406: Why You Don’t Have to Write about Trauma in Your College Essay to Stand Out—and What You Can Do Instead

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Hey, friends, College Essay Guy here, and welcome back to the podcast, where it's my goal to bring more ease, joy and purpose to your life through the college admission process. So on today's episode, my guest is Tina young, and how we met is kind of interesting. So I was in the middle of my work day, and there was a message on slack from one of my colleagues, and it said, Have you guys seen this TED talk quote? I was shocked when she quoted us at 316 I don't even remember Ethan saying students should quote include a painful memory to meet the goals of a college application essay. Is this anywhere on our site or the books end quote? And I was like, what? And I kind of panicked, to be honest, because I didn't remember writing that. And so I went back into the blog post. First of all, I watched the video, and then I looked up the quote, and I saw that it was on our website, and it was a quote in a blog that my younger brother had created years ago where he'd asked like 30 plus experts what their best college essay advice was, but the way that it was written, it was super easy to misinterpret and not something that I stood behind it all. So what did I do? Well, I edited the blog, and I'll share links in the show notes to what it was before and what I changed it to. And then I started writing an email to Tina in my head, and in that message, I basically let her know how much I appreciated her video. And I said, Hey, I think we're really on the same page here. And I shared with her some of the resources that we've created in the past, talking to students about why you don't have to talk about challenges to write a great personal statement. This is something that I've like presented on at conferences. And, you know, I created a little loom video, and I sent it to her over LinkedIn, and I said, Hey, would you be willing to have a conversation? Which I'm glad to say, she wrote back, and she was willing to have a conversation. And so we chatted and realized, oh, wait, you know, we are kind of on the same page here. And through that conversation, and this wasn't something that I planned, we decided to do a podcast together, which is the episode that you'll hear today. So in our conversation, which I loved, Tina talks about her experience, and in particular what she talks about in the TED Talk, which is what it was like being an immigrant and a racialized person who felt the pressure to turn her personal story into a personal statement that had sort of this linear, digestible plot, and how how she realized how damaging that can be, and how damaging it was potentially for her, but could also be to other students of color. She also talks about why she believes this is more of a systemic issue. We touch on the recent Supreme Court ruling to ban race conscious admissions. And are there some ways that you can actually talk about race in your application? In particular, we actually read an essay aloud together, and then we analyze it, and this is an essay that mentions race, but it speaks specifically to qualities of character and unique abilities that the author would bring to a college campus. We talk about some other ways that students can share their identities in ways that allow them to take ownership of their story. I walk through some practical exercises that students can use to talk about different identities and their application identities that aren't necessarily limited to but that also include race. Then I walk through some practical exercises that students can use to talk about their different identities in their application identities that include but aren't necessarily limited to race. We get into some of those supplemental essay prompts that ask specifically about challenges. And finally, Tina leaves us with some specific advice for students and for counselors. Tina young identifies in many ways, including a university student in Vancouver studying political science, a competitive debater, student journalist, part time researcher focused on food justice and gender theory, a general media fiend, and she'll be attending grad school and getting a PhD in an undetermined subject, maybe AI or gender theory, she says, and she's looking to stay in academia as a professor. Hope you enjoy this conversation.


Tina Yong  4:17  
Hi Tina, welcome to the podcast. Hi Ethan, thank you so much for having me. So I thought it might be kind of


Ethan Sawyer  4:23  
fun, especially if folks were coming over from the TED Talk to just do a little how we met and just give folks that context. How does that sound?


Tina Yong  4:30  
Yeah, sounds great. You go ahead. Okay, I'll go first. So


Ethan Sawyer  4:34  
yeah. So how did I meet Tina? So there was a message that came through, I think I was on Slack or something, and someone on my team said, Hey, has anybody seen this TEDx talk? And it was yours. And there was a particular quote. I don't remember what the quote was the time, but it was basically attributing a College Essay Guy blog post, and particular College Essay Guy directly as, like, saying, you know, that students should write about challenges. And as I read it, I was. Like, it was this combination of like, shame and like, Wait, what did we say that? And I, like, frantically went to, like, find the the Actually, no, someone posted the post. And I went and read it, and I was like, Oh my gosh. And there was a post that was, you know, a blog from like, years ago that a guest blogger. It was actually my brother, my younger brother, not the one who currently works with me, who had asked 30 different folks, what is your best college essay advice, and 30 different people had responded. And the advice that was in the talk was, like, from one of these folks. And when I looked at it like, I'll admit, like, it was a little cringy, and I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, I could totally see that being taken out of context. So I've since, like, edited that, and I'll and I'll just for transparency in the show notes, like, I will show everybody, like, here's what the blog said, and then here's what we changed it to. But I was, like, feeling a mixture of shame and but also, like, super, like, deep connection to you. Because I was like, I really was appreciating everything you were saying. And I was like, oh, this person, Tina, like, doesn't know this, but we're like, actually on the same page here, like, hugely, on the same page. And I feel like letting her know. And so I, you know, stalked you on LinkedIn, basically, which was, like, you know, I just basically looked up Tina and, you know, sent you like a little loom video, saying, Hey, I think we're on the same page here. And here's the context for this thing, and basically explaining the thing I'm explaining now. And you wrote back, and here we are. But like, I'd love to hear your version of it.


Tina Yong  6:22  
Yeah, absolutely. So my side of things is, when I was doing research for my TED talk, I wanted to find examples of admissions counselors giving the advice to write about trauma, basically to prove my point that this is a paradigm that people kind of follow and an expectation that is very, you know, pervasive, and I just pulled from Ethan's website without even really looking into, you know, what else he had written about, which is a huge mistake now that I think about it, because I probably would have thought twice about pulling that example and making a case out of it if I'd known the other work that Ethan had Been doing. But after the talk had been posted, I got the message from Ethan on LinkedIn, and I also felt the similar sense of relief that we were on the same page. Because I was, you know, afraid that I was gonna open the video to like, a call out being like, I don't know, just disagreeing with me, but yeah, it turned out we had completely the same objectives, which is to help students as much as we can. And I'm really grateful that Ethan reached out and kind of cleared the air, not that we had any kind of rivalry to begin with, but that we connected. Thanks.


