151. YOUR COLLEGE APPLICATION GUIDE: How to Write Your Essays, Build Your Resume, & More! feat. Kate Stone

Jun 19

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Kate is an expert college coach and admissions consultant dedicated to unlocking the full potential of young individuals and guiding them toward their academic aspirations. In this episode, we discuss tips and brainstorming exercises for how to craft your resume and essays when applying to colleges, advice on what colleges are really looking for in your applications and what you can do to stand out, steps on how to start writing your college admissions essays, signs you may be spending too much or too little time working on your college applications, recommendations on who you should share your college essays with (and who to avoid sharing with), and what the biggest mistakes students make during the college application process are and how to avoid them.

Kate's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katefrancestone/?hl=en

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ College Mini-Series: Ep. 147

+ College Mini-Series: Ep. 148

+ College Mini-Series: Ep. 149

+ College Mini-Series: Ep 150

+ Free College Essay + Application Workshops

+ Sign up for a free consultation with Kate

+ Free Guide For Parents: 9 Tips I Wish I Knew Before My Child Applied to College

+ Free Guide For Students: 10 Tips I Wish I Knew Before I Applied to College

+ College Essay Topic Tracker

+ Template Brag Sheet for Letters of Recommendation

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

Everybody is sharing something different. I guarantee there is something about you that is extraordinary and unique and special and you just kind of need to see that. And I know sometimes that part is hard we tend to take who we are and what we're into for granted.

We tend to downplay ourselves. I don't know why. Yeah. But we do that, especially when we're young. , And to leverage that

Sadie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to She Persisted. We're doing quick intros because I'm supposed to go to Italy in two hours, haven't packed. Need to do my nails recording these podcast intros. I'm a hot mess, but you are going to be listening to this while I am on vacation, today's episode is a really phenomenal conversation.

We're wrapping up the college mental health series, and we're talking about something that I think causes a lot of people stress, but if you do it right, it can really boost your mental health and your sense of identity and self-esteem and all the things which we talk about in this convo. So, Kate Stone is back on the podcast, and we are talking about writing your college essays.

We're talking about crafting that story, forming your identity, telling admissions readers, whoever it is that is on the receiving end of your essay about everything you've done and created in those four yards of high school and beyond. So if you're not familiar, Kate is an expert college coach and admissions consultant.

She has a background in youth mentorship, social emotional learning, and creative writing. So she offers a really interesting perspective on this,

and she just provides so much insight here on the nitty gritty of like, what is the difference between each essay? How can you use each different section to get the most out of your application? And also the larger questions of , how do I figure out what to write about? Who am I? How do I get to the point of being like, this is my story and this is how I wanna tell it.

So this is a phenomenal conversation and like I mentioned in this episode, this is part two, of Kate being on the podcast. The first episode we talked all about motivation. So now that you're like, I know what to do, I gotta write my essay, but I gotta motivate first, go listen to that episode. It will be in this show notes.

And I hope you enjoy this conversation and it takes a little bit of the stress off of trying to figure out how to write your essay. So with that, let's dive in.

Thank you so much for joining me on, she persisted. I'm so excited to have you back for a second episode and to talk all things essay writing.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here and what's going on for you? The New York Times mention. I'm just really proud of what you're doing. It's so thank you. It's big and you deserve it. It's crazy. It was so funny. I talked about it on the podcast, but I didn't know that they had included it as a resource.

Someone emailed me and was like, there's a link that's wrong on your website. And I was like, what? And they mentioned I saw in the New York Times, so I guess I was , gonna check out the links. And I was like, what are you talking about? And they're , sent me a photo. And I was like, this. Is the craziest thing ever.

So I spent like $50 on the New York Times website, ordering the newspaper for myself. It was the whole thing. But yeah, you have to frame it. That's like a big, my dad did. It was so sweet for my birthday. He did. He like got really into, he photoshopped it so it said New York Times Send Day opinion and then he put the photo, he's like really into that kind of stuff.

It was adorable. Oh my God. They must have been so proud of you. I like called, they were skiing and I was like, pick up the phone. Guys, guess what happened? And they were like, oh, okay. They were so confused, but they were very excited. But yeah. Yeah, that's like the best thing, the best feeling to be able to call your parents and celebrate they've, you know, helped you this far to see that it's like exactly.

it was so cool it, and it was funny because a couple months after my final paper for my, actually it wasn't my final, it was our midterm paper. We had to write a opinion piece about teens and smartphone use. And the footnote was on a opinion piece about teens and smartphone use. And I was like, worlds are colliding.

This is craziness. But it was, it was fun. It was a really great, great moment for sure. well, congrats. Thank you. Well, to start this out, there is so much that goes into applying to college before you get to the point of writing your essay and clicking submit. And I think that this is something every high schooler is aware of because it's.

Very ingrained in our society, like you enter high school and everything is almost like your portfolio and your resume leading up to this moment of applying to college. It can be very overwhelming. There's a lot of pressure there for sure. And so. Putting that disclaimer out there that everyone has a different path and that even if things aren't going well and you don't know what you're into and you haven't found your passions early on in high school or late in high school, things work out 100% of the time.

