703: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling (Ep 3: The Pilgrim and The CEO) with Jane Longley

Jane Longley (00:00)
you

Tom Campbell (00:02)
you

Welcome back to the College Essay Guide podcast in our series on becoming the art and craft of personal storytelling. I'm one of your co-hosts, Tom Campbell, former Pomona and Holy Cross admission officer, turned essay coach and college counselor here at CEG. In this series, we look at real personal statements from real students, what choices were made, what was revised, and why certain moves work. For this episode, I teamed up with Jane Longley, one of our amazing one-on-one essay coaches here at CEG.

to unpack an essay that one of her students wrote titled, The Pilgrim and the CEO. It tells the story of two challenging yet rewarding experiences central to the student's identity and growth, hiking the Camino and starting her own skincare line. They seem like wildly different journeys in that bite-sized one-sentence description, but as you'll see from the essay, they're anything but disparate. This essay is a masterclass on balance, which is really what college essays are all about. On one side, they genuinely reflect the student, their voice, their lived experiences,

And on the other, they need to do some real work, helping an admission reader understand the student's character, values, and potential to make it all the more easy for them to advocate in that committee room. We'll talk through key excerpts, unpack the strategic decisions behind them, and share practical insights for counselors, teachers, and anyone guiding students through the writing process. But first, let's meet Jane. Jane has been an essay coach for over eight years. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in modern languages.

and spent 10 years teaching in the UK before moving to Nicaragua, where she has lived for more than two decades. Along the way, trained in in-person centered therapeutic counseling and boarding education, experiences that inform how she works with students today. As an essay coach, she focuses on helping students clarify their ideas, identify meaningful through lines in their experiences, and find language that feels precise and authentic. And we, for one, are so glad she's come to share her expertise

and her calming British accent with you all. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Jane, thank you so much and welcome to the CEG Podcast. How you doing today?

Jane Longley (02:16)
I'm good, thank you. How are you?

Tom Campbell (02:18)
Great, I'm great. I'm back in sunny Southern California after a few months of over the holidays in snowy Maine. So it feels good to be back in the swing of that. So thanks for coming to talk a little bit about your students' essay and their becoming through their work with you. Before we kind of dive into the work, I'd love to know a little bit more about you and what brought you to College Essay Guy. We actually just found out from...

our little pre-show huddle that we started the same season in 2022 at College essay guy, but came from very different paths. So could you share a little bit about just kind of what stood out to you about working at College essay guy and yeah, you're becoming, becoming an essay coach with us.

Jane Longley (03:01)
Sure. So I discovered essay work about eight, nine years ago now, working in Managua, in Nicaragua. And the job that I started, I didn't have much information. I'd worked in education for a long time, but I hadn't worked on college essays. And as you know, I'm British, so the UCAS system is a little bit different. We don't go into as much depth about personality and values and that kind of thing.

So when I started this work, I was a little bit like, okay, internet help me. There must be some guidance. And the top search result was College Essay Guy with all these amazing free resources. I was mind blown. So I started using College Essay Guy resources right at the beginning. Loved them, shared everything with my students. And then.

started working with College Essay Guy in 2022 as an essay coach. And yeah, I love it. It's such a privilege to do this work. I've met so many amazing people and I love helping students figure out how to tell their stories. Everybody's different. Everybody has something and it's just, yeah, it doesn't feel like a job most of the time. Maybe a little bit around November the 1st, know.

Tom Campbell (04:24)
Yes.

Jane Longley (04:26)
creep in. But yeah, so that's how I came to college as a guy and I'm very glad to be here.

Tom Campbell (04:32)
So I'm so glad that you.

are part of the team. It's great to be here.

Jane Longley (04:35)
Thank you.

it's, yeah, it's, it's such a privilege to be a little tiny.

Peace in their story.

Tom Campbell (04:45)
Yeah, yeah. And I, yeah, it's amazing. Also the amount of students that you that you work with too and are able to support. It's, it's really something. Well, this student that we're talking about here today, yeah, let's let's maybe kind of before diving right into the actual essay itself, it's going to be like the, central focal point of this episode. We'd love to know a little bit about, you know, us as, you know, essay coaches were introduced to a student a little bit through just a brief summary, you know, from our team of, you know,

who they are, why they're coming to us for support. So I guess if you could walk us back through the initial part of the timeline when you're first connecting with the student, what were maybe some of the things that you learned about them that you were stepping into that very first conversation knowing, okay, here's either a concern or anxiety that I have around writing or about the college process or sharing my story, and maybe some things about them that they're like, here are things that I'm really confident that I wanna do and wanna say. Yeah, I guess.

walk us through that initial point of connection with the student we're diving into.

Jane Longley (05:47)
Hello. When we first met, we quickly realized that this student has a lot to talk about, as we'll discover when we start digging into the essay. Then she has her own skincare product that she's developed. She had recently walked the Camino with her brothers.

She has been involved in so many different activities across two schools during high school. There was so much and one of her big concerns was what am going to write about? How am I going to find topics that I like? She felt that she writes well, but only if she's really engaged with the idea. So I think that was one of her biggest concerns as well as having some guidance to make sure

Tom Campbell (06:32)
Hmm

Jane Longley (06:40)
Everything was done in a timely manner and it wasn't going to become a whole big panic towards the end with lots of supplemental essays to write for the early decision deadline.

Tom Campbell (06:53)
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I guess it sounds like a student. Sometimes, you you work with someone who comes in and they're like, I have no ideas at all. But maybe this was a little bit of the other end of the spectrum of there's lots of different opportunities and avenues, but doubts about each of them and maybe kind of a lack of enthusiasm or kind of a vision for how it would unfold for a few of the different paths.

Jane Longley (07:17)
I think she really wanted to feel the spark of this is it. I can get excited about this and I know I'm going to write an awesome essay because it just feels right. And obviously we can't always look for, know, this is it, this is it. This is the gut feeling. This is, I know this is my topic. It doesn't always work like that with students, but often when I'm exploring topics, then I'll look for.

what the student gets most enthusiastic about and try and lean into that. Because if you're writing, as you know, we're going to do a whole load of drafts on this. We're going to be going back over these ideas. You want it to be about something that the student enjoys talking about because that creates a sense of enthusiasm and interest that is conveyed in the writing. If they're bored writing it, then it's a real struggle.

to get it to come over as a compelling essay for the reader.

