Undergraduate / I was elected president of the student center - global Ugrad program. [2]

Rocio, the essay does not respond to the prompt. You are not being asked to present several instances when you portrayed a leadership role. In fact, the stories that you shared do not really show a real leadership skill that you had to use within your community. It only speaks of references to possible, but not proven, leadership activities on your part. As such, the essay is not an effective leadership representation and could very well be disregarded by the reviewer. You have to write an essay that highlights one specific instance or even that shows how you perform as a leader. So if you want to discuss the student center opportunity, then discuss that and nothing else. However, you need to narrate a specific activity that proves your leadership abilities and how you were able to effect a positive and continuing change in that setting. None of those were represented in this essay. When you say "I think", that means you are unsure, the essay needs you to be sure of your ability to effect change in a community. Toy collection does not prove that sort of ability to enact change. Starting a social action that is supported by the community long after you have left, such as an ability to help the environment or volunteering to help the elderly, are examples of movements that can effect real change in a community.

Scholarship / Globalization and Europe - International Master Global Markets, Local Creativities (ERASMUS) [2]

Aya, you need to connect your masters degree studies with specific program offerings or class relations as the prompt indicates. You have not created a clear connection between your previous studies and the current curriculum of the PhD course you have chosen. There needs to be a running parallelism between the two as proof that you are properly grounded in terms of theoretical and practical approaches to the new curriculum you will be studying.

You have to review your essay and rewrite it to reflect the sections that are not responding to the prompt requirement. While your first paragraph about the Philippines is interesting, your motivational statement does not come until the second and third paragraphs, which makes the essay unnecessarily long. Try to respond to the prompt questions directly on a per paragraph form. You must be sure that you do not create an over informative essay that reaches to the point of boring the reader because you may end up over qualifying yourself for the scholarship. Just stick to the basic information required. Your post study plans are not required in the essay so you can effectively remove those references in this essay as well.

Scholarship / Studying Biology at NYU will open doors to opportunities - NYU supplement essay [3]

Summaya, your reasons for choosing NYUAD is so flimsy, the reviewer will not even consider your application reason. The school being down the street does not mean anything to the reviewer. Your succeeding responses are no different from the responses the other applicants will be giving. There is no reason for the reviewer to consider your application extra special or notable in terms of content. You need to revise this essay to give yourself more of a direction. Rather than a first paragraph full of uncertainty and a seemingly default answer to the question, try to think of your scientific interests and how NYUAD can respond to your learning requirements. Think of reasons that make the reviewer certain that you took the time to consider all your academic institution options before you settled on NYUAD. The fact that you are also an expatriate will be helpful in your essay but you have to present a reason as to why you don't just return to your home country and study there, or at the NYU main campus in New York.

Scholarship / My motivation to become a lawyer - check for my personal statement [3]

Truc, it is unfortunate that your essay is being prevented from becoming a proper personal statement because of your English grammar and sentence structure problems. You have shown a personal reason for wanting to become a lawyer, but you have not properly justified how your exposure to the corrupt divorce lawyer led to this realization of yours.

The foundation of your desire to become a lawyer is shaky at best. It exists somewhere in the poorly presented paragraphs, narratives, and reasoning. What this essay needs is more editing help to better present the information you have thrown into the essay. Please consider our services for the required professional editing and essay development help that your work requires. It cannot be fixed using our free services due to the amount of rewrites and editing required.

Undergraduate / Typical Day After School ( Georgia Tech) [3]

Joseph, do not use a typical academic day for this essay. You are being asked to describe a typical day for you on a weekend, outside of the academic setting. The typical academic day will not allow the reviewer to get to know what other interests you have other than those related to schoolwork and limits your description of your after school activities to only a few hours of daylight before bed. The reviewer wants to know how you spend your waking hours when not being kept in school for most of the day. The idea is for the essay to allow you to show all of your interests, hobbies, and other pursuits. While you did mention piano playing in the essay, it is not really threshed out. What do you do when academics do not interfere with your schedule? Who are you beyond the classroom? You should consider building up the reference topics you use in paragraphs 2 and 3 in relation to piano playing and SAT preparations. Think outside of the academic highlights. Procrastination will not be taken against you in the essay. That is part of your life, specially on weekends. Be truthful. Don't tell the reviewer what you know he wants to hear, tell him about who you really are, beyond school.

