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Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] And here it is. Okay. Excuse me. As I mentioned before, this is the hopefully very timely how to write your best College essay webinar. Here are all of our social media links. If you want to follow us on social media, um, you can scan that QR code to sign up for MEFA emails. We’ll send you, you know, one or two a week, probably one a week, uh, based on.

The age of your child is gonna be full of information that will be relevant to you. So if you want, uh, just take a minute and scan that, uh, or just visit mefa.org. Just a few things before we get started and before I [00:01:00] introduce, um, really the, the, the guest or the host really of this webinar. I wanna tell you about MEFA.

MEFA is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We were created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in 1982 with a public service mission to help families to plan and save and pay for college and career readiness. We do that in a variety of ways. We, our topic is pretty narrow tonight.

This is, uh, how to write your Best College essay. But if you have any questions regarding saving for college, college admissions, paying for college financial aid. Uh, you can please feel free to take advantage of our free guidance, uh, at uh, college [email protected] or calling us up at 804 4 9 MEFA tonight.

Um, we have disabled the chat. Uh, you can ask for a live transcript to be produced while we’re going on, and if you have any questions, I have my colleague here with me. Uh, as well as myself, my colleague Jennifer Bento pin, and I will be, [00:02:00] uh, reading the questions as Drew is doing the presentation. So, uh, feel free to ask and our guest tonight.

Speaking very, uh, knowledgeably and, uh, and intelligently on the subject is Drew Carter, who is the Deputy Director of Admissions at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. And we work a lot with Drew. Uh, he’s done a lot of presentations for us. He’s been on the MEFA podcast a few times. Um, always a treat to have him on and to, to get to hear what he has to say.

So I think you’re really gonna enjoy. Hearing him speak on this topic. So remember once more if you have any questions, uh, submit them through the q and a and now I will turn things over to Drew.

Drew Carter: Thanks Jonathan. Um, I’m really excited to be here tonight. Um, and, uh, be here with all of our attendees and all of our MEFA staff, [00:03:00] including Jonathan, Jennifer.

Um. I, I, I wanna reiterate, uh, Jonathan’s plug for all the great services that MEFA provides, um, including the MEFA podcast. Um, I’ve listened to, to many of those on my, on my, I’ve hit the subscribe button. Um, I may, maybe that seems self-centric ’cause I’ve been on the podcast, but I assure you I cannot listen to the sound of my voice.

So I’ve never actually listened to my own. Appearances on the podcast. I think my kids have, but definitely I haven’t. It came on once in the car and I, I wanted to throw my phone out the window immediately. I didn’t, but I wanted to Anyway, just to set the scene a little bit, uh, we’re gonna talk about, um, I forget the name of, of how you named the Jonathan How to Write Your Best College Essay.

Is that what it was? That’s right.

Jonathan Hughes: Yep.

Drew Carter: Um. I wanna, I want to give you a brief roadmap before we start going through the, the, the topics that are [00:04:00] up here. Um, number one, I want to give you a little, I, here are my, here are my goals for tonight. Number one, I want to give, um, all of our attendees a little bit, uh, more insight into who their audiences for this, uh, college essay.

Um, the second is I want to provide enough background information so that students. And their family and supporters, um, feel like, uh, they have a better sense of direction, uh, when they’re working on the essay. The third thing, uh, with enough of this background information, I think, um, I want students to feel like the time they spend working on the essay is more efficient.

Sometimes I think kids spend too much time on the essay, and it’s mostly because. If they haven’t gone to a webinar like this and gotten real good information. Um, and then finally, and it’s a, it’s my number one goal and I’m saying it last, but it is definitely my number one goal is I want students to feel less stress about writing their college essay.

[00:05:00] Um, I would sacrifice the other three goals if I could accomplish that one. Um, it’s my goal. Um. Almost all of the time when I’m talking about applying to college. And, um, and hopefully just with, uh, a little bit of information, we can accomplish that goal. Um, so let’s start with the first question, and that’s, uh, right over here over my shoulder in green.

Why an essay? Uh, you know, I get so many questions from kids about the essay over the course of, you know, from kind of April of their junior year to November or December of their senior year, and so often. If not, almost always, students have never just stopped and really asked themselves why is, why is there an essay?

Why am I writing an essay to apply college? More importantly, why do colleges want me to write an essay in my college application? And the reason it’s important to think about that and to examine the reasons, is that it does help set the framework about what students are trying [00:06:00] to accomplish. Okay. And the truth is, and this always surprise students when I say this, that colleges are, are, require an essay really for two reasons.

That’s it. When, when admissions offices are reading essays, they’re really only thinking about two things. They have two questions to be answered. Number one, can this student write? Number two, can the student write about themselves? That’s it. It’s actually the, the college essay is so much simpler, I think, than most students make it out to be in their mind when, when they don’t really stop the, start at square one and think about why they’re writing an essay.

So let’s, let’s think about those two questions really quickly. Um, can the student write Well, that’s, that’s a fair, you know, that’s a fair question for colleges to have. Can the student write at a, at a certain level where they could be successful? Writing in their college classroom over the course of four years.

