Step Six: Finishing an Application Draft

More than 1,400 accredited colleges and universities will have test optional policies by fall 2022, representing more than 60% of undergraduate institutions across the country, according to FairTest, a testing industry watchdog group.

It's time for the final step of the Six Step Sequence for Juniors: finishing our first full application draft. Besides the personal statement, activities list, and everything else we've worked on thus far, many top schools require additional supplemental essays and questions -  we'll cover the basics of these today. Check out the summary post for the rest of the steps - there will be some references to previous articles, so having everything prepared is recommended.

Many colleges have a few additional questions about your personal background, which you just need to fill out accurately. If a college asks for your intended major, be careful - some, like the UCs, may use this to place you into a program, whilst others, like Stanford, use it more to indicate overall interest (while admitting students as undecided majors regardless). It isn't recommended to try and game the system by indicating easier-to-get-into majors, because transferring is often difficult, especially into a capped program. Pick whatever field you want to actually study in, and if there are additional options or the question is simply indicatory, selecting some majors that fit with the rest of your overall application works well. If there's a stark contrast between your indicated major and the rest of your application, Admissions Officers will be thrown off a bit. Honestly is the best policy, but the specifics are up to you - go with your gut and whatever you're proud of.

Supplemental Essays are very similar to the Personal Statement - much of the same key advice can be applied. We'll take another look at general college essay writing tips and tricks while discussing some supplement-specific advice. Like the personal statement, supplemental essays should aim to fulfill at least one of the following:

• Be unique
• Show traits central to your character
• Exhibit personal growth
• Display leadership skills
• Exude passion and intellectual vitality
• Showcase experience
• Represent changes in perspective or thought
• Demonstrate good problem solving or present problems you'd like to solve

However, because supplements are generally smaller than personal statements, most will be unable to hit many of the above points. It's better to go in-depth on a couple than speed through them all in a short word count. Incredibly limited supplemental questions (like Stanford's 50-word prompts or USC's 100-character short answers) create an even bigger challenge.

Beyond the standard college essay guidelines, it's incredibly important to consider the role of supplements in any application - to show a greater depth into you as an applicant. Most responses should have a different purpose and topic. Although each essay must be solid on its own, its also important to ensure that they mesh together well and have strong synergy. Your application must be a well-rounded package - screaming "I LOVE CS" with every single essay is generally not the best strategy, since that doesn't give admissions officers the opportunity to view you as a full, energetic applicant.

The drafting step for supplements is also similar to the personal statement, albeit more confined - with more specific questions, the brainstorming process is much more limited. It's still recommended to explore multiple possible topics, since that helps you select the strongest essays to create a good application package. The following tips still apply to most essays, but some are better to research individually - like USC's "Which well-known person or character would be your ideal roommate?", discussing in our USC Essay guide here.

1. List out the most important events in your life and think about how they affected you. Which turning points were the most impactful? How did they make you into a better person? 
2. Think about what you like to do - it's much easier to write about things you have a genuine passion for than forcing a "profound" essay.
3. Consider what inspires you to apply to college in the first place: are there problems in the world you'd like to solve, or a burning passion for learning that you can show?
4. Be creative! No idea is a bad idea as long as it helps get you closer to a good end result.

After you've crafted a list of potential topics, it's time to see how well you can bring them to life. Try writing a little bit about each of them: this could be a hook or the intro, or even a body paragraph or the conclusion (many short answers can be fully written quickly, though). It's worth talking to some friends, teachers, family, etc. to get opinions on which responses are effective and which aren't. Some topics that might feel very important to you could feel cliché to outsiders - take advice on how to spice up your personal statement into a deep look into your individual, unique experience. Once you've got your topics narrowed down more, pick one (or more, if you have the bandwidth) to try writing a full draft of. It's much better to go over the word limit, since cutting down fluff and creating a more impactful essay is far preferable to needing to add fluff. Aim for anywhere between 10~100 words over the max (depending on length) so you have room to work with, then begin refining. 

• Consider SOAPSTone - Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone. Some of these are unchanging between essays, but doing some research into your exact audience can be incredibly helpful. For example, many schools let you look up your regional AO - which makes it easier to identify what tone to use and which pop culture references might not fly (an older AO wouldn't understand a TikTok reference, but perhaps a millenial might). Thinking critically about how to effectively market yourself in essays may feel weird, but can help guide your writing.
• Stay personal. Use your writing style, talk about things that reflect who you are - although identifying the audience and potential strategies is helpful, it's never good to force yourself to write differently. Don't show off by using thesaurus.com unless you naturally speak in big words and keep your own individual voice! If your natural writing style is fairly stiff and academic, that's alright, but staying on the casual side can help essays feel more genuine and personal. 
• Ensure that your response actually has a purpose within the subtext of your application. What story are you trying to tell? What messages would you like to convey? What piece are you adding to the puzzle? No supplemental essay should be extraneous.
• "Show, don't tell" is the phrase that gets thrown around everywhere, but what does it really mean? It can be as simple as swapping phrasing and subjects: between "I practiced basketball daily over the summer" and "Day in, day out, my sweat painted the sun-bleached basketball court army green", which creates a better image? The "don't tell" part can be confusing, so focusing on the "show" can be more productive - make your writing put on a show and create an image in your readers heads, one that they can decipher to understand more of who you are. Make readers think a little. In the basketball example, although both sentences make it clear that the individual practiced hard, the latter makes readers engage with the text and think about it. Both convey the same message, but one envelops a reader into the narrative - and that is the goal of effective writing. 