Ethan Sawyer  7:32  
Thanks for saying all that. I really appreciate that the context and yeah, I mean, I want to dig into this here, and I feel like, well, let's just do this. Let's give folks, because some folks because some folks may be listening to this and may not have context on your TEDx talk. Will you just give a little context on what that talk was about? For those who haven't seen it? Yes,


Tina Yong  7:49  
absolutely. So the sparks notes, version of my talk is centering around my experience as an immigrant person who applied to university, talking about her trauma as someone who came to a foreign country, who was racialized and who faced a lot of discrimination, but I wanted to contextualize this essay as one that I've seen a lot of other students kind of flock to, and not just immigrant trauma, but other types of difficult experiences, and specifically writing about their trauma in college applications in a way that didn't seem conducive to actually healing, and one that wasn't done on their own terms, because they felt like they had to package their very messy, complex and hard experiences into basically a linear story that's really palatable and digestible. And I make this point that this is part of some like broader, you know, social expectation for students to emphasize the hardships they overcome as a way of marketing themselves as a very good and promising applicant. And I say this is damaging for a few reasons. First of all, these complex experiences, often involving racism and, you know, death of a loved one, chronic illness, things like that, can't really be reduced to these very, you know, brief, 500 word anecdotes, and it creates this illusion of vulnerability, where the writer feels like they're sharing something, but it's not actually authentic to how they experienced it. It's also unrealistic to expect sorry high school students who have resolved all their trauma by the time they're applying to university, and it kind of impedes healing, and also, I touch on some of these systemic consequences. So when marginalized students are accepted into universities through these essays, they feel like they're trapped under this paradigm where they have to be the token minority student, right, the immigrant who never truly belongs, because the only reason she's there is because she wrote about being an immigrant and how hard and difficult it was. So, yeah, the call to action at the end is first of all for universities to do better and to restructure their prompts, to give students more room to take ownership and autonomy. Have autonomy over their narratives and not feel like they have to write about their trauma, or at least write. About it in a certain way, and also for individual students to, you know, advocate for themselves to an extent, and take ownership of their narrative as well. And counselors play a role in that kind of as the middle man,


Ethan Sawyer  10:12  
yeah, I'm just really appreciating what you're saying, what you're what you're sharing here, what inspired you to give this talk in the first place?


Tina Yong  10:18  
I think there wasn't a singular moment where I'm like, Oh, this should be a TED talk, but there was just a general feeling I had when talking to some of my friends in university and realizing in conversation that this pressure I experienced when I was a high school student to package my immigrant story something I felt kind of embarrassed to do, because it felt like lying a little bit not the story wasn't true. It just didn't feel authentic. But when I was talking to my other friends about it, I realized they had gone through something very similar, and they were also feeling like they were exploited by universities, by their admissions counselors and pushed to talk about themselves and market themselves in a certain way. So it's a universal experience, and it continued to affect them well into their university career, where they were feeling the same way I did, which is, I don't deserve to be here, and the only reason I got in is because I chose to, you know, lean into this sympathy narrative. So, yeah, I wanted to make sure this issue receives this public exposure and kind of gets this mainstream recognition that I didn't feel like it had. So that's why I wanted to do the talk. And there's a personal aspect as well. I really wanted to retell this story, because, as I said before, I was feeling very conflicted about my decision. I didn't feel good about it, and I think this talk gave me a very valuable opportunity that not many people get to kind of do it again and this time present the narrative that I wanted to tell, yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  11:43  
I want to say that, like this was something that eight years ago, or something that I got really present to after giving essay workshops. And I would do these essay workshops all over the world, in some cases, and oftentimes early on, students would kind of come away feeling like they had to write about a challenge. And I was like, why? What am I doing that is meaning this essentially. And what I realized is that by starting my workshops with talking about this, what we'll call narrative structure, and having them have an experience in the workshop of like, oh yeah, here is a challenge based story that I could write, oftentimes, students were becoming connected to and in some cases, attached to that story. And it was a simple shift that I made, and that we made at College Essay Guy eventually. But like, I needed to actually just start my workshops with, like, here are all the other things that you can write about, right? And brainstorming all these other possibilities. And then, okay, also, if you have faced a challenge, here's a way that you could write this. But it was sort of like just flipping that and getting students to become, in some sense, attached to these other possibilities, which we'll kind of share later in the, in the in the episode, and we've got a guide that we'll put in the show notes. But I think this is my way of saying, like, I was guilty of contributing to this for, you know, for a couple years, until it was like, Ah, I actually need to just get real creative. And to start with, here are the other options. So what was the what was the response like to the TED Talk? The


Tina Yong  13:04  
response was very overwhelming. It was like overwhelmingly positive, because so many people had expressed gratitude, and you know, thank you so much for shedding light on this. This is exactly what I experienced. This is people from like all over the world applying to tons of different colleges. It was a really unexpected response, not entirely because, again, in my conversation with with people, I knew that I wasn't alone in this experience, but I think just the extent to which people really latched on to this and said, Yeah, what you're describing, I experienced that exact thing. It felt very cathartic for everybody who responded to me. It felt like I had somewhat, maybe accidentally lifted the rug. You know, that a lot of people felt like was covering this issue that they were just really itching to talk about. So I'm glad I gave people that sense of relief and brought attention to something that clearly needed it. And also, at the same time, I feel like some of the responses I've received make me feel frustrated, because it's clear that this is a paradigm that's still very much affecting people. You know, there's high school seniors asking me, I heard your talk. You know, I really relate. I feel pressured to talk about this trauma of mine, but I don't know if I should, and I feel really ill equipped to help them navigate that, because I'm not a college counselor, and you know, even as you said, you had struggled with some of these things, so I just feel like this podcast is one of the things I'm doing as a part of overcoming that frustration. I just feel motivated to do more to help people through it, rather than just identifying the problem and then kind of not being able to do anything about it. Totally.


Ethan Sawyer  14:39  
Thank you. And as you say that, like the College Essay Guy me gets real excited and wants to, like, let people listening know that, like, stay tuned. For the practical part, we're gonna get, like, really tactical and share some some resources and some ideas. But I'd be curious to know, since you gave the talk, is there any way that your your thinking has shifted or change or evolved, or is there anything that you would have liked. Share in the talk that you didn't?


