Essays / References FOR CHEVENING SCHOLARSHIP [3]

Hi Hedy, for the employer, you need to use your current employer because the person will need to attest to your leadership and influencing abilities along with the strength of your character and any other reasons that might be able to help convince the reviewer that you are a good bet for the scholarship. If your referee comes from a job 2 years ago, it may not carry the same influence with the reviewer as the work relationship is not as recent as it should be. Your current employer would be best or your most current client in the case of a freelance worker.

As for the other referee, you may use your regular client. There is nothing in the Chevening rules that indicate you need to have one referee from each field. You may use a second reference from anyone who has known you in a professional, educational, supervisory, voluntary, or religious capacity. Rather than presenting 2 professional references, you should try to find a different second referee. That is because you need to have the person discuss your personality on a professional and social level.

I would suggest someone who knows you in a voluntary capacity would work just fine. A voluntary capacity means the person knows you in a civic manner (e.g. community service or non-government organization, a volunteer organization you are affiliated with) who can respond to the referee questions as indicted by the online Chevening referee form. The second referee should address your personal, intellectual, and interpersonal qualities. However both of the referees need to be able to provide evidence that you will be capable of completing the rigorous demands of studying in the UK.

Scholarship / Creative brainstorming - Chevening Leadership [5]

Skar, this sounds like a college level leadership that you are trying to make sound like a professional leadership skill. The events you discussed are not demanding enough to prove a viable leadership and influencing skill. The fact that you were a co-leader further lessens the impact of this essay upon the reader and also gives away the fact that you are not being truthful about your leadership presentation. Such events have one team leader, an assistant team leader, a project coordinator, and then staff. Co-leaders are only seen in academic group projects and presentations.

This is not a leadership and influencing essay that will catch the attention of the reviewer. There are too many questions about the reality of your position with regards to the events being depicted. You must figure out how you can present a sole leadership position project on your part where you were in charge of decision making procedures and team management. This essay is not focused enough to prove the point you are trying to make.

Once a reviewer has questions about the truthfulness of your application, expect your application to be placed in the reject pile. There must not be any question about the authenticity of your claims and the validity of your actions. The essay does not have any nation building reference nor community improvement implications for your leadership and influencing skills, so this essay will not qualify for consideration and end your quest for the scholarship.

Scholarship / Committed to community - The leadership essay for Chevening scholarship [3]

Aya, while I did enjoy reading your paper, I had a problem with the unprofessionalism of both the presentation and the content of the paper. This is a presentation that could be considered a little bit applicable to a college application essay. It will never be considered in the proper format for a Chevening essay. Nor does it contain the presentation that will make you a competitive applicant when considering that you are not portraying any professional leadership and influencing skills. This is too amateur for Chevening. The focus on the development of your leadership skills within the non profit organization is marred by the lack of actual leadership requirements of the projects you handled. The influencing skills are too simple to be considered remarkable in any way. The total essay just doesn't convince the highly analytical reviewer that you are any sort of up and coming leader and influencer in your country.

Read the examples of the leadership and influencing essays for this application cycle at this forum. You will come to realize why your essay cannot get past the preliminary screening round. If you want to compete, you need a more serious tone and a more notable leadership and influencing background to share. Otherwise, you simply won't make it as an applicant.

Undergraduate / Research world journey - Common app for research universities: Prompt no 5 [2]

@lolessay What is the maximum word count for this essay? The reason I ask is that it feels too long when reading it. It takes too long to get to the point. The highlights of the essay are far between which creates boredom for the reader. Rather than increasing the interest of the reader, it is lessened by too much back story. I think this essay will be better presented if you discuss your accomplishment first, the reason for it second, and how you accomplished it third. That way, by the time you get to the explanation about your personal growth, you can already connect it to an understanding of others, which you seem to have missed in this presentation. Close the essay by telling the reader how the enrollment improved in STEM courses so that your essay closes on a very strong presentation of your growth as a person, student, and civic minded person.

Scholarship / Telecom Company Specialist - Chevening leadership question [3]

Jafarbekbo, this essay would have had the potential to become a leadership and influencing essay if you had focused on your people management, problem solving, and team building skills to signify the strength of your professional leadership and influencing abilities. Consider revising this essay in a manner that chooses to discuss a certain problem with the app that forced you to become a leader instead of a liaison officer between departments, which is what your current essay indicates. You see, being a glorified messenger in the office does not indicate leadership. Just an ability to follow instructions and explain the sentiments of others to your higher ranking officials.

At this point, this essay sounds like you just wrote down everything you could think of regarding your job duties and description, but you did not really give much thought to the leadership and influencing requirements in the prompt for the essay. That is why you wrote such a non-applicable essay as a response. You need to rethink the content of the essay. Make sure to focus on actual leadership and influencing. Don't bother with defining the meaning of the word. The reviewer will be looking for evidence of how you exemplify your leadership philosophy instead as it applies to your workplace setting.

Writing Feedback / In recent years, the family structure has changed, as well as family roles. Positive or negative? [2]

Trinh, your essay is severely under developed in terms of proper discussion. Your prompt paraphrase is incomplete and your vocabulary is terribly problematic in this essay. You are using plural word forms where you should be using singular forms (perspectives = perspective, live = lives) and you try to present too much information per paragraph so that the presentations remain under developed.

