Show Notes
Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, “On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling.” In this series, we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be.
In this episode, we break down an essay called “The Stomach Whisperer” about a student who used to lie on her grandmother’s stomach and wonder if the echoing gurgle I’d just heard was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon.
I’m joined today by Tillie Gottlieb, a former admission officer turned Director of College Counseling who I’m so happy to say now works with me full-time at College Essay Guy. In this episode (thanks to Tillie’s background), we get to analyze a personal statement through three different lenses: admission officer, college counselor, and lover of creative non-fiction. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys seeing how things get made, whether it’s a great meal, a film scene, or a piece of writing, I have a feeling you might enjoy this one.
Tillie Gottlieb is an educator and creative producer with fifteen years of experience in the world of higher education admissions and counseling. After earning her Bachelor’s from Whitman College and her Master’s in Education from Middlebury, Tillie navigated the complexities of college admissions from both sides of the desk—serving as a Director of College Counseling, a reader for USC, and overseas as an independent educational consultant. She is also a filmmaker and performer who has spent a career at the intersection of systems-level thinking, centering equity, and storytelling. At CEG, she translates her background into leading webinars and workshops, sharing free content on our social media channels, and serves as a senior college counselor, helping students turn their values and lived experiences into something people can actually feel.
Enjoy.
Play-by-Play
- 2:09 – When Tillie looks at a college essay, what are some of the lenses that she looks through?
- 5:07 – Tillie shares context on the essay and what she loves about it
- 5:43 – Tillie reads the essay we’re calling, The Stomach Whisperer
- 9:40 – What stands out from the lens of an admission officer?
- 11:50 – What works well in the opening paragraph?
- 16:49 – How does the writer use descriptive language to show various personal qualities?
- 18:11 – How can students use “geeky language” to express their intellectual curiosity?
- 23:18 – What techniques does the writer use to subtly weave in a challenge as they gain confidence in their choice of major?
- 27:29 – How can students stand out using a more common topic such as an internship?
- 33:07 – What works well in the closing paragraph?
- 36:20 – What are some of the values that are coming through in this essay?
- 38:37 – What is something that Tillie would like students to keep in mind as they’re going through this process?
- 38:55 – Closing thoughts
Resources
- The “Stomach Whisperer” Essay
- CEG’s College Admission Nutrients (aka The Great College Application Test)
- College Essay Guy’s Personal Statement Resources
- College Essay Guy’s College Application Hub
Show transcript
Ethan Sawyer (00:02) Hi friends and welcome back to the podcast. This is our series called On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling. This is a series where we take a close look at personal essays written by real students and we break them down to talk about what we love about them, why they work, and how they came to be. So in this episode, we break down an essay called The Stomach Whisperer about a student who used to lie on her grandmother's stomach and wonder if the echoing gurgle that she heard. was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon that our grandmother had eaten. I'm joined by Tilly Gottlieb, who is a former admission officer, turned director of college counseling, who I'm so happy to say now works full time with me here at College Essay Guy. So in this episode, thanks to Tilly's background, we get the advantage of having three different lenses on this piece of writing. So we get the admission officer lens, the college counselor lens, and also the part of Tilly that just loves creative nonfiction. If you're the kind of person who enjoys seeing how things get made, whether it's a great meal or a scene from a movie or a piece of writing, I've got a feeling you just might like this one. If you've never met Tilly, she's an educator and creative producer with 15 years experience in the world of higher ed. She earned her bachelor's from Whitman College and a master's in education from Middlebury, and then navigated the complexities of college admission from both sides of the desk as a director of college counseling. As a reader for USC and overseas as an independent educational consultant. She's a filmmaker and performer who spent a career at the intersection of systems-level thinking, centering equity, and storytelling. Here at CEG, she translates her background into leading webinars and workshops, sharing free content on our social media channels, and serving as a senior college counselor, helping students turn their values and lived experiences into something that people can actually feel. Hope you enjoy. Hey Tilly, welcome to the podcast. Tillie Gottlieb (02:11) Thanks Ethan. So happy to be here. Ethan Sawyer (02:14) So when you look at a college essay, aka a personal statement, what are some of the lenses that you look through? Tillie Gottlieb (02:25) I'm always looking through it as an admission officer. I can't help myself. That's how I started in this wild world of ours. So in that lens, I'm