Personal Statement Essay Writing Program

How to write compelling, personal and successful essays in the brave new world of ChatGPT

Every year, the most highly-ranked and leading universities in the world receive tens of thousands of applications from students from around the world. The highest ranked universities generally have acceptance rates of less than 10 percent. The universities ranked within the Top 50 to 100 will have acceptance rates of around 20 to 30 percent. The key challenge for the universities is to choose students who have the best chance of success at their university. The key challenge for the students is to show the university why he/she has value and should be accepted. One of the most important metrics to decide a student’s value and future potential are the Personal Statement Essay (PSE) and the short essay answers to the supplemental questions (SQ). For Vietnamese and Vietnam-based high school students who intend to study abroad, the list of tasks to complete an application for university admission or to win a scholarship can be endless. For non-native English speakers, there is a test for English (IELTS or TOEFL).  For all students, there are usually standardized tests (SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, …).  Of course, the application requires high school transcripts that document a student’s GPA as well as which classes they have taken.  Then there are the recommendation letters, evidence of volunteer activity, summer camp details, school projects and clubs, and potentially internships that can be added to an application.

This challenge has been ongoing for decades, but the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools has entered this dynamic. If prompted, ChatGPT can produce a stellar essay within seconds. If prompted and provided with sufficient personal details, ChatGPT can produce a 650-word personal statement essay that reflects almost exactly the student’s desires, skills, and vision for the future. It can produce an essay that has a chance of standing out even if the student does not have the English writing skills to write such as essay on his/her own. ChatGPT does all the work.

Of course, all the universities know this and they are becoming superbly aware and discerning of ChatGPT-ish essays versus truly original essays that are written by living, breathing high school-age students. If they perceive an essay was written by ChatGPT, the application will fail. So how does a student write 650 words about his/her life without sounding like ChatGPT wrote the essay for them? How do students use all the AI tools like ChatGPT to their advantage to produce original essays and responses to supplemental questions that will gain them admission to the school of their dreams?

There are no easy answers to these questions. This is a very, very difficult challenge to confront.

The Saigon Writers Club has taken on this challenge for high school students who live and study within Vietnam. We have created an online/offline writing program for the 650-word Personal Statement Essay and the supplemental questions writing requirements for university applications. The program consists of five 90-minute lessons. The target markets are high school students, gap year students, and college graduates who are pursuing graduate studies. The program includes brainstorming creative topics, writing stand-out essays for scholarships, writing effective answers to supplemental questions, and teaching the most important writing skills to produce all of the above with the highest quality possible. Perhaps most importantly, it also includes how to use ChatGPT and other tools to accomplish all of the above without sounding ChatGPT-ish.

   Program Curriculum

There are four key program goals.  First, the course will help students brainstorm good ideas and topics to write about for their Personal Statement Essay (PSE) as well as help them brainstorm and develop compelling answers to the supplemental questions (SQ).  Second, the course will teach important writing fundamentals and provide writing tools and tips to help students write in a compelling, solid, and stylistic manner that addresses the prompts clearly, is at or under the word limit, and makes the student’s PSE and SQ stand out. Third, the course will introduce tools and tips on how to use ChatGPT and other AI tools to write an essay that does not read like a ChatGPT-written essay. The final goal is to help students build confidence in their ability to pursue their dream schools and apply for competitive scholarships.

There are five classes in the program and each class will be 90 minutes in duration. There will be two lectures and two activity sessions per class along with discussion time for a total of 10 key lessons and 10 key activities that the students will complete during the full program. The ChatGPT component will be woven into each of the lectures and activities on a constant basis.

There will be essay writing homework assigned after each session. The homework will be marked up and sent back to each student for required re-writes prior to the next class. The students must meet specific deadlines for the homework assignments in order to receive the marked up and written feedback. 

The tuition fee for the five-session program is VND 5,000,000 (US$200) per student. The in-person classes will be held on Saturday mornings in Thao Dien. The online classes will be held in the evening on a day of the week to be determined. One-to-one private classes will be arranged individually. This a class of SWC Consulting Company Limited, a privately-owned Vietnamese company (DBA – Saigon Writers Club).

Class One

Lecture I: Overall goals of the PSE; Choosing a good topic; Defining key goals for the essay; Understanding the view point of the reader on the admissions side; Common apt prompts; Creating outlines and paragraph plan; Basic strategy on how to use ChatGPT for the PSE.   

Activity I: Brainstorming lists; Categorizing by subject/theme; Choose one theme and create an outline; Follow up by doing the same activities with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Discussion: Share results with peers; Ask for feedback;

Lecture II: Define the concept of a comparative advantage in the context of university admissions; Provide examples; Compile and assess comparative advantages for the PSE; Understanding and using metaphors and symbols in the PSE; Asking ChatGPT how to best develop a personal comparative advantage in an essay.   

Activity II: Comparative advantage exercise; Bullet points how this comparative advantage can be leveraged for use in the PSE; Brainstorming and listing metaphors and symbols; Inputting criteria into ChatGPT to see the results related to a student’s comparative advantage.  

Discussion: Share comparative advantages; Brainstorm with peer the means to leverage it;

Homework: (1) Introduce yourself using exactly 123 words.  (2) Describe a personal comparative advantage in two to three paragraphs. (3) Input criteria about a personal comparative advantage and ask ChatGPT to produce three paragraphs. Save both copies for comparison and discussion in the next class.