Writing is a highly recursive process, and refining each supplemental response is no different - in fact, you'll likely be going through multiple stages of refinement over months, right up until your first application deadline. You know you best, so it's easy to miss context or accidentally present something incorrectly. Getting multiple pairs of eyes from people who know you in different facets of your life is a great way to shape essays into something that admissions officers will enjoy reading. Continue to get outside feedback on your essay as you write, but remain fairly stubborn in sticking to your own style: grammar edits and comments about the overall essay direction are helpful, but do not lose your voice and replace it with how someone else writes. Pretend you dropped your personal statement in the hallway at school, and a past teacher picked it up - they should be able to guess that you wrote it (even assuming that your name is nowhere on the page). Have the humility to take advice, but retain the self-confidence to make your full application truly yours.

Here is a real-life, successful student example of a short-answer, supplemental response to Stanford's 2020 How did you spend your last two summers? (50 words) prompt:

Original Draft:

"2018- training for my Black Belt whilst taking 4 3-hour Japanese classes a week at a local community college. Helped develop a website for a non-profit in August.

2019- took 3-hour Japanese classes every day for 3 weeks in Japan whilst experiencing Japanese culture through Ayusa's Summer in Japan Program."

Notes (Original):

• This response successfully answers the question, but focuses purely on providing information - it's unique to the individual, but not written very interestingly.
• Providing details on different activities (sports, academic, volunteer, and cultural) helps provide more breadth.

Revised Draft:

"I punched, kicked, and sweated my way to a black belt in 2018. When I wasn’t at the studio, I eagerly woke up early for three-hour Japanese classes at a local community college, but the 40-minute daily commute holds no comparison to my three-week immersive journey through Japan last summer. "

Notes (Revised):

• This response sacrifices the non-profit website detail in order to be more engaging, which was worth it for this applicant (as the website development wasn't mentioned elsewhere on their application).
• By using strong verbs and descriptors, the writer made their response feel much more vivid and alive.

Although the original draft is alright (many applicants have gotten in with list responses), the second is much more unique and eye-catching to an admissions officer - which may have helped get this applicant in. Stronger words and engagement also made the applicant feel more motivated and passionate, which is exciting for readers to see.

• Not every response needs to be profound - sometimes, showing humor or additional interests is much better! Admissions officers want to accept interesting, multi-dimensional applicants, so being fully academic in each essay may not be the best (unless that's your natural writing style).
• Don't be afraid to talk about serious things, as long as you approach them appropriately. Speaking about internal struggles with identity and hardship is recommended, as long as you're comfortable and have the space to represent yourself well. Don't force yourself to tell a story you don't want to (and perhaps leave out any without uplifting endings or growth), but remember that your application represents you - and struggles are part of the human experience.
• Make sure that every response is unique! It's better to do something niche that requires a little explanation rather than go with something on the opposite end. Questions like "What moment in history do you wish you could have witnessed?" have incredibly overused responses (the first moon landing, MLK's "I Had a Dream" Speech, etc.). Although it's totally fine to personally value these larger moments, finding something niche that shows a little more individual personality is far more suited to college applications, as you need to stand out.
• Again, each essay must have a purpose. It's alright for that purpose to be lighthearted, but everything must add to your overall appeal in some way, whether academic, extracurricular, or personality-wise. 
• Essays must be original - if your "Why Yale" essay could be copy-pasted with a few coffee shop and class names swapped and used for another school, then that is not good enough. Especially with "why college" essays, you must spend ample time researching (multiple hours) and get yourself in the mindset of a student at these schools. Listing specific classes and giving smart reasons why you'd like to take them, naming the professors you'd like to meet, etc. - the more specificity, the better. Don't just turn the essay into a long list, though. Providing elaboration is important to make your reasoning feel genuine and well-thought out. Remember, your goal in "why college" essays is to make admissions officers think you'd be a perfect fit for their school, so effort will be required.

By the time school begins, you should have a solid personal statement (although, again, and I can’t stress this enough – it is good to update and revise) and at least one to two full applications drafted, preferably close to submission quality. It’s really easy to get swept away by the start of senior year, and even easier to fall into a procrastination/anxiety trap that hinders your ability to write essays – so it’s important to do as much work as you can over the summer. Even just starting essay writing documents for each school can help; having the prompts simmer in your brain is much better for sparking sudden inspiration. 

And that is the final step of our Six Step Sequence for Juniors! Our summary post has information on each of the other 5 steps to college admissions success, so make sure to check it out if you haven't already. Best of luck with your incoming applications, and remember - these essays, and questions, and applications are all about representing yourself. Give yourself the time and tools you need to do this well, and stay loyal to your own beliefs and characteristics. This is about you - so show Admissions Officers the best you that you can be.

Written by DB, PathIvy Content Team