Things work out. Things are, are meant to be the way they're happening. If things don't work out with college admissions or the school you wanna go to, it wasn't meant to work out. And so with that context, I would love to get your thoughts on how to distribute your time and set yourself up for success when you are crafting that narrative, but also giving the context that like, This is not in a, let's make this as planned out, put a ton of pressure here.

You have to do it this way. , but also for people that do like to plan and be aware of what's coming up in the future, , and, and sticking to these interests. So what are your thoughts there with that rambling of all these different ideas? Well, I'm gonna give you two answers, and the first answer is for those students who feel like.

Well, , there's nothing special about me. I'm not good at anything. You know, I don't have any special talents or skills or interests. , my answer to you is that the one thing you could begin to explore is your love and curiosity for learning, whatever that might be. And it doesn't have to be academic.

It can be creative, it can be interpersonal interrelation. It can be a podcast that you just got into like Sadie, where you're just like gobbling up all the episodes and learning as much as you can. , obviously you're not going to have this complete. Resume, , when you're 14, 15, 16, or even 17 or 18 years old, , that's not, , a prerequisite for applying to college.

Okay. , the one prerequisite is a love of learning, a curiosity, a desire to understand things and get to deeper, , levels and, insights. On different subjects. , it could be anything. It could be like your love of fantasy books, you know, it just, it doesn't matter what it is, just that you give yourself over to that curiosity.

Okay. That's like, that's my answer for those students who feel like, well, I'm not good at anything. I'm not interested in anything I have. First of all, that's. , probably completely untrue. And there's like, and if you were, if I had like five minutes with you, I could find like 20 things that you're really good at that you love, that you know a lot about.

There's an exercise I like to use and it's called the, I love the, I know. And it's like, just do that with yourself. , do one minute of all the things you love and it could, it's all like a association. So, , don't think about it. Don't, , try to figure out what you love to. Should we do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you want each other? Okay. Yeah. Do you wanna alternate and like one of us does, I love, and one of us does. I know. Yeah, totally. Okay, perfect. Which We'll do an abbreviated version.

We'll do like 10 items so that everyone's listening to, this is the most annoying podcast I've ever turned on. , okay. I love my dogs. Like anytime I see my breed of dog on the street, I'm stopping them. I'm going to pet them. I'm asking all the questions. I actually think about this question a lot because I feel like I have really random interests that I go far and that have no.

Application to real life. I really love doing hard gel, d i y, Russian manicures, and I have like my whole setup, my little gel lamp, my little nail drill every week. It's a whole thing. Love that. Not gonna get me a job, but absolutely adore it. I love podcasting. I love graphic design and social media marketing.

I really enjoy video editing and kind of putting together these like highlight moments from these really impactful and powerful conversations. I love traveling and seeing new places. The list could, could go on. There are so many different things, but exactly like you said, even if you do have these interests that have nothing to do with what you think you wanna do in life, it just does show these larger scales.

I just learned like 10 different things about you, and some of them I didn't know about you. They showed me. Yeah. Not just your business side, but your just playful, silly expressionist side, so that's the point, right? Mm-hmm. The point is, to share in a way that's unfiltered and unguarded so that people feel like they understand and know you a little bit better.

so the purpose of that is to, is to reveal like your passion, your excitement, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , the, I know is maybe I'll do it and then we'll see what we come up with. Yeah. , I know a lot about growing wildflower gardens. I know a lot about permaculture. I know a lot about content creation.

I know a lot about Instagram marketing. I know a lot about building business. I know a lot about hiring and training, , employees. I know a lot about relationships. I know a lot about motivation. So all these places are going in all these different directions of things that you might know a little bit about it, you might know a lot about it.

, it doesn't matter. The point is to get things down so that you can begin to, , follow these threads because all these are like clues that you get to follow and pursue and see how far and how deep you can take them, right? Mm-hmm. That was cool. I love that. And I think that's it's key. And just like when you were listening to mine, you're like, I know so many different things.

I feel the exact same way and I think it's something that I find in, in my own life where it's like you are so laser focused on your own journey and your own experience. Experience that you forget that everyone else around you has none of that context of your interests and your insights and your knowledge and your passions.

Like no one knows any of that. And so for college applications especially, you have to go above and beyond to like scream those interests, scream those passions because it's not gonna come through. And that one extracurricular you listed of like the bottom of your interest list. Because again, all these different people are sharing all of these different parts of their lives.

Well, you, you touched on something as to get all this stuff out.

Get that content out onto paper through the, I love the, I know exercise as soon as possible because what you're going to learn about yourself it's kind of gonna boost you.

Actually, you're gonna feel like when we start to uncover parts of ourselves through these very simple exercises. We start to go, wow, I do have something to offer. I do have something to contribute. I am unique. I, I have value to bring to a conversation, to a relationship, to a college campus. And it's so that's, that's the multi-layered nature of learning about yourself is that you don't just, , you are not just doing this to get an outcome, but you're doing this to go on a journey with yourself.

That will guide you and lead you based on the excitement of discovery. Do you know what I mean? I completely agree. I found being able to like establish a narrative and organize all of these experiences to be one of the most empowering things because it's, it's tough to explain everything you've done in your entire life, especially when you're so young, but being like, these are my interests.

