 good evening if you are on the other side of the world. My name is Meacham. I'm your college counselor and today we're going to be checking out your common app essays. I got a whole bunch of people written down here. We're going to start going through them more or less in the order that I was given them. If you want to send your essay to me for a review, you can go to prepwithscore.com. There's a WhatsApp link and you can send it to me there. Just say hi. Let me know maybe who you are so I can introduce you on the stream here. I do have like a lot to do so I don't know that we'll be able to get to more today. We'll see how it goes. We got about two hours today and then from there I have another session on September 25th. So if I don't get to your essay today I will take a look at it then for the 25th and we may program another session in there for October depending on how we're doing here. But thank you all so much for being here. I'm looking forward to this so let's just get to it. Let's get into it. I got one here from a viewer from Nepal and let's start taking a look. Let's see what we got here. All right this is going to be interesting. So four years ago beautiful destination turned into a journey to hell. Okay this is oh blood. All right this is we got some action exciting it was an accident. All right. Okay this is pretty intense. White attire. Yeah. Okay. All right so we have a serious accident. We have five wires. Oh okay. Oh I see what we're doing here. I think I see I think I see what's going on. Let's uh can I can I make this go away. I actually want to hide this right now. Yeah I don't know why it's not doing it. Oh well whatever we'll figure it out. Okay green wire nature. Okay interesting. And then patience through fishing fishing. I've only ever fished once and I was horrible at it. It was in the jungle. It does take patience. White wire sports. Okay karate cool. All right I see what we're doing here. So we got we got like this idea of we're going to set up these different wires that talk about different aspects of the individual. I like that. I think it's an interesting way to frame the story right. We're talking about a frame story where I have this accident and it leads me to this setting where I have these five different wires and each wire is going to talk about the person. I think that's a cool structure. It's it's a very unique way to approach your essay. Anytime you can think of like a frame story that sort of allows you to you know touch on different aspects. It's a it's a good approach. I like that approach to essays a lot. So we got entertainment here from the red iron man. Hawkeye. That's cool. Yeah some marble love. I like that. That's a good honest like thing to share. Blue wire for culture and religion. Okay. Okay this is interesting. Yeah you got a lot of like different influences there. Brown wire science. All right. And then curiosity into astrophysics and aerospace. Oh okay. Now I'm curious this has an accident caused me to complete the need for safer AI enabled vehicles. I'm wondering if this is the same accident that you talked about at the beginning here. If this is your essay like if you're checking this out there's that that's the only thing right now that I'm a little bit unclear about here. So we close up with this EK or ECG. I think it's EKG usually we say in English. I don't know maybe I'm not a medical professional. But okay I like the structure of this essay a lot. I think this is a very innovative essay. My only concern here and I think this is the thing that I have to like emphasize a lot. If you're going to open up with a big story like that it's really important to like make sure I understand what happened here. Because when I look at this introduction right like that is the only thing here that I'm not sure about what actually happened with this with this accident. Like was this a car accident. Was this like a violent situation. Like I don't know. I mean there's blood you're on the road. I like I get the idea that maybe you got hit by a car or something but I don't know for sure. And I think it would be good to just add a couple of details in here that really makes that clear. That would be great. And for the record in the chat here created by trying good idea. If you want to like add some details as we're looking at this and maybe like say some stuff in the chat that'd be cool. I'd love to hear like what the thought process was. But what I'm seeing here so like just in this particular example I love this structure. I think it's very creative. I think it's interesting how we have these connections between different wires and different aspects of life. But my main suggestion is like close out this story a little bit. Like maybe that could be the new conclusion instead of this like ECG thing maybe like you know you could say okay this accident this car accident this time you know it got me to reflect a lot and I'm like you know I value these different aspects of me or something like that. I would like to know what exactly happened in this accident. I like that it piques my curiosity but I want to get a little more information so I know what happened to you. Like that's the only thing that's like unfulfilling or unsatisfying is like I don't know exactly what happened here. So that's the only thing but I think this is actually really really cool. So all right good stuff. I like this one. I have another one already kind of opened up here I'm going to close that. Well I don't know I didn't want to totally close that document but that's fine. All right so I have this other one called Bartaghi and I'm also making sure I cross these off my list because I have so many from the list here that y'all I'm just trying to go through and make sure I don't miss people. All right let's take a look at this 18 years between the summer I was born and summer okay cool all right jarred into a container break away self-discovery upon okay you would want to say I'll sew your mouth shut. You do want to finish like with with sew your mouth like we usually need one more word there sew your mouth shut which okay nice strong vivid dad threat I like it um okay all right so we're getting to this psychologist treatment okay ammunition I felt literature tried some different things so we're trying to like kind of find ourselves here we got literature meeting with psychologists and psychiatrists looking at like different philosophies okay that's kind of the question I'm asking about this essay we're a little bit all over the place I think that does reflect an individual's process of self-discovery right it does take different paths there's not exactly one clear way to go necessarily but I'm trying to kind of understand the main idea of this story it's not a hundred percent clear to me all right so trauma okay so there's there's something here maybe from the past like okay doesn't child neglect all right okay so right we have our parents issues as well break down okay so this is interesting I I think this essay touches on a lot of different topics I think it would be good to maybe I feel like this is what happens sometimes when we sort of write a draft and we write as we think right and when we do that a lot of times if you write as you think then it can be a little bit disorganized and that's normal because the human brain is not always organized and writing is recording your brain right so the first time you work through an essay I think this is like good advice for everybody to think about when you write your first draft you're probably doing what we sometimes call verbal vomit where you're throwing out ideas and you're putting them out and and it's what comes next in your brain and and so your first draft really reflects that first thought process for an essay we want to kind of go back and work on it some more and maybe start again but with a more focused topic so when I look at this essay for example what I see here is a lot of different ideas you know we have this idea of like your father's influence and how he didn't have a great upbringing we have this issue of moving to a new city working with psychiatrist evaluating different philosophies so there's a lot of different sort of ideas here about your self-discovery process I think it would be good to try to pick one or two of those and really develop them deeper like if the idea is I feel like you get to this sort of idea of trauma this moment of revelation trauma this to me is like the main idea that you should develop because it takes you a while to get there and so I feel like a lot of these other little ideas distract us from maybe the main idea because we're taking a long time to get to that point of trauma if that is really what it is then why don't you start there start with that revelation like the moment I realized that trauma had influenced my life was the moment I began to discover myself and then we don't need to talk so much about some of those other things that you explored that maybe didn't give you a big impact instead I want to focus on that one thing that really had a major impact on you and maybe your family like that to me is where we can focus this essay a little bit more and too many negative words horror obsession and things like that like I don't think necessarily it's bad to have that like you don't have to be overly negative but I think that the idea is that we want to zero in we want to focus on like what is that main idea and we want to dedicate more time to it so that it's easier to understand ourselves like for me this is it takes a while for us to find that topic and so remember we have 650 words that we can use this essay sitting at 653 I think we could get rid of some of this like you know path to discovery and focus on that major stop in the journey you know if you think about your journey as an individual you or I compare it to like a road trip if I want to tell you about a road trip I'm going to think about the highlights the main stops on the journey the craziest things I saw or the coolest things I saw and like I don't need to tell you all about the drive to that destination because there probably wasn't I mean maybe I saw a couple things that seemed interesting for a minute but they probably weren't the most important things you know so that would be what I would say you know and yes Hasan this this live will stay up on YouTube all the time every time I do a live it stays up here so you can always check this out later so yeah I like some of the ideas here I think we need to focus in more on this trauma aspect and then this idea of like talking about mental health policy is interesting I'm curious how maybe this connects to your goals like does this connect to what you want to study you know what's the connection between this and where you want to go next I think that's always an important thing to look at so those are some suggestions I would have for this maybe focus more on the trauma aspect and think a little bit more about how you can connect this information to what you want to do in the future all right so I got another one here I think this is yours creative by trying metamorphosis all right so let's take a look at this all right do humans go through a metamorphosis and the whole class left I've been there I like that moment all right okay let me make this a little bit bigger okay I like the little detail here of you know grandpa fixing the bike it's a nice little way to add a visual without spending too much time on that visual that's that's a nice little thing like that's a nice touch okay and now we get okay now we connect more to those grandparents that's cool okay homemade fishing rod neat I like this okay you see that same old personality I'm kind of curious like are we talking about that like that that threw me off just a little bit I'm not sure what personality trait you're referencing exactly because so far we've established like a sense of curiosity right there's obviously at this age in seventh grade you wouldn't necessarily realize why that question might have seemed silly maybe other people understood that that already wasn't going to be like the right question to ask or something but I'm looking a little more for those personality details if you're going to say this here but makes me stubborn I don't know if maybe you're referring to the grandparents influence or your own here all right and then we get into some of the engineering stuff okay okay cool got the internship and project management that's neat I like that all right and we get into a lot of the challenges here of working there working at a factory accidents at the factory too that's interesting I could that could be something to develop a little more here all right I like that I like the call back to the metamorphosis idea okay yeah all right this is interesting this is interesting I like this all right I'm just checking our word count so we have 786 so we do have to do some cutting here to get this down yeah galtham you read my mind I was literally just that's the first thing I check sometimes when I finish these up I like to look at the word count and see what we got to do so I think we have a couple of things that here that are pretty interesting and what we could