Remember what I told Adrian?

I told him he could start the college essay writing process by answering two questions.

Here they are:

1. Have you faced challenges in your life? Yes or no.

In fact, let me ask you the same question:

Have you faced challenges in your life?

Think about it for a sec.

Next question:

2. Do you know what you want to be when you grow up? Yes or no.

Take a sec to answer this for yourself.

I think the answers to these two questions map into four types of essays:

Which type resonates with you?

Here’s something a lot of students don’t know:

The question is: How?

Before we get into how you write an essay, first we need to answer a different question.

What will you write about?

What clay will you mold with?

To help you find out, there are two simple exercise I like to use.

Click below to complete the first one. (It's one of my favorites.)