Tina Yong  15:01  
Yeah, absolutely. So the same way that you know, a 500 word count is not enough for someone to recount their life story or the most traumatic parts, I felt the same way about my 13 minute TED Talk. There's so much to say about this issue. I'll try to keep it short, but I think the takeaway that I wanted to put more emphasis on in the talk is that this is a systemic problem, right? So there's individual students coming to me and saying they feel really bad about writing about trauma or having written about it when they got into university. And I want to alleviate some of that guilt, because I understand the pressure. I mean, I fell prey to it. So no one's really immune to this pressure, you know, not the counselors who encourage it, not even maybe the universities who exploit it. Of course, it's a sliding scale of accountability, but I want to say to individual students that if you still choose to write about trauma, that's a very valid choice, and hopefully through the rest of this episode, we'll talk more about what it means to make that choice in an informed way, rather than, you know, just kind of feeling pressure to do it by other people or by the culture. But yeah, just that this is not an individualized kind of problem, and writing about trauma shouldn't be stigmatized. I mean, I feel like, you know, people generally want to present themselves in a very positive and perfect kind of way, so I want people to resist that as well is only talking about your victories or wins, because it's important to address that. You know you face certain difficulties, but there's a way of doing it that gives you more agency than the counterfactual, and that's what I hope we can shed light on. And lastly, I want to give a shout out, I guess, to anyone who has written about a trauma and they still didn't get accepted into the university they applied for. I know that can be a super harsh experience, and it really points to why I believe it's so damaging when people are pressured to share these things. Because not only did you, you know, like, bare your soul, you also got rejected. And that can really hurt, especially if you feel like, Oh, my story was not good enough, my pain wasn't valid enough to have warranted me a spot in this dream school of mine, and that can be really hurtful. So I just want to acknowledge that and say that it's really there's so many factors in missions in general. And you know, don't feel bad if you do. You did that and that happened to you?


Ethan Sawyer  17:21  
Yeah, I really appreciate that. I want to double click and underline and bold what you just said that. I think there's often this experience that we have when we go through this process of writing about ourselves, and we become really identified with it, and it can feel like rejection of the essay or rejection of the application is like rejection of me. And so I just want to, like, you know, we'll put in the show notes other, you know, things that are there's so much other math that's going on from these colleges in relation to, for example, institutional priorities that make this in some ways, much less personal than I think it sometimes we think it is, especially when we're writing about something that's meaningful to us. So I'm so grateful for that point. So let's talk about the recent Supreme Court decision to eliminate race conscious admissions. Is your sense? I mean, how do you feel like this ruling might change things for applicants of color? Yeah,


Tina Yong  18:13  
so without going too much into my stance and opinion on the ruling in general, I think one indisputable consequence of the decision is that this route that was previously automatically available to marginalized students, through which they can showcase their background their identity, is closed, and because of that, other means of showcasing identity are going to get much more crowded. And of course, I'm talking about the personal essay and how it's going to be used much more strategically for students to signal their minority status to colleges. And this isn't just like a speculation. I just read that the Biden administration has kind of released public guidance that students should not shy away from discussing race in their personal essays. There is a question in the in this year's Johns Hopkins University application that explicitly asks students to discuss one aspect of their identity, for example, race, income, etc. So clearly, this is something that is going to change, and that's going to promote much more identity sharing in the essay. So I think this is going to have really complicated implications, and it does feel kind of like a band aid solution, or if not a band aid solution, then not an ideal solution. Right to just push students to talk about their status or to hint at it. I heard one admissions counselor describe it as like black and brown kids have to smack colleges in the face in their essay about how they're black and brown, and I think that will really ring true. I do fear then that it's going to push us in the wrong direction in terms of undoing the harmful trauma essay paradigm, because maybe before students would feel less compelled to discuss their racial identity, since you know, it's already considered. COVID as part of their application. So yeah, I think again, just to highlight how important it is for us to share resources in the coming few minutes about how to navigate this new landscape, it's going to be really challenging. Yeah, one