So [00:07:00] at its most basic, it’s just a writing sample where colleges can measure writing ability. That’s the sort of like the baseline. Uh, the good news is that there’s enough tools out there to help students craft an essay that should be, you know, at the very least, grammatically correct and organized in a certain way.

And we’ll get to that in a couple minutes. Um, but it is a, a sort of a baseline measurement of what this student’s writing ability is. Now the second question, can the student write about themselves? That’s an important one because if that didn’t exist, if we just said, can the student write well, then I think everybody would.

Every student would just hand in their term paper from US History in junior year and say, well see, I can write. And we would read a whole lot of essays about, I. I dunno, Henry Ford or I don’t know, Teddy Roosevelt or, um, the Battle of Bull Ron, or, I don’t know. You know, they, we’d read a lot of historical essays that have been, that were recycled from a class during their junior year.

We make the topic be about the student for a few reasons. Number one, I. We [00:08:00] want it to be original writing. We want it to be a piece of writing composed for the college essay, and students don’t do a lot of, you know, personal, original writing in school. And so there’s a pretty good chance it’s gonna be original.

The second reason is there’s an opportunity perhaps for colleges to learn a little bit more information about the student, a little bit more background information, a little more context, and hopefully a little bit more clarity on who that student might be, uh, over the course of four years. Um, so let’s go back to the original question.

Why an essay? So colleges can figure out if you can write and if you can write about yourself. That’s really it. And to the first question, can you write, I think there’s enough tools. Um, the second question is, can you write about yourself? That creates a lot of anxiety in students, um, because it comes to the question of like, well, what should I say about myself?

Uh, how am I supposed to talk about myself and what voice should I adopt? And, you know, we’ll get to some of this stuff on, on other topics. I don’t wanna, um. I don’t wanna minimize this. This second [00:09:00] question, uh, can you write about yourself and saying, it’s so easy, it’s not, it is the source of so much, uh, stress and anxiety for students.

Um, but let’s, let’s move on to our next topic. Um, I just wanna be sure that we, we’ve identified clearly on like there’s an essay for those two reasons to measure up. The students can write. And to measure if students can write about themself. That’s really the reasons why there’s an essay when students apply to college.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay. Oh, excuse me. I wonder if, um, you know, sure. I, I told you before I came in that I had one topic that I definitely wanted to talk about. Uh, do you think it now is a good time to talk about that or, uh, sure, because Totally fine. They does seem to go to the, the topic of, or the heart of the topic of, to what you just said, which is.

The rise of chat, GBT and large language models, ai. Um, how are admissions offices or, you know, responding [00:10:00] to this?

Drew Carter: Um, you know, in a lot of ways I think people are surprised at, at, um, how little we’re responding to this.

Jonathan Hughes: Hmm.

Drew Carter: The truth is outside influence in. A student’s college essay is not new. We have dealt for this.

For decades. Um, you know, when I first started in admissions, it was, uh, older cousins, older siblings, and perhaps even parents and guardians helping a student too much in their essay. And that’s what we were worried about. We spoke out a lot about that, you know, we’re really, that, that seemed like, you know, that was just gonna, you know, bring the college essay to its knees.

’cause this outside influence was, was never gonna be authentic writing from a student. And then kind of like in my early years in, in the profession, the internet started to come up and it was like, well, wait a minute. Now students can, can find other students’ essays on the internet and they can [00:11:00] find other writings on the internet.

They can, um, source material from the internet topics and people can search what’s a good topic? And you know, gosh, you know, we’ve dealt with that. We talked about, um, you know, really like students, you know, um. Using the internet for, you know, for brainstorming and, you know, to, to think and to connect with other people.

But, you know, really trying to find their, their unique, uh, voice. Um, and then now we get this third wave of sort of outside influence, and that’s really ai. Um, so I, I say that because outside influence is not new to us. The thing that’s worth understanding is, number one, um, we have lots of other corresponding pieces of information if we are reading essays in a vacuum.

Gosh, maybe it would be tough to know what’s authentic to the student’s voice and what’s not. But the truth is, we have the students’ academic record from high school. You know, we have their grades in English over the course of four years and their grades in all their humanities courses. We have teacher recommendations [00:12:00] where the, the, the student’s writing ability is often referred to by the teacher, um, or the school counselor recommendation who’s gonna put, put the academic work in context.

We also have, you know, maybe other smaller pieces of writing, whether it’s on the extracurricular page or at a lot of colleges, um, who might have, uh, supplemental essays. So there’s all this other corresponding pieces where you do get a lot better at getting a sense of what that student’s writing ability is gonna be like.

So students don’t believe me when I say, yeah, we can kind of tell when you’ve had outside influences in your essay, whether it’s sibling or parent or friend, or internet or ai. They don’t believe me, but I say like. If you did what we do, which is read applications eight to 12 hours a day, four to five to six months in a row, five to six days a week, you get really good at that skill.

Um, and you know, there’s a lot of great [00:13:00] uses for ai. I, I actually sat in on two webinars today about AI in my job. I haven’t yet heard it say it can write in a unique personal voice for a teenager and, and reveal specific things. Um. I think there is an appropriate place for technology and outside influences in, in brainstorming and in spell checking.

