Undergraduate / Any edits or suggestions for my Why Cornell essay? Leveraging my technological problem-solving [3]

Aviva, I don't get a sense of how you will actually leverage a Cornell Engineering education from this essay. While the movie that you mentioned is indeed inspiring, what that portion of the essay does not do is tell the reviewer what the connection of that movie is to your aspirations as a Cornell student. In order to answer this question properly, what you have to do is think about the movie. What did you learn from it in terms of technical and analytical abilities? Now, with your limited knowledge of Space Science and Engineering at the moment, what wrong moves do you think could be avoided if the moon landing were to be done today? Consider that President Trump has issued NASA and edict of going back to the moon then from there, on to Mars. Connect your thoughts regarding the movie to that quote from President Trump. Then think of what kind of contribution you want to make to the realization of that dream. Explain how you think it can be done using specific programs, laboratories, and collaborations while you are a student at Cornell. Then think about how these ideas or specific idea can be used as a technological advancement in our world in the future. You will need to do some research in that regard but I firmly believe that, based upon the prompt requirements, this is the right direction to take your essay in. You need a solid idea or technological concept to pursue as a student in the university. Think of this essay as a study plan. Deliver a summarized thesis statement and research development process. That should help you get back on track with your response. Think of the area of technological development that you are interested in and work from that. For example, a watch that can take an electrocardiogram has just been invented. What is to stop you from developing a watch that can deliver a life saving portable watch size CPR machine that can automatically deploy once it senses a full heart attack episode? The portable machine has already been invented, but it is too big to be taken about by people with heart problems. So you may want to think along those lines for your technological example. Or something else. You get the picture.

Undergraduate / BROWN Supplements (why brown, why area of study you indicated before, how community shaped you) [4]

Manal, in the first prompt, you delivered a good response but you left a sentence incomplete at the end because you did not place a period to show the end of the presentation of that line. Since the sentence seems to be open ended, it doesn't make much sense and does not tie in effectively with your first few sentences. Therefore, it will not be a loss to your response if you just delete that ill positioned sentence from your response.

In the second prompt, I have a sense of generic presentation as I read your statement. In order to make this more impressive, you need to revise it in such a manner that allows you think outside of the box. Tell the reviewer what kind of breakthrough you want to make in the field of fuel cells. It doesn't matter how outrageous the idea is (after all all breakthrough innovations came from crazy ideas turned into a reality) because this shows the reviewer that you have a career objective in mind and, you just might fully utilize the university offerings in your field of study so that you can graduate with a workable thesis project. It shows that you are serious about the course you will be taking.

Try to better develop your response to the third prompt. Since you lived in the same place for 17 years, you can create a more interesting essay by discussing what your earliest childhood memory of living in Giza is, what memorable experiences you have had that helped shaped your character, and then close with the reason why you would never tire of living there. You have 100 words allotted, try to use at least 50 of that in the response.

For the last prompt, why don't you identify your ethnicity as part of the Egyptian community instead? That way you can better explain why being part of this ethnic group is important to you and how the beliefs of this ethnicity sets you apart from the others in Egypt. You have to aim to paint an idea of the sort of community that you come from and if this has been a hindrance or an asset to your development as a person and as a student.

Undergraduate / 'I live in a quiet place in Brussels suburbs'; MIT Essay - Describe the world you come from [4]

Alexandra, consider discussing only one topic in this essay as you are not supposed to discuss all of the examples that were provided in the prompt. You have to pick the environment that you feel most influenced the development of your personality or character traits. Among all of these activities that you presented, where you do you think you have spent the most time? Would you say that this is the place where your engagement with the people has helped you to achieve something, develop a particular aspect of your personality, of create an ideology for yourself that has become a beacon of guidance for you in life? These are some of the guide questions that you can use in further developing your new response to the essay as these are actually the data that the reviewer requires you to present in your response. I did not get to know anything beyond the superficial presentation of who you are in this current essay. I would like you to delve deeper into your background and methods of enjoyment for your response. Don't be afraid to let your guard down when you write the essay. Remember, this is your only chance to allow the reviewer to get to know you. So allow him to get to know you. You can select the information you wish to present, just make sure the presentation counts in developing your persona on paper.