The clarity of your explanation is very important in the scoring process under the C&C considerations. Without a clear explanation, your score will suffer. The problematic sentence structures stemming from the misuse of plural forms and incorrect sentence presentations pull down your GRA score. Improper vocabulary use (morden = modern) also cause major scoring concerns.

While this is a decent attempt at writing a Task 2 essay, you cannot get a passing score of note with this essay. You need to learn how to write proper simple English sentences, use the correct vocabulary, learn proper English spelling for words, and build your explanations instead of just presenting discussion topics without proper reasoning development. These all combined in this essay to create a highly problematic written presentation. Please try to avoid these problems in the future by practicing and developing your English writing skills a lot more. You can use language apps or formal English classes to help you with your language problem.

Scholarship / My influence in supporting mothers to breastfeed - leadership essay [2]

Raanita, this essay is not very competitive because you cannot balance the evolution of your leadership activities. If you wish to present several examples of your leadership skills it needs to be presented in representation of your college level leadership, community leadership, and professional leadership. You cannot use only an academic reference to your leadership skills. Internship skills do not represent professional skills either as you are not truly performing professional tasks yet. There is a lack of leadership skills development in a marked way in your discussion. That is why your presentation, though good, cannot be competitive when compared to the other applicants who have a clear reference to a solid professional leadership skill or a series of developing leadership skills in various sectors.

If you opt to revise your essay to clearly present a balanced representation of your leadership strengths and influencing skills, then use the internship opportunity that you had as an amateur leadership skill. Use the internship at the Public Health Clinic as your influencing skill via the talks / speeches that you delivered. Explain how your talks inspired the women in the community to breastfeed. What was the result of your speech / talk? That should show a clear influencing style foundation.

You must close the essay with a presentation of a professional application of your leadership and influencing skills. That way you can prove that you actually have the ability to lead your peers and influence them towards a positive outcome. People management is the key to your professional leadership and influencing reference. That is very important and that should be the highlight of your essay.

Scholarship / Showing Leadership without official authority - Chevening Scholarship essay [3]

Tassio, you have shown that you know how to take the initiative to perform tasks beyond those assigned to you. That initiative does not equate to leadership and influencing unless you actually took the initiative to take the reins of a project that had a group of people as its staff that were looking for leadership and the influence of a leader to help get the job done.

Note that all of the information in your essay relates only to how you perform your tasks and resolve problems related to your assignments at the office. There is no leadership, only initiative. There is no influencing skill used, only an analysis of what you have to do on your part. Therefore, you cannot pass this off as a leadership and influencing essay. It does not contain the required parameters.

Please remember that a leader can only be called a leader if he has people looking to him for direction, instruction, and inspiration. Without those qualities, one cannot be looked upon as a leader. Your essay proves that you are a good worker who can work with little to no supervision but nothing more.

Scholarship / A description essay of leading and influencing for ... scholarship [2]

Dana, if what you are saying in this essay is true, then you should be focusing this essay on the conflict and disappointments that occurred during the shoot of this film. Explain the background of the film, why there was a lack of interest in the producer and director, and how it affected the actors and crew. That way you can highlight your initiative to take over the reins of the production in order to finish the film. You will definitely be able to present a clear influencing aspect to your leadership style because of the problematic production. Change the content of the essay to focus only on that presentation. That is the only part of this essay that has the potential to turn into a true example of your leadership and influencing abilities. Change the last paragraph as well. You do not need to mention what your hopes are regarding winning the scholarship. That is irrelevant to the discussion as it does not relate in any way to your ability to lead and influence within your profession upon your return home.

Scholarship / After Chevening, my abilities as a leader will be put into doing more for the country and the world [4]

Omar, this is supposed to be a leadership and influencing essay, not a summary of your curriculum vitae. The reviewer is not interested in all the positions you have held in various companies and organization over the years if these do not contain sufficient references to your leadership and influencing abilities. All I am reading in your essay is a paragraph format of your titles along with duties and responsibilities. The information presented though relevant to leadership lacks specific references to your actual leadership as a team leader and influencing skills as a team manager. You cannot use this essay because of this problem.

What your essay should be presenting is a clear example of a notable leadership and influencing skill within a academic, community, and professional setting or, a professional setting alone. You lack a clear progression of your leadership skills in this essay. Most of the information feels incomplete and irrelevant to the prompt requirements.

Try to read several examples of well written leadership and influencing skills essays at this forum. These samples should help you better present the required examples of leadership and influencing in the next version of your response to this topic.

Undergraduate / Physical Geology nightmare; FAILURES AND OBSTACLES COMMON APP ESSAY [4]

Anytime that the student uses technical information in an essay, you better hope that a professional in the field is going to be reading it otherwise it could end up being boring to the reviewer. That is why I was asking you to open it with a comical scene first. The preceding comical event can always cancel out the fact that the next part is technical in reference because the reviewer was already hooked and could care less about the scientific information being presented because he is already laughing at what happened because of the scientific presentation.