Gosh, you know, that was, that was a big, um, to do when that first came out as well.

Jonathan Hughes: Hmm.

Drew Carter: So I think there’s an appropriate role. Um, it’s just not in writing the essay, it was probably in other stages. Um, and I will say, uh, I was at an event recently and a student asked me about this and, um, I misunderstood the question.

Um, I thought the student, uh, who was a high school junior was asking me about AI in reading students’ essays, and I gave this answer and, and he sort of said, oh, I actually, I think he misunderstood the question and [00:14:00] sort of rephrased it. And I was like, oh, okay. And I kind of gave a version of the answer that I just gave to you, and then the student and I looked at each other and we sort of chuckled.

A little bit. And I said, I won’t use AI to read your essay. If you don’t use AI to write your essay. Can we make that deal together? Um, because you know, he, the look on his face when he saw that like, oh, like, you know, colleges, teachers, professors, you know, like AI can be used in reading and evaluating, which is certainly not what a student wants.

Right? And I said to him, well. We certainly don’t want AI writing that essay. So I think we can, um, have a little tacit consent here where we all sort of agree, um, to, to use our own eyes, to use our own brains, and to try to communicate and connect in that way and to use technology as a tool, um, to help along the process.

Jonathan Hughes: Excellent. Thank you.

Drew Carter: Okay. Um, let’s talk about how important the essay is and, [00:15:00] and I hope anyone who’s hearing me, um, tonight will perhaps remember these words come September, October of the student’s senior year. Um, and if they can’t remember, um, maybe just watch the recording of this and remind, um, the essay gets so blown out of proportion in the minds of high school seniors.

It is a great cause of stress for so many reasons, but almost most importantly is it takes on this outsized importance in their mind because they think it’s going to make or break their admissions chances when they apply to college. The truth is. That is incredibly, incredibly unlikely to actually ever happen.

Um, the world is filled with urban legends that begin with, oh, did you hear about so and so who got into Harvard just because of their essay? And the opposite is true as well. Well, did you hear about so and so who didn’t get into blank college just [00:16:00] because of their essay? I can assure you those are all urban legends.

None of them are true. Nobody gets in or doesn’t get in because of their essay. I’ve done this job for over two decades. I, I remember so many essays. I remember conversations about essays and admissions committees. I don’t really remember essays making and breaking admissions chances. The truth is, I.

99.99% of the time, or perhaps even a hundred percent of the time, it fits the essay, fits as a piece of the puzzle, as a piece of the equation that results in a decision on a student’s application. Um, it’s part of how we learn about the student and we learn about their writing ability. It is almost never really gonna make or break a student’s chances.

Um, it’s just one small piece of an overall equation. Um, it’s, it’s worth, it’s worthy of the student’s focus. It’s [00:17:00] worthy of like true intent, but it is not worthy of stress and anxiety. Based on feelings of how big a role it plays. Um, I think so much of that stress becomes, because it’s completely within the control of the student.

It’s the one thing on the student’s plate, you know, at the end of the summer or early in the senior year, that they have complete control over when it comes to the application. But the truth is. It’s just another piece of the puzzle. And it’s not worthy of blowing outta proportion. It’s not more important than the student’s academic record.

It’s not more important than so many other pieces. It’s important, but it is not near the top of the list of, of, uh, important documents within the student’s application. Um, this, you know, flies in the phase I think, of what a lot of people think. But the truth is the academic profile was generally always the most important.

Um. Piece in the puzzle when making a decision on a student’s application. And the essay, frankly, it’s just a, it’s, well, it’s in the frosting, um, it’s in the [00:18:00] frosting of the cake. It’s just one other piece of the puzzle, but not an important piece. So when it’s senior fall and students are stressed about the essay because they think they have to nail it or they’re not gonna get in anywhere, um, please remind them.

It’s not that important. It’s a important piece, but it is not the most important part of the student’s application. Okay. Let’s move on to the question of topics. Um, ’cause that’s really sort of appropriate for where we’re at in the timeline right now. Junior spring, over the summer is really the time when students are thinking about what should they write their essay about.

Jonathan Hughes: And

Drew Carter: students, um, and their supporters and family members spend a lot of time. Let me rephrase that. Students and their supporters and family members waste a lot of time thinking about what they think we in the admissions world, want to write their essay about. ’cause [00:19:00] you’re logged into tonight’s webinar.

I will, I will answer that question for you and save you that time. No one cares. No one at the admissions world cares one bit What you write your essay about, the topic you choose for your essay is meaningless. We read great essays every year on stupid, silly topics, and we read horrible essays every year on what the guidebook say is a great essay.

We read great essays every year about grandma’s, and we read terrible essays every year about grandma’s, right? It’s not grandma’s fault, it never has been. There is no connection between the topic of your essay and the quality of your essay. I’m gonna say that one again because it’s probably the most important thing I say tonight.

There is no connection between the topic of your essay and the quality of your essay. There is however. A connection between how you feel about the topic of your [00:20:00] essay and the quality of your essay. That’s the connection. You are going to write the best essay on the topic that you want to write about.

