The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions - 515: Inside the Application Part 1: Brainstorming, Outlining, and Drafting with Cassidy, HS Senior

515: Inside the Application Part 1: Brainstorming, Outlining, and Drafting with Cassidy, HS Senior

08/20/24 • 43 min

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Today’s episode kicks off a new series, Inside the Application. Ethan is joined by Cassidy, a current high school senior who is working on her college applications for the Fall 2025 term. Ethan and Cassidy will be walking step-by-step through the college application process as it unfolds this school year. In episode 1, they get into:

How did Cassidy approach brainstorming and outlining for her personal statement?
What brainstorming activities helped Cassidy pick her topic?
Cassidy’s first draft of her personal statement
Ethan’s suggestions for revision
And more

This series will also be different in that, normally, we share episodes-in-a-series consecutively. For these, we’re releasing them pretty much as we record them, so you’ll notice them interspersed among other topics we’ll be covering.

Stay tuned for future episodes where Ethan and Cassidy continue the conversation! They’ll revisit her personal statement, talk about supplemental essays, go over how Cassidy developed her college list, and even talk a little bit about the activities list and the additional information section. We’ll continue to check in with Cassidy to see how things are going, and you’ll find out how it turned out a few months from now.

Cassidy is a current high school student going through the college application process. She lives in the Bay Area, loves ballet, knows a lot about Biology, and identifies as a “yapper”—more on that in our conversation.

We hope you enjoy!

Play-by-play:

2:57 - Getting to know Cassidy through her brainstorming materials
- 3:27 - Cassidy’s social identities
- 4:29 - Cassidy’s values
- 7:05 - Cassidy’s superpower
- 8:12 - Cassidy’s islands of personality
8:40 - What were some of the topics Cassidy considered for her essay?
13:51 - Cassidy walks through her essay outline and examples
16:01 - How did outlining make things easier for Cassidy?
18:48 - Cassidy reads the first draft of her personal statement
22:42 - Cassidy shares her thoughts on her draft
26:04 - Ethan gives feedback
39:18 - Ethan shares suggestions for the next draft
41:52 - Closing thoughts

Resources

How did Cassidy approach brainstorming and outlining for her personal statement?
What brainstorming activities helped Cassidy pick her topic?
Cassidy’s first draft of her personal statement
Ethan’s suggestions for revision
And more

We hope you enjoy!

Play-by-play:

2:57 - Getting to know Cassidy through her brainstorming materials
- 3:27 - Cassidy’s social identities
- 4:29 - Cassidy’s values
- 7:05 - Cassidy’s superpower
- 8:12 - Cassidy’s islands of personality
8:40 - What were some of the topics Cassidy considered for her essay?
13:51 - Cassidy walks through her essay outline and examples
16:01 - How did outlining make things easier for Cassidy?
18:48 - Cassidy reads the first draft of her personal statement
22:42 - Cassidy shares her thoughts on her draft
26:04 - Ethan gives feedback
39:18 - Ethan shares suggestions for the next draft
41:52 - Closing thoughts

Resources

Previous Episode

514: Navigating Mental Health Disclosures in the College Application: The Student Perspective

Welcome to the final episode to our special three-part series on mental health disclosures in college applications. In Episode 3, Ethan’s guest is Emi Nietfeld, author of Acceptance (Penguin Press '22), a critically-acclaimed memoir of her high school journey through foster care, homelessness, and the troubled teen industry to attend college at Harvard. In this frank conversation, Emi opens up about, among other things:

How the notion of disclosing (or not disclosing) may actually be somewhat problematic
The difference between writing about challenges in general... and writing about them for the purposes of the college application
The role she believes high school counselors can play in supporting students with mental health challenges during the college application process
Takeaways for college admissions officers evaluating applications that include mental health disclosures
And more

Play-by-Play

2:14 - Emi shares her background and story
3:50 - What advice would Emi give to students about whether or not to disclose?
9:20 - What did Emi write about in her book, Acceptance?
11:55 - What was the college application process like for Emi?
14:24 - How did Emi’s college essay change from the first to final draft?
19:49 - Where else in the application are there opportunities to disclose?
23:38 - What did the rest of Emi’s application look like?
30:00 - How has writing helped Emi process her experiences?
33:17 - How can high school counselors help their students navigate this process?
36:11 - What advice would Emi give to college admission readers?
42:29 - How has Emi’s life been different since writing Acceptance?
46:40 - What are Emi’s hopes for the future of mental health disclosures in college applications?

Resources

Emi’s book, Acceptance
Blog post linked to this episode: Should I Discuss Mental Health in My Personal Statement or College Application? (And If So, How)?
Part 1 of this series – Episode 512: The Counselor Perspective
Part 2 of this series – Episode 513: The Admission Officer Perspective
How to Use the Common App Additional Information Section: Guide + Examples
How to Brainstorm 7 Different Personal Statement Ideas
Episode 406: Why You Don’t Have to Write about Trauma in Your College Essay to Stand Out—and What You Can Do Instead

Next Episode

516: Inside the Application (Part 2): Developing the Personal Statement, Supplemental Essays, and College List with Cassidy, HS Senior

Today’s episode is part two of our series, Inside the Application. Ethan is joined by Cassidy, a current high school senior who is working on her college applications for the Fall 2025 term. Ethan and Cassidy will be walking step-by-step through the college application process as it unfolds this school year. In episode 2, they get into:

How is Cassidy’s personal statement coming along?
What does Cassidy want colleges to know about her?
How is Cassidy approaching her supplemental essays?
What is Cassidy looking for in a college and how did she develop her list?
And more

Stay tuned for future episodes where Ethan and Cassidy continue the conversation! This series is a bit different in that, normally, we share episodes-in-a-series consecutively. For these, we’re releasing them pretty much as we record them, so you’ll notice them interspersed among other topics we’ll be covering. We’ll continue to check in with Cassidy to see how things are going, and you’ll find out how it turned out a few months from now.

We hope you enjoy!

Play-by-play

1:36 - What has Cassidy been working on since last episode?
3:28 - Cassidy reads draft two of her personal statement
7:51 - Cassidy shares her thoughts on her draft
9:18 - Ethan gives feedback and shares suggestions for the next draft
12:57 - Ethan reviews Cassidy’s "Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me" list
21:38 - Ethan reviews Cassidy’s CommonApp Activities List and Additional Info sections
26:09 - What is Cassidy looking for in a college and how did she develop her list?
25:00 - Ethan reads the supplemental prompts from Cassidy’s college list tracker
35:56 - What is a “super topic" and how might it help Cassidy?
50:50 - What is the Roles and Identities exercise?
58:55 - What are Cassidy’s next steps in her drafting process?