Putting the Wow in Your College Essays with Susan Knoppow – College Bound Mentor Podcast #32

0

Welcome to the College Bound Mentor podcast! Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all.

This is Episode #32 and you’ll hear us talk college essays with Susan Knoppow. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
  • Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #32: Putting the Wow in Your College Essays with Susan Knoppow

Writing college essays is one of the most challenging aspects of the college application process. Where do students even get started? Susan Knoppow is Co-Founder & CEO of Wow Writing Workshop, where she created the Wow Method – a simple, 10-step process for writing college essays. A former executive speechwriter and copywriter, Susan is also a published poet and essayist. Hear the key elements to a successful college essay, how parents can help – not hurt – their students’ essays, how to reduce overwhelm for students when writing college essays, how to approach supplemental essays, and how to navigate AI as it relates to college essays. This episode covers everything from parenting to writing essays. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • How did Susan get into the college essay space?
  • What’s the hardest step of the Wow Method?
  • How does the Wow Method work?
  • What are some Myths & Truths about college essays?
  • How should you change your mindset as a parent about college essays?

Connect with Susan at WowWritingWorkshop.com, on LinkedIn, and Get Your Copy of the 10-Step Wow Method, and Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

  • Putting the Wow in Your College Essays with Susan Knoppow

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Susan Knoppow 0:03
We found that if we lower the stakes and lower the heat, we actually get better results.

Lisa Bleich 0:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we’re going to chat with Susan Knoppow about what most students dread and we love: the essays. Susan is the CEO and co founder of Wow Writing Workshop, where she created the Wow method, a simple 10-step process for writing college essays, a former executive speechwriter and copywriter, Susan is also a published poet and essayist. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan at his alma mater, and a Masters of Fine Arts in writing from Vermont College when she’s not running Wow. Susan likes to garden, cook and go on adventures with her husband and their dog, Luna. She has three adult children. We just found out, one just graduated from college, the youngest who are all talented writers as well. So welcome, Susan. We’re so happy to

Susan Knoppow 1:10
have you. Thanks for having me. I’m so glad to be here. Yeah, so Susan,

Lisa Bleich 1:15
we have been well, as I said before, this is, this is actually our favorite time, even though it’s a busy time, because we really love the essay part of the process, because we really get to know our students well. We help them understand themselves and understand what drives them, their themes, et cetera. But for a lot of people, this is a really challenging time, and I’ve always, we’ve all been listening to your ICA chats, I call them like your fireside chats, right? For several years, and I always love how grounded you are in your approach to essay writing. So I’d love to just hear how you got into this business, and why did you see such a need. Oh, well,

Susan Knoppow 1:49
thanks for asking. So I have been a writer and a writing teacher for many, many, many years, and back in 2009 when my partner Kim and I founded Well, she retired in December, but we started this together, and it has been less than a year since she’s been off. So I feel like it’s still us together here. We created this together. Why did we do this? Because when you’re a writer, people ask you to look at their writing. Can you look at my application for the summer program? Can you read my personal statement I’m applying to business school? Can you read my essay. So Kim, who’s a journalist by training, and me, I’m an instructional designer, a teacher. She said, Could you make a class about this? You teach writing? And I said, Yeah, we can make a class about this. And so we did it. And really that was the beginning. It was just, can you do it? Sure. Let’s try it. I took the principles I’ve learned as a writing teacher and as a writer, Kim learned everything she could possibly learn about applications, admissions, college essays. As a journalist, we put all that together and and we started to see really great success. And for us, success meant the students were calm. They weren’t freaking out. They were finishing their essays. They were understanding what they were doing. And we had heard that that was not the case, that essays were made you crazy and it was horrible and how hard it was. But once we understood the task, we were able to teach students. And then a couple years later, I was actually at an ICA conference. I did a session with a colleague, and people came up to us and said, that was great. What else do you have? And I said, I’m gonna do a webinar series this summer. I remember telling Kim and saying, there’s this new thing called GoToWebinar. This is like 2012 I’m gonna learn how to use it, and next month, I’m doing a webinar. Let’s see what and we did. And that started really a lot of our work. Now most of our work, almost, I would say, more than half, is with our colleagues. We train independent consultants, we train school counselors, even people who are essay specialists, people who’ve been in admissions, who’ve been in schools, we teach them a method. And so that’s really where we feel like our strength is. I don’t need to work with every student in the world. I want to teach others so they can work with students as

Lisa Bleich 4:09
well. Yeah, that’s so smart, because then you you’re able to essentially put out your effort, your philosophy, into much, much, many more hands. And so just like, walk us through, like, what’s the guiding philosophy behind the WoW approach, and how does it work? What’s the WoW process? Okay,