Okay. Um, and I assure you that we are gonna get out of that essay exactly what you experienced when writing that essay. And the truth is, I think a lot of students are bored writing their essay. If you’re bored writing it, we will be bored reading it. Okay? Um, but if you choose a topic that you want to write about, you just might find something when writing it, you might find meaning, okay, that’s setting the bar a little high.

You just fi find mojo. You might find a little fun or a little bit of humility or a little bit of embarrassment or whatever. Whatever you find writing it, we will find reading it. Jonathan, I dunno if I’ve ever told you this story before. Um. I had an example. I was, where I was visiting high schools in the fall, um, and uh, I was talking to students who were interested in [00:21:00] applying to Holy Cross and we actually talked about essays and um, I had finished my little talk and I was leaving the school and a girl grabbed me by the door as I was leaving the school, I, I dunno if I told you the story before, but um, as I was leaving, I turned around and she’s, oh, Mr.

Carter, I was just in your session. Um. Can I ask you about my essay? I didn’t wanna ask in front of everybody else. I was like, sure. I got, you know, I got a few minutes and you know, like all the kids are changing classes and it’s chaos in their school. And she said, well, I have two different essays on two totally different hot topics and they’re both rough drafts.

I’m just not sure which one I should go forward with. I said, you know, God, I love that approach. Well, why don’t you tell me about both of them and I’ll, I’ll tell you what I think. And she said, okay, but I don’t know the first one. It’s so silly. She says, well, here’s the thing. I had two older sisters and they both worked as waitresses at this one restaurant in town when I was growing up.

And um, I just thought that was like the coolest summer job you could ever have. So this summer I got a job at that restaurant, [00:22:00] but the owners wouldn’t let me serve customers ’cause they didn’t have any experience. So I had to do the worst jobs. I had to sweep the floors, I had to take out the trash, I had to answer the phone, I had to clean the bathrooms.

Can you imagine? Then the last night of my summer job, the owners finally let me serve customers. They felt kind of badly for me and you know, and I kind of stuck with the job the whole summer and I was having the best time. The other servers were being so supportive and they kind of taught me what to do, and I was having so much fun.

The, the customers were so nice until I spilled an entire tray of drinks all over a family. And then she went on to say, well, my second essay is about this like community service thing I did.

Jonathan Hughes: Hmm.

Drew Carter: I’ll ask you, Jonathan, uh, which of those essays do you wanna read the first one for sure. I’ll ask you, Jonathan, which of those essays are you sure her parents told her she has to send to college?

The second one, [00:23:00] I, I hope everyone attending this webinar will remember this example. Um, because that’s the, everyone is likely every apply, every student applying to college is likely to have a crossroads moment like that where they’re bouncing back and forth between two topics, one of which is something they think they kind of wanna write about, and the other is something they think they’re kind of supposed to write about.

Um, and I’ll tell you what I told the girl in her hall in the hallway of her school. I said, both sound like great topics for an essay, but hearing you talk about the first one. Suggest you found something when writing it? Um, I don’t know. Maybe it was just humility. Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe it was fun.

Maybe it was a lesson about hard work and maybe, maybe it was something, but that’s probably what we would find when reading it and hearing you talk about. The second one suggests you were just kind of going through. Um, and, but, and I said, rest assured we’ll learn about that community service project on your resume and probably in your school [00:24:00] counselor’s recommendation.

So there’s other opportunities. Um, I would love to, to, to finish this story by saying, and when I read her application, I saw that she wrote the first essay ad. I don’t know that I ever read her application and I can’t tell you which essay you wrote, but I can tell you I understand. That conflict of like, think doing what you think you’re supposed to do, but know that everyone in this webinar knows that they, we all wanted to read the first essay and the admissions world does too, not because of the topic, but because of how she talked about it and what was clear that she found something when writing it.

So I hope everyone will. So

Jonathan Hughes: now I, I wonder if I could ask you a couple of follow ups here, because I know I’ve spoken to you before on, on this topic, and I think it is such a good point. Um, number one about the audience for an essay, right? Yeah. And what the student has experience with, and I think you paint a good picture when you talk about why the essay is your actual, your [00:25:00] favorite part, right?

Yeah. Of the, of the application. And the difficulty they, you know, as I

Drew Carter: said before, it’s not, it’s not the most important part of the application. That’s the academic profile, but it’s the admissions world favorite part. Um, and this is a good visual, right? Because you’re sort of looking at me out of my computer screen and this is kind of what we look like when we’re reading applications.

We’re sort of typing away and clicking with the mouse and a lot of tabbing and a lot of like this and it kind of. Students will recognize the posture because it kind of looks like you’re doing math homework, right? But then we get to the student’s essay and that’s at that moment we get to kind of minimize a few things and sit back in our chair.

And our posture changes because for about three minutes there, when reading the student’s essay, we get to just read and relax. And the essay is, it’s the ice cream at the end of the math homework. It’s what we text each other about in the admissions world. It’s, [00:26:00] it’s kind of how we remember students when we meet them, uh, after the application process.

