person you're going to help out the community within the college and that's one of the parts of the looking has one or two open of questions and they're optional so if you don't feel comfortable doing us a you don't really need to but you would have to make sure that those colleges don't have an essay and because most colleges will have an essay and that is because it's one of those things that they want to get to know you like i've said and there are trying to get to see off the paper and off of the record books and that's the most colleges will look at both but they'll factor in the essay very highly your character more than others i won't say so only because a lot of it is how you've developed as a person they want to know how you came about to be the person you become how things have gone through school how you've made friends how you kept up your career it's a balance things and all of that they want to know how you've succeeded and not morally funny and sarcastic i have a very elaborate with everything like i this is a award these are things that they can just like ok they have this that's cool but having the essay really tells them more about you and gives them more flux things so if say that you have somebody who has the same exact score as you somebody else if you have an essay that is extremely strong and one that just shows what kind of person you are you're more likely to get in because of the fact that you showed who are you were honest about it you put your heart into it as is that sounds because nobody likes to do college i says but it's true you need to be so into it especially if you really want to go to that school express that if you can and i can't emphasize that enough because i wanted to go to penn state my entire life so i need to put that in there somewhere and i did and i have a greater feeling that i will be able to get into that for that reason you know like you said you do you want to go into penn state do you think you've tried harder on certain college essays compared to the other one oh yeah totally because you have those colleges that you're like ok i need a backup plan and i need to make sure that i if i don't go to school when i really want to get into them go to this one and i'll be setting ok so obviously i spend a little bit more time on my penn state stuff than everything try to stand out but not to the point that like you're telling them every single detail about your life just like change it up a bit example my sister when she applied to school she mentioned how she wanted to go to school because she grew up with cows in her backyard pay attention to that and that is why i like beer self interest as that's the biggest thing i could tell them because you don't want to be fake and then be at a different person when you go to college now is your own opinion on cult like writing college essays i mean there are hassle yes but i mean they're a huge part of it because they've been around for so long and i think that they're beneficial because you just how you were as a person so that's the benefit of the doubt there ok so would you say about comparatively speaking if someone was over characterized as like what kind then they're going to try to go towards people that are dedicated to their studies dedicated to getting into college if they had a g p a that was following our s a t s or that didn't match what they were looking for that obviously they're going to go with the one who meets the requirements and obviously looks to want to be there you want to be a very that's a lot of being better with your admissions people looks good on the application versus somebody who did ok so so  job now now as they say like they have to be the college essays have to be about around five hundred words left or right now you know how did you get through that oh my gosh so i write in my free time so i'm a writer and it was really difficult for me to condense everything i had on paper and to what they wanted me to so for me i had to have my mom who just like she helped me out so much and i have to like ever shout out here because she helped me out a lot and she went through and helped me eliminate the stuff i didn't mean what i needed to make sure that just get everything that was super important not just stuff that they didn't need to know and that's what i like just a tip to anybody who has to go through it because you're probably going to have to go through it just get the get the important stuff if you have a dinner plate as an example you have your meats your vegetables and your side dish and that's what you want in the essay not the salad side salad starter soup appetizer you want the basis of everything in there now if you like to say you've just finished your essay or you think you finish but you're going through it now what type of information would you take out to fix like you said there's a lot of information that obviously call just don't want to see obviously they that place and i can guarantee you it's beneficial but you don't want them to think of you as the student has all of the stress on you or something like that so if there's anything negative try to get rid of it try to challenge it to a positive to say like oh i struggled as a student i struggle through both as a student but i got through it and i succeeded while i did that and then if you have flexible things that just don't need to be there try to get people's opinions to figure out what doesn't need to be there because some things that you will think are needed and some people will be like why do you have that end there now earlier mentioned about your asses you can lie about interesting like how you're displaying your interest do you think or do you think you should like focus on one like hard work and then give the other ones like still you're like i get what you're saying here and honestly i think that if there is if you have a goal that you've been trying to reach for very long time try to try to go the extra mile but when it comes to the rest of them you're still need to give them that same attention because there's the chance that you may not reach that goal and if you just go so  they may be like this was terrible we don't want you here and that's the last thing you want to happen so i would recommend just kind of evening out the playing grounds but like give a little benefit to the doubt of who you want  person you know what i'm saying yes so now what would you what would you say to the people that don't like no like what they want to do college i'm one of those people and i'm going to tell you what i've been telling myself don't worry about it get your bases classes out of the way get your master english and everything else that you need for every single major that they give you get out of the way and take some classes that you're interested in like biology and chemistry and stuff like that and if you find something within those classes that you absolute doric then you can major in that and if you don't feel comfortable in that major then you can change that that can all be changed just get a basis of what you need done and then go on to that because it's not worth it to worry about it i don't know what i'm going to do what i'm going to do get a game plan get what you need and go on follow that game plan from and i can get comfortable here and figure out what i want to do there and that is the best place to do that if i do very much and that is all the time we have for today on behalf of myself isaac and and elisa we would like to thank