really thinking about what is so important that this student is going to communicate to me in their personal statement. And it can't be too many things because I'm reading it so quickly, but that lens is what are the what are the two, three key things that I need to know about you? And then Hopefully, if it's a bonus and it's excellent, I also like a picture is painted of who they are as a human. And I and I get to sit with that and try to imagine them on campus. I'm another lens is as the college counselor lens. So you know, how is this coming across? Is this capturing again key things that my student and I have talked about in terms of the overall narrative of their of their application itself and Yeah, are we capturing the most important pieces? Is there humor coming through or their sarcasm or the bits that make them human? And also is it sort of done to the best of their ability? And then I'm also looking at it as a writer, because I've done professional editorial writing, but also creative writing and screenwriting, which of course we've talked about. So I'm always I'm just looking for those like juicy pieces that make me chuckle or that give me that like, satisfied, you know, like. I love a good hook. I love a delicious ending. I love, you know, something delightful in parentheses. So I think as the writer there's always that lens there too. Ethan Sawyer (04:02) Yeah, I love these. I'm hearing like from the first lens, it's like, who is this student going to be on our campus? Like who is this person as an applicant? And then from the counselor's perspective, I'm hearing like, is it really capturing, you know, a big enough slice of who this student is based on what you know about them, based on what you've learned about them over a year or several years? And then the third one, I'm hearing like something like. It's it's to me it's like connected to aliveness. Like is the is the writing really sure, it needs to be clear. Yes, it needs to be, you know, it needs to flow well. But I I think what I'm hearing in the the details is like, does it sizzle a little bit? Tillie Gottlieb (04:46) Yes. Snap crackle pop, if you will. Yes. Ethan Sawyer (04:51) Great. So for this essay that we're gonna look at today, which didn't have a title, but I call it the stomach whisper essay. And for those who have read, you know, my book, you'll you'll recognize this essay from it. Set this up for us. What do you want folks to keep in mind as they hear this piece? Tillie Gottlieb (05:07) want folks to keep in mind that we are dealing with some pretty common topics. And I want them to think about how this student navigates these topics in a way that is so authentic and specific that we forget we're hearing common things. Ethan Sawyer (05:25) Yeah, I love that. I'm just gonna say listen for specific details that help do that. And listen for a moment when a student subtly weaves in a little challenge at some point in the essay. All right, let's do it. I'd love for you to read this one because folks have heard my voice enough on this podcast. So would you be willing to read this lovely piece to us? Tillie Gottlieb (05:43) My pleasure, of course. Alrighty. So the stomach whisperer. I could taste tangy cinnamon, a dash of extra vanilla, the raw flavor of molasses all overlaid with the smooth creamy base of buttermilk batter. I'd just eaten my first bite of my grandmother's spice cake. That night I lay with my ear against her stomach, listening to her digestion as she told me a bedtime story. Drowsily, I wondered if the echoing gurgle I just heard was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon. In the ensuing years, I never thought too much about the days when I was the stomach whisperer. Cooking everything I could get for a recipe and navigating by trial and error where no recipes were found, I took advantage of my ability to pick out ingredients and what I ate. Gradually, that early curiosity regarding the destiny of what we eat soon evolved into an intense love of science. In high school, I fed my interest in science. Classes like biology weren't simply lectures designed to drill knowledge into my head. They were an experience. What I learned in science became intermingled with how I saw my environment. I could clearly picture my surroundings as the sum of billions of cells working together or grasp how nitrogen fixation fit into the biochemical cycle. Biogeochemical cycle. But regardless of my new curiosity about science, I tended to second-guess myself, especially during labs. A snarky voice inside me whispered that I couldn't find success in science if I had no self-confidence, or if I kept questioning whether or not I was doing a lab right. Tentative goals were forming in my mind visions of a white coat with my name embossed on it. But I told myself that becoming a doctor was a ridiculous aspiration for a cook. Abruptly, my junior year, my beliefs about my scientific capabilities underwent a metamorphosis. I was introduced to a new type of lab, specimen dissections. Lab handouts were scarce on instructions. Once we delved into the anatomy of the stomach, they became little more than pictorial references. When asked to obtain a sample of stomach epithelium, I could make a lateral incision along the pyloris of the stomach or choose to slice open the fundus along the greater curvature. I was gleefully awed. Not only was I exploring the organ that I found most interesting, but I was actually doing a good job at it. No matter which way I chose to dissect, my eyes were opened to the fact that I had the capacity to be an