706: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling (Ep 6: Raspberry Sky) with Wendy Zheutlin

706: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling (Ep 6: Raspberry Sky) with Wendy Zheutlin

From The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions by Ethan Sawyer

April 14, 2026 · 50 min · Season 7 · Episode 6

About this episode

Ethan Sawyer interviews Wendy Zheutlin about her personal statement and the art of personal storytelling.

Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, "On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling" where we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be. In this episode, I had the honor of sitting down with Wendy Zheutlin, who is not only one of my essay coaches but has been a volunteer for the past four years with our Matchlighters Scholars Program. This is the program where we pair high-achieving, low-income students with amazing counselors for 10 hours of free one-on-one support. And if that sounds interesting to you, whether you are a student or a counselor, we'll link in the show notes where you can find out more. This episode is a rare opportunity. Whereas normally we break down essays written by students, this was actually a personal statement written by Wendy herself as part of a course that I led for counselors. So this is her own personal statement, not written for applying to college, and it's one of my favorite essays. We talk about what it was like for Wendy, who doesn't identify as a writer, to write this story, a few techniques she uses to communicate a lot in just…

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