writing quality essays

Brad Baldridge 0:00
Today we're gonna talk about essays and personal statements.

Presenter 0:04
You have kids, they grow up and before you know it, it's time to plan for college. Where do you start? How much is it going to cost? Will you qualify for financial aid? Should you be looking into scholarships? When will you be able to retire? What about student loans? The list of questions is never-ending. The good news is all the answers are right here. Welcome to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Here is your host, certified financial planner, Brad Baldridge.

Brad Baldridge 0:34
Hello, welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host, Brad Baldridge. Today, we have an interview with Suzanne Davis. She's the owner of Academic Writing Success. And we're going to talk a lot about personal statements and applications and supplemental essays, and all the things that students need to write in order to complete their applications for college, and also perhaps pursue scholarships as well. So on the scholarship theme, in Brad Recommends, I'm going to get into The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents, a great resource you can learn a little bit more about right after we have this interview. So as I mentioned, the challenge with writing for many families is understanding what it's going to take to actually get accepted, and how to recognize good writing when you see it. I've been working with my son, and one of the challenges that we had was I'm not a writer, and I can't really coach and deal with the writing side of the application. So we worked with a family friend who spent a few hours with my son, probably more than a few, it's probably six or seven hours to work out how to write the essays and come up with a good topic and that type of thing. So if you're looking to learn more about the writing process, Suzanne is going to give us a great overview, and talk a little bit more about how she helps families in the writing process. And then stay tuned for The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents. Let's jump into the interview.

Today we're talking with Suzanne Davis. She's the owner of Academic Writing Success. Welcome, Suzanne.

Suzanne Davis 2:04
Welcome and thank you for having me today.

Brad Baldridge 2:08
All right, so you own a company called Academic Writing success. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is, and why you decided to launch the company?

Suzanne Davis 2:19
Okay, so Academic Writing Success is a coaching center, this combination of coaching and tutoring where I help students that want to excel in their writing classes, if it's to get into college, or in college, or even some students down the road with graduate school. And really, I came into this because I had been teaching at the university level. And I had been teaching academic writing and academic writing combined with ESL there. And I really believed in that one on one connection that I had with students. And so I would have that office meeting with every single writing student for 15 minutes every week, and I realized my office hours were longer than any other professors. And I was going almost 15 office hours. And I couldn't keep that up. But I felt like students really needed that. And so I knew I wanted to go into working one on one with students. I learned about doing it online, and I thought this is the way I can help people from all over the world.

Brad Baldridge 3:41
Okay, so can you tell us a little bit more about what coaching is versus say what an editor might do or other writing professionals?

Suzanne Davis 3:52
Okay, so with coaching, I'm really guiding students from the beginning of the whole writing process. So how do you brainstorm, how do you come up with ideas? Things like how do you find research or evidence to prove your ideas, write that thesis statement. And all of those pieces, plus I do some teaching, as we're doing that. So I might notice in this writing piece that they really struggle with sentence fragments, right. So that's something that has to be solved going forward. And so as a coach, I'm helping them go through that entire process, but I'm also pulling out from their writing. Okay, here are some sentence fragments. This is what a sentence fragment is. And then how can we fix that and do that in your own writing. So it's more personalized than editing where I do have people in the past who've wanted editing and they just send me a piece and they say, exit. And that's very, very different.

Brad Baldridge 5:08
Right? So I guess when the if, where you're relevant to the folks that are typically listening to this podcast, which is, parents of high school kids looking at college, I think, and it's things like scholarship essays and personal statements and their applications and that kind of stuff. But can you help parents understand? You know, I think sometimes parents think that, 'Oh, I'm a good writer, I'm going to just jump in there and help my student do this.' And I think a lot of times, they're not really coaching the student to write something, they're just writing it for them, or what the students sitting next to them. How do you you work with a student? How do you draw that line to make sure that it's still the students work and that your work, so to speak? That's part A, and the reason I bring this up is I've hear from a lot of college side, you know, people that read the the writing, that say, they can very easily tell when it wasn't written by a student. So the idea that it will mom or dad is just going to knock it out and get it done. And it'll be good enough, and then we don't have to worry about it generally doesn't work very well.

