today I'm going to be showing you guys just how easy it is to write the perfect college essay how's it going my name is Ashton Herndon and welcome to one of the most stressful periods of your entire life the college application process everything you've done over the past four years has led up to this one application and what you decide to put on that paper will ultimately decide your fate for the next four years so I mean no pressure here and even though I've spent a ton of time trying to perfect a college application process I've started to realize that getting into college is completely different than what I thought it would be when I was in high school getting into a good college was all I ever dreamed about I mean literally I was obsessed with getting into these big schools so I did anything and everything I could to be the most lethal academic weapon from getting straight A's to being involved with every Club out there well not that type of Club so even watching the best college YouTubers out there I was well on my way to this Ivy League status and nothing could stop me but even after killing the SAT and crafting the perfect college resume there was still one one thing that stood between being that sacred College acceptance letter the college essays baby up to this point the one thing that all these superhuman students had in common was an amazing essay and even though anybody out there could have a high GPA in test scores these essays were the make or break decision between me getting into my dream school and with so much pressure riding on one little essay I locked in and did the one thing that I do best watched every YouTube video out there but after spending hours watching these kids from Harvard and Princeton read their college essays my confidence about getting into college became lower than ever every kid out there would talk about how they started their own business cured Royal diseases and even founded their own countries all while getting perfect scores in school and after reading all these New York Times best-selling essays I started to think that there was no hope in me writing a good college essay but after weeks of writing and a ton of bad ideas I started to find ways to write the perfect college essay without putting in hours of effort like these superhuman students and that's why I'm here today I know the college essays can seem super impossible to write but lucky enough for you I've got a couple tricks on my sleeve to write the perfect college essay in less than an hour come on I'll explain in the car oh hey didn't see you there so up to this point you know I've been in a college game for quite a while now so I'm a pretty well connected guy and a lot of the Buddies I made over the years have actually ended up working in emissions at their big name schools so naturally I got all the tea on how to get into these big name colleges it's surprise surprise they all come to me and say the biggest way to get in is oh essays by far the essay is so important the college essays I mean who would have thought but even though every single school has different essay topics almost every question out there can be broken down into one of these three topics your common app essay or your general essay the Why Us essay where they ask why you pick their college and then those weird ass questions like what's your favorite color or what movie character would you be and even though it may be super stressful to write the most interesting essay out there you really don't have to write a masterpiece to have a great essay you just have to know what they're looking for ah get it because it's a glasses store and the glasses they uh they help you see I know I know it's kind of a stretch but just stick with me here so usually when you think of college essays you think that you have to be way out of the box with what you write about and to an extent that's kind of true but in reality you have to do almost the opposite usually when you're writing your common app essay or any other essay that requires a specific situation there's always a few key aspects that these colleges are looking for usually these aspects range from leadership teamwork community service the list goes on so my biggest suggestion when looking at a prompt is to ask yourself these two key questions what does the college want me to say here what interesting story do I have that can relate to that key aspect and then boom you got yourself a winning college essay baby along with hitting those key aspects my biggest piece of advice is to never make yourself seem perfect a lot of the time these essay readers love reading about adversity so if you've been through rough times in your life literally just on it because it's a great way to show those key aspects without bullshitting that you're perfect all the time speaking of hard times it's pretty damn hot out here so I'll meet you guys back in the studio for our next tip thanks Ashton so now that you've shown off all your skills to these colleges you're gonna have to prove to them why you belong at their school which brings us to our next essay topic the Why Us essay and you know if you're anything like me I honestly had no idea why I wanted to go to these schools so answering this question was super stressful at first but there's a super simple way to make it seem like you know everything about a school without even stepping foot on campus what I would do is look up a major I wanted to study at a specific School click on that specific College's website and literally just look at projects they're working on and professors in that major and mention it in my essay I mean it's that simple I literally just mentioning a professor's work or a project you want to work on once you get there it shows that you actually care about a specific program way more than a lot of other applicants out there just make sure to be specific with your reasons why and be very clear on what you'll actually contribute once you get there and then boom you look better than 90 of the kids out there but even after showing off all your skills and how you fit perfectly into a school there's still one curveball that nobody ever knows how to answer correctly the Oddball questions these type of questions are pretty damn weird to say the least it can range from anything from what's your favorite color to what a wisdom tooth would have to say to even some colleges that literally want you to make up your own damn question I know it's some pretty crazy [ __ ] and even though it seems like there's no point in having these type of questions this is where you can really take advantage of your answers colleges use these questions to show creativity in a way that other questions just simply can't do but just because these essays are super far out there doesn't mean that there's not a right answer to them usually with these type of essays you want to take advantage of just how crazy it is and use it as an opportunity to show another key aspect of yourself in a super unique way the topics are usually so broad that you can really take control of the narrative and frame everything in a way that makes you sound super appealing just make sure that when you're writing you pick an answer that incorporates a key aspect or an interesting topic and please for the love of God make it unique because that's literally what the whole essay Topic's for so just don't waste it college essays are meant to show how unique you are as a person and to prove to these colleges that you're much more than just grades in the test score and even though it may seem impossible to master at the end of the day as long as you stick to these tips and embrace your true personal story your college essay is going to turn out 10 times better than any of these superhuman students out there just trust me on this one you got this so with that being said if you guys found this video helpful please make sure to give it a thumbs up I do respond to every single comment so if you have any other questions or video ideas make sure to leave them down below I do have a playlist of everything you need to know about college so if you want to go check it out it'll be right here and if you want to join the family of over 2.6 000 subscribers now you can click right here and yeah that's it for me this week guys and I will see you guys next week foreign hit like uh was it 24-0 I was like this is going to make a great vlog