Here's where I hope to go. It might change, but this is what I have to offer. Really was such a boost of confidence and self-esteem and is carried through as I continue to pursue these interests. So even if you're, you're looking at this process as like, oh, I hope to get into this school or get this score.

There's so much self-discovery that takes place and has such positive impacts on your mental health if you're doing it right, in the sense of like really asking these questions. Yeah. That is the, I, whenever I'm learning about myself, I just feel this like, Self-love come through and actually hope, I feel, hope.

I am generating hope about my future, about what's coming for me, about what I'm gonna get to do. , what you're doing through this process of, of brainstorming is really calling your future self into the present moment. And, watering the seeds of who you will become. I love that. It's, it's so true.

And you're able to see your own potential. Like you're trying to show other people that you have potential, but in the process you're able to see it for yourself, which again, is so empowering, such a confidence boost, and so much hope for what's to come in the next four years. I wanna say one more thing, my second answer for those students who are like, yeah, I get that.

And how do we prepare? Yeah. so that was like me. , So for you listener, dear listener, , what you want to do is recognize that colleges are looking for evidence of your academic preparation in pursuit of the major you think of applying for. So they're looking for academic preparation evidence, so it's totally fine if you have like multiple interests.

As long as, as you've explored those interests with at least a, a, a couple layers deep. Whether it's a podcast, what does that look like? Yeah. If you're interested, I feel like one of the easiest ones is like pre-med. I've had so many people that are like, I want to do pre-med. There's so many different directions there.

But in high school, what does that look like? Whether it's an extracurricular or a class you're taking, , those, those different routes you can do to demonstrate that interest. Well, number one, you wanna look at what resources you have available in your school. Mm-hmm. So, , admissions are gonna know what you have available and they're gonna.

Look at how you've taken advantage of the academic resources available to you. Like, have you fallen short on that? Have you kind of gotten a little, , complacent, been like, oh, I'll just do just this level class. I won't push myself for this harder, deeper, , subject study. Clubs? Yes.

Extracurriculars. , have you initiated something? Did you start something, did you get people together to work towards a common goal on an idea you have? , did you read books on it? Did you watch documentaries? Did you, , listen to 20 podcasts on the subjects to get a different idea?

Did you read, , academic articles, , scientific articles? , , did you look at the industry and what's new in the industry? What's happening? Like things are changing so fast, especially with the integration of ai. Now look at the industries you're into and look at what's changing. Cuz we are going through massive rapid change and if you understand the leading edge of what you're interested in, you're gonna be able to write about it and talk about it in a really smart way, in a really coherent way.

, and then honestly, there's just so much available to you on the internet. , admissions officers recognize when students are taking advantage of that. And it's not like, oh, like I don't know what a Google search. Well, look, you have AI available to you now? Yeah. Yeah. If you wanna study something, you can literally go, what are like the top five resources?

Chat, G B T, or. Whatever, there's like a few out now. of like how I could pursue this, , to get a varied understanding of the subject quickly. You can learn so much very, very quickly. And again, there that curiosity, the desire to learn. It's really if there's like, if there's like two things that are so important on a college application, it's the desire to learn and curiosity like that is, Mm, the creme de la creme of what they're looking for.

And it sort of comes, it's like you don't even have to necessarily force that impression. It will come across based on your actions, your activities, your, how you talk about your interests, the questions you have, , and that you present in your writing. , and then the second piece is your distance traveled, right?

They wanna know where you've come from, who you are. Now. That's such an important piece. , and we'll talk about the personal statement, but that's such an important. Peace and theme for the personal statement. I cannot convey that more deeply. , you really wanna show the growth. There's two things that you mentioned there. One thing that came to mind, which I remember the year, I think it was, When I was applying or when I was about to apply.

Mm. I remember there was this one kid that got into Harvard because he was really into some kind of like software coding, but he was the one that created that map where you could track all the Covid outbreaks as they occurred. Oh. And he was taking all this information from like new sites in public governments and putting it into like a really user-friendly map that anyone could go online and look at and see the data.

And I remember it was like a huge article, the headline came out and I was like, That's so interesting. That's exactly what you talked about. Where you have an interest in someplace, you are paying attention to what's at the forefront of your field or your area of interest. How can you apply it and use the internet and all these different new skills and tools to your advantage.

And I thought that was such like a fun and interesting way to do that. And it worked at Harvard now, I mean, that is so cool because. , again, what I always suggest for students who are like, well, I couldn't come up with an idea like that, if there's anybody out there who's like, well, You know, that's like a really genius idea.

It's like, well, you have to practice coming up with ideas. Yeah. But is there somebody in your life ask yourself this? It's my fiance. We are coming up with ideas all day long. Mm-hmm. I'm not kidding you. We, I literally call him like every hour we're, we're also in business together and we are coming up with ideas nonstop.

And it's the most exciting relationship in my life because it's so dynamic. So ask yourself, do I have an ideas person in my life that's just helping me? Come up with ideas, crazy ideas, spontaneous ideas, bad ideas. Mm-hmm. And, and again, do research like use ai. Where does this interest and this interest over overlap and connect?