Again, it’s not the most important part, but it is definitely our favorite part and I think students get really worried about who their audience is. Um, students have spent their whole high school career. Writing for a very well-known audience. They write for their English teacher and their history teacher.

And all of a sudden now when you apply to college and there’s all this stress about that, they write for an anonymous audience and they sort of picture us in the worst possible way. I. As this sort of curmudgeonly English professor with a red marker looking for the misplaced comma. Truth is that’s not who we are.

We’re, we’re, we’re somewhat involved in a repetitive process of reading applications, but who always looks forward to the essay? Not with insanely high expectations, but just with the expectation of a couple minute of a reprieve of the drudgery of reading applications, um, to. To relax and enjoy hearing a student’s voice, uh, hearing them kind of jump off the page [00:27:00] to us.

Jonathan Hughes: I’m gonna ask one more question about topics before we go. Sure. And that is, um, the co that that is the common ad, uh, essay prompts. Yeah. Um, so I think a lot of students think that these are their choices and, um, I don’t know. What, you know, you have to, I mean, I know what you would’ve to say about it, but being a, an admissions officer reading an essay, first of all, do you know ahead of time, are you aware of, okay, we’re gonna see this many essays about this question on the common app and act question, and do you know when that’s coming in?

Yes. This person is, is acting off this prompt and does that mean anything to you or not?

Drew Carter: This is gonna, it’s gonna sound like I’m putting you on, but I don’t even know what the prompts are. I, I legitimately do not know what the essay prompts are. I never have in my entire career, I would venture to say most admissions professionals do not [00:28:00] know what the essay prompts are.

Oh, is that right? Um, it’s not something we think about. It’s not something we’d look at. It’s not something we’d look at when reading the essay. Mm-hmm. We just. Read the essay. Um, I would, I would, I always encourage students to think of the prompts as, um, a useful tool. If you’re having trouble coming up with a topic, I would say don’t even look at the prompts, ignore the prompts, unless you are really struggling with it, coming up with a topic.

And if so, then refer to the prompts because they might help. There, there are questions and they might help spark, um, a thought in your mind about an appropriate topic to write about. Otherwise, it’s a, it’s a free topic, topic of choice, right? Which you want. Um, and only lean on those prompts if you really feel like you’re struggling and you want sort of a, a jumpstart to a, you know, a thought process that takes you down a line.

But [00:29:00] I, I don’t know anyone in admissions who cares about the problems. Good to

Jonathan Hughes: know.

Drew Carter: Okay, let’s move on to editing. Um, sometimes I think, um, technology can certainly help here, right? Spell check, um, get you some ways AI can, I think help. I hope you use it to like clean up grammar. Grammarly, I think is, is very popular these days, but don’t use it to elevate your voice or to change your writing style.

Um. We see that when it happens and it doesn’t improve the essay, it just makes it kind of weird. Um, you also wanna have a, a, somebody trusted, uh, look at the essay for you. Um, I kind of think English teachers and, and school counselors is, are, are the, are the best, um, people to approach to read your essay.

Um, they know you, they know your academic background and they have a distance from you that. Your parents do not, that [00:30:00] your best friend does not. Um, those people who are very, very, very close to you. Um, best friends, family members, they, they want you to sing your song. They think this is like your, gosh, it’s your, uh, hun Dorma moment for those opera fans in the, in the room.

It’s your moment to like sing your like famous aria. No. It’s just a moment to prove you can write and you can write about yourself. And often I think the advice that, um. Family members and you know, really close friends will give you, after proofreading your essay is to say, well, you need to brag about yourself more.

Um, that’s not true. Um, so that’s why I think English teachers and school counselors, because they’ll look for writing and writing style, and they, they’ll give you some, some good feedback, um, based on that, based on the assignment, not based on their sort of personal relationship with you. Um, I, I think it, you, you need to share it with somebody else because spellcheck doesn’t pick up everything, right?[00:31:00]

Um, I do a workshop with a slide and we, we show examples of, of pieces of writing from essays where, um, nothing was grammatically incorrect, but, but it was clearly wrong and, uh, sort of hilariously wrong. Um, because spell tech doesn’t pick up everything. So you need another set of human eyes to look at that essay for you to make sure that, um, you’re saying what you think you’re saying and you’re capturing your thoughts in that unique way.

The last thing I’ll say, and this is like a tiny little thing about editing, is uh, paragraph breaks. Um, if you’re gonna write your essay, you know, in a word process or in Google Docs or in Microsoft Word or something like that. When you paste it into the Common App website, you wanna make sure that you are, um, that all of your paragraph breaks and all of your formatting carried over with it.

The, the most common mistake we see is it’s been co it’s been copy and pasted [00:32:00] over, and all of the paragraph breaks, um, have been eliminated. And the student submits the essay. And so it comes out as this like giant hamburger of words. Now it still has periods and spaces after period, still have sentences, but it’s all one big paragraph that doesn’t change how we think about your writing.

It just makes it kind of hard to read, um, and you don’t want your essay to be hard to read. So make sure that when you paste it in the common app that your paragraph breaks have been, have carried over with you. Um, and if you’re curious, if you have enough paragraph breaks in your essay, add one or two more.

