The Advanced Personal Statement Course for Students
Uplevel your college essay with 4 brand new techniques
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"You de-stressed the essay writing process by making feel that we could relate to you. Rather than being stressed about writing my essay, I was excited for the sessions, and actually looked forward to finding my topic and then writing it. Thank you!"
-JULIANNE W, STUDENT
Ethan Sawyer, Author of College Essay Essentials & College Admission Essentials
What's in it for you:
You'll learn how to stretch your writing skills
and write an outstanding essay for college applications.
4 Advanced Techniques
Ones I'm not willing to teach on my introductory course.
Recorded Office Hours
Each recorded office hours sessions contain great questions and essays reviewed live.
Take the Essay Deeper
I'll show you how to add insight into your essays to help colleges get a deeper sense of who you are.
Step-by-Step Guides
You'll get a step-by-step guide on how to use each technique in your essay.
The Advanced Personal
Statement Course for
Students
This course is the result of requests from students to share more tools for digging deep and standing out on their college essays.
I'll share with you brand new techniques for upleveling your college essay, plus step-by-step guides to using these techniques.
What makes this course advanced?
First, these techniques are a bit more difficult to pull off than the typical personal statement and, to be honest, some of the example essays I’ll cover are incredibly advanced. Like so advanced that I’ve been afraid to use these as examples in public blogs.
You'll also get recordings from the weekly office hours with Andy Simpson (who co-developed this course with Ethan and who is in nearly every respect as good if not a better essay coach than Ethan, and) who takes you on a deeper dive into the week’s material while reviewing a new next-level example essay.
🔥To make this course accessible to everyone, I'm offering pay-what-you-can spots to any student who asks. 🔥
Meet Ethan
Ethan has been eating/sleeping/breathing college essays for most of his waking hours since 2003. He is an internationally recognized college essay and admissions expert and the author of the Amazon bestsellers College Essay Essentials and College Admission Essentials. Each year he and his team reach more than one million students and counselors through the College Essay Guy blog, online pay-what-you-can courses, workshops, books, and one-on-one work.
Receiving his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in Performance Studies, an MFA in Acting from UC Irvine, and two counseling certificates, Ethan’s educational experiences, reading, and training have informed his deep interest storytelling as a vehicle for personal development and growth, which in turn inspired Ethan to start College Essay Guy.
Raised in Spain, Ecuador, and Colombia, Ethan is dedicated to serving diverse communities. With a passion for access and equity, Ethan has provided quality resources for students, families and professional communities alike. Through his work he has supported, advised and counseled thousands of students through the complicated college search and application process, all while staying true to his core values of providing ease, purpose and joy in the process.
Meet Andy
Andrew Simpson has helped 10,000+ students on their journeys toward higher education. He attended Stanford and Oxford, earning degrees in Political Science and Drama.
He taught college classes in Los Angeles in Critical Thinking, Sociology, Anthropology of Media, Political Science, English Composition, and Public Speaking. He believes Myers-Briggs is flawed and there are better personality tests out there.
He has worked with Ethan for more than 15 years, is Ethan's go-to coach when he gets stuck with a student, and this year joined College Essay Guy full-time.
I've already written a pretty good essay. Will this course really help?
Absolutely. The goal of this course is to challenge you to think about the personal statement in ways you haven't before.
"PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Enroll for this course. It really helps you to come up with the most unique essay topics. I am not exaggerating when I say that throughout the tenure of this course, I was able to come up with 6 essay topics of my own, which were all really very unique. Try it so that you won't regret not doing so :) !"
- PRASIDDHA R.
"College Essay Guy is amazing! If you want to increase your chances of getting into top universities or to simply learn how to write stellar personal essays, this is the place for you! "
- TEMISAN
TESTIMONIALS FROM OTHER CEG COURSES
"I am really glad I took the College Essay Guy course. I had already written the first draft of my Common App Essay and PIQ statements. After taking the course, I discarded all those drafts and started over. The course gave me the tools to figure out how to develop better content and more meaningful insights.”
- NATALIE M.
"Starting these courses, I thought I was prepared to put together a good application, but I'm able to recognize now that my application and essays would have been pretty lifeless. Now I have strong, unique essays and a cohesive application that I hope will help to make me a much more competitive applicant at selective schools."
- ANTHONY B.
We go way beyond the essentials
This course builds on the foundational content shared in my book and my How to Write a Personal Statement course—but you'll learn a ton even if this is your first College Essay Guy course.
Course Content
& Overview
Recording #1
The Braiding and Hegelian Dialectic Techniques
Recording #2
Office Hours w/ Andy
Recording #3
The Hybrid and “Person I Learned from” Techniques
Recording #4
Office Hours w/ Andy
What makes this course different from your other courses?
- I recommend completing Modules 1 and 2 in my How to Write a Personal Statement course, as it’ll provide a foundation for some of the concepts I’ll be covering in this Advanced Course
- Deeper dive on fewer topics (we’ll focus on just two specific techniques each week)
- Longer recordings (2 hrs instead of 90 minutes)
- Recorded weekly office hours with Andy
- Example essays + concepts I’ve never shared before, including: A Brainstorming Exercise That Can Generate 10+ Topics in 5 Minutes and Seven Ways to Make a Personal Statement (More) Memorable
Take your college essays to the next levelÂ
“With the aid of Ethan’s constructive feedback, I have learnt a great deal about myself as a person and as a writer. The application process is so much more than a number on a paper, it is a journey of self discovery. As I continue to embark on this journey, I will always be thankful for all that I have learned during my time working with Ethan.”
Salasha D, Student
Can’t afford this course?
I’m offering pay-what-you-can spots
Access is really important to me. In fact, it’s at the heart of most of everything I do and is why so many resources on my site are free.
Request a pay-what-you-can spot. Don’t be shy; I’d love to have you.
