How I Got Into Harvard: Reading My Supplemental Essay (Essay Tips)

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In this video, I'll be reading the supplemental essay that got me into Harvard University and going over some tips. If you feel the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey in foreign information about yourself or your accomplishments, you may write on a topic of your choice or you may use. You can take something from that list, or you could write something completely different. I think I did, but it was what is something you have always wanted to do? I was a professional makeup artist at age seven. Blue Skies was ready to take on the Internet until I realized skies was spelled incorrectly the entire time. I just passed 1500 views and was starting to take space in the pageant community at every pageant I've attended since the start of the Queen next door in April 2018. So now I'm gonna give you guys some tips and take you through the process that I went through when it came to reading my Harvard University supplement as well, just the other supplements I did instead because I wrote a lot. My common app essay was about the blood I started called the Queen next door, and how that came as a result of me overcoming adversity in my school and my Harvard essay, as you just heard, was about me starting the Kleenex store and the development of that. Both of these have unifying theme that I'm not afraid to start something and that I won't let the environment around me, like, deter me from my dreams and doing what I want to do. Yeah, that first it is to be consistent and show that old though you're multifaceted person and your three dimensional character like you do have some values, that kind of a line you throughout the entire college process because they're gonna want to remember you as, like one or two things. So you wanna So you want to make sure those one or two things are really good. Okay? Even if there may be some like overarching themes that are pretty similar leg for me, I am a black girl that wants to go in Stem and I have existed in predominately white spaces my entire life, and that was kind of what my comment up essay was about. I know there are a 1,000,000,000 little black girls who want to go into stem, who exists in predominately white institutions. That's been a huge part of your life, like there are a lot of people with with that same kind of story, but only you can turn it in a way or twisted in a way that's really authentic to you and is very specific to you. Yeah, you just want to be a very specific in your story that you want to tell. The second and probably most obvious way to stand out when it comes to specifically Harvard Supplement and any other colleges that have open ended supplements like that is to just write something or respond to a prompt that isn't on the list. Like write your own problems because one you just eliminated, like most the vast majority, 99% of the applicant pool from kind of competing with you directly because you two have very different essay topics. Like if I'm in the visions officer and I'm reading all these essays, I dear Future rooming to Your Future Roommate gets kind of annoying, but it's really refreshing when they come across an essay that writes about whatever they want to write about. Don't be afraid to reuse essays like that Harvard essay that I just read. It was from my University of Chicago like application, like reusing essays is not a terrible thing. You know, if you're reusing an essay, just be sure that it's relevant. It was basically, like, write whatever you want And then for this Harvard s A It's like write whatever you want. If I write a why want to goto Barnyard essay and submit it to Amherst? That's not gonna fly. You want to share and then share, Like if you if you had another common app as, say, idea that your teacher shot down or something, or someone shot down just like you know what? I'm gonna write about this because I want to write about it and yeah, and like Harvard will take it. Those stories that you like really, genuinely want to share, that you haven't had the chance to tend to be very well bring and very uniquely or so which help you stand out in summary of number two. It's a stand out one by truly being yourself in the most authentic way you can being very specific about your situation, giving anecdotal examples or to writing your own prom writing and responding to your own prompt because that already eliminates, like most of the applicant pool, because they're not right what you're writing about and it's the admissions office. So my third and final tip for this video is to take a rich. Don't be afraid to take risks on the college, like in the college application process. The first thing when it comes to taking a risk, at least now in this point is primarily your essays, because you can't take a risk in your transcript. Your s a t here, Jia, like you can't take a risk in any of those things you can in essays, and that helps you stand out and connecting the dots. Taking a risk, it looks different for everyone, like, obviously, for me, it took the shape of writing something that wasn't obviously expected. Three had also developed your character in the kind of risk you want to take. If I am writing my essay on how I'm not afraid to start my own business with my save the birthday money, then it kind of makes sense that I'm not afraid to take a risk and write about whatever I want in the college essay like it just stays consistent with that. That's what all of these essays and your whole applications about how you'll contribute to the campus community. Some other ways you can take risks in your essays is one like doing your own prompt only if it's allowed of to you taking one of their props and kind of flipping it on its head, like spinning in your own way or three. Directly addressing the admissions officer, I did that at the end of my essay, as you very and I thought it worked well, it worked over me. Yeah, my Cornell University Human Ecology essay and I also got in there. So just to summarize tip number three of taking a risk, it helps you be more memorable. The best place to take risk is in the essay writing process to your own problems, like completely have your own spin on one of their palms or directly address the admissions officer. She have a stories that you want to share and number three Don't be afraid to take a risk because often times they fail. Then I'll probably doing another video going through my comment up, like going through my extracurricular activities, and I'll do one on my common app essay and how to start reading your common app.