Um, make it make it easy on the eyes of your reader. Think about your essay, approaching your essay with the tapas approach, right? Small bites, um, doesn’t mean you, you change your essay, just means a few more. Paragraph breaks will make your essay a little bit easier on the eyes of the admissions reader.

Remember that person who’s been reading off a screen of students’ [00:33:00] essays for eight to 10 hours a day, five to six days a week, three to four to five months in a row. Um. But the, I think for the good news is I think the, the kind of the, the cleanliness of the writing, um, in the Common app essay has really improved over the years.

And I think a lot of the tools that students have on hand has been a big help. And then I think students are, are picking the right people, um, to approach as proofreaders as well.

Jonathan Hughes: Let me ask you one thing, uh, because I, I, I will. Tell a story now from, from my experience. So is talking with a student, uh, I was talking with her, it must have been October.

And, uh, we were at an event and we were talking about where she was going to be applying to college and, and how she was applying. I said, are you applying early anywhere? Early action, early decision? And she said, no, I was thinking about it, but I really needed more time to work on my essay, uh, to edit my essay.

And I said, okay. I said, how long have you been editing your [00:34:00] essay? And she said, four months. So, um, I mean that Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just

Drew Carter: say, it’s a perfect segue to the kind of the last

Jonathan Hughes: Yes. Yeah. I don’t think too well what, what she said was that I said, well, I think that’s a little too long to be editing your essay.

And she said, well, I kept showing it to. Different people. So I was showing it to my parents and they would say, make it more like this. And then I would show my guidance counselor say, make it more like this. And she was trying to accommodate everybody’s wishes.

Drew Carter: Yeah. That, that’s a, that’s an excellent point, Jonathan.

And I think it’s when my friends who have kids applying to college ask me this question, I say, show it to the English teacher. Show it to the school counselor. End of list. Those, the only people you know, I call them proofreaders with perspective. Everyone’s a proofreader. Right. Your friends, your neighbors, your family, those are all proofreaders.

College applicants don’t need proofreaders. They need proofreaders with perspective. English teachers and guidance counselors are really the only [00:35:00] proofreaders with perspective. I’m gonna add something here. I’m gonna go off script a little bit. I. There’s a lot of people who wanna offer you their services to help, uh, edit, refine, and even write your essay for a fee.

Um, these people, uh, exist on the internet and they exist in real life, and I just don’t think it’s necessary. Um, I think the student’s voice is valued in the admissions process. I think English teachers and school counselors are appropriate and probably the best editors, um, especially when you approach that English teacher or school counselor with a very specific question.

I’ll, I’ll give you an example, Jonathan, I and I, I, I do this, I give this advice to students a lot. I say like, don’t just bring your essay to your English teacher and. I know, I know. It’s not really in, in your hand anymore. It’s digital. The, the visual works better, but like, don’t just approach their [00:36:00] desk and throw it on their desk and say, what do you think?

Um, come with a question. Um, make it, make them an engaged reader by asking them one question. It could be, um, here’s my essay, uh, Mr. Hughes. Um, I tried to grab my reader’s attention at the beginning, but I’m not really sure it worked. Can you give this a read through and let me know if it did? I like that approach because A, you’ve got them really thinking about something you’re trying to accomplish in your essay, and then B, they’re gonna give you specific feedback on that and probably even see a suggestion if, if it didn’t work.

Um, it also could be, um, here’s my essay. I’m a little worried that there’s not enough about me in this essay and there’s too much about my summer camp. Can you take the, take a quick read through here and let me know what you think. Again, [00:37:00] you’re gonna get them thinking about an important question and you’re gonna get really good feedback.

So English teachers and school counselors, uh, ask them nicely, ask them in a timely way, and then give them one thing to think about. You’re gonna get great feedback that way.

Jonathan Hughes: That’s a great point. I wonder if you could tell me what a timely way is. I mean, we are, we’re looking at this now. We’re in May. Uh, I imagine.

I’m thinking about the people in attendance here, that they are juniors, uh, and the our, our guidance is that you should be, or a good time to start the essay is over the summer. Is that right?

Drew Carter: I think it’s a great time to, at the very least be thinking about the essay and um, you know, I think for some students.

What takes so long is, is identifying a topic

Jonathan Hughes: Hmm.

Drew Carter: And being sort of present and aware that, that you’re thinking about topics and thinking about topics that you might be interested in writing about. Um, I have a [00:38:00] friend who years ago was a school counselor and, and he referred to, um, the first draft of the student’s common app essay.

He called that the ticket. He said, you cannot come to school senior year without a ticket. And his point was sometimes, and, and it’s probably more common than uncommon, students just gotta get that first draft out of the way.

Jonathan Hughes: Sometimes

Drew Carter: you gotta just write a bad first draft so you can write a better second draft and a, an even better third draft.

So, um, I think. The summer is a great time to be thinking about topics, identifying possible topics, and then hopefully writing a ticket, right? Writing that first draft, um, understanding that that’s probably not gonna be the essay you send to college. Mm-hmm. Um, maybe it will be that topic, maybe it won’t, but you’re never gonna kind of know.[00:39:00]

You can’t write a final draft until you write a first draft. So, um, and what I, you know, when I say about approaching your teacher or your school counselor for feedback in a timely way, what I mean by that is not on November 14th, because November 15th is a very popular deadline for college applications.