Scholarship / ESSAY for GLOBAL UGRAD. UGRAD, Me and My Society [2]

Please refer to the following link as to why using Grammarly to check your essay means you end up with a plagiarized application essay. The essay is no longer yours once you upload it to Grammarly: essayscam.org/forum/gt/grammarly-review-user-content-ownership-licensing-6266/

With regards to your content, you are not offering a competitive essay as you are not offering any information regarding how you can improve the program, what you can offer the program that other applicants cannot, and how you embody a local community leadership presence. Your reference to the community leadership, which should have been one of the most important paragraphs in this essay is mentioned only in passing. Your essay sounds more like you are applying for residency to the US (definite rejection) instead of wishing to study abroad for only one semester.

Try to review the other applicant essays at this forum. These are your competitors for this round of applications. Make your essay as competitive and relevant as theirs. This essay is so weak, it will not get past the screening round.

Undergraduate / Bananafish - UVA Supplement: Work of literature that surprised me [2]

Well, the literature that you chose definitely had an unsettling element on your part. Don't worry about being seen as overly edgy. That is what makes the essay impressive and stand out. The fact that you are able to relate it to something that occurred in your life, is even better. However, as a reviewer, I would have liked to have read more about how the novel and its story resonated with your own story. What was it about the story that unsettled you. What signs did you miss? Which character did you identify with in the story and why? Consider yourself challenged to place yourself in a fictional setting with a realistic setting. Build more on the story of your friendship, the sings that your friend was reaching out to you for help, and how you thought it was nothing. You know, run a parallel story with the novel. Compare and contrast the stories but end with how the novel gave you a learning experience.

Undergraduate / Common App Essay Sudoku, Medical, Death [4]

Alysia, the essay is more focused on your relationship with your grandmother than on the way that her death affected you. It would be better if you reduce the presentation of your grandmother in the essay. It is a bit difficult for me to read this essay and believe that it is a presentation of a setback, failure, or challenge. Mostly because of the 90% focus of the essay on your grandmother. You are over reaching with this essay because her death is neither a failure, defeat, nor setback. You are trying to create a dramatic connection where none exists. The prompt you have chosen to use this essay with is incorrect. The best prompt for this would be the open topic essay because the instruction for that allows you to write without any consideration of formal prompt requirements. If you go with the open topic, then you won't have to revise the essay. If you want to stick to this prompt, you will have to write a more relevant essay in its place. This one is not really applicable to the prompt being mentioned.

Undergraduate / Peer Review for Undergraduate Essay - AUD and what may prevent early onset. [3]

Jody, I am having a hard time finding the thesis statement for this research paper. There also seems to be a lack of focus within the research. There is also the problem of the first person reference in a section of the essay. All of these need to be addressed so that the research paper will be shorter, better focused, and deliver a true purpose for its writing.

Your first paragraph does not establish a thesis for the essay. You have to think about the reason why you are writing this paper. What is the background for it? What is the social importance? Does it have a family reference in some way? Create the thesis statement in a manner that properly addresses or creates an outline for the discussion throughout the research.

Your information is well referenced but your paragraph transitions need work. You can fix that with either a transition sentence at the end of the paragraph or the writing of a transitional paragraph to help explain the movement from one topic to another within the research. So far, this essay needs some minor corrections and improvements. Working on my suggestions should help to clarify and strengthen the presentation.

This being a research paper, it should be written from a second or third person point of view. Your personal opinion should not be reflected in the essay unless otherwise specified by the professor. That is because the job of this research paper is to inform and leave the final outcome of the research / decision regarding the validity of the research to the reader. You are not to influence this opinion in any way through a first person reference or narration of your personal experience. Unless your professor requires or allows you to do so.

Undergraduate / CommonApp: Essay of your Choice - the story of my experience and how it has affected me [2]

Pradipta, the essay is lacking a reference to what you learned about the Rohingya people in the essay. You tell us what you realized because of their plight, but did you learn anything about the people as you interacted with them? What positive benefits did this experience bring you. How did it change your mindset when it comes to these refugees? Does this exposure make you want to do more for them? Will you be bringing this experience with you to college so that you will continue to promote this cause and try to bring help to them from across the world? What is the main purpose of this essay? From the way that you wrote this essay, it sounds like you are just sharing a volunteer experience, which is good, but does not add to the way the reviewer can view your character in an increased capacity. There needs to be a lesson learned aside from the obvious information known about these people. As a volunteer, you had a first hand experience with them. Reflect that first hand experience to give this essay more importance in the eyes of the reviewer.