work on and develop a little more so one thing I think is cool here is like I like this bit where you touch on the grandparents and their influence in you I think you could expand a little bit more of this like give me a little more information about that personality traits and because I felt like that was a little bit disconnected like I didn't quite understand what you were going for there and then we have a pretty abrupt change to this idea about engineering and architecture right so I'm wondering if like did you discover this during the gap year I'm thinking yes because of this date that you mentioned so it might be good to like take this out and just this would stay more connected like the gap year and then this happening this idea that you've discovered this option of architecture through this experience of the steel structures thing like that would be cool I would probably get rid of the dialogue to save some space and and I would jump to you know just just summarize that like you you applied for an into a competitive internship you got in and then you can talk a little bit about some of the things that you got to do which I think is good it's it's it's you don't want to spend too much time because remember they can see this in your CV they can see this in other aspects of your application so we don't want to spend too much time talking about activities that we already referenced somewhere else or we can explain more somewhere else it's good to mention it I think but I want to keep the focus on you and I think that you could talk about some of the growth like you talk a lot about functions you know like what you learned right which is good like okay that a small error can cause people to work over time accidents push you to check progress like maybe think a little bit more about how your perception of this work changed like what matters in that job what aspects of that job are important what do you realize that you need to develop or that you have that will make you good in this field so instead of just thinking about the specific functions think about the lessons think about how that would apply to your future education as well and what you want to learn while you're at university that to me is where you could develop that a little bit more I like this I like this connection back to the the idea of transformation but I'm not sure what completely transformed in you because we have this reference to like curiosity at the beginning some stubbornness in the middle and now you performing well in this job so that's what I think we need a little bit more of a little bit more of like your personality so we can see what changed and a little bit less of the activity or like the development of that activity that's where you could cut words and then probably make some more space for some more personal growth you know I get what you're saying about the obstacles right like okay so looking at the obstacles in your internship like yeah I get that I think that you know what those obstacles are isn't as important as what you learn from them obstacles take many different forms but the lesson you get at the end is the more important thing courage being stubborn and decisive when you decide to take a gap year I get what you're saying but then it for me to understand that from the essay I need to know if like did people resist that decision is it not a common decision where you are from was their criticism like you know maybe give me a little more context so I can understand that your decision to do the gap year actually maybe was hard like you know you had to make a tough decision so that could be useful as well because it it doesn't quite come through in the essay as it is right now but I think that I think that you have some really good ideas here and I think that the writing is really good I also something I wanted to point out that I like about this paragraph length something I encourage people to do more is shorter paragraphs today and that's just a reflection of how most writing is becoming like most of us if you look at the articles you read on your phone since everybody uses phones now paragraphs have gotten smaller so they can fit into a screen and like while that's not a requirement for writing it is more common today and I think that it's what your people are used to reading so when you if you have like huge paragraphs it can seem a little overwhelming or a little like you know like too much for the people reading so I like shorter paragraphs these days I think it helps to like make your stuff more readable for the viewers so cool I like this I think there's a lot of good ideas here I think that we just need to shift the focus a little bit more towards your personality and its evolution and a little bit less in the direction of like what you did and what happened um all right let me let me grab some other ones here uh I'm gonna get the next one give me a second so all right we're making good progress I like this all right I got more phone numbers here that I'm typing into here all right yeah this is uh okay we're gonna do yo jack um oh wait this is actually really short all right so I don't know if this is for all right hang on I'm gonna skip this one because I I didn't take a good look at this this looks like it's supplemental and I just want to focus on common app stuff today but I can get back to you personally all right let's take a look at this oh this is Gotham this is you man all right you're here you're in the house let's uh let's do this all right so make it bigger switch your screens let's do it all right so all right not made up of elements but of devices and technologies you sound like a cyborg people call me a hacker all right let's take a look at this okay bedside monitor oh whoa that's pretty hardcore okay interesting all right dengue scrub typist I don't even know what that is geez okay this is this is an interesting story so far this is an interesting story so far you have my attention all right we're jumping around time this I don't know if you've ever read Kurt Vonnegut um but this has some Kurt Vonnegut vibes all right interesting I'm kind of all right so this one maybe needs to be a little more concrete like it feels like you were trying to like design something as a kid um the speakers like like was this something you were trying to work on like a cable or something that you were making like at that age like I kind of think I get it but I'm not a hundred percent sure and I would like it to be a little bit more concrete like you say this unknown invention random connection like I don't know if it's random necessarily um because like all right okay connected my mobile phone to speakers but it was my heart to the technology okay so I get what you're doing here a little bit yeah all right you're making like a cable and stuff I think it would be like maybe a little better instead of like having these like ideas of random and unknown like maybe focus on that desire to solve the problem that desire to like fix something or you know resolve the frustration of not being able to set up those speakers like I guess maybe just be a little more concrete with it um but this is cool all right 1463 pairs of eyes all right um uh huh I'm also the hacker okay what did you do oh okay hacked into my professor's Gmail account ooh okay all right we got to address this this is going to be one of those controversial things to include in an essay um all right okay all right let me take a look at my word count here where are we at 583 okay so we got space to work with all right this is interesting so first of all I think it's cool that you have like this structure where you're jumping around a little bit in time showing me a few different highlights from life um you know we have this like really heavy experience and sort of a realization of wanting to be around computers and connecting that to like the ICU monitor next to you is kind of an interesting thing like that I definitely got my attention and I like that sort of moment of realization and then I like this idea of going back to a couple of other experiences from a younger time in your life so that's cool I think the structure is interesting now I want to talk about this this thing here because now a lot of people and this is this applies to more than just hacking your teacher's account let's talk about should you talk about something that maybe was unethical or was wrong or a time you've gotten trouble or broke a law or something like a lot of people will tell you never to do that to never say this and and I think a lot of people believe you should play it safe with your essays I can tell you right now that most of the time universities are not so strict and uptight about these things like most admission officers are cool people most of the people reading your essays like they were young too they made mistakes they understand I think the important thing is to like contextualize though if you're going to talk about something that you did that maybe wasn't like the best thing can you give a little more context and show me maybe what the impact was like did you I mean what did you do with your professor's gmail account that's what I want to know because like if you just hacked it for the sake of hacking it because you wanted to see if you could like okay that's not exactly like the worst thing in the world you know that actually is kind of interesting and it and this here if you if it ends positively that's a good sign but I would like to know what precisely you did with this and then that would influence my decisions a little bit you know because if you talk about hacking your teacher's email and then like the truth is that you I don't know you sent like a dirty picture to all your classmates or something like that would be maybe something I wouldn't include in my essay but if you did it like genuinely because you're like I want to see if I can hack this guy and I came clean I admitted it right away I didn't like do anything bad okay that changes things you know so with with those sorts of situations I don't think it's bad to necessarily include those I just think it's important to contextualize and make sure that the reader understands why you did it and what happened and since you have another 70 words you can use here you've got room you've got the space to like explain this so I would encourage you to give more detail about that and explain it a little more I think I think that would be good you know and yeah otherwise I like what you got going on here something else I want to mention about the formatting I don't know that I would bold these words too much like you don't have to necessarily bold like gmail or speakers or bedside monitor like it kind of I mean it draws my attention to those things but in a way that kind of distracts me a little bit so I usually recommend like like it's fine for this like this age 17 age 8 I think that's a good way to use formatting to kind of you know draw my attention to these different scenarios but then for the actual words inside like I wouldn't necessarily do that okay yeah so if you didn't do anything with this account yeah I know I just gave you a bad idea right I say that because I've had situations with students where things like that have happened so you know I think it's you got to remember that like if I present the possibility of doing something I shouldn't have done it could be interpreted a lot of different ways and if someone interprets it the wrong way that could be bad for you so try not to leave that room for interpretation you know that's what I would recommend so for the age 8 part yeah I I would just maybe like change a little bit of these unknown random words like I would I would change some of this stuff here to more focus on like your thought process what were you thinking like dad comes home with newly borrowed speakers and like what was the problem what what did you decide to do like get a little more concrete into you right now we have a lot of reactions of other people which is nice but like I want to know what your thought process was at eight years old did you look at this and go I think I can fix this I think I can figure this out like and you started soldering cables and stuff like you know maybe that would be more engaging I think here but otherwise I like what we got I think this is interesting so good stuff all right so who's next let's go over here another okay let me copy this into some text yeah this came through what's up so it's got a bunch of spaces I'm just deleting some spaces so it's a little easier to read here yeah all right okay let's check this one out here and do I have a this is Abhinav Abhinav sent this one into me here so uh yeah let's see what we got all right so we got a dream right off the bat I like that to witness Mars rings first hand wait okay I was going to say I don't think there's rings on Mars but they're going to form in about 50 million years okay interesting all right uh huh Phobos better be feared afraid you would want to say afraid here better be afraid about this one or scared of this one yeah uh feared is like would mean that he is feared by others I guess maybe could work here but it does if you're