India, July 19 -- Over the past fifteen years of helping students craft their college essays, I have watched Prompt 1 of the Common App - "Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it" - remain surprisingly untouched by many.
It is a big question. It asks you to pause and look inside your own life for something so meaningful that without it, your story would feel unfinished. Yet when I sit across young faces in my classroom, their minds often dart to grades, deadlines, and activities that look good on paper, but not always to the secret corners of their inner worlds.
This is where the idea of the inner classroom truly comes alive for me. ...