Yes, short sentences tend to get choppy. So write moderate length sentences instead that uses transition words and phrases to keep the paragraph together. Don't forget the complete transitional sentences to connect the paragraphs. That normally takes care of the choppiness and disconnected ideas in the presentation.

Writing Feedback / Teachers at Fatoni University - writing skills practice [4]

Afnan, this presentation is asking you to describe someone from your past. Therefore you should be using the past presentation for all your reference points in the essay, not the present. In addition to that, you have to familiarize yourself with word formations. Student with an apostrophe S is different from students without the apostrophe S or student without the apostrophe S. The apostrophe S in the word "Student's" describes ownership while "students" refers to the plural form of the singular "student". You were a student at the time so no apostrophe S or additional S at the end.

Learn to use paragraphs instead of a straight single paragraph presentation. Using paragraphs allows the reader to read the text in an easier format. It also gives you more room for the descriptive process and allows for a fuller discussion or presentation of the given topic.

Not a bad attempt at descriptive writing though. It's definitely descriptive and imaginative. I would say you have potential when it comes to this type of writing.

Scholarship / Endeavour Scholarship Essay (MS Data Science) [2]

Suktri, your closing paragraph should be better developed to become the opening paragraph of this response essay. As I read it, I came to realize that this paragraph has the establishing information for the actual prompt response requirements. That is why I do not believe it should be the end presentation but rather, the establishing paragraph for the rest of your responses. Using a transition sentence at the end in relation to the second paragraph will then create a smoother transfer from one prompt response to another.

Basically, I think you have the essay paragraph presentations in reverse. The last should be the first, the second should stay in place, but the first paragraph should become the closing paragraph instead. That way you create a more interesting representation of your response which, although not in outline format based on the prompt presentations, still responds to the questions in a manner that better ties the whole essay presentation together.

Letters / Informal email to a proposed PhD supervisor [3]

Hayat, your presentation for this internship / student assistant application is incorrect. You need to open the letter with a statement of admiration for the career of the professor. That should then lead into how you learned about his latest project. Close that paragraph with a reference to how your own research might be able to support his own work if he accepts to become your PhD supervisor.

The next paragraph should explain the similarities and supporting points of your work with the professor's and vice versa. By showing how your research projects intertwine, you may be able to convince the professor that you have the research foundation that may be considered useful in the completion of his project. Then inform the professor about your other training and educational accomplishments that he might wish to consider for your application. Explain why you chose him to be your supervisor in particular. Don't forget to inquire IF the professor still has room for one more student in his roster. Don't just assume he will as it appears in your current letter.

Close the essay with a statement as to what you hope to accomplish with your own research project through your exposure to the professor's actual work. Clarify where you found out that he uses student assistants as part of his research team.

Your letter has room for improvement but has the potential to create interest on the part of the professor. Good luck with your inquiry.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK2 - Is punishment a good way to teach children good manner? [6]

Ronia, your discussion went off tangent in the prompt paraphrase section. Look at the following errors in your presentation:

Original Topic: It is important for children to learn the difference between right and wrong at an early age.
Your Topic: One important stage in a child's growth is certainly the development of a conscience, which is related to the ability to tell right from wrong.

In your topic presentation, the main discussion became the development of a conscience so that a child can learn to tell right from wrong. Right from wrong became the secondary rather than primary discussion topic. Bad move. You just changed the discussion topic for the essay.

Reasoning Sentence: Punishment is necessary to help them learn this distinction.
Your Reasoning: The skills come from a period of time and good parenting... parenting has not much to do with this...

The only part of the discussion that you got right in this presentation is the last part about the alternative punishment that can be used by teachers and parents.

What does the series of above indicated problems show? It shows that your TA presentation will get a failing mark due to prompt deviation. What is the correct presentation for the opening paraphrase?

Children must learn the importance of right from wrong as soon as possible. In order to teach this lesson, it is believed that disciplinary actions must be taken when children do things perceived to be wrong. I mostly disagree with this statement due to several consideration factors.

The first paragraph is always a restatement of the original discussion. It is the part of the essay that introduces the discussion to the reader who does not know what the original prompt is about. That is why you need to be detailed, specific about the topic, reason, and response you will be giving. This serves as the outline for your discussion. Make a mistake here and you could lose up to 50% of your scoring consideration which means, the first paragraph alone can either help you pass or fail the test.

While your 2 reasoning paragraphs have sound reasoning, the problem in the TA section immediately made it difficult for this essay to get a higher scoring consideration. Most specially since your final paragraph falls short of the required sentence presentation number and information which are:

1. Restatement of the discussion topic
2. Reasons for the discussion
3. Restatement of your opinion
4. Restatement of the alternative punishment
5. Closing sentence

You have the potential to get at least a 7.5 with your writing skills. You just need to do better work when it comes to certain presentation parts.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK1 - Which of Australian household elements use the biggest amount of energy? [3]

Ronia, the Task 1 essay always scores its best when the essay is presented in 4 paragraphs with 3-5 sentences each. The proper paragraph presentation is:

Par. 1 - Summary overview with trending statement
Par. 2 - Analysis set 1
Par. 3 - Analysis set 2
Par. 4 - Comparison analysis

Your essay kicked off with a trending statement but no summary overview. The summary overview should indicate:
1. Topic sentence
2. Type of illustration
3. Measurements used
4. Analysis instruction
5. Trending statement

The presentation you used is not totally clear when one considers the actual presentation requirements per paragraph or analysis per paragraph. It would be best for you not to present the actual information from the pie chart in a parenthesis. A parenthesis often refers to optional or clarification information which a task 1 essay never contains. All of the information is required in the presentation and relevant. Therefore, the numerical information should be presented as a part of the sentence presentation rather than in parenthesis.