Tom Campbell (08:18)
Yeah, that is, that is a challenge that I feel like, especially when, you know, many students are coming with different influences of like, you know, someone in their ear, maybe sometimes a parent being like, you really should write about this. And the amount of times I've worked with students who that's something that they like feel pressured, like, this is what everyone thinks that I should write about. So like, I feel like this is what should materialize when you have that kind of gut inner reluctance to being like, yeah, like

I guess this is something that I should share, like it's just not, it's not giving me that spark. Like you said, can be really hard to feel like to push on if that's your lens. And with this student, you know, obviously a big part of our work in the beginning is kind of like pattern finding and kind of like what I see in you type of work, right? We get matched with a student. We learn a little bit about them early on from initial notes and a call, but

I think where the real magic happens is actually brainstorming conversations, right? Which usually happen over one to two sessions. So in brainstorming with this student, I'd to know a little bit about some of the exercises that we have in our canon, right? We have essence objects, we have 21 details, we have the values exercise. I'd love to know if there were things that as you started to move through this student's completed document, were the things that you noticed in them that they didn't really, weren't really

or things that you found interesting in what they had to share that they were kind of like, like that's just whatever. That happens, I feel like a lot with many students.

Jane Longley (09:49)
Yeah, I think so. I love the values because I feel like it's kind of a bedrock. ⁓ If we're talking about a student is telling their story and I'm really person-centered in my approach. I want to honor the student's story. I want to honor their experience and who they are in the way that we're going to tell the essay and the topic that we're going to choose.

what makes them them, whether they are like this student, authenticity was one of her values. Laughter, which actually was something that came up a lot in our sessions. We laughed a lot, which is really fun. And I think that probably made the whole process perhaps a lot easier. I don't know. But I think I'll always look at values and then ask my students to explain how those values show up.

and note down the different examples. So that helps me start to make connections because I think a lot of students can say, this is a bit different about me, but they maybe don't see the patterns and connections that we can see coming in from the outside and also with the experience. in a way, the whole topic of the essay developed because of that, because of making connections between something that we didn't expect.

Tom Campbell (11:15)
Yeah. And I think, you know, one thing that's a real. Privileged in our process is that kind of like it's not quite an interview per se, you know, it's obviously a very like two way mutual conversation, but I do feel like at least in my work, I do feel like those initial few sessions are like I was just given this like gift of like so many details about a person who I don't really know much about. it's.

inevitably going to generate a lot of questions or things you notice that you have like, you know, for example, I saw on this student's brainstorming exercises that they happen to have visited Nicaragua and you had like a little comment with a smiley emoji, right? So when you find those glimmers of mutuality and connection, it can really just open up a door to a conversation topic and thread that can sometimes really bore in and lead to actually essay development. And other times it's just a nice point of connection and a chat and then you move on and that's all well and

Jane Longley (12:10)
I think it helps establish trust as well. We sometimes joke that I play this game of, I wonder why I've been matched with this student. What is the hidden connection that we're going to find? But I had no idea that this student had been to Niagara and then I actually found out through the family liaison. So even the kickoff call, we talked about that. And it's just one of those little things that, you you feel you're suddenly you're both human beings.

It isn't as intimidating for a student as who is this adult who's teaching me. So I do love those little connections, but there are also things in the brainstorming that I'll ask questions and they might say, oh, I don't know. I hadn't thought about that before. Well, that sounds authentic. Does that tie into the authenticity that you wrote about up here? And then you start to pull threads together that are what can.

later on be woven into an essay.

Tom Campbell (13:11)
Yeah. And I think, you know, for any counselors who are tuning in, who are like, you know, that's all well and good. I wish I had the luxury of, you know, sitting down with each of my students at my school caseload and, you know, diving into this work more in depth. We know, you know, that that's not something that everyone has the bandwidth with, their role to be able to do. So something that, you know, just as a, maybe prompt for your students is I do think there's a real benefit in.

as opposed to solely having students just select values on a list. And then you, as a counselor, look and see, okay, well, great. Your top three values are religion, expertise, and compassion. There's your essay, right? not, it can't always be necessarily that simple, but even asking students to write two or so sentences about what that value means to them, how it shows up for them. We have on our documents on our end, these kind of little comments.

over a value that have this more elaborated explanation about how it shows up for the individual student. And I know for some students, like I've had a student one time where, for example, he put down wealth as a top value and some people might be like, how could you admit that? Like, colleges are never gonna be impressed by that. But he talked about how, well, for me, wealth is something that I didn't really have access to growing up. And it's something that I really want to redistribute as part of my career. And it's a motivating factor for me to

have wealth and equality be, you know, really addressed and be able to work in and chip away at that. So when you ask that kind of, what around these values, it really does open up, I think some great doors. And for this student, the three that are bolded, underlined, highlight, AKA the top three in this list of, I think there's probably like a hundred plus on this list, are inclusion, challenges, and authenticity. And in the essay that we're about to read, you're definitely, think, going to see.

see those themes emerge in some way, or form as it evolves. Did you want to shout out maybe any particular exercises from this longer list of what we offer at college? say, happened to be, there's a lot of counselors say, okay, it's great, you know, that, or even students too, like it's great that you have all these exercises, but I'm having trouble visioning the way that these different disparate things that I just completed are actually going to.

results in a final essay. And that's like where the real magic happens, but also it's difficult because it's not a one size fits all journey with all people.
Jane Longley (15:46)
Yeah, I think so for me, like I said, the values is the kind of the bedrock, the roles and identities, which is one of our newer later in the, in the, in the order of the.

Tom Campbell (15:59)
The CG history.

