## Intro and the Real Goal of the Personal Statement [00:00] What's up everyone? Coach Tony here. Welcome to our training on writing compelling personal statements. A quick, this will be a oneonone guide from nothing to getting your first draft completed for your personal statements. If it's our very first time meeting, my name is Coach Tony. I'm actually a college admissions adviser helping students with the college admissions process for the last 16 years now. was a former uh UC Berkeley admissions reader, former UCLA director, uh co-founder of a charter high school, a former Tik Tok college admissions partner as well, too. I've been doing college admissions for the last 16 years, and our kids literally go everywhere. If you guys have seen our success stories, feel free to go to egolock.com/success stories and you'll see our students literally end up everywhere. Our kids went to the Ivy's this past year. Our students went to top private schools, top out of state schools, top state schools, everything in between as well too. So we may know a thing or two about the application process itself. And here we kind of give you kind of what we teach our family so you guys can uh replicate the same with you guys. Right? So the the topic today is writing a personal statement. So again like I mentioned the the the preface of it the the frame for this training is like I'm about to start writing soon. What should I do? How should I think about it to make sure we have the best personal statement at the end of the day. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Really, we are going live uh for folks who are here with me on Zoom. If you guys can see me, see my screen. Can you crop a quick little yes in the chat if you guys can uh see that so I can make sure I am either sharing the right screen or things are looking good. Awesome. Fantastic. Fantastic. Cool. So, let's go ahead and talk about it. Right. So, first off, what are personal statements? Right. are personal statements is kind of the first one for the they're the really 101 right so basically these are the main college essay right I'm going to put in quotes right now main college essay of the common application right so what is the common application next question this is the one common application is used to apply to thousands of colleges in the US right so if you go to the common app I think commonapp org as well too or common application.org or just Google common app on Google it'll pop up it's a web it's an application right it's an application that you will send it will send it to a bunch of schools so how it works is in the common application right there's going to be different sections under it there's going to be the personal information section there's going to be the academic sections there going to be the activities awards section and there's going to be the personal statement which we're gonna talk about today right as well too and then today right and then there's also going to be supplements right uh per ## Why You Should Not Start with the Prompts [03:00] college so how this works is that when you guys do the common application all this is the same information that's used to send to every school that you are applying to right so if you're applying to 10 schools via common application this first four sections right sections is all get sent together. What's different is this supplement, right? Each school may have none. Each school might schools might have one, two, three. I think Stanford, USC has like nine, right? They have a lot. So the idea is each school has a different set of number of supplements that for example the examples here is like the why us, why do you want to go to our school? Another example is why major, why do you want to study this at our school? And these type of types of questions that you'll see. But right what we're going to focus on today is the personal statement right that's going to be the focus for today's session right so let's go start so now that we understand this is what the topic is going to be let's dive in so the first step we do right so again keep in mind right keep FYI right the the common application will open will open on August 1st right uh of the year so for any of our 2026 families the common application will open August 1st However, however, you can go create an account right now, right? Account right now. You don't have to wait till August 1st. You can enter your information in, especially your personal information is probably not going to change between now and then. Your academics so far from from 9th grade to now is not going to change too much anymore, right? The things that you did, the blurbs may change, by the way. spoilers. The blurs might change, but you can start adding things in there as well, too, right? And spoilers again, the personal statement prompts are already released, right? So, the ## Activities... Experiences... and Identities Framework [05:00] 2026, right, the 2025 2026 uh common application promp the the personal statement prompts personal statement prompts, right, are already released as well too, which means you can start writing them. That that's the whole takeaway of them being early. So the app will opened on August 1st, the new one, but you can start it