Suzanne Davis 6:16
No, it doesn't. Because one of the things that colleges are really looking at in that application process is not just the writing ability and the content, but kind of this elusive thing called writing voice, they want to have a sense of that student through that piece of writing. And they want to understand the students' values too which come through in a personal statement just based on some of the questions that they're asking, and parents can't quite replicate that. And I can't replicate that either. So when I work with a student, and I'm coaching them, it's, yes, we're looking at the prompts. But also, while I'm doing that process with them, I'm designing what we call 'free writing activities.' And so these are writing activities where we just start off for 5 or 10 minutes. And they have a prompt, it's usually something that's related in some way to their topic, or to the whole situation around going to college. And it's no pressure, I'm not going to create it, I'm not saying like that, but their voice is coming through, and their ideas are coming through. And that's really a great starting point for every time we coach. One of my clients, what she said she loved about me was that I didn't change who she was in her style when we were going through. Now I could give feedback on the content and how it's organized. And I could point out, there's things here that really are clear. But I also could say, here's some things we could do. But this always depends on you and what you want to convey. Because you have your own way of expressing things. I never want to be the person to take over just by applying certain writing rules.

Brad Baldridge 8:40
Right. Okay.

Suzanne Davis 8:42
And that students do end up doing really well. Because it was her own work.

Brad Baldridge 8:48
Right. So, and I think that's important, as again, I know very little about writing personally, it's not my area of expertise, obviously. But when we're, I guess, needing to do writing, how does a parent understand when maybe the writing isn't up to par? And again, I believe that I can recognize some writing from a maybe a technical standpoint of 'You don't understand common rules, obviously, you need a lot of work on this.' But how do you recognize if it's a good topic, or some of that more broad and broad thoughts for parents, if they're, they're kind of the frontline here. They might see the problem, or they might not. So how do they recognize, well, this truly is a problem or not.

Suzanne Davis 9:35
Okay. There are a couple of things I would suggest and that's getting feedback outside of the parent, whether it's your your child is at a school where maybe the guidance counselor will look over something or a teacher or some other adult that's more familiar with what's expected. You know, I have the free consultations where I look and I can give that that feedback. And the other piece is, there's books on how to write personal statements out there, where they give you sample ones. There's one written by, oh, I can't remember his name, but he goes by the College Essay Guy And so he has examples like that. So kind of sewing through.

Brad Baldridge 10:26
Ethan Sawyer?

Suzanne Davis 10:27
Yeah, it's Ethan...

Brad Baldridge 10:29
The essay guy.

Suzanne Davis 10:30
Yeah

Brad Baldridge 10:30
Sorry. Yeah. That's Ethan Sawyer, yes. And we'll put, I'll put a link to his book and his website as well.

Suzanne Davis 10:38
He's very good with it. You can even go on his websites and look at some of the examples and how he's explained certain things. So that will help give the parent a better eye. But I also recommend have your your child read through this with you start talking about that piece of writing? And why do they think it works? You know, what's really neat, and unusual and working about that?

Brad Baldridge 11:06
Right? Absolutely. So I think there's a challenge. And I this is kind of an observation that I've made. You know, if you had a student that said, 'Hey, Mom, I'd really love to learn how to play the piano.' If you happen to know how to play the piano, well, then you theoretically could say, alright, well sit down, I'll start teaching you. But if you don't know how to play the piano, like, and most of us don't, the first thought is, 'Okay, well, piano lessons.' Or, and then you might go beyond that and say, 'Well, okay, in-person piano lessons,' but but maybe there's the online piano lessons now and that type of thing, where, and my son taught himself guitar, by using online courses, so it certainly is possible. But when we get into writing, kind of, we're in the same boat, I think, but people don't think of it that way of, 'Wow, I'm in over my head, when it comes to coaching on writing. I could learn the mechanics of writing, and then learn how to be a good writing coach. Or I could just outsource it to someone that does this all the time.' I mean, I think those are the real decisions that parents need to think through of, if I can't handle it, do I want to spend the time and effort to be come good enough at it? And or, like I said, just to hand it off. And find the resource, the book, the product, the coach, whatever is appropriate for the situation. So I guess getting back to things like the personal statement and scholarship applications, you mentioned a few things while we were talking about that you do that are kind of above and beyond sort of the idea of not being generic, right? You write one essay, that might be really good, but then you would use it for 23 scholarships is probably not the right process. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Suzanne Davis 13:00
Right? Well, I do a lot with students who are going towards those smaller, more specific scholarships, or the scholarships that are available through their college. And those places, those unique places have different values and different reasons for why they're offering scholarships. And so you want to be able to speak to that every time you apply. So maybe your story is similar. But you want to make sure that when they're reading it, the sponsors, they're not feeling that this is something everybody has written and sent off. And I find for, for most, they actually do have very different questions. I do a lot with credit unions and businesses and those types of things. So it's not just a matter of, 'Here's my basic essay, let me tweak it.' And, okay, it's set, I really want them. And I offer a course where I help them do this, to, to study a sponsor, to look at their website, their values out of them. It's really great because they have the winners, and the winners essays and things like that can talk about those. And you can see how, how everything is very different.