Jane Longley (16:02)
One

of our newer ones is the roles and identities, and I feel like that balances the values well. Those are the higher level ideas that we can be playing with. Then the 21 details, possibly essence objects depending on how much a student engages with it, are where I find the the meat,

The little quirky details, the like this student, they, we'll see in the essay, they got matching tattoos, the three siblings partway through the Camino, not even at the end, we had a good laugh about that. But that was one of her, her 21 details. So that was the kind of thing that, you know, it's so unique to her story that you think that might come in somewhere. And then there are other little things about.

memories or just quirky interests that sometimes people have. And I love finding the gold that can become something really meaningful in these details that they don't even realize. It's like, that's awesome. Let's write about that.

Tom Campbell (17:26)
Yeah, and so often I feel like the 21 details are things that are prefaced by the student with like, I don't know how like useful this will be, right? It's always kind of like there's always a qualifier kind of like I don't you know, I don't really know what this could lead to, but it just wasn't.

Jane Longley (17:41)
For

some reason they've been uppermost in their mind and they've written them down. So for me, that says something. It's like of all the hundreds of things that you could write, you pick these ones.

Tom Campbell (17:51)
I agree.

Yeah, yeah, there's some some subconscious energy that led that to.

Jane Longley (18:02)
Yeah, there's magic in that exercise.

Tom Campbell (18:05)
pen, AKA the keyboard. And something that, you know, definitely ended up coming up a lot, it seemed like from what you share with me in the conversations was the Camino walk, right? And as we'll see in the essay, so that the final essay that we're going to read to you all is it's a blend of this student's own skincare line

But also this, you know, other story of kind of the Camino walk. For those of you who don't know, it's a walk across Northern Spain primarily that for many people has religious and spiritual significance.

So yeah,

guess I'd to hear a little bit about kind of like, you know, the raw material of both of these things was a lot, right, from the conversations you had with the students. So I'd love to hear a little bit about kind of like in the ideation process of, okay, these are two things that I think are really showing a lot of promise. can show a lot about who you are, your values, things that you have accomplished. What were some of the things, I guess, maybe starting with the

communal walk that came to light from your conversations and your work together that you were thinking, like, how can we fit this into an essay? And then maybe we can do the same with the skincare line.

Jane Longley (19:24)
Yeah, so she'd just done the Camino only a month or so before we met. So was obviously very uppermost in her mind. And I was conscious that I didn't want that to dominate just because it was the most recent experience, because she had so many other awesome things that she'd done. But we did the brainstorming and then I always ask my students to go away and come back with three or four pictures for possible SHL perks.

And the ones that she came back with, then one of them was the Camino, a possible one was her skincare product. And then there were a couple of others, one about the way she relates to people, one about her interest and changing interest in art. And we talked through the pictures and I could tell that she wasn't, she hadn't found it. She hadn't found what she most wanted to write about, I didn't think.

And we talked a little bit more. We pulled up the essay tracker where we have all of the supplemental essay topics that for the essays we're going to write and started trying to piece together where will different activities fit? What do we need to save for a different supplemental, that kind of thing. So, you know, we don't put everything in the personal statement and then we'll act with nothing else. And then we were looking at the values and we were thinking about the

values that were developed through the Camino. And yes, there were things like perseverance, but also there was adapting to the unexpected because as we'll read, then they hadn't prepared in the way that many people prepare for their Camino. And that connected with something she'd said about how she'd had to learn on the job with the skincare product, because it was new and it was an idea that she hadn't gone in all sort of prepared with everything set up.

So I just said, I wonder whether we could combine the two. And it was a light bulb moment for both of us. I almost got chills. know, it was just like, we could do that. And then it was about how do the values fit and the values just fit really well. So that's how it came about.

Tom Campbell (21:42)
Yeah. And I think one thing that I really, I think is a real teaching moment for people tuning into this podcast is, you know, this essay, when you zoom in and analyze it a little bit, and if you were to describe the structure of it, it doesn't quite fit into the two most frequent structures that we talk about with students at college. I say, I write, there's the montage essay where you're piecing together what I like to say, like three to four, usually, I think when it goes more than that.

it gets to be a little too much, little vignettes and many stories that are woven together, common theme. for many, many people tuning in, may be familiar with essays like the Laptop Stickers essay, where a student's like, hey, all these stickers on a laptop represent different parts of me. Let me walk you through a little bit of them. And then there's a narrative essay, which for most of the time with students, the guidance that we offer our college essay guys, that these essays tend to work when a student is talking about a

definitive challenge in their life that has, you not a more acute challenge. Like I sprained my ankle and then it healed and then life is better, but something that's a little more substantive and long-term that has taken a lot of time, reflection, effort to work past or through. This essay kind of feels like a little bit of a, maybe like two narrative essays slightly in one, right? It's the challenge in different iterations of moving through this long-term

walk and hike with unexpected, you know, factors that come into the fold. And then the idea of the process of creating your own skincare line and journey, which as the student, you know, unveils in the essay involves a lot more than just, okay, you know, mixing some ingredients and calling it a day. There's so much more that goes into it that I think she really artfully puts together. I guess for, you know, those tuning in that maybe are like,

But C&G says there's like these two different buckets. I don't know if we could maybe talk a little bit about kind of landing on an essay like this that maybe doesn't quite fit into those neat pegs that we put out there. I personally from working in college admissions for many years, of course, have read essays of so many different structures. And I wasn't familiar really of the language of montage or narrative until working at College Essay Guy. Definitely think it can be a great jumping off point for students to have too often.

more common routes that students will go on to create great work. yeah, would kind of just love to hear about how landing on this, I guess, maybe core more non-traditional structure for college as a guy felt for you as a coach and felt maybe for the student as well.

Jane Longley (24:20)
Yeah, I think she had been a little bit hesitant, not really knowing which structure to go with. So in a way that freed us slightly, because I like to follow the students lead in a way. Like I said, I want us to tell their story in a way that feels authentic to them and that they will be proud of. I don't want a student to read their essay at the end and think, that doesn't sound like me. That sounds like.

you know, somebody else's voice or someone else's editor or even worse in the days of the unmentionable AI that a machine could have written it because that's not genuine. That's not authentically them. And I think I like to explore. love to read. So, you know, I'm seeing different ways of approaching things. And I think subconsciously that feeds into the way that I'll relate to a student and we explore things. And then if an idea.

then I'm not going to worry too much about, ⁓ is this a montage? Is this a narrative? Is this a pivotal moment? Is this something else? It'll be, well, this is your story. And if your story is going to show who you are and it's going to include the admission nutrients, I'll often say, you know, we talk about these things that colleges are looking for. And I'll often say to a student, you might write a great story.