Susan Knoppow 4:24
so we have 10 steps, and we’ve always had the same 10 Steps. We’ve tweaked things a little bit here and there. The first step is the one that most people skip. We feel like this is our magic, our so what we teach, like I said, is an approach. We believe that given the right tools students can make editorial decisions. Our job is to teach them how to make those decisions. So not tell them what to do, not tell them what to write or what sentence to change, but to make observations and to give them a framework for making smart choices. And we will weigh in if we think they’re not making smart choices. We certainly will tell them, but ultimately, the essay belongs to them. We talk about, you know, we use the common app, personal statement as our teaching essay. We teach them that approach, and then they can apply it to other essays and writing that they do. So we begin our step one is to understand the prompt. And by understanding the prompt, I don’t mean like just read the questions and understand those sentences. We mean, why are you writing application essays? How do they fit into an application who’s reading them? What else do they already know about you? I mean, it may seem basic, but students don’t understand. And so every step when we work with students, and we also use this for training our colleagues, we have an online system, platform. Every step has a brief video, it has a page to read and a writing exercise. And the writing exercise for that first step is the one that gives our coaches so much information, because it’s basic. It says, What’s the common app essay for? And if a student says, It’s a show how unique I am, and to make me stand out, we stop and we make sure that they understand that actually, you read the instructions that doesn’t say that. It just says, Give us something beyond grades and scores, and it’ll help us know you better. That’s paraphrased, so we want to make sure they understand that before we even start brainstorming ideas. Most students start by brainstorming ideas. Most moms and dads do that. Most English teachers do that, most counselors do that. It seems logical. Of course, they understand the question. Just read it if they’re not that complicated and we say, no, no, slow down. Let’s make sure. Then our second question, still in step one, is, what do they already know about you? And again, it may seem obvious. They know I took the ACT they know I had this kind of a school. They know that I’m on the track team. And we do that because we want to slow the students down and remind them again, remember I’m a teacher. I’m thinking like a teacher. I want to make sure they remember that the purpose of the essay is not to show that you won the championship or to show that you’re a tennis player, they know that. It’s to show them. The next question is, what would you like them to know about you? Oh, I want them to know I’m a really good problem solver. I’m compassionate, I make good decisions. Anything. It doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s not a test. We’re not going to like check later to make sure that they shared these characteristics, part of what the underpinning of what we do, is distinguishing between characteristics who you are. Essays are a way to show who you are. The distinguish between characteristics and accomplishments. Applications are full of accomplishments. What did you do? Where did you go? How many times activities, even letters of recommendation are often their characteristics. But there’s a lot of accomplishments in there as well. So in these 10 steps, step one is to understand the prompt. Step two is to brainstorm ideas, and then we focus on theme. Theme is crucial to our process. It is some combination regard whatever kind of essay of what happened, or what are you going to write about, and why? Why does it matter and the why is the characteristics, or for supplement, which we can talk more about. The why is, why are you going to include these details? Or why are you going to tell this story? Or why do you want to share this anecdote? If we can get students to slow down and really focus on why they have chosen what they’ve chosen, and it can’t be because my coach thought it was a good idea. My mom thinks it’s the coolest thing about me or whatever, right? If we can balance one of the six common app prompt options, number seven is okay, but usually we find they don’t need it. If they can balance a question, a characteristic, and we call an anchor story, something that’ll hold them in place, at least through the first draft, if they have those three things in balance, then they’re ready to write. So we don’t even get to first draft till step five, because we want to make sure. And we have a writing exercise for every one of these tasks. And our coaches are trained to evaluate what they’ve done, and then we take them outside of the essay. So this is where we’re our process is really distinct. Instead of taking the first draft and marking it up and going back and forth, we say, Okay, we’re going to teach you how to think like writers, stop, put the draft aside. Now I’m going to make some suggestions outside of the essay. Give me more about this. Tell me more about that. And these questions are based on the theme and the first draft. So how well have they executed on this theme? Is there enough? What happened? Is there enough? Why does it matter? Doesn’t matter, even if they’ve written 900 words for a 650 100 words for a 650 word essay, we’re still going to have them write more, because they might not be the right, the right 650 words might not already be on the page. So we take them outside the essay for a couple of different exercises, and then we bring them back in that draft is a revision. And again, we’re trying to teach them to think like writers. So a writer doesn’t think of revision as fixing broken things. A writer thinks of revision as trying to find a way to see the essay new. And that’s like, How do I turn it upside down? How do I shake it out? How do and it’s hard to do that when you’re just reading it. So anyway, we go through like that, and so we focus first on content, then structure, and then finally

Lisa Bleich 10:25
polish. Finally polish. And what do you think is the hardest step for most of the kids?

Susan Knoppow 10:31
The hardest step for most of the kids, it’s gonna be one of two things. For anxious kids, it’s coming up with four ideas before they meet with their coach, because even though we tell them that we are not choosing from four ideas, these are conversation starters, they worry, oh my gosh, I have to have amazing ideas. And we tell them, No, you don’t. You need to have something to bring to the conversation, because our coaches can start anywhere. The second thing that’s hard for them is Step Seven be which is their second draft. We ask them to look at everything they’ve done and plan their next draft. Now we tell them, whatever you do is okay. You can write me one sentence, I love my first draft, and I’m going to change a second paragraph. You can color code all your notes, and you can send me a scan of all of it. But both of those steps require them to trust themselves, not just to respond to something that someone has told them to do. That’s where things click. So when they do their what we call step two, they bring ideas to their coach, and the coach says, These are amazing places to start. Thank you. Now they trust that they know where they’re going when they get to that step seven, and they’re supposed to plan their next draft. Like I said, we tell them, Don’t spend too much time on it. Just look at what you’ve already done. And the coach says, This is amazing. Keep moving regardless of what they did. Again, it builds trust. And what we have found is kids worry so much about the essay that part of our job is to remind them that they already have everything they need. Our job is to put them in a quiet space, give them the framework and help them make good editorial decisions.