The other thing that you mentioned, which I think is a very almost like controversial and like conversation. Yeah, everyone wants to weigh in, but the idea of participating in existing organizations, clubs, classes, et cetera, versus starting your own thing and building something from scratch, and I've heard people give their 2 cents all over the internet, all over TikTok, all these articles where everyone's like, no, you have to start something.

No one wants to like have you be in a leadership position as something that's already existing. What are your thoughts there for students that are hearing all of these narratives and are unsure where to put their eggs in which baskets? Oh boy. I think that's just so, , it's getting so myopic, you know?

Yeah. And like, so picky and it's not from people that work in admissions. Everyone's like, yeah, let me tell you. I don't know for sure, but let me tell you. Well, look, I mean, it doesn't matter where you're putting your energy. , are you just showing up there to get a check mark and a gold star on your activities list?

Or are you showing up there actually to have an impact to solve? Conflicts and disagreements to, , move progress forward, to have an impact, to bring forth new ideas, like that's all that matters. It does not matter the context in which you're doing it. All that matters is that you are taking initiative and bringing value to the place where you're devoting some of your energy and time each week or each day.

Yeah, I love that, and I truly do think that that's one of the biggest takeaways I had, which was that it is those small moments on a day-to-day basis or on a weekly basis that build up over time, and then you have this final project. It wasn't necessarily like, I did this test and it changed my life, or I went on this.

This, I had this one conversation and my entire worldview was, was shifted. It was like every week I'm sitting there, I'm editing a podcast, and every week I'm like posting this little tiny Instagram story that a couple people will see. But that led to this really, in my worldview, I was like, this is something I'm really proud of, and this is where I feel really passionate and driven in this area.

And so I, I completely agree with you there, that like the daily, weekly, monthly investments add up over time and can have a huge return on investment. Oh my gosh. That is so on the nose of something I wanna mention now, which is for students who are like, well, I don't know where to start with having a big impact.

Yeah. This is something I heard the other day that had such an impact on me. Because the people who are really ambitious and the people who really execute and get stuff done, it's not in having those big breaks or having those huge impacts all at once. It's literally in the discipline, the commitment and the accountability of showing up for those small, remedial, sometimes annoying, some usually very boring tasks, you know?

And those are not to be dismissed. Those are important. You're keeping something moving, you're communicating, you're, , keeping goals on track. , that is actually what creates that big impact is the small things that you show up for consistently and regularly. Mm-hmm. And if you're like, I'm not motivated, I don't know how to do that.

You just listen to our other episode because we talked about exactly how to problem solve there and make that consistency happen. I've got my book coming out soon, by the way. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'll put your website in the show notes so people can do that.

I'll put the episode, everyone can check it out. , and, and consume all the content because I think a lot of what we're discussing, the first question that would come into my mind is like, okay, great, but how do I do that? And then the concept of motivation and discipline comes to mind. And so I think these conversations go hand in hand and they're very interconnected and so it makes a hundred percent sense why you. are an expert in both of these areas because they are so interconnected, because it's being able to be motivated, , pursue these goals and execute, and then craft a narrative around them and be able to share that with other individuals, which can be such a skill. So for listeners who are like, okay, I did the brainstorming, I figured out what my interests are, I've been like taking little notes about what I'm passionate about, how I'm spending my time.

What is the next step? Okay. Well first you have to come to my free workshop. Okay. Because that's going to get you ready.

, I take you through the whole process of how to turn your brainstorming into structure. So join my free workshops. we have one coming up July 29th, and then again in August. Perfect. I expect to see you all at every single one of Kate's workshops. Yeah. It's like, what's better than attending Once, attending twice or three times? Cuz you get something new out of it every single time. but I'm gonna have a lot of free stuff coming up. You gotta come and learn from someone who knows what they're doing.

That's the first step. I wouldn't recommend like, , trying to figure out how to do this on your own. , because all it takes is that free workshop for you to be like, okay, I get it. I understand what it's supposed to look like. I understand what the purpose of the personal statement's supposed to be. I understand how I can connect these different ideas through a clear topic or theme, and now I'm ready to go write an outline.

Write a draft, and remember that first draft that you write, expect it to be a bad first draft. I mean, yeah, really just like allow yourself to just write. without trying to make it some finished, polished piece. what you're going to do is you're gonna say, oh, what's working in this and what's not working?

Mm-hmm. And you're gonna grab what's working and you're gonna re outline, restructure it, and then write it again. Because honestly, with students who try to revise from a first draft, it just takes so much longer than being like, oh, okay. I wrote a bad first draft. What worked? How could I restructure this around something

, that's gonna help me communicate different sides of myself. And it's also more coherent in terms of a theme, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you just write it again. I love what you just mentioned there, you can learn from someone when you are navigating this college application process because so many students are going in blind.

Like maybe if you're lucky, your English teacher will offer to revise it, or they'll offer to have that as an assignment during your semester. But for the most part, so many students are just expected to know exactly how to write a personal statement and write a supplemental essay. Manage the workflow of writing 17 different essays in six months, oh yeah. I mean, when has a 17 year old ever had to write an essay like this at all? Exactly. Like typically they have English class.