earlier and get most things done, kind of see stuff ahead of time. Don't wait till August 1st to officially do it. Do it now after this call. Not right now during the call, but after this call this weekend, go ahead and create an account. It's free. Doesn't cost you anything as well too. You're going to create an account over here. Okay, so that's that's number one. So first thing is you can start on this early is the is the biggest thing. Okay. So, uh I'm going to follow by the way for those who uh are in and I know I see I look at the the listening. We have over 124 people here. Shout out to everyone who's here live. Um some a lot of our coaching families are here. Uh a lot of the stuff I'm going to be viewing today is based on our kickstart workbook. So, this is one of the events that we throw for our rising seniors every single year. is basically it's an event to help our students go from nothing to their first drafts completed. So I'll be using elements from this workbook. This workbook we give to our students once they sign up for the event if you guys are interested. It's a pretty cool event. We just hosted one this past weekend. We had 70 students. We had 70 students attend. We basically they all came in with nothing but like a blank Google doc and they all left with their first drafts personal statements completed as well too. So how do they do that? I'm going to teach you guys in the next uh maybe 20 30 minutes as well too. All right. So the first thing you see here is the word brainstorming. Right. So out of the brainstorming stage right? So first off right I do let's do step zero. Step zero, right? Do not look at the prompts. Right? This is the one ## Filtering Out the Surface-Level Stories [07:00] thing a lot of people make a mistake on. They go straight to the questions that the the even though the prompts are ready, don't look at it yet. Right? People go straight to the prompts and try to find, oh, that one I can talk about this or that one, I can talk about that. What do I what story could I use now? You're doing it the wrong way, right? You're trying to again give the the answer to the reader. The readers don't care about the readers care about you. So, you want to start with you first. and then find something that matches you. So, our first tip, by the way, do not look at the prompts. It's kind of my our first recommendation for students, right? Once you don't look at the prompts, the real step number one is you want to identify your activities, experiences, and identities that defined you in high school. Right? What this means is that in high school, you probably did a bunch of activities, right? Uh activities. For example, you probably did clubs at your school. You probably did sports at your school. Maybe you took a class, right? Class that you did as well, too. Um, maybe you did uh what else did you do? Maybe a volunteering thing. Maybe a leadership thing that you remembered as well too. That's something that you did, right? Experiences, right? Think of this as like life events. Why? What life events did you go through as well too? Maybe it's like a uh a family thing, right? Something something something happened in the family. You remember that? Maybe it's like a uh a uh turning of the page, right? Of like, hey, something a new chapter in your book. New chapter in your book uh of life as well too, right? Something happened something something like life um life altering, right? Altering as well too. Something that's like so big like wow, I cannot forget that ever as well, right? And last one, not events, events, right? And last one is going to be identities, right? Identities, right? Basically, what identities do you belong to as well too, right? So some of like for me, for me growing up, I wasn't I grew up as an immigrant family, right? I grew up immigrant family myself as well too. Um, as well. So kind of other identities, right? I I'm Asian, right? So the boom identities there as well too. Other identities that I belong to, I can share in here if it matters a big thing for me. So these are kind of examples of that. So first thing you do is you do this, right? You kind just brain dump all these activities down on paper so you kind of know what it is that you did, right? And here's the key. Here's the key here. Like that the tip here is do all of this in 10 minutes, right? If it doesn't come to you in under 10 minutes, it's not that important. Say it one more time. And by the way, tip do it. Tip number two, right? Students do this alone. Students do this alone without parents. Right? Tip number one, do it tip number two. Right? The answer uh student should do this alone. Right? Is the thing is uh if it doesn't come up right away, it's probably there but it's not that important to you. Cuz what I'm trying to ## Ranking and Choosing the Top 4–5 Life Influences [10:00] do now too, I'm trying to start to filter. I'm trying to filter things in your life that's very important to you. Right. Next thing is you should do your pants cuz parents, you know, oh yeah, you did this. Oh yeah, cuz parents, you have a great memory. Kids do not have a good memory nowadays, right? So, but if they didn't think about that, here's another way to think about it. It wasn't that important to