What I would like to commend you on is your presentation. You analyzed the information from the pie chart in a n acceptable manner that could use improvement. Your grasp of the English language is intermediate in presentation which helped you create acceptable moderately complex sentences. Good job! I look forward to reading your next practice test.

Undergraduate / Cooking is science and science is cooking. Common App Essay on Cooking (Prompt 1) [3]

R, I understand that you are applying for admission to the Physics course of this university. That is why you included a reference to it in this essay. However, it doesn't really hit the mark because this essay is asking you to divert from your academic interests. Instead, just tell the reviewer about the other side of your personality. Let him get to know you beyond your interest in science. The trend of presenting the cooking part of your life is good. I specially like the part about "the rest of my life". However, I think that reference is too drastic as one tends to adjust his life decisions, choices, and other parameters based upon the needs and requirements of his life at a certain time. I think that changing the phrase to "... approach my life" instead. That is more flexible as everyone, most specially a chef like Bobby Flay, are in life. They roll with the punches and adjust their kitchen requirements based on the demands of the day at their restaurant.

I believe that you are on to something with the "life" analogy in this essay. In fact, I found it very interesting to read your culinary story. Then the experience was abruptly disrupted by the sudden entrance of your science discussion in the later part of the essay. I never recovered from that distraction and it totally ruined the essay for me because I was suddenly torn away from learning about who you are as a person beyond your academic life. All of a sudden, I was forced to get to know your academic interests again, which I am sure you have the opportunity to discuss in greater detail using the other prompts or specific discussion topics of the university application.

Introduce yourself as a person to the reviewer, forget that you are trying to get into the university course of your choice in this essay. Let the reviewer get to know another facet of your personality that makes you more interesting as a scientist, without and actual reference to it. He needs to see that you have balanced interests and you know how to have fun aside from knowing how to study and succeed academically.

Scholarship / A good leader must be a good communicator, good motivator, an impactful and inspirational person [5]

Bertha, you may discuss a series of leadership skills if you wish as long as it shows a progression of your leadership skills. That means, an improvement to your people management skills must be evident and your influencing skills must also evolve from an academic / organization setting to a professional set up by the end. The professional aspect is the most important discussion because that is where you can convince the reviewer that you have the potential to be a future leader and influencer in your country on a national or local scale.

I hope you understand why I would like you omit the religious aspect of your organizational background in this essay. If you have a different academic group involvement when you led a project or, if you have a community based organization membership that falls under the required criteria, then you may present one or both in the essay. As long as it shows your early effective leadership style that evolved into your current leadership and influencing capacity within your profession.

I cannot advise on your networking essay here. That needs to be posted in a new and different thread the admin will delete the networking essay once they see it posted here.

Scholarship / Instrumentation and control engineering - Chevening leadership essay [4]

Abdussalam, contrary to the opinion above, you have a very strong leadership background in this essay. Do not change anything about it. Specifically, your first paragraph is of the utmost importance as it establishes that you have climbed the ranks of leadership in the company. That is extremely important to your narrative. Do not delete that part at all. There is no repetition of information because the second paragraph deals with your new position which is a step above your old position so it partially carries the first position title. Something that the poster did not understand since she is not a trained contributor of this forum. She is only an applicant for Chevening just like you are. So her advice is amateur and not based on proper information for application screening. Her advice is merely her understanding of the advice I have been giving the other applicants at this forum which in this case did not apply. All professional advice given by me on this forum are on a case to case basis, depending upon the proper review of the essay provided by the applicant. The advice I give is not one size fits all.

You exemplified your leadership roles in every instance quite well and showcased your leadership abilities in certain instances. The "We" reference in this instance is necessary as you were tasked to form the team that would be doing collaborative work. However, you also have references to "I" which helped to support the "we" stance in the essay as you asserted your leadership role in the group. The "we" only referred to the shared work responsibilities of the team so it isn't a big deal in your presentation.

Your essay needs to be improved in terms of influencing skills. Focus on the 2012-2013 project for your overall influencing discussion. How did you inspire the young engineers / team members to believe that they could perform the tasks required? Aside from having meetings and insisting they be involved in all the tasks, how did you handle certain situations that negatively affected the morale of the team? For example, if a major project was being done and one of the team members had a major failure that affected the performance of the rest of the team, how did you influence them to forget what happened, not blame the team member, and simply fix the situation as per your instructions and move on to do even better work as a collective group? Such instances would highlight a major influencing skill on your part.

