Christina Ellis

Like all the shame, all the guilt, all the bad things that have happened in our past, that's behind us.

And now we're gonna build.

Like we're going to build strong and we're going to build fresh and we're not going to hold all that stuff against each other.

Yeah, do you have an example of a question that you were considering answering with a faith-based answer?

Yeah, that's such a good question.

And there's not really a right or wrong answer because, I mean, a scholarship application in those essays, they're trying to find out who you are.

It's about writing about your personal story and what's important to you.

So if that was a big part of your life and that is the experience you want to talk about, then I would say talk about it.

Now, the bigger question on should you talk about faith in a scholarship application just in general?

I mean, we're in a tricky place in the world right now where there's just so many different opinions about religion and political issues and all these different things.

I would say, and this may be, I'm scared I'm going to get in trouble, like don't write just to try to preach at the judge.

Like if you're like, man, I'm going to try to write through my scholarship application to try to make some point.

One of the things I've talked about in one of my books is don't.

There's a lot of political things that you could get into in scholarship applications.

There's a lot of religious things.

There's a lot of gender things and culture things and all these different things.

And I do talk about being mindful of your audience and just being smart.

Like if there is a political issue that you feel passionate about, I wouldn't say that a scholarship application is your place to try to make some sort of political point.

But if your religious experience was a huge part of your life journey and you going to

this experience transformed you, then I wouldn't hide it.