 The YUS essay can go a lot of ways, but pick me because I love your school and your location is not it. Stick around to learn how to stand out in your YUS essay. Thank you for joining me on my channel. This is Write Your Acceptance. I am Dr. Josie, and I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of students at this point on these supplemental essays. It is growing time. Let's get to it. So beyond the main Common App essay, some schools will have additional supplemental essays, and these are super important. One of the reasons is that these are school specific essays in the sense that the schools are the ones that determine the prompt, right? The Common App essay, the seven options that has been determined by Common App, but Georgia Tech picks their supplemental essays. Tulane picks their supplemental essays, Michigan, Columbia, and so on. So these are extremely important and you don't want to miss the mark. I'm going to talk about the YUS essay as it's configured in a few different ways. You'll see a few iterations of this type of essay, but it is the why do you want to attend X school? If you want more information and guidance beyond this video, I do have a couple of videos for the YUS. I'll link them above, but then you can also grab my template in the description below. First schools that ask for the YUS essay are quite a few. The ones that are particular popular for me that I work with as students on a ton are Michigan, Tulane, Georgia Tech, Cornell, NYU, USC. There are a few others, of course, but those are the ones that kind of come to mind. And two questions are basically the kind of iterations of this essay boils down to why do you want to attend our school or how can we as an institution advance or help advance and further your goals? So let's get down to the four tips that I think are essential when thinking about writing this essay. Tip one, think about a little bit of you, a little bit of them. It is kind of like a matchmaking project for you to really compose a YUS essay that is dense in their material and their evidence and we'll talk about what that evidence should look like and that research and that it is unique to you, that you are kind of showcasing something that is specific to you and how you would fit, you would live and learn in their institution. So beyond the research, I really want you guys to think about really kind of dialing into how you would bring your sense of flavor, flair, compassion, intellectual curiosity, whatever you want to kind of highlight and showcase. Really think about how you want to bring this in. After kind of quite a few years of working with students, I've honestly moved away from the only research this is not about you. I've kind of softened on that a little bit because when you really do the research that this essay demands, especially if you're efficient, there is room to kind of showcase an aspect of who you are. What I don't want you to do is do the kind of like fan girl mail for this type of essay which is kind of empty on research and dense material about who they are and all about kind of like your accolades about them and how great they are and love the location and I was born to be in New York City. So all of that has nothing to really do with the program and the institution that you would be kind of applying to. So I was more of a hardliner when it came to kind of this is not about you, it's about them but really I want you to kind of think about yes, your integrity and the kind of robust quality that the research should have about them should still be there for this YS but you want to kind of add a little bit about you and I'll tell you how to kind of do that. So tip two, what to research and how to make it kind of connect to your personal quality qualities depending on how long the YS essay you will have kind of more space, right? First and foremost you want to research your major. So let's say you're pursuing biology but in one school it's the majors called biology in another school it's biological sciences in another school it's health sciences and biology. You want to name the major exactly how that institution names it. That's very important to me. You want to research courses, find one or two classes, find the name, find the syllabus that that could potentially be attached to it on their website, find a professor that is doing cool research, find a lab that would be of interest, find student organizations. So really think about finding and I would open a Google doc or open a word doc and just kind of copy paste from their website because then then you'll have the material condensed there instead of links and you can start writing versus just copying and pasting links that you have to then come back to and have 20 tabs open. Really kind of condense the information and copy paste the relevant information that you would then kind of like add into your essay. So major as it stated courses, a professor, research opportunity, community service, student organizations, how do you see yourself within the classroom and be on the classroom? So living and learning at their school. So some university websites are friendlier than others. For instance, I love Michigan's website. I'm not a fan of the NYU website. I love them both, but some are easier to navigate than others. You will sometimes find the courses for your major very easily. Sometimes it's kind of harder to find and that's fine. You want to kind of think about the two courses like the one or two courses, maybe one is from your major, maybe another one is from an interest that you have. For instance, maybe you are pre-medical and so you'll be a pre-med, but you'll major in biology. You'll like to minor in Spanish because you've continued to take basically Spanish the four years of high school and you're taking AP Spanish now senior year. Maybe one class that you mentioned is about biology, but then another class is Spanish language and literature or pop culture in Spain today. And then you could connect. So this is where the personal would come in, right? So you would mention a course of biology and how that that's of interest to you and how it kind of connects to your future aspirations in medicine. And then you can go into, however, another intellectual pursuit that I aspire to advance or to deepen at the university would be. And then you can mention the Spanish course and then talk about how you've taken four years of Spanish and then maybe add a line about the most memorable aspects from reading Don Quixote to whatever, whatever. And you can kind of really bring in an aspect of who you are. Maybe you are Spanish speaking from a culture that is Spanish speaking. Maybe you've grown up speaking Spanish and you can add that in there. Maybe you've done a lot of community service in Spanish speaking communities. And so then you can mention your service and then go from one class to then go into additionally, I would like to continue this type of service. And then you would name a community service project that the school has. So think about as you are listing and saying kind of why reasons for their resources and opportunities, see where you would naturally fit in kind of your personal qualities as to how you would be advancing those or continuing those in college. One thing I would avoid is mentioning a study abroad. I am of two minds of this. Sometimes I tell students, okay, mentioned the study abroad. Sometimes I tell students to avoid it. I guess it's not a hard, fast rule. It's more kind of like a barometer. If you're going to say, so take the temperature of the reason why you are putting the study abroad. If you're going to say, I want to, I aspire to study abroad in Madrid, Spain, so that I can immerse in a different culture, then I would nix it. If you're going to say something like immerse in a different culture, gain multiple perspectives, be comfortable with diversity, those phrases feel very kind of on the surface, reasoning for, like very easy reasoning for study abroad and has nothing to do with you. And you