saying that he's going to disappear he should be he would be afraid of disappearing not feared by others um all right all right this is okay respect you've got a tattoo of an event that's going to happen in 50 million years if if that's for real that's pretty sweet dude that's that's very very cool um damn so all right staircase to the moon is impossible uh huh okay but astronomy I should send you to my business partner he thinks that the moon landing was fake um all right so all right we've got some issues in the family though that made it difficult okay let's see what else we got here around Bavicus classes Casey road edge of time all right telescoping and stuff and then the school wasn't quite what you're looking for all right I think this is interesting I like the way that you present your dream and I love the commitment right here like this this to me is like okay that's about as committed as you can get to studying a certain major my friend this is this is like yeah right away if I read this I'll be honest I'm gonna be like all right I want to see this tattoo like this is intense um and and it says a lot about your commitment to your major I mean what else can I say if if astrophysics and like astronomy are things that interest you and you're willing to go that far I believe you you know I'm you have my attention now one thing I will say about this watch out when you use we when you say we you include the reader and including the reader can be good in some cases but when you do that with something very specific like this you run the risk of alienating the reader um like if the reader didn't ever dream about building a staircase to the moon then it my reaction as a reader is well that was you not me I know maybe that's not something I ever wanted you know um so like I would I would rephrase this I like addressing the reader but try not to put words or thoughts into the reader right like ask the reader a genuine question like have you ever thought about how you could get to the moon have you ever thought about building a staircase to the moon at least that's neutral that gives the reader the choice about whether they say yes or no to your question your your question here is really more like forcing the statement onto the reader so if you're going to address the reader just be careful with that because like I could see somebody being like well no that wasn't me and now you're creating a negative reaction to your question versus a neutral reaction or a positive one um I like that you've gotten into you know like some of the the family issues that have made things difficult and the school issues that have made things difficult one thing I will say here is I think some of the like you have a little bit that you could cut where it's 686 I think you could probably cut this out this grade six bit it kind of goes backwards um in a way like I think we could focus instead on you know maybe the trials connect more to this so instead of this little flashback to childhood what I might say is like okay mom said this was impossible maybe say there were other obstacles beyond physics right there were there were obstacles in my family there were obstacles in my education like you know it wasn't just the physical impossibility of building a staircase to the moon it's that the steps that I needed to climb were broken and damaged and dangerous like try to try to use maybe that metaphor of the staircase to help talk about some of those problems because I feel like we're missing some transitions into some of those issues so it goes kind of abruptly like it's it's jerky you know we're going back and forth and I want more smooth transitions into those ideas and so I think you cut out a little bit more like you've established that you have this very clearly we don't need to go back to the past to learn about it I think the the telescope thing is kind of cool too and I like that you keep this right I think you should you should keep that there um and it contrasts well with the school's curriculum like you are now going beyond what your class is offering right which is good um so I I think and and now the last thing here um I think we talked about this a little bit before you sent this over but this this ps is going to be a little awkward so what I would say here is like um like you say gender chakra limit myself it's unclear exactly like what that refers to for the average reader I think would be a little tricky to figure out um and I see what you're doing here with this reference but it's still not 100 clear to me like what that might mean I I think you could probably just take that away to be honest I I understand you want to make a reference um but maybe do it in a better way that it's a little more clear so that I understand exactly what that means like that's your conclusion people always remember the first thing and the last thing you say your first paragraph and your last paragraph is what stands in people's memory the most so you want to make sure those parts are really clear and easy to understand if they're not you're going to leave the person feeling a little confused and the last thing you want is for their final thought to be confusion you want their final thought to be clarity so we want to be careful about how we finish those essays especially so that's one of the things I love about your opening like your opening as something super memorable right but then that conclusion is leaving me a little bit confused so I would suggest maybe you know changing that up a little bit um yeah yeah the first part last part thing is always important to remember it applies even to like the SAT you know like the first part of a paragraph and the last part of paragraph tell you the main ideas because we tend to remember the first part and last part so our writing reflects that as well um but overall this is cool this this is interesting I like this one um we'll see what else we got here who's next all right um you know far was with us in our workshop on Tuesday and sent over their essays so we're going to check that out here all right and for those of you who have sent me your essays recently like again I got a list so I'm adding yours to my list if I run through all of these in the time we have today then we will start pulling more from the ones that are being sent in now um but yeah we got a lot to do all right let's take a look at this one as a girl seeking justice okay very clear up front I like this all right very concrete introduction very clear I like it it's it's direct into the point it's just getting right to the issues that this person wants to solve I like that a lot too I think sometimes it's good to do that you know we don't always have to have like clever colorful story introductions we can just go straight to like what I want to do and get to the point I there's nothing wrong with that oh and Omar congrats on the 1430 man that's great um all right volunteering game valuable insights and important social issues okay I think it's always good to use more concrete language so if I say important social issues like what exactly let's think about what exactly and their significance like I think it's you know good to get into the details of those right and we still have some room to work with here so root cause again like social problems like problems is an abstract word I can't picture problems I want to be able to visualize what you're talking about so when you look at those words ask yourself like can I make those words more concrete can I make those words clearer right it is simple go from I agree it is simple but simple is not always bad and I think that it's important to understand the mind of a typical American person like we tend to be more direct we tend to be more you know to the point and other cultures aren't necessarily that way I see that a lot here working with Peruvians like Spanish as a language encourages people to be very wordy to use a lot of words to say something and that like a lot of times the perception is like more words is more better when that is not necessarily true and in in an American context like more words it's like are those words doing something are they contributing or are they just filling space you know so so that's something I watch out for like it's not bad to be simple and direct we're very heavily influenced by Ernest Hemingway in English and Hemingway wrote very short sentences very simple language he felt like you should be able to use the simplest word that makes the most impact so there's nothing wrong with that being kind of basic in a way I don't think this is a bad start it it establishes very clearly what this person's focus is what their origin is and I like this because I want to point something out here again like your choice of major can have a big impact on your possibilities abroad and if you're someone who's looking for like big scholarships this is the kind of thing that does attract bigger scholarships like universities are more invested in people who they think will return that investment into their country and into their society so going right to that point here for Nilafar's essay in Afghanistan like I think that's not a bad approach at all now I do think we need to be more concrete here we need to know exactly what the issues are all right so analyzing data administrative tasks okay so one thing I think is happening here a lot though we are getting into what I see is a common mistake with essays which is like regurgitating the cv sort of going through activity after activity after activity you know and and there's nothing wrong with talking about your activities but I mean I need to know more about you and and I think sometimes the activity focus takes away from the individual like it's I understand you care about these things you've established that and I understand you've worked at these social centers and worked with girls that's great but now I want to know more about like maybe tell me one of the most important experiences you had from that time like tell me about a person that you worked with that you remember really clearly and how it impacted you or give me a scene that you saw while volunteering that like struck you and left you changed forever you know like those are the things that will stand out more other than a summary of your activities like a summary is always going to be more general and I want you to get specific at some point in your essay so while I understand that like you've done all these really cool activities and that's great and I it makes perfect sense I want to know more about these like you know specific experiences not just mentioning all of them okay so that would be the main thing I would improve in this essay is like okay you talk about going into United People Global and like Girl Up I know about that program it's great awesome but like maybe pick one or two of these things and go into more detail it's it's always better for us to go deep one or two times than to go superficial many times right like I only have 650 words and I would rather you dedicate you know half of those to one really profound experience than to touch a little bit on a bunch of experiences that don't get developed in depth so for me it's you know because each one just feels like it's sort of telling me the same thing I already knew by this point once I'm here at the social centers and stuff like I understand that you've done these things I want more details I don't want more of the same kinds of experiences and and we don't have to touch on like oh okay I learned to analyze data like that's good okay but I want to know again something really specific about your experience right so that's sort of what I think about this um you know uh Anthony your question about is it safe to share listen I'll be honest here um let's talk about that for just a second other people ask me that about sending their essays if you don't feel comfortable sending it and having it put up here don't do it but the odds of somebody stealing your essay I think are pretty low I mean first of all they're gonna have to sit here and like pause the screen and see every word and I'm not I'm going through it pretty fast and they're gonna have to like hand copy it secondly then what are the odds that they apply to the same universities you do and then thirdly what are the odds they do that and you both are from the same region and are both being reviewed by the same individual and then what are the odds that somebody notices and cares and like I think the chances of that actually happening and being a problem are very very slim I don't encourage people to just post their essays online because someone does I mean in that case someone lazy could just copy paste your essay and send it in and you know it could be an issue but honestly like I don't think that would be a problem I've never actually heard of anybody getting in trouble for like a copied essay because it's really hard for them to like actually prove that like again they would have to have like both of them around the same time to even notice like most of these colleges are going through thousands of applications they're not like if they see one that feels familiar it might stand out