Ethan Sawyer  20:13  
of the guides that we'll link to in the show notes is a blog post about essentially tackling, is it okay to talk about race in your application. And for those who've listened to other episodes of the podcast where we've talked about this, or, you know, have read the blog, potentially already, the short answer is, colleges aren't allowed to consider race as a standalone factor. So there's even though there might be a check box, the check box will like that information of race isn't gonna be passed along. That's gonna be like, suppressed in the application. And so just as you said, Tina, you know, students will have to look to other ways to talk about race. But one of the important things that the Supreme Court decision notes is that, you know, and I'm going to come quoting directly, is nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected the applicant's life. And I'm going to underline this part here verbally, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. So what I'd love to do in a minute or two is like, I'd love to go through a sample essay and kind of plant that seed for everybody who's listening, and to ask you all to listen and go, okay. Do you feel like this student who does talk about race in their application concretely ties discussion of race to qualities of character or unique ability, and so I'll come back to that in just a couple minutes. But yeah, this does feel like a crucial moment. And I'm really with you here, Tina, that this feels like a moment where students are kind of looking to go, Wait, what is it okay? Is it not okay? And another thing you know, that folks, I think will be students, might be wondering about is, like, and if I talk about race, does it have to be necessarily related to, you know, challenges that I faced? And I just think that I'm, you know, that's not necessarily the case. Like there's so many ways to talk about, you know, cultural influences and impact on your life. I want to, I think I would just want to jump into this example of this essay, this personal statement, and now that we've kind of planted this seed of, you know, from the Supreme Court ruling, and then maybe we could just, you know, we could kind of analyze it together. Yeah. So again, I want to plant the seed for folks that the what the Supreme Court decision says is nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race applicant's discussion of how race affected the applicant's life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. So I'll read the essay aloud, and then let's talk about it. It reads growing up, my world was basketball. My summers were spent between the two solid black lines. My skin was consistently tan in splotches and ridden with random scratches. My wardrobe consisted mainly of track shorts, Nike shoes and tournament T shirts, Gatorade and Fun Dip were my pre game snacks. The cacophony of rowdy crowds, ref whistles, squeaky shoes and scoreboard buzzers was a familiar sound. I was the team captain of almost every team I played on, familiar with the X's and O's of plays commander of the court and the coach's right hand girl, but that was only me on the surface. Deep down, I was an East Asian influenced bibliophile and a young adult fiction writer hidden in the cracks of a blossoming collegiate level athlete. Was a literary fiend. I devoured books in the daylight. I crafted stories at night, time, after games, after practice, after conditioning. I found nooks of solitude within these moments. I became engulfed in a world of my own creation. Initially, I only read young adult literature, but I grew to enjoy literary fiction and self help, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Brandon chick sent me high. I expanded my bubble to Google Plus, critique groups, online discussion groups, blogs, writing competitions and clubs. I wrote my first novel in fifth grade, my second in seventh grade and started my third in ninth grade. Reading was instinctual. Writing was impulsive. I stumbled upon the movies of Hayao Miyazaki at a young age. I related a lot to the underlying East Asian philosophy present in his movies. My own perspective on life growth and change was echoed in his storytelling. So I read his autobiographies, watched anime and researched ancient texts, Analects, the way, Art of War. Then I discovered the books of Haruki Murakami, whom I now emulate in order to improve my writing, like two sides of a coin. I lived in two worlds. One World was outward, aggressive, noisy, invigorating. The other internal, tempestuous, serene, nuanced, internal and external conflict ensued many times I was seen only as an athlete and judged by the stereotypes that come with it, self centered, unintelligent, listens to. App, but off the court, I was more reflective and pathetic, and I listened to music like Florence and the Machine. I was even sometimes bullied for not acting, quote, black enough. End quote, my teammates felt that my singular focus should be basketball, and found it strange that I participated in so many extracurriculars. But why should I be one dimensional. I had always been motivated to reach the pinnacle of my potential in whatever I was interested in. Why should I be defined by only one aspect of my life? I felt like I had to pick one world. Then I had an ACL injury, and then another, and then another. After the first ACL surgery, my family and I made the decision to home school. I knew I wanted to explore my many interests, literature, novel writing, East Asian culture and basketball equally. So I did. I found time to analyze Heart of Darkness and used my blog to instruct adult authors how to become self published authors. I researched Shintoism. Read dozens of books on writing and self improvement. My sister and I had been talking for a while about starting a nonprofit focused on social awareness, education and community outreach. Finally, we had the time to do it. While basketball has equipped me with leadership skills and life experiences, it is only one part of who I am as a socially aware, intellectual and introspective individual, I value creative expression and independence. My life's mission is to reach my full potential in order to help others reach their own. So for those of you listening, we're going to have in the show notes this whole essay that you can read and look at and analyze for yourself. But Tina, I'd love to kick it to you for a minute. What do you what are your just general thoughts about in response to this essay and to that specific question of like, to what extent do you feel this student ties, you know, discussion of race to qualities of character or unique abilities?


Tina Yong  26:55  
There are two things I want to flag with this essay that I think the author does a really good job of. And the first is by choosing to talk about struggles that are very universal and true to life, like not fitting in with their teammates, or having an ACL injury, feeling this conflict between how they're perceived and how they really feel on the inside, I think these are all struggles that, to an extent, are pretty universal and common among teenagers, but by talking about it in a very interesting and reflective way, the author is able to show how these contributed to our inner growth. And I think this really demonstrates that the thing you experience, whatever hardship it may be, doesn't have to be sensational or one in a million in order to be interesting and remarkable. The second thing that I wanted to flag is that this author does a good job of identifying what they're strong at, and not in a subtle way, but still in a very positive way, by just coming straight out and saying it so in the last paragraph, she says that she is an intellectual, socially aware and introspective individual, and I think that's honestly kind of rare with college essays, where you're kind of tucking away your positive attributes for the admissions officer to find. But there's no need to do that. I think especially in Western culture, Asian students, or Asian people in general are stereotyped to be more humble, more meek, and this has led to us feeling like we can't be proud of our accomplishments or proud of the people that we are and our characteristics. And I think this essay really defies that stereotype in a really cool way by just pointing out that, yeah, I am a really smart and aware and intellectual person, and I've proven it by the experiences that I've had. But also, you know, I'm still on the journey. I'm still growing, and that's how she kind of ends off her essay as well, by talking about how her mission is to reach her full potential, meaning, it's not yet reached. So I really appreciated both of those things about the essay? Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  29:01  
I love what you're sharing here. The I want to share two things to the first to the first point that you're making about the challenges. You know, I think students could be listening and thinking, but there are these things that I've experienced, and I don't want to not talk about them. The thing that will sometimes talk about a College Essay Guy is like, make it a chapter in your story. It doesn't have to be the whole story. And I think this student does that really well by weaving it into like a paragraph or a couple sentences. So these things are given their moment, but it's not, you know, necessarily the dominant thing. There's other sides of the student that's being they're being brought in here. The other thing that I notice is this student is doing a really great job of highlighting specific values and qualities that she'll bring to a college campus. And I think this is really important as it relates to the Supreme Court decision, because they're basically saying you can talk about race if you're hitting on specific qualities of character and unique abilities. And some of the ones that I want to highlight are you. You really see the students leadership in the first paragraph, when she says, I was the team captain of almost every team I played on. You know, you see to your point, the intellectual vitality, the curiosity, the creativity in the next paragraph, when the students talking about devouring books in the daylight and these specific books that the student read. I think these specifics really help bring home the point it really just bring it to life. Help the students stand out, but bring them home the point that, like, yeah, I was super curious and engaged. There's also that critical thinking that you mentioned specifically in the line. I lived in two worlds. One World was outward, aggressive, noisy, invigorating, the other internal, tempestuous, serene, nuanced. It's this ability to hold these contrasting truths in oneself that I think shows that real maturity that I think a college would be excited about. And then there's, there's real resilience, you know, this is somebody who was bullied, as she says, for not acting, quote, unquote, black enough, and then had these ACL injuries, and was able to still, you know, sort of move through these experiences and learn a lot, and it's these qualities that I feel like are so important for colleges to know about. So just to reiterate this point, that you can talk about these challenges, but it's what did you do and what did you learn? On the other side, we're going to link in the show notes to a blog post that has this particular essay analyzed and looks at the specifics, and then also has another separate essay that has another approach that students, if you're if you're working on essays right now, that you can take, and you'll see, sort of like a step by step guide on how to work through these so I'm curious, Tina, to hear from you, like, what are some other ways that you feel like students could share about their identities in a way that allows them to take, I love this word you're using, ownership. Yeah.


