Uncover the stories worth telling from your own life, see the same story structured three different ways, and get line-by-line feedback until the version you submit sounds like you.
The things that shaped you don't feel like a story when they're just your life. Turning them into 600 words a stranger will remember is a completely separate skill from having lived them.
Everyone writes about overcoming a challenge in the same shape, with the same lesson in the same final paragraph. Yours gets read in ninety seconds and blends into the pile.
Private essay coaching runs $200–$500 a session, and a school counsellor with four hundred students can't sit with your draft for an hour. Most applicants get no feedback at all.
You can't see your own clichés, and 'it sounds fine to me' is exactly how a generic essay gets submitted. Without feedback, the second draft is usually the first one with commas moved.