Abby Power 12:16
Yeah, I love all of that, and it never occurs to me to remind the kids to read the, you know, read the directions on the common app. And just because that, that’s the thing, every single student comes to us and says, There’s nothing unique about me. There’s nothing special about me. How am I going to stand out? And as many different ways as I’ve tried to figure out how to convince them that that’s not what it’s about, I like your idea of going back literally, like showing them the instructions on the common app. It’s kind of going back to basics. So it might be difficult to generalize, but what do you think are the key elements to a successful essay in terms both of content and also structure?

Susan Knoppow 12:58
I like that question. So the key elements and so we try to talk to admissions officers when we possibly can. That was, can use to stop people at conferences like, Hey, you’re wearing the the admissions officer color lanyard. Can I ask you a question? So we asked the same question. I’ve been asking the same question for more than 15 years, which is, what do you want me to tell my students about the essay, and they say, if they want to stand out, tell them to answer the question. They’re trying so hard to impress. So really, what are the the main the key elements is an essay that answers the question, which may sound like a disingenuous answer, but really, students like you said they have so many preconceptions of what they’re supposed to do that they don’t really read the question you take, why else? Essays? Some of them ask about majors. Some of them ask about programs. Some of them want to know about the place where the school is located, but they’re different questions, and so teaching a student, when we use the common app as a teaching essay, I mean, this really important. It’s really important because then I can give them any prompt and say, before you think about what you’re going to write, before we talk about it, I want you to look at this prompt. Let’s take it apart. Have you answered this question before? How is it similar to or different from other essays that you know other prompts for other essays you’ve written? So as far as structure doesn’t matter, structure in our process. Structure emerges during the drafting process, and it’s very freeing for students, the only thing that we try to get them not to do is to tie it all up with a bow at the end. Say that’s you don’t have to say. In conclusion, here’s like I learned this, but for some kids, it’s like a security blanket, and they need it. But we have found that’s what we. Like the anchor story. So we tell students your essay might be all this story. It’s possible. I don’t know. This might be context for something larger. You want to say this might end up being an example among many. I don’t know, but we’ve done hundreds, 1000s of students by now. Any student can start this way, the development from step six through 10 is where they all veer off in different directions. If I can get them started confidently, most students will finish confidently. I

Abby Power 15:35
love that. I’m wondering if you could share with us a story of I mean, maybe a typical, typical is probably a terrible word, but a student who struggled at the beginning and then sort of just show us how working with the WoW method helped them, you know, become at ease and communicate what they wanted to to the schools.

