617: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 1): The Sand Essay with Alisha, HS Senior

In our new series, Inside the Personal Statement Process, we're taking you behind the scenes with Alisha, a current high school senior working through applications right now. If you've ever wondered what it's like working with Ethan in a session, this is the podcast for you! You might remember a similar series last season with Cassidy, where we got to see her whole application process. Rather than focus on the whole application, I wanted to just dive specifically into working with Alisha through the personal statement process. In Part 1, Alisha and I get into: How did Alisha approach brainstorming and outlining for her personal statement? What brainstorming activities helped Alisha to pick her topic? Reading through Alisha's first draft of her personal statement Creating a reverse outline of Alisha's first draft to set her up for writing the second draft And more! Alisha is a current high school senior going through the application process who loves science, movies, and discovering new places. When she's not studying the brain, she's mentoring younger students through her program Running Start or planning her next adventure. We hope you enjoy our session! Play-by-Play: 1:40 – Getting to know Alisha through her brainstorming materials 2:12 – Values 3:10 – "I love, I know" exercise 5:32 – Superpowers 6:32 – Career interests 12:00 – "Roles and Identities" exercise 15:09 – "Essence Objects" exercise 17:37 – Alisha discusses her personal statement topic 19:00 – Alisha walks through her essay outline and examples 31:55 – Alisha reads the first draft of her personal statement 35:45 – Alisha shares her thoughts on her draft 38:50 – Ethan gives feedback 46:00 – Ethan walks through the process of creating a "reverse outline" for draft two Resources: The Values Exercise The Roles and Identities Exercise College Essay Guy's Personal Statement Resources College Essay Guy's College Application Hub

You can listen to 617: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 1): The Sand Essay with Alisha, HS Senior online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

617: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 1): The Sand Essay with Alisha, HS Senior is an episode from The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions by Ethan Sawyer.

This episode is 51:36 long.

This episode was published on Oct 14, 2025.

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