And English class is like, here's five paragraph academic I'll essay. Mm-hmm. And let's focus on thesis statement and topic sentences. And it's not even, it's, it's tedious and it's not creative really at all. , and this is about creativity. Like you can write a one sentence paragraph as a transitionary statement.

You can break the rules. You can do things that are like Edgar Allen Polish, you know, you can do all sorts of stuff. Break the rules. Break the rules. And it's so hard because you've been sort of trained and primed to like, follow the instructions and like write in a very specific way. And unfortunately that's like two most students detriment in this process because this process, you kind of need to let go and go deep within yourself and make it more about journaling, you know, right.

Like conversational, , what's, what really matters to you? Who really are you? So you can bridge that connection with your reader. So that they feel like , they get you and this is really because what you're really trying to do with all of your essays is to get admissions in your corner so that they can be like, oh, I get who this student is.

They're like in inventor, sage, you know? And I run over to admissions, the admissions board, be like, Hey, you gotta look at this kid. They fit into this, this niche perfectly. So you're really trying to do three things to get them into your corner. You need to make an emotional connection to your reader by first making an emotional connection to yourself.

So you have to be invested in this process if you wanna someone who's reading it to be invested in it too, right? just do that with sincerity, , forthrightness about your vulnerabilities and your, like the places where you're weak and the places where you're strong. This is not like, look how great I am.

This is actually this is who I am, warts and all. Yeah. And beauty and all. , and then finding your story's theme. The, the, the distance traveled theme, you know, , looking at active nouns. Are you an inventor? Are you a catalyst? Are you an initiator? Are you a performer? Are you a, you know, a wise old sage?

Who are you? What roles do you play? What identities do you hold? , it makes it easy for them to advocate for you because they can clearly communicate it to somebody else, right? Mm-hmm. It's like writing good marketing copy. It's just easy. You get it. You don't have to try too hard to understand it.

, and then the third one is understanding who you are in the context of the academic roster in admissions. Right. Like what niche am I filling in the school? Cause that's really what they're trying to do. It's like casting a class. Yeah. You know, for individuals that don't have older siblings or aren't tapped into this, this community, what are some of those niches?

They're like, okay, I need to be part of a niche, but we were all the same age. We're all coming from high school. A lot of us have played sports or whatever it is. What are these that you're thinking about when you're working with high school students? , well, it might be a combination, right?

Like you might be, , into robotics, but also technology and community connection. Like you, you wanna look at productive tensions you have between your extracurriculars, your personal side and your academic side. You wanna look at where these things overlap? A niche. It doesn't have to be like, I'm the doctor, girl.

Mm-hmm. Like that's, you know what I mean? It, it could be more complex and more nuanced than that. And honestly, you want it to be because you are more nuanced. And it comes back to recognizing, like when I take my students through, let's say different types of exercises and I have them throw their answers in the chat, like their top answers for this exercise or that exercise, , they realize everybody has something different.

or we tend to downplay ourselves. I don't know why. Yeah. But we do that, especially when we're young. , And to leverage that because in your life you're always gonna have to leverage your skills, , in the marketplace. And you're gonna like, at some point, you're gonna have to learn how to do this, so start practicing with it now, you know?

Mm-hmm. , but the niches could be, the niches are generally speaking, academic, but they always overlap with how you're gonna contribute to the community and the culture. So they're looking for academic. , personal, cultural fit with the school. Those are the three things they're looking at. And the niches are unlimited.

. Mm-hmm. You know, they're endless and you can just make them up. I love that. You know, I think that's key. And I think it gives a lot of comfort and peace if you apply to a school and it doesn't end up being a fed or you don't end up getting in. Like when I think about.

Penn now being there on these other side of things, , I was like, okay, I was applying to the College of Arts and Sciences. People are applying to the engineering school. People are applying to the business school, people are applying to the nursing school, and so it's like they can't have more individuals in the nursing school.

Then the capacity allows, like they're not gonna throw them in the College of Arts and Sciences school. It's the, it's the same thing with these niches. Like if you have 300. who love robotics, you're not gonna have a very diverse class. And so I think thinking about it from that perspective, that, , again, it's not necessarily a reflection of you not being good enough for the school or not writing your essay, right.

It's just that it's in a lot of ways like, , a numbers game and a very different experience than it feels like as a high schooler. When you're saying, I'm putting all these best parts of myself to let someone else judge, and then they're making a decision that's gonna impact the rest of my life, like, that can be very overwhelming.

Well, let me just tell you right now, that right now is not going to determine the rest of your life. Yeah. Like college does not determine the rest of your life. And there's a great, , Malcolm Gladwell, , , talk where he addresses there is a bottom 50% of Harvard, , academic class.

Okay. But those, that bottom 50% is still the top 50% of those students in like lower quote unquote lower tier schools. Mm-hmm. Right? And oftentimes those students who are in The lower half at Harvard, because they compare themselves so much to their peers that they tend not to publish, , even anywhere close to the top half because they don't feel good enough and they are comparing themselves to, , to their peers.

