About Me
Meet the College Essay Guy
Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and the author of the Amazon bestsellers College Essay Essentials and College Admission Essentials. Each year he and his team reach more than one million students and counselors through the College Essay Guy blog, online pay-what-you-can courses, workshops, books, and one-on-one work.
Raised in Spain, Ecuador, and Colombia, Ethan has studied at seventeen different schools and has worked as a teacher, curriculum writer, voice actor, community organizer, and truck driver.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Ethan holds an MFA from UC Irvine and lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife and their amazing daughter.
Follow College Essay Guy on social media:
Why I’m a Pretty Good Person to Guide You Through This Process
Adapted from the intro to the book College Essay Essentials, available on Amazon
This may sound weird, but being the College Essay Guy is my dream job. Why? Not because, as a kid, I thought to myself, “I really want to be the College Essay Guy when I grow up.” In fact, I first studied to become a screenwriter (BS Speech, Northwestern), then an actor (MFA, UC Irvine), and then a counselor (UC Irvine). And when I considered all the things that I loved to do and that I’d trained for—writing, speaking, counseling—I realized that I’d uniquely equipped myself to become the College Essay Guy. So I created this really cool job for myself.
How? To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, I followed my bliss. I kept doing what I loved until I found myself in this place.
But things really clicked for me when I realized how being the College Essay Guy actually brought together some of my core values, and I think sharing those with you here might help you understand why I’m the only person who could have written this book.
Here are Some of My Core Values:
Vulnerability
I grew up as a missionary kid, moving 20 times before I graduated high school. Even though I was shy, I began to dislike small talk (either because I knew I’d be leaving soon and the clock was ticking or because, well, small talk sucks), which is why when you meet me I’ll probably ask you some deeply personal question within the first five minutes. I’m interested in your deepest story. And I happen to believe vulnerability is a more efficient way of getting there.
So here’s something that feels vulnerable for me to admit: the number one thing I look for when I meet people is their ability to listen and be present. If I sense someone is unwilling to at least try to listen and be present, I tend to distance myself emotionally for fear of being hurt. This feels vulnerable to admit because I think it makes me sound super judgmental. But chances are I’ll ask you to be vulnerable, so I figured I’d go first.
Inspiration
I thrive on helping others realize their own brilliance and it is something I strive to do in my courses, my writing, and in my interactions. In fact, if I had to distill the goal of my work into one phrase, it would be this:
I want to inspire you.
And that feels extra vulnerable to share with you.
Which brings me to…
Insight
In college, one of my professors wrote the word “ILLUMINATE!” at the bottom of an assignment I’d turned in. He was challenging me to answer “So what?” in a compelling way. I took this to heart, and it’s become something I strive for both in my work and in my life. It’s something I challenge you to do too.
Efficiency
I love getting things done and I especially love finding ways to streamline my productivity. (It’s something I’m actually kind of obsessed with and my wife likes to joke that I can get done what three people get done in a day.) It’s why the word “essentials” is in the title of my book.
Practicality
I can’t stand general writing advice that suggests “Use your authentic voice!” or “Write what you know!” Why? Because I have no idea what these things mean and because they do not tell me how to do these things. I prefer advice that actually gets me from Point A to Point B.
Patterns & Connections
I loved watching movies as a kid and the way stories helped me make sense of my world. And when I started teaching story structure to my college essay students, I loved how it helped them make sense of their worlds. But it wasn’t until I was introduced to narrative therapy that I really began to understand how powerful personal statement writing could be. Through narrative therapy, I discovered how I could re-frame events of my past and, in effect, re-author my identity. It was like learning a superpower. And guess what? You have this superpower too. It’s one that you’ll be upgrading as we work together.
You
I believe in the person you are and in the person you are becoming. And that’s what I believe your personal statement is—a record of your becoming.
So here’s what you’ll find in these pages: an efficient, practical process for helping you access your deepest story, recognize patterns and connections where you may not have, and generate insights that express how brilliant you are. Because you are.
But there’s one more thing I haven’t told you yet.
This process could change your life.
That’s right. The personal statement writing process can be empowering, therapeutic, and even life-altering. Why? To paraphrase Joseph Campbell once more:
A good life is one hero journey after another.
Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare?
And if you do dare, the dangers are there,
And the fulfillment, or the fiasco.
There’s always the possibility of a fiasco.
But there’s also the possibility of bliss.
Writing your personal statement is a hero’s journey. There are dangers. And there is the possibility that you might fail. But there’s also the possibility that, if you stick with it, something amazing might happen.