Tina Yong  31:43  
So the first piece of advice that I also gave in the talk is to talk about their intellectual interests or things that they're really passionate about doing. I mean, I think maybe we forget, with just how the university experience is marketed, that we're going there to study and to be leaders in the community. So talking about, you know why you feel compelled to study political science, for example, or biology, or any of the other fields that you're interested in pursuing is going to show to this school that you're there to be academic and make a contribution to the classroom environment as well as the social environment, and that will get you pretty far, I think, and not just mentioning that you have an interest in biology, but where that interest came from. And I think those stories are good examples of, you know, kind of whimsical anecdotes that don't have to be traumatic to be interesting. Like the example I give in my talk is how when I was watching reality TV, I started to become really interested in the politics behind it, specifically the politics of the media production, the gender dynamics and things like that. And I could have talked about that. I wish I talked about that in my essay, and it wouldn't have leaned on the traumatic aspects of my immigration story at all, or it didn't have to rather. The second thing is to frame your adversity, if you choose to talk about it as an ongoing journey, like I mentioned earlier, what the essay that we discussed did really well is acknowledging that trauma is something that people grapple with for a very long time, and it's unrealistic for it to have resolved before the time you've become an adult. So making space to talk about how you know, if you lost a family member, that's something you still feel really sad about, and that you you know are processing, even though it has led to certain, you know, positive experiences in your life, or certain lessons. That's something I think you should be allowed to say, if that's authentic to how your experience actually went. So yeah, that like resisting the linear narrative that colleges are maybe expecting. And lastly, like, I've seen this a lot after the Supreme Court ruling, with students kind of being very careful toeing this line between what's okay to talk about what isn't in this essay. You know, is my trauma like too much? Is this like being too obvious when I'm trying to show them like a person of color? I think if you don't want to play this game of like respectability politics, I would call it, and try to sneak in your racialized background into your essay, you don't have to. It's not going to be a popular choice, I would say. And maybe it does come come with its own risks, but I think if you really don't feel comfortable with it, and you feel like it's going to make you feel bad about it after you shouldn't have to do it. There are options, some of which I just listed, but also you can choose to talk about other aspects of your identity that maybe aren't as difficult, right? If maybe being an immigrant or a person of color is the thing that you feel like has impacted you the most, but if you're not ready to talk about that, you can focus on something else that maybe isn't as emotionally taxing. And I think that's totally a valid choice, and I feel like I've heard counselors when I was in high. Will say things to people like, Oh, you have such a good story, like, your parent had a terminal illness and you had to deal with that. Like it would be a wasted opportunity to not take advantage of that. And I think that's a really damaging thing to say, because it frames these experiences as nothing more than just essay prompts. And it also, again, forces this person to deal with something that they're still in the process of healing from. So yeah, I would say those three main tips, but I'm curious to hear, Ethan, what you what you think, because you're the expert here. Well,