Scholarship / Why would you be a great participant in Global UGRAD program- Essay 1 [2]

Saepudin I feel that your essay is too cut and dried in presentation. You are telling the reviewer that you will make a good candidate and rattling off your reasons through your abilities and accolades in school. That is not to say that this is a bad thing. Rather, it becomes a boring presentation of your accomplishments instead of an insight into the motivation, purpose, and personal beliefs that represent who you are. These are the 3 important pieces of information that should be driving your essay. I get a sense of these presentations in the second half of your essay. Try to develop it some more. You will be submitting your transcript of records with your application so the reviewer will be able to decide on your academic qualifications based upon those documents. What he needs to know more about is who you are. Consider introducing your leadership and team member traits as a part of the organization you mentioned. Don't muddle the information about you being a tutor. The idea is to impress the reviewer with your organizational abilities in relation to an actual setting. I believe you short-changed yourself when you did not fully develop that part of the essay. As for your motivation, why you want to become a nuclear scientist? How would your studies in this area help you to improve the state of nuclear science in your country and internationally? I believe that you have the potential to create a fantastic essay based on this draft. I hope you can take the time to revise it.

Scholarship / I wanted to build an empire of Internet Services - Global UGRAD Program needs talented students [5]

Alisherbek, if the UGrad application requires a personal statement essay, then this is the essay that you should use. This is not really an appropriate response to the prompt because you are not displaying any talents, skills, academic excellence, team experience, leadership abilities, and anything similar that would help to insinuate that you have some notable achievements that would help to enhance the talent pool of the UGrad semester scholars. Please write a totally new essay that provides information about your motivation for becoming a UGrad scholar, what you hope to learn academically, socially, and culturally during your time in the U.S., what you hope to bring to the program to help make the semester interesting and educational in terms of you representing your country to your classmates and fellow scholars, and how you see this experience changing your life once you go back home. You have not properly represented any of these expected discussion points in your current essay which is why you cannot use any portion of this for your application.

Writing Feedback / The differences between Islip town centre now and as it is planned to develop. [5]

Giang, one of the requirements for the review of the task 1 essay at this forum is that you have to upload the image along with your essay for review. The image will be the basis of our analysis of your written work and whether or not you appropriately represented all of the prompt instructions. Without the image, I cannot make a detailed review of your presentation. I hope you remember to upload the image the next time you post a Task 1 essay for review. For now, I will be giving you a generalized review of your essay.

Based on the 190 word count, you obviously wrote more than enough words to meet the minimum 150 word requirement. However, that is not to say that you will score highly just because you wrote almost 200 words. Rather, the development of your word presentation shows that you need to focus on your sentence structure and development so that you will not miss out on key connecting words that help to create the meaning of your sentence. For example:

Next to houses on the left situated a large park should instead be;

The houses on the left are located near a large park.

or

A large park is situated on the left of the houses.

Proper descriptions using appropriate connecting words and descriptive words help the reader to create a mental visualization of the area you are describing and thus, helps to accurately move your analysis forward in its presentation.

Undergraduate / What aspects of Northwestern appeal most to you? My Why Northwestern? essay sounds so generic [5]

lees, the truth of the matter is that the applicants tend to really say the same things in their application. Which is why you have to make sure that your presentation will immediately catch the eye of the reviewer and offer up information that he may consider to be unique in approach. Remember, this is a written interview and there will not be a formal interview so you need to make sure that your response is not only on the mark, but interesting in presentation. With that said, since you are not being asked as to when and how you first learned about Northwestern, your opening statement become superfluous. It is important that you give a direct response to the prompt question from the very first sentence that you write. By getting to the point sooner, you do not waste the reviewers time. If you don't get your point across within the first 2 sentences, he is most likely to set aside your application. Don't leave the actual response for the second paragraph. A direct response always starts in the first paragraph. In my opinion, once you cast aside the unneeded current first paragraph, there is no editing left to do with this essay. The essay is totally responsive and unique in presentation from the second paragraph onwards.