But if it doesn't include the things that are going to show you as a great candidate for college, then it isn't a great application essay. I think you used that phrase in the podcast about admission nutrients. So we have to make sure that we can weave things in, but we don't have to be confined by the structure. And I think especially for someone like this student who said she enjoys writing is a good writer, but needed to be

enthusiastic and engaged in the approach we were going to take, then this felt like, we're going to find our way of doing it that feels right for you. And I have no doubt that it's going to work. So, yeah, I guess it's a case of seeing what fits because every student's different. Every story is different.

Tom Campbell (26:38)
Yeah, I feel like this essay and the process that you've described is a really great reminder that, you know, it can be easy to trick yourself into thinking that your personal essay needs to do it all. And I think that's one of my biggest messages is you have to remember that A, you are confined by word limits. You share with me that some of these drafts were north of 2000 words and that is not all that uncommon and

You talked and share with me with some of the things that ended up making it on the cutting room floor that were great details and their own right and would definitely add to what the student is sharing. But you are communicating your story within the frame of an admissions application that has multiple components that's being read very quickly by many different people with different eyes, different lenses, different knowledge scope of the things that you're sharing. So I think

As with anything at college as a guy, right? We have all these different exercises that can lead to a personal statement. We have two structures that we tend to talk about most, but you can't have an essay that has every admission nutrient and has every single one of your values and has, that will just end up being a list of separate words. If you were to do that, there would be no cohesion, no insight, no through line, no flow. So I think it just, you know, for anyone kind of who...

We tend to, I definitely have had many students who love like rubrics and lists and having things that check off boxes in their essay and just know that there are lots of boxes that can possibly be checked and you're never going to hit them all. So I guess lean into and give yourself permission to deviate a little bit and use tools that are out there at your disposal to create your own final masterpiece in the end that picks and chooses.

you know, inspiration from where it comes.

Jane Longley (28:37)
And that's the key, isn't it? These are tools. All the amazing resources that a college essay guy offers are tools to help you create your own awesome individual unique essay. They're not, have to cut and paste your words into this. So I think allowing yourself to have creativity within that structure is the key.

Tom Campbell (29:06)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of creativity, I'd love for you to read out this creative masterpiece to our listeners. We've a lot of buildup at this point. So if you want to go ahead and take the mic and just read through and then can go in and deconstruct it and analyze and, you know, I can give you my lens of, as a newer reader of this essay who didn't have hours of zoom calls and lots of in-depth iterations and drafts, what I picked out on it and

be curious to hear your commentary on the things that I noticed.

Jane Longley (29:40)
Okay. I'm a pilgrim and a CEO, two identities I wouldn't have believed possible three years ago. Hiking the Camino and creating my skincare brand brought me here. The Camino consisted of hiking 20 miles a day for two weeks across Spain. My teenage brothers and I navigated the trail on our own, untrained and unprepared. I hadn't known about the Camino until I began walking it.

For others, this journey is a dream requiring years of training. For me, it was a summer idea that sparked my curiosity, a chance to step into something new and experience another culture. Monet skincare, like the Camino, was unfamiliar ground. I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, product development, or marketing. My interest in beauty began three years ago as a front desk manager at a salon.

I observed how deeply people care about the details, straight or curled, natural or bold, glowy or matte, but noticed that teen skin was an afterthought. As someone who struggled to find skincare that actually works, I realized I wasn't alone in that frustration. To explore my interest, I attended the International Beauty Show in NYC, where I realized I didn't just want to attend, I wanted to exhibit. I would be the CEO of my own skincare brand.

The fourth morning on the Camino, I watched my brother wrestle into an extra small shirt after we tried to salvage our drenched clothes with hotel hair dryers. Our wardrobe shrank, but the endless routine didn't. We endured shin splints, blisters, and raw sunburns, a testament to our newly discovered resilience. With matching Camino shell tattoos binding us to the journey, finishing became a promise. Strangers became familiar faces.

reappearing at hostels and joining us for meals. Everyone walks toward the same destination for their own reasons, yet it's the companionships that shape the journey. Like accidentally heat-shrinking our clothes, Mono Skincare came with its own challenges. The learning curve was steep. FDA laws, product photography, logo and web design, trademarking, barcodes. While progress felt slow,

I held on to small successors, a local chemist who taught me how to test pH levels to make sure ingredients like niacinamide stay effective, a packaging company that guided months of design and manufacturing, and my trade show representative who became my partner. Today, I have an official logo and a pending trademark. These connections spanning from California to Florida showed me I had a team.

Santiago de Compostela finally revealed itself. No more walking. After 190 miles of pain, we snapped a photo, marking the end of what felt more like a trial than a trip. We received our Camino certificates, declaring us official pilgrims. But what now? The sudden absence of a goal was unsettling, a sharp contrast to the previous days when everything was mapped out. Without the journey, where would we go?

Santiago de Compostela didn't provide my spiritual awakening. Instead, it was the familiar faces, the resilience to pain and the shrunken clothing. The connections and challenges along the way shaped the spirituality of the journey. Standing at my booth with an exhibitor badge, I realized I had made it. I wasn't just presenting a product, I was presenting my vision. I was the CEO of Monet Skincare.

The surrounding displays reminded me of the chemists, vendors, print shops, agencies, and manufacturers who made it possible. Monet Skincare was a success. After three days of launching my brand, the international beauty show ended. The vision I'd spent so long shaping was real. I'd been featured in Somerset Magazine, fielded interview requests, and donated proceeds to teen causes I care about. But even in the glow of accomplishment, the question remained, what now?

