Conversations with Experts Giving Context to College Essay: Dr. Mae Sakharov I've spent time this winter interviewing my mentors and other smart folks-- like Dr. Mae Sakharov-- about the difficulties and pleasures of the college essay writing process and working with teens. I do as I tell my students: if you keep showing up in the world-as-classroom with your pencils sharpened, and a sincere wish to do better than BS, life will keep giving you material, and teaching you what you need to know. I always want to know more. That's also why I love teaching students to tell their stories well! Here are some highlights from my conversation with Dr. Mae Sakharov, Ed.D, College, Graduate School and Career Counselor. Technically, we're competitors, but I'd tell you to go see her in a heartbeat for full-spectrum counseling and a wise, good-humored perspective. We were introduced by a freak media relations fairy who connected us on impulse and then disappeared; both of us care deeply about teens, authentic learning, and no BS compassion. She has a great beat on the college counseling industry- be not fooled, it's an industry!-- and has the creds, sweat hours, and lived experience to see every life in context. In our conversation over Google Hangouts, , the frame cut out the lower half her face, so I spent most of the time with a view of just her classy glasses and warm eyes. She looked like a hibernant checking to see if Winter was over-- no, no it's not. Talking to Dr. Mae Sakharov EI: What is the college essay really...for? Sakharov: First, I call myself more of a writing psychologist than a writing teacher. I don’t teach writing-- My background is in theater and literature, children’s literature and storytelling, and years and years of improvisational theater. When I started working on personal statements with kids it was not in structural way-- like an English essay, but more about finding out who a person was-- and bringing that out. Writing the college Continue Reading …
Solutions
Can’t I write about sports?
No, You can't write about (just) sports Here's why-- if you write about sports, the likelihood of your essay being cliched, or, worse, of you not realizing it's cliched-- is mighty strong. But also, Yes, you can. If you can make a surprising connection while writing about sports, you're golden. Admissions officers will remember you for (most of) the rest of their lives. Example of brilliant sports essay (Hint-- it's not about Sports!) Here's an incredible essay by Natalie Diaz, an amazing poet and thinker and former b-ball champ: She is not writing about basketball-- she is writing about basketball, and. Basketball and _______: violence against Native peoples how Brown bodies are subjugated growing up poor the visceral nature of writing as a body used to being in motion. escape cultural navigation Get it? Sports, And What? If you are hell-bent on writing about sports, I suggest making your list of and's. Consider: Why are you writing about this sport, really? What other story about your life is it helping you tell? Avoid these cliched approaches to sports essays I could recite the following essays in my sleep, because I've read them too many times. So have you. No surprises here. Please don't write these overdone, canned essays-- even if you really mean them. (And I really believe you mean them) "And then I heard my ligament pop and knew my life would never be the same." "I learned that life is like a game and you need to be a team-player!" "We turned in around in the last quarter, and that taught me I could overcome anything!" (Because, actually, that's a premature conclusion! MAYBE you can overcome anything; or maybe you just overcame this.) I believe in being a realist with teenagers. When you step beyond the cliches and the lessons you could have read somewhere else, you learn something more true, and more valuable, about your life and yourself. Get your game-writing on Here's Continue Reading …