So if you come to them on the 14th and say, can you look at my essay? I need to submit it tonight. You’re not gonna get a, a patient reader. You’re not gonna get a patient proofread with perspective. So if you’re approaching them, I hope you’re giving them at, at a minimum a couple days to find time to read that essay.

Thank you. Okay, how about the last topic here, which is just letting go. I love the idea of a college essay. Um, I love, let me rephrase that. I love the idea of a 650 word essay. I love it. Um, 650 words is not a lot of words. That’s what the, the word limit [00:40:00] on the co, on the common application is. Um, it’s really hard to write a good personal essay that is also short.

It’s a challenge. Um, I think it’s a such a fun opportunity. For anyone forget high school seniors. I think Jonathan and I could write a 650 word essay and we’d be challenged by it and we’d be frustrated by it and we’d be, um, inspired by it. We’d be all of those things. I think. I think it’s such a, a great idea.

Um, and, uh, I know that that’s not how high school students approach the college essay, um, with hopes for inspiration and, and fun. Um, I. The truth is, it’s just a moment in time. It’s a glimpse. I can think back to some of my essays that I wrote when I applied to college and be unbelievably embarrassed by some of the things I know I wrote.

Um, I, you know, I applied before the [00:41:00] Common app, um, and I don’t remember all of the essays I wrote. I do remember that in one of my essays, I tried to make a comparison between Bill Cosby Garfield. Mikhail Gorbachev. Okay. I like, I’m, if you see me getting read, it’s because I’m embarrassed. I’m like so embarrassed by that idea.

Um, it’s a snapshot. That’s what the essay is. It’s a snapshot in time, um, that I. Students will look back on, um, and have feelings about, but it’s not bigger than it really is. It’s 650 words. It’s an opportunity for students to find their voice, um, and exercise their voice and to, to bring color and dimension to their application.

But it’s not gonna make or break, um, the students’ chances. So I hope students will approach it. With a sense of wonder and discovery and, and hopefully [00:42:00] even like, uh, open to the idea of inspiration. Maybe just open to that idea. Um, and open to the idea that they might find meaning or mojo in writing the essay.

And if that’s what they find, then that’s exactly what we, so please do not take four months editing your essay like the student that Jonathan talked to. Um, please do not, um, miss application deadlines ’cause you need more time to edit. Um, please take it for as it is, um, and, uh, and, and eventually just know that it’s time to let go.

Jonathan Hughes: Well, thank you so much. I was going to ask you, I’m glad you offered that up because I was gonna ask you if you remembered what you wrote your college essay on. ’cause I haven’t, the foggiest idea what I wrote about.

Drew Carter: Yeah, I remember I had to write a bunch because there was no common applications, but I do remember there was one.

Gosh, needle. I tried to thread with Garfield Ache and Bill Cosby and [00:43:00] maybe that, that definitely ages me. Um, and places me in time. I will say like, I remember I, you know, that, that’s a good question to make it. Lemme if I can spin it. Um, do I remember essays and I, I actually spoke on a panel the other day where.

Um, the school counselor asked the, the lot of us, the, the college admissions folks to, to talk about like the, our favorite essay we’ve ever read. Okay. I hate that question mostly because I think it, like, I. It tends to be the thing that families walk away with that one topic that they remember an admissions rep saying that they love that essay.

Um, I will say I, I do tend to keep a list every year of my favorite essays. Um, there’s probably 10 or 12 on that list, and I’ve got that list, um, for each of the 21 years that I’ve worked in college Admissions. Keep the students’ names so that I could look up the application if I wanted to. I keep the students high school ’cause sometimes that helps me [00:44:00] remember, and then I keep what the essay was about.

The truth is about 90 ish percent of the best essays I read over 21 plus years are about nothing. They’re about small topics that no one would ever think is gonna be like an amazing essay. Um, why I mow my family’s lawn. It’s about, um, what it felt like to swim in the ocean that one day. Uh, why my dad is sometimes kind of embarrassing.

These are like small moments and there’s, you know, five or 10% that are about like, really massive life changing, momentous events in a student’s life. But the overwhelming majority were. Were forgetful topics. Um, but what was memorable about them was that it was a topic that the student really wanted to write about.

And, um, and the experience that they got when writing about was certainly the experience that [00:45:00] me and the other folks at at Holy Cross and the English office, the experience that we got when we essay. So, um, the topic won’t make or break your essay. It’s how you feel about the topic. That’s what’s really gonna make or break your essay.

Jonathan Hughes: At the risk of being redundant. I have, uh, one question here from Sure. Uh, uh, an attendee and, uh, we spend a lot of time talking about it, but I, I wanna read it because I think it is really illustrative of, um, both positive and, and sort of, you know, negative things here. And that is. If you don’t mind, I’ve heard that having an overcoming adversity makes for good reading in a college essay.

