Don't know where to start? Start here.
The first assignment we give every new student
The first assignment we give every new student has nothing to do with essays.
Before school lists, test scores, or activity descriptions, we ask one thing: write down 21 details about yourself.
Not accomplishments. Details. Shower thoughts. Quirky habits. The thing your friends would say about you that would never appear on a college application. The memory that surfaces at 2am for no reason.
Here’s why. When we read the average student’s college application, we still don’t know who they are. They play violin, volunteer at a food bank, maintained a 4.0. Nothing tells us what it’s actually like to be them. And that’s what admissions officers are most curious about—who you are, not just what you’ve done!
The 21 Details Exercise (inspired by College Essay Guy, sharpened over years of dissecting real applications) fixes that. It forces specificity. Not “I like video games,” but I noticed a design flaw in Rimworld’s AI and wrote a mod that now has 13,000+ users. Not “I’m close with my dad,” but the specific bowline knot he taught me on a cedar sailboat named Queequeg. "Not "I'm a Star Wars fan" but “my favorite scene is episode 3 when Yoda fights Palpatine) and I love swinging a lightsaber around to destress in between intense Pomodoro sessions!”
When students complete this exercise honestly, we can almost always find the essay sitting inside it within five minutes.
If you’re starting the college application process and don’t know where to begin: start here.
And if you want to try it tonight: open a doc, set a 20-minute timer, and write 21 things that are true about you. Specific. Personal. A little embarrassing, maybe.
Send a few over via email, I’ll tell you if you’re headed on the right track!
What if you could predict and improve your chances before you apply? (Spoiler: you can.)
After studying admissions rubrics from Harvard, Stanford, and other college admission agencies, we built our own.
See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted
Until next time,
The ElevatEd School