maybe its utility lies expressly in its uniqueness
uniqueness
if it makes my sister feel less alone
what could be more beautiful than that
fantine's happy vanity gombeing with a
broken comb her silky hair and Les
miserabs Rapunzel's long magical locks
Medusa's defining snake Bridge
little woman's Joe crying after having
sold her head throughout literature hair
has been an important part of a woman's
identity but mostly only when we talk
about the hair on our heads
for me it extends beyond that
my body hair makes me feel more open
Connected To Nature free
even father it makes me feel like a link
between my mother and my sister
between what they believe and who they are
are
my mother chooses to shave thread
appellate my sister and I keep our
frida-esque appearance carrying on a
legacy is good but two peachy canes
breaking out of our smooth Apple
inherited inheritances makes me feel
even better
so freaking amazing
mic drop oh
all right do you want to start off yeah so
so [Music]
[Music]
um I think like I I really wanted to
talk about feminism and I had a lot of
like different experiences that I could
have talked about but I focused on this
because a common app is just like 650
words and so if you talk about too many
things then you won't be able to really
go deep into one thing and so I focused
on body image and
um within that I focused on body hair
and my relationship with my body hair
and societal expectations and my
relationship with my family and all of
that like arrows out of me talking about
my relationship with body hairs I think
this topic worked because it was
something like it was a symbol I could
use to talk about broader issues that I
was passionate about and also tell a
personal story about my family which
is important because like most other
parts of my application like even all my
supplements were more about my
intellectual interests and obviously
like my transcript my sad scores they're
all like
those things were like proof that I was
smart enough I didn't want to talk about
all of that in my common app specifically
specifically
and that's interesting too because my
grades weren't perfect you know and so I
needed to talk about that more than you
because of that I think like how hard I
worked to get what I did because I had
to prove my in my intelligence yeah so I
think that's interesting too that's an
interesting point depending on what your
transcripts look like yeah
and most of it is like it's a very
personal story but only towards the end
like I have a lot of literary references
I talk about Frida kahlo's painting
Frida color is like an artist who may uh
was famous for herself portraits and she
also was known for having a unibrow and
a mustache and being beautiful and
having her own definition of beauty and
so she's someone who I always looked up
to I still have her poster in my room and
and
um the last paragraph brings in
a lot of books like Little Women
Rapunzel my name is Rob what major did
you apply with I applied
um do I actually applied different wages
to different schools for some reason
like I kind of just like randomly picked
because I wasn't super sure but to
Stanford I did English and digital
Humanities okay I think so I think the
way you wrote is very like with applying
with an English major you want to prove
that you can write yeah and this proves
that you can write you know like it's a
very literary it's the way you your play
on words your ability to start a
sentence with and make it work like
that's like difficult you know like if
usually when people do that it doesn't
sound good but you had this very special
flow that was kind of like a stream of
thought a little bit in this essay and
it shows that you can write well I think
which is like another thing depending on
what major you're applying with to think
about like the structure you have the
essay but because you applied with an
English major I think the format like
shows that and you said that your that
your Storyteller also you know like so
this shows that you can tell a story so
yeah I think like the pressure was even
higher for me because I'd want a lot of
creative writing Awards and if I
couldn't write a good essay then that
would just like negate all my
achievements in my head like for these
admissions officers
so I I worked so hard like and by the
end of it I honestly feel like I this is
not my favorite thing I've written
because like you said it kind of makes
me anxious too like I know how much
effort I put into every single word right
right
right I was thinking today earlier that
I don't like reading this paper like
because of how much stress and anxiety
this causes us and I'm sure it will
cause you to if you're writing your own
paper and that's okay you know it's okay
to be stressed it's like you're gonna
write it you're gonna work hard on it
and then you're gonna submit it and it's
over you know we all go through it and
so yeah I think another thing you did
too is also like tell a story and so I
think that's something that we shared in
common with our papers is tell ourselves
through a story you know so yeah it's
another thing and I think like the
Common Thread throughout my application
um like my identity is like I am a
creative writer like I'm interested in
English but also like specifically
women's studies and so I wanted that to
be like a lot of my essays I talk about
feminism I talk about books in a lot of
my essays like and I feel like I wanted
to be sure that I curated like a
specific like I highlighted specific
parts of my identity so that
I could represent myself in a cohesive
way so that like an admissions officer
would have like a memorable view of me
because like when I was applying I asked
one of my seniors in high school who
goes to Stanford now about what they
knew about the application process and
she told me that the way it works is
that they read your
like the first reader like your Regional
admissions officer reads your entire
application and then based on that they
have like a five minute pitch to all the
main admissions officers so they not
everyone who decides sees your actual
like only one person reads your file and
then if they like it then they make a
about you and Pitch you to people
so like you want to make sure that
you're thinking about what your pitch is
going to be based on what you're
representing in your application yeah I
think another like General piece of
advice for like writing practices is to
think about who you are what you care
about and what you've done you know like
these are like the three pillars of what
a successful essay is and what in all
the different supplements and everything
what to like think about and so then I
would literally like create a document
who am I what do I care about what have
I done and just write it for house for
as long it could be super long like you
know like 20 it doesn't matter just like
write that stream out yeah and then find
a story that encapsulates all three
parts of your identity and that can be a
place where you start you know I think
literally like my first draft if you
just go down you see like the first
draft is like
really like just a stream of
Consciousness about all of who I am and
then based on that I like edit it
further and further and further and then
narrowed in on like one story that I
wanted to tell about my sister coming to
me and
um me like being able to help my sister
come to terms with how she wanted to be
feminine and what femininity meant to
her but that was after like
all these other drafts where I talked
about so many other things also like I
narrowed it down from there yeah so if
you're struggling to write that first
sentence start with that who am I what
do I care about what have I done write
it out start there that's a great way to
start find this and then another another
document what is my school looking for
write it all out they're looking for
intellectual Vitality you know whatever
it is and then tie that in you know find
a store that ties it all in and boom you
have your personal statement so that's
like a good formula to get going and I
hope you enjoyed this video and I hope
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