As temperatures drop and seasons change, many of our seniors are just now starting to feel a semblance of normalcy since making it past the November 1st application deadlines. And as much as the Galin team would LOVE to join the celebration of such a momentous deadline, we do have to remind our students that for many of you the next hurdle on the pathway of your college applications is just around the corner.
Whether at DePaul, Fordham, or Pratt, many colleges have graciously given applicants a few more weeks to get in their early round applications ahead of the regular decision deadlines approaching in January.
It’s important to note that just because the second half of the admissions journey is here that doesn’t mean that your applications are any less important. Remember, you should always aim to finish how you started; and when applying to colleges you need to maintain the strength and quality of your work until the very end! In order to maintain that strength and quality of work, seniors need to continue to focus on separating themselves from the rest of the applicant pool via the strength of their supplemental essays. While your academics, extracurriculars, and even your testing may have overlaps with thousands of other students, your writing, your story, and your truth is yours alone to own.
That said, as you continue to craft your supplemental essays we want to remind you that universities are looking for three distinct things when they read your work. Authenticity, vulnerability, and focus.
Authenticity:
Especially in the age of A.I., colleges and universities want to make sure that what they’re reading is an authentic representation of the young adult in the application. As supplemental essays ask you a range of questions from the standard “why are you applying to our college?” to the more complex “If you could communicate telepathically with any animal, which would you choose?”, it’s important to answer authentically. You don’t want to answer what you think admission offices want to hear, you want to provide them with a unique look into your intellectual, passions, and personality. Whether you’re an aspiring playwright, a future CEO, or the world’s next civil engineer, admission offices want to see the real you and not a propped up version of yourself. That said, regardless of what you’re writing about you should make sure that your writing sounds like how you represent yourself in real life. Admission officers don’t want to read an essay that sounds like it was written by your parents or your counselor. They want to read essays that authentically sound like a smart, nice, and interesting young adult who’s about to graduate high school; lean into that.
Vulnerability:
The college application process is one filled with stress, long hours, hard work, and a great deal of thought towards what a student’s future holds. It is also a process that requires young adults to be vulnerable in ways that they may have never been required to, especially as they write their personal statements. Whether writing about your favorite family tradition, a moment in your life that challenged you in ways that you never expected, or a topic that you could talk about for days if given the chance, any topic chosen for your supplemental essays needs to include a degree of vulnerability. Vulnerability breads trust and having the trust of your admissions officer will be integral in getting them to believe that you will succeed on campus if given the chance to attend their university. Thankfully, by this point in the year our seniors should *almost* be masters at expressing themselves in a manner that peels back layers of who they truly are. So, look back at the work you’ve done in the earlier admission rounds for inspiration as you continue to showcase the student that exists behind the accolades seen in your application.
Focus:
The great thing about supplemental essays is that they take the guess work out of what you should write. When compared to the openness of the personal statement, the prompts provided by the supplemental essays are traditionally much more direct in the information they are seeking and the manner in which they want you to provide it. That said, regardless of prompt and regardless of college, the focus of all of your essays needs to be you. Whether writing about a challenging moment you’ve learned from, your top 5 list of books, or what community means to you, the most important thing they want to read about is you. This means that any stories or details included in your essay are the backdrop; you are the main focus of your supplemental essays and anything else should only exist to amplify the look into the star of the show (you).
With this said, allow us to turn our focus to supporting students that are often overlooked during this time of the year – our underclassmen. Whether at the beginning of your journey in the 9th grade or approaching the homestretch of 11th grade, it’s important to remember that a student’s early exploration of their interests makes the writing process much easier. Academic exploration into the larger “why” behind your major is important in order to truly know the purpose of your major of choice and even more so your college of choice. Extracurricular exploration via clubs, travel, competitions, and summer programs provide students with a hands-on chance to experience the application of their passions in the real world. Visiting colleges and universities across the spectrum of size, location, and type also provide students with the opportunity to understand what a life lived on campus actually looks like, which fortifies why they could see themselves thriving in a number of campus communities.
While all of these experiences and pathways are wonderful opportunities for students, they are often not easily navigated without support and guidance. And it just so happens that the college counseling team at Galin Education specializes in supporting, guiding, and challenging our students to expand their horizons while focusing on how to prepare themselves best for the colleges of their dreams.