independent thinker. Someone who didn't necessarily need the instructions. Armed with a newfound degree of self-assurance, I applied and was accepted to an internship at the semi-dermological group. My assumption had been that when doctors see a patient, they deliberate briefly on treatment and then prescribe whatever care is necessary. But interning showed me how very wrong I was. Patients came in daily with skin conditions that the doctors couldn't diagnose immediately. I saw that before they prescribed treatment, stellar doctors saw patients as a mixture of physical and mental parts, not just equations to plug various medicines into. As a matter of fact, breaking a spice cake down to ingredients, I realized isn't all that different from what a doctor does when diagnosing a patient. And in the future, I'll be combining cooking and science by becoming a gastroenterologist. With a wide array of gastric disorders to treat, from gastritis to polyps. I'll have to be self-assured so my patients can get the best care possible. Still, each patient won't have a recipe that I can follow to cure them, so I'll draw on the thinking of the little girl in the kitchen using what I know to make my own recipes. And simultaneously, I'll always be able to incorporate the mindset of the girl wondering whether cinnamon or molasses was the cause of that gastric condition. Ethan Sawyer (09:19) Just lovely. Tillie Gottlieb (09:20) I know. Ethan Sawyer (09:26) So there's a lot. I mean, if from writerly lens and from, you know, counselor lens, we you know, you didn't know this student no particularly. So let's let's maybe start with the admission officer lens. As you imagine being the admission officer reading this essay, what do you pick up on here? Tillie Gottlieb (09:46) I think the f one of the first things that comes to mind is how sincere the student is about their love for science. I believe it immediately. I don't question that they love bio and not and that and I love the specificity of the dissection. And knowing that she wants to do pre-med, there's any doubt in my mind about her having the excitement about that, bringing that kind of excitement to the academic sphere on campus, is immediately settled. And and I, you know, when I read it, I thought, okay, there's that's she's trying to tell me. She w loves science, wants to do medicine, and she has this array of qualities in terms of experimentation, self awareness, empathy, wonder that would be a great fit. Ethan Sawyer (10:36) Yeah. Yeah. I really see that, you know, we sometimes call it intellectual curiosity. Like we see that she is a nerd for science. And and I think you're right, it's through these specific details, the the specific details of the specimen dissection. And we also see her making discoveries about it, like realizing, I really love this. That's one thing that I noticed sort of as a theme in this essay is that there are these like little realizations along the way. Yeah. And in different scenarios. Like I'm I'm just seeing this actually right now, but There are these there are maybe like three different realizations throughout this essay. And that's funny because it's not something that I would say like, hey, go give your reader a string of realizations that you've made. But oftentimes that's what insight feels like. Tillie Gottlieb (11:21) Exactly. To me, that's the insight. And actually, you know, it's often the hardest part for students to get to that part is what was the realization? What was the aha moment? Why does it matter? And that brings it all home, you know, and I think that and what that indicates to me too from the admission officer lens is, there's an openness here that this student has to being wrong or navigating doubt or it you know, it admitting she doesn't have the whole picture. And that is so valuable. Ethan Sawyer (11:50) Let's get into the opening. You mentioned loving openings. What do you I'm gonna read it again and and what do you notice? So I could taste tangy cinnamon, a dash of extra vanilla, the raw flavor of molasses, all overlaid with the smooth, creamy base of buttermilk batter. I'd just eaten my first bite of my grandmother's spice cake. That night I lay with my ear against her stomach, listening to her digestion as she told me a bedtime story. Drowsily, I wondered if the echoing gurgle I just heard was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon. Yeah, what do you notice here? Tillie Gottlieb (12:21) It just transports you immediately. That is w and there's to me this is textbook excellence in showing versus telling. You know, that I'm I it's this beautiful demonstration of the calm, nurturing, like steadiness, love that she's feeling both as she's like eating this cake, but also that relationship with her grandmother. And particularly that last sentence, like we all know what that feels like to lay with our head against somebody's gurgling tummy or their heartbeat. You know, it's so tender. It's so evocative. Like I'm immediately, I just feel warm and excited for whatever's next. Ethan Sawyer (13:01) Yeah. And I I noticed like one thing I'll sometimes say is like, can you write a sentence that nobody else is gonna write? And I think there's a higher bar here, which is like, can you make all of your sentences sentences that no one would write? Now that's kind of a really high bar for some students, but certainly nobody else is gonna begin with this exact same sentence. And she's doing this thing that I call like the mini hemming way, which is like a specific like description of a thing. And she's layering on