Ethan Sawyer  35:33  
I'm just a college as a guy, but yeah, I mean, one of the things that you're saying that's really resonating with me is like, there's, there's a difference between writing about a tough experience and writing about a tough experience for your college essay. And I'm a big fan of using writing as a tool to process tough stuff that we've been through. And there's, there's an exercise that we'll link called the feelings and needs exercise that if you're a student listening and you're like, I don't know if I want to write about this. Like, you don't have to commit to writing about for your college essay, like, today. You know, you could spend 15 minutes. And there's this, like, simple exercise that you can walk through and kind of dip a toe in, as it were, just for you, like, just to kind of process a little bit. And, you know, see what that feels like. And if you get to that point where you're just like, this is, I'm not writing about this, then great, we have other options. Like, don't, like, just like Tina's saying, like, you don't have to write about it. But, you know, some students have this fear, I think that they're going to be, like, writing a sob story is the way that, you know, students will often say, say it. And one of the things I'll say about that is, like, I think that there is that concern or that danger, potentially, if you're just starting out writing about this stuff, because, you know, chances are it's stuff that maybe you haven't ever written about, usually, in the final form, an essay reads like a quote, unquote sob story if the student spends a lot of time focused on the challenge or the effects, or, as you said, like some of those details. And there's a way to write about challenges that doesn't focus on the challenge itself. You know, because college is what they're interested in, is like, I use this term, like, how did you metabolize the experience? So like, yeah, maybe you've been through some stuff, but it's like, that's not why you get into college, because you went through tough stuff. They want to know, what did you do about it, and what did you learn? So oftentimes, I'll just, if a student does decide, okay, I do want to write about challenges, I'll kind of advocate for this 1/3 1/3 1/3 approach. It's like, get 1/3 on the challenges and effects, 1/3 on what you did about it, and then 1/3 what you learned. And just that exercise and sort of that reframing can sometimes be for some students, like really confidence building and sort of enlivening to kind of look at the positives and honor some of the steps that they've taken. And then for other students, it can feel kind of like you were saying, Tina really fake. And just like, No, I'm still in this or this just doesn't I just don't want to do this. And then with that again, I'm like, you have other options, which we'll get into in just a second. But a big question that I would give to students and counselors. If you're trying to think about, should I write about a challenge or not? I want to come back to like, something that we talk about a lot, which is like, what, what are colleges looking for? And colleges are looking for, what are the skills, qualities, values and interests that you're going to bring with you to a college campus? So again, what are the skills qualities, values and interests that you're going to a college campus, and if you feel like telling this challenges story is the best way to do that, cool. But if not, there are so many other topics that you could potentially write about that could help show your skills, qualities, values and interests. So a question ask yourself is, is this the best way to do it? And oftentimes students are kind of trapped in this binary, like, should I write about challenges or not? I another thing that I just wanted to add, that you reminded me of is like reminding students, you know, as you're listening like you don't necessarily have to make the challenge the main feature, or, as I like to say, like the whole the whole book, you can actually make the challenge a chapter in your book. And a good example of this is like in the essay that we read a few minutes ago, the student has clearly faced challenges. And that could have been the whole essay right there, but instead, the student decides to make that just a chapter, in other words, part of one paragraph, so that that part of themselves really does come through still. So it's not like, they're like, I didn't experience those things. They're like I did, but it's just not all of them, right? And it's there's not that sort of, you know, danger that some students, I think, worry about, of like, being defined by a single story. So if you're worried about that, and if, or if you're listening to this feeling like, but if I don't talk about this, am I selling myself short? Am I like, not being real again? It's just sort of like a matter of degree here where you can bring it into, like, one small part, if you want to, I'd love to just get practical a second and actually share an exercise to help students think about other possibilities. I want to kind of walk through it. We're going to link it in the show notes, but I'm going to maybe just kind of go through the two minute version of it. And this is the goal of this. And again, there's like, a longer version that you can find in the show notes, but the longer version of this, I think. Is maybe going to take you 1520 minutes on the sort of lower end. You can spend more time with it, but just spending some time thinking about, what are these other sides of you, these other identities that you might want to show so that it doesn't become a binary, like, should I write about this? You know, X or not. It's like, x or not x. Instead, the purpose of this exercise is to be like, well, I could write about Q or, you know, purple or koala bears, or, like, all these other things. So the exercise goes like this. So it begins with the phrase, if you really, really knew me, and then there are like, 11 things that you insert. So the first one is, if you really really knew me and my family, you would know this. So for those students listening. You can if you want do this, I suppose, as we go, but if I really knew you and your family, what would I know about you? And answering that question. So for me, Ethan, if you really knew me and my family, you would know that I am the oldest of five children. But that's not really like if you really, really knew me. So the second part of this exercise is to then answer, okay, well, so what? Why does this matter? Why might this be important? So for me, being the oldest of five kids meant that I was really, I became the caretaker. I was the one who kind of was looked to, and still is kind of looked to, to, like, make decisions in terms of, like, what we're gonna do on a certain family, you know, outing or something. And I've really worked to like, and this is more of the so what to like, share that responsibility over the years. But there came a point where I sort of became the the go to person, and kind of shoulder that responsibility for better and for worse. And so there's a series of questions. The next one is like, if you really, really knew me and my culture, you would know. And then you kind of fill in the blank, what would I know if I was really gonna know your connection to culture? Do you have a connection to culture? Do you not? Is it like multiple cultures? Do you have trouble even thinking about what the word culture means? And if so, like, what's that about? And why is that connection, or lack of connection, important to you? So that's kind of the so what the third one this is like, maybe my favorite one is related to identities. And we have this whole separate exercise that you can do on just looking at a series of different social identities and just coming up with a list of many different ways that you can identify. And there's so many ways that we can look at this, but just to, like, rattle off a few ways that we can identify, there's, like, national origin, like, Where were you born? There's first language, there's like, sex, gender, gender expression, there's race, there's class and economic background. There's like, how you identify based on what you're good at, like, what are your talents and superpowers, your interests, etc. So we won't go through that right now, but that's the third one. Then there's and I'll just kind of rattle these off, and folks can go to the exercise if they want. But if I really knew you, what would I know about your school history, what opportunities, what teaching styles have resonated with you the most? If I really knew you, what would I know about the opportunities and experiences that you've had, you know, maybe in school, but maybe outside of school, or opportunities and experiences that you haven't had and have maybe desired. The next one is like talents and superpowers. What are your gifts? If I really knew you, what would I know that you're great at, and why is that important to you? The seventh one is your interests. If I really, really knew you, what would I know about you and your interests, what you care about, what you love to do, what do you choose to learn on your own? And why is that important to you? In terms of eight, it's involvement. What kinds of things have you gotten involved with if I really knew you? And one way to get into this is to think about the communities that you're a part of. And linked here, we've got a nice, you know, a bunch of examples of different kinds of communities that you engage with. But how do you engage with your communities and what role do you tend to play? Number nine is initiative. If I really knew you, what would I know about places or situations where you take an initiative on your own as a creator, a design thinker, an entrepreneur, risk taker, etc. Pretend impact. If I really knew you, what would I know about the ways that others have been influenced by you? Where has your involvement really made a difference, either with you know, your friends, your family, your community, maybe the larger community that you're a part of. And the 11th one is ambition. So if I really, really knew you, what would I know about what you want out of the world, about what you want to do next, about what you're hoping college is going to bring into your life? How do you hope to influence the world? What kind of problems do you want to solve? And I know I kind of went through those quickly, but if you just spent, let's say, like 2025, minutes just making a list of like answers to those questions and then for each one answering so what? Why is that important to you? I recommend students do like three to five for each one. If you can. That might take you a little bit longer, but it's going to give you just this like wealth of potential stuff to write about. I'm just curious to you, because I've been talking for a minute like. How does any of that resonate with you as I say that?


Tina Yong  45:02  
Yeah, I'm just thinking about how awesome these prompts are, and I'm coming up with answers in my head as you're rattling them off. I think this is a really cool exercise, not just for high school students, but also for anyone at any point in their life or career, just for reflection. So, yeah, I really encourage everyone to take the time to do this very seems very worth it. So


Ethan Sawyer  45:26  
I want to shift and talk a little bit about some of the supplemental essay prompts that just came out that specifically ask students about challenges. Now, side note, a lot of these prompts are going to be optional. So for students listening, you may not have to do this one, or you may not have the option to write about this or something else. So just heads up on that. But like, for example, Boston College, their optional prompt this year reads in her November 2019, TED talk, the danger of a single story. Chimamanda and Gosia. Did she warn viewers against assigning people a quote single story through assumptions about their nationality, appearance or background, discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story, what challenges did this present, and how did you overcome them? And then there's this other one, also optional from Columbia, that asks in college or university students are often challenged in ways that they could not predict or anticipate. It's important to us, therefore, to understand an applicant's ability to navigate through adversity. Please describe a barrier or obstacle you faced and discuss the personal qualities, skills or insights you've developed as a result. So I'm curious as you hear these Tina like, what's your Yeah. What are your thoughts?


