Step 2: Brainstorming your Personal Statement
If you haven’t read Step 1 of Personal Statement, do it first!
There are so many ways of brainstorming for your personal statement, and the key is finding a method that works best for you and your brain.
From the last post, College Essay Guy has some great exercises for brainstorming which I’ll summarize here, but be sure to click through to his website for more in-depth instructions!
Video of me brainstorming through the Common App prompts, with more tips and ideas for y’all:
My Brainstorming technique:
Read through the common app essay prompts, and at each one, set a timer for 30 seconds and jot down whatever words or ideas come to mind. Usually, this helps narrow it down because if you can’t think of something in 30 seconds, then that prompt probably isn’t for you.
Here are the prompts listed again, and in italics are my brainstorm ideas just to give you an idea:
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, please share your story.
Example: One student wrote about being Dominican-American and the process of becoming a citizen here. She did this by talking about her favorite dish her Dominican grandmother makes, and after describing it, she went into how Dominican culture inspires her.
Dr. Harbin’s idea: If I answered this one, I’d probably write about how weird it is to be a white person from the racist south who is committed to Black Lives Matter. 1. Because it demonstrates where my values are, and because there aren’t a lot of white southerners screaming at their family members about BLM, so it’s an interesting story.
2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
Example: One student of mine wrote about almost failing AP Chemistry. This was smart because it explained her low chem grade in her Junior year, and because rather than dropping it, she kept going and taught herself how to study for it, so even though her grade wasn’t an A, she was still super proud of her 80 grade at the end of the year, because she could have dropped it and taken an easier class, but didn’t.
This is a good move because it showed that this student was committed and not afraid of daunting tasks.
Dr. Harbin’s example: Ahh, there’s been so much failure in my life, where do I start? LOL, I’d probably pick a story about me failing a written kick ball test in third grade.
The story: As many of you know, I am horrible at sports and anything involving hand-eye coordination. I started a new school in third grade, one where sports was a really big deal, and obviously hated it. The PE teacher got so frustrated with the nerds who didn’t want to play kickball that he made us all take a written test. I failed the test— I made a 40 out of 100. But, to put a nice college spin on this story, I’d probably say this experience taught me that I couldn’t be great at everything, and that I didn’t have to be in order to be good at the few things I loved— you know, bla bla postitive spin on an embarrassing memory of failure. Hopefully you’re starting to get the picture.
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
Ooo this is another juicy one, and if you haven’t picked up on the hint by now, they are looking for something that speaks to who you are, what you believe in, and why.
Examples: Changing your mind about someone whom you had stereotyped, changing your mind about a subject you originally thought was boring/stupid but you ended up loving.
I haven’t had a student write on this one, but if I were to write this, I’d probably write about how I hated Shakespeare until I took a class on his sonnets, and then thought he was pretty deep. For a more profound option, High school me would have written about being a democrat in a republican family and why I switched.
4. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma — anything of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
I’m not sure why, but this one sounds super tedious. Like, wtf has a teenager done that’s that big? If you choose this, I’d use it as an opportunity to flex on something you’re proud of— don’t have a challenge? That’s ok, make one up that speaks to the truth of your experience.
Examples: One student wrote about climate change being something she wanted to help change, and to make it specific and personal, she wrote about how she was born near the beach and how hurricanes devastated her family house one year.
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
Ahh, another personal growth one— anything can spark growth— it can be as mundane as realizing you have to brush your teeth more often with braces or your breath is gross, or winning some competition or sports game, or for example, how covid-19 changed your life perspective.
6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
This is for all you cosplay nerds! Well, actually it’s for anyone who is SUPER into something and that they LOVE. I’ve had students write about their love of K-Pop and how that enabled them to be bolder and have more confidence, I’ve had students write about their love of Legos, etc.
This is a good one to pick if you are already super passionate about something (it does not have to be about school or academics, personally I think its best if it’s not about those things)
7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
For my college essay, I wrote about shoe shopping. How basic betch is that? For reals, I wrote about this weird white leather and orange striped shoe on the clearance rack, and how I was super undecided about it. I then pivoted in the essay to talk about how I liked to make decisions with all the information possible, and how I may appear to be indecisive (which I totally still am, btw), it really just meant I took decision making seriously, or something along those lines.