Undergraduate / Dear roommate, diss my tart — Stanford supplement [3]

Anna, be realistic, write a real humorous letter that introduces you to your roommate. Your letter is unrealistic and does not really help your potential roommate to get to know you. Don't treat this like a game. Be serious about it. Forget the non-existent fruit tart. Your room mate will not be able to judge you because he has never met you nor will he ever taste the pie. Instead, just come straight out an introduce yourself. From your eccentricities, what you like to do during your spare time, study habits that may be found strange, your fixation with food management, all of these need to be presented to your roommate because the dorm leaders will use this essay to pair you up with a roommate of similar traits and interests. This is all about paring you with a person who will get along with you over the next 4 academic years. This is not the time to be highly imaginative and overly creative. This is the time to be engaging and interesting, without going overboard.

Undergraduate / MIT essay. About my dance workshop charity to raise money to a boy who got cancer. [3]

Nazym, the essay feels like it is starting in the middle with the way that you formatted your first paragraph. You may want to reconsider that presentation because it is awkward in both presentation and content. It doesn't feel like it flows well with the rest of the essay. Since you are over the word count by 11 words, you can actually remove that paragraph without affecting the overall presentation. By stating that you helped a student in your school, you immediately call the attention of the reviewer to how you contribute to your community, through the classroom, by helping a friend and classmate. That 3 sentence paragraph establishes a strong response to the prompt question. That makes the rest of the paragraph presentations more cohesive. Through a short and simple presentation, you have effectively responded to the prompt without the overdramatization that the first paragraph of this essay version brings to the mix. You just need to be direct to the point. Drama is not necessary, over explanation should be avoided.

Undergraduate / Brown is perfect for me! — Why Brown supplement [2]

Anna, what was the purpose of your high school research? Why should the reviewer be interested to know that you plan to continue the research as a student at Brown? What is the importance of your research in a US education based setting? These two questions need to be answered so that you can properly explain how the open curriculum will help you develop a different learning experience. What is the final purpose of your research? Do you have any idea as to how your research will contribute to the Brown community? Work up a connection between your expectations of the Brown Open Curriculum and your contribution to heightening the profile of Brown through your college research. That way you can entice the reviewer to consider the possible benefits that Brown may gain from accepting you as a student at the university.

Undergraduate / Inspiration during the SAT — Dartmouth supplement [2]

Good essay. You may want to include a quick explanation of how the SAT inspired the thought of charades in you though. I can't really understand what the connection is and the reviewer will most likely wonder about it as well. It's just an important clarification point that you should make in the essay. If possible, don't end the essay with a reference to how the group became active during the game. Instead, end by explaining how the game made the group come to life, cooperate with one another, and interact in a vocal manner when they could not before. That way the essay will come full circle in your presentation. Due to the word count limitation, you could work on shortening the first 3 lines of the essay into a simple reference to how the group was not functioning well. The dialogue is good but it doesn't really move the story along. The story doesn't really pick up until the 4th paragraph anyway so you won't be losing anything by editing the first few references in the essay.

Undergraduate / My phobia for wasting— yale supplement (250) [3]

Anna, you already mentioned this passion of yours in a previous essay. You must avoid presenting the same information to the reviewer in different essays. You must show that you are a well rounded person with varied interests and passions. Not just a passion for one cause. While I can understand your passion for food wastage prevention, you cannot discuss that topic to death in the forthcoming prompts. This is an activity that you presented quite clearly as a passion that you hope to pursue in the other essay that you wrote. Don't discuss this topic to death. Surely that is another social issue that you can discuss. How about that topic about helping the orphan children in the Philippines? That is a different topic which gives you the opportunity to highlight a different interest that has an international importance. Something different, something that shows you off to the reviewer as a person whose sense of social responsibility goes far beyond the confines of university concerns. That is an activity that will attract the attention of the reviewer and also show your caring side when it comes to social causes.

Undergraduate / NYU Tisch Film and TV Personal Story Essay - Anywhere I could improve? Is this good storytelling? [5]

Daryl, there is a missing part in your essay. What happened after you told the coach that you had aching knees and ankles? Did he order you back to the starting line? Did he call you a wuss? Were you shamed in any manner by the coach because of a perceived weakness? You built up the temporary coach as a character to be feared but you failed to develop that character presentation. Your essay is good but it lacks a true antagonist. Don't limit the antagonist to just the pain you felt. That doesn't create enough drama and conflict in the story. If you had built up the "negative" coach, then you would have been able to portray yourself as the suffering athlete whose coach was out to get you. Right now, the essay doesn't have a real "crisis point" that could have helped bring the climax of the story to a more satisfying finish. By the way, don't end with the Jazz ballet. You started with running so you have to close that part of the story before you conclude with your happiness with your new activity.

