Tips from former College Lead student Sonal Aggarwal (accepted to UCLA, Cornell, NYU & more)

Struggling with how and when to start college apps? Sonal shares her journey, along with practical tips on choosing an essay topic and avoiding clichés

This interview is available in written format (this article) and video linked below.

Tell us about yourself. 

My name is Sonal, and I’m a junior at UCLA studying Linguistics and Computer Science. I grew up in Seattle. When I was in high school, I did the IB program and also took several AP classes. Outside of coursework, I was deeply involved in speech and debate, hackathons, and nonprofit work. Some other schools I was accepted to include Cornell and NYU. 

When did you start college applications, and how did you build your college list? 

I started the Common App about May of my junior year in high school. I first created an initial list of colleges I was interested in. Then during the summer after school ended, I started the Common App essay, kicked off SAT prep, and narrowed down my college list. 

To narrow my list, I considered factors like the academic programs, acceptance rates, middle 50% SAT range, median GPA, cost of attendance, deadlines for early action and regular decision. I outlined all the factors I cared about in an Excel spreadsheet. Then I bucketed the schools into Safety, Target, and Reach categories. 

How did you find information about colleges you were interested in? What factors did you consider? 

I used Google and searched each colleges’ website, along with the website of the department I was interested in. For me, that was CS and linguistics. 

Practically, I knew I wouldn’t be setting myself up for success if I applied to all 25 schools on my list for the regular decision cycle. I’d probably sacrifice quality for quantity. Plus, applying early gives you a bit of a boost, depending on the  college. So, I identified which schools offered early action—and not restrictive early action—and prepared to apply early to those. My first deadline was October 15th. 

Tell us more about how you approached when and how to tackle the different parts of your application. 

The Common App essay is one of the most important parts of the application. I’d recommend using the summer to work on it. I made multiple drafts and even had 5 different versions of the story. 

For the supplementals, I copied and pasted all the prompts, read through them, then brainstorm ideas. I’d suggest doing this in the summer. This makes the essays easier to write later during the school year in September, since you’ll have concrete ideas by then. 

Extracurricular-wise, you can start drafting the activity descriptions in the summer. Though, you might not be able to finish since your activities are still ongoing throughout senior fall. 

What was the hardest part about college applications?

The supplemental essays. There were so many different kinds of prompts. One of the tips I have is to start early. It’s so important. The earlier you start, the more time you can make revisions and also figure out how to effectively reuse essays. 

How do you know when to stick with an essay topic or switch? 

It was key for me to develop and apply the foresight and willingness to scrap my original ideas and rewrite everything from scratch. One thing that helped me was doing research on advice from professional college admissions blogs and resources like College Lead. The advice I got from you especially for my essays was crucially important. This helped me identify what types of stories would work well for college essays. 

What’s a common pitfall to lookout for when writing the Common App essay? 

Some essay topics are extremely cliché—examples are sports essays and service trips. Avoiding these topics can help you stand out. My first draft was about a service trip to Ghana—I discussed the volunteer work I did after. Since it’s an overused essay topic, I changed its focus on what I did after the trip. It’s so important to stay up-to-date on what professional college admission counselors recommend. If I didn’t do this I would have had a weaker application.

How did you pick your topic for the Common App essay?

There are 6 different prompts for the Common App essay. I tried to see which ones resonated with me more; that took deep introspection and reflection. 

 Before I started this whole process, I thought that the essay was a rehashing of my resume. Later on, I learned that it's really about crafting a story that showcases who I am. As I mentioned, my first topic was my service trip to Ghana and my volunteer work after. Based on the advice I read online and from my sessions with you, I focused on making it authentic and showing my personal voice. I wanted to sound eloquent and professional, but not too formal or stiff. It’s hard to balance, and I found the most effective method for me was showing and not telling. 

It’s awkward if I wrote, “I’m a passionate, empathetic, and hardworking person.” It also comes off as boastful. Humility is key. Admission officers don’t want to accept an arrogant student who thinks they already have it all. 

I used my story about the service trip to Ghana to show how I really cared about period poverty and its negative impact on women’s education. I showed my hard work through my efforts to learn how to sew pads to donate to women in need in rural Ghana. 

Any advice on writing descriptions for the Common App activities section? 

Provide numbers to showcase your impact. I still remember when I was in a coaching session with you on Zoom. We were working on the activity description for speech and debate tutoring I did. 

You asked me, “How well did your students perform in their competitions? How successful did they become after getting your help?”

Then I remembered that 10 of the 30 students I mentored won awards at speech and debate competitions. You immediately exclaimed, “You should definitely write that in your activity description!”  

“Working with [College Lead] was so helpful and transformative. I don’t think I could have gotten into the schools I was accepted to without your guidance.”

What was it like working with me? 

Working with you was so helpful and transformative. I don’t think I could have gotten into the schools I was accepted to without your guidance. The biggest help I received from you was on how I could edit my essays. Your comments on Google docs and live on Zoom were crucial. I also appreciated how I could get feedback on my essay topics and other ideas I had for the prompts. 

Once I was deep in the writing process, it was easy for me to get lost and fret over minor details. You helped clear any doubts or concerns I had and helped me craft a cohesive narrative. 

How did you choose the college? 

This was very difficult, almost as difficult as writing the actual applications themselves. It’s a huge decision—it’s where I’d spend the next 4 years of my life. 

I created a decision-making matrix with a list of criteria that was important to me. Some of the criteria were

• Resources the school has

• Clubs I’d be interested in

• What I thought of the course catalog 

• What current students thought of each college

I then assigned a weight to each criteria. After this whole time-consuming process, I realized that I was too objective. Maybe it’d be best just to listen to my gut. Though, the research was still helpful. 

At the end, it came down to UCLA versus Cornell. Ultimately, I went with UCLA.

I love that. 😂 I could create a meme of “Tell me you study computer science without telling me you study computer science.” You created the college version of ChatGPT before it became popular.

One last question: What skills did you gain during the college app process that carried over to your life now as a college student? 

I learned how to sell myself effectively by using my own themes and stories to showcase my strengths. This skill is helpful for college apps and also for interviews, whether it’s for an internship or job.  I also learned how to show and not tell—it’s much better to tell someone a story about when I made an impact versus directly saying, “I am hard-working and motivated.” 

Writing the activity descriptions for my college app also taught me how to showcase my impact on my resume later on. The skill really transferred over well, and I saw the importance of using concrete numbers firsthand. My resume last year described in general terms my roles and responsibilities. This year, I rewrote my resume to focus on numbers and concrete skills and examples. I passed many resume screens this year with my revised resume. 

It’s critical to avoid underselling yourself—if you do, you’ll put yourself at a significant disadvantage. 

Any last works for the readers? 

Good luck with your college application process. You got this!