Susan Knoppow 15:59
Can tell you the story, one of my favorite stories, I will have to find a new story, because I tell this one a lot, but I love the story so much. Was working with a student, a regular, smart kid, who had been told all his life that he was not a good writer. He had some learning challenges, but, you know, he made it through high school okay and decent grades, and he came to us, and when I looked at his and this was my student, and when I looked at his four ideas we did. Step one, he finished, you know, understand the prompt. He got the answers right. He read the stuff. He knew what. He didn’t say. It needed to be unique. Step two, four ideas, and for each idea, we asked them to give us an anchor story. Some you know, the time I did x, whatever the day I did y, at least one characteristic. You know, this shows that I am resilient a problem solver, or whatever. A little bit of detail on the story, just a couple of sentences, and which prompt are you answering? Which of the six options does this respond to? So that we can focus? He brought three ideas. He only had three, not four. Just fine, and they were very impressive. Now, this is a student I knew a little bit. Often, we don’t know our students at all. I knew him a little bit, and I thought, wow. Like, these are amazing experiences. I had no idea. Idea number one, I was lobbying Congress, you know, with my mother on an issue related to education. Like, Oh, well. Amazing. Idea number two, like, equally, you know, volunteering at a food pantry, whatever. Like, pretty impressive ideas for a kid who, you know, was like a regular, just a regular kid. No problem with that. But he didn’t, he didn’t strike me as, like the kid, you know, the go getter, exceptional, extraordinary, like, I’m going to do every single thing in the world. He liked to read. He liked to hang out with his friends, like he was a nice boy. So we start talking idea number one, happened when he was in elementary school? Like, hmm, okay, but I can start anywhere I am curious and willing to be surprised. So I said, so you really are interested in politics? Then, no, not really. Oh, so have you ever done anything like this? Again, it sounds like you and your mom went on Capitol Hill when you were, you know, pretty young. No, it was a really cool day. It’s one of my favorite stories. Great. I work. I’m thinking, there’s gotta be something, right? You know, what’s it? Nothing, you know. How did you come up with this? Oh, my mom thought it was a really good idea. Like, got it now we’re going through idea by day. And what it was was, these were the family’s best stories about him, because that’s what a lot of kids think. Parents think, like, I remember things about you that you don’t even know about yourself. So again, I didn’t shut him down. I didn’t tell him, No, I said, let’s go back to step one. You understand the prompt. You answered all my questions. You get an A plus on step one. I said, let’s go back. You say, in your characteristics, what do you want readers to know you? It says here that you want them to know that you’re really curious about people. This is something that you’re proud of about yourself, I said, and this is my phrase always. I give this to everyone freely. Tell me about a time when you were curious about someone that he lit up. And he said, Oh, I know, see, because he had not connected steps one and two. He had done step one and then he did step two. He thought of them as completely separate. I said, Okay, tell me about a time when you’re curious. He says, I know, last week Driver’s Ed. And he starts talking about how he had a new teacher, and it was like his last driving day, and something had happened, something controversial had happened in the news. And he asked the guy, what do you think about I don’t even remember what the issue was. And the driver said, Teacher says something which was completely opposite what my student believes, and he says, it was amazing. I was so curious to know why he thought that. And then I told him what I think, and he listened to me. He’s like, and this was like, an old guy. He’s like, older than my parents, and he’s he gets really animated and excited about the story. I said, he looks at me, he’s like, Oh, that’s it, right? And I said, That’s it. That’s who you are. That’s what they want. Now, if I had said to him, tell me about the seven things you did last week, he might have listed Driver’s Ed, but we never would have gotten anywhere with it. You know, he needed to understand what the task was, and as soon as he got it, clicked 100% he got through the whole process. He was really excited. Like I said, people had told him he couldn’t write whatever. I mean, it was basic, you know, simple sentence, simple sentence, simple sentence. It didn’t matter. It was a good essay for the schools he was applying to. He had a good list. And that’s what I tell all of my, you know, professional colleagues and like what matters most is that they have a good list, a good list. The essays can support where they want to go because they’re qualified to go there. They don’t have a good list, the essay is not going to vault them over a wall. So that’s my favorite story of a student who really got it and then was able to confidently follow my instructions to do all the exploration and the revision, and he was done in a few weeks. I

Abby Power 21:05
love that. You can see it in their eyes. You

Lisa Bleich 21:07
can, yeah, I see where they kind of light up, yeah,

Abby Power 21:10
even on Zoom. And you can see, you know, they might be talking about winning the national debate championship, but they’re sort of dead in the face, yeah. And then they’ll talk about being spending the day in a bookstore, and you just see them light up, and you’re like, Okay, I can tell what you want want to talk about, even though you don’t think that’s nearly as important as winning the national debate championship. Yeah. Very good.

Abby Power 21:33
Yeah. And I mean, it’s so helpful to hear you walk through that story, because right, this idea that students have in their head, whether it comes from them, whether it comes from their friends, whether it comes from their parents. Like this idea to be impressive and right, these are the stories that they’re hearing over and over that, you know, of course, that’s what’s going to come out. And they go to that thing that happened when they were five, when they won that first thing, or this amazing day in DC, and also to, like, connect with impressive. I was an former English teacher here too, and I have so many right, like students who write these beautiful essays. And it pains me to be like, Yes, this is a beautiful piece of writing. But again, like, what are we learning about you here? But I guess what I wanted to ask is, you know, to that point so so many in students and parents, they think that this essay needs to be impressive. So how do you help them change that mindset, like you did with this student?

Susan Knoppow 22:27
So when we talk to parents, we tell them that they’re going to do something. In fact, we wrote a book with the second edition is out. It’s been out for a few years, but when we first wrote it, my partner’s sister was getting her first child ready for college. Now he’s like, 30. I mean, well, well beyond all of this. But at the time, she said to Kim, so what should I do? And Kim said, you know, stay out of it. It’s not yours. It belongs to him. And she looked at her sister and said, You know, I’m going to do something. You better give me a job, which really changed our mindset, like, don’t push everybody away. Bring them in. So what do we do to give parents a job? We tell them, you know, your students best characteristics, not their best stories. That’s not for you to decide. I want you to help them see what makes them who they are, not what they’ve done, not where they’ve gone. And when I tell that to parents, they relax, and I say, and that’s it, that’s your job is to ask them, what are some of your best traits, and if you really want to go to the next step, tell me about the time when you exhibited that trait, but your kid probably doesn’t want to talk about that with you, so you know it’s okay. The other thing I say is that it’s really hard to revise yourself out of a poorly conceived idea. So don’t tell your child, I want you to get that essay done, you know, by five o’clock, or you’ve been working on that for three weeks. Just finish it up a blank page is really, really stressful for a lot of students. So what a parent can do is help them come up with that theme. What do you want to write about and why? And let’s make sure it answers one of those six prompts, a student is going to a school that requires a college essay, any school that even if it just the common app, and you have to write the essay because otherwise the application is incomplete, and it’s not a big deal. A student who’s going to a school that requires an essay should have the writing skills required by that school. So it’s not the parent’s job to be an editor the so we tell parents up front, help them understand their best characteristics if you want, help them match up a story and a prompt, and then later, when they want you to read it, ask them, What were you trying to communicate here? I’m going to tell you, if you’ve communicated it. Don’t change. Words, don’t move. Paragraphs, don’t suggest a different topic. I just had a mom recently who sent us an essay. Her son had talked to me, done some brainstorming, hadn’t gone through a whole process. US, but it really got he got it. He wrote his draft. And the mom said, you know, we’ve done some revision, but I’d really like you to look at it again. I said, Okay, I’ll do a review. So she sent me. It’s very interesting. She’s She knew she sent three drafts, his original, which sounded like it was written by a 17 year old boy, and two revisions. And the revisions had a few more con bits of content which were relevant, but boy, did they sound like they were written by Yeah, 40 or 50 year old. They

