- Hey, I'm Sam. - And I'm Gus.
- And this is part three of our three-part series
about writing your Common Application Essay
or personal statement,
and this part is about execution.
So we had ideation, you came up the great story
that says something about your character
and that indicates that you've changed.
You've outlined it in potentially a three-act structure
or something slightly different,
but one that definitely makes sure that the reader knows
that this is how you've changed
and this is what you want to communicate about yourself.
And so now, it's execution.
Write your essay!
- Good night. - That's it.
- No. - Write it!
- Come back, come back.
So, execution is making sure that the essay gets written,
and as anybody who has worked on any academic paper knows,
this is way easier said than done.
Probably the hardest part for a lot of people
of getting a complete essay is sitting down
and physically writing out five to six hundred words.
- [SpongeBob] I'm doing it! I'm doing it!
Yes, some of these, and some these.
Almost there and...
The.
Break time!
- That's obviously, again, easier said than done.
So we'll talk today a little bit about certain hangups
that people have when they actually get to
that writing phase, right?
It can feel daunting, because you're writing a story
that's supposed to encapsulate so much
about who you are as a person, so it can be hard to just
overcome the hump of actually just starting to write it.
- Right, so probably one of the most important
first steps of execution is really trusting your outline.
So go back to your outline,
look over the ideas that you've put down.
If you don't feel confident in your outline,
you're not going to feel confident in your essay.
So go back to the outline and make sure
that you're actually doing the parts
that we spoke about in the last video.
If you feel confident in your outline,
then you just need to work on the dedication
of writing the essay.
So there are a couple ways that people going about
making sure that they hit these writing deadlines.
One way is to not use the delete key at all.
Basically, anything that you write down,
you don't have to use it in the final version,
but you're not allowed to go back.
So if you wind up starting your essay 10 times
and writing out a full version of the essay each time
because you can't go back,
that's one way it's gonna get done.
Another that people go about making sure
that the writing deadlines get done
is you make an agreement with somebody,
whether it's a parent, or a sibling, or a close friend,
and you say, "Hey, I'm gonna have this essay draft
"delivered to you next week.
"If I don't, come find me."
- I will find you.
And I will kill you.
- It can also be good to set timed sessions to write.
I've found that one attempt at the Common App essay
that I've had at writing,
I gave myself several weeks to do it,
and so I slaved over it, and I overthought it,
and I overwrote it, and it was too long,
and I didn't like it, and it didn't feel like
it was actually saying anything about me,
because I gave myself a solid three weeks.
A different time, I'd come up with the idea
that ended up ultimately being the idea for my Common App
and I gave myself two days to write it.
I was like, "You get two sittings to write this."
And sometimes that can be helpful,
is to set what seems like a more unrealistic deadline
or say, "I'm going to write for 90 minutes straight
"and I'm gonna have some sort of draft by the end of it."
That can be a lot more helpful,
to just get it out on paper, get a first draft.
The first draft does not need to be...
great, doesn't even have to be good.
You just get it out there and you will feel so much better
once you've had a draft,
and maybe you'll burn that whole draft to the ground.
- Probably a total waste of my time.
- Really our biggest advice here
is just force yourself to do it,
whether it's with someone else or with a timed deadline.
- Once you have a draft that you feel good about,
but you're not sure if you should continue working on
or if you should start again,
one good way of figuring out if that's the draft
you should keep working on is by giving it to people
and asking them, "Can you read this and tell me
"what you think I'm trying to get across in this essay?"
And so if your parent reads this essay and says,
"I'm not really sure what you're trying
"to communicate about yourself in this essay."
You should start again.
But if they read it and they say,
"Oh, I understood what you're trying to say about yourself,
"but I don't like these little grammatical things,"
then we're moving into the process of revision.
Also, a precursor to all that is,
it can be good to finish a draft of the essay,
give yourself a couple days and then just reread it yourself
after having given yourself a little bit of separation
from the actual anxiety and stress of writing it.
Revise it yourself, and get it to a place
where you feel good about it
before you give it to other people,
because other people will read it and they will help you,
and if you're lucky enough to connect up
with some sort of mentor who's meeting with you
on a more regular basis, you can ensure
that they will read more times, through more drafts.
But ultimately, you want to get it to a place
so that you're valuing the time of the person
who's reading it for you.
So get it at a good spot,
so that the advice that they give you
is more along the lines of the story
and the character that you're trying to communicate
rather than things like grammatical errors and syntax.
- [Teacher] Please tear out the entire introduction.
I want it gone.
- It's not necessarily polite to go to somebody
who you're hoping will give you advice on your essay
and then it turns into a proofreading job for them,
and they're looking at comma mistakes
and capitalization errors.
You want to make sure that the essay
is basically clean of mistakes on the surface level
when you're asking for advice.
- Right, because the more valuable input
that someone can give can be about
how effective your story is,
and how compelling that story is,
and how much that story communicates
the change that you've gone through
and the character that you're trying to communicate.
So once you have successfully selected
an essay draft that you want to keep working on
and you have revised it with a mentor or yourself,
then basically the last thing you're gonna want to do
is give it a final proofread,
there can be no typos in this essay.
It has the best,
cleanest piece of writing you've ever put out,
because these essays are really read into
by admissions officers.
This is your opportunity to speak directly to them
and it doesn't reflect well
that you really care about this process
if you have even small mistakes in this paper.
All right, so that's the gist of advice
that can be given to you via YouTube video
for this type of essay.
At a certain point, you know, follow all the advice
from these last three videos,
but you just gotta sit down, write out a list of topics,
write out an outline, and then you gotta write the essay.
And then also, at a certain point,
it's important to remember that this essay
is very important but it's not the end-all-be-all
because you have quite a few other essays to write,
all the supplement essays
for all the schools that you're gonna apply to.
So really make sure that you're setting out enough time
to do all this and a great resource for that
is Crimson Education.
I know Crimson Education from the look
of the YouTube channel can sometimes just be us
telling compelling stories with really cool students
who we meet, right?
But Crimson Education has a lot more to it,
they have people who are more academic experts than we are
who can actually help you one-on-one
create the stories that you need to create
so that you can have a compelling reason
for schools to accept you onto their campuses.
Best of luck in the essay writing
and if you have any other questions,
please comment them below
and we'll try to answer them in a video.
Or you can email us info@crimsoneducation.org
and we'll get back to you.
- I'm Sam! - And I'm Gus!
- [Both] And thanks for watching!