Scholarship / I am capable of taking control of any situation and lead a group of people into success. Chevening [3]

Kindly disregard the wrong advice given above as it was not given by a trained contributor and as such, is not a professional review of your application. The errors in the advice will lead to an even weaker essay presentation from you if you follow it. This is an essay that will not make it past the screening round. It is not relevant to the essay because all that is evident is that you are continuously working in a subordinate role, even when handling a team of 14 people. Your essay showcases your ability to follow orders and instruct others, but not really to lead them because you take your work instructions from the actual leader of the group or team. Therefore, this essay cannot be considered useful towards your application.

You may use a college reference of community leadership since you are obviously not in a professional capacity to showcase a leadership and influencing event in the proper expectation of the reviewer. Therefore, you will need to write a totally new essay that does not use references to subordinate roles of "interim" or liaison leadership but true leadership where you are in charge, you make the decisions, you handle the consequences of your decisions, and you motivate your own people, without someone else to answer to.

Scholarship / A good leader must be a good communicator, good motivator, an impactful and inspirational person [5]

Bertha, this is not a very strong leadership and influencing essay. For one, a religious focus is not very favorable for this essay as the Chevening scholarship is non-sectarian so your narrative regarding preaching and socializing in a religious context may cause some inconveniences or problems when considering your application. Try to keep the religious aspect out of it just in case and turn this into a community service reference instead. Then evolve your leadership and influencing skill from there.

The presentation you have isn't enough to convince the reviewer that you have a high level of leadership and influencing abilities because there is no professional reference to your discussion. The foundation is looking for future leaders and influencers in their respective professions so unless you are planning on becoming a nun, you need to discuss your leadership and influencing skills within your active workplace. Otherwise, this essay will only be partially responsive to the requirements and will definitely be one of the weaker applicant essays presented during the screening round.

Undergraduate / Physical Geology nightmare; FAILURES AND OBSTACLES COMMON APP ESSAY [4]

The approach that you have taken to discussing the prompt is interesting. The only problem I have with it is that you are being pretty technical in the opening presentation which might derail the reviewer who may or may not understand what you are saying in that portion of your writing. I suggest you simplify that introduction just to be on the safe side. Maybe open with your head hitting the laptop first, that way you catch the attention of the reviewer first. Then hit him with the jargon second so that he will better understand why you dozed off. We don't want the reviewer dozing off with you now.

Your presentation is clear. The titled topics make this come across as a chapter type presentation, adding to the flow of the story. It helps the reviewer keep his place while reading your paper and also allows for quick reference should he need to find something that you had written. It is a good format for a narrative presentation. The content is prompt specific and really engaging as you continue to read the essay. Like I said, it is just the opening I am worried about and that, I believe, you can easily fix.

Scholarship / Meeting and interacting with new people allowed me to develop excellent interpersonal skills [3]

Rowan, the focus of this essay is your professional capacity to create, maintain, and use a network geared towards use in your professional career either through problem solving or career advancement opportunities. That said, you need to take out the story about your childhood and moving around and the reference to your high school life. This is not an autobiography, this is supposed to be a professional networking essay.

For your new draft you can use paragraphs 2-4. These are the most notable networking references you can use as a response. However, you will need to develop your networking skills further by showing it in action. As part of the liaison team between the park and the international media, what sort of contacts did you have to use? The idea is that you were able to do this job because you already had a pre organized network that was applicable to this task. Discuss how you formed the network that you eventually used for this task. Explain how you utilized the network by depicting the role it played in the success of your duties and responsibilities.

Your final paragraph should close by highlighting the importance of your network to the Chevening alumna who work in a related field. Reiterate the uniqueness of your network and explain how your addition can help better not only Chevening as a community, as Chevening as a scholarship foundation as well.

Writing Feedback / Ho I solve a problem - release my emotion first, then find out what is the main cause of the problem [4]

Nuradia, the essay is asking "What is your approach to problem-solving...". This essay should have been approached from a present tense type of discussion because you are being asked to tell the reader how you do it, at present hence the follow-up question "How does it work for you?" You walk us through the process as you would if you were doing it at that very moment in time. You don't go to the past, you don't go to the future. You stay in the moment. I think this problem occurred because you were not conscious that the essays have a time frame reference when you are writing it. That is part of your grammar and sentence proficiency. Know if you are being asked to present a previous statement, a present statement, or a future statement. Normally, you have to speak in the present tense for all these essays.

Undergraduate / UGRAD SOP - US can broaden up my horizons [2]

Umta, this is a god draft. For the second draft, you will need to omit certain references in this essay as these do not pertain to the reasons why you would make a an excellent / qualified candidate for the program. Please remove the following portions of your presentation:

1. I love to read ... my free time.
2. I choose biosciences because ...aspires me the most.
3. Being one of the most developed countries in the world... softer image of Pakistan.

You can keep the part about you being enrolled in your 3rd semester of Biosciences. You just need to make sure that the reviewer is clear about this also being the reason why you will return to Pakistan at the end of the program. Describe the plans you have for upon your return to Pakistan in terms of enhancing the US-Pakistan relations and how you hope to share what you learned with your classmates and professors in order to improve the bioscience education sector in Pakistan. Reiterate your desire to return home at the end of the program because of specific reasons.