me like huh I think I might have seen this but like probably not enough for them to stop and go oh I'm gonna reject both of these two people automatically like it's really not you know a big risk and honestly the other factor that really matters these are personal essays like for someone to copy this essay they would have to have a very similar experience very similar major very similar interests like somebody with those ideals is probably not going to do that so I wouldn't worry about it but it's a good question um all right so like yeah the specific yeah again examples about specific experiences and stuff like I want to think about the details like if I if I were to talk about my own experience for example teaching English right like I could talk about how I've worked with so many different kinds of people basic students wealthy students and businesses poor people everything like I could talk about everything right or I could pick like one student that mattered somebody who like I had a really close connection with and talk about how that was a meaningful like the first time I ever worked with someone who was suicidal okay at the risk of being demonetized for using that word like that is something that I actually had to deal with and the school was not being supportive of that person and was not doing what they should be doing to help that person so I had to kind of risk my position because I had to take a step beyond what my job would allow and I did that anyway and I helped that person you know and that person is now studying in Italy with a full ride scholarship for a master's in arts because she had so much talent and like it just killed me that she was really really depressed and dealing with a lot of issues and I wanted to help her figure out how to get out of the country and get into a better environment like we actually applied to universities in Korea together um and she got in and stuff so like this is the thing I'd rather talk about that experience with that person than a big summary of my teaching experience I would share that one thing that really taught me like what education is about and gave me an opportunity to show some courage and like resilience because everyone around me all the professionals around me were telling me hey you're messing up you're you're you're taking too much risk you should be safer you're gonna get fired you're gonna lose your job and two years later I did lose that job for similar reasons for defending my students for helping them out but like I don't care about that if I lose that job because I took a risk to do what I think is right fine that's okay and I'd rather tell that story than just a general story about being a teacher you know something to think about so yeah um all right let's move on uh if yours is not a personal statement I may look at it um I was going mostly for like the common app personal statements today uh but let's see all right so that was me the first all right I got from Rebecca I'm gonna grab Rebecca's here uh Rebecca's actually a student here at score we're helping her out with her stuff so let's open up hers see what she's working on she's she's working with one of our essay experts so she's gonna have a little more time to review this and stuff but I don't want to see what she's got so far I haven't looked at her work yet I usually check everything that comes through our system but this is a rough draft so let's see all right so hadn't taken her on a trip Disney World she wanted to go to Disney World I like that all right okay all right all right so looking at Disney World and now oh an exchange soon okay so a very different all right I like that setup this is an interesting setup so we got a setup with like Disney World right like the first trip abroad is going to be Disney but then we've got this contrast of being a German exchange student which is a pretty big difference from going to Disney World I like that all right and what this means okay oh I love this essay so much I love you Rebecca this is exactly what I say all the time here in Peru we have a problem with this we're like students are just not independent and I always say that like studying abroad is one of the best ways to develop that and I think it's so important to show this in your essays and stuff if you can yeah yeah this is real this is very real when you go abroad this is what happens by the way this would go in here because it's the end of your sentence and the end of her sentence okay yeah so getting into some of the positives now like some of the things you learned by working with these other students sort of all right we had the downs the lows of you know missing home missing mom but then growing a little bit more building friendships and then wanting to study abroad I love it I think it makes a ton of sense yeah I like this closing line hang on you can't quite see it because I'm in the way let me move this up uh the scary news is you'll be on your own now but the cool news is you'll be on your own now um yeah I really agree with a lot of what this is saying personally so I might be biased but like this is cool this is what I like to see I mean these so something that you can do in your essays that I think is always good to do is show the university that you're ready to be on your own show the university that you're ready to live abroad it's not easy okay and if you've never been abroad before you might not have a point of reference but like I think a lot of times the the thing they want to see is that security that confidence that like I know I can do this I can handle being abroad I can handle living on my own like I'm ready for it because it is a challenge and there's a lot of people that don't make it there's people that go back home there's people that you know don't overcome that phase of missing home missing family or adapting to life independently and I think that colleges are always looking for people who show that readiness especially for international students like are you going to come here and succeed or are you going to come here and crumble and that's a worry that's something that every international admissions officer keeps in their mind they're thinking like if I admit this person are they going to be able to handle it are they ready for this can they really do it are they mature enough and so I think this essay showing like someone's experience abroad and how it has impacted their readiness and their ability to go abroad in the future is a really good approach it's it's not an overly complicated uh you know essay but it I think it transmits a really solid message of like you know my experience abroad was totally different from what I had envisioned but I adapted to it and that makes me as a reader feel confident that Rebecca is going to be able to like handle it while she's abroad in the United States so I think that's solid I think that's solid and I didn't catch the Taylor Swift reference RJ thank you for pointing that out I'm uh bad with Taylor Swift references I don't you know I I'm not a Swiftie so I guess if that was uh I don't know where that was but um I guess you got the uh singing see you again is that is that where it was I don't know you or or this you'll have to tell me uh-huh but yeah this you know go with them you're right this is our story this is a shared experience for international students and I think it's something that if you can transmit in some way that's great yeah all right cool maybe I should listen to Taylor Swift then if that last line is like you know her thing I like that that was cool um okay let me go ahead and grab another let's see here an elusive dream is the title of this one this was sent to me a while ago let's take a look here all right so I think we have all right we have some things we can learn from right away all right so this is first of all I just want to start with my initial observations anytime I get something like this I'm going to have one quick observation I think we all know what it is we have the wall of text okay the wall of text is something that we want to avoid uh we don't want to have a wall of text as much as possible Anna Maria you can set you can go to prepwithscore.com write us on whatsapp or if you already have the whatsapp number of score you can send it there and I will add it to my list um okay so we don't want to have a big wall of text we need paragraphs like I said shorter paragraphs today are probably going to be better so I'm going to go through this and see maybe where I would put some paragraphs right like so we got the sound of church bells in the mosque okay brief moment sip some tea decide to go for a walk greeted by a fellow neighbors and villagers restrict my hair right so we got a lot of good descriptions in here like I like the writing now this could be a good place to break a paragraph I also think like maybe this you know like here's here's good places to break this up so we're telling the story we got this like waking we're you know sipping some tea this like I would imagine you sip some tea and you pause that's a good place to insert that break because we're pausing we're sipping our tea and thinking about life and now okay we go for a walk and all right we got this rose set that up and now we got a shriek from the distance that's a good place to have a break right all right a well a child had fallen into a well it was like some lassy stuff that's a reference none of you would get that's way before your time that's like almost before my time lassi was a dog and there was always the joke that like timmy would fall into the well and then lassi would come and rescue timmy by finding adults and being like and lassi would you know they'd be like what's going on did timmy fall into the well and then yeah they would find timmy and they all lived happily ever after all right so I got distracted thinking about lassi all right so we're talking about locals free the boy all right whole thing's suggestion I don't have to take care of this plan but okay so this is a little vague like I'm not sure what this suggestion is or what they tried to do and we got the different religious figures all right so we have this whole all right so we have this whole experience and then here we go all right you write this down in your diary and then power goes out glamorizing a life by all right so so it's unclear to me what this is trying to say about you all right this is the thing here like this essay means to focus more on you this has an experience that you relate but it doesn't really get personal and while I think that experience is interesting I'm curious what impact it really had on you and what would be like you know the like what would be the impact of this experience you still have 250 words but right now most of these words are not about you all right and I like to sometimes encourage you guys to do this to highlight stuff that is about you right and and then notice the difference right so like this is stuff about the the writer here right and this is stuff about the writer here this idea of going for a walk and some of the villagers and stuff right this is about you and now this is also a little bit like you know like I was wondering were we going to get back to this rose is there something about this that is important like we talk about you and doing this but we don't know why and then really most of this is a story that's not about you right you're telling about other people other people men from the community okay there's a little bit of like a reflection here right and a little bit of what you did but that's about it so a lot of this essay isn't focusing on you and it's a personal statement so we need to do that all right um yeah uh and no I'm not going to delete the video don't worry all my lives stay up like you'll you'll be able to watch this in post no worries okay so so that would be my main thing here I think I think we need to replant this essay a little bit like start from scratch like what is something about you that you want to share and you know if you're going to share a story about something you saw or something you experienced it has to connect back to you we have to think about like what did that mean to you did you stop and like reflect on the severity of like the human condition and how life is precious and did you feel like that boy stuck in a well like what's the connection between this story in your life that is always important to make sure it's clear so here we have more words we can use we need to connect to you and I think that we could probably reduce a little bit of this story and focus more on its connection to the individual all right and with that my first sheet of sticky notes is done so let's go to the next sheet here let's start working on some more I love that all of y'all sent me so many essays keeping me busy all right I'll see here this one got a pdf let's bring this over here all right in big in all right here we go all right so this one was sent to me a few days ago by Saeed all right Saeed probably I'm not great with pronouncing names from other countries I apologize all right various identities and different aspects in my life different perceptions from different people mother scholar