Lisa Bleich 25:26
can tell. They can tell if it’s Yeah, parent that wrote it, or kid Yeah.

Susan Knoppow 25:30
So she thought her job really was to elevate what he’d done. And I said, No, no, your job is to do what you did, which was it looks like she had asked him some questions. Tell me more about this. Tell me more about that. So parents can help find whatever it is that the student can write about in their best characteristics and review to make sure that the student conveyed what they wanted to convey, but not to edit.

Abby Power 25:54
Yeah, I hope everyone’s taking that in parents, wink, wink. But So that’s some really helpful advice, of of ways that parents can help, anything else besides, like, don’t write, you know, your kids essay, that’s, you know, unhelpful things that that parents keep doing,

Susan Knoppow 26:12
One helpful thing they can do. So when, when our students are just about done, we have a lot of templated emails we use. We personalize them, but the core of them is like, every single parent needs this message, and one of the one of the the ones we send near the end is, here is how to read your child’s essay. Step away from the computer, put your pen down if you can print it, print it and go sit somewhere else and think before you comment. First of all. I mean, this is like a teacher thing, too. First, a positive comment, anything, anything I can imagine you in the scene. Oh my gosh, you’re it’s so exciting that you’re done. That’s a beautiful sense. It doesn’t matter, something positive. And then think about where the essay, how it has improved, if you know, if you’ve seen other drafts, and think about what it might look like after they graduate from college, your dream of this beautifully polished essay. And then put that dream of the beautifully polished essay away, and think about what you already know about your child and how they write and how they think, and remember that this is a thinking task as much as it is a writing task and tell them what works, and if there’s something missing, ask them some questions. This is sort of what I said before, but it’s a mindset for parents. Parents are worried the essay is the last thing. Like, maybe they’re going to take the ACT again. They’re going to get their grades, of course, for senior year. But as far as the application, most of the application, it’s all done. So parents put a lot of weight on this. And so I think that if parents, if we find that, if we lower the stakes and lower the heat, we actually get better results from parents and students. Parents are afraid they missed something, so they pile on and we say, no, no, no, your job is to observe, to reflect, to help your child reflect, and then tell them they did a good job and like, go do something else, right?

Lisa Bleich 28:10
And it’s really hard for many, for some parents, to do that. I should say, I don’t want to, I don’t want to make these gross generalizations, but we always ask the parents. We give them four questions. It’s our joke. Is the four questions which we actually got from, believe it was from believe it was from a tough submissions person, but is like, you know, does it answer these four questions? Which are, you know, what is your What are you thinking about? How do you solve problems? How do you play with other people, you know? How do you interact with other people? And kind of, what motivates you? And if it answers those questions, then the essay has done its job. And if it doesn’t answer those questions, then show them where it doesn’t answer the question, and then it either needs to be answered in a supplement or somewhere else, because that’s ultimately what they’re trying to understand about, you know, those themes. And you know, we do, we don’t, we don’t have your 10 steps, but we do, you know, very similar. All of those things come together and we do it. But I think that, you know, there’s a lot of people that don’t have the benefit of working with you or with somebody, someone in some of our essay specialists, and a lot of times people feel, I think what people always say is that they feel like you said that blank piece of paper. They feel very overwhelmed with that process. And they’re also getting feedback from their parents. They’re getting feedback from their friends. They’re getting feedback from 50 essays that got me into Harvard, and they’re all trying to write in a way that maybe isn’t even the capabilities to do it right, but they feel this intense pressure to write this amazing essay. And so what would you say to that student, I know you’ve talked a little bit about it, but who just feels really overwhelmed, doesn’t really know where to start, how to start. They’ve read the prompt, they understand the prompt, but then what do they do next?