The essay will be in a more suitable version once these corrections and suggestions are applied. It will also highlight the most important aspect of your application which is to experience American life, an American education, but not a desire to stay in America after the program is completed.

Undergraduate / 'Playing around in microchip design' - My interest in studying at Michigan - Prompt [4]

Peter, you are treating this essay like an open editorial for a news source. Please, tone it down. You still need an academic tone for this essay. You are not applying for a job at Marvel or DC comics. Show the proper respect due to the classes you are mentioning. The prompt basically begs you to be serious about this presentation.

Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School...How would that curriculum support your interests

Discussing off the cuff is one thing, showing a total disregard for the seriousness of this essay is another. Your approach is so informal that it just may tank your application. You are so off the cuff that your essay doesn't really tell the reviewer what attracted you to the college nor how the curriculum could support you.

I am sorry if this is not what you want to hear and you may opt to not listen to my unsolicited advice. The problem is that your response is way off the mark in more ways than one because you don't want to write the traditional essay, but your creativeness made you forget the requirements of the prompt. Be a traditional to a certain extent, specially in your tone.

You can still be off the cuff in presentation, provided your essay hits the mark based on the prompts. Sometimes, it feels like you are making fun of the classes offered at the college and in the same breath, you are making fun of the university. I know that is not your intention but that is how it comes across when you say things like:

'Electronic Sensing Systems'? How about 'Learn to find your targets and destroy them' instead?
One of the programs at the University is literally called COM-BAT...
...some D&D campaign run by an especially cruel person that we need to outwit in order to succeed

The essay can stand out with a casual presentation, but don't be so casual that you forget who you are addressing, an authorized representative of the university who has the power to get you in or out of the university as a Freshman. Respect the reader, his position at the university, the college, and the classes offered along with the rest of the course curriculum while still being casual. It can be done, you just have to try.

Writing Feedback / Nurses, doctors and teachers do not earn enough money and they deserve more [3]

Antonia, and IELTS Task 2 essay is composed of a maximum of 5 paragraphs with 3-5 sentences within each paragraph. That is the standard for writing based on the type of prompt you are provided. For this prompt, you are expected to present 4 paragraphs composed of:

1. Prompt restatement
2. Extent of agreement or disagreement
3. Criteria for paying people
4. Concluding paraphrase / summary

Based on the above criteria, you can immediately tell that your essay goes beyond the borders of the requirements in terms of number of paragraphs presented. You also need to present a uniform 3-5 sentence paragraph that omits the use of run-on or long sentences. Both of these mistakes tend to immensely lower your score due to presentation problems and errors.

Your prompt paraphrase would have been correct if you had provided the measurement of your agreement with the statement and also, a direct response with regards to the criteria question. Remember, if it is directly asked in the prompt, then you should give a direct response in the paraphrase unless you are writing a public opinion plus personal opinion based essay.

While your discussion is very good, you missed the mark because of the length of your essay. Try to practice writing using a timer. Set the timer before you even read the prompt, then start writing. You will find that there is no way you can write 6 paragraphs within the allotted time and still have a few minutes to spare for proofreading and editing, which are very important to your presentation.

This is a good effort on your part but you still need a lot of practice runs before you can reach the level of an intermediate IELTS writer. I am confident that you can get there though because of the degree of intelligence that you show in your writing skills. Remember, when writing the Task 2 essay, don't over discuss it. Just respond directly to the questions in a simple paragraph format.

Scholarship / Success as an entrepreneur and innovator isn't possible without building a strong, objective network [2]

Abdel, the essay requirement for the networking essay is as follows:
Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

The strongest requirement for this essay is that your network needs to be existing in a professional manner, within your profession at the moment. All you have shown here are academic networks which do not create an impact due to the non-professional related aspects of these networks. What you need to show is your current network in action. Networks gained through physical contact , not social media as there are restrictions regarding the validity of social media contacts in a scholarship application.

I do not see any reason to believe that you have a professional network that will be of use to the Chevening community if you should be awarded a scholarship. You are not offering any information that says; "I have a unique set of networks that can enhance the program". Instead you are saying "I have academic contacts and I have academic organization activities that look like I am creating a network but I really wasn't." Your networking essay is not going to help you get past the screening round.

You need to present the following information in this essay:
1. A description of how you build professional networks
2. An example of this network building skill
3. The actual application of this network within your line of work
4. The importance of this network to Chevening
5. How you see the Chevening community being improved by the addition of this network

None of these required elements are represented in your essay which is why you cannot use any part of this in your next draft. The keyword is professional, within your field of work, not academic or extra curricular. Focus your essay on the correct requirements.

Scholarship / I am a person who is always thinking big - Leadership Essay for Chevening Scholarship [2]

Ratu, this essay is weak in terms of showcasing your leadership styles and influencing examples. Your essay is mainly focused on just enumerating implied leadership participation in various organizations and events. You have not convinced the reviewer at all that you participated in these activities as a leader and influencer in the field. The presentation that you have is too simplistic, almost to a high school going into college level of writing rather than that of a professional leader going into masters studies.