Undergraduate / Essay about "an accomplishment with a group" [3]

Su, while the prompt is about working with a team, the focus of the essay should be on your function within the team. Now, it appears that you were both a team member and the interpreter. These are two very interesting roles that one can have on a team. In your case, you just need to strengthen the presentation by not focusing on the whole team but rather, just your contribution. This is not a "we" essay, this is an "I" essay. As such, you have to focus on first, what your role within the team was. How did you function as a team member? What was expected of you and how did you perform the task? Only after your role as a team member is discussed should you focus on the interpreter angle of the essay. To highlight your role in this aspect, you can present the "Hall of Fame" team meeting, provided the other team spoke English only. This will serve to justify the need for you to be both an effective team member and interpreter.

Undergraduate / Fashion Institute of Technology essay - advertising and marketing communications [3]

Jordan, the essay is very strong but wavers a bit in the second paragraph, which creates an unnecessarily long essay. The story about you taking care of your mother, her struggle with breast cancer the time it took for you to care for her isn't really necessary. The reference to the girl scouts also doesn't move your essay further along. Instead, these two references create a diversion from the reason for your interest in your major, along with the experiences and activities or accomplishments that help to depict your strength as a potential candidate. If you remove the problematic references in the second paragraph, the essay will remain focused on the required prompt information and come across as tremendously strong, without wavering from the content presentation. I find all of the elements you presented in the essay to be important, except for the second paragraph reference I made earlier. You have a very good chance for acceptance consideration, just focus the essay in the right discussion points to hold the interest and properly inform the reviewer of your considerable abilities as a candidate.

Undergraduate / Waterloo AIF - a welcoming environment allowing me to focus on being the best version of myself [3]

Winston, there is nothing impressive about the reasons you chose to apply to Waterloo. The explanation you gave can apply to any university in the United States. Your explanation does not merit any consideration because you do not show a clear familiarity with the program you have chosen to enroll in and why. You are not clearly explaining any reasons that would convince the reviewer that you know what you are getting into by applying to the university. There is no academic consideration, no academic goals that Waterloo can fulfill, and no professional ambition to prove that claim you made about Waterloo helping you to be employed by big name companies. Therefore, this essay is not one that you can use for this application. Try to write a new essay. One that uses specifics and highlights your familiarity with the outcome of your course choice, should you be admitted to and complete your studies at the university.

Undergraduate / Why Global UGRAD Program? Inspiration. I need to fully realize myself and learn many things. [3]

Auyelbek, you are not really convincing the reviewer that you will be a good candidate for this program because you are focusing on only one aspect of your life. While this essay is riddled with good intentions and examples, it is weak when it comes to justifying other considerations. Try to convince the reviewer that you are a good candidate for the program based on your :

1. Character strengths - What makes you a good person?
2. Social strengths - shorten the current essay presentation to one paragraph.
3. Academic interests in relation to the program
4. What you hope to learn from your semester abroad
5. What talents, skills and diversity considerations you can bring to the program
6. How all of these combine to create the perfect student participant in the program
7. What you hope to learn about America during the program
8. What you hope to teach your countrymen about America upon your return.

You have to make sure that you are depicting yourself in several manners to make sure that the reviewer gets a strong idea of your character and possible contributions that makes you a strong candidate for the program.

Writing Feedback / In spite of the advances made in agriculture, many people around the world still go hungry. [4]

Thi, your essay format is not totally correct. This is a direct response essay. Therefore, the opening paraphrase should offer a proper and complete response to each question being asked in the prompt. The more correct prompt paraphrase is as follows:

Modernization of farming methods has led to the production of more food. Despite this, hunger is still a global problem. This is a problem that has been caused by the rising cost of food, even as the ease of production was supposed to lower the price of basic commodities. One way of solving this problem is by having the government control the market price of the basic food products. A more detailed explanation of the cause and solution will be presented in the forthcoming paragraphs.

By the way, you have written too many words for this essay. The word range should only be anywhere from 250-300 words. Please use a timer the next time you write your essay so that you will realize why you cannot write 400 words or more within the given time frame. You must also focus on revising and editing the copy of your essay before submission. The last 2 actions are imperative to helping you get a higher overall score during the actual test.

At this point, I will not focus on your grammar problems and sentence structure weaknesses because this is your first essay, which is commonly problematic for most test takers. Based on the simple advice given above, you should be able to write a better formatted second essay, from which we can work on improving the other problem points of your essay.