That’s it for my suggested way of arriving at topics, but I also think the College Essay Guy’s “The Object Exercise” is another great way to brainstorm.
Here’s a video of me modeling how to do it:
The whole thing takes about 15 minutes and a quiet place. Grab a notebook or some paper to jot down the ideas. I’m going to model it for you here, but you can also use his website which is slightly more thorough.
The idea: T.S. Eliot once said: “The only way to express emotion in art is through an objective correlative.”
What’s an objective correlative? It’s an object to which you correlate emotions, memories, and complex meanings. It’s an object that’s more than an object.
Every object in your essence object box is an objective correlative for some important, complex part of you.
Step 1: Imagine a box, and in that box is a set of “essence objects” where each of them represent one of your fundamental qualities. So, in this sense, the objects you imagine in your box are metaphors, or stand-ins, for something fundamental about who you are.
Step 2: Make a list of 20 objects.
As an example, here are 5 objects inside my box (that I literally came up with by listing the things on my desk at the moment).
Yellow legal pad (I take notes on these, and do all my brainstorming, so in a sense, I imagine my yellow legal pad being like my brain itself, where I make connections and draw ideas from).
Muji .38 pens (I like the fine tip so when I am editing documents or taking notes, I can write small but still have it be somewhat readable)
Scented candle (bc they smell good and I like them)
A snoopy figurine that a student gave to me as a thank you (it’s my way of keeping y’all in mind and represents my commitment to teaching)
Mini snickers (bc thinking is hard work and candy is delicious, but I make em small so I don’t go crazy w the sugar)
Step 3: Ok, now that I have a list of 5, it’s time to review them and see if any ideas pop out. Do any of them strike you as worthy of writing a whole essay on?
So, while I like the idea of the yellow legal pad being like my brain where I think through things, it seems a little abstract to me, so I’m going to skip over it for now. Pens are super boring, so I’m just gonna strike that out now too. A scented candle? Tbh, that just makes me look bougie, so I’m going to opt out of this one too.
That leaves the snoopy figurine and a mini snickers. I guess I could spin the mini-snickers as about taking breaks and self care…. but still seems kinda lame to me. So I’m going to pick the Snoopy Figurine.
Snoopy Figurine:
So, this object stands out to me because usually I’m not a big fan of Snoopy or collectibles, but I like this one because it has a personal memory tied to it.
The memory: Years ago, one of my students was being bullied for being gay, and he was having a really hard time about it. In class, we were working on writing journal prompts, so I was reading about his experiences there. One day, he hung back after class and told me more about what was going on. We ended up both crying (afterall, once upon a time, I too was a gay high schooler), but at the end of it, we both felt better and most importantly, he went on to work really hard in my English class and wrote some great short stories over the course of the year. At the end of the year, he gave me this Snoopy figurine as a thank you, and said it had been his favorite when he was little and wanted me to have it.
So, there’s a lot of meaning in this little Snoopy Figurine isn’t there?
I also think this is a great personal statement because it tells the reader what my values are, and shows my commitment to my students by describing this one specific story. It says a lot about me, even though I’m not talking about myself at all— which is the key!
(Hint: if you don’t know what your values are, here is a post by College Essay Guy that helps you determine what your values are!
Talking and writing about yourself is super weird and I still don’t particularly like doing it, to this day. But! Just because I hate writing about myself, that doesn’t mean I can’t write a personal statement that’s all about me— through this story I tell the reader that I’m gay and want to help gay kids survive high school, it shows the reader I’m committed to my students, and it also shows I value my students (because I held on to the snoopy figurine).
All in all, that looks like a pretty good essay especially if I’m applying to college to be a teacher or counsellor! That’s the other layer of this personal statement example, always make it come back to college and what you will accomplish there.
Hopefully that little exercise gave some idea about how to use the Objects Exercise from the College Essay Guy in your own search.
Resources (forthcoming):
College Essay Guy’s Essence Objects Exercise, followed by the Values Exercise
Example College Essays from former students, post forthcoming!
Narrative structure vs Montage structure, which is better for you?
The Four Types of College Essays