Brad Baldridge 14:26
Right. And I always use the example of if you're getting a scholarship from the little old lady knitting club. That might be a completely different essay than the skateboard company. That's the edgy, crazy risk-taking kind of website or company. And so I think, again, all this stuff kind of has been taken to the next level of maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago when parents were doing this. Well, he just knocked out something that was reasonably good and prove you could write and you just submitted it everywhere. I don't think that works anymore. And what are you, I guess, as far as successes, and what are you seeing that's helpful than and kind of turning the corner for, for students these days?

Suzanne Davis 15:14
With the personal statements, I find, really, what's helping them is pulling out stories that are really unique. And thoughts that are really unique to them are working. I had one student, she came to me, and she was like, nobody died in my family, nothing tragic is ever happened. Like, that's okay, we can write a really great essay together, you've got all of these different experiences and different ideas. And I had worked with her before. And she, she wrote a really great essay. And she got into Cornell, her first choice, and so I've worked with a lot of other students who once they understand that, and their points of view and the experiences that they had, even though they're not like these, I don't know, big, tragic experiences, it really works well, because they're being very specific to these colleges, they were really good understanding of why they want to go to a particular college. And I think that helps a lot with, with what they're picking out, what they're writing about.

Brad Baldridge 16:32
So what's the process when students are working on this. My son is a freshman in college, and he had to write some essays. And we actually worked with a family friend that does a lot of writing and so forth. And, you know, again, because I wasn't able to help, mom could have perhaps helped a little more, but because we're parents, sometimes I think the parents not being involved, because just because of the parent-child dynamic at 17-18 is challenging sometimes. So a family friend helped my son, but they worked on it a couple hours, here and there, probably six meetings. So, again, kind of setting expectations for parents that maybe haven't seen this process before. When a student says, I sat down on Sunday afternoon, and two hours later to say it was done, I'm gonna go submit it now, it's probably not their best work, it might be good enough, depending on the challenge, the types of schools you're applying to, and that type of thing. But I had to spend a lot of time with my son and talk about, this is an important thing, this is something that you're going to write and rewrite in scrap and revise and think about, and it's not something like a typical English paper where you say, 'Well, it's due tomorrow at noon, and I haven't started it yet. Therefore, it's going to be what's going to be and then at noon, I'm going to submit it, then there's no, there's no looking back.' Can you speak to that a little bit more about what colleges expect an essay, how essay s how that process works when you're working with students?

Suzanne Davis 18:07
Well, the process that I go through with students is really starting with that brainstorming process really trying to find the story, or the topic idea that's really going to emerge. And we actually spend a lot of time in that brainstorming process. And I use different brainstorming tools. Some of it's just, somebody just wants to do a list. Somebody wants to do a mind map and think, and there's other tools like jam board, which is virtual sticky notes. And going through that, and I'm asking a lot of questions about each one, to kind of give them something to think about so that they can evaluate, but it's always their choice, kind of after that discussion, which one, they're picking. Again, we look at the college, we look back at that prompt to really make sure that what they're picking is going to be that. And then so when I work with them, we organize what they're going to write, 'Okay, so this would be a good place to start with an introduction. And here's what you can do with the body.' And I'm guiding them through this, I'm asking them a lot of questions. And then if I see it's like, wandering or going, so far off topic, that's where I'm kind of asking more of those questions and referring back to the prompt to kind of bring them on track. And then once they have that idea, it doesn't have to be like this formal outline. But this idea and this shape, it's really up to them to do the writing and then get the feedback from me and I call that like revising feedback. And then also editing and, and really that finalizing proofreading piece. But I find going through all of these steps and kind of asking questions at different points, really helps make the essay more sharp. And it feels like, it's not like it has to be an exact match with the specific question in language. But it does help really make it something that's very unique addresses the question and is going to really stand out.