And so they don't even try. So it, it's a really, it's a very, very interesting, , , YouTube, you should actually go listen to it. It's called, , why I Said Yes to This. And it's like talking about why we say yes to elite institutions and elite, , elite experiences when actually the psychology and the data show that we can do much better in pools where , it's not as competitive, but we can shine.

We can actually shine bigger. Shine. Yeah. I'm gonna watch that after this. That sounds so fascinating. Yeah, it is. , so we talked about what your goal is with your application mm-hmm. Which is to get people in your corner and follow those three steps. Mm-hmm. If you were to explain to individuals who haven't written a supplemental as essay, haven't written their personal statement, what your goal is and what your.

Frame of thought should be for writing those different essays. Mm-hmm. How would you explain that to someone who's coming in blind and is like, I'm looking at the common app for the first time. I don't know what the, my aim is for each of these essays. Oh, okay. So this is where spreadsheets are really, really great.

And I have a really great, essay tracker for this. , , I might actually send it to you, , to keep track of it cuz it'll help you keep track of your different topics and making sure you're not overlapping or repeating. , information in your essays, you do wanna be cautious of that. It, it is important, but your personal statement is supposed to be personal, right?

It's supposed to be much, much more personal. It's not supposed to be like an a recitation of your activities list. It's not supposed to be a recitation of your accomplishments. , it should have that element of like, I get this, I get the heart and vulnerability, and I understand who this person is on the soul level.

On the feeling level, , the extracurriculars are you, you really have to read those prompts carefully. , because a lot of students don't understand what the prompt is actually asking, or they're not complete completing the prompt in terms of like answering all the questions it's asking. , but extracurricular essays, that's one topic where they just really usually, generally wanna know what type of impact you've had, how you've contributed to that community.

Or that experience or a challenge you experienced or what you learned. They're trying to understand different sides of, of you, you know, how would you operate in this situation? , so how did you help your community in this situation? , so you wanna make sure that you have different topics, , for different prompts.

Yeah, or if you don't have enough extracurriculars, which I get it because some of you totally missed out on early, , high school and you know, just the challenges of not being in person, you just didn't get opportunities to do enough extracurriculars. , then what you have to do is you have to talk about your extracurriculars or your topics in different ways from different angles.

Okay? So that's where. , brainstorming, , the content, like, here's what I did. Here are the problems I solved, here's the impact I have. I had, , here's what I learned. Here's the lessons I I gathered. Here's how it changed me. So you just wanna get as much content as you can so you can begin to determine, okay, it, this is gonna go here, that's gonna go here and go deep.

You, you're gonna have to actually get more specific and a lot deeper with your content if you have less stuff to write about. Right? Yeah. this is a very subjective question, but I'm wondering if you ever work with students and you're like, you're putting too much time into this.

Like they're just like beating themselves up over making it absolutely perfect. And then the flip side, like starting it a day before, like there has to be a happy medium of iterating, improving your essays, and then being like it's no longer effective to keep looking at the same piece of paper.

And trying to make it perfect. So what are your thoughts there with timeline and knowing when to, to wrap up the process? Well, it depends on how many schools you're applying to, but if you're applying to like 10 schools, if you start now, I. At minimum it's about two to four hours a week. And that's drafting, revising, and researching.

Because in some cases maybe there are things that you've experienced that you haven't adequately analyzed or evaluated for the value you've gained from them. And that's what this process is, is figuring out what did I actually learn? Yeah. You know, like I've been doing, doing, doing. Now I have to stop and reflect.

, so sometimes it takes a little bit of time to. Do some research and understand the subject from multiple angles so that you actually have something to say about some of these things. , and it's okay if you don't have something to say right now. It, it can take a little, , exploration to figure that out.

, if I have a student that's just pouring over like four, five hours a night, that's too much. Yeah, that's way too much. , go with imperfect. And that's what, if you're working with somebody like me, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to take what you did. And move it along faster by upleveling it with you.

Mm-hmm. By showing you exactly the points to address and uplevel without like, losing your mind over word choice. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Now you're making it too complicated. You're worried about syntax where you don't really need to be worried about syntax. The first version was fine, and that's not going to be the thing that shifts it, the thing that shifts it is, The specificity and the insights, how you answer like, here's how this contributed to my growth and development.

This is what I came away with, this is what I learned, and these are the questions I'm left with. What is your advice on who you take feedback from and how many people you let read your essay? Because I know that was something in my experience, which I. It. I was very intentional. I was like, okay, my parents have like had a front row seat to this whole experience.

They've been with me through three high schools, whereas taking it to my English teacher, who I. I'd known for one semester. She was like, I don't really get it. And I was like, well, of course you don't get it because you don't know me.

I know that a lot of students give their essay to their English teacher. , because I often get to see those notes. And a lot of the time, , the notes that they give like 20% are good.

, and then the other portion aren't going to make, necessarily a difference. , you know, a lot of people are gonna have a lot of feedback for you. , someone's gonna be like, no, change this and start this at the beginning instead of this way through to start over. It's terrible.

You're like, I, I literally had a student this past year who's , the English teacher was like, I think you should start over again. And I was like, but that's not constructive. . How is that constructive? Like, you have no idea how long this student, we have exhausted so many different options and this is what we've been working on for two months.