Tina Yong  46:37  
Yeah. First of all, I think the Boston College prompt is one that seems very self aware, and it basically seems like my talk is would be a pretty good essay to answer this question. So yeah, I really appreciate them acknowledging that the single story narrative or paradigm is very alien and very dominant, and that it can present challenges for people. So I really like that one. It's very creative the Columbia University one about understanding the applicant's ability to navigate through adversity. Again, as soon as I read this, I can see how there might be a disparity between how certain applicants, like people of color, racialized students would feel prompted to respond to it compared to non racialized students, they might immediately jump to barriers or obstacles that have been presented in their life because of their race and background, because they expect that the admissions counselor expects them to talk about it. So I immediately that's, that's my instinctive response, I guess is that this is not a response or not a prompt, sorry, that is going to be interpreted equally, or, you know, in a standardized way, by everybody. And I would also be wary of emphasizing this quality of resilience, because in my talk, I discuss how a lot of college counselors say that white students feel like they have the space to talk about their victories and their triumphs, but then black students, or racialized students, feel like they have to talk about their resilience, right? That's like the crowning achievement of a person who was oppressed in some way in society is to be resilient, and I think that's very harmful, just because being resilient seems like it's a solution to more systemic problems. You know, if people who are oppressed are so resilient and they can overpower all of these extremely challenging inequalities and barriers, then maybe the problems we have don't seem so bad, because at least it taught you how to be strong, right and resilient and advocate for yourself and like, yes, those are awesome qualities to have, especially as a young adult. But I question, or at least I'm skeptical, as to how much positive you know, value we want to give it as an attribute, if it's just a survival mechanism that a lot of people had to develop out of necessity. So, you know, I'm feeling kind of about the second one. I understand what they were trying to do, but I also want to emphasize that it's okay if the hard thing you experienced didn't make you a stronger person, maybe you went through like a mental health crisis, right? And it completely broke you, and you came out of that, maybe not more resilient, but more afraid that something else is going to be the last straw on the camel's back and send you down, spiraling down something again. And that's a totally fair response. I feel like not everyone should be made to feel as if the difficulties they encountered in life needed to have forced them to grow. Right? Some people don't grow. Some people take years to recover from trauma. And I want to make sure that, you know, we're making space for that.


Ethan Sawyer  49:53  
Yeah, I'm really appreciating what you're sharing, the perspective you're bringing. It's it's reminding me this phrase that we'll sometimes use is like the. Isn't the vulnerability Olympics, yeah, you know. And that it can sometimes feel that way, and sort of feel like, you know, I imagine to students like, if I can pick my deepest, you know, darkest thing, you know. Or there are students feeling inadequate, like, Oh, this isn't as deep and dark as someone else's deep and dark. And so my challenge isn't, quote, unquote, good enough. But I want to point to, like, a tactical thing, which is, like, if students listening, if you're choosing to write about these prompts, I want to, again, like, advocate for that 1/3 1/3 1/3, approach. And that's not like a strict budget, but like, you know, in the prompts kind of point to it. You know, they say in the Columbia one, describe a barrier, obstacle you faced, and discuss the personal qualities, skills or insights you've developed as a result. So that's pointing directly to that. Like, the middle part, what did you do? And then the final part of like, what did you learn through the experience? So I just want to say, like, if y'all do decide to go here, be first of all, be easy with yourself. If the if you do decide to write this and the first draft is mostly challenges based right past it, in other words, don't just write whatever the 250 words, like, keep going, because oftentimes students will stop at the 250 they've, like, used 200 words to describe the challenge, and then they only use 50 words to write about the other two parts, the what they've done and what they've learned. So I want to just encourage you practically speaking to like, right past the word limit, and then you can come back and kind of squish the challenges and effects up earlier, so that you give yourself in your essay that space to be able to share the qualities you developed through the experience, whatever you know, experience you decide to talk about, and also want to just like underscore and agree with, yeah, and it doesn't have to necessarily be related to to race. It could be, but it doesn't have to be a couple resources that I want to just flag for students who are listening. We've got, we're going to have three different ones, at least in the show notes. One of them is, is essentially going to have a similar title to this podcast, but it's going to give an analysis of the essay that we already went over. And then underneath that, one of the ones that you mentioned, Tina, that I was really grateful that you mentioned, is talking about a thing that you just care about a lot. And the second essay that we'll analyze in this post is looking at, here's a student who's writing about, you know, something that they just care a lot about. And underneath that, you'll find a YouTube video that has, like, just an opportunity for you students listening to come up with other topics. So if you do this exercise that you mentioned earlier, and you're like, I still don't have a topic, this video will give you like, you know, seven different potential topics that you could come with, come up with in about, you know, 2025, minutes. The other one that I mentioned earlier is this blog post that is on, is it okay to talk about race in your college application and essays? And if so, how should you do that? And one of the things I look at there is an application by a student who wrote about race in her application a few years ago and was applying to a highly selective school. And I analyze it sort of piece by piece. And, you know, basically in bold put, here are all the instances where the student is connecting race to like, unique character and unique qualities. And then these supplemental essays that we just talked about, there are a whole bunch of new ones like I've been combing through them over the last couple weeks. Is that, since they were released, and there are so many new prompts from different schools. Again, many of them are optional. So if this isn't your jam and you want to write about something else, in most cases, you'll be able to choose a different prompt. But if you are choosing to answer one of these prompts that in some way relates to diversity or inclusion, or in many cases, it's phrased as like and then what will you contribute based on your, you know, your background. There's a separate blog post that's related to, like, addressing some of the most common supplemental essay prompts. Broadly speaking, it's like the quote, unquote diversity essay, because that's what some college admission officers call it. So we'll have all those linked in the show notes. But I'm feeling super grateful to you, Tina. I mean, just, I'm just appreciating your there's like, a clarity and a rigor that you bring to this conversation. And I'm like wanting to have other conversations with you about this. I'm curious. Tina, what do you want students, families? What do you want counselors to take away from this conversation?