Brad Baldridge 20:43
So I guess what I'm kind of hearing is, in the process, it's the kind of the broad topic is the first challenge of this is kind of what we're gonna write about. And then somehow you need to come up with some sort of outline, or, again, you might say, I'm gonna write about the challenge when I played in sports, which is probably cliche, not something you want to write about, but assume that's the topic, then you might need to talk about specifically, these are the some of the outlined items, right? These are the bullet points that we're going to cover, and that, but then from there, you still have to make it entertaining or, good writing, per se.

Suzanne Davis 21:22
Right.

Brad Baldridge 21:22
And then from there, you have to make sure your spelling's accurate and your punctuation and other things that I probably don't know anything about. But can you kind of speak to what each of those phases and what you'll what students might look for or parents and broaden that a little bit?

Suzanne Davis 21:38
Okay, well, I look for a really good introduction, something that's going to capture somebody's attention. So we do spend a lot of time thinking of what might be a really good entry or kind of hook into this. So a lot of times, it might be something where it is a story, or it is an experience, it might be something like some sort of description kind of leading into that, or some kind of reflection, not something that's going to sound like, this was the most meaningful thing to me, no, and then lead in, and it's just, here's my thesis statement, and all of that. So, I do look for things that are different. And that's what we try and come up with, the students really find that fun. I mean, they love coming up with different types of introductions and thinking about ways to write it and trying it a few different ways. And coming back. So in a conclusion like that, and then just different points in the writing, where they might have a metaphor or some turns of phrases that are really unique and interesting that they like to do.

Brad Baldridge 23:09
Okay, so, again, it seems like you're very focused on the content a lot more than the run-on sentences grammar.

Suzanne Davis 23:19
Well, I certainly am when we reached the editing.

Brad Baldridge 23:22
Right. Okay, so there is an editing phase as well.

Suzanne Davis 23:25
Yes.

Brad Baldridge 23:25
Okay.

Suzanne Davis 23:26
Oh, there definitely is, because some of the common problems that I see are, are sentence fragments, which I was surprised, it seems like, it's become more common to see sentence fragments over the years when I first started, but a lot of them are things like, somebody will start with like this really long kind of flowing clause. And then they just kind of forget, they've got this whole noun, but then there's no actual action that they've finished with, or they put the period and it's next sentence that actually would make it a real sentence. So we have that editing process that is really needed. Because we have sort of the fun creative process. There's this saying from a lot of fiction authors, like write hot, we kind of do that and do that and that excited phase, but then edit cold. So we have that break. And then we've really got to think like, I have a list of questions and like an editing checklist that I teach some of the different things, they're spotting things and I'm spotting things and then I help them proofread like crazy, because they do want that grammar, that spelling, and that punctuation to be perfect.

Brad Baldridge 24:52
Right. Okay, so start to finish. If it's a high stakes, if we're looking at other high end schools, like you mentioned Cornell and that type of thing. How long did that process take? I mean, you started working on Tuesday, and by Friday afternoon, it was done, or we started in August and by October it was done, or what, what's a good timeline or whatever that apparent might, you know, again, in coaching the student a little bit about, you know, this is something my son, to tell him, this is not, you're gonna write it and rewrite it and re-rewrite it, and then you're going to edit it, and then maybe you'll start over and, and he didn't like to hear that, because writing the essay was not something that was high in this list of fun, but that is what happened. So what do you typically seeing as far as timelines or

Suzanne Davis 25:44
Timelines, I usually see, well, depending upon the student, I might see somebody at like, four lessons. But we do spread that out. Because I do want to give them time to write a draft, I don't want to just say, 'Okay, Monday through Thursday, we're going to write this,' Because they need the time to actually sit down, write, and probably give feedback as they can rewrite it. So I usually find like, four lessons, five lessons, perhaps based on that particular student in their writing, brainstorming process and what, what they might need, it might take just a little bit longer than that.