Scholarship / Global Ugrad Essay 2 - I permanently erase the word "Introvert" from my success path [4]

Saepudin, since you are not a native speaker of English, you should limit your essay so that you can present relevant information using as little words as possible in an understandable manner. The essay is not asking you for a series of examples that exemplify your problem solving skills. Rather, the reviewer is interested in reading only one, fully developed, well explained, and appropriately worded example of this skill. Personally, I feel that your essay should focus more on how you resolved the problem of your speech offending the government officials. That certainly falls under the criteria of challenge and controversy as per your narration of the story. However, I find that the way you tried to resolve the issue, by asking your friends to review your speech and tell you if it was offensive, was one sided in representation. The fact that you took the opinion of your friends about your speech not being offensive, without weighing the consideration of the side of your teachers and the government representatives tells me that you were looking for people to just agree with you because you really did not want to be wrong in the first place. That is why you chose not to resign. By the way, you should really explain what the reasons for your resignation were. This will help to illustrate how you handled the controversy. Why did you think a resignation was in order? What made you think (at first), that resigning would have solved the controversy? What did you explain to the government representatives in your next speech? Did this help to resolve the issue with them? You did not really tell us the whole story when the end result of your actions were important to the narrative about your ability to handle a stress filles situation. If you focus on just the government incident, I do not doubt that you will create a more interesting and responsive essay.

Scholarship / I am an imperfect person that is striking for changes and improvements. UGRAD essay. [4]

Jane, just as I tell the applicants to this program not to brag and be too overconfident in their presentation, I also tell them not to downplay their skills to the point where you offer a self deprecating attitude. If you know you do not qualify and you are not the best candidate, then why are you wasting your time and the time of the reviewer by applying to a program you know you cannot succeed in? Are you kidding? Do you really think that by saying negative things about yourself, the reviewer will give you the scholarship? On the contrary, right after reading the first sentence, he is going to trash this essay and place you in the reject pile. If you do not believe in yourself, then who do you expect to believe in you? Other people will not believe in you because they don't you. That is what the reviewer will be saying when he rejects your application. Why don't you just focus on what you are good at instead as reflected in the second half of the essay. Focus on your being a participant in the AIESEC Cambodia chapter and how you promoted cultural relations, friendship, and an understanding of various situations, cultures, and traditions during that time? That information could help enlighten the reviewer about what you have to offer the program before you speak of what you expect to gain from the program.

Graduate / Purpose statement for data science- past achievement, current and future plans. [3]

Devanik, this is not a statement of purpose that can help you to impress the reviewer. In fact, he will find this essay quite laughable in content because you have written it in such a casual manner that the discussions you present do not even reflect an upstanding professional with 2 years worth of notable experience. You have taken the approach of a personal statement to the essay, that is where the problem lies. That said, please don't be sore at me for telling you that you will need to write a totally new statement of purpose for your application. There are a set of specific information that you need to focus on because these are the only information that are important for the reviewer to consider in relation to your application. The following should be represented in a formal manner within your new essay:

1. A short summary of your college education that focuses on your accomplishments as a student and the thesis project that you created (if related to your profession and masters course).

2. A clear picture of how you used your college education within your workplace and how far this education has taken you.

3. Be clear about the question that you are seeking a response to. This question should be related to the motivation letter that you wrote. I see that you mentioned seeking answers in the essay, but what are you seeking answers to? The information you gave about it is too generalized. Refer to the problems that you have encountered in the workplace and your lack of ability to properly deal with or address the issues.

4. When you speak of your profession over the past 2 years, do not bore the reviewer with rank and file details of your job. If you were not recognized for something that you did, then it is not worth mentioning. The only profession related information of value in your essay are those that refer to any accomplishments that led to your recognition by the bosses and resulted in your promotion. That proves you are good at your job and that you have the potential to go far in the field. Leave the standard duty descriptions out of the essay. That will just lengthen the essay unnecessarily.

5. Discuss your 5 year plan in terms of short and long term goals. The short term goals should be mentioned as the first 6 months to one year of career accomplishments that you hope to have under your belt by that time. The long term goals refer to the next 4 years.

