Using your voice.
In the blog post Let’s talk about grammar! I counseled students to “Talk like you!” when it comes to writing the Personal Statement. Here’s a little more on what that means.
“Never use the first person in a formal essay.”
Sound familiar? In my 20+ years as a college professor, I’ve heard hundreds of first-year students repeat this common rule of thumb.
The problem is that it’s not really a rule. In fact, there will be many times in your college and professional careers when writing in the first person is acceptable and necessary. Still, many high school students are told not to as a way to prevent them from slipping into informal language and to help them sound more authoritative.
What often happens as a result is that students lose trust in their own voices. They begin to write in another voice altogether, one they imagine their teachers or professors want to hear.
I call this The Newscaster Voice.
The Newscaster Voice is not yours, but it’s something you’ve kind of heard before. The Newscaster Voice uses unnecessarily complicated words. The Newscaster Voice will never use one word when five are available. The Newscaster Voice is fussy and formal, and when students use it in their writing, essays inevitably become what is called stilted, which means stiff or unnatural.
I’ve spent a lot of my career convincing students that their voices are worth hearing, and this is especially true when it comes to the Common App Personal Statement. My advice to students is this: your writing should sound like you. Not you hanging out with your friends, but a more cleaned up version of you.
So how do you do that?
Use words you know. This is not the time to bust out the thesaurus. Even if you use the right word in the right context, you might choose one that’s out of fashion or too formal for someone your age, and this can be jarring for readers.
Avoid turns of phrase that you don’t use in real life. Same advice as above. Some phrases that sound like they should be part of The Newscaster Voice’s repertoire are actually tricky on the page. In which? Of which? To which? These phrases have three different meanings. Unless you use them regularly in your writing, skip it ...which brings me to a question I ask students all the time when they’ve written something a little confusing...
How would you say this? Trust yourself. You communicate pretty well. Write it the way you’d say it out loud. You can clean it up later.
Tell it like it is. Ask yourself, did I really feel like that? Was that my genuine reaction? Sometimes students exaggerate their responses to situations and events. Did you gasp? Really? Are you a gasper? Or did you freeze? Did you clench your jaw? Do you not remember? This is your story. Be honest with yourself and with your audience.
The best thing you can do in your Personal Statement is be honest. That means dropping The Newscaster Voice and being you. It’s who the admissions officers want to learn about, and as we’ve told you before, you’re kind of a big deal.
Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let us help you find your voice.
Common App: It’s Time
Hey Rising Seniors! The Common App updated over the weekend and is ready to go for the 2021-22 application cycle. (Juniors and junior parents-- if you’re wondering just exactly what the Common App is, sit tight. We’ve got a post coming for you next week.) There’s a new essay prompt (announced last February), and a new inclusive question about gender, but other than that it’s pretty much the same.
It’s only August, so why should you care? Because it would be awesome to start senior year ahead of the game and not have to panic in October when the reality of applying to college becomes really time sensitive.
So what should you do?
Gather all the materials you’ll need to create your account and begin filling in your demographic information:
High school transcript
List of extracurricular activities (school and community), work, volunteer experience (there is some strategy to how you write and order your descriptions)
Test scores from the SAT/ACT (more about this in a minute)
Parent/Guardian information
Academic honors and awards
As a senior, you’ll register for a “First Year Student” account
Add your demographic information
Name (make sure you enter your name as it appears on all your legal documents and transcripts so that everything matches up)
Home address
Date of birth
Phone number
Email address (make sure you enter an email address that you check regularly in case colleges need to get in touch with you; we often advise our students to create a gmail account just for college applications and check it daily)
Test Scores? Most of the colleges that went test-optional for last year’s cycle are staying that way for this year’s cycle. If you took the SAT or the ACT and did well, submit your scores (as we said in our earlier post it’s hard to know if this matters to merit aid- some schools stopped using test scores in their merit formulas, some didn’t and for the most part they’re not sharing that info).
What else should you be doing? Probably most important, you want to begin brainstorming ideas for your personal essay (who wants to be stressing over this in October?!), and looking through your college list to see if they require supplemental essays (more on that next week!). Lastly, you want to make a list of people whom you can ask for killer recommendations.
If you’d like help on building your list, writing your personal statement, and all of the other important pieces of your college application give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. We’d love to help.
Let’s talk about grammar!
Really? You read that and you’re still here? Okay…
I love grammar. A lot. I taught my first college class when I was 25-years-old. I was scared. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew grammar. Grammar was a concrete set of rules that no one could mess with. I may not have known how to make students better writers, but I could make them better grammarians, and no one could argue that I was messing that up.
I wasn’t exactly the best teacher back then.
The truth is, most people don’t know their misplaced modifiers from their split infinitives, and this includes college admissions readers. Still, most students beginning their personal essays get hung up on essay format and grammar, when really these are the finishing details. The things to give attention to at the end.
Remember, admissions officers already have your grades, test scores, and transcripts. They know what kind of student you are. They’re not judging your ability to write a perfect essay. They’re trying to get a better understanding of what kind of person you are and how you’ll fit into their college community.
Your application details reflect you, the student. Your personal essay reflects you, the human, and most humans aren’t grammar experts, so relax. Don’t let the technical stuff get in the way of your ability to tell a great story about who you are.
Some tips for pushing past writing anxiety:
Don’t think about grammar and structure. At least not in the first few drafts. The most important thing is for you to get things out of your head, and worrying about technical stuff is putting the cart before the horse.