Undergraduate / Statement of Interest for HCI Summer Research Program - design thinking [3]

Yuru, the first part of your essay is confusing. I was confused as to whether you started these Coursera courses at the age of 12 or later on in your life. I believe you need to clarify that part of the essay so as to avoid any confusion on the part of the reviewer. What you can do is advance your age to represent why you became interested in HCI Coursera courses. Think of the first time you enrolled in a course. What age were you? What led you to seek out Coursera in particular? What was that course? If possible remove the part about the canteen chair design. It removes the interest of the reviewer from the HCI aspect and diverts it to an unrelated situation. Keep your presentation consistent. HCI all the way. Bad design discussions should be limited to relevant topics such as the UI of Google Chrome or Windows and what it can be considered a bad design. Stick to the topic in order to properly highlight your skills and understanding of the relevance of HCI to the summer program.

Undergraduate / In no more than 900 characters describe your goals, why Waterloo and your interest in programs there [3]

Pradipta, your first paragraph is not useful to your application. You should start the essay from the second paragraph, building on your interest based on an academic goal that will help you achieve professional success. The reference to Justin Trudeau does not help the essay because you are not using your own interpretation of the student community of the university. The essay prompts are always underserviced when the student resorts to using other people's ideas for their response. It tells the reviewer that you know very little about the university, which is the point of the prompt topic, and that you are not really interested in attending Waterloo, you just want to attend A university, not Waterloo University.

Work on the Co-Op program for your response. Build the reference to Dr. Strickland's influence on your professional ideas or academic expectations in relation to Waterloo. Build your response in a manner that shows the reviewer that Waterloo is your First Choice university, not your general choice university.

Scholarship / Why are you a good candidate for the GLOCAL programme, what are your motivation to participate? [3]

Rhys, this essay seems too exhaustive for the reviewer to finish. As I reviewed the prompt requirements, it occurred to me that the problem with the essay is that you have been writing the essay without proper consideration of the prompt requirements. The work experience needs to be related to the GLOCAL program you are interested in. It does not need to list all of the jobs that you have held in the past. There are several references to your work experience that can be removed which will also shorten the essay and make it more readable to the time pressed reviewer. You should know which of these work experiences are expendable and therefore, removable from the essay. Don't go beyond the prompt requirements. Instead, remove the excess information so that you can better build your masters thesis paper explanation from a single reference to at least a complete paragraph.

Undergraduate / "I Fence for Brentwood, for those under appreciated" Common App essay: [3]

Mikerlyn, I am not sure if you can properly connect your interest in computer science and fencing in a manner that will show a period of growth on your part that helped you understand others. If you want to combine the two, then you should change the prompt from this current the following:

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

I believe that you can use the open topic essay as it allows you to create a connection between fencing and computer science without having to consider meeting the prompt requirements. If you title the essay "Computer Program Fencing" or something of the sort, then you can come up with a title that will intrigue the reviewer and also give him a pretty good idea of what the essay will be about.

In the essay, you can use the keyboard as your Epee, the thrusting weapon, since the keyboard is what helps to create the program. The Saber, can be represented by the software execution. You cut and thrust based on completed code and how it works. Every code that works is a score on your part. Every coding problem, is a score for the other team. I think that's how fencing works right? You get the idea. Your quick scan of the program when the code has a problem is similar to how you are forced to strategize on your feet during a tournament, finding the weak spots and attacking them to help you create a running code.

I'm not sure if my descriptions are accurate but I was just trying to give you an idea of how you could combine the two interests that you have in the essay, provided you change the prompt to one that gives you more freedom to be creative in your presentation. Right now, your above essay is suitable for the prompt but does not allow you to combine the two subjects due to prompt parameters.

Letters / Discontinue part time course - a letter to describe the situation, give reasons why stop attending [3]

Sam, you have the right idea but the wrong grammatical execution for the letter, Your sentence structure is horrible and cannot be easily corrected because of the "broken" English that used to write the letter. You need to do more sentence structure exercises to help with your proper sentence presentation and grammar development. Please allow me to show you a better way of executing the letter below:

Dear Sir,

I am currently enrolled in the Advanced Analytics course that is scheduled for weeknights from 6:00 - 8:00 PM. This is a class that I am taking even as I am a full-time employee at ABC Consultancy. I was recently promoted to the position of Program Director of the company, a position that requires me to perform more duties and responsibilities as I have been assigned to lead the creation of a new software for an Australian client. This is a job that will require me to visit Australia for 2 months to coordinate with the client and our company.