friends comedian I like this okay animes English teachers bookworm okay this kind of cool we're presenting some different facets of your personality some different aspects of you I think that's always good um yeah bento just go ahead prepwithscore.com find the whatsapp link send it over on whatsapp and I will add it to my list can I claim all these completely there's one that unites them a love for stories all right I like that you found like a common thread or a common thing between your interests here all right life doesn't always aha okay heroes miraculously recover but yeah life is not that way okay my condolences for dad that's uh that's a tough situation okay working out of fear interesting heroes oh I like this this is good I like this essay a lot this is really good this is a really solid essay I don't have an exact word count here because it is a pdf and it doesn't let me like easily count these words but it looks about right it feels about 650 I think we're okay there this is yeah this is really good um what I like about this again simple language which makes it easy to follow at the beginning like again we're not using complex language this just feels like a natural person talking to me which is something I like um you know again we're not trying to impress people with our vocabulary or like show off every word that we know we want to just you know be real be ourselves and if that is you if if you like to you know use a lot of colorful language and stuff okay it should feel natural then but I feel like this is a well written essay from the fact that like it just you know it gets to the point it's pretty pretty like clear one thing I would say is you could diversify sentence structure a little bit here like we have an I believe I believe I believe um you could probably turn this into a single compound sentence I believe the stories they're real life events you know and maybe I don't know if it feels a little repetitive here um and something else I would suggest and and this is something I see a lot in writing since I like the content of this essay I want to focus a little more on the craft of writing a lot of times we use what's called like filter verbs so like I realize that I believe in not believe in can work but like when you notice I realize that or I find myself those words sort of distance us from the point we're trying to make so for example instead of saying I realize that life doesn't always offer the neatly packaged happy endings I could just say life doesn't always offer the neatly packaged happy endings right so I don't like because my focus is that lesson not the fact that I realized it it's like I want to emphasize that point that I learned that thing that I began to understand so by removing the I realized that I put out that statement there in a stronger way and it actually gives it more impact and it saves me three words which is convenient so something to consider sometimes like um you know even here like I vividly remember the nights like you could just say she would stay up until morning beside my father like instead of putting this through this context right through your eyes just say it just paint the picture tell me it and I will understand it because if obviously this is implied if you if you didn't see this and you didn't remember it then you wouldn't say it so saying that you remember it actually doesn't add anything to the essay and so this is something I recommend a lot when you already have your work kind of figured out start looking for those extra filler words that you can cut out and that will free up more space maybe for you to add some other details and make it even better because like for me I think this is great and and trying metamorphosis is fine like there's nothing wrong with talking about that that's you know a scientific concept that everybody understands and I think that it's you know a core theme of your essays so that's fine but like here I'm just looking at maybe what terms could I cut out that will actually make the impact stronger right um and what else look like on that same note um yeah all right I think that's I think we're pretty good here so overall I really like what I see here in this essay this has an it has a nice competent ending I like the connection between your interests and the idea of narrative and like how stories in real life are different but also understanding what that means for you as a person like I think this is a great essay it's really really solid um again now bang if you cut out those filler words it means I have more space to do something meaningful with those words like ask yourself do I need this word is this word adding to the value of my essay is it contributing to the narrative you don't necessarily have to use all 650 but I would say that if I have an essay that's at 640 and I can remove 30 words that are kind of useless then that's now 30 words I can use for something more meaningful maybe a couple extra descriptions or details maybe one more reflection about life you know so understand the economy of words like when you can use more words like to the best of your ability that's great more words just to have filler does not help it's diluting the concentration of your essay I like to think of it that way like a like a liquid right if I dilute the beverage like if I have a Coca Cola and I put water in it it's not going to taste as good right okay you'll say well you got more to drink yeah but if if all of it doesn't taste as good now so I'd rather have a good concentrated beverage something that tastes really good and has a clear strong flavor versus something that has been watered down by extra words and and that makes it easier for those you know important things to stand out so that's what I would say and you're welcome Abin thanks for checking it out and for sending your stuff in I love it all right let's go to the next let's see yeah all right yep this is the next on my list personal statement five somebody's been working on a few different versions I like it let's see what we got all right personal statement five this is from Fatima I always like the name Fatima because Fatima is a really common name here in Latin American Peru and also in like the you know in other parts of the world so it's kind of funny to me all right okay okay smells bad all right okay environmental pollution all right garbopolis all right gar poles all right so all right talking about this idea of like garbage and pollution interesting and Kabul all right I like you kind of made up your own word here that's kind of an interesting a move I like it because it's like you're you're going to leave an impression on the on the reader for sure by having your own language in here a little bit like they might remember this term you know it's kind of cool it makes it makes for an interesting detail that nobody else can have all right so looking for some solutions some of the reasons why it's a problem how can we make a machine maybe okay and obviously yeah this is an issue where you're from okay all right then we kind of talk about the climate change thing all right so we get into a little bit of this green earth march something you could do to take action right small fraction that's okay all right so I think this is interesting I like your gar poles thing I think it's kind of cool what I will say is that it does feel like you change the focus a little bit abruptly to the general issue of climate change right so we start out with this idea of like garbage being in your city and it smells bad and it's like you know you don't like it obviously and that seems to be an inspiration for you in terms of like it's something that got you to think about environmental issues and got you to think about you know climate change and got you to think about taking action to resolve those issues but I guess what what does kind of stand out to me is like you sort of abandon that issue here kind of like and then move into another issue so you spend a lot of time talking about the garbage problem and then you sort of abandon it in the middle and I'm kind of curious like did you ever go back to that did you actually come up with any initiatives to clean up garbage did those lead you to do the other initiative with green earth where you focus more on the bigger picture of climate change could you maybe connect it better and show how like you know you realize that by focusing on garbage you were really just focusing on a small local problem and you realize that you needed to think bigger that you needed to like focus on a bigger issue which is climate change globally like I kind of want to understand because right now it feels like you sort of quit you know kind of like you quit on the idea of garbage because you couldn't figure out a solution and then you shifted to another thing so I don't love that feeling in an essay I would like to feel like you maybe you channeled that frustration or you you realize that you needed to do something bigger like I want to understand I want a more positive spin on the transition from this garbage issue to the bigger issue you know because it feels like you're really going to build a whole essay around that garbage issue and then it takes a turn in the middle and sort of goes in a very different direction and it leaves me feeling a little bit like I wanted to hear the rest of that stuff I was wondering what happened with that you know and if I'm going to finish more focusing on climate change and like your efforts to you know raise awareness and take action about that maybe it would be better to keep the whole essay focused on that you know so do do it emission officers think about values that one possesses I think so I think that's an important thing I think mostly what you got to think about too is like universities look to see that you are aligned with them and what they do and what they care about I encourage a lot of students to check out like the motto of universities check out the values statements for specific faculties or for the university as a whole and ask yourself like do you think you are genuinely aligned with that motto with those values because if you are like if you're if you align well with those values then it should naturally be obvious like it will be clear as soon as you write they will see that in you right and you will have chosen your university wisely if you don't really match up with those values or don't match up with that motto maybe it's not the best place for you to apply because they're looking for different kinds of people they're looking for different individuals and that's okay again there are lots of universities and it's important to choose the ones that fit with you not just oh this is the number one ranked university in this subject or something like I want you to pick a university because in in reality you will fit in well you will go well with what they want to do that's what you should try to do so I think I think that it's not so much that they have a list of values and they check them off and go oh he has this he has this oh he doesn't have this I think it's more like a feeling right you know if you work in admissions at a university for a while you know what kind of person you're looking for it's hard to articulate that sometimes but you know who will fit in who will have the right values for that university and so if you are picking the right universities they will feel that more and I think it will help you a lot so now uh using AI let me talk about that real quick so while I was at my conference in Miami we were talking about artificial intelligence in the essay process and that's one of the reasons you're seeing some changes this year in some of the supplemental essays a lot of universities are going with shorter essays because they feel that less people will use AI if it's a shorter response and I personally do not encourage you to write with AI because it's just not going to be able to fully capture you without a lot of feeding you have to prompt it a lot you have to feed it a lot you have to give it so much information that at a certain point it's like just write your own essay man um I feel like it would be better to start with your own story write your own essay and if you want to get some ideas as to how to make it better maybe you know put it into chat gpt and see what sort of corrections it might make but I would encourage you to write your own work most colleges right now don't have a strict chat gpt policy but they are making them and most of the policies are anti chat gpt having said that there is no real easy way to detect chat gpt so I would encourage you to avoid it because I just don't think it's going to produce a truly great personal essay I think it could produce something decent but we want to be better than decent so that's my personal take but like RJ that's a good question like using AI to try to shorten some of the sentences like I wouldn't have a big problem with that I think if you use it as a tool to improve your work that's not a big deal you know but again it's a subjective thing like that's how I feel and and we had a big talk about the ethics and we had different perspectives there's some people who think