 What's up, YouTube? If you are applying to USC this cycle, these are updated reflections and intel on the supplements that you have. Thank you for joining me on my channel. Please take a second to subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss a video on college essays and how to best approach these topics. So USC is throwing out a ton of questions and they're asking you to kind of be brief, be short, be kind of, you know, expressive and so they ask a ton. So let's break it down and get through it one by one. Hi, my name is Dr. Josie. This is Write Your Acceptance. Thank you so much for joining me as a university faculty member for 13 years and college essay expert. I know what they're looking for and now it's your turn. Stick around. So here we go with the USC props. First, responding to three of these. The first one, USC believes that one learns best when interacting with people of different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. Tell us about a time you were exposed to a new idea or when your beliefs were challenged by another point of view. So first thing you want to establish the difference. Honestly, too many students kind of go for the racial difference. And while those responses could be thoughtful, there are other kind of differences that you can kind of think through, right? Age, generational language barriers. So think about kind of differences that you've engaged with that you've kind of bridged in a way that would be kind of authentic to you and your story, right? And so 250 words, you have basically kind of space for two paragraphs. You can start with kind of an emblematic story showing you kind of navigating this difference and then you can reflect on that. I would stay away from any political divides. The cost benefit analysis of you getting super political and alienating an admissions officer with competing political views is just not worth it. Those are my two cents. You can do whatever you like. But yeah, I think that there are other ways that you can accomplish a task that you need basically in front of you that you have in front of you without kind of costing goodwill with kind of a dicey topic. Toward the end, never forget to reflect. So reflect on what you learned on whether or not you do something different next time on how you would kind of initiate bridging that type of difference on campus, kind of lesson learned, but then also how you paved the way for a new conversation to happen. I think that that's kind of most interesting in this response. Number two, USC faculty plays an emphasis on interdisciplinary academic opportunities. Describe something outside of your intended academic focus about which you are interested in learning. So one kind of concern that I always hear about in kind of previous cycles, especially is if I mentioned something here, will they make me want to study it if I get accepted? Not necessarily. This is an interesting one like Brown's open curriculum, like Tufts Love of Learning. You kind of want to show intellectual curiosity or kind of interest outside of you can show reflect what you are going to kind of choose to study it, but then you can also pick something that's outside the scope of your intended major too. They want to see authentic curiosity. They want to see how you nurture an intellectual or kind of a passion of yours, how you foster knowledge, how you kind of take initiative to zoom in and go deeper into a concept or a skill. It is kind of implied that you would probably be able to study this topic that you choose in any capacity that you'd like if as a Trojan right at USC, but you could even pair it with a course or student organization. And that may be of interest in a way that kind of shows beyond brand name. They have such a kind of driving force of a brand that you really want to show kind of your authentic case for best fit, right? It's not just their name brand. So pairing it with a course or student organization may be interesting and kind of giving them a Y USC, at least a taste of that at the end of this essay. And then the third option is what is something about yourself that is essential to understanding you. This is one of those freebie essays. And if the student selects this essay, what I would say is pause, take a step back and strategically think, what are they learning about you in your main essay? What are they learning about you in the other kind of questions because USC is asking you to kind of deliver a ton of content? And so what hole do you need to plug to kind of give them a multifaceted multi-dimensional candidacy? Do they have cultural heritage? Do they have kind of peculiar intellectual or social interests? Do they have community service? Are you someone that brings people together? Do you show leadership? Anything that is underrepresented that you want to kind of show, this would be that freebie type essay where you can kind of really develop that further. The next one is describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests at USC. Please feel free to address your first and second major selections. This is your why us. It's 250 words. If you want very specific kind of roadmap on how to do this, what to research, where to place information. Also always making it your own, but kind of that roadmap. I definitely have my template in the description below. You should definitely check that out. But it's that kind of why us and you want to do your research, pick a course, name the major exactly how USC names it, right? Cause sometimes schools kind of tend to name their major slightly different. A research opportunity, a student organization. So how do you see yourself living and learning as a USC Trojan? And this is all about that kind of information. If you have a volunteer kind of experience, it's