118: Who is the College Essay Guy?

This is part three of my four-part series with Amie Dorsey (aka Tutor Ted). On the last two episodes I interviewed Amie, while on this episode (and on the next one), Amie turns the tables on and interviews me. On this episode Amie just wanted to give folks a chance to get to know me better, so we discussed:

• How I ended up as the College Essay Guy (Spoiler: that wasn’t the plan)

• What applying to college was like for me

• How I learned the importance of asking good questions

• Why I never tell students to “write in their voice”

• How I believe writing your essay can actually change your self-image

• What it’s like working with me one-on-one

• How I came to be the College Essay Guy [1:44 ]
• Surprising similarities between Amie and my stories [4:58]
• My earlier days applying to college [5:12]
• If I had gotten admissions help at 17… [7:16]
• How I learned the importance of asking good questions [7:50]
• How I use the Essence Object Exercise [10:44]
• How writing your essay can change your self-image [11:40]
• “What is your story?” and other bad questions to ask students [13:47]
• Why telling students to “write in their voice” is bad writing advice [14:25]
• Two great stories about awesome students I worked with [15:54]
• My approach to working with students one-on-one [21:11]
• The importance of picking a great essay topic [27:28

• Essence Object Exercise

• Ethan walks Amie through her personal statement exercises

• Ethan’s Pay-What-You-Can Courses and PDFs

• The Free Guide to the UC Personal Insight Questions