Susan Knoppow 29:51
So I tell them not to try to write a full draft. I want them to focus. Focus on theme first. So I want them to like, Forget essay. Essay is you’re going to be done with your essay later, I say, think about theme. What are you going to write about and why? Don’t worry about how you’re going to convey it. Don’t worry about if you really do understand the prompt you it doesn’t say you need to be unique. It doesn’t say you need to be outrageously special, like normal kids get to go to college. Normal kids graduate from college. Most adults, you know, are regular people who went to regular schools, but it’s hard to I mean, that’s hard to absorb at that time, it is hard to absorb. It’s really hard. Yeah, yeah. So we say start small. So the smallest thing you can do is have a theme. What are you going to write about and why? And we say, You know what? Don’t worry about it. If you hate the essay. When you’re done, feel try again. Momentum is your friend. Keep moving. Don’t stop and say, Well, maybe you have a better idea, and maybe talk about it with someone, and not someone who’s got high expectations, like find your most down to earth friend. Right? And just have a conversation. If you can theme, then this is our step four, is to free write for details, and that’s just the what happened part of the theme. What’s the story you want to tell? Bring me into the room, bring me onto the soccer field, bring me onto the into the minivan. I whatever. Just give me a little bit of what happened. So you can just, kind of, you just write, and it’s not a first draft,

Lisa Bleich 31:26
it’s just stuff. It’s just stuff right

Susan Knoppow 31:28
now, go back and read the question again, read the prompt again, and highlight the parts that you’re really responding to. Because a lot of those six prompts, they’re very they’re packed full. Yeah, there’s a lot of there’s so much in them. You may not be describing a background and an interest in you know, whatever. If you’re talking about a time that you challenge something, make sure that you explain what the significance was. But go back to the prompt again. Keep going back to the prompt and the theme, prompt and theme, prompt and theme, what happens is, once students start writing, they can get lost, and they start just describing stuff or going off on tangents. That’s okay, but if they then, so then they write their draft, and maybe it’s 400 words and maybe it’s 900 words, it doesn’t matter. Go back to the prompt, go back to your theme, and then ask this question either of yourself or ask someone else to reflect with you what’s missing. Don’t tell me to pick a different topic. Don’t tell me you don’t like the first line. This is all content. So what I’m telling them, if they’re working on their own, is focus on content first, because finished essays, it’s like picking up a novel and saying, Oh, I have to start with a clever first paragraph that was probably like the seventh

Lisa Bleich 32:48
draft editing, the editing process, the revising process, right? They don’t understand that, right, right?

Susan Knoppow 32:54
There’s a character who doesn’t even exist anymore in the story. So what they’re trying to do is like, make this thing, and that’s not how you make that thing. So if they focus on content first, what generally happens is their voice comes through, because they’re not worried so much about being impressive. And, you know, writing the perfect essay, and there will be obvious holes, and someone else can help them find those holes. And then they then they move into structure and polish. And that can be, that’s the writing and revising, but content, focus on content. First is my is my biggest tip. And on our website, we have a link to the free version of our book. It’s a free ebook. I mean, they can read the

Lisa Bleich 33:36
book and follow the instructions, all right. Well, we’ll put that on our website. That’s such good advice. And I think the other thing that kids always get caught up in is like, how long should it be? They asked me that matter just right? Just, I’d rather have more than less. And I always tell kids, I’m like, I want you to write me a really bad first draft. And then that kind of takes the pressure off them, because they have this idea that it’s got to be really good. I’m like, Nope, I expect it to be really bad, and that’s fine. Yeah, I just want to see what you’re writing. I just want to see where you’re going, and then we’ll, we’ll find things from there. I was just with a student yesterday, and she had written, we she we came up with two possible ideas, and she had written both of the ideas in the same essay, and she was having a really hard connecting it. I was like, Hmm, interesting. Like, I thought we were going this way. She said, Oh, I yeah, I just kind of wrote everything, and I didn’t know how to connect well. That’s because they were two completely different themes. And so that makes sense. So you didn’t know how to connect it. So let’s just pull out the part that is what you want, you know, that you want to talk about. And she’s like, Oh, this is so much easier. This is so much better. So

Susan Knoppow 34:38
it’s, it’s kind of absolutely sometimes the simplest is the is the best? Yes.

Abby Power 34:45
Almost always, yes, almost always. I mean, but that’s such a hard message to deliver, because they come in wanting to be impressive. I did an essay brainstorming with a client the other day, and I think he said the word hook six times. What’s my hook? And. Was like, you’ve just been reading too much on the interwebs. We’re not we have a long way to go before we find a hook. It’s out there. They all want that clever, but yeah, I think your your advice is really good. We need the content before we figure out the structure or the hook the conclusion. I think you had touched on this a little bit earlier. But in terms of supplemental essays, how do you apply your process to the supplements? Do those have themes also? They’re a little bit different in right the nature of them. But how do you approach that?

