 Meh. When it comes to writing college essays, there are literally hundreds of books out there that talk to you about what you need to write about, how to write your essay, a bunch of information that is a lot to comprehend all at one time. Now this video isn't really focused on what you need to write about or how to make it stand out or anything like that but just about how to start. I think that's the hardest part for most students because everyone just contemplates and thinks and sits and waits and since it's already September for those of you applying you guys already know that this is prime time to get started early because you do not want to be cramming at that last minute. I will say though that there's a lot more information in the e-book that's launching September 1st about writing the college application essay, every little thing about short answers, supplemental essays, the common app. I even go through and break down my own common app essay and tell you guys why I wrote it like I did. I did make a video about that that I'll link down below if you want to already read my common app essay but it's just a little bit more revised and refined than the one that I've previously uploaded. Now this video is sponsored by Collegium Prep. A few weeks ago they reached out to me and I found out that they were also a bunch of Ivy League students and college students themselves who had a similar mission of helping students get into their dream school. Collegium Prep offers a bunch of services all the way from picking out a school list, filling out the common app, financial aid, essay review, how to pick a school. Like I said the reason that I support them so much is that they're also college kids and they been through the application process. They know what it's been like, they know what it takes to get into Harvard and Stanford and Princeton. So they have a lot of unique insights that they can share with you guys. If you're interested, definitely check them out below. They offer a bunch of different packages and their pricing is super transparent and compared to other college consulting companies they're doing it for a fraction of the cost. They also offer many pro bono services so if that might be the case for your financial needs, definitely check them out below. I will have it linked. All right, step number one, brainstorm. This is the most important part of any writing process, regardless of any application that you're writing. If there's one thing that you spend the most time on, it should be this step because this is critical to your success and obviously your overall arching message of your essay. When I say brainstorm, it's not your typical bubble maps and your t-graphs and whatever they tell you in middle school. It's actual brainstorming, meaning that you're gonna need a lot of time to think and ponder. If you've been struggling for the past few weeks and can't figure out where to get started, here's what you do. Find a local coffee shop, find your couch, find your bed, anywhere that you feel the most comfortable and the most relaxed and just sit there, open up your laptop, open up a Google Doc title brainstorm and write. You just have to let your ideas flow onto that page. Read the prompt over and over and over and just think about what that means to you, internalize it, really process what they're asking and what you think that they want to hear from you and just go from there. The more ideas you have just gives you flexibility when it comes to finding one concrete topic they can actually write a sufficient essay about. Now, this book is written by Alan Gelb. I purchased it when I was applying and I didn't read through the whole thing because I'm lazy, but there were a few good things that I wanted to share with you guys. First off, you have to consider the various reasons why people write in the first place. He says, to connect with other people, to come to terms with something in the past, to project into the future, to better understand something in nature, to amuse, to arouse, to preserve a tradition or forkway, to confess, to forgive. Now, those are really great options to consider before you start writing your own essay because, I mean, you have to really consider like why you're writing this college application essay, what benefit is it going to do for you other than just getting you into your college? But more importantly, what is that admissions committee going to be able to take away and learn from you about as a person? And from the experiences you've had in your 17 or 18 years, what is one or two things that you can really impactfully tell a story? Because at the end of the day, if you take one thing away from this video is that you need to tell a story. You need to find a way to think of it less as a college essay, right? Think of it more as a poem or a short story or a novel that you're going to be writing. And as soon as you flip that switch in your mind, it's going to be so much easier, I promise. Now, also a few questions that can help jumpstart things are, what has been the hardest thing in your life? What has been difficult for you to accomplish? At what points have you felt inadequate and how did you deal with those feelings? If you have to quickly replay your life, which two or three moments would jump out ahead of all the others? What do you regard as your greatest victory? What in the world fascinates you? Have you ever felt betrayed? What fills you with pride? These are just a few sample questions to help get the juices flowing. But I mean, at the end of the day, like I said, just pick things that are meaningful and memorable to you and start writing about that. Okay, so after you've brainstormed a bunch of ideas, you want to separate them into three different categories. There's the shit, the things you can actually work with and the cream of the crop. The shit, throw it out in the garbage, delete it. If you really don't think you can work with it, then there's no point in dwelling any time thinking about it. Now, the other two categories are the most important and what you are going to be able to write an actual essay out of. From these six to 10 or whatever many ideas you have, start to narrow it down to the most meaningful ones and also the ones with the most depth, the ones with the most impactfulness and the ones that you can actually craft a real story out of. If you have one or two small memories that are meaningful, but you can craft a whole essay out of it, then maybe those aren't the best ones, but if you have an in-depth, you know, personal experience that has shaped you or, you know, shaped the way that you've viewed life, then, you know, obviously that's going to be a better