I don’t have much in my life, however, what kind of accident do you recommend? I get myself in between now and when I write my essay that will be compelling to read about, assuming I can recover in time. So

Drew Carter: that, I mean, that person’s a good

Jonathan Hughes: writer. Right?

Drew Carter: Right. Yeah. I remember, um, hearing that urban legend when I was applying to college, um.[00:46:00]

Uh, a very, very, very long time ago that you really had to write about something awful that had happened to you. Um, you know, and the truth is like I read some bad essays that are about real adversity because the student, you could tell they didn’t really wanna write about it. Um. I think what matters most is the topic that you want to write about.

It does not have to be about adversity. I think that gets, um, shared a lot because, um, I think that’s an essay prompt that teachers sometimes give to students about to, to reflect on something they’ve overcome. Um. And, uh, and so I think it’s, it’s often used, but the truth is it is not necessary. It does not make a great essay.

It really doesn’t. Um, and it can make just as bad of an essay as every other topic can. Um, yeah. [00:47:00] And I think for our students who have had something traumatic happen in their life. I think they should be, feel free to write about it or not write about it. Hmm. Sometimes students, um, that’s not how they wanna exercise their voice.

And there’s a part on the common application called additional information where students have the opportunity to share something additional that they want the admissions world to know, to understand their file. And sometimes that’s a, an opportunity there for a small moment to share something like that.

And sometimes the school counselor will. Can share, um, something if appropriate about the student’s background. That’s important for the admissions world to know. But, um, adversity is fine to write about, but it is absolutely not necessary. We read some good essays there, but we read some bad ones as well.

Jonathan Hughes: You know, I’ve noticed, uh, lately, maybe it’s just the time of year, but, uh, and this is always sort of a. A tricky thing in a kind of app pernicious thing when it happens. But you know, someone on [00:48:00] social media will screenshot a portion of a student’s essay and say, look at this, and they let this person in and they didn’t let this person and what have you.

Um, you know, I, I don’t know if you’ve seen an impact in terms of social media boosting things that students might see that and say, oh, they want me to write about this.

Drew Carter: I think there’s, um, there were, we’ve gone through waves of, um, trends of topics that are very popular for a period of time. Um, I think they come and go every couple years.

Um, trauma and the students, uh, need to write about trauma will always exist. Um. Something they’ve overcome. Um, and I, again, I I’m not saying that those are bad topics. Um, I don’t think there are good topics and bad topics. I think there are topics you want to write about and topics you [00:49:00] think you’re supposed to write

Jonathan Hughes: about.

Mm-hmm.

Drew Carter: Um, but yeah, I mean, and, and I also think, you know, sometimes we could say like. Well, I don’t wanna write another community service essay because you read too many of those, or I don’t wanna write about my sports injury because you read too many of those. And I say like, forget it. Forget. Forget everybody else’s essay.

Don’t worry about what they’re writing about. Write what you want to write about. And remember, we don’t read these as a stack of essays. Each essay is a, is a pack, is a part of a package of all of your application materials. If we did sit down and just read the essay straight through, you know, devoid of all the other application materials.

Yeah, you, you would kind of like feel a little bit redundant sometimes, but that’s not what we do. It’s a, we’re reading it as a piece of your puzzle. Um, we spend 15 minutes reading about you. Then all of a sudden at the end, we get to hear from you for the very first time. And we don’t [00:50:00] re at that moment, we don’t remember what the person in the application before you wrote about, or the one before that, or the one before that, or the one before that.

So each one exists in its own place in time. So don’t worry what everybody else is writing about, um, that doesn’t affect you and it certainly doesn’t affect us. Um. Just right on the topic that you want to write about. And trust me, if you find yourself feeling bored when writing a draft of that essay, um, that might be a sign that you don’t have the right topic.

Jonathan Hughes: Well, I, I, I think that is good for me. Is there anything else you wanted to say, drew? I mean, I think you, you’ve kind of hit a few key points again and again, but if there’s anything that I haven’t asked that, uh, you think is important for folks to know? I mean,

Drew Carter: the, the last thing I’ll say again, um, I will reiterate that my, my one hopeful takeaway and most important one is that students will feel just a little less stress, a little less anxious [00:51:00] about this.

And um, in moments where you may be feeling that. Connect with college admissions officers or connect with school counselors, or connect with English teachers. Those are really good sources of information. Um, and we, we, in the admissions world, love talking about essays. So, uh, don’t be afraid to, you know, to ask us at a, after a campus tour or ask us when we visit your high school, um, because, uh, it’s, it’s one of the best parts of the job is talking and helping students feel a little less stressed about their essay.

Jonathan Hughes: Well, all right, well, unless anyone has any questions, I think that about does it for tonight. Thanks everybody for being with us. I know we had a lot of folks here and um, I. I’m sure you enjoyed it. So, uh, if you have any further questions, please reach out to us. As I said, everybody who has registered will get a recording of this webinar.

And Drew, thank you so much.

Drew Carter: Thanks Jonathan, and thanks all [00:52:00] the attendees and, um, have a great summer and, and be open to the possibility of finding your topics.

Jonathan Hughes: Thanks. Thanks Jen. Night everybody.