Like the Camino, I realize success doesn't mark the end of my journey. Instead, it serves as a reminder that I'm capable of achieving my goals and reaching beyond them for something even better.

Tom Campbell (34:16)
thank you for reading me through that, Jane, and thanks for reading it for our listeners. I guess in reading through it, what was like your initial or your reaction as someone who's obviously seen this essay so many times, but in this setting and frame, there a thought that came into your mind as you got to the final word?

Jane Longley (34:35)
I love the way it came together and I still feel sad about some of the little bits that we had to cut. My mind is almost filling in some of those worthy little details that fell at the axe of the 650 word limit.

Tom Campbell (34:50)
Yeah. Well, I think that's a really relatable journey for many, many students who, you haven't written your essay, know that there's going to be pieces that inevitably can't make it into the final cut, just given pragmatic limitations and yeah, just know that even if the details are cut, they can live on in your memory. So I guess starting back at the beginning, you know, with setting up this dual, these dual narratives that are going to be kind of running in parallel as the essay goes along. And I think the

transitioning back and forth between them felt like so fluid and clean to me. I never really felt like, you know, disjointed and if like it was all really jumbled. And I think that that's a real benefit to someone with that admissions lens who, if you're folding it, I'd say too many like curve balls in the way that you're writing your narrative. can be hard for the person reading it along to follow. So I think a real clear setup in the beginning is a great way to, yeah.

bring in that clarity for the reader that they really need. And I love this kind of like bold declaration. You know, we talk about roles and identities at college, as a guy and similar to the values exercise, right? These are ways of essentially roles and identities, you know, such as being a tinkerer or a learner that help you live out some of the top values that you, you know, also carry with you. And so the two that she chose, I feel like a really interesting, very distinctive words, pilgrim, I'm a pilgrim and a CEO. And I feel like

When I guess in the drafting phase of this was that initially how things started out or kind of how did that opening come to be?

Jane Longley (36:25)
Well, we knew that we needed to set up clearly that this was going to be an essay about both these things. And in the outline, then we outlined according to value, I think. it was, you know, this is what we're going to explore in the first two paragraphs. We kind of did it in a set, you know, so we would have

this is the first part, this is the next. But for each of them, we had the Camino half and the Skincare half. So it wasn't written in a, this is the Camino part and this is the Skincare part and then we'll mesh them together. It was literally written looking at what's the idea here and how does that relate to each of these two things. So I think by the second draft, we had that opening.

You know, sometimes you get a sentence, you're like, this is staying. This is a keeper. I love direct openings because I want the reader to be hooked. And there are so many different ways of doing that, but direct and clear is effective.

Tom Campbell (37:43)
Yeah, mean, plus one for that, right? I feel like there is a prevalent maybe myth, I would say, or a strategy or misconception around many students that I meet with who are like, my hook needs to be like really, there needs to be like a crazy twist that the reader brings through or really kind of a huge buildup in terms of like, what I would maybe say is a little bit of like sensationalized writing, right? Kind of the dark and stormy night painting of a picture that goes on

50 words way too long, maybe 100. you know, I guess justice for directness that can still be punchy and still be clever and distinctive in terms of the words that you use. But like she could have just said, I'm a hiker and a, you know, I'm a hiker and an entrepreneur, which is not that maybe wouldn't be as intriguing to a reader, but even just slightly using more distinctive terms to

open up a door to what those terms actually mean and how they manifest, pilgrim
Jane Longley (38:46)
I think it's the contrast that I love. ⁓ A pilgrim, okay, we're doing spirituality, religion, whatever. And a CEO. What money, direction, leadership. These are two completely different things. I think that's why it's so effective. I love that opening.

Tom Campbell (38:50)
Yeah.

Yeah,

that's a great point, that dichotomy. Another thing I think that introduction does really well is the lesson on essential context, which is really difficult to achieve in a personal essay when you maybe are introducing something that the reader may not be familiar with. So in this case, the Camino, right? I happen to know it, so I was really excited when you sent this essay in to possibly be featured on the podcast, but not everyone necessarily has heard of that.

term, right? So how much about the Camino do you need to explain to feel like the person has what they need to draw the inferences and the insights that you're putting forward and make sense of them? And so for this student, it's pretty brief, right? It's one sentence in the introduction that says the Camino consisted of hiking 20 miles a day for two weeks across Spain. There is so much more history and legacy and meaning around the Camino that the student could have and maybe did in initial drafts share.

But I think this is a great demonstration of what our wonderful colleague, Lynn Hawks calls storytelling gold and the color coding of an essay that can help you realize which details are more gold and personal to you. And you know, the more gold in an essay, usually the more personal it is and the more it's distinguishing yourself from other stories that may be slightly similar when you zoom out. But blue, AKA like,

generalized language, you know, things, you know, something like grass is green outside. That would be a blue sentence because it's the same for pretty much all grass except for maybe parts parts. Anyway, just kind of giving this more fact Wikipedia level sentence around the Camino is essential and valuable. Could have been more though. And I imagine, yeah.

Jane Longley (40:49)
would love to. It was more than was up a paragraph of very interesting context. But one of the when I'm working with the student and we have to cut a lot, which we did here, I'll often say we'll start with a what needs to stay in order to get your point across and build out from there. Because when there's so much, you can't just be cutting little things because you're not going to get from 2000 down to 650. And this was

The bare essential. Yeah. You know, that's what the reader needs in order for them to understand enough.

Tom Campbell (41:27)
Yep, I think that's a great, great lesson. And just for those tuning in who are not actually reading the essay alongside us, it's 14 words total in the grand scheme of this 646 word masterpiece. Something else I think the introduction establishes really well. And another thing that came to mind to me is we talk a lot at college, I say about the value of vulnerability in personal essays. And many students are sometimes a little resistant to that.