top of that description. She's using extra senses. So there's taste. There's probably smell too, with like, even though she says flavor of molasses, like we we can know what vanilla and molasses smell like. So she's inviting us in. And there's a little bit of mystery, right? With the it's not just show, but it's like, as you said, but it's like show and taste and smell. And she puts us in like confusion momentarily. And then boom, there's that little tell of context. And that tell of context gives us a little bit of information about how she's interpreting this experience. So she kind of like makes us wonder and makes us like invites us to have our own thoughts in the experience, and then boom, gives us a lens. And that lens happens to be like one of great curiosity, which happens to be a quality that colleges are looking for. Tillie Gottlieb (14:20) For. Yes. And just to say it one more time, although I guess I haven't said this, but as an as an admission officer, we're reading these so quickly. So if off the bat you have created not only some very sort of specific human experience for me as the reader, but then you are offering to me not explicitly, but in s in like this delightful but intentional way that there is more to be had if I keep going and I don't skim. Like that is That's that's money from an admission officer's perspective. Ethan Sawyer (14:54) It's totally money. And and the thing that you're speaking to, I think, is what for me it's like equality. Like I trust the writer here. I trust that where I'm gonna be taken is worthwhile. And so, you know, I don't know to what extent how much you'll slow down as a reader reading this, but I imagine a little. Like it's like, okay, this is this might be a good one. Tillie Gottlieb (15:13) Yes, yes. I I probably won't skim the next paragraph. That's you've just bought the next paragraph is really what's happened, you know. Ethan Sawyer (15:21) That's a good note. I mean, like, so for students who are listening or thinking about college essays in particular, like, can you write a paragraph that will make your reader not skim? Tillie Gottlieb (15:31) Yes. I that's what I tell my students now as a counselor. I say, I want that essay to be so excellent that they don't skim it. And they don't just read the top and they don't just read the bottom and they spend the time and they go tell the person next door how good it is. That's what I want. You know. Ethan Sawyer (15:46) There's a quality in the next paragraph that I want to point out. And it's and it's the when a student shows that they're willing to laugh at themselves a little bit. So I'd call this like self-effacing humor. Her next sentence says, In the ensuing years, I never thought too much about the days when I was the stomach whisperer. And there's a capital S and capital W. And it's so delightful to be like so sort of like taking yourself seriously and then going, maybe not taking myself so seriously. And I think if a student's willing to do this, I think it's really says something about their ability to to see the meta and to zoom out. And that's a quality they look for in my friends, in my, you know, the people that I work with. I want them to be able to sort of zoom out and not take things so seriously. She says, cooking everything I could get a recipe for and navigating by trial and error where no recipes were found, I took advantage of my ability to pick out ingredients and what I ate. So many values here, so many little qualities. Gradually that early curiosity regarding the destiny of what we eat soon evolved into an intense love of science. So there's a nice transition. What qualities are you noticing here that, you know, would be exciting to a reader? Tillie Gottlieb (16:55) Yeah, well I think in addition to that s little sense of joy and playfulness, which we are allowed and I encourage, you know. In addition to that, there's I get this sense of again openness that we mentioned at the top and experimentation, eagerness, like a a wonder, ability to jump in head first, and and like a desire for knowledge. All and all that comes through in two sentences. Ethan Sawyer (17:26) And this is a quality, even though you won't know this if you're reading this for the first time, but this is a quality that's gonna be important for later in the story. Because as y'all who've just heard the story know that there's this moment where she realizes, hey, I can actually do this thing more trial and error style. And so one of the things when I was working with her years ago, and I talked to her about this, I was like, I think you need to establish that early on. So where in your life did that Trial and errors live. And she came up with this example that she sort of plants. And you know, it'll pay off later in the story. I love that she just ends her second paragraph with the word science because okay, now we know where we're headed. Third paragraph. In high school, I fed my interest in science. Just a lovely, subtle, probably no one will notice it, but there's like a little pun on fed. Tillie Gottlieb (18:11) Those that get it will appreciate it. Ethan Sawyer (18:14) And by the way, students listen this, you don't have to if you're writing a college as they have like these like really subtle puns in order to, you know, get into a great college. I just want to, from a writerly lens, just pause to appreciate the button. She gives some examples. Classes like biology weren't simply lectures designed to drill knowledge into my head. They were an experience. What I learned in science became intermingled with how I