Student Testimonial: Trash, Metaphors, and Spoken Words
In journalism school, we learned how to prepare for and conduct interviews.
Ask the right questions.
Find quotable sources.
Be persistent.
Yet the trickiest part when writing my 600-word stories was figuring out what to use from the interviews. There’s a parallel challenge when it comes to writing a college essay, and for me as the coach. We spend hours in interviews, producing 15,000+ words, ideas, half-thoughts to pick from.
It can be hard to figure out what ideas to keep. But sometimes the spoken words shine and speak for themselves.
Jailyn’s Essay
An early proof-of-concept was working with Jailyn on his essay. He already had a unique voice as a writer, and he had the ability to write how he thinks - and talks.
He’s also the second student I worked with since launching last summer. He is reflective, hard-working, and patient with me. His testimonial means a lot:
“I thought I had my college essay down pat, but Geoff helped me take it to new heights. Whether it’s his interview style of coaching or his way of using what I said on paper, he enhanced my writing while still allowing me to express myself to the best of my ability.
On top of this, the generosity of Geoff is unmatched. Throughout the writing process, Geoff constantly reached out to me with new ideas and assets to help me with my college admissions process that ranged outside of my essay.”
The Back Story
The money quote from our interviews came more than an hour into our second interview.
Jailyn had a lot of ideas and experiences he hoped to convey in his 650-word Common App personal statement. A few of the main ones included:
a pandemic low-point
a football-fueled transformation
a passion for protecting the environment
an appreciation for clean public spaces
a growing awareness of poverty’s devastating impact on communities.
And now we seemed stuck. I wasn’t helping him narrow it down, in part because we both agreed there was something missing to stitch it all together.
It turned out to be trash. Here’s the exact quote:
“I guess you could say that trash taught me a lot about my community.”
That kernel eventually became the theme of the entire essay. It also inspired this attention-grabbing opener:
“Trash has taught me a lot about my community – and myself.”
Why it matters: Application readers only have 6-7 minutes with your application the first time it gets reviewed. Grab their attention early to ensure your essay gets a close read.
For Jailyn, trash in his bedroom symbolized a lack of discipline, his cluttered life, an aimlessness. Most poignantly, picking up trash in his neighborhood shaped his academic interest.
“When you spend as much time picking up trash where I live, you start to notice the same things: Liquor bottles and blunt wrappers. Substances abuse is major in my area. I used to wonder about how those around me could be so complacent. I concluded that people use these items to escape from life.
Picking up trash has given me a better perspective at the socioeconomic state of my community, and how that affects the environment. When people are running low on funds, they have bills to pay, a family to feed— when you’re poor— you’re in survival mode. Putting the plastic bottle in a recycling bin isn’t a priority. So what does it take to make this a priority? I don’t have the answer quite yet.”
You can read the whole essay here.