Brad Baldridge 26:35
Okay.

Suzanne Davis 26:36
But I find, if you can start in that summer, like, August, and do it over a month, I think that's a really good time.

Brad Baldridge 26:47
Okay. So I think there's a, I know, when I work with parents that, sometimes we're going to delve into a topic, where it's going to need to be two or three meetings. And if those if you do delve into it in January and say, alright, we're going to reconvene in June, you're going to start over, because by June, everybody forgot everything that happened in the first meeting. So spread it out too far, either. So what do you think is ideal? Is it a month or month and a half ideal? Or,

Suzanne Davis 27:18
I would say a month.

Brad Baldridge 27:19
Okay, and then four or five meetings in there, where you might do some coaching and editing and all that type of thing. So, okay, that's helpful. Now, and that's typically for one piece, like a personal statement, or that's, we do multiple things in parallel at the same time, I want to do for scholarships and a personal statement, and we're gonna do it all in parallel, or should, it's better to do one at a time?

Suzanne Davis 27:53
I like to do their first choice first.

Brad Baldridge 27:56
Okay.

Suzanne Davis 27:56
And then after that, we start working on their, their other ones, because a lot of them their first choice is like an early decision. But after we've done it, that first time, it doesn't take a month. Because they've already gone through the process. So maybe it's just one time working on it, and then maybe going ahead and spending some time and revising it, and doing that editing and meeting with them one more time. So it's different, but that first time, I really do like, a month.

Brad Baldridge 28:32
Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about your, your services then and how people, you mentioned that you offer a free consultation? Can you explain a little bit more about how that works? And what you'd want up front? I mean, do you need to have some writing in hand for that consultation to be useful as an example? Or where would you start?

Suzanne Davis 28:53
They certainly don't need to have a piece of writing there. I really want to get at what their goals are, but also start asking them tell me what you want, tell me what your your struggles are. If you're, if it's somebody who's applying to to school, okay, what schools are you applying to, what are you worried about with the deadlines, things like that. And if we have time, it's usually about half an hour, and they want me to look at like a small piece, I can give feedback on that. Or afterwards, if they have a short piece of writing, they can send that to me. And I'm not going to edit it or any of that, but I can give them just a little bit comments and things like that.

Brad Baldridge 29:43
Right? Can you describe the type of student that you work best with? Is there I mean, I you you like to work with the writing kids, the ones that write for fun and think writings cool, or do you like to work with the kids that, like I'm a math and science guy I add my son's a math and science guy, we don't, English is not something we enjoy something we tolerate, or does it matter? Or can you kind of speak to that a little bit?

Suzanne Davis 30:09
It doesn't really matter. I like working with people, though, who who are willing to learn, they don't have to be people who are, 'Oh, yes, writing my favorite part of the application process is that personal statement.' I wasn't even that person, you know, I spent time looking at colleges where I wouldn't have to have a personal statement, like, that's how reluctant I was. So yes, never quit those students. I love working with them, too. And it's kind of like, we're gonna go through this together. It's not as scary as you think. And here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're breaking it down. And bringing out their strengths. So their ideas about the content and what to put out. And what's going to excite them?

Brad Baldridge 31:01
Right. Okay. And then, I guess on the flip side, though, the student needs to have some reasonable motivation. If, and that's me, we see this in a lot of areas around colleges, if mom was making me do it, my heart's not in it. It's often a waste of time. And a lot of areas, I would assume your area as well, have you?

Suzanne Davis 31:25
It is, not so much with the personal statement, because the personal statement, if they've already made that decision to go to college, they may not be thrilled about writing, but they want to complete that process. But there are other people who, maybe the student isn't even sure how they feel about college, and they don't feel great about writing. And I do ask a question, on a scale of one to 10, how motivated are you to, to learn writing, or to write a personal statement, whatever it is, and people are pretty honest with that 1 through 10 scale. I don't have like, the parent is sitting right there, as I'm asking that question. And so they're really honest with me, and I explained to them, well, this, this works best if you are motivated, and you are willing to do the work, because I do ask you to do work outside of the session. Right?