Content wise, this essay can use a tremendous amount of improvement. You need to clarify your presentation by offering actual samples of how you led and influenced in the events you mentioned, If possible, focus the essay on your latest leadership project within your profession. You are not really showing a progression from amateur to professional leader in this essay so you cannot convince the reviewer that you are a future leader and influencer in your home country.

Try to get ideas about how to improve your essay from the other samples here. That way you will also get a better idea as to how you can further improve your presentation in terms of actual skills related to leadership and influencing. There are many leadership and influencing essays available here to help inspire you.

Scholarship / Law School - ready for applying for a Chevening - leadership and influencing skills requirement [2]

Valentina, first up, you need to be conscious of the fact that the Chevening leadership essay requires a maximum of 500 words. Any more than that and your application will be rejected. You need to whittle down your essay to 500 words or less than that. Next, this is not an essay that you can use because it is too scattered in presentation and does not contain any competitive elements that can help highlight your application as having come from a future leader and influencer in Colombia. You need to start from scratch in this instance. You cannot proceed with using this essay.

Now, I can tell you which parts of this essay can be used to draft a more prompt responsive version. These are the following topics:

1. Arbitration Moot Court
2. INALTA

I don't seem to see any professional leadership and influencing reference in your essay. Why is that? I hope you can add a professional one because that will be the one of most interest to the reviewer since that will prove that you are at a level of leadership and influencing in your profession that could very well have an impact on the future professionals of your country.

You cannot use the Debri Free Bonaire project as a leadership and influencing sample because that only involved your family members. The foundation is looking for future national leaders and influencers so your influence over your family doesn't count. Now, there are some applicants this cycle who have a similar background to yours. You may want to read the sample essays here regarding leadership and influencing so that you can learn from their presentation and improve your own accordingly.

Graduate / PTCAS - Personal Statement Essay 2018-2019 on a meaningful experience. Final touches [3]

Dominick, my opinion is that in paragraph 4, you can remove the reference to becoming a physical therapist because it does not fully tie in with the personal growth, attitude, and perception angle of the essay. Those sentences tend to relate more to your motivation for becoming a physical therapist, which is not part of the essay discussion. It would be better saved for a more appropriate common app prompt.

As for the last line of the second paragraph, I did not find it confusing at all. It felt right, being placed in that part of the paragraph. It helps to ease the reviewer into the next paragraph. Creating a fluid written conversation is very important in this essay and you really accomplished that as far as I can tell. You are actually closing the essay on a very strong note that ties the whole narrative together. It actually comes full circle, which is something that most students applying to college struggle to do. Good job!

Scholarship / To study in the United Kingdom - Leadership Essay Chevening to be reviewed [2]

Ellen, your essay is replete with leadership and influencing skill examples. The problem is that you are sharing too many samples in this essay. Now, while all leadership examples count, you should share only the most memorable ones. The ones that brought you honor and prestige somehow. So for this essay, I would like you to remove the paragraphs that relate to the Maaan OG Foundation since that sounds more like a collaborative effort that did not have you at the helm of the project. Built up your participation in the CFA program instead. I want you to focus on building up your influencing style in that part of the essay because you already show strong leadership skills in the previous paragraphs. the weak part is the influencing one and I believe that the way you inspired these students will help to drive that point home. I want you to use only the 2 best parts of this essay. The one that shows off your leadership potential and the one that highlights your influencing skills on a national scale.

Graduate / Loyola Statement of Purpose for Graduate School in Biostatistics [2]

Brad, what you wrote is a personal statement, not a statement of purpose. For the statement of purpose, since you do not have the academic background with which to convince the reviewer of your ability to complete this course, you must rely on a tremendously strong professional background in the field for this presentation. Change the entire essay.

In order to bring attention to the fact that your background in statistics was developed through actual application, discuss how you ended up in this line of work instead. Show your employment history that will strengthen your professional training in the field. Then segue into the biostatics career choice. Why this career? What makes you think that you can succeed in this field even without an academic background in it? The answer? Present your purpose for higher study. That is not really present in your current essay since, like I said, this is a personal essay rather than a purpose essay.

Think about what your career goal is. That will be the reason that you want to pursue this course. Then talk about the potential you have as a student attending this university. Aside from the classes, what other offerings does the university have that can help you become a notable professional in the field? Think beyond the capstone studies. How can the university help you achieve that goal? That is the purpose for having chosen this university in particular.

Scholarship / Describe briefly your long-term career plans for master scholarship ( 100 words) [2]

Ahmed, your desire to study a PhD course is part of your long term academic goal. That is not part of your long term career plan. You should remove that part and replace it with an expanded explanation of your plans to continue your research. What field do you think you want to extend your research into after the first part? How is that relevant to cancer treatment? What are your hopes for that research?

You must focus on creating a clear, understandable, and highly informative explanation of your plans for the delivery of the antineoplastic drugs in nanoparticles. What delivery method do you hope to develop? You can imagine it for now. You can use anything to explain it, even if it sounds outrageous. Tell the reviewer where you hope to develop these treatment programs and why. At least the reviewer will know that you are serious about your plans to develop your career after you graduate.