them, right? My parents told me a lot of things growing up that was important to them. I didn't view it that way. Me going a little older, I see why they said what they said, but in in the moment that wasn't important to me at that time, right? So, again, do this without the parents. Right? So, that's the first step uh is to identify all this. Right? Now once you have a list of activities, identities and experiences, step number two, step number two is what we want to do is want we want to identify four to five uh u activities, experience, identities, right? That made you who you are today. Who you are today, right? So keep in mind, right? Let's say for example I talked about being part of leadership as one one of the clubs at my school leadership as well too right so then what I would think about is did this make me into the person I am today another way to ask that question is what if I never did this what if I never did X right how different would my life be Right? Think about this way, guys. So this morning, hopefully you guys ate breakfast. If not, hopefully you ate lunch. And for those of you guys who skip most meals, hopefully you ate dinner. Hopefully you're eating something, right? But would you agree that if you ate something else, life wouldn't change too much, right? Life wouldn't be too different because like you probably different things, but for the most part, it'll probably be the same as well, too. Nothing drastic will change. So that's something you did cuz keep in mind, everything we do has made us who we are. Think of it that way. Everything you've done in life has made you who you are today. However, some things matter more. Some things make you more than the the normal things, right? So, I think that's the big thing here. Hey, maybe leadership it was important, but again, if I didn't do it, I'd be probably the same person. Not something super different, right? But what if you talk about soccer? Oh, man. If I never kicked the soccer ball by my my my my life, I'd be so different. I'd be way more shy and way more of this and blah blah blah blah as well. And that's how you know that's going to be a big one. So what I tell students do identify what is your first one, right? What's the first right and then that's first one. Then what's the second thing? What's the third thing right? What's the fourth thing? Fourth thing as well and you have if you have another one you can do fifth thing as well. But the idea is you're identifying right these things these uh someone asked a question what's eia uh activities experience uh identities ## Story Time... Bullet Pointing Each Memory [13:00] right here activities experiences identities right uh that made you who you are today right is is the key underline it for underline for those in the back right boom right that make you who you are today and put an order this one made me the most of who I am the other ones and not as much gold and you go on the order and you'll find out there's usually like again four to five things total the rest of it made a role but it's not as big as these four right so you would say oh man if I didn't do number one I'd be a different person altogether right from this then I usually have so that's that's step number two by the way so you identify these these things as well too then step number three right is called story time right step three for us is called story time what step number three is is that each of these things that you mentioned, right? So each topic, each topic you picked, right, you picked for a reason, right? So there's probably a highlight, right? Probably a highlight. There's probably a low light. There's probably a significant event, right? There's probably something that's like you cannot forget the memory. You cannot for memory um you cannot forget. And the reason why is this is as humans we think of everything in stories. Right? Think about this. So if if you want to if you want to uh entertain yourself right now, right? If I told you right now, think of an elephant, right? And now in your brain, you're thinking of an elephant as well too, right? If I told you guys, think about one of your happiest moments when you were in fifth grade. When you were 10 years old, when what was what was one of your favorite memories when you were 10 years old? Right now, all of us, we're visualizing something that made us happy when we were 10 years old. If I told you guys, think about what do you think when you you hear the word family and all of you are and it's a memory. It's a it's like a specific memory. It's not one thing. It's like a memory of something whatever when you hear that word right that's how our brain works our brain associates things to like videos right memories as well too so the idea is we think of in stories so what I tell our students now that you have each thing say let's say example right so example soccer right is number my number one thing right then I'm like what's the story when I said so when I picked soccer that was probably a story I thought of when I said the word soccer I said soccer not soccer soccer, right? Then you want to the task is going to be write the story in 10 bullets or less, right? Meaning uh this then that, right? Then three, then four, then five, then six, then