 Class Two

Lecture III:  Incorporating lessons learned and work experiences into the PSE; Linking a compelling voice and word choice into the description of these lessons and experiences; Using ChatGPT to refine a style and voice in writing.

Activity III:  Creating lists of the most important lessons learned; Listing volunteer, work, and project experience relevant for the future; Test sentences in ChatGPT with the goal of developing a coherent style and voice.

Discussion: Share the most relevant lesson learned and/or experience gained; Gather feedback on how to leverage this experience into the PSE; Compare and contrast the previous class’s comparative advantage homework that was student-written and ChatGPT written.

Lecture IV:  Producing a narrative on a future career and life mission and inserting this theme into the PSE; Understanding how paragraphing and transitions can work to produce a strong PSE; Using ChatGPT to help with paragraph transitions.

Activity IV: List and produce bullet points on aspirational careers; Defend the feasibility of pursuing an enormously large life mission; Insert multiple paragraphs into ChatGPT and ask for help with the transitions.

Discussion: Ask for advice on how to leverage the passion of a life mission into a PSE.

Homework: Write two paragraphs on an important lesson learned from youth; Write four short paragraphs on a future career with strict attention to transitioning between paragraphs; For the ‘lessons learned’ paragraphs, ask ChatGPT to ‘make it more interesting’ and see what are the results.

 Class Three

Lecture V:  Incorporating role models and strong examples into the PSE and supplemental answers to the SQs; Discussion of the types of individuals and relationships that work well for this strategy; Creating and writing effective hooks/leads of an essay as well as effective closings/endings; Asking ChatGPT for a good hook in writing the PSE.

Activity V: List of relevant role models and examples; Write hooks for each one on the list; Ask ChatGPT to write the hooks and then compare.

Discussion: Share the hook for the role model chosen; Gather feedback.

Lecture VI:  Discuss and share how certain topics and ideas can stand out for effect; Provide models on how to do this well; Focus on voice and style in writing; Review common SQ and prompts;

Activity VI:  Voice and style exercise writing; Use of words and sentences to make a compelling point; Asking ChatGPT for specific verbs, nouns, and adjectives to use.

Discussion: Talk about getting the voice right. Talk about how ChatGPT adds to or distorts your voice.

Homework:  Write a 250-word essay on a role model that has made an impact on the student; Write the attributes desired for a strong and natural voice; Write a 300-word essay for a scholarship answering the question, ‘Why you?’ Select 10 verbs and ask ChatGPT for alternative words that can be used. Review and consider inserting.

 Class Four

Lecture VII: Review the importance of supplemental questions (SQ); Introduce the most commonly asked SQs for the application; Cover more on word choice and paragraphing in a short format (meaning fewer words allowed than in a PSE);

Activity VII: Choose a ‘Why major?’ and a ‘Why Harvard?’ SQ and draft an in-class response; Ask ChatGPT the same question and compare the answers.

Discussion:  Share response to class for feedback.

Lecture VIII:  Breakdown SQ prompts into the parts that need answers; Design paragraph outlines for answering SQ; Focus on sentence structure. How to use ChatGPT to set out an outline and paragraph plan.

Activity VIII:  More practice on answering SQ but with extremely limited word limits (e.g., 50 words or fewer); Write a 100-word answer to an SQ and ask ChatGPT to edit it down to 50 words.

Discussion:  Share examples of SQ answers; Share edited versions of SQs.

Homework:  Assign three to four SQ prompts; Set word limit for each; If an answer is too long, use ChatGPT to edit it down.

 Class Five

Lecture IX:  More practice with SQs and pursuit of a good balance in the responses; When to include examples, when to include narrative; Designing writing plans for the SQ;

Activity IX:  Create outlines for several SQs; Ask ChatGPT for help in creating outlines.

Discussion:  Share previous week’s homework on SQs and the editing completed by ChatGPT.

Lecture X:  Lecture on how to edit text down by set percentages (i.e., 1/3 cut, 100 word cut, 50 word cut, etc…); How to cut down the total words and retain meaning; Using AI to edit text and narratives.

Activity X:  Practice cutting down assigned narratives; Edit down sentences; Insert sentences that are too long or complicated/clumsy and ask Chat GPT to ‘clean them up.’

Discussion:  Teamwork on editing down paragraphs and sentences.

Homework:  Full draft of a 650-word PSE; Full draft of two SQs; Full draft of one 500-word SA; Submit all to Sam for final review.

Contact sam@yespi.net to learn more and to sign up for this program

Sam Korsmoe is an American writer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City. He was a journalist for several years and has taught creative writing to adults and youth for more than 10 years. He is the program director and teacher for the Personal Statement Essay Writing Program of the Saigon Writers Club.

Sam has accumulated more than 10,000 hours of writing practice and has written and published three books, an oral history of five Vietnamese families (Saigon Stories – 2004), a nonfiction book on running (A World Gone Mad for Marathons – 2018), and a book about the future of Vietnam in English (Vietnam – Asia’s Rising Star – 2023) and Vietnamese (Việt Nam – Ngôi sao đang lên của Châu Á – 2024). Sam has taught 11 creative writing classes for the Saigon Writers Club which has resulted in the editing and publishing of four short story anthologies.

For the past few years, he has been an essay counselor for students who are applying to competitive universities abroad. This has included 650-word PSEs as well as an extensive range of short answer essays for supplemental questions as well as scholarship applications. In the most recent university application cycle (2023-2024), two of Sam’s students were accepted into Ivy League universities in the USA.

His track record of just the past two years speaks for itself.