There's lots of different opinions around vulnerability, how much it should or shouldn't show up in a personal essay. You don't need to have a large vulnerable ratio or section or disclosure in your essay to write an effective personal statement. It's not as with what we said before, it's part of the menu that you can pick and choose between to put together a great story of your becoming. But what I really like about this student's introduction is that there is a little bit of vulnerability, but I call it like vulnerability light where

She's not revealing this like deep dark secret or deep insecurity that sometimes people think of when they use, when they hear that word or term. And that's okay if that's an essay you want to share. But what I liked about the student's introduction was kind of admitting that she, her and her teenage brothers are stepping into this long arduous hike and pilgrimage for many people untrained and unprepared. And for many students who are writing a college application, the myth is that like, I need to be presenting that I'm like a really competent person who like,

did all my research and steps into things completely prepared and ready to achieve excellence and gold stars, but that's obviously not what the student shared. So yeah, was that a risky decision for the student? Did they show any apprehension in that or did just kind of feel right?

Jane Longley (43:08)
think because one of their values is authenticity. And the way that we talked about both of the experiences was just so honest and genuine. And we laughed a lot about the fact that they had no idea. Actually, a detail that we had to cut was that it was their dad's dream to do the Camino. So he'd done a lot of research. And then the idea came up that she and her brothers should do something together. And off they went.

with, you know, no preparation, as she said. But that was one of the things that I felt that really ties in with what you've been telling me about your experience with the skincare product. This was something you weren't prepared. You jumped into this, untrained and unprepared, both of them. It was these little things that I was like, I see a parallel path here.

Authenticity is something that shone through because in both situations, which are completely different, she is her own person. And that is just, you really get a strong sense of that in the essay. I just love the way that you can sense her enthusiasm, her commitment, her genuine engagement with what's going on.

Tom Campbell (44:25)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. This, and this next paragraph, I love how it continues this theme of like you said, being unprepared and kind of not knowing and stepping into something without as much of an infrastructure. know, she transitions to the skincare piece of the narrative where I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, product development or marketing. And I love that she's actually kind of like subtly introducing the complexity of starting a business. And that's a theme that I feel like continues to build more and more as you go to the essay. There's a part where I feel like it really culminates and you, you.

You get introduced as a reader to a little bit more of that businessy jargon that shows, okay, this is a student who really did their research, knows their stuff, knows all the layers that go into creating a business. But what I also really like about this paragraph is that, know, beginning as a front desk manager at a salon, and I feel like it really kind of reveals this like observer identity of hers and this curious identity of, you know, I'm noticing in this role of mine, all these different things that people are coming in and having concerns around, but then noticing a gap that

calls for maybe an opportunity for some initiative and some leadership, which, you know, cue college-esque guys. Admission nutrients, which for those tuning in who are not familiar, there are five qualities that occur from our own research of different college mission statements, value statements, and our own knowledge of what colleges are looking for. Our intellectual curiosity, service to others slash community impact, leadership slash initiative, service to, I think I already said service to others, consistent engagement and collaboration.

And in this essay, I actually feel like they're not that checking all the boxes is essential again, as we said before, but I do feel like this essay does really span those admission nutrients really, really effectively and really organically too, which I think is not always very easy to do. I think in particular, this last sentence of this paragraph of the, know, I, the idea and the impetus, the inciting moment behind starting the skincare brand is this, you know, I didn't want to just attend this exhibit. I wanted to, you know, to actually create my own line.

But even just saying, I went and attended this international beauty show, that's initiative, like stepping out and looking for an opportunity to learn more. So I don't know if, know, in talking with the student, like as you, I imagine as you had more and more conversations, you probably learned more about all of the different steps that I took to get to this final stage.

Jane Longley (46:51)
And I think that's one of the things that we dug deep into because once we talked about, okay, we're going to have these two parallel stories, then we really needed to break down what were the different steps, the specific challenges, each of the pieces. And, you know, we have the description later on about having to cope with the FDA laws and logos and working with the local chemists.

And all of those super specific things. I remember pushing her quite a lot about, give me examples. What were the hard things? Don't just tell me you didn't know anything. What were they? What did you actually have to do? Can we make this more real? Yeah. In the way you describe it.

Tom Campbell (47:40)
Yeah, that's a great nudge, you know, as a coach, because sometimes it can be tempting for students to be like, okay, well, you know, it was recognized at this award ceremony or this or that, like getting under the hood and showing kind of like how it all came to be is oftentimes I feel like something that I do end up having to also in working with students really push them on. it's where like so much of the interesting detail comes up too that it's just amazing that

there's like maybe a human tendency to like gloss over that and just present the final product. Maybe part of that, I feel like part of that is like TikTok mind of like, okay, we got 15 seconds. If we got to like just show the final product. Yeah, but there's a journey element to it that I think is really essential. Okay, well, flipping back. go ahead.

Jane Longley (48:23)
Maybe.

I was just going to say, I think one of the things that maybe helped us was because the Camino was recent memory, so much to talk about and a fun story to tell, perhaps more fun in a way, then the whole story about the drenched clothes and the hairdryers, it was much longer and it was so funny. And it was just hilarious. Every time we talked about those sentences and just

that moment of older brother trying to fit into something they'd managed to shrink. So then I would say, okay, we need that level of detail. We need the equivalent of the shrunken clothes. We need the super specific, let the reader see that story for the skincare products as well, which is perhaps not as, you know.

whatever the storytelling equivalent of photogenic is, but just the same kind of idea of we can go into details, we can go into specifics.