Due to the change in my work schedule and responsibilities, I will be unable to continue attending the Advanced Analytics course. As such, I am requesting that my enrollment be transferred to the Winter batch that will be starting in October. The change in my academic schedule will allow me to fully concentrate on my work duties and pick up where I left off with my studies as October is the target completion date of my work project.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
XXX

Undergraduate / Common App realization essay - an event which sparked a defining moment in my outlook on life [3]

Lewis, this is a well told story that has only one flaw in it as far as I can tell. In the concluding paragraph, you said that you did not have any control over where you lived and where you went to school. That is incorrect. Since you were a scholar at the time, you actually had control over the school that you were attending because scholarship programs as you to list your school choices. Therefore, you ended up in a school that you actually wanted to be at. The same goes for where you lived. The scholarship program provided you with a place to stay either through a stipend for rent or on campus dorm accommodations. Therefore, you controlled both these settings to a certain extent. It would be better if you just mentioned that you had no control over the train schedule or your ability to meet deadlines in some instances. Leave the school and living set up out of it just to be on the safe side. In fact, you could close the essay very strongly by simply using the quote and why you agreed with it. Just skip the parts I told you not to include.

Scholarship / Call Center - UGRAD. My participation in this experience triggered my will to grow more as a leader [4]

Nisrine, while this essay is a perfect example of an accomplished leadership experience, I do not feel like this is an essay that can be viewed as having a community contribution because an office setting and its required accomplishments is far different from the needs of a community and how you achieved them. The UGrad program is focused on developing community leaders who can effect positive changes in the lives of the people in their home country. That was not the purpose of your call center experience. Your focus was on selling a product for the company. The fact that you had clients whose treatment of your team had a tendency to dishearten your team members shows that you were not effective in changing the mindset of the "community" on a collective basis. I do not believe this is an essay that falls within the prompt requirements. I believe you have to write a new essay that shows your leadership skills within a community setting instead. Always follow the prompt requirements. While the team is a type of community, the goals of the team are not community related, but rather, profession based so it is not the same thing.

Undergraduate / Views and Truths - Common app essay #5 "Discuss an accomplishment, event, ..." [3]

Han, you better scrap the essay. Reading this from the point of view of a reviewer, I found that your drive to come across as a learned and philosophical person led to boredom and confusion after the first paragraph. Simplify the presentation. Be direct to the point. Narrate, don't lecture the reviewer. Besides, the reviewer gives you only one paragraph, at the most, to catch his attention and establish an overview of your response, which will be expanded upon in the later paragraphs. This essay doesn't accomplish that task. You are not trying to write a philosophical piece here, you are trying to answer a word limited prompt. So stick to the requirements and deliver the response as best as you can, without trying to make the head of the reviewer spin. If he finds himself lost in Yin v. Yang, Aletheia, and biker gangs, you will end up in the reject pile.

Undergraduate / Common App Essay - "Accepting Your Mother's Facebook Friend Request" [3]

Jordan, I find that the focus of the essay is more on your mother and the effects of the divorce on her and less on how the divorce affected you. The essay will be better helped if you eliminate the long reference to your mother's reaction to the divorce and how she needed help but you shut her out etc. That changes the focus of the prompt from how the divorce served as a setback for you to the effects of the divorce on your mother. The essay should not have you sharing anything about your mother mostly because she is not the focus of the prompt. You have to refocus the content of the essay to use the following elements:

1. The day you were told about the divorce;
2. How you felt about it;
3. How you failed to act out your feelings until the poetry slam;
4. Your mother's reaction;
5. The lessons you learned.

By properly focusing the attention of the essay on you, the essay better addresses the prompt requirement.

Scholarship / Describe an instance where you had to be a leader in your community. Any lesson about yourself? [5]

Anar, remove the defeatist attitude in this essay because you are being asked why you are a leader not why you are not a leader. For the revised essay, I believe that the offer from the Red Cross will be the most perfect narration for the response. You can highlight your development as a leader because of the anxiety that you had and the difficulties that you faced, which you all overcame to create the group that you were asked to. I know that it is only 1 paragraph in your current essay but, when framed in the correct manner, the essay can mention that you were not a born leader (without further elaboration) while focusing on your development as a leader and what you learned about yourself, leadership style, and capacity to create change. All you need it the right project to discuss to remove the negative vibe of the essay. For the leadership and other requirements, you may need to do some research to better discuss those topics in relation to yourself as a leader.