in fact there's some universities that are talking about making a pro chat gpt policy where they say if you used it tell me how it's okay just say yes I used it but here's what I did I used it to diversify my vocabulary or to fix up my sentences or I asked it to produce this whole thing and here's the prompts so if you do try to use it I would make a record of what you did keep those logs you know don't delete that thread in chat gpt so that you actually have that data because there may be someone interested in hearing how you use it so there are some progressive forward thinking universities right now that are not like completely against it you know so just saying there's some options all right so um let's go on to the next I'm trying to get through as many as I can today we will have another session on September 25th so if I don't get to your stuff today that's when we'll get to it next all right um got another one here from Nepal I love Nepal I love the flag of Nepal specifically I've never been to Nepal but I love the flag I love the fact that it's not rectangles that's just so cool good job Nepal for being creative all right okay all right so we'll be describing where you're from a little bit here let's see all right first human was not created by human all right okay a little bit of family culture stuff here historic all right okay obviously yeah I get this okay so you know we couldn't do DNA testing all right but you tell me okay that there's this like this to ease this process that's been established all right I think it would be cool to tell me a little bit more about this process like what it does all right okay I think it's interesting that you're talking about some of the traditions of your culture and like some of those things and I feel like it could be interesting to contrast those a little bit more with maybe modern life maybe contrast these a little more with like you know how the world operates today how is there that harmony between your historical traditions and like modern life you know all right so we talk a little bit about your Peace Corps stuff okay it's interesting junior Red Cross and things like that too turn your grandfather's nails too and culture and family all right so I think this one similar to what I've seen in a couple of others this one has a lot of different ideas and I think it would be good to try to focus on one like I think for example you have a really interesting bit about the historical traditions of where you come from and I think it would be interesting to explore that further uh you also talk about some you know like things about your family and also some activities that you've done but I I feel like these different experiences lack connections okay so it we're we're kind of in a few different places and it would be good to focus on one specific thing like what could you what do you think out of those experiences which one says the most about you and when like if I want to talk about those traditions I could I could talk about those traditions and what they mean to me today and how even though maybe I live in a more modern life today I don't know if that's true but like do you still have those traditions in your daily life or do you have a different kind of life now in a maybe a more modernized setting and how do those traditions impact the way you see the modern world you know like there's there's ways to maybe develop some of these ideas more the Peace Corps stuff and like blood donation I think is a nice detail but then I wonder like you know what like could we say more about that you mentioned discipline and things and and you know working with community community and leadership but like I could you could expand on that you could develop that a lot more um so the I feel like we need to pick one of these ideas and develop it more deeply you know um postcards if friends are copying someone else's ideas and paraphrasing them they're probably not going to get the best results in their applications I'll be totally honest if that's the kind of person that you are that you can't even think for yourself it's going to be painfully obvious when you have an interview it's going to be extremely obvious in other essays and you're not going to have a coherent story it's not going to look good they're going to they're going to have a harder time and this is the thing I see so often people don't want to spend the time on essays they don't really take the time they should on them and then they get rejected and they're like why did I get rejected I had a great SAT I had great grades it's like well you also didn't present yourself properly and like these essays do matter um for the like for the question here about if your supplement essays are more important than a personal statement that's going to depend a little bit on the university I feel like your personal statement is always going to be the most impactful essay because it's the one where you have the most freedom and it says the most about you and it's the biggest one that you will probably write so that's where you should put a lot of effort at the same time those questions that the university asks are obviously important to the university like they clearly stopped and thought about what questions they wanted to ask you and so those responses do matter a lot to them I think right now the supplementals that maybe matter the most are you know ones looking at topics of diversity because that's a big issue right now in the states ever since affirmative action went away um and there's been a lot of focus on diversity essays this year so I feel like that's an important one to kind of develop a lot more because they're looking at that essay that's a new prompt for some universities this year so I expect them to be studying those a lot um but but yeah they all matter but I definitely think your personal statement especially because it goes out to more places and because it's more personal because it's bigger has more importance you know um so yeah that's what I think like I said post guys I answered that um I don't know what Gotham thinks on this but I really don't think I don't worry about what other people do okay focus on yourself always it doesn't matter what other people are doing if they you know don't just do what other people do in the process do your own process and do it right that's how I feel um so Baca writing about your favorite particular subject and how much yeah that could be great especially if it ties into what you want to study like that could be a good idea um write about a subject that fascinates you sure nothing wrong with that let's uh pull up another item here and then I might take just a two minute break let's see this one is called untitled let's open up untitled a little pdf down here all right let's take a look at what we have here all right so okay talking about the family situation mom having to take care of the kids that was the most stupid kid about math grades all right so here we got like a good low moment in life we've we've kind of set up a we got a difficult situation and at home we got a difficult situation in school we got this like low point if we're gonna go to that low point then we want to jump right back up we want to like sometimes it's good to contrast immediately like I would I would love if I go to like rock bottom my next paragraph could be like where we are now where things are so much better and then we could tell a little bit of how we got to that journey that way we break up the structure a little bit so it's not completely linear it's nice to have a little bit of variety in that flow if we just do a linear essay it's a little predictable if I if I switch it up and I like show you this worst moment and contrast it immediately with a great moment it now peaks my curiosity I want to know how we got there right um so we start talking about that turning point and so this is what I mean like the next a lot of us what we'll do is we'll go to rock bottom and then we'll go straight to that next point like when we started to turn when we started to improve and it could be good to invert that let's go to the good result and then go back a little bit more to the turning points and stuff right so we got this uh strong statement from uncle that kind of gets us to redefine sort of our purpose this is good think about what we want to do and then okay so a couple of important moments in tenth grade okay okay so the first time you ever actually like did better than those so so-called smart kids cool all right so this could be like a good way to do that contrast right here I'd be like all right why don't we fast forward immediately right after this right and be like I don't know whatever two or three years later I was the one with the best grade in the class now I you got my attention I'm like oh okay I want to know how you got to that point and what you had to go through right the impossible has become I'm possible I see what you did there I like that that's pretty clever that was that was a good little play on words nicely done um okay and then we have to come back here to the the drawing that you made at the beginning all right this isn't bad this is this is pretty good I think the main thing that would improve this is like I said just break up the structure a little bit more get more creative with the order of events um if your essay is completely linear from start to finish I would encourage you to think about where you might be able to move some events around and build a little bit more intrigue in your essays okay because you can get a lot when you you know move things around it's it's kind of like I mean if you think about a movie right you think about movies that build suspense a lot of times what they do is they cut to like a different character a different scene so the good guys are planning something but then boom we go over to the bad guys we see like what they're doing and so we know there's a counter and we got that question like oh will they be able to figure this out or like if it's one person's story that fast forward now leaves me wondering how we got there and so we want to keep the curiosity of the reader going especially in the middle because again I like I said beginning and end is where everybody's like gonna focus a lot and remember things but in that middle is where people tend to get bored so that's a good place to add those changes in your structure because then it will like keep them engaged more you know um so RJ your question about bringing new culture and language um look I think something more unique like try not to focus on the macro differences of your culture like that's what I encourage people to do for example with my Peruvian students a lot of them will talk about food because Peruvians love their food and we have like world-renowned cuisine and it's like the first thing that they think of when when Peruvians talk to people they love to talk about their food and I tell them look like if you do that you and every other Peruvian will talk about your food what else can you talk about is there anything deeper anything like regional local family you know like I like if I'm from Pittsburgh I feel like we would all talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers because like we love our football team and we're very passionate about that's probably a very common regional thing but I could go deeper I could talk about my family and like the work ethic you know that I see in my family and that's something that is a Pittsburgh thing but it's a little deeper and I could see it through my family and in myself like we work really really really really hard and we don't take days off that's a Pittsburgh thing man we we probably work too much it's probably not healthy so before I go with the big obvious thing that my local culture my regional my national culture offers picks a thing a little try to go deeper try to go be on that first obvious thing or two so that you show a different side from what the other people in your country might be showing you know um so yeah uh am I gonna do any more writing sessions for Common App I am gonna do some writing sessions for supplemental soon actually um oh I'm bang so you can call me Meacham I always say uh you know my name is Meacham on the channel so that's my last name that's what most people know me by for many years I have been Mr Meacham at school you know when I was teaching so that's how we do um so all right so with this one yeah I think this is cool but I would just maybe try to change up the structure make it a little bit more dynamic so that it you know keeps the reader a little more engaged through the middle any time we do like a rock bottom this is my worst moment essay it's good to play with that all right um okay we've got Abu Fassal who was in my Afghanistan meeting on Tuesday as well let's take a look at this let's see what we got up in here all right in limbo really tough time all right so oh started teaching English okay and the country situation all right so again we're kind of going straight into like here's the situation had some difficult economic situations and obviously national situations um yeah obviously the last few years for more