Libsyn Directory

619: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 3): How Reflection Leads to Insight with Alisha, HS Senior

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Release Date: 11/06/2025

620: Navigating Student Health in College: A Doctor’s Guide to Sleep, Stress, and Student Life

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

The transition from high school to college is something that thousands of students struggle with each year, and it’s not something people really talk about. There’s a lot of pressure for students to “have it together” in some broad sense. That's why today I'm excited to talk to Dr. Jill Grimes, Dr. Jill Grimes, author of The ULTIMATE College Student Health Handbook: Your Guide for Everything from Hangovers to Homesickness, for a frank conversation about things that are often stigmatized. Content warning: We get into some pretty serious topics such as mental health, drinking, and...

619: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 3): How Reflection Leads to Insight with Alisha, HS Senior

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Hey friends, and welcome back to the College Essay Guy podcast. Today’s episode is the third and final episode in our series called Inside the Personal Statement Process. If you’re just tuning in, this series takes you behind the scenes as I work one-on-one with Alisha, a current high school senior applying for the Fall 2026 term. Find Part 1 and Part 2 . This episode was recorded just a few days before Alisha submitted her early applications. The focus of this episode is on one of the most challenging—and perhaps, the least discussed—aspect of writing the personal...

618: Inside the Personal Statement Process (Part 2): Discovering Values Through Revision with Alisha, HS Senior

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Hey friends, and welcome back to the College Essay Guy podcast. Today’s episode is part two of our series called Inside the Personal Statement Process. If you’re just tuning in, this series takes you behind the scenes as I work one-on-one with Alisha, a current high school senior applying for the Fall 2026 term. In the first episode, we got to know Alisha through her brainstorming and outline. In this episode, we pick up right where we left off — Alisha’s second draft. We get into: How did the new outline work for Alisha? How to approach trimming—not just words,...

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

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

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 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...

616: Authoring Your Life: Why the Personal Statement Is About (Much) More Than Getting into College

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

In today’s episode, I’m joined by my long-time colleague, and our Chief People Officer here at CEG, Sandy Longworth. Sandy has worked as a therapist, a researcher, college counselor — among other things — and has spent years studying the role that narrative storytelling plays in how teens develop their identities. Important note: While Sandy trained as a therapist, and we do talk a lot about therapy in our conversation, I want to make clear that I do not hold that college counseling and essay coaching — or what we do at College Essay Guy — to be therapy. It isn’t....

615: Rethinking “Best” Colleges: Tools, Tips, and Mindset Shifts for a Better College List with Jay McCann and Dr. Steven Antonoff, Co-Authors of The College Finder

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Hi friends, and welcome back to the podcast. In today’s episode, I’m joined by two special guests: Dr. Steven Antonoff and Jay McCann, co-authors of the newly updated 5th edition of The College Finder: Your comprehensive guide to finding colleges that fit YOUR unique path. In this conversation, we dig into some of the biggest questions students and families face in the college search today, including: What—if anything—are rankings good for in 2025? Beyond starting salaries, which outcome metrics actually indicate value? What’s a responsible way for students to use AI in the search...

614: 13 Mistakes High School Students Make When Creating Their College List

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Welcome back to the podcast. It’s September, which means many students are building the list of colleges they’re applying to. Today I’m joined by New York Times Bestselling Author, Harlan Cohen, who walks us through his 13 most common mistakes students make when they’re creating their college list. We cover, among other things: The importance of shifting from what “they” want… to what you want The problem with rankings The importance of doing “future math” Why treating college as a one-year experiment can lower the stakes And more Harlan Cohen is the...

613: Inside the Application (Part 6): Making the Decision with Cassidy, Class of 2025

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Hi friends, and welcome back to the podcast. This one’s going to be short—and honestly, it’s an episode I didn’t think I was going to record. Why? Well, if you’ve been following along with Cassidy’s journey over the past year, you know we’ve covered a lot: from brainstorming her personal statement, to revising her supplements, to weighing her college acceptances. And when we wrapped Part 5, I figured we could leave it there. I thought it might be enough to know she had some great options. Silly me. You wrote in. You wanted to know: Where did she end up? So here we are: the final...

612: Admission Nutrients (Part 6 of 6: Intellectual Curiosity): Important Ingredients for a Well-Balanced College Admission Process—And Life with Hillary Dickman

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Welcome back to the podcast! This is our sixth and final chapter of our series on admission nutrients — qualities that can make for a healthier, more meaningful college admission process… and life. In case you missed it, we started with , with Raissa Diamante (Director of admission from Harvey-Mudd College), then I sat down with Deanna Dixon, (Dean of Admission at Smith College) to talk about , then Tom met with Dysean Alexander (Assistant Director for West Coast Admission at Lafayette College) to talk about and Nathan Faust (Loyola Marymount University) to talk about . Today we...

611: Admission Nutrients (Part 5 of 6: Service to Others / Community Impact): Important Ingredients for a Well-Balanced College Admission Process—And Life with Nathan Faust

The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

In Episode 5 of our series on Admission Nutrients, Tom Campbell is joined by Nathan Faust, Admission Counselor at Loyola Marymount University, to talk about Service to Others / Community Impact. In their conversation, they get into: Why service to others and community impact is a valuable nutrient to fold into your high school experience—and life Tips on communicating your service and community-impact initiatives to admissions officers Examples of how this nutrient may overlap with the others Advice for counselors on how to explain the value of this nutrient to students and families...

More Episodes

This episode was recorded just a few days before Alisha submitted her early applications. The focus of this episode is on one of the most challenging—and perhaps, the least discussed—aspect of writing the personal statement: insight.

In the session, Alisha and I explore:

What is insight?
How do you find good insights?
What are the kinds of questions that can lead to insights?
And more

Whether you’re a student working on your own essays right now, a parent supporting from the sidelines, or a counselor guiding students through this process, I hope you’ll find something useful here.

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.

Hope you enjoy our session.

Play-by-Play:

1:16 – It’s just days before her Early Decision deadline. How’s Alisha feeling?
2:21 – What is “insight,” and why does it matter in an essay?
3:30 – Alisha begins reading her latest draft, Wherever the Road Takes Us
4:08 – Ethan gives his thoughts on Alisha’s intro
5:37 – Paragraph one: Curiosity
11:04 – Paragraph two: Creativity
11:52 – How does art make Alisha a better scientist?
14:20 – Paragraph three: Empathy
21:20 – Alisha uses the Values Exercise to identify potential new insights
28:19 – Paragraph four: Community
32:47 – Paragraph five: Conclusion and the “empty jar.”
35:53 – Ethan recaps final notes and next steps
39:50 – Alisha and Ethan reflects on the writing process and Alisha’s growth
41:34 – Closing thoughts

Resources:

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