Undergraduate / Growing up as Indian in America - What was the environment in which you were raised? [4]

Vanshika,. the essay is appropriate for the chosen prompt. It informs the reviewer properly about your background but it seems to run a little long in the 4th paragraph. Could you separate the part about how your counselor asked you about Diwali from your realization? Those are actually two separate discussion topics that you accidentally merged into one paragraph, creating an overly long paragraph which is difficult to follow in terms of discussion content. It would flow a lot smoother if you separate the topics into paragraphs. The last sentence seems a bit out of place. It seems to end too abruptly. You could try adding one or two sentences to that to make it feel less like a hanging conclusion and more like a proper conclusion. Or, you could opt to just take that sentence out entirely since the previous paragraph would end your essay on a stronger note.

Undergraduate / My Passion for Art - Essay about hobby/experience and how it affected you Upitt [2]

Sasha, I think that you are presenting the essay in reverse. Since you have an interest in Chemistry, then you should be discussing how Chemistry is similar to Painting, not art. Art is defined as ; "rt is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts - artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power." Therefore, what you were doing was not art but rather Painting and Drawing. So the title for this essay should be "My Passion for Chemistry Stems From My Love of Painting and Drawing".

Do Chemistry first because that is the point of the essay discussion. Talk about how Chemistry is an art form similar to painting because of the way you need to mix various chemicals in order to discover the beauty of the experiment. By mixing paint colors on the palette, you discover the beauty of a still life or learn how a painting can improve surroundings, much in the same manner that chemistry improves the lives of people through the discovery of useful drugs.

You need to talk about Chemistry first because that is your true passion, which was only spurred by a hobby. Not the other way around.

Essays / Regarding the Referees in Chevening Networking Essay [9]

To get an unconditional offer, you need to have applied for admission to a Chevening accredited university and passed their requirements for an MS student. Before you can apply to the university though, you need to make sure that you have first met their required IELTS score as an international student. Your admission will be based on several factors that I am not privy to at the moment. That is a secret among the university reviewers.

Now I am worried about your application, Did you not prepare the foundation for your application before applying? Do you have your passing IELTS score? Do you know what score will allow you to apply for admission to the university? You need to complete the academic requirements before you can be considered for an unconditional offer from any or all of the 3 universities you are applying to.

If you are talking about the post study career plan, then yes, you should explain the way that the British Council's program fits into the work you are doing via the shared goal or vision explanation. You must have a collaborative project that will help to enhance the UK relationship with your country through the British Council.

Scholarship / Was ready to quit college - Leadership Essay [2]

Shamuna, this is an essay that has the potential to be competitive. While your leadership skills are highly evident in the presentation, there are two instances of influencing that you forgot to develop. You will need to develop the sense of influencing that you had to do in order to accomplish the following:

1. Start the Youth Leadership Conference. Surely you were immediately supported by the relevant parties. How did you convince them that allowing you lead the mounting of this conference was a good thing and why?

2. Aside from letter writing, what else did you have to do in terms of influencing the school board? You do not seem like the person who has a notable family of political or social influence that can simply snap their fingers and the world does what they want. Explain how you really convinced the board. Stop trying to sound like you are a miracle worker, which you definitely are not and the reviewer will see right through that pretense, which will be bad for your application.

The paragraph about Seeds of Hope should be removed from this essay and used as the basis of your networking essay instead. The premise of that paragraph has a strong networking reference that is wasted in this essay.

Writing Feedback / IELTS task 2 correction. The topic is about "cheap products" [5]

Mark, while your argument is good, for this type of essay it is important to use an example that could be perceived to disadvantageous by some, but advantageous to most. That means, for this discussion, the sample you used about the cellphones should have been used for both the advantage and disadvantage.

Remember that when you discuss a comparison essay, the same subject must be used in order to present a stronger opinion regarding the topic. You should have said that while the products from China do have its problems, the fact that it made branded products more affordable to people due to cheap labor and parts made the disadvantage and advantage for most. Right now, your discussion is not balanced because you use 2 different discussions to represent an opinion.

Unfortunately, the opinion is inconsistent in discussion. All task 2 essays are single opinion essays. Single opinion essays are always strongest when focusing on only one discussion topic instead of several. This is a good attempt at writing the Task 2 essay, but it could have been better developed and written. Your thoughts are clear an understandable and you would have gotten at least a passing score for this essay because your TA is acceptable and your C&C would have gotten a good rating along with a decent GRA and LR score as well. All of these would have gotten at least a passing score in consideration.

Writing Feedback / Ielts Writing part 2 - As languages such as English, Spanish and Mandarin become more widely ... [2]

Nguyen, actually, you will not get a very low score for this essay, you will automatically get a failing score for writing under the word count because points will be deducted for each word that is lacking from the maximum. When that is added to the other problems within the scoring brackets, you will not have enough point considerations left over to win you a passing score.

Now, I am unable to decipher whether or not your discussion method is relevant to the prompt because of the missing prompt discussion instruction. Please remember to provide that the next time you post asking for a review. I cannot assess the true quality of your work based on the prompt and scoring requirements without it. As of now, I would like you to focus on increasing your word count to the proper number so that you can at least have a chance of getting a passing score. At the moment, it is useless to review your work because of the word count problem.