And if they say that to you, ask them, give context. Look, I've been working on this for six weeks. Can you please gimme constructive feedback? You know, not just criticism constructive. , and you really, I mean, I wanna be sincere when I say this, , but you really wanna ask somebody who knows something about college essays.

Yeah. Like if, is there somebody who knows something about college essays in your life? If not, try to find them. because that's what happens a lot is that people end up giving feedback that's actually The antithesis of what the purpose of the statement's supposed to be doing, like what purpose it's actually supposed to be serving.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the feedback sort of, I, it's like, yeah, everybody look, you ask somebody for feedback, everybody's gonna have their 10 cents. Mm-hmm. You have to be able to discern what's good feedback versus what's just somebody's. Creative style, you know, like, yeah, I, I have students do that with me.

I tell students, if you don't agree with this note, this is a stylistic note. You can agree or disagree. Like you have to understand the difference. You know? Yeah. What are the biggest mistakes you see students making throughout this process? Whether it's how they're approaching it, writing, submitting, , any point in this process, what are the biggest mistakes where you're like, oh, this is so not effective.

I wish you could avoid all this stress, or whatever it is. , okay. Number one is not finalizing your college list. , by September, like early September. So, Yeah, you really should have that pretty much finalized. Your 10 schools, your targets, your reaches, your safeties, like pretty much finalized.

, because then you need to figure out your strategy for early, if you're doing early action or early decision, , because those are either gonna be due October 15th for a couple schools or November 1st, which is like the main first, early deadline. and if you're applying to like, you know, I had a student last year who we are working on a Columbia Early Action School.

, and it was just a slow process cuz it really depends on, you have to evaluate yourself in terms of how strong are you as a writer? Like, are you good at taking notes? Are you consistent at being able to turn this stuff over? Does it take you a long time? Do you need more help?

, because if you're trying to get through two to three early action applications, you're gonna need much more than a month. Yeah. To do that, you're gonna need two. Mm-hmm. Like possibly three to get those done and in tiptop shape, cuz you don't wanna submit some hard work. It's like, what's the point? You know?

Especially if it's like your early action, early decision. Your eggs are in that basket. You wanna set yourself up for success. Exactly. And also starting early, a lot of students are like, yeah, I'm gonna start this summer, and then we start and I don't hear from them. For weeks, and then suddenly it's time to go back to school and students think, okay, well I'll just get it done on the weekend or on Saturday mornings over winter, winter break over winter.

Yeah. All this stuff. And it's like, oh, , it's a really bad idea because it is so stressful. Yeah. Yeah. If you have all this free time, all you need is like, You know, a couple hours a week to devote to it. And the rest of the time you can take for your summer, enjoy, relax, like do your things, do your stuff.

But, , it's the students that are the most relaxed, that have the best outcomes at the end of the year, they get their college lists in on time. They figure out their early action strategy really early. They are, if you look, if you haven't asked your teachers for, , For letters of rec. I highly recommend you do that.

Now, make sure you follow up with them, thanking them, giving them a brag sheet if they ask for it. Look, the letters of recommendation are there to tell a story about you.

Mm-hmm. That you have not, that you're not able to tell or you haven't told adequately because you can't, like, a teacher's gonna be able to do that better. Yeah. Yeah. , in than your application, so mm-hmm. Every piece of the application from the additional info section, which you think is like, well, I wouldn't use that.

Yes, you will. You will use the additional info because there might be context that admissions needs to know about your class choices. , whether there's like a, a break that you had to take off from school cause a, a family relative passed away suddenly if there was, , stuff going on in your household that prevented you from being able to study for certain things or do your best in certain ways.

, they have to understand the holistic. Nature of who you are and what you've been through. It's not just like data on a piece of paper to 'em. They wanna know these pieces of context that really have no other, like, there's no other way to fit them into the rest of the application. Mm-hmm. Unless you weave them into the writing.

So it's really just there to help them understand you more deeply. Mm-hmm. But the letters of rec, the essays, the activities, list, your transcript, all of these things tell a story. And so, like I said, start early. Like, do not wait until the fall to begin this process. Yeah. , and ask your teachers early for those letters of rec.

If you haven't already, they'll thank you. And they'll write you better letters. Like you don't want an average letter. Mm-hmm. You wanna give them the time, the respect. They're doing this on their own time, on weekends or at night. Yeah. Give them the time and respect, , to let them know ahead of time, not just like two weeks before the deadline that you need their letter.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. I mean, it's basic common sense, I know students have so much stuff on their plate. Sometimes it's really hard to think about these things. There's a lot. Any parting advice or a first step that people can stop listening to this podcast and go implement within their, their college essay writing journey?

Whether it is doing the, I think I love practice or on a daily basis, reflecting on how they're spending their time, what is their one action step that you think will set them up for success and be a really effective use of their time? Okay, and this is down to executive functioning stuff, which I know is something we all need more of in our life.

True Time. Time block. Time block out. First of all, put together all the things you know you need to do and begin doing. Whether that's like, sign up for Kate's free workshop write that down the list. , come up with a few ideas for my essays and I'm considering, cuz you can bring them to my workshop.