want to kind of avoid the type of sentence or sentences that any student can say in any of their essays, right? So you may have some of these stock sentences here and there, especially for the longer essays. These can range anywhere between 100 words and 650 or 800 words. However, you want to make sure that you are kind of at least turn on that radar to see when you are doing too many of those stock sentences. And I feel like study abroad and mentioning a study abroad that just lends itself to that stock answer for some weird reason. Another option to make your essay a little bit more personal and still never sacrifice the integrity, the robust quality of the research that you are doing is to play with the format of the essay. So I've seen students who are aspiring business majors write their essay like an executive summary. I've seen students who play guitar kind of name as a subheading, the different kind of sections of the essay, the longer ones, a different chord progression for guitar. And they start with a mini story about them playing guitar and how going from one chord to the other, I don't play guitar, so I don't know if I'm making sense. But like the beginning part was something about how they, there are kind of chords that are harder to go from one chord to the other. And so then they use that as like their working metaphor about how challenging experience they love to kind of put themselves in challenging circumstances because they grow and learn from that. And so they use that mini anecdote and then the different chord progressions to go through the different aspects of how they're going to challenge themselves at that university. I've seen students write code at the beginning, and they were computer science majors. They also had another student who also wrote code at the beginning and then kind of code at the end or they wrote the code at the beginning and they deciphered it at the end of the essay, had a nonprofit where they taught coding to elementary school students. So you can kind of think about and basically the message was, you know, accept me please or pick me. And they actually did attend. I believe that was NYU. Don't quote me because I'm not, I don't remember. I think it's Michigan or Cornell. But you want to think about anything that is interesting from your extracurricular activities and it is not content that you can weave in kind of rhetorically, like, you know, with your language, like the Spanish that we just talked about, the student that took Spanish four years and would like to minor in Spanish. Maybe think about how you can do it kind of from a format, from a structure perspective for the essay. Tip three, avoid generic excitement and generic information. So not all research is kind of made equally. There is some research that is important for you to learn. Yes, but it doesn't necessarily kind of hold the same weight in your essay. For example, I would avoid anything that US news and world reports has in the sense of very good information, very solid information for you to learn. But I don't think that in the YS essay, you are kind of gaining any points if you say that there is a small student to faculty ratio, if you appreciate the small class sizes, if you know that they're ranked four in whatever, basically kind of anything that sounds like a brochure, like you're selling the school back to them, they know how great they are. And so I would kind of avoid that type of language, again, because that's stock responses, like when we talked a little bit about the study abroad, right? So I can have a diverse experience and gain or immerse myself in another culture. That's very stock kind of experiences or stock lines that anyone could add. So the more you can kind of particularize your reasoning of very specific course. If you're a biology major and I'm a biology major applying to the same school in their webpage, there could be 40 classes that come up. We may not pick the same two, right? And we may not have the same reasons for picking the classes. So there are ways in which you can kind of particularize even your evidence that you find. And then I'm going to read these. These are like phrases I would avoid using overall. Diverse perspective, plethora of opportunities or experiences, room for growth, be exposed, immersed, gather intel. Again, if you sprinkle them in, great. If you are using them as filler information from one thing to the other, and you know what I mean, if you're listing a class, then you use that filler information that you're listing another class and you're just trying to string along kind of information from their website, but without anything about you or without any specifics, then that doesn't really kind of have the same weight as if you really think about it, right? And the way, I mean, you can troubleshoot this in interesting ways and kind of like easier ways. So for the classes, find a syllabus online or find the learning outcome. Usually kind of, you know, when you go on to the course catalog, you'll find the name of the class. You can click on it and drop down many, we'll say three credits or two credits and like a little blurb, a little paragraph on what it's about. Use that information. Find out what they're actually saying about the class and kind of talk about how those learning outcomes are of interest. I'm interested in deepening my knowledge on or investigating due diligence and financial models is of interest because, and then you can kind of go into something specific that you've done or that you want to learn. So think about kind of finding that second tier kind of deeper information for the school intel that you'll use in your essay. Do you have a why us essay that you're struggling with? Comment below. I'd love to help you kind of get unstuck. So tip four, write the longest one first. So depending on when you're seeing this video, I know that, you know, early decisions may have passed or early action deadlines may have passed and you may have already written. Ideally you are writing the longest one first, the kind of 600, 500 word essay and then you can kind of pair those down to 200. My favorite, which I have a love hate relationship with are the 150 words, which is like, it gives you almost nothing. But if you have the longest one first, then you can really think about how you're gonna pair that down. I give you kind of content, word bank, phrases, an actual template that you can kind of model yourself after, but then add in particular details about you, right? That I can't help you with. That I have a template if you want to grab that in the description below, but really think about the longer the essay, the more aspects of living and learning you can do. You can do academics. You can do beyond the classroom academics, like research projects and labs. You can do social engagement, like community service and student organizations. The shorter ones, I would focus more on, well, I would always read the prompt, right? Cause some will be how will, why are you choosing your first major and how will Georgia Tech advance your career goals here? So then that one is already kind of academic and professional, right? So you're kind of cutting down the social aspects. So if it's not giving you that guidance, the shorter it is, I would do kind of one very strong academic section and then maybe a little bit of community service. So think about kind of the sections that you're going to highlight depending on how long the essay is. So rough structure, you want to think about a hook. So an engaging, interesting story, like the guitar anecdote that I said earlier, then you want to think about academic information then beyond the classroom intellectual opportunities, right? Like lab research, then extracurriculars, service, and then maybe come back to that hook or you kind of mentioned a landmark on campus and you kind of land the plane. I hope this video was helpful. If you did find it helpful, please give us a like, share with your friends and I'll see you soon. Thanks so much, bye.