seven, then eight, then nine, then 10 or less, ## Why Only 30 Percent Should Be Story... and 70 Percent Should Be “Why” [16:00] right? Each one really short, right? Not a long sentence, short. Another way to say this is tell me the whole thing in 30 seconds, right? and you tell me boom this happened. The reason why is as humans we love to tell stories. We like to expand it really really really really big. But the trick is this is jumping ahead again. This is not the main purpose of the personal statement. Most people think the personal statement is a big story. That's 100% wrong. Right? You do not want to tell a big story. Right? This should only be 30% of your prompts. So with the the personal statement 650 words, right? It should be what around 200ish words on your story. That's it. Which is like like a page like this is a page of of words, right? As well too. The rest is something else we'll talk about in a little bit. But here, bullet points and stories. So you want to tell the stories of each of these story story. Each of these has a story to it as well too. Once you have the story, right, then we move on to step number four. Step number four is going to be uh dig deep. This is this is quot coach Art on our team. He's our head of coaching uh and uh one of his famous f phrases for our students, right? Dig deep, right? Dig deep meaning why did you pick this story? It's the endless I call it the endless Y ladder, right? Ladder as well too. Meaning a student tells me something, right? So student says something, right? Says say says something, right? Then me, I'd ask them why, right? Then they student says uh something something else. Then I ask them hm why. And then we keep doing this and we keep going why. We keep going why why why until ## Dig Deep... The Endless Why Ladder [18:00] until you go this until the reason is no longer the story right and the reason is about who the student is. That's how I know we went why deep enough as well too because it's no longer about the story. It's no longer about soccer, for example, right? But it's about something deeper than soccer. So that's could be the big key of these problems. Again, most people think, oh, it's just a talk about my soccer story, how awesome I was. No, no, no. How many other kids are going to talk about soccer? So many, right? So the what makes you different is not the soccer. It's going to be the who are you behind the soccer. That's going to be the key here. This is what dig deep means as well. Okay. So that's gonna be the biggest thing over here there. Okay. So that's that. And once you have dig deep, right? Once you have a dig deep for each each of the items, now now going back to the original prompt, right? Now that we have dig deep, last step is now step five. Then now we pick the prompt as well. Right? Now we pick the prompt. After all that people think, oh, I saw the prompt I drew. No, no, no. We want to make sure and the reason why this works so well is there are things that we want the reader to know. Aka, boom, we are things that we want the reader to know. Number two, right, there's a specific story I want them to understand. Boom, that's done. There's things I want them to know about who I am. Boom, that's dig deep. But if you start the other way around, you usually think of surface level stuff. you don't you never right as well too like oh that's a good problem about my identity oh I'm I'm uh I'm I'm this let me talk about that right and that might not be the true core of who you are this way we kind of force the real answer to come out for the real and now that you know what you want to talk about we can go back and we call us assign the questions to them right and actually we actually tell teach our students a little tip on how to do this but I'm going to skip the tips for you guys and if you guys want to go to uh a kickstart. You you you'll get you'll get the the uh the tips there. But right here are the prompts, right? Here are the prompts of the climbing apps, right? So there are seven prompts you can pick from um as well too. And you only need to pick one. It's one prompt, 650 words uh as well too. So you get to use that. And again, hopefully if you're doing this live, right? Don't read the question first, right? Start earlier. You should by now you should know what topics you want to talk about. You should know the story. You should know the uh the uh the dig deep. Now you have to pick the prompt, right? And from here, actually I think I missed a step. Let's just do 4.5. Step 4.5. It fits here nicely, right? 