10 Senior-Year Conversation starters NOT about College applications!
Please Don't Make this conversation about College Apps! To make friendly conversation, it's tempting to ask seniors in high school how the college application process is going, or where they are applying. They MAY be tempted to strangle you, but they'll probably act decently about it and politely recite their list. Maybe even tell you it's going OK. What they really want to do is go to the closest room and scream so loudly that the Common App site crashes (or so they tell me, but it's kinda obvious if you just look closely at their faces). Think about it this way: if you were applying for a high stakes job that took many hundreds of hours and every time you saw anyone THAT WAS ALL THEY WANTED TO TALK ABOUT WITH YOU IN ALL CAPS. Arg. Ick. PSA, Care Elsewhere! This post is a PSA from someone in the industry, moi (I SEE YOU, TEENS!): if you are hanging out with high school seniors these days and strike up conversation TRY REALLY HARD NOT TO ASK THEM ABOUT COLLEGE/COLLEGE PROCESS. Like, AT ALL. I know you really care, but unless you're their guidance counselor, care about something else. Really, you will get so many cool points for not making the conversation about C-O-L-L-E-G-E. They need the mental break. They need to know they are interesting and valuable and very awesome BEYOND this demanding process. At this point in the fall, COLLEGE CRAP (that's how they are thinking of it) is all anyone asks about (Not you? Cool, you should run a tutorial for other adults!). It gets Teen-TEDIOUS. Branch out the conversation Rule of thumb: No college crap. While you are at it, avoid school generally. Ask them, like, what they had for lunch, or to tell you about something weird they noticed on the street. Here are 10 suggestions to start up a real conversation with a teen in the middle of college applications. What's the last thing that really got you mad? What's the last thing that made you feel completely relaxed? What makes you want Continue Reading …
Try to Understand
If you don't try, you may never understand. My new student, J, was in his bright red basketball jersey and shorts, and he was doing his best not to shiver. Starbucks was as cold as a meat freezer. But what he was saying warmed my mind. In the course of a short conversation, he'd already told me that as a kid he'd been pegged as "troublemaker." Or, even worse, proving the little words matter: "THE Troublemaker." You wouldn't know it now, from his composure even under the offensively strong air conditioning. But according to his teachers, he had "too much energy" and bounced around the room and, worst of all, Socrates be damned, he had too many questions. I'm like: "Hold the sauce. How is it possible to have too many questions IN A CLASSROOM?" Continue Reading …
How to make your college essay more meaningful
Here's what NOT to do if you want your college essay to be more meaningful False stabs at a meaningful essay go like this: Try to make your writing sound like someone else's, preferably that person you know who got into Harvard early. Write it with one hand the night before it's due while picking your toes and scrolling google for quotes by famous people that feel even marginally applicable. Flip out about it and decide that you have to write with overwhelmingly convoluted lyric sentences and complete absence of ego. OK, now we got that out of the way, go for a walk. Then-- Here's what to do if you want your essay to be more meaningful Remember that you matter. Period. Decide that being stressed out about one more thing purely because everyone else is or tells you to be is boring. Decide you will not treat your college essay merely as something to have completed. Do not aim to use fancypants vocabulary words you would not use if talking to a good friend about a complex movie you loved. Slow down the writing process a little. Ask yourself what you would write about if you knew you would be listened to and understood. Write in order to be listened to and understood. Ask yourself how many things that you do in life are meaningful to you personally. If the list is short, why? Ask yourself what the most true thing is at this moment for you. What makes you sit up, stand up, rev up, tear up? Challenge yourself to describe a scene from your life with skin-tingling presence. Don't check social media accounts while writing your essay. This correlates with spikes in incomplete thoughts, and dips in contentment levels. Share your work with people who don't HAVE to read it, and ask them if they are moved. Then, talk about what you wrote. Drink a hot beverage you love, and go find some grass to look at. Some insects are living out their whole lives in that grass, at this very moment, not giving a damn. Give less of a Continue Reading …
Perfect Essay? Not a chance
It's Perfect, now Help! Last week, a former Essay Intensive student, T, needed help last minute help with her transfer essays, which she thought were close to perfect. It was the usual problem: I've written it, now how do I cut it down to size? T was-- and still is-- Perfectionism's Poster Girl. She will fight you, and did me, on every turn of phrase in her essay, every single preposition-- why it should stay, why the wording is already perfect. AND YET SHE NEEDS AND WANTS MY HELP. She's classy and has poise, but her affect is whisper-yelling, I LOVE IT LIKE THIS GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SENTENCE. People who don't want to revise are in trouble as writers. T is incredibly articulate, intelligent, and accomplished-- but aiming to make your writing perfect isn't usually the way to make it perfect. In Love with the Darlings? Is she "in love with her darlings"? Yup. She's thought so hard about every semantic and syntactic choice in the essay that eliminating something feels like a liability. Familiarity can actually lessen our critical eye. Her essays sound "just right" to her-- and yours to you?-- EXACTLY as they are. And so it's nearly impossible to objectively evaluate what to cut. What's considered perfect is too precious to improve. Remember your audience, however. My advice to students who cling to their work is, "Save this version for your memoirs, I can't wait to read them!" Do your job Because we have to give readers what they want. In these essays the admissions team is not, actually, evaluating whether you've turned a phrase perfectly. They want to know that you can answer the question, and that you see your story-- expectation, disappointment, reassessment, plot turn-- clearly. And you, like everyone else who lives and breathes and hopes to apply to school, has to come in under word count-- 650. It's the great equalizer and no admissions team- or text box, for that matter-- will make an exception for you for even the most brilliant Continue Reading …