than the last few years for Afghanistan have nothing great um in that sense uh okay used to be this like math almost got into an accident because of that all right all right so I feel like here you're setting me up for a change like you're telling me I used to be this person and I was doing all this stuff so I'm getting the idea that there had to be something that stopped that so I'm kind of wondering where that's going to come into here right I feel like this like you're getting into this example stuff and maybe getting a little too specific like I kind of want to get into this you know I think that this is really the part that could be good to share um obviously this is okay see this is interesting to me I don't know about this I'll be honest this is like beyond my cultural knowledge here but this is interesting to me and I think this could be the thing to build your essay around like I'm willing to bet that most of the people reading this won't know much about this particular group of people and it could be really interesting to like talk more about that and help them understand you know what those differences are and what the specific challenges your group faces um okay so someone else got into Vassar and that kind of like inspired you to look for something else here art and then structural engineering okay so you're getting into some of your like interests here okay okay done with your bachelor okay so you're looking for a master's program then in this case I'm assuming if you're talking about this okay interesting all right so yeah um so this is more of a statement of purpose for a master's program because if you've already done a bachelor's generally in the U.S. you're gonna apply for postgraduate studies if that's the case I would say then in those cases you generally want to focus a little bit more on the things you want to study and what you want to do with that education but if this is for undergraduate studies like if you're trying to get a second degree in the U.S. if you're going for that then I think that you would want to focus more on this stuff right here for me this is like the most impactful part of this essay and I want us to focus more on who we are today and less on who we were you know like you say you used to be these things and it gets me feeling like maybe you stopped you you weren't and this is why you stopped and I would rather spend more time focusing on those obstacles and like how you regained that love and passion for those topics and focus more on who you are today so that we see more of that because we have a lot of content here that is like past content like all this right while we have you know a kind of a quick summary of you know you say this new chapter of despair in my life but then that situation changed so we kind of skip right through the time where you lost that passion and if you're going to spend all this space building up that passion and how you used to have it I would probably expect more detail about what stopped that and it's kind of missing here so I would think about restructuring this a little bit it's interesting and there's definitely a lot of you know a lot of interesting ideas in here and I definitely want to know more about this stuff like I really do because I think you got to remember think about what your reader knows and what they won't know there's a lot of things they won't know and you know while you have typically someone assigned to your region who will know a good bit about your region they won't know everything and you want to maybe contextualize a little bit more of that very specific experience that you have so I think this has a lot of potential and I would like to learn more about some of those experiences that you touched on there all right let's take a look at the next one here you got a dock link bring this down let's go all right uh can we make this bigger yeah all right cool I'll say my thigh could talk okay this is interesting I like the personification of your thigh and I think this is a really really good way of describing a speech problem like it was really like I understood it immediately as with this sentence I got it like like that good job because those things that are hard to like articulate in words sometimes and I think that this is like a really really clear issue like I understood it immediately good job okay room fell silent yeah I've seen this man I've been in this class I have had to yell at this person I've had to tell him to shut up and get out of the room I've been there yeah okay now this is this is a really good personal like reflections here very solid okay speech therapist yeah laughing at your own recordings I do that every week okay see now this is one of those great times all right like I want to talk about this when I say don't like regurgitate your CV you know this is one of those times where it makes perfect sense to include a very specific activity and really develop it more here because obviously this has a huge connection to your personal life obviously the motivation is very clear it makes total sense like I think this is a great time to inject this activity and talk a little bit more about about it and your connection to it you know and again I love the specific examples right of like individuals right these people who got involved like that really makes it real I think that's great um man you must have been hitting your thigh good yeah I don't know who left this but I agree I'm honestly this is this is really solid this is a really solid essay 646 I love it like I think this is a great essay in a lot of ways it's very clear the language used is very easy for me to follow you do a really good job of describing your feelings and the way your condition affected you and it makes perfect sense with the things that you've done afterwards and like it's great to see that you've gotten over that and overcome it and like bravo this is great I really don't want you to change almost anything here I just feel like this is easy for me to understand it's it feels real and it like it makes perfect sense from start to finish I think that's really good um yeah the only thing I mean like I'm trying to find something I'm trying to be hard on you because I want to give you something to improve I guess the only thing maybe is this about the medicinal chemist thing like maybe this could be phrased a little differently like I understand you kind of wanted to drop your major or drop your area of study in here um but like you could still change the world that way are you interested in looking for like medicines that could help people with stutters like could we connect that a little bit more but like overall I like this a lot and I and I'm proud of you for getting over your your problem and like being able to to do this I I can't imagine how frustrating it would have been I've I've worked with students who've had that issue and I know it's hard and like I've always had a lot of respect for the people who have to go through those kinds of disorders and issues like it's tough because it really does affect your social life and like your personal perception and just props to you man I wish you the best of luck in this like really um good essay yeah a real good test honestly after this day will be like which one of your essays do I remember the most because I'm going through so many um so all right we've got this one that was sent in both word and pdf so we'll do the word version because that's just better all right let's see what we got here all right oh we got a name down the bottom all right honey thank you let's see what we got 427 words I'd notice right away thank you for leaving the prompt by the way um all right so this is I wonder if this is a supplemental or something it might be I don't know but whatever we'll look at it uh you may need a word I don't know what your word count would be unless like on this one but let's just see what we got real quick all right so yeah the room essay room essay was cool I like the I remember I'm thinking about the wires and the the room um yeah the wires stood out to me too I think because it breaks it down and and also like okay the uh you know hacker essay of habit by having those broken down sections that are like really clearly labeled it kind of helps me compartmentalize the story and remember it in smaller pieces instead of like one big piece so I can think about that bedroom changing a few different times I can think about those different wires and I won't remember what all of them meant but I remember green was nature and like red was entertainment I think like I remember some of those details now so I think like sometimes that's why I like those structures those structures that kind on that topic I I actually checked another score I say yesterday off stream but um the writer used different injuries opened up the story by saying I broke my I've broken seven bones and like tells three or four of those stories and how each one impacted them so it was interesting to see like how each injury led to a lesson and so I remember like oh you broke your ankle playing basketball like you had to recover and okay you broke like uh you know an arm you know in an accident and you know I'd like there were different lessons with each one that was kind of interesting you know so um yeah there's a lot of cool stuff here let's have Ryan good to see you um okay so different perspective on the above topic although you're saying okay optimism is more important I'm guessing this is a supplemental for somewhere it would be helpful to know kind of where this is going to go and maybe what word count they gave um and then you're setting up your choices for this okay so kind of setting up a good argumentative essay structure which makes sense for a question like this like if they ask you you know what's more important success or being happy and optimistic in the face of failure then yeah you're gonna want to pick a side right and this is good you've explained your statement your main reason and then going into these other examples now if this is a really strong example like damn okay so yeah that's that's a strong point to make um so I like your point about how like success is fleeting people could you know take advantage of it or not and so here's someone who has and I guess I would say personal like examples too we want some personal examples here if this is a supplemental for a university it's good that you can refer to some other examples that you've seen but like what does it mean to you right what what do you feel about failure can we talk about one of your failures where you remained optimistic can we talk about a success you had that maybe wasn't as fulfilling as you thought it would be if your position is more on the side of happy and optimistic let's connect that more to some personal examples I think that's important like if you if you can do that you're gonna have a better outcome here all right so that is my second sheet of sticky notes I think we're gonna get if you sent me your essay today in the stream I'm probably not gonna get to you today because I got about 10 more minutes I got here before I got to get going because I got another meeting starting up soon but we're doing we're doing really good stuff here I like what we got I got like three more written down that have been sent to me in previous days so let's get on those right now all right I'm having fun with this everybody I want to thank you all for sending your stuff it's fun all right okay this is a specific case we've got Dublin College University interesting all right so if you're sending this specifically to one university then that's fine you can go ahead and you know shout out the name and make it clear that this is going to the right destination obviously word of advice if you write an essay for one university and you go to use it for another just you know be mindful that you change everything correctly don't just copy paste be careful with that because there's nothing worse than making it obvious that you accidentally sent the wrong essay okay so we're looking at a degree in business here and this is good by the way Irish and British essays are quite different from your American essays so if anybody here is considering applying to like the UK or to Ireland you will find that the essays are are a much different style generally there you want to explain why you're a good candidate for that major for that program and I always encourage people to think like okay relevant experiences grades and courses that are related to that major you know what characteristics would a good professional in that field have and how can you demonstrate them in your essay so UCAS essays for the UK are much more like brag go ahead and brag about your qualifications go ahead and talk about what makes you a great candidate for admission to that major I actually in my Yacoc conference two years ago in Albuquerque I attended a session where a British essay reviewer and an American essay reviewer stood side by side and debated their different approaches as to why they preferred their approach over the other and you know the conclusion of the whole thing was like hey just make sure your students