Tina Yong  53:58  
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start with counselors. I would advise counselors to look up to the College Essay Guy and treat, you know this, I guess, industry, but more this craft of essay advice with as much self awareness and responsibility as you Eason, have treated it with, because I think it's kind of rare to see this level of conscientiousness and to realize that some of the problems in the field of admissions, and I want to note that it's a very sacred responsibility to be in this role. It's a huge one. So I feel empathetic towards counselors who feel ill equipped because there are a lack of resources. But yeah, if a student trusts you with their application. You know, be wary of advising them to lean into the trauma narrative if you don't have a very personal understanding of the student, and if they're the ones who are expressing the desire to write about a certain traumatic experience, I would encourage you as a counselor to probe the student, to investigate a deep. Her right to make sure that if they do make that choice, that they feel empowered to do it on their own terms, and it's an informed choice, and they have the resources to, you know, write about it in a way that doesn't commodify or cheapen the experience for them. And, yeah, just keeping in mind this emotional safety of the student above all else, I know that. You know, college advising can be very results oriented, like, how many students did you get into X, Y, Z university? But even if those numbers are achieved, I would warn counselors of only thinking about that as the primary outcome or goal, and for students, especially those who are gearing up for application season, I think as a young person, living in a society where you're oppressed or othered in some way, or you just went through something that's really difficult. It can be really hard to know who you are beyond these identities that are already imposed on you, and it's even harder when you're going through this process where you're operating under the trauma essay paradigm and everyone else around you, your counselors, your parents, your friends, are expecting you to write about that one bad thing that happened to you, or maybe some aspect with your identity. So I understand, and I would say, treat it with care and take the time do these exercises really think about this choice, because in the moment, you don't realize how it's going to affect you. I'm coming to you as someone who did make that choice, but not in an informed way, and is now kind of regretting it when I look back, because writing about your experience through this myopic lens of what will sell to an admissions officer, it has real consequences on how you see yourself as well, because now I always question my accomplishments. I always wonder if I really deserved my place here, or if I'm, you know, would have gotten in if I just written about who I really am because of my choice. And you know, if you make the same one, I wouldn't judge you for that, but just make sure that you know the implications. And one thing I would recommend, maybe, is to think about how the closest people in your life perceive you like your family, your friends, your mentors. Do they just see you as this one narrow aspect of your identity, or do they just see you as a victim of this terrible thing that happened to you? Probably not, right? You didn't have to prove that you had potential by undergoing some traumatic process, right? And these are the people who believe in you the most, who are probably rooting for you and think that you have, you know, amazing capacity to do great things. So if they admire you and are willing to invest in you and believe in you without you having to prove that you went through some bad thing that made you a good person, then I would trust that you can prove that and showcase that to an admissions officer as well. It's gonna take some work, because they don't know you personally, and they haven't seen you grow and develop over time. But it's work that can be done, and there are options and choices and ways you can do that without leaning into the trauma narrative. So that's my kind of final advice. Really,


Ethan Sawyer  57:59  
really good advice. Are there any resources that you would point folks to if they're interested in exploring these topics more for themselves or for students that they work with? Absolutely


Tina Yong  58:09  
so I think you gave a lot of amazing resources in terms of the essay and application. So I'll keep mine to just kind of more the psychology and trauma side, because I think my talk could have done more to actually help students process trauma outside of the Admissions Essay kind of realm. The first is a book that I'm sure a lot of people have heard of, but the body keeps score, or Keeps the Score. It's all about trauma, intergenerational trauma, and how we process it, how we continue to process it, and all the complexities surrounding that. So I'd recommend reading that. And another one is what we gain from pain, which is a podcast from hidden brain, one of my favorite shows. It's all about post traumatic growth, which is this psychological phenomenon that has been studied a lot, where people supposedly gain all of these positive character traits or attributes after experiencing a traumatic event, the show basically interviews this researcher who delves deeper into this phenomenon and kind of debunks it. It's not necessarily false. You know, people do exhibit signs of growth after they experience trauma, but it's a lot more complicated than that, and I think the show does a really good job of addressing how sometimes we don't become better people as a result of pains we experience, and even when we do, it's different than just, you know, okay, this happened to me, and I immediately or automatically gained some valuable and employable character traits. So yeah, highly recommend listening to that and checking out the research on post traumatic growth.


Ethan Sawyer  59:42  
Awesome. As we wrap here, I'm just curious what, what has it been like to do this podcast with me? It's been


Tina Yong  59:49  
very cathartic. I think again, just squashing our beef and resolving our feud is a huge, you know, or huge, epic feud. Well, there's. Yeah, a few that never existed. And it just feels really good to speak to someone who is clearly so passionate and is very thoughtful about, you know, their contribution and their role and their responsibility. So I just love to see that there are people in this field who care about this issue, who are not just trying to, you know, push students in this pipeline into universities as quickly as possible without thinking about the consequences. So I'm just very grateful to witness this and have talked to you about this awesome


Ethan Sawyer  1:00:32  
I feel so grateful Tina and really honored to have talked to you. Thanks for coming on the podcast,


Tina Yong  1:00:38  
of course. Thank you so much. You


Ethan Sawyer  1:00:43  
music. Thanks friends as ever for listening. You'll find the resources we mentioned in the show notes, including a blog post that walks you through should you write about race in your application? And if so, how do you do it? There's a separate guide to how to answer those supplemental essay prompts that deal with diversity or inclusion or essentially, what will you bring to a college campus? You'll also find a list of colleges and universities that change their supplemental essay prompts after the Supreme Court decision was released, a resource for counselors on how and why to up level your school profile. And then we've got a comprehensive resource on why you don't have to write about trauma in your college essay to stand out and what you can do instead. And you'll find there the links to the exercises that I mentioned, an even more detailed analysis of the essay that we read aloud in the podcast and another essay. Also, in case you missed them, we've got a few different episodes exploring the impacts of the Supreme Court decision on the college admissions world, an analysis of the actual decision with advice to students and counselors, with legal expert Jay Rosner, we've got a resource on seven things Latinx families need to know about preparing for college. That's with Lorenzo Gamboa from Santa Clara. We've got a Spanish and English version of that one. And then we go behind the scenes at SMU with Rick Diaz, which includes a deep dive into those supplemental essay prompts, some of the ones we talked about with Tina On this episode, and lots, lots more. You'll find it all at college essay guy.com/podcast hey, if you've got an idea for an upcoming episode, email us at help at college essay guy.com We'd love to hear from you. Thanks, friends and stay curious. You.


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