saw my environment. I could clearly picture my surroundings as the sum of billions of cells working together or grasp how nitrogen fixation fit into the biogeochemical cycle. Thoughts? Tillie Gottlieb (18:49) To me, this is a beautiful demonstration of exactly the kind of student she's gonna be when she gets to campus. You know, there there's an eagerness, it's so wholehearted, you know, that science as an experience, it's interdisciplinary, it's s showing me so meaningfully, and again, specifically where it's billions of cells, nitrogen fixation, showing that she has the knowledge and also that it brings her this level of joy. that will likely be infectious for her peers when she arrives on a college campus. Ethan Sawyer (19:24) Totally. She's us she's doing the geeky language thing here. She's nerding out. So this is a little tiny technique for you who are writing college essays or you know, hanging out with folks who are writing college essays. If you can just demonstrate you know some stuff about some stuff in like a sentence here or part of a sentence, it's signaling, Yeah, I'm I'm an advanced candidate. So even terms like nitrogen fixation and bio geom geochemical cycle, we don't have to know as a reader what that means. It's just Tillie Gottlieb (19:27) Right. Nerding out. Ethan Sawyer (19:54) Do you know what it means? And you know, it's it's also this with this spirit of discovery that you're mentioning. But regardless, she continues, of my new curiosity about science, I tended to second guess myself. So here's that little challenge that I flagged before we started, especially during labs. A snarky voice inside me whispered that I couldn't find success in science if I had no self-confidence, or if I kept questioning whether or not I was doing a lab right. Tentative goals were forming in my mind. Visions of a white coat with my name embossed on it. But I told myself that becoming a doctor was a ridiculous desperation for a cook. What do you notice here? Tillie Gottlieb (20:32) Well, I get the call back from Whisperer. There's also that the this student does such a great job of mirroring back, so we're just in this nice little cycle with them. But what I love about this, and this was the lens that I was encouraging folks to think about at the top, lack of self-confidence is a pretty common issue. It's a pretty common challenge. It's one we deal with probably for much of our lives. But again, the specificity where she's not Telling us this. We hear things like snarky voice, you know, goals forming in my mind, an embossed white coat, like a ridiculous aspiration. It's such strong writing, it's evocative. It's now it's planting this little seed about medicine that we're gonna get into. So nothing is common about the way she's describing her grappling with self-confidence. Ethan Sawyer (21:26) Yeah. She's also doing a really great thing I noticed from a we'll call it like a screenwriting perspective. And what I mean by this, and this is something that you're familiar with, Tilly, from your background as well, but she's getting us to want what she wants. And oftentimes I'll ask students, you know, we'll ask them a lot, like, what do you want? And they'll like, I don't know. This is a student who knew what she wanted. And what I like that she weaves it in here because we get to want with her. And then there's also this like hero's journey, like. resisting the call to adventure. Like we see that, you know, she could be on this path, but she's like, no, I don't know. And it's that like Luke Skywalker moment. Like I probably shouldn't leave, you know, or you know anytime they're offered the adventure there's a Tillie Gottlieb (22:11) I said, do it, do it. Ethan Sawyer (22:13) Yeah, totally. Totally. And it's getting us to want what she wants. So we're now on her side. We're like, come on, you know. So it's getting us to what. Now that's a kind of subtle thing to do and it's not easy to weave it. And then you certainly don't have to weave it into every essay. But I noticed that I'm sort of like as I as I think about why do I like the student? One, the thing that you mentioned at the start, where there's this verisimilitude, which is like an English teacher term for like specific details, specifically details that I recognize from my own life. Maybe an experience that I've had. And then here it's like, she has a dream, a goal, and I want her to be successful and get the thing that she's wanting. Yes. So it's subtle, but it comes into one and it comes into one paragraph, which is really Tillie Gottlieb (22:56) It's the buy-in piece to me, you know, which is this this sort of screenwriter term too. But and then imagine how effective that is for an admission officer who gets to make a pretty big decision, right? About whether you're not or not you get to pursue this goal. And yeah, as a I like you said, it's it's subtle and a little more challenging, but man, is it effective. Ethan Sawyer (23:17) It really is. And what I like about this is this didn't become like a whole essay about self-confidence, because she could have done that. But instead, she brings it into like the fourth paragraph. And then in the fifth paragraph, there's a turning point around this. So she continues and says, Abruptly during junior year, my beliefs about my scientific capabilities underwent a metamorphosis. Lovely topic sentence. Now we know what's coming in the paragraph. I was introduced to a new type of lab, specimen dissections. Lab handouts were scarce on instructions. Once we delved into the anatomy of the stomach, they became little