understand there are two very different approaches to these essays and the British Irish approach is definitely more about your achievements and why you fit the major whereas the American approach is more holistic more I want to get to know you as a person I've already got enough information about you academically so I want to hear about you personally okay so I want to see some reasons why you would be a good fit for a business program here you talk about assisting others and volunteering work now this is this is good but again I I mean if you start off with this idea of a field of business I might want to be a little more going into that first so okay so we talk about like volunteering after some natural disasters and floods okay and I think all right this is good you know to have these values we do need those values in in business okay some some personal details about like what other activities you like okay this is kind of what I want to get to though like why do you care about business and what do you want to do with it um talk about your career work your course work and then English language and they do like it when you mention a little bit of your English skills they like to see that you can handle it okay and then some goals long-term goals is good all right okay and wanting to do like a food chain here interesting all right and then you talk about why this university okay I mean I now I would say I don't know what the word count is for for you know Dublin College University here but 958 is a lot but see what they ask for if they ask for like two pages then I guess you know you're you're kind of this is like a almost a three-pager I think so because you have one two okay it's two you got it in two all right cool um yeah I think this is solid I would just maybe think about the order of things like you kind of start with like the volunteering stuff and personal interests which I might put later I would probably go first to talk about some of the like business related things you know focus a little bit more on your relationship to that major and go right into that and I think you could talk more about like you know what you want to do with it right away and then you may also want to get more specific into the program that the they offer at that university like what courses or what experiences do they offer that you think are good for you specifically for this university like why do you really want to go here and not other places and I wouldn't necessarily reference this stuff you know because it really just says okay you're good they know they're good what is it specifically about the university that you think is good a lot of this stuff feels like what they put in their marketing it's very generic it's like oh you it's a good destination you got high scores you're a top one percent university you shouldn't just want to go to the university because it's good there should be something in the curriculum professors courses other experiences they offer that matter to you get specific I often compare this uh to like and I'm going to use an example that's a little more applicable to guys but I think it makes sense for girls it's like if a if a person tells you that they like you because you're pretty I would like to think that you would say all right but what about like what's on the inside and that's kind of what this is oh you're pretty you have a good ranking you have you know the number one program you have really you know the best whatever like okay that's that's exterior features that's like pretty what about the personality of the place what about the people in the place what about the courses the things they like to do like you should love somebody or a university for more than just their superficial characteristics and universities feel that so I would definitely encourage you if you write an essay for a specific college to like really get into the things that that college offers specifically and not just its position or its ranking or just because it's the best you know it's the best is not a great reason to choose a university to be totally honest um is it the best for you and that depends on other factors all right so okay I got one in here that says my common app essay let's go all right unleaded egg dough aroma connected to me all right okay I think somebody sent me this as a comment in in one of the videos about an essay about noodles all right cool cold monday glee king's birthday celebration nigerians is something all right a lot of a lot of noodles okay all right so he shared noodles for his birthday interesting yeah start saving money okay this alice got the ramen love me some ramen ah ramen is so good I'll never like I loved eating ramen in japan when I was there that was the best time so good all right okay interesting kind of the significance of ramen compared to like other food items and now we all love noodles okay all right referencing it and culture and stuff okay so I think we need more personal detail here this is an interesting topic I like the idea of using noodles as a topic um but I would think more about personal memories that I have related to those moments like for was there a moment where you were just so dead tired and you stood there like slurping your noodles and it just made you feel better was there a moment where you shared some with an important friend or a family member or something like I want to know more about those significant personal moments with noodles if we're going to use noodles as an essay like you you talk a lot about other people what like you see it in other cultures you you know see the significance of it in the Korean culture like you're talking a lot about other people's relationships with noodles or the significance of noodles but you want to talk about yourself so my advice here with the noodles thing is like what are the personal connections like if I were going to do an essay about ramen noodles I would definitely think about like the time I stood up and ordered them in Japan and how you know it was like the best lunch I ever had it just restored my energy made me like desire to spend more time and I actually started thinking about living in Japan while I was sitting there eating ramen like no joke I was flying back from Japan writing down my plans to move there if it weren't for score I would have gone to Japan no joke I literally was like like score had just started when I went to Japan so it was nothing then it was a little side hustle and I was like I don't really need to do that forever I whatever and now like here I am so life is weird but the point is I would focus on those significant personal moments with that thing that I want to talk about not just about the thing you don't want to make an essay about noodles you want to make an essay about noodles and you how you and the noodles are connected okay so that's what I think needs to change here we need more focus on you and less on the history of noodles and the cultural uses of noodles and like other things about noodles okay um but but it is a cool topic and I like it I think you should use that topic I think you should think about what those moments are for you and then you know you could actually put something together really well here all right so RJ in the chat you were the last one on my list today dude you made it all right so congratulations RJ let's see all right so let's see what we got here all right talking to shame there all right so you're you're drawing on something you're doing some art you know what I love that you acknowledge this right away I love that you acknowledge this because I've been a witness to this on the channel I've seen this a lot in personal like dealings with you know Asian families and stuff it's it is real it is a big thing and I think sometimes it's the elephant in the room with a lot of applications from those students like you you should show self-awareness and being aware of this fact and being able to talk about it is a good thing for your essays so I like that you actually acknowledge this stereotype outright address it point out the elephant in the room okay appreciate your patience RJ by the way respect to you man thank you for for sticking in and waiting I know it's getting late for y'all okay so those are your parents expectations and your motivations make sense right okay and this is yeah this is this is real man I think this is real and this is something a lot of people don't feel like they can say so I think it's good that you're you're going there go to the place that might seem scary you know okay yeah I love this sketch my way to awards that's a nice phrase that's a nice phrase right there I like it um okay yeah that fear I've noticed that's a recurring theme today I've seen a lot of people talking about like how fear was driving a lot of their experiences as opposed to a genuine motivation or like a positive motivation I think it's good that we're acknowledging that I think it's good that we're overcoming our fears it's important to face your fears and it's important like be aware of them and and talk about how you address them so all right another oh man yeah damn brutal brutal don't let me down all right so time okay we're going like very detailed time by time here like uh-huh I kind of like the way this changes the pacing of the essay like we go into we went from like a bigger macro thing of like long-term experiences to like down to the hour like an episode of 24 it's kind of cool that's a good way to like break up the structure to some birds okay yeah all right so there was some there was some positivity here that gives me some hope right okay all right I like this a good moment where you just do did something for you not for mom or dad very cool all right I like this a lot I like this a lot I think you know I feel like this is really good because it acknowledges that truth that a lot of times we don't talk about and you know this this stuff about family expectations and stuff I'll be honest with you guys like I have this perspective as someone who has worked with a lot of people from a lot of different places and who reads a lot of essays and talks to a lot of you all on what's happened stuff and like again I don't want to over generalize or oversimplify because I know you all are unique individuals but there is definitely this thing of like the Asian mom a lot of times or the Asian dad a lot of times and it's something that's real and I think that it sometimes hurts a lot of applications because you know we get so caught up in the winning awards and like doing all these activities and getting perfect grades and stuff that we forget to like discover who we are and we do things for other people instead of doing them for ourselves and for me I can relate a lot to that feeling I think in every culture we have that problem but it just takes different forms you know I think in a lot of times in in Asian culture it tends to be more about that high achievement high academic achievement in my case it was a very religious thing it was like I had to conform to my family's religious ideals to make them happy and I did a lot of things in my life just for that reason you know not because I genuinely believe them or not because I genuinely wanted to do them and so I think it's important to acknowledge that reality to like be real about it because they should understand that you've discovered yourself in a way and that you have broken away from that and so by acknowledging it and addressing it and and showing me that moment where you had that realization I think that's great and I really like it a lot and I would tell you to send this for sure so yeah um really good work guys uh all right so anyway that is all the time I have for today I'm happy I managed to get through everything that I had on my list before today if you sent me your essays today I have another session coming up on the 25th and I will be knocking out more of them then um I'm sorry if I wasn't able to get to yours today but you know tried to do as much as I could in a couple of hours I got a lot of meetings today and like life and a work event all day next week or next weekend so it's been a lot of fun reviewing these though and I definitely want to do more of these sessions as we go like through the application process this year um I want to do some supplementals like essay writing on the weekends as well maybe like a supplemental Saturday or Sunday we'll see I'm going to figure that out and I will make some posts on the channel let you know when those will be but the next session will be on September 25th for essays also October 5th SAT I got a huge thing coming up I have found a bunch of practice tests that I think you're going to want to see and I'm going to publish a video that I'm working on right now in a couple of weeks about that but I'm going to do a live stream practice test from this website so that you can see the material for yourself and also laugh at my terrible ability to do math so if you want to you know like check that out please make sure you're subscribed have the notifications on and I will see you um next time I publish a video or on the next live on the 25th thank you all so much and have a great day