Speaker 1: First and foremost when looking at essay are going to be looking at things like their ability to write well and their preparation for college but we're also using that information to kind of see things like their resilience and their love of learning and their intellectual curiosity.

Speaker 2: I always tell a student, you know, if you had the chance to come meet with the admissions committee and present yourself in person would you want to do it and without fail students say yeah I'd love to have that opportunity and when I ask why they say because if they were able to get to know the admissions committee the commissions committee would want to admit them because they would know them and they would get to know what they're about and what makes them unique and special.

Speaker 1: The essay is really neat in that it's one of the only places in the application where they have complete control where they can write about the things that they've been involved in the things that they've done. One piece of advice

Speaker 2: I would give to every student is to ask someone who knows them a little bit to read their essay and to tell them what impressions they have of you after reading the essay.

Speaker 3: I think the essays that work best are actually quite simple. I think students get really caught up in thinking that this this essay has to encompass your entire life and it has to be groundbreaking and you know publishable quality and that's a lot to ask of a high school student. So I always advise students to stick to the simple things that you know and the essays that stand out the most in my mind are about simple simple things very everyday

Speaker 1: topics. I have seen some amazing essays about things like students walking their dog or or even their bus ride to school.

Speaker 2: I think our hope is that if a student were to drop the essay on the floor of their high school and someone were to pick it up it didn't have your name on it that they'd say for sure oh I know that this is so-and-so's essay because it speaks so much about your voice and your experiences and your perspective.

Speaker 1: I think my favorite essay that I've ever read came from a student in the Midwest and he wrote about working at a fast-food restaurant and he wrote about how people were treating him as they went through the drive-thru and how he was treating them back. He called himself an undercover anthropologist which admittedly was a little nerdy in a brown sort of way but I liked his essay because I was able to see what he was seeing and feel what he was feeling. So for the purposes of the application where we as admission officers are trying to get to know the applicant that's a great essay.