pretty central to your extracurricular activities. And maybe they have that kind of college type activity college version on their campus. Maybe you connect that there. And so that you aspire to continue that work there beyond the classroom. So you definitely have kind of research in front of you to do before you write this essay. The next prompt is describe yourself in three words. You have 25 characters. Some students write a question in three words. Others would use kind of different languages, right? If they speak different languages, others will use just very kind of convoluted and complex questions. What I would say is don't try to swing for the fences and be random just for being random. Allow this to be another entry into who you are in some way. If it's cultural, if it's intellectual interest, if it's funny, have it kind of strategically placed so it advances them getting to know you. Sometimes students want to just kind of have that shock and awe, but it's empty behind it. It doesn't really advance who they are in a memorable way. So the following prompts are 100 character limit. So again, being so brief, you want to make sure that you are thinking strategy over kind of a splash. So you want them to know you culturally, geographically, where you're coming from, upbringing, experiences, traits, abilities. So answer the questions in an informed way. Yes, you could be honest, but you want to be honest in a way that kind of gives more to your candidacy, right? Always. They ask you, what's your favorite snack? I wouldn't just say Doritos. I would say enchiladas if you are from Texas, let's say, and you love Tex-Mex or croquettes, croquetas de jamón if you are Cuban-American, right? So like, give something that advances your, one of your dimensions of who you are. So here are the questions, and I would think about these for all of them. So what's your favorite snack? I covered that. Best movie of all time. You want to impress, yes, but you want to kind of be honest too. I would avoid any Disney movies. I would avoid any movies that you think adults would love. So you want to be able to kind of relate to it in some way, but these are adults, probably late 20s to like early 50s reading this. So you want to kind of culturally, like demographically think about that and be strategic. So what is a movie that you enjoy that you can kind of connect with an older generation? That may be of interest. Dream job. So here it's a way to kind of connect to your major, but you have 100 characters. So you can be very sensorial, right? Instead of saying, I want to be a civil engineer, you can kind of start with description about the kind of interconnected maze that is a beautiful highway. I don't know, something that is kind of sensorial in nature descriptive that kind of lends a visual landscape to your major, whatever that will be, to a future career, whatever that would be. If your life had a theme song, what would that be? Think about this one. If you want to think about messaging, subtext, you want to make sure that someone who doesn't know the song can Google it and look at the lyrics and not be offended. If they read it in a vacuum, do you want to be cautious? Sometimes I see a lot of songs that may be authentically real important to students. But when read in a vacuum, when an admissions officer doesn't know your experience or connection to that song and just reads the lyrics, they're like, why? Or offensive. So you want to think about the subtext, that is super important. Dream trip. Again, an opportunity to kind of have a cultural dimension if you haven't really kind of developed that, that would be something here that you can talk about. What TV show will you binge next? Something similar to like the lyrics, like in a vacuum, you want to think about, will this be offensive anyway? If not, go for it. Which well-known person or fictional character would be your ideal roommate? Interesting. I've seen people go into fictional characters a lot with this one. And so you want to think about someone that is not too obscure and then not too kind of commonplace that, that it doesn't really show a specific set of traits, right? So I had a student a couple years ago write about Rory Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, which is one of my favorite shows. So I was like, perfect. But I know her kind of personality trait. She's a reader. She loves writing. She loves the written word. She has a banter with her mom. She's very independent. So you want to think about kind of what the character says about you basically. I love this one. This is my favorite. If you can teach a class any topic, what would it be? So here, pick something that is an interest of yours. It doesn't have to be part of your major. If you could be studying engineering, we could have an interest in kind of hip hop or an interest in McCarthyism, philosophy, history, video games, coding. So think about another kind of social or intellectual interest that they would kind of find value in knowing about you. For example, I've had a student kind of write about Rosalia, the Spanish singer. And so her collaboration with like hip hop artists. And so a sample would be portrait of the artist Rosalia, the history of flamenco meets hip hop. And so you want to think about the name as kind of giving information, but then also adding kind of a twist, an argument of sorts that is embedded in the topic. So they kind of know where that course would potentially go. I hope you found this helpful. If you did, give us a like, please comment below. If you have any questions on any of these, if you want to brainstorm any of these supplements, definitely give me a comment below. I'd love to help you out whenever possible. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.