story to tell. Now, step two, as Nike says it, just do it. Your essay isn't going to write itself. There's no one out there that's going to be able to formulate your story and be able to tell it in a compelling way in your own words with your own actions and the way that you tell it is going to be so unique to you that you can't hire anyone else to do it. You can't have a special computer come up with any algorithm to write your perfect story. It has to be up to you, which is why this is such a roadblock for so many students. Like, you guys get so caught up in the little things about it needs to be perfect right off the bat. It needs to be this and that. In reality, no, it doesn't. Like, your first drafts are going to be complete shit. I will tell you that right now. Like, it took me so long to get from where I started to my final product and the fact that it took so many edits and revisions made it all that much better. Which is why you have to start somewhere. Even if you think it's complete garbage, which you probably will think. That's what I thought. That's what everyone thinks when they first start writing. You just have to keep pushing through that. And the more you get comfortable with writing college application essays, the better and better it's going to get. And the more time that you push it off, I can't do it right now. I don't have anything good to talk about or, oh, I'll just do it tomorrow. I'll do it next week. You're pushing yourself later in the application process that it's going to be too late for you to get a good, concrete, rough draft so that it can go through multiple revisions. Like I said, now, when it comes to writing a successful and persuasive college essay, you need to have a good hook. Your hook is your attention grabber and it just keeps your reader entertained and wants them to keep reading so that they can learn more about what it is you have to say and what you're going to be talking about in your essay. Obviously, there's theses like you learn in high school, but when it comes to college essays, your attention grabber, in my opinion, is more important and more effective. Which is why, like I said in my Common App essay, I started off with Candice's her name. She has curves in all the right places. Everywhere I go, she's right there hand in hand, side by side. It's weird that I still remember my college essay word for word. But, you know, that's a funny attention grabber. I talk about Candice like it's a girl when in reality, she's my camera and you learn more about why and how I fell in love with photography. And personifying my camera as a girl was just a really creative writing tool that, you know, kept the reader entertained and wanted to learn more. I personally recommend avoiding the rhetorical cliche questions about, do you ever wonder or have you ever been in this situation? Like, I would avoid that because it's so overused. I do recommend things like in media array style, which like dives the reader right into the middle of the action. And then you can kind of backtrack, rewind to the beginning and then go from there. Another important, huge, vital step is to find one unique experience. Students get so caught up in trying to tell their whole life story and trying to become too much of a people person. And they're just being too narcissistic. Like, you don't really matter that much in the application process. It's your story that matters. It's the experiences you had, whether it was studying abroad or helping a non-profit organization in Africa or volunteering at your local hospital, the experiences that you've been through and have shaped you as a person and the people that you have met and have, you know, shown you this way of life is what's impactful. If you try and talk about your whole life story about when I was a kid, my parents moved here and they raised me to do this. And now I want to go to Stanford to do become a doctor so that I can give back to my family. And that's boring. And since you only have about 650 words, you're never going to be able to go past the surface level when you're trying to cover that much information, which is why I think it's so important to just find one experience, story or moment that you can craft a whole essay out of in front of that's just going to give you a lot more real estate so that you can go really in depth on this one topic rather than just barely hitting the surface on a bunch of different topics. Does that make sense? Now step three, edit, edit, edit. This is a huge step in refining your college essays so that it becomes a work of art. Literally find anyone that will take five to 10 minutes out of the day, read over your essay and give you critiques. It doesn't even have to be grammatical or typo arrows, but just ask them, hey, what did you think of this essay? What flows well? What doesn't? Did you feel something impactful after reading my essay? The more and more people that you get to do this, whether it's your friends, your teachers, your directors, anyone that has some kind of say in your life, reach out to them and be like, can you read over this? Just tell me your most initial thoughts. That's another thing I just realized is that you want to get their initial thoughts, not right after they've read it and it's had time to fade away, but try and be with them when they read it and see their expressions. Are they laughing while they're reading it? Are they emotional? What do they feel after putting down your paper and looking you in the eyes and saying, this is incredible? Or they could say, I don't understand this. What's your point? What are you trying to get across? And it's important that you take that advice very seriously and take it to heart because as great of a writer as you think you are, considering other people's feedback and using that to improve your own writing is the only way you're going to improve in life as a writer or just in general, like taking criticism and learning from it and seeing what you can improve is the most fast track way to success. Okay, I've been rambling way too long, but I know that college essays are a huge burden to tackle. Personally for me, I know that getting started was the hardest part. I just felt so discouraged, like reading my first drafts, being like, this is complete garbage, like I don't want to keep going. But you know, I hope that with these tips, it helps give you the motivation to just get started. Like I said, once you have your feet wet and you know, have a few lines or a few paragraphs written, then it just starts to go from there. That's about it for this video. I hope you guys enjoyed. Make sure you guys like, comment and subscribe and I will see you guys next time.