Scholarship / I am applying for the GLOCAL - Global Markets and Development pathway [2]

Kubaja, this is not an essay that will impress the reviewer because it neglects to answer some specific questions from the prompt requirement. Your essay fails to properly present an answer to the following requirements:

1. You should outline your motivation for choosing the GLOCAL programme (i.e. how it complements and develops your previous studies; how it relates to your career path; how it relates to your personal and academic interests).

2. Explain why you think you are a good candidate for the programme given your previous studies and the courses offered on the programme in both years.

3. Briefly indicate what you see as being the topic of your year 2 dissertation (this can change later).

All this essay tries to prove is that you are a good candidate for the program. You do not indicate any similarities between your previous studies and specific course offerings of the program. There is also a failure on your part to indicate a proper overview regarding your dissertation topic. You must provide a true study plan just to show the reviewer that you have a particular study path to undertake. Without it, the essay becomes extremely weak. You should not wait to consult with a dissertation adviser, you should have a plan for your studies. After all, you should be discussing the relationship of your current profession with your academic goals that will help you present a possible future career plan for yourself.

You do not need to present an autobiography. You need to simply respond to the requirements of the prompt. It would be better if your write a totally new essay, but first, you have to read the other GLOCAL application essay samples here so you can have a better idea of what sort of presentation might work better for your application.

Graduate / SOP for Master of Science in Advanced Methods & Data Analysis [9]

Iris, your personal statement is enlightening and engaging, but it lacks a statement of realization on your part. The statement of realization should be an idea that you have that emanated from the time you spent trying to help the elderly claim their money. The idea should tie-in with the course offering at University of Washington and allow the reviewer to see how your professional interests, social interest, and change of career path motivation all combined to lead you the university. You could try to summarize the first 3 paragraphs into a single compressed / concise paragraph that clearly shows the motivation for your interest in a change of career. The realization that you have should lead you to mention what you plan to do about the problem and how the training at the university will help you achieve that professional goal. Your essay is strong when it comes highlighting your work with the socioeconomically disadvantages, but falls short of the "how you may have overcome various obstacles or aided others in surmounting such challenges" portion. How did you help the elderly during the time you indicated? How did your idea to help them evolve into this interest in a different career path? Why do you believe that this plan is something that you should pursue? You have a good start here, but I feel that you have missed out on certain important elements of information that can help your essay stand out.

Graduate / Statement of Purpose - Professional Master's Program in Computer Science Big Data Specialization [2]

This is a SOP that can be considered quite strong in terms of your qualifications. So your essay is definitely strong in those aspects of the presentation. However, I believe that you need to strengthen the reasons as to why you chose to attend XYZ university. Most of your explanation in that aspect pertains to publicly known information. So there is nothing about your academic goals in relation to your professional end game that makes your university choice stand out. The reasons that you chose this university to study at, when there may be universities in Nigeria that offer the same courses, needs to highlight your academic considerations far beyond the simple presentation that you have in this presentation. Explain how you plan to use the opportunity to study at this university to help you advance your skills and training. You have to come full circle to how your professional goals can be best achieved by the training you will receive at the university, but in a more specific manner. One similar to the comparison of courses that the essay asked you to do to prove your educational foundation in this field. This time, show how your professional foundation will be helped by the courses and training programs the university offers. That should help to strengthen that part of your SOP.

Undergraduate / Stanford Supp: Tetris' impact on my life. Dealing with adversity. [2]

Wow! What can I say? This is one of the more interesting responses to this prompt that I have read in a while at this forum. Your explanation of why the game of Tetris is meaningful to you shows that you are a deep thinker who uses logic in life and can see opportunities where others may not. This is an essay that does not have any need for revision. It is perfect in presentation as it is. The language is clear. The intention of every sentence is meaningful. The overall concept and presentation is impressive. You should be proud of what you have written here. It is perfect as it is and ready for submission. I am sure the reviewer will take note of your response. I am hopeful that he will be just as impressed as I am at the moment. Good work. You don't need to extend the response because you have said everything important within these short but highly informative paragraphs. The reviewer will definitely appreciate how your response is direct and does not contain any word fillers just to present a longer essay.

Graduate / PS for Columbia University Master of Science in Data Science (Part-time); once dismissed from PhD [6]

If a personal statement is not required, then you should work on revising this essay to become a statement of purpose. Use the same instructions I gave you above in response to your questions to get you started. Omit the parts that I told you were not necessary in the presentation. Allow yourself to focus on the actual purpose of your higher studies. Develop a true purpose for your desire to complete this course. The purpose should be both academic and professional in presentation. Respond to the 5 basic requirements for a proper SOP. These requirements are:

1. The purpose for your advanced studies;
2. Your undergraduate preparation in terms of classes related to the MS course;
3. Any undergraduate accolades you may have received that shows your qualities and traits as a student;
4. An explanation of your undergraduate thesis (if related to your chosen MS course. If not then omit it)
5. Pertinent work experience;
6. Reasons you chose the university (include a masters thesis subject overview if possible);
7. A 5 year career idea that you hope to achieve through these studies.