You can ask me questions about it. Yeah. And I'll happily give you feedback. , write down, ask my teachers for letters of rec if you're still in school, do it now. And ask that, like, make sure to follow up with a follow-up email from them. Mm-hmm. Be thanking them using Kate's brag sheet that we're gonna put below in the show notes.

Put on the show notes. , so put all those tasks that we've talked about. Right? , and then if you, maybe you already know which schools you wanna apply to gather their prompts. They do, they do put out the new prompts at the beginning of August. , but they usually don't change that much, so chances are those essay prompts are gonna stay the same anyway.

But yeah. , just fyi. So put those down and then start time blocking out, okay, I'm gonna start working, I'm gonna go to this workshop on this day. Then I'm gonna start working on my personal statement on this day. Like, Saturday mornings is my day for college stuff, Tuesday nights I'm gonna tell my parents so they don't bug me every single day for the next.

Two months. Okay. Mom, like I'm designating Tuesday nights as college discussion night. Mm-hmm. And that's it. Like, I don't wanna hear about it. You know, like you can take proactive steps to prevent yourself from feeling like everyone is on you so start Writing down all those things that you know you need to do, add your parents to your Google calendar, they'll never bug you again.

They won't like chunk it into specific, tasks that can get done at the same time and then start time backing out just two hours a week to start. Mm-hmm. I love that. And I think that's huge. And if you carry that practice through to the end of application season, you'll be in such good shape and you'll avoid what so many.

High schoolers experience, which is just the stress and burnout and overwhelm of being in a really important semester and having more challenging classes, and also navigating this huge laundry list of timelines and things that have to get turned in. So I think that is essential to being successful throughout the whole process.

Yes. And that's a good point is, , you can get a timeline of like college. , deadlines, like mm-hmm. Just college, everything. When you should have your list, when you should have this.

, and just put that into your calendar with reminders. Yes. Like, okay, this is due in two weeks don't just let it sit in your calendar. Make sure you schedule the time to work on that stuff too. Otherwise it, if it's not time to actually work on it, and it's just the deadline in there. It'll happen.

You come up on the deadline and it won't happen. So yes, I'd love that when you're putting, yeah, do both. Yes, a hundred percent. No, I think that's key. Thank you so much. I'm gonna like down and listen and be like, to my sister you have to listen the whole thing.

Yeah. All of the tips are necessary, but I think this will be so incredibly helpful for high school students that either have this on the horizon, parents that don't know how to support their teens, and it's been like, 30,000 years since they applied to college. And they're like, we just showed up. And you're like, if only you knew what the process is like now.

Oh, they have no idea. So it's gotten nuts. It's crazy. Yeah. So I hope this is really helpful. I know it will be. It was helpful for me and I wish I had listened to this conversation when I was going through this whole process because it's just had evolved so quickly and there's so much to stay on top of.

And for a lot of teens is the first time they've ever. Taken on anything of this scale. So thank you for all of this info and recommendations and insight, and I know it's gonna be so helpful. , can I add one more thing about the early strategy? Yeah, of course. , more and more so the early application pools those are getting like 50 to 60% of, , the class is being filled by those early application pools.

Yeah. So that's why I'm saying. Focus on your early strategy right away. Like if you know where you wanna go, early action it. Yeah. And make sure you look at the data too. Look at your specific school, like how many people did they take in from the early, how many people did they take in from? And you'll be able to understand that strategy if you, you know, if you don't have any help for this.

Yeah. Yeah. And as someone who did early decision, I cannot even explain to you how unstressed I was. Come winter break, I was like, this is great. I'm done. Like, it obviously doesn't work out that way for everyone, and there's such a process, , if you're reworking your, your essay over winter break and, and getting in all your other applications.

But if it does work out for early action or early decision, you'll be so much less stressed. Oh yeah. I want that for everybody listening. Yeah. Yeah, an actual all day. We manifesting it for everyone listening. Yes. Yes, we are. Thank you so much, Sadie. Of course. Where can people find your website? Find your resources, follow along on social media, all of the things.

Okay, so for those of you wanting to sign up for my free workshops, which go now, go to university gurus.com/workshops and you'll see a whole bunch up there. You'll see we actually have one coming up. So go to the workshop, sign up, that'll sign you up for my newsletter, which you'll get like lots of really, really valuable tips and content on upcoming events and just.

Stuff to be aware of as we go through this process. It'll kind of like help you stay on track too to get the newsletter. That's what I try to make that about is like helping people stay on track. Yeah, it's keeping it front of mind every single week. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. , and I'm super diligent about sending that out every week.

, and then go to my Instagram cuz I try to keep that fun. And, , it's, , Kate France Stone, , on Instagram. And if you wanna do a one-on-one consult. And just learn about do I need one-on-one help? Is this something that I should maybe look into? , we can talk about that and I can figure out if you would be a good candidate for a one-on-one coaching program.

, go to university or slash chat, either one word, university gurus.com/chat. Yeah, amazing. All of that will be in the show notes. Thank you again. I'm so glad we got to do a part two. I know. Me too. This was awesome.

Sadie: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.

She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.

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