4.5 is ## Choosing the Right Prompt After You Have the Core [21:00] pick the top prompt, right? Pop topic as well too. The top is defined. top is makes the the the most impactful topic that made you who you are today. Meaning these are the four things that we identified that made us who we are. But which three is probably more than the fourth one? Get that rid of that number four. Which two is more important? Get rid of that. And which one by process elimination, you'll end up with one thing that's probably who you are at the core. the most important thing that you have done literally in high school it's part activity identity or or a identity activity experience or identity that made you who you are today and that's what you want to make sure you focus on for the colleges right so now right you pick that one thing right pick that one thing now you go and pick the prompt because now that you have right because now because we have the topic We have the story. We have the dig deep or the why as well too. We have the whole prompt done. Now you go through these questions and you see which prompt which prompt allows me to talk about my topic story. Dig deep. That's it. People make it more complicated needs to be. That's literally it. So I go through each of these. There's no good. Actually, I lied. There is one that we say avoid, right? We avoid, right? Pro tip. Pro tip. Uh, we recommend avoiding prompt number seven. This is prompt number seven. Prompt number seven says, share an essay on a topic of your choice. How do I read that? Right? How do you know you did it right? or how do I know it's good or not? It's too hard. It's too like objective sub too subjective as well too, right? It's hard to know if I did it right or not. So, that's a really really hard prompt if you guys knows if you think about it, right? If I give you like, hey, do you want to do A or B? It's an easy choice. But if I say, hey, what do you want to do? It's really hard. It's it's like a what do you want to eat? You probably hear that during dinners, right? Or whatever. Hey, what do you want to eat? I don't know, right? But if you say you want to eat here or here, it's much easier. Oh, I want to go here. Given choices, right? So this one, number seven is too broad. It's too broad to get right. That's why we recommend students pick between one through six. And if you read the prompts here, they're so broad. All six problems are so broad that you could literally use any topic you can think of. I guarantee you can use one of the six and be able to answer it as well too, right? ## Why Prompt 7 Fails the “Whiteout Test” [24:00] So for example, number one is some students have a background identity identity interest or talent so meaningful their app will be incomplete like if it sounds you please share your story. Number two the lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamentally a success. Recount time when you set a set challenge setback or failure. How did it affect you? What did you learn from the experience? Number three reflect on a time you question or challenge a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? Number four, reflect something that has done someone that has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? Number five, discuss an accomplishing event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. Number six, describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging it makes you lose track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you learn more? Any topic you literally can think of will fit under one of these six topics because they're so broad as well to you. You you could easily find one of the six that works, right? So that is how you actually pick the prompts. Okay. So now that we have the pick the prompts, right? Uh let let me add uh well step one step uh let's do let's do uh step six, right? Let me do some some some additional tips and strategies. Some additional tips and strategies for you guys, right? So, when it comes to uh writing this, right? First draft, treat your first draft as a messy draft, right? Look at the we we even call it the messy draft as well too. The reason why is students, right, feel it has to be perfect. No, it's never perfect. The first thing you do, anything is never perfect, is never right. But we need to get your ideas down on paper. If you're going to get help and get and getting this edited, I can't know what you're thinking in your head unless you tell me what you're thinking in your head yourself. So, the first draft, we call it a messy draft. What you want to do is you want to expand on your story bigger. You want to expand on your dig deep, right? The why, right? Okay, it's what it is, right? And you want to answer the questions in the prompt. Those are the three things you want to make sure you do in the first one. And you want to hit the first draft over a thousand words. Whoa, it's a lot. It's actually not a lot. It's actually pretty simple if you pick the right topic as well, too. It's very easy to talk about yourself. Um, is the thing, right? So, that that's the big thing. You want to spend as many words. The reason why is that later on when we cut it down is much easier to cut than it is to add. So I rather add it all the beginning and all we do the next few months is cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut to get back to to get down to that 650 words that we're looking for uh is the key over here. Okay, so that's the first one treat your ## Drafting Tips... Why You Don’t Need a Hook or Intro [27:00] first draft as a messy draft. The next thing to keep in mind you do not need to write uh need to write an essay. What that mean? I used the quotes, right? Meaning no no need for a hook, no need for a hook, no need for intro paragraph, no need for conclusion as well too, right? Unless you need the words. So, and if you need the words, I'll ask like why why why was it hard to figure out things? Because with this, right, um