advice and tips on how to write your own college essays reading my copap essay my MIT Subs welcome back to another video or today I will be reading my college essays that got me into Harvard and MIT just want to preference before I start this video that this is just what I did to get into these colleges but other people do like other things and just because you do the same things that I did doesn't like guarantee that you get into these colleges either but yeah I just hope that you guys take this as advice
and tips on how to write your own college essays as I said in the last video as well I'm also reading things from my laptop so I will be looking down without further Ado let's get on with the essays so before I start actually reading my college essays I wanted to give just some few General tips that I used when I was writing my comment app and my Subs so first I think it's really good to brainstorm topics of your essay for a while before actually starting writing your essays that way that you can get
like a brief idea of what you want your essays to be and make sure that your topic is really well laid out for you to write your essays and I think that ultimately it's a lot easier to write your essays when you have like a really detailed plan to do this I looked up a lot of like websites that helped brainstorm good college essay topics I think one that I really used a lot was college essay guy he has a lot of like exercises out there to brainstorm topics for you to write your essays about
um so I really recommend doing some of those and then seeing what essay topic you really want to write about and I would say one thing that I did when I was writing a lot of these essays was that I was reading a lot of other people's supplements as inspiration but you have to make sure that the supplements that you're writing they're ultimately you who talking like your voice has to come through and don't just like emulate the other person that you're taking inspiration from cuz I feel like it's really easy because after reading a
lot of these supplements you get to see like what worked and what didn't work but in that way like you could be losing your like own personal style so I would say take it at as inspiration but don't completely emulate their style I would also say get your common essay done before senior year because I feel like in senior year you're really busy cuz you have to write Common App subs and school extracurriculars so I would say that if you have the Common App basically ready by the start of senior year you're on a really
good track so that you can just write your supplements and then focus on like keeping your grades up and also continuing your extracurriculars and I would say that like maybe to start it over the summer and have a couple of drafts and make sure that it's basically on its way of being finalized by the start of senior year so that it's really good timing lies the more time you send on these essays the better so if you can start early do as I say not as I do because I did not end up following this
rule but my advice is that you should start earlier I also did ask for feedback on my essays so I had a couple of people read my essays I would say always be careful on who you're sending these essays to because there have I've read online that there's like been instances of people like copying essays so like make sure that they're close friends family or like teachers that will will really help you and not like copy your work so I had a few of my English teachers read my essays as well as like few family
members and my friends and they really helped me like gain outside feedback on my essays to make sure that it was as good as it can be those were all of the general tips that I have but after reading my essays I will kind of talk about like how I came to write my essays I want to start off by reading my copy essay because I think that was the say that I spent the most time on so I think the Common App had like seven prompts so the prompt that I chose was reflect on
something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way how has this gratitude affected you or motivated you so I'll start reading my essay Now red eyes a sizzling pan and pork cutlet at 6:00 a.m. there's a special love in this my mother returns from the night shift and always packs me lunch for school rising at the earliest hour she prepares in gery a homemade Korean rice cake eaten prior to important exams for good luck this food my school lunch is more than a meal to me and
symbolizes effort and compassion each box overflows with ingredients lovingly purchased and prepared even when we could not afford it in 8th grade my classmates formed a team solely to steal from my lunch box every weekday I huddled in the school cafeteria clutching the box and eating quickly to avoid their hands this boiled over when my classmates accidentally knocked over the Box as the contents of my lunchbox cracked to the floor I thought of my mother just this morning standing over the stove I held back hot tears when I returned home I was hurt hungry and
enraged but to my surprise my mother sympathized with my classmates her brows furrowed do they not eat lunch just imagine how they feel starving the whole school day the next day my mother woke even earlier to pack not one but two lunch boxes she instructed me to distribute the second one to my classmates when I handed my peers the lunch box their faces immediately lit up in stunned Delight they never attempted to steal my food again I'm grateful my mother refused to share the anger I harbored towards my classmates her compassion helped me to realize
that I selfishly only cared for myself I placed my Hunger on a pedestal not considering those around me also hungry and watching me eat since this lesson I decided to emulate my mother to share Joy even under challenging circumstances during sophomore year I chartered the club stus and bridging Seas which Bridges Asian-American high school students with their cultural heritage through a global penp pal program students communicate directly with students of the same ethnicity cross nationally via one-on-one video calls this provides students the opportunity to discover their culture just as I learned Korean Traditions through my
mother's cooking initially this club felt like an unattainable dream we emailed hundreds of high schools receiving rejection or no response through perseverance we finally charted with the Chinese School in Malaysia galvanizing the bridging Seas Journey since then we have accumulated over 120 pen pals and established a Korean branch in Soul South Korea motivated by my mom's commitment to sharing I devoted myself to spreading culture through bridging Seas like packing two lunches managing this club can be demanding and timec consuming every Friday I meet with the local directors of the club to discuss our next steps