6. Explain how you hope to have this university in particular help you achieve these goals. Refer to the programs they offer their students in terms of notable training and internships or similar opportunities in relation to the next phase of your career objectives.

Represent your responses in a direct manner, sound professional and stick to the list. Don't wander off into storytelling mode as you often do in this current version of the essay. Remember, you need to make sure you deliver only the salient information because the reviewer doesn't have the time to weed out the information he needs in your essay. It has to be direct and easy for him to scan for in the paragraphs. Keep it short but informative by focusing on specific areas of consideration alone.

Scholarship / Global UGRAD - Why you? I have a passion [3]

Arie, your essay has the potential to become a very interesting and memorable essay if you focus your response as to why you would make for a good UGrad participant on 2 key information from this draft version. The first is the introduction of your interest in Microbiology. Please expand on how your interest in this course and the lessons you have learned seem to be limited in your country as the reason as to why you are pursuing a semester abroad. Replace the current information you have in reference to this particular discussion. Instead, explain that you wish to participate in a transfer of knowledge by returning to your country armed by the lessons you learned in the USA for information dissemination among your peers in the field. Second, highlight your ability to work with a team. I suggest that you specifically use the following portion of your current essay:

a person who is capable to work in a team

The team work aspect is a very important part of your presentation because, as a UGrad scholar, you will be working with other program participants and peers at your university. By proving that you are an excellent team member and team leader by sharing relevant information that represents these aspects, you will be able to imply additional important reasons as to why you will make for a great UGrad participant.

Graduate / Short Term & Long Term Goals and Skill sets to achieve your target_Cambridge Essay [2]

Abhishek, it appears that you do not understand the prompt requirements. There are only 2 questions to be responded to in this essay and you did not come anywhere near properly delivering a response. You decided to write a personal statement mixed with a little motivation letter in there rather than delivering the required response to the prompts. Let me see if I can get you started on a proper response below. I'll list the prompt first then I will try to pick out something from what you have written which you might be able to develop into a proper response. Remember, this essay should be no more than a 5 paragraph essay with 10 sentences each at the most so as not to bore the reviewer with too much irrelevant detail. Here we go!

1. What are your short term and long term career objectives and what skills/characteristics do you already have that will help you achieve them?
Short term goals - I see myself working as an operation and strategy manager
Long term goals - In the long term I see myself expanding my role to a global level ...To work as a operation and strategy manager...

Skills - Problem solving has become a ...
Character - .I am very flexible and adjusting in terms of working at different locations...action oriented person...

2. What actions will you take before and during the MBA to contribute to your career outcome?
Before - working on various aspects of my job to hone my capabilities...
After - I am preparing to become a certified project manager

These should be enough clues and guidelines to get you through the development of another draft essay in response to the specific elements pointed out in the numerical and bullet forms above.

Undergraduate / What aspect inspired the most and when did you hear about Vassar? [3]

Sarah, the motivation part is not clear. Simply attending these activities at the university grounds because you live close by is not motivation enough. You speak of continuing a tradition as part of the motivation factor but you never really detailed what this "family" tradition is or was that you feel so compelled to continue by attending the university. Since this motivation is part of the response to when you heard about Vassar, you should complete that presentation. One way of completing the presentation is by speaking of your earliest memory of Vassar, what activity you attended with your family, how you were in awe of it, and basically, how Vassar seemed so magical to you at the time you first stepped foot on the grounds. From there, develop the continuity of the activities that you and your family participated in at the University. These could fulfill the explanation of "tradition" that you speak of which you are excited to continue as a student there.

The rest of your essay is right on the mark and delivers on all aspects as to how you are inspired to attend Vassar due to it unique academic opportunities and excellence. I don't see anything worth changing in those sections because you were able to successfully explain yourself and your interests. You just have to focus on fixing the portion I mentioned in order to perfect your presentation.