more than pictorial references. By the way, side note, students, you don't have to put in words like pictorial references, you can just say pictures. Yes. When asked to obtain a sample of stomach epithelium, she says, I can make a lateral ins incision along the pyloris of the stomach or choose to slice open the fundus along the greater curvature. Okay. A little more geeky language. Tillie Gottlieb (24:07) Nerding out. I don't know what that means and it doesn't matter. Ethan Sawyer (24:10) Totally, totally. And then she's responding to it. I was gleefully awed. Now, pausing on this because there's this like, you know, specimen dissection zoom in moment, which for some people might freak them out or make them queasy. But her reaction is the revealing moment, right? I was gleefully awed. Not only was I exploring the organ I found most interesting, I was actually doing a good job at it. No matter which way I chose to dissect, my eyes were open to the fact that I I had the capacity to be an independent thinker, someone We didn't necessarily need the instructions. What do you notice here? Tillie Gottlieb (24:42) Well, it's this delightful again echoing of her sort of discernment that can be based on trial and error and experimentation and that she's we're we're seeing that she's as she says finding this capacity and her her her capability finding we're seeing her find her confidence in it and Also, I just love the joy. I love the joy of it. It's reinforcing everything we're already learning about this person and their that wonderment and kind of eyes wide open approach. But we're seeing the build of the confidence with the nerdiness. It's like an ultimate trifecta of what you want in a paragraph when you only have six hundred and fifty words. Ethan Sawyer (25:32) Yeah. And you know, sometimes students will spend a lot of time talking about the thing that changed their perspective. They'll spend like three paragraphs. And sometimes they'll go the opposite way and they'll be like, you'll see them in a new paragraph, and then they won't say what changed. They'll be like, but then I changed. And we'll see them as a new person, but we're kind of missing this context. So the challenge that I want to give to the students is like, if you did have a change of mind or change of heart about something, can you do it in a paragraph? Can you do it in like three to five sentences? And the answer is probably yes. And then this story, this whole this challenge doesn't have to dominate your story. And the simple technique is what she uses here, which is like, give us the images. So show, show the picture of whatever the thing is. And then tell us what your reaction was. And it's those two things side by side and the intellectual leap that you made or the reaction that you had that's going to be different from the reaction that we had probably is going to be revealing of your character. So it's just a simple technique thing you can do. Tillie Gottlieb (26:31) Yep. And again, it makes it uncommon. That's the piece. Is how you are tying those things together. It's the specificity mirrored with your own personal point of view. And those two are so clear here and it doesn't go on forever. And it's just achieved in a really beautiful way. Ethan Sawyer (26:52) Second to paragraph. So she's had this turning point, and then she says, armed with a newfound degree of self-assurance, I applied and was accepted to an internship at the SEMI dermatological group. My assumption had been that when doctors see a patient, they deliberate briefly on treatment and then prescribe whatever care is necessary. But interning showed me how very wrong I was. Patients came in daily with skin conditions the doctors couldn't diagnose immediately. I saw that before they prescribed treatment, Stellar doctors saw patients as a mixture of physical and mental parts, not just equations to plug various medicines into. What do you know? Tillie Gottlieb (27:29) I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but I'm t it's it's the openness, you know, it's a sense of my assumptions were wrong and how delightful it is to learn these very critical things about this profession. So I I love that openness to changing her mind. I also really appreciate again the echoing of her interdisciplinary lens, seeing the connectedness of all those things. And also seeing this opportunity. And again, it's it's part of that, okay. I'm still rooting for her. And I'm thinking, okay, yes, you're you're gaining this insight. Now what are you gonna do with it? So it's still pushing me to keep reading. I still you just bought yourself a yet another paragraph. We're almost to the end. Ethan Sawyer (28:17) I love that. Yeah. Well one of the things I love about this is that it feels this paragraph feels like it has the quality of insight. And it's a very particular kind of insight. And this is a weird, weird thing to say to you student listeners, but like if if you can find a moment where you were wrong about something and, you know, show when your perspective was changed or like the external world had an impact on you and like changed the way that you were orienting to something. Like that vulnerability is so valuable and so wonderful. And like I want to hear about it. And I think, you know, college admission readers want to hear about it. So here was this assumption that doctors were X particular way. And then after kind of being in the weeds, you know, being in the room with them, realized that they were this other way. And guess what? This other way is a way that I am. And there's like