they're not looking for a writing sample. I'm not judging your writing skills based on this. I just want to learn who you are is the key. So, you want to focus more on who you are there, which again the body, the story, the dig deep part of who you are yourself. That's going to be the key as well. Okay. And then, um, one more thing, one more tip. Um, what about the other essays? Right? What about the other topics? Right? So, last tip for you guys, you see how when I when I did this, I had you guys pick not one thing that you thought was really big. I had you pick multiple, right? One, two, three, four, right? That was really big. So what you want to do is let's say I talk about soccer in this number two I talked about uh math. All right math tutor this actually I'll take a math tutor right in that case let's say soccer becomes my personal statement. Then guess what I'm going to use the math tutor prompt for. Right, you want to right? What about other topics? You use the other topics as the base for your supplements, right? In your supplements, they're going to ask you similar questions about learning who you are. Again, no need to guess, no need to do thing. We know what we want to say anyways. Use this. Let's say or and so let's say they ask what's your favorite subject like maybe math. I can use that probably and talk about that a little while too. So you're going to recycle a bunch of your prompts for the supplements themselves and that's going to be the key of this as well. Okay, one last actually bonus topic for you. Bonus top bonus tip as well too. Uh do uh there's something called the white out test because this is this is if you guys are applying to personal statement schools, you guys are applying to private schools, they will probably have supplements. There's something called a white out test you got to make sure you do right. So the white out test is basically uh if you white out white out the name of the college in the in your response would it still make sense for any for any other school for example example right uh I want to go to Harvard because it's a great school they have amazing professors and a beautiful campus. All right. White out test means I take this. I'm going to white out the name of the school. I want to go to ## What to Do With the Stories You Don’t Use [30:00] blank because it's a great school. They have amazing amazing professor and beautiful campus. What about I say I want to go to Yale because it's a great school. They have a amazing professor and a beautiful campus. Does that make sense? It could, right? I want to go to UCLA because it's a great school. Beautiful campus. That makes sense, too. So if it makes sense, this is example example of a bad right bad why us prompt as well because why us needs to be why us needs to be needs to be needs to be solely used for that school only. later on when students try to copy paste copy paste stuff. This is the one prompt you should not copy paste anything. You should start from scratch from every y because every school is different. The other prompts you can copy and paste recycle where you call recycling. But this one is the one you should probably start from scratch every single time because if you can copy paste oh I want to go uh to this and that right uh then it's a very generic essay. It's not going to do good. Little pro tip as well too that we went to our training for. A lot of schools are starting to go straight to this question first because if you can't answer this question, why would why would they need to read the rest of your app? Think about it, right? If you can't answer why you want to go to a school, why is it worth reading the rest of the application for? So, that's a that's a little thing that we learned uh at a recent conference that we went to is that you do want to make sure you if the school offers ask a why us, you nail that question there. Okay, that is the training for today. Uh, if you guys have any questions, go ahead and drop it in the chat. I'll stick around answer a few questions um for you guys as well, too. All right, someone asked here, uh, can you reexlain Can Oops. Can you Oops. The question is, can you reexlain the 200 words part um as well? Yes. So, the 200 words is referring to uh we we caught our 3070 ratio, right? Um where is it? [Music] Um here the 37 the 37 ratio. So basically the 3070 ratio is basically 30% of your prompt should be about the story. Right? What you want to talk about 70% of your prompt should be about why, how, and who. Right? Why did you do what you did? How has it made you who you are? Who have you become as a result? Those are the last three things are the most important things to get right in this process here. Okay. Most people tend to spend a lot of time on the story. That's not what I care too much about. Right? Your story might be cool to you kind of okay, right? So, it's not it's okay. So, I think that's going to be the big thing to keep in mind is that you want to focus more on the second half rather than this first half is the key there. Okay. Cool. Perfect. That's pretty much it for this training here. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any questions, go ahead and let us know. If not, I'll see you guys on the next training.