Undergraduate / Camp Counselor: Princeton Summers Supplement [4]

Wenbo, I am going to be very honest with you about your response to this prompt. It is not impressive, it is not memorable, and all it does is provide a response that could have come from any camp counselor. There is nothing that stands out about your activities at the camp over the past 2 years. As a camp counselor, you have not shown anything from the previous time frame that showcases an extraordinary experience for you as a counselor at the camp. As the reviewer reads this essay, he will look for instances where you showed an extraordinary prowess, trait, or character that tells him something unique about you as a person that goes beyond the basic information and prompt discussions. You need to make the essay pop somehow even with the word limitation. Wasn't there something extraordinary that you learned at the camp over the past 2 years that you can present? Didn't you accomplish something of note on your own while performing your duties as camp counselor? Impress the reviewer by showing him a sense of maturity and responsibility for the campers that you were in charge of. The trick to responding to this prompt is to show how you have grown as a person over the past 2 years. This is the prompt that could quite possibly, convince the reviewer that you are ready to take charge of your life and make adult decisions as an independent college student in their community.

Undergraduate / Cornell College of Arts & Sciences Supplement: biology + computer science + why Arts & Sciences [3]

Wenbo, Before you can discuss your passion for Biology, you must first discuss how your passion for science developed. So you have to discuss 3 instead of 2 topics here. Start with Science, move on to Biology, then close with Computer Science. For the science part, discuss how your interest was piqued but not as a child because reviewers will immediately dismiss this as you trying to make an impression, which will not work because they do not believe that children can develop such complex interests. You have to start with say, Introduction to Natural Sciences when you came into high school. From that interest in that topic, you can transition into biology, then into CS. I like the way that you discuss CS in this essay but it is lacking something. What is lacking is a comment from you about how 3 interests combine into one. What I mean is, how does science tie in with Biology then CS? The answer lies in DNA channels. You can combine all 3 interests by focusing your explanation on how these CS has brought Science and Biology to areas previously unknown, little known, or unexplored such as the human DNA mapping and cancer cell detection facilities. If you can make this connection clear, then your essay response will be strong and impressive.

Undergraduate / DANCE: Princeton Extracurricular Activity [2]

Sarah, you left an open ended topic in the essay. I assume that this is an essay about expanding on an extracurricular activity or work experience right? You are combining the two answers in one essay. I suggest that you don't do that. Either use the teaching part for the work experience or use the extra curricular activity part on a solo basis. That is so that you can fully utilize the word count for the statement.

If you choose to go with the extra curricular activity, you should add information about why you said that ballet as an activity was part of an important time in your life. What important time was this and how does it relate to the extracurricular activity and your decision to never change activities?

If you want to discuss this as part of a work experience as a ballet teacher, expand the discussion to showcase your love for the dance, a motivation to inspire the next generation of ballerinas, and a period of or ongoing personal growth that you have achieved up to the present time due to your interaction with your students and seeing their succeed in completing the complicate ballet steps.

Using one or the other topic for the discussion alone gives you the opportunity to really get into the informational side of your response so that the reviewer can move on to the next essay on his list with a clear idea of what makes your response special and considerable in terms of your application.

Undergraduate / COLLOQUIAL: What is your favorite word and why? UVa (300 words) [2]

Sarah, you became too focused on explaining the meaning of the word and its application various contexts rather than using the word to help describe who you are. Why do you consider yourself colloquial? How has this word come to affect your life? When did you first become conscious of the fact that you were the embodiment of the meaning of the term? The word you choose for this essay needs to be able to explain the "who" behind your "person". There is no sense of that in this essay. You just seem to have chosen a word, simply because you had to choose a word. Not because the word is something that is truly relevant to your personality type or character trait. That is why I do not believe that this response and the word that you chose to represent you is accurate nor interesting enough. There is a lack of personal connection between the word and who you are, which is what the reviewer wants to know about through the simple description of your person in one word.

Scholarship / ESSAY FOR SCHOLARSHIP in Japan, Toyo University (SELF-INTRODUCTION) [5]

Thien, there is a concept behind these self introduction essays that need to be realized in your presentation. Now, that is not to say that you did not do a good job with this essay. It is actually pretty good but is not as informative as it should be. The parts that you have to keep are the description of your family life, without the "there was a girl" representation. Simply present the information as a straightforward narrative. The reviewer doesn't have the time to read poetic words or fairytale like depictions of life. He needs to get your written interview over sooner rather than later because of the number of applications he has to read in a day. Reviewers all appreciate direct information presentations and it helps them to remember your application more than the others when you write stand out information. Here are some guide questions that can help you enhance your personal introduction:

1. When did you first learn about Toyo University?
2. What is the motivation behind your application? What made you choose this university over the others.
3. Since you want to major in English, why do you think you can learn about this better at Toyo rather than at an American University where the classes are taught in English?