a skill or quality that I can, you know, draw on here. And yes, of course, because it's a short essay. It's like the skiller quality that she set up in the second paragraph. Right. Tillie Gottlieb (29:21) And can I say too, even I just got excited about this, is the other thing, and again, this is going back to what we were encouraging you to do at the top, which is how is she dealing with common things? And a common thing might be an internship in a medical setting, if that's something you're interested in. But there are things that we all know about those. And she expertly sets those aside because she makes the correct assumption that we can guess what that might feel like and focuses, just gives us a couple sentences that are specific. To her about her point of view, about this sort of critical thing that she observed. And so that's how she navigates it. Anybody could you she could write a whole thing about the internship, you know, or and maybe she saves it and she does other things and her supplements, right? That dig more into it in terms of why she wants to do what she wants to do. But this is a magnificent way of managing a common activity in a specific way that I really believe and that's really important to gaining insight into her character. So this Great example. Ethan Sawyer (30:21) Yeah, love what you're pointing at. And the the simple exercise, as if you're listening to this as a student, is like whatever the thing is that you're worried is gonna be common or blend in, it's not the thing itself that ends up being the cliche. You know, it might be common, meaning other students have done it. What ends up sounding cliche is if you say common things about it. So to your point, Tilly, if you, you know, were to say, at this internship, I was able to see real doctors and solving real problems, you know, I'm like, well, okay, that's what everybody else has said. So The simple exercise you can do is like imagine what are the two or three things that everyone else is gonna say about whatever the thing is, whether it's an internship or I don't know, a summer job or a particular club that you joined. And then can you write a sentence that no one else would write? Like no one else is gonna write. Patients came in daily with skin conditions, the doctors couldn't diagnose immediately. And I saw that before they prescribed treatments, still are anyway, you get the idea. So it's these sentences that are particular. And if you find yourself, let's say you're mid-draft, you've written a Sentence or two that someone else could write, delete it. Say something different. Until you find something that surprises you a little bit, that you actually are like, I didn't expect to say that. And if it hits you with the force of surprise, chances are that's gonna read to the reader to use a cooking metaphor, like a a more like a fresh baked insight as opposed to like reheated leftovers. Right. Tillie Gottlieb (31:46) Okay. And and I'll say this too: sometimes you need another cook in the kitchen. Let's continue the metaphor. Right. But this was not the she didn't, I imagine, produce this on the first draft. So often you have to do that writing. You know, when we're working with our students, and Ethan, I'm sure you could attest to how many drafts this takes. It's it takes the time to really think about it and reflect meaningfully. And so I encourage you to do that and and find trusted folks to work. work with you, you know, you don't want too many cooks in the kitchen, but you do want to find a trusted person or two that can that knows you well enough or is strong enough at this process to help you mine for the gold that is the unique way that you are looking at the world. Ethan Sawyer (32:32) Yeah. And this gives me a chance to say, y'all, talk to your counselor, talk to your college counselor. They're waiting for you. Wait, they would love to read a draft in most cases, and depending on the time of year. But in most cases, they would love to read your essay draft and be talking having these conversations with you about what did this experience mean to you and what happened next. And what did you learn about yourself? Like that's the most exciting part of a counselor's job. So I want to just encourage y'all to like reach out to your, you know, to your college counselor and talk to them. Assuming you have one, reach out to your college counselor, talk to them. Because this is the part, this is the this is the best part, you know? So All right. Final paragraph. As a matter of fact, she says, breaking a spice cake down to ingredients, I realized isn't all that different from what a doctor does when diagnosing a patient. And in the future, I'll be combining cooking and science by becoming a gastroenterologist with a wide array of gastric disorders to treat from gastritis to polyps. I'll have to be self assured, so my patient can get the best care possible. Still, each patient won't have a recipe I think I can follow to cure them. So I'll draw the thinking of the little girl in the kitchen using what I know to make my own recipes. And simultaneously I'll always be able to incorporate the mindset of the girl, wondering whether cinnamon or molasses was the cause of that gastric condition. All right, what do you see here? Tillie Gottlieb (33:50) I see humor. I chuckled at cooking and science, gastroenterology. So she sprinkles that in. I see delightful specificity about the way that she is understanding her strengths and how she had this kind of quality within her all along. But it also draws us to her future and again this buy-in