Tom Campbell (49:41)
Yeah. So whereas I feel like the first section is kind of like introducing, you know, the backstory behind both of these parallel experiences, you know, maybe a little bit of the curiosity, I think element is established from the beginning of I'm curious about both of these two things, what can become of them. And I'm leaning into this curiosity with a degree of commitment and initiative that is really, really great to see this middle section kind of feels like, I feel like there is a subtext around kind of like community and collaboration that

comes up in this middle section. I don't know how explicit of a intention that was in the brainstorming and the outlining phase that you all went through, but in talking about, love that first sentence of the, I think this is like such a crafty moment. So, saying the fourth morning at the Camino, I watched brothers wrestle into an extra small shirt and Salvazar drenched clothes with a hairdryer. mean, talk about showing versus telling. You could just say, and many people probably will say initially if they're writing out the story,

The Camino was hard and our clothes were always wet because we sweat a lot. Same with everyone who does it, right? But this particular image is like really bringing me into like what the realities of that actually looked like for you and your brothers. And this transition sentence of our wardrobe shrank, but the endless routine didn't, I think is just so clever and such a, I think, testament to this student strength as a writer. But what I love hearing about as this section goes on, both in the part about the Camino and kind of

the community of familiar faces along the trail that kind of helped make the experience more fruitful. Both her brothers with this, you know, bonding of the tattoo. And now, of course, we know like the director's covers and that her father is like, you know, in the, I guess in their minds with them in spirit along this trail, but also the actual other, you know, fellow pilgrims on the journey. But then transitioning that to...

the pilgrims essentially that are a part of the skincare journey too, right? All the different collaborators that helped it come from point A to point B. And that I think is a great demonstration of that ambition, nutrient of collaboration. And I'd to hear kind of how much this was maybe an organic result or if this was kind of the results of mutual conversations and, you know, the helping the student realize that colleges actually do care about hearing about the village that supports you in

whatever endeavor you're stepping into.

Jane Longley (52:11)
Yeah, I think we had talked about collaboration and connection and relationship with others being something that was going to be the kind of the guiding idea for that paragraph, for that section. So when we did the original outline, we had, you know, ideas about the Camino, ideas about skincare.

And then the values that we're going to come through, as you can imagine, then we had a lot more values than we could fit in at the end. But the idea of the relationship and how people played a part also because I remember her telling me how, you know, on the Camino, people kind of come in and out a bit. And yet you see them in the evenings at ⁓ the place you're staying, or you maybe chat to somebody and you see them a couple of days later.

And that sort of interaction felt really interesting because it was somehow mirrored with the, well, there's an interaction with the chemist and then there's someone who's helping with a website and, you know, the people who she had in California or in Florida and just the whole, it wasn't an easy path or an obvious core group of people who helped. It was finding.

that way to connect and collaborate and make something happen, kind of joining together to one goal, if you like.

Tom Campbell (53:43)
Yeah. And I love the section about kind of like the under the hood of like creating the skincare brand because there's a real like interdisciplinary theme to it too, right? The example of the chemist and the kind of science behind skincare and then the marketing and the product design and the manufacturing trades are representative, which is sales and being on and kind of pitching. Like it does, and this is not that long. This section is, you know, in the entire essay.

How many words is this? is 97 words.

Jane Longley (54:16)
Heavily, heavily edited and... account.

Tom Campbell (54:18)
Essentialized.

Yeah, yeah. And you really, really do get that from this. So I think it's great that the student was able to kind of lift up and champion the people that help tap into an emerging and developing curiosity. ⁓ And just for those tuning in who worry or, know, again, it can be easy to go to an extreme with a piece of advice that you've been given about essay writing. I mean, don't do this, but do that.

I'm sure someone probably told you at one point, like, essay should be about you, don't write about other people. Sometimes people take that to an extreme and are like, I can't bring in any other character, but I'm like, if you look at the body of work as a whole, and the majority of it is about your journey, there are people who are part of that, who can share a lot about your values and who you are and how you interact with the community. And colleges want to know that. So be mindful, right, to not make an essay about entirely about

this chemist who inspired you and that's not, you don't want that to be 300 words about how amazing of a person they are, but this is a really an appropriate section and a wise way of essentializing these really powerful relationships that opened up a lot of doors and helped you find a lot about yourself as well. So I think that's wonderful. All right, so now we're kind of coming towards the end of this essay and this to me was really surprising reading it through the first time, surprising and at the same time,

Not. think the paragraph where she talks about Santiago de Compostela finally reveals itself, the end of this long journey, this long hike, 190 miles of it. And I found myself reading it and being like, I'm a little surprised maybe at the, this kind of admittance of shrug emoji, lack of a better word, like meh, like I got to the end and maybe compared to other people who go on this.

this type of pilgrimage, this hike, I didn't quite have that spiritual awakening that so many people talk about. And if you read articles about the Camino and what it means to people, the significance that is maybe the norm, you know, for most participants, isn't what I got out of it. I kind of got to the end and was like, well, is that it? Like, I wasn't changed in the way that I guess other people expected, or maybe even I expected. But what it sounds like is kind of this, here's what...

the significance meant to me and what I will take from this experience in terms of lessons learned. So yeah, I'd love to just hear kind of about how this ending came to be. To me, it seems like similar to the beginning of that vulnerability light of talking about stepping into something unprepared and, you know, unaware. It seems to be like a continuation of that thread, maybe bookending that in a while. You open up with this kind of confession in a way, and now you're ending with another confession too that maybe isn't as like

typical or aspirational as some people might be expecting with a narrative like this.

Jane Longley (57:16)
Yeah, for sure. I remember the first time we were talking about this and she told me about how she felt at the end. And I felt that authenticity again that I've mentioned a couple of times of just, this is my honest assessment. I am not sure what I expected at the end of it, but I expected to feel something that I'm not actually feeling now. The success of this journey was something different.

you know, the connection that we talked about and adapting to things that she hadn't expected. And we also talked about the fact that she wanted to show these two things, awesome accomplishments, you know, by all accounts as a 17 year old, this is amazing. I, at 17, had not come close to any of these things.

But she wants to learn. She's keen to take things to the next step. She wants to show that whatever comes next, I'm reaching for something more. She's not going to be satisfied, which I think is, I love essays that look forward at the end because you're just giving that hint to the admissions reader that, hey, I've got an eye on my future and everything I'm going to learn from your amazing university and how that's going to help me continue.

So I think having that slightly open, slightly surprising, I'm not just tying this up in a neat bow saying, hey, I did the Camino and hey, I've got my skincare product. It was, well, I'm looking forward to what happens next. Is it gonna be developing her company? But it will be growing into something more.

