For some tips/advice for those of you in the process of writing your essays:
- Show them to as many teachers as you can (everyone will not have the same perspective), also make sure you feel comfortable with whoever you decide to let read them, I know I wrote about some very personal stuff.
- Let people edit your essays but do not let them edit YOU. By this I mean allow people to make grammatical corrections, but do not let them edit your story because that is what makes you who you are. For me, even though I let 6 people read my essays I accepted their grammatical and sentence corrections but never change my story/idea because I felt like it was a strong representation of who I am.
- Be true to your writing style. Everyone doesn’t write the same, so don’t feel compelled to write your essay a certain way, stay true to your natural voice! I notice that I prefer to write my essay as an ancedote, It come easily to me and it allows me to answer the prompt through my use of a story.
- Don’t be afraid of the word limit. Writing only 500 words is daunting because there is so much you can say, the trick to using the word count to your advantage is by understanding that writing a little can convey alot, if you are strategic in your wording. To do this make sure every sentence has a purpose and that it is vital to your overall story, if not then you need to get rid of it. Instead of looking at the word count as a hinderance, limting your creativity, look at it as a challenge put there to help you fine tune your writing and focus on your story.
- Do not obsess over your essays! I know before I submitted my application I looked at my essays probably about 5 times a day, this is unhealthy. My final advice is to not give yourself anxiety over your essays, trust in what you write and all you can do is hope for the best. Once you press submit on that application there is nothing you can do but wait until February, don’t read your essays again because you will begin to psych yourself out over things that are now out of your control. Take a sigh if relief and pat yourself on the back, no matter what the outcome will be you shouldn’t let that take away you are and what you know you can accomplish. LEDA or any other program does bot define your success, only YOU do!
I hope these tips really help you guys! Good luck to you all and if you have any questions just @ me.
I think that @winnieiam had some SPECTACULAR points, especially the one about being true to your writing style.
Tip from a Cohort 12 LEDA Scholar: be honest. I personally wrote my essays in prose because I wanted my voice to be heard as similarly as possible compared to my real voice and interpretation. Not saying everyone should do that, but my point is to be true to yourself. Don’t just list your troubles and don’t make a long list of accomplishments for your essays. I suggest picking a few really significant things in your life, reflecting on them, and going from there. Show ~how far you’ve come~ to be who you are, not just where you are at this moment. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and don’t be afraid to be open, it will pay off. Also, your scores will not be the death of you. Only 7 LEDA Scholars entered Cohort 12 with scores over a 32 or equivalent. Most were hovering in the mid to upper 20’s on their ACT. That is another point of the institute - to improve very valuable future leaders, taking them from good to great. If any of you have any questions please let me know, I’d be glad to tell you about my experience and help you in any way I can. Also, any Mississippi applicants PLEASE contact me because I would love to meet you all 
@danieljg511 I’m a Mississippi applicant
@winnieiam Thanks for the advice!!! I’ve been stuck on my first essay for about 2 & 1/2 weeks because I’ve been obsessing over every detail while brainstorming. Trying to figure out how I was gonna get my whole dissertation of an essay into 500 words was giving me anxiety frfrr y’all. XD Your advice helped me just let it go, and get busy with more writing and less obsession. lol I’m going to start asking people to help me look over my essay, and starting my second one tomorrow! Five more days you guys!!! ahhhhhhh! Keep it pushin’ lol
I’m freaking out!! I was told that my essays were about good topics, but they are horribly executed by someone who isn’t going to help me make them better. We have TWO days left!! AGHHHHHHH
My counselor still needs to put his information in and i need to write the second essay and my parents need to put in the information. What is IRIS’s email?
irisearly@ledascholars.org But keep in mind that she is very busy so she may not immediately get back to you.
Hello, does anyone know if the due date is 11:59 on Sunday or 11:59 on Monday?
I was wondering the same thing
“December 12th: Final deadline at 11:59 PM EST/PST”
This is from the application.
Thanks. We have until tommorow
It asked about organizations and says College Confident… Is that this website?
Hey is anyone else able to upload more than one page for the writing sample? It’s only allowing me to upload one page but I have 3 scanned pages to upload! AHHHH! lololol & is anybody else’s uploaded picture disappearing? I’ll upload a picture continue working on the application then save the whole thing only for my picture to be gone the next time I look at my application. hmmm…anyone else or just me?
@CIRCUITDEBATER thank you! @Ayotaytayy I was able to upload two pages (front and back), but I believe that it was all saved under one thing. My uncle helped me scan it from an app he has on his phone.
Thanks, @AspireandDream I might try that. Does your uncle have an iphone & do you happen to remember the name of the app he used?
@Ayotaytayy
If you’re not able to use your iphone to take photo and/or scan, you should consider typing up the sample and submitting that. This would be a lot faster and easier.
@Ayotaytayy I had the same problem! I emailed them about it and “you have to merge your pages into one file. You will need to combine them into a PDF file.” I suggest just searching up a PDF merger and putting them into one thing, which is what I did.