of wanting to. Get this girl into that white coat, you know, and knowing that she's gonna do it with this sense of curiosity, with care, with an understanding of complexity, as an independent thinker, as somebody who embraces experimentation, and somebody who's grounded in this in in family or has things at root her and that ultimately it concludes again, making us feel like we understand where she's coming from. Ethan Sawyer (34:47) Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that this is one that some s folks who are fans of the podcast or who've read, you know, some of the sample essays that I love will maybe recognize some of this structure from a student who wrote about you know endodontistry. So back in the day, there was a student that I worked with who had this realization about how he wanted to be an endodontist. But it sounds like he wants to be an engineer. And at the end, he has this little bookend moment where he refers back to a moment earlier in the essay. And if I'm not mistaken, the student saw that essay and was like, I want to refer back to something earlier in the essay. So she found a way to kind come back to, you know, this is the the thing at the start where she's drowsily wondering if the echoing gurgle that she heard from her grandmother's stomach was caused by the molasses or the cinnamon. So for those of you who are listening, you know, along here, you don't have to set that up at the start of the essay. It could be that you're you just tell your story and share of the qualities that you want to share. And then as you're trying to come up with an ending, you can weave in an ending by like basically putting in some stuff at the opening that you'll then refer back to later and it'll seem like it was there all along. Cause this was something that, you know, she basically rewrote her opening later when she figured out what she wanted to to to bring in here. Tillie Gottlieb (36:02) And yeah, these essays are not well I should say the experience of writing them is rarely linear. So like take that pressure off of yourself. You know, you get you get to craft it in ways yeah, it doesn't have to be straight straight on through to the other side. Ethan Sawyer (36:20) probably know y'all who are listening, but also Tilly. I love to look for values. So Tilly, as you reflect on this piece, like what are some of the values that you see coming through in this essay? Tillie Gottlieb (36:30) Yeah, we've touched on a lot of them because she's she did a beautiful job of weaving them throughout. But I would say self trust is a big one. Connection, which maybe we haven't touched on as explicitly, but with family, with science, between disciplines, between what she does and doesn't know. How about you, Ethan? What what's coming to mind? Ethan Sawyer (36:56) I wanna I gotta bring it back to admission nutrients because these are qualities that colleges are looking for. And even though I worked with a student like years ago, before we even sort of like did the research to figure out what are these admission nutrients, I see all of them in this essay. So I'm gonna name them real quick. One is intellectual curiosity, which we've talked about repeatedly. The second one is service to others. And that is sort of built into the thing here, but I can see her orientation when she talks about being able to diagnose a patient. There's also leadership or initiative. You know, she shows how she was able to take initiative and sort of had that realization about, I can make it up as I go. Collaboration, we see that in the internship when she's being changed by, being impacted by the other, the doctors that she's working with. And then Blasphone's consistent engagement. Like this is something that has clearly been with her since she was young. So I love that each of these qualities shows up, maybe in subtle, but ways that we could like specifically point to. Tillie Gottlieb (37:53) Yes, we're talking about what it will mean for her to be a gastroenterologist, but everything she has shared, all these qualities, these values that we've enumerated, are also wonderful attributes for undergrads, right? They're things that as an as an admission officer, I'm also thinking, w I want her to bring that sense of wonder. I want her to be okay, you know, with not knowing everything. I want her to know that she can grapple with an insecurity and move through it, and that maybe it's not a liability. So we're We the were both rooting for her, yes, to be a doctor, but as an admission officer, I'm also thinking these are wonderful qualities for her to have when she shows up on campus for the very challenging, very new experience of being in college. Ethan Sawyer (38:37) Tell you what's what's something that you'd like students to keep in mind as they're going through this process? Tillie Gottlieb (38:42) I want them to know that it's real humans on the other side that care. Right? The admission officers reading it, counselors. Yes. We care. We love it. It's why we're doing it. Ethan Sawyer (38:54) That's a good reminder. Thanks, Tilly, for spending some time with me. Tillie Gottlieb (38:57) Thank you so much, Ethan. Ethan Sawyer (39:02) Thanks friends as ever for listening. You'll find our show notes at college essaguy.com slash podcast, including the text of this essay, if you'd like to read it for yourself. If you'd like to hear more from us, sign up for anything at collegeesakuy.com and we'll share with you our latest free resources, our upcoming live events and webinars, and lots, lots more. Thanks, friends, and stay curious.