Talk like you. Ever had a teacher say you shouldn’t write the way you talk? What they probably meant was, write like a classier version of you. You with a suit on. You without cursing or saying “like.” But of course you should write the way you talk because you talk pretty good -- I mean well. You’re applying to college, aren’t you?! Most importantly, as a college student and later, a professional, you will find that your professors, clients, bosses, and colleagues expect your authentic voice, both in person and on paper.
Be you. Always.
Read it aloud. You may not be a grammar expert, but you are exposed to a lot of speech and writing that adhere to the basic principles of good grammar. In fact, when you speak, you probably adhere to those principles too, so when you hear something that sounds off, weird, or wrong, it probably is. If your own work trips you up, stop and change it, or maybe circle it and come back to it later. Better yet, read it out loud to a parent or a friend. They can help identify things that sound awkward and help you brainstorm solutions.
It’s easier to hear a grammar mistake than to see it.
Forget the 5 paragraph essay. It’s a great tool for elementary and high school writers, but it’s not useful for an essay like this. The personal essay is just that -- personal. Think about it like a conversation between you and someone who wants to get to know you better. Tell them a story about yourself that helps them get there. It doesn’t require a thesis statement and three distinct details in three distinct paragraphs. It requires something honest, specific, and representative of the awesome person you are.
We’d love to help you with all the stages of the personal statement. Email us at info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.851.9975) and let’s chat.
You’re kind of a big deal.
As we’ve noted in past blog posts, the current test-optional trend means that college admissions officers are spending more time evaluating the whole student-- including high school grades, course selection , and extracurriculars. The Common App Personal Statement helps tie them all together and give some insight into who you are not just as a student, but as a person, so it's an important piece of the application puzzle.
If you’re a rising senior, it’s hard not to have the personal statement on your radar. You’ve seen examples of students’ successful personal statements on YouTube and TikTok. Your parents probably know that The New York Times publishes the best college essays each year. And a quick Google search will turn up hundreds of insider tips, do’s and don’ts, secrets, and pointers for how to write a successful essay.
So you can be forgiven if sitting at a laptop to start this thing feels completely overwhelming -- but it doesn’t have to be.
You + the right list = a successful essay.
Here’s the thing: if you’ve narrowed and selected your college application list in a thoughtful way, taking into account who you are and who you hope to become, you’re one step closer to writing an essay that demonstrates why you’re a great candidate for admission.
Applying to a school because it’s close to your house? Because it has an impressive brand name? Because your cousin went there? Because the basketball team is on TV? These aren’t great reasons. Think deeper.
Is the school supportive of first generation students? Does it offer opportunities for community engagement? Does it have a robust coop program or study abroad? Does it support undergraduate research?
Why is it a good fit for you?
What you want from your college experience says a lot about you. Approach the personal statement as an opportunity to show college admissions officers how your values and expectations align with the character and mission of those colleges. You -- and they -- are looking for a good fit.
“I'm not that interesting.”
“Nothing’s ever happened to me.”
“My life is pretty good. I have nothing to write about.”
Sound familiar? We hear this all the time from rising seniors. This is why it can be so hard to begin writing.
Start by giving yourself a break. You’ve spent the last 17 years figuring out who you want to be, and you’re not close to done. Whether you’ve had a defining life experience or not, you are still a set of amazing qualities. You might be a great team leader or someone who loves working with kids. You might be an experienced outdoors-person or a supportive sibling and friend.
Don’t short change yourself. These qualities matter. They tell an admissions officer what kind of roommate, student, and community member you will be. Remember, that final list of schools will be lucky to have you. You just need to develop a concise, clear statement that communicates what makes you, you.
We’re excited to get to know you and find out what makes you a big deal. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s get started.
Hey, high school juniors!
Congratulations! You’re nearing the end of the most important and challenging year of your high school career. And you did it all during a pandemic.
Once you’ve had some time to appreciate all of your accomplishments (even if the major one was just getting through it), you will need to begin thinking about the college selection process. Here are some things to consider as you get started:
Things have changed.
College and university admissions practices looked a lot different in 2021. Applications at many elite colleges were up over 50% from the previous year. As a result, some college acceptance rates dropped considerably. Conversely, applications at colleges with less name recognition were down. Both scenarios provide challenges and opportunities that might seem daunting for the class of 2022; we’ve even heard the current college admissions landscape referred to as “the wild west.” But what does this mean for you?
We think it means opportunity.
Test Optional...for real.
Some of the pivots college admissions offices made during the pandemic are likely to stick. Most significantly, colleges suspended standardized testing requirements for the class of 2021. Although some will inevitably return to required ACT or SAT scores, research conducted by Fair Test, the National Center For Fair and Open Testing, reveals that at least 1,360 four-year institutions "have already announced that they will not require fall 2022 applicants to submit standardized exam results before admissions decisions are made.”
We believe this shift gives the class of 2022 a broad palette of options. If that Ivy League reach feels even more remote now that it’s posting a 4% acceptance rate, you have an opportunity to explore colleges and universities you might not have otherwise considered. This is the perfect time to find that hidden gem or the just-right fit you didn’t know you were looking for.
The Personal Essay takes center stage.
As colleges and universities are increasingly adopting test-optional processes, admissions counselors are taking a more comprehensive and holistic approach to assessing applicants. This means truly considering the whole student, from extracurricular activities to course-building. In this new landscape, colleges and universities are looking to get to know potential students on a personal level. What kind of community member will they be? How do their interests align with our university’s mission and identity? Will they succeed intellectually and personally?
To get the answers, admissions counselors are looking more carefully than ever at students’ personal essays. As a member of the class of 2022, you have an exciting opportunity to craft an essay that reflects your unique personality and experiences, and that convinces that best-fit school that you are exactly who they’re looking for.
https://fairtest.org/university/optional