Tom Campbell (59:04)
Yeah, yeah, I that kind of forward, you know, we have a we have a blog guide, you know, since I would argue that many students really struggle with the beginnings and endings of their essay, they're content tend to be that I feel like that tends to trip up a lot of writers about like, I don't quite know about how to get the story going and then wrapping it up to. So I like that in a way there is some bookending that's happening here of similar.

themes of confession of, you know, defying that maybe standard or more aspirational narrative. And it feels really authentic and real. And if your top value is authenticity, this is really, you know, a culmination of that. And it just frames the essay, feel like so beautifully. And the other thing too, that really stood out to me, especially in this, in both paragraphs, you know, both about the Camino, you know, highlighting the connections and challenges along the way, the familiar faces. And then the next paragraph, you know,

voicing and remembering and giving credit to the chemists, the vendors, the print shops, the agencies, the manufacturers. It's a little bit of a continuation from the last paragraph, but this one comes across less of like a, here's how these people, you know, stirred my own intellectual curiosity and development and how we worked in tandem with each other. And there's more of a ⁓ tone of gratitude, which I feel like is a really beautiful way to end an essay that you're writing is.

That kind of, Hey, this really takes a village for me to have accomplished both of these experiences. Yeah. You're right. couldn't have done the Camino without the support of my brothers or even, you know, I know the direct, as we know, the director's cut the inspiration from my dad and the people that we met along the way that kind of just kept, you know, kept us going. And same thing with this skincare venture. There's, I really liked the way that she was able to give credit to the village that helps enable that because sometimes there's.

Jane Longley (1:00:35)
Totally.

Tom Campbell (1:01:00)
You know, yeah, again, a tendency to want to kind of like have this be like, well, this was my idea and I want to be seen as the leader and conflating leaders. You know, singularity.

Jane Longley (1:01:11)
And one of the other things in the sentence about, you know, being featured in a magazine and donating to other causes, we had more information about that, which we had to cut, but that did go into a supplemental essay where she was able to expand on the way that she's used her product for good. She works with some girls charities. They've done makeover nights, if I remember correctly. And it was a, there was a really lovely,

I've been able to do this and now I'm kind of passing it forward, but we didn't have space in the main essay. It did go in somewhere else, but yeah, those kind of things. You're right. There is a sense of just gratitude for everybody who's been a part of that journey, both the literal and metaphorical one.

Tom Campbell (1:02:00)
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think the sentence about, you know, I've been featured in Somerset Magazine fielded interview requests and donated proceeds, proceeds to teen causes I care about is a great way to, feel like give yourself maybe like a pat on the back for it took a village to get here and to have these defined markers of a successful venture or something that people are noticing and not just people are noticing, but that enabled me to also

commit to other values that I care about. And it's funny, I like left a comment on the essay being like, I might ask the student if I'm reading through this, like what were those causes that you care about that you donated the money to? But as you just mentioned, right, it's a good reminder that the personal essay, it's 650 words. If you're applying to schools with supplemental essays, other written opportunities, you can't fit in every single detail as interesting and as compelling as it can be. And it's okay to...

You know, people are like, I can't write about the same thing in two different essays. It's you can elaborate and any experience will have like multiple avenues or lenses that you can place on it that you can shed light on and connect insights to. So it's perfectly legitimate to expand on a little bit more on the cause side than.

Jane Longley (1:03:15)
And I always say to my students, it's a jigsaw puzzle. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces interlock, but they can't overlap. So if you mention the causes here, then you can talk about the cause in more detail because that just fits together. You're not actually overlapping. And that just is, I think it's a helpful distinction because sometimes students get tripped up with that idea, but I can't write about the same thing, you know, even with the activities list.

sure you're going to put that in your activities list and then you're going to expand on it in a different way in your essays.

Tom Campbell (1:03:50)
Totally, yeah. I love that little, our own little teaching nuggets of wisdom that it's so great to bring those out and be like, I've got this pitch down and it's been able to reframe or redirect so many students and to see it click and work in real time is always really satisfying. Well, just as this essay is ending on a note of gratitude, I wanna thank you, Jane, for giving us kind of a window into, again, speaking of...

going under the hood just as this student did with their essay and their skincare journey and the trials and tribulations of the Camino. Thank you for walking us through the journey that it took to put this work together and to get this story to be what it was. And any kind of final thoughts or advice you want to share with any of the listeners or any update about this wonderful student that I know you've just recently wrapped up working with. it's.

Jane Longley (1:04:42)
Yeah, was a really enjoyable process working with her. She's still waiting for her results, doesn't know where she's going to end up yet. I feel like one of the things that stood out to me with this process was just that feeling of working together to find something that is right. And it's easy for us as coaches or as counselors to come in with suggestions.

But we want to make sure that the student can really hold those as their own and that we help them tell their story in the best way for them. Because it's their future and they're the ones going to college. you know, it's, just an opportunity to really find a way to learn more about themselves through the process. And it can be fun. I mean, we love a lot during these meetings and even some of the cutting.

You know, the hairdryer shrunken clothes had many minutes of laughter as we were trying to reduce it to something short enough, but we knew they had to stay. But yeah, I think it's so much an opportunity to learn more about yourself. I didn't get to write an essay like this because I studied in the UK, but as part of my training with C.U.G., I think I've written four now.

So, you know, I just feel I learned so much about myself from doing it and watching students go through that process as well. It's more than just an essay, which sounds a bit of a, you know, cliche and like, she's bound to say that, but it is an amazing opportunity, I think.

Tom Campbell (1:06:22)
Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you again for for for joining the podcast and bravely stepping onto this platform.

Jane Longley (1:06:30)
You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me to my first ever podcast.

Tom Campbell (1:06:34)
Hopefully not less. You I'm sure you have many students and many stories to share. So, we'll have a campaign to get you back on.

Jane Longley (1:06:44)
We'll see how that goes. For the British accent, for sure.

Tom Campbell (1:06:48)
Absolutely. Well, cheerio Jane.

Jane Longley (1:06:52)
Thank you.

Tom Campbell (1:06:58)
All right, thanks so much for walking on this journey, this commido, if you will, with Jane and myself. We're so glad you tuned into this episode and we hope that this series on becoming helps provide you with some inspiration, whether you're writing the essay yourself or helping guide a student along their journey. We hope to see you on the next one. Take care.