4. Why do you think that studying in Japan will be an advantage to you academic and social-wise?

These 4 questions should help to give your essay more weight in terms of information for the reviewer to take note of.

Scholarship / UGRAD - My dreams and passions of becoming a successful Interpreter may be fullfiled [8]

Parviz, this essay is too self centered and focused on what you can get, take, and improve for yourself in terms of your participation in the UGrad program. This selfish stance is what can tank your application because you are not revealing yourself to be an open person who is willing to undergo an intellectual and cultural exchange with the participants of the program. Your razor sharp focus on America alone as the anchor for your dreams and future goals does not leave much room for you to explain how the participation of others and your subsequent interaction with them will help you to become a well rounded interpreter and allow you to change your point of view about other countries and vice versa.

If you review your presentation with a critical eye, as I have to do as a contributor, the essence of what you are portraying here is a dictatorial personality that will tell others what to do, show others how to improve, defy anyone who tells you can't, and insist on your personal stance at all times. That is not really exemplary UGrad material. More importantly, you refer directly to why you will be a good candidate for the program rather than showing instances of interactive, formal and informal instances wherein you showed how you get along with other people in a situation that combines team work with leadership. These are the qualities that will prevent the one sided discussion that your essay currently has.

Remember, this is not a typical scholarship. This is an international scholarship to a university in a country that is known for its ability to be diplomatic, knows how to find a middle ground in times of discord with other nations, and practices responsible leadership in volatile instances through the use of discussion, agreements, and coalitions. These are the same qualities that they look for in their program participants.

Graduate / Personal statement for MSc in Computer Science, plans for the future [3]

Mubarak, you have accidentally included information that should be in your statement of purpose in this motivational / personal letter. In this instance, that is actually a good thing because you will have a starting point for your revised and more focused motivational letter. You don't really have to be extensive in presentation since this is a letter and not a statement so using a total of 5 paragraphs or less will be sufficient. As far as I can tell, the following are the sections that can help you write a new motivational letter:

1. Over the past few decades technology...I intend to pursue an MSc in order to reach that goal.
2. The all too short 3-year undergraduate program ...For this, MSc in Computer Science would be of prime importance.
3. I want to focus on Knowledge Discovery in Databases and Data mining (KDD/DM), ...motivation behind my present application.

In addition to this information, you should include information about what motivated you to apply at this particular university. It doesn't need to be delved into deeply, but an insinuation as to the reasons you chose it should be made as the in-depth reason should be presented in the SOP. If you revise the essay in this manner, then the motivation letter should fall into place in the next draft.

Scholarship / My goal is to make Nigeria that great nation it is. This master program will help me with this. [3]

Smart, there is a difference between a motivation and a purpose. There is actually an essay for the masters course known as the statement of purpose, that is where the purpose, as you have it stated here, is presented. In a motivation letter. You must explain the circumstances behind your desire to attend this particular course at this university. This is normally related to a pressing issue either in the workplace or, in your case, in your country that only and advanced degree in Economics can address. I believe that you need to write a new letter that best represents the motivation aspect of the essay. From what I gathered in this letter, you can use the following to address the motivation aspect in the revised version:

1. I can help change the Nigeria ... such situation.
2. I saw the consequences ... development programmes.
3. My goal is to create ... national development.
4. I trust that pursuing ... public sector.

The 4 sections that I indicated above are the most useful portions of this essay that you can use as the foundation of your next draft. These selections are part of the information that create informative motivational letters.