Susan Knoppow 35:36
So we think of supplements as a package. So what we do when we do when we finish, we finish the common app, personal statement, if we have students who are applying in California, we then go on to the UC personal insight questions, because we can then it helps us emphasize that message about understanding the prompt. Because the prompts are different. Purpose is slightly different. The way the essays work together is different. They’re not just shorter. There are it’s a different kind of thing, and they work together really well. I mean, UC says these are four questions that work together, so we’ll do that. But then when we move into supplemental and for students who aren’t applying to the UCs, we skip that, move straight into supplemental essays. We look at them as a package. So for a school that has a couple of essays, I’m located in Michigan, so we work with students all over the world, but we happen to have a lot of students. We either know we’re in Michigan, so assume we’re U of M experts, or, you know, our local and we are U of M experts. So that’s good, but we’ll look at the two questions together. So this year, they changed one of their questions. It’s like almost the same, but exactly. So what we do is so close Come on, guys, what was wrong with the community question? I liked it. I like but we look at those, well, that’s a good example where there’s a why us question, you know, why are you interested in this program or school, or whatever, you know, the units that this giant University, you’re applying? Are you applying Are you applying to literature, science and arts? Are you applying to engineering? Are you applying to Kinesiology? Are you applying to the art school? So knowing in that large area and then squeezing down into like which programs are you interested in and what kind of living learning community might you be interested in? It’s not in the prompt, but we do step one, understand the prompt. What are they asking? It doesn’t say, What do you want to major in, exactly, but it says you can consider that. So if you know you want to major in, you might want to mention that. So we’re really getting granular there. And then we go to the second essay, and we say, Okay, what’s this question asking? What’s in here? What do they want to know? Why would they ask this? And how would these questions go together? Because we say these essays along with your common app personal statement. Now we’re looking at the larger application and your activities, and all of your classes and all the things you’ve done, those are now going to tell a story about you together. So the next question is, so once we make sure they really understand the prompt, and maybe this is the first group of supplements they’re they’re writing, maybe it’s the third group of supplements. In that case, one of the questions is, how is this prompt similar to or different from other ones you’ve written that might seem kind of like the same? Then we want, then we want to look at them strategically, and we say, Okay, what else do you want them to know about you from your common app, personal statement, here’s what they learned. What else do you want them to know? Now, for a why else essay, we say, we call it, you know, the dating essay. What do I know about you? What do I know about me? What stories can I tell you that show that we really go together? I like movies. You like movies? Oh, you like horror films, and I like Indies. Maybe we can’t go to the movies together. So we try to get you know as specific as possible that in our in our language is the theme again, what am I going to include and why? And we want them to look at unless there’s like, six supplements, it’s too much to keep in your head all at the same time. If there’s only two or three, we try to do that in one discussion. They don’t have to write them all at once, but just to understand that these are not individual pieces that stand alone. So that theme is, what am I going to write about and why we don’t want them to just sit down read a prompt and send us a draft? Because, like I said before, it’s hard to revise your way out of a poorly conceived idea. We want them, at least to have a concept and a purpose before they start.

Abby Power 39:29
Yeah, I love that. So it kind of pains me to bring up the next topic, and I know I have to embrace AI and the role it’s playing in our world and all the positives, but at this point, it’s hard, you know, to talk about essays without bringing up llms, large language models, chat, GPT. So in your opinion, what is lost in the essay writing process for kids when they use this sort of technology?

Susan Knoppow 39:55
So I think what we’re seeing right now, and I pay attention to all. All of the AI essay tools. I could name them for you. I could tell you what they do. I could tell you how much they cost, if they’re free or there’s a charge for them. Here’s what I see. Low hanging fruit are the two things I tell my colleagues not to do, and have been telling my colleagues not to do for 15 years, which is one, telling a student what to write, and two editing their essay, the only things I have seen llms do and in their wrappers of whatever online. So whether you just go to ChatGPT and say, I want them to know that I’m a good problem solver, and I want to write about the day I went fishing with my dad and says, write me an essay or using one of the current tools. And it can sound like sour grapes, right? They’re my competitors, but the low hanging fruit are those two things. You can put a lot of data into whatever model you want, and it’ll spit out ideas. It’ll give you you could write about this, this, this, and this, you know, tell me your best values, your six most important experiences, and three ways you like to spend your time on the weekend, and your four best characteristics. And it’ll give you ideas. It’ll tell you what to write, what I try to teach my colleagues, and I’ve found that this is what really opens up. Our process for counselors and independent consultants is telling them it’s not your job to mine for gold. It’s your job to teach students how to think about the essay which will help them, like my student with his driver’s head story, find a story that will be effective, because effective is your friend. Spectacular is not your goal. I mean, it would be nice if it’s like the best essay you’ve ever written. And every year we have one. I think we had ours already. It was amazing, but, but for most students, they kind of missed the point. So I tell so that’s the first thing that an LLM occur in its current version, people will come up with new things. I’m sure this is just the first generation. The next thing it can do is put my essay in and tell me how to make it better, which is the same as taking the essay and handing it to a person and saying, is this good? If the model could say, you know, from our discussion, you mentioned X, Y and Z, and that doesn’t seem to be here. I think you need to write more about it. I’d be more impressed. But if all it can do is say you might want to, you know, add to this, or include another example, or have you had these kinds of experiences, it’s not taking into account the student who wrote it. It’s treating the essay as an object. And it’s, there are people who do this, right? You can take your essay and you can give it to a company, or do an essay reader and say, make it better. So I am trying to be open minded. I am curious about this. I think there will be ways that AI will be useful in the essay world. I think about it, maybe I’ll make it. I don’t know, but what we have so far feels like a solution in search of a problem. And I don’t think that it’s the right solution. I just think it does the thing that people shouldn’t do. It just does it faster, because computation is fast,

