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

721: Inside the Application Process (Part 1): Introducing Harmony, High School Senior

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

Hey friends and welcome back to the podcast! I'm Tom Campbell, a former admission officer and now a college counselor and content creator here at College Essay Guy. In this episode, I sit down with one real student and talk through the actual, messy work of applying to college — in real time. That student is Harmony, and I met her backwards: not in person, but through her writing during CEG Live, which are large group essay writing classes Ethan leads every summer for high school students across the US. I was invited to lead a “bonus session” during the program, where I’m tasked with...

720: What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Practical Exercises for Navigating Ambiguity with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 2)

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

Friends, welcome back to the podcast. This is part two of my conversation with Angel Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The theme of our conversation was navigating ambiguity. In case you missed , Angel and I talked about where our own relationships with uncertainty began, what it has looked like for him to lead NACAC through some extraordinarily difficult moments, and some of the lessons he’s learned along the way. In this second part, we get much more practical. Angel and I wanted to explore a simple question: What can we actually do when we...

719: Tools for Navigating Ambiguity in Times of Uncertainty: A Conversation with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 1)

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

Hi, friends, and welcome back to the College Essay Guy podcast. This episode is a fireside chat with Angel Pérez, the CEO of NACAC (the National Association for College Admission Counseling), someone who was named by Forbes as the most influential voice in college admissions. Not long ago, Angel was discussing in an interview his book The Hottest Seat on Campus: A Roadmap for Mastering Leadership in College Admission, and he mentioned that if he could add one more chapter to his book, he'd write it on navigating ambiguity. This is a topic that has interested me for the last couple years as...

718: Turning the Tide in 2026: Preparing Students for Lives of Caring and Purpose (with Harvard's Making Caring Common)

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

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. Ten years ago, a group at Harvard released a report called Turning the Tide, and it attempted something audacious: getting college admission (of all things) to make caring count. This June, the fourth report in that series came out, written with NACAC's Center for Innovation in College Admission, and my sense is it's the most urgent one yet. Here's a stat that struck me: 34 percent of teens say they have little or no meaning or purpose in their lives. For young people 19 to 25, it's 51 percent. My guests today wrote the report: Dr. Rick...

717: A USC Admission Officer on Early Decision, Rural Student Access, and What She Wishes Students Would Ask with Marie Bury Loew

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

Hi there and welcome back to the podcast! I’m Tillie Gottlieb, a senior college counselor and content specialist here at CEG. I am delighted to be a guest host today as part of our series interviewing admission officers. We’re getting to know more about this hardworking, thoughtful group of professionals whose job it is to build college communities and shape the culture of our higher education institutions - talk about high pressure! Hearing about their own journeys through the education system, their reasons for working with students all over the world, and the commitments they’re...

716: Making the Price of College Make Sense with Adam Miller

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

Welcome back to the podcast! I'm Tillie Gottlieb, a senior college counselor and content specialist here at CEG. This season, we're sitting down with admission officers to hear their real stories. I spent years on that side of the desk myself, and one thing I want listeners to walk away with is this: these aren't gatekeepers deciding your fate. They're people trying to build a class and a community, often inside a system that feels chaotic from every angle. So over the next few weeks, we're getting to know some of them as people, hearing what actually drives them, and along the way, getting a...

715: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling (Ep 12: The Translator) with Lavon Robinson

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

Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, “On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling.” I’m Tom Campbell, former Pomona and Holy Cross admissions officer, and one of the CEG podcast co-hosts, alongside my lovely colleagues Tillie and Ethan. In this series, we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be. In this episode, we break down an essay that we’re calling The Translator. This student, who worked with one of our amazing essay coaches Lavon Robinson a few years...

714: A Live Essay and Application Review with Anna, HS Senior

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

Hi friends, and welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is a special behind-the-scenes look at a live application review I did with Anna, a high school senior I met last year. We recorded this about ten days before her early deadlines, and she was kind enough to let me walk through her entire application in real time: her personal statement, her activities list, and all of her supplemental essays for Yale. Fun fact: Anna emailed me a couple months later to let me know she actually got into Yale (congrats again, Anna!). In this episode, we get into: What it was like for Anna to pivot away...

713: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (Ep 10: The Stomach Whisperer) with Tillie Gottlieb

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

Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, “On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling.” In this series, we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be. In this episode, we break down an essay called "The Stomach Whisperer" about a student who used to lie on her grandmother's stomach and wonder if the echoing gurgle I’d just heard was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon. I'm joined today by Tillie Gottlieb, a former admission officer turned Director of College...

712: Empowering First-Generation Student Success: The Warren High School BUS program with David Cha

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

Welcome back to the podcast! Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Campbell, a former admission officer and now a college counselor and content creator here at College Essay Guy. This show often reminds us that beneath the essays, the deadlines, and the color-coded college lists, this whole thing is really about people — and today's guest is exhibit A. Quick disclaimer: this is a feel-good episode. Very “This American Life.” If you've ever needed your faith in public education restored, cancel your other plans. In a content landscape where some of the loudest admissions "experts" run on...

More Episodes

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 here and Part 2 here.

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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