Brad Baldridge 32:34
Exactly. So, okay, so if people want to get in contact with you and learn more about your services, and that type of thing, how can we find you?

Suzanne Davis 32:45
Okay, well, definitely, you can contact me through my website, which I think we'll have in the show notes, but it's www. academicwritingsuccess.com. So you can request a consultation through there, you also can email me. And email is pretty quick to reach me. So that's just sdavis@academicwritingsuccess.com. And social media, like I'm on my Facebook page. And so I checked messenger and all of those things, and I never mind if anybody just messages me.

Brad Baldridge 33:27
Okay. Oh, great. Now, I guess you mentioned Facebook, and some of those things that are you actively putting out material that students or parents might be interested in receiving like to they follow you on Facebook and that type of thing, or I do a blog, at least on your, on your website?

Suzanne Davis 33:47
There is a blog, I tend to write longer blogs. And it's not every week, because they're very detailed. But I do try and post content, whether it's a blog, or not on my Facebook page every week, and I have videos, older videos, their Facebook lives, I'm going to be doing another one this month.

Brad Baldridge 34:14
Okay.

Suzanne Davis 34:15
And so that will be about scholarship writing.

Brad Baldridge 34:19
Right? So if they're not ready to just jump in and get to work, there's a lot of resources and, and help that might get them started and then they can reach out to you once they get stuck or need to edit

Suzanne Davis 34:31
Right? Yes, yes. And there's a lot on my blog. There really is. I've been blogging since 2017. So you can search that website and you will find a lot there.

Brad Baldridge 34:45
Right. Okay. Well, I really appreciate it. It's been a great learning experience for myself, at least, and we'll stay in touch.

Suzanne Davis 34:53
Thank you for having me today.

Brad Baldridge 34:55
Thank you. All right. That was a great interview with Suzanne I know I learned a ton. As always, all this information will be in the show notes including links to Ethan Sawyer's book and his website as well as links to Suzanne's website and contact information. Stay tuned for Brad Recommends where we talk about The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents.

Presenter 35:18
The latest tips, tricks and tools you can use today. This is Brad Recommends on Taming the High Cost of College.

Brad Baldridge 35:28
Today, I'm recommending The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents. Now The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents is a resource that I created, it's available on our website at tamingthehighcostofcollege.com/scholarships. Or just go into the 'Resources' tab. Now The Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents is a quick video course that helps parents understand the different types of scholarships, and which types of scholarships may work for your family. So in the interview with Suzanne, we talked a little bit about the local smaller scholarships, which I think is a great strategy for many families. But really understand what we're talking about, I think The Scholarship Guide is a great resource to kind of get you up to speed because there are scholarships available at the colleges. And there are scholarships available from outside sources like charities and local corporations and school districts etc, etc. So there's lots of different ways to get scholarships. And this scholarship guide will go through the basics of what types of scholarships and that type of thing. And it's pretty quick, it's four short videos that will, like I said, get you up to speed so you know what you're getting into when it comes to scholarships. And then you can work with someone like Suzanne, if you're going to pursue scholarships and need to improve your essays and applications for the scholarships to again, increase your odds of actually winning a scholarship. Because that's the ultimate goal. We don't want to just apply we want to win the scholarship and then use that money for college of course. So again, The Scholarship Guide is a free resource, it's available on the website, you can go check it out at tamingthehighcostofcollege.com/scholarships. Alright, that's all we have for today. I really appreciate you listening. As always, we appreciate any sort of reviews that you can provide. And feel free to check out the website and look at all the other things that we've got going on as well. That's all for this week. We'll talk to you next week.

Presenter 37:27
Thank you for listening to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Now it's time for you to take action. Head to tamingthehighcostofcollege.com for show notes, bonus content, and to leave feedback for Brad. The next step on your college journey starts now.

Brad Baldridge is a registered representative of Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Brad owns two companies Baldrige Wealth Management and Baldridge College Solutions. The Baldridge companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

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