Undergraduate / Why do you choose Boston University - BU prompt; strong connection and bond with this school [2]

Marta, you have written a lot of generic information in this response that does not tell the reviewer that you actually know the reason why you chose to apply to Boston University. You are not properly representing what the reviewer will be looking for, which is a familiarity with the course curriculum, learning opportunities, and similarities between your learning objectives and the university mission and vision or teaching objectives. You got one portion of the essay right, the mention of the Society of Women Engineers. That is an organization at the university that ties in with your course major. However, the reasons beyond the ordinary descriptions easily found using a web search or on the website of the university will not make your decision to study at BU stand out. Think about your special academic and social interests that can be represented by various organizations, activities, or classes at the university. You need to do some research either through related student blogs, university YT videos, or other sources that will help you develop a response that will best suit and respond to your academic and social needs while you are a student at BU.

Undergraduate / Tell us what influenced you to select your major - Emerson College [3]

Ellie, you can safely remove the parts of this essay that refer to the reason that you chose to attend Musical Theatre at Emerson College. That is not being required of you to represent in your response. Instead, you need to use the space to further illuminate the personal motivating factor that led to your decision to study musical theatre. Answer these additional guide questions in order to help add relevant information to your response. Yes, you might need to revise the content of the essay a little bit in the process.

1. Why is it important to you that you learn how to captivate people with your musical theatre abilities? Briefly discuss an epiphany that you had in relation to this question.

2. What musical in particular would you say influenced your love for theatre that could translate into one of the reasons that you selected your major? How did you feel while watching this performance? Is this the feeling that you want to share with the other theatergoers?

3. You mentioned wanting to become an impactful story teller, why is that? How does that relate to your choice of majors? Why not filmmaking?

These guide questions should help you create a more focused and informative response to the prompt. I can sense that you are holding back on the information for some reason. You need to be accurate and informative. The written interview needs to be written in a manner that shows how mature you are in terms of making life decisions and that you are firm in your choice of majors. The foundation for your choice needs to be based on solid ground instead of mere hypothetical situations and implied references as reflected in your current response.

Undergraduate / Write the story of your life until now, what would you title it and why - Emerson Essay [4]

Ellie, you have very good poetic presentation of your life here. The problem, is that it does not really tell the reviewer anything at all about your background. You are afraid to actually tell the story of your life from the time you developed memories as a child to the point in time that you are in now. This is not an essay that will work as a response to the prompt. It fails to inform the reviewer and as such, the reviewer will be left bewildered by this presentation. This is one time that being too creative does not work. You need to be straightforward in your presentation. Don't be poetic. You can either use a straightforward summarized narrative or a creative presentation that uses highlights from your life in its tale. If you choose to go creative, you can use actual dialogue and important events in your life to hold the interest of the reviewer because you will actually be informing him of important times in your life, without having him scratch his head trying to figure out what you are trying to tell him. You have to choose between the two options because this format just won't help to improve your chances of admission to Emerson.

Undergraduate / Purdue supplement essay - how I plan to take advantage of Purdue's opportunities & programs [3]

Sebastian you don't have to tell the reviewer that you have been interested in aviation since you were little. After all, you are enrolling in that major so the interest is already evident. What you can do is replace that sentence with a reference to some other club or organization that may or may not be related to your major as part of the extra curricular activities that you hope to engage in during your time as a student. It is really a waste of word count to discuss networking in this statement. You can omit that and replace it with a subject or research opportunity that you might be able to pursue using one of the relevant laboratories at Purdue or an internship program that you hope to participate in. The idea, is to make sure that the reviewer understands that you are familiar with the demands of the course, its accompanying challenges, and that you have a plan to overcome these obstacles if necessary through the use of the university facilities and other opportunities offered.

Scholarship / How would you describe your personal leadership style? [3]

Bassel, the first question for this essay is " How would you describe your personal leadership style?". I read your essay multiple times trying to find out what your leadership style might be but you really failed to indicate the type of leadership that you use. I guess you have to do some research regarding the leadership descriptions so that you can properly respond to prompt. There are at least 12 leadership styles that you can choose from over here: wisetoast./12-different-types-of-leadership-styles/ Pick the one that suits you the most and use that to respond to the first question.

Now, question number 2 is all about " What values do you consider the most important when leading others? " Don't respond to this question by detailing examples of your leadership situations. You need to think specifically of the terms / words that describe the importance of leadership in your opinion and then explain why you believe