and future goals which include expanding to South Asia these meetings are lengthy often lasting several hours we we organize program-wide meetings to strengthen bonds between members and hold meaningful discussions on cultural similarities and differences while connecting over a shared background members discuss their respective countes daily routines and school lives these meetings occur even during summer break as our program operates year round bring Seas is my priority just as packing lunch was my mom's whenever I find myself exhausted from the responsibilities of running bring Seas I remind myself of a conversation with a student in Malaysia
she expressed her appreciation for our club and the effort we put in going as far as to say that a student run International club would be unimaginable at her school this reminded me of my peers reaction to receiving their lunchbox from this I knew that the long hours are indeed worth it as I continue to coordinate between students and schools I hold gratitude for my mother for her labor compassion her lunches and of course her delicious pork colet so that was my common app essay my thinking when I was doing this essay was that I
really wanted to talk about my mom's lunches because I feel like food is definitely a love language and like that was just like one of the main ideas I wanted to write about in my essays and I think for the prompt like since it's about like talking about someone that you're really thankful for and that make you happy it's really easy to just keep talking about them and like making it seem like that really good person cuz obviously like you're really thankful for them but I think one thing about this essay is that you should
try to talk about that person but also make sure that you're talking about yourself because they want to know more about you and not really about this person that you're like talking about so that's why for this essay I think I spent like maybe half the essay talking about my mom and the rest of the essay talking about like what I did because of what she did for me I think that if you're um choosing this prompt or a similar prompt make sure that you're writing about yourself what has this person done that you're thankful
for that has made you grow as a person for this essay to I Tred to make connections that were a little unique so I connected like my mom's lunch to one of the extracurriculars that I was doing and so I think to make an essay stand out it's good to make like these unique connections that not a lot of other people are going to talk about we're going to talk about Subs now some of the subs I won't be sharing just because I feel like they're a little personal but I will be sharing most of
my Subs so I want to start off with my MIT Subs MIT does not take the Common App essay so they only see like the subs they also have a few optional essays today I'm just going to be talking about like the required ones so the first one we know you lead A busy life full of activities many of which are required of you tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it this is like asking about a hobby so I was really into journaling so I decided to write about journaling here's
that essay ever since I bought my first Diary in second grade I've loved to journal filling five almost six journals and even breaking the spine of some the creative aspect of journaling attracted me I can write whatever I want while recording my thoughts opinions and feelings I am un troubled by judgment from others instead it is a time to connect with my true self I can also write about my interests in music shows and movies which truly provide infinite freedom I can decorate my journal any way I want leading to the exploration of new ideas
as there is no rubric I can fill the page with as many stickers was tape and stamps as possible fueling my creativity deciding to share my journal online I created an Instagram account dedicated to my spreads on Korean music and dramas I discovered similar accounts generating a sense of community during the co pandemic through our shared interest in journaling I befriended multiple people internationally in particular my friend Sarah is from Paris and we frequently shared ideas about how we would design Pages for newly released albums and shows even after years of establishing my account journaling
is still a hobby that holds significance in my heart and one I enjoy doing whenever possible so like when I was writing this essay I made sure to pick a hobby that I was really interested in and also something that I could write a lot about if you are writing this just make sure that you pick something that you can write a lot about and that you're truly interested in because I think that it really shows um in your essays if you're actually interested in something so like don't try to like fake it the third
essay is MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds and it experiences together to better the lives of others our students work to improve their communities in different ways from tackling the world's biggest challenges to being a good friend discover one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community break the silence and the violence the crowd shouted 20 people per minute are abused by their partner equating to 10 million people annually abuse is prevalent in my immigrant community and is often normalized and unreported due to language barriers similarly the
topic social stigma encourages victim blaming troubled by this I joined KFC an organization dedicated to advocating against domestic violence and sexual assault my team youth Community project team consists of high school students from various cultural backgrounds high schools and experiences due to our unique background sometimes we have differing views on the direction of a project however these instances taught us to put ourselves in other people's shoes allowing us to collaborate towards our common goal ending social stigma and protecting women's rights meeting every Friday we participate in activities used to combat abuse we drafted a domestic
violence handbook informing the public about the indicators of abuse it includes statistics hotlines and additional resources that Aid victims and the public we participate in multiple community outreach events partnering with the police political figures and similar organizations at these events we showcase compelling artwork and share speeches to demonstrate that victims are not alone at MIT I intend to expand the bread of my advocacy beyond my local community by volunteering alongside fellow students at multiple Nationwide Women rights organizations for this essay like I try to mix in my extracurriculars and also answer the prompts those are
the MIT Subs that I will be sharing the Harvard sub was optional when I was applying to Harvard but but it is a little personal so I will not be sharing my harbet essay so I think those are all the essays that I will be sharing today thanks for watching this video uh if you guys have any more videos that you guys want to see please comment down below yeah bye-bye [Music]