These guide questions should help you create a more appropriate SOP for the university. I'll be happy to review the new essay when you finish it. Just add it to this thread and make it urgent so that I can attend to it at once.

Undergraduate / Meaningful activities (150) - three versions for this short essay to choose from [3]

Anna, there are 2 activities that I believe you can choose from. I believe that for an extra curricular activity, you can use the activity regarding the Philippine children you tried to raise money for. For a work related activity, I would opt to present the one about your work at the burger place. While all of your statements are quite strong, the choice should not be made by us as readers, but by you as the writer. Think about which of the two choices showcase the image and strength of character that you would rather portray to the reviewer.

Since the Japanese are known to be highly respectful people, you may want to go for the obvious choice which is letter C. However, if you want to call more attention to yourself as a determined person then go for letter B. Letter C is not something that is unique to you because you were doing a job and indicating your observations about the people you dealt with. Letter B, calls attention to a personal character trait. Your determination to succeed during times when others would already surrender and forget about the activity.

If I were the reviewer, I would rather read about your charitable activity, how it relates to your mindset, and how it highlights your sheer determination to succeed in the face of insurmountable odds. The final choice is actually yours to make. I can only explain the strengths and weaknesses of the two statements that I feel would best suit the prompt requirements.

Undergraduate / "What my Mom taught Me"- Common App Essay - a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure [5]

Vivek, I found your work to be very touching and poignant. It shows a side of you as a person that the common app prompts, specially the one that you chose for this essay will not allow you to normally show. Perhaps you would like to consider not editing this essay and instead, use it, in its entirety, for the following prompt instead?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

The flashback to your mom and the connection that her illness had with your character development, mindset, and sense of maturity is something that go hand in hand. The essay shows the definite influence that a parent can have on a child, long after they have left this world. The way you state it highlights that spiritual connection that you will forever have with your mother, and will forever be part of who you are and how you make decisions in the future.

Please reconsider adding any information to the essay, I do not believe it is necessary for you to do so.

Scholarship / KGSP Future Plan in Korea after Graduating [2]

You are presenting a cut and dried response rather than a detailed explanation of how you intend to achieve these goals. Look into your timeline. Normally these events should occur over a period of 5 years. As such, you can explain your career intentions for every year presented. For year one, what is the goal? How do you hope to achieve that? What will it lead to? Year one should end with a connection with your year 2 intentions. Ask yourself the same question then connect it to year 3, and so on and so forth. You need to be detailed in your explanation so that you can complete the 1 page requirement. Divide your career plans into paths. That should help you achieve a lengthier essay that is more informative. Don't aim to summarize, aim to explain your plans. The plans will allow you to further expand on your goals through an explanation of how your studies can help you achieve every year goal that you have for yourself.

Graduate / SOP for Master of Science in Advanced Methods & Data Analysis [9]

Iris, the essay is suffering from an over abundance of information coming from you. Mostly because you are being pretty detailed about your research experience, which may not be a good thing. Writing an educational biography will not benefit your application because, by the time I got to the 4th paragraph, I found my attention wandering from your paper already. It gets too boring when the paper is highly technical. Rather than constantly explaining how you conducted research, keep it simple. Tell the reviewer what the research was about, what methodology was used, and the results.

Keep it short. Pick your 2 most notable research accomplishments. Describe why these 2 particular research papers were of importance to you. It would be beneficial if your research has been published before because that adds to your importance as an authoritative researcher in your field. That can also help to increase your "professional experience" which seems to be lacking in this essay. Were all of these research completed during your undergraduate course?

Can you explain why you have not had any professional research experience yet at this point? If you can, then you will be able to establish that the importance of completing this MS course lies in your ability to enhance your career opportunities over the next 5 years. You may want to explain why you do not have any corporate research experience yet. Normally, an MS student will have had at least 2 years professional experience prior to enrollment. So you are an exception to the norm and you have to indicate why that is.

Your last paragraph, which touches on that does not sound convincing to me. There is also no need to mention your undergraduate thesis mentor in the essay. Not unless he is going to be one of your referees in which case, the mention of his name in the essay will be beneficial to your application.