Lisa Bleich 43:21
but I also feel like it like so much of the writing process, there’s a process that goes through of self reflection, of understanding what drives you making these connections that you wouldn’t have otherwise. And I think that’s going to be really hard to do with an LLM, because you’re not having that time to sort of take a step back, wrestle with the ideas, figure out what’s missing, and as good as they get, I don’t know that they’re going to ever do that for a person. A person has to. It’s almost like sending an LLM to therapy and saying, Okay, go to

Susan Knoppow 43:51
therapy. Go do that. I eventually there’ll be something, but I don’t know if it’s going to be in six months or six years. Well, there’s actually

Lisa Bleich 43:59
a there is a program. I haven’t looked at it. I don’t know if you have, Susan, but there Susan, but there is a program that they’ve been marketing to IEC that will do their editing, and then it’s a little bit nefarious, because they’ll do the editing, but then you’re not supposed to tell the clients, and you could decide if you want to include it or not. So I haven’t, I haven’t explored it, because it’s not something that we’re interested in doing, but it is out there. What are some other we always like to end with, like Myths and Truths About college essays. So I mean, I’ll start with one truth, which I think you touched on a little bit, but the that the supplements are actually in many schools, the more important essays than the personal statement. So that’s one truth that I think we’ve heard a lot. What are some other Myths and Truths that you have seen?

Susan Knoppow 44:44
Another truth is you will be impressive if you answer the question. I don’t know how many admissions people have said to me, tell your kids, if they really want to stand out, they should answer the question, because most people don’t, which is always it doesn’t. Surprise me anymore, but I think it’s really true. So that’s the truth. Just answer the question. They ask those questions for a reason, and they actually want your answer. A myth is that admissions readers that they don’t read them. Now I know that they go through applications quickly, but they do read them. Someone will read them. Another myth is that colleges are looking for specific characteristics, like, you need to build a profile that shows you are these four things. And that’s not true. They want positive characteristics. I mean, don’t tell them the how angry you are at the world. Another myth is that you shouldn’t write about fill in the blank, sports, religion, race, mental health, service, trips. Like, there’s all these myths. The reason those are there is that the truth is they’re usually handled poorly, because the essay doesn’t have a why. There’s no Why are you telling me about winning the soccer tournament? Well, because it was so amazing, I had broken my leg, and then I came back and I say, Okay, you broke your leg, you came back and you won. What if you hadn’t won? Would it still be a good story? If the answer is yes, then we can find a story there. Like, what did you do while you had a broken leg? If the story is no and it’s only about winning, it’s a really cool story, and that’s amazing, and I’m proud of you, but it’s not a college essay, so it’s not that you can’t write about certain things. It’s that if you’re going to write about anything, no matter what, you should know why you’ve chosen that topic.

Lisa Bleich 46:28
Yeah, that’s such good advice. And people always say that, Oh, you can’t write about all these things. I’m like, well, the topic isn’t the issue with just how you write about it and why you’re telling it. You kind of remind me of my marketing professor in business school, because whenever we would have to present a case, you would, you know, you’d go through all the data, and you’d be so nervous presenting the case, and she’d be like, and so what is the point? Like, why are you telling us this data? So it’s kind of that same idea. So whenever I hear someone say, why? And I that kind of stays with me, whenever I’m looking at anything, it’s like, why is it important? What is the point? Any last minute tips that you want to share with our

Susan Knoppow 47:03
listeners. My last tip for students is you’ve already done the hard things. You are good enough. Your writing skills are good enough. You don’t have to turn yourself into something that you’re not. When I do presentations to students, I always end with trust yourself, and I really think that’s important. They need to students trust yourself, and parents trust your students. And that’s huge, trust them.

Lisa Bleich 47:36
And I think that’s actually such a good point that to underscore because the worst thing that can happen is when a student is and we’ve had this happen with students super excited about their essay. They feel really good about it, you know, they worked really hard. They’re super happy. They feel like it reflects who they are. And then they give it to either a parent or maybe they give it to sometimes someone else, an outside person, and that person just destroys it, and then they start to second guess themselves, and they start to feel like you said that they’re not good enough, and that they it’s not a good essay. And we get so heartbroken when that happens, because they might then the parent will go, or someone will write it, and I’m like, or their, you know, their friend, their cousin at Stanford, will go and edit the essay. And I said, Okay, well, this is different. It’s written differently, but it’s not better. It hasn’t changed anything. It’s it’s a different voice. It’s a different essay, but it’s not a better essay than one, the one that you were so happy about. So trust yourself. You know you, you are good enough. And that’s a really, really good message to give out to our listeners. I like students to

Susan Knoppow 48:43
know that your story told in your voice and in your words, is what your readers are looking

Abby Power 48:51
for. Yeah, yes, yeah,

Lisa Bleich 48:53
absolutely, yeah. So great, such great advice. Well, thank you, CBMers, for tuning in. Thank you, Susan, for wowing us with your great essay advice, we’ll have a link to your free download on our site to catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor. Make sure to follow or subscribe, and if you do like it, please give us a review, because that helps with the rankings. Tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. To learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com Until next time, you got this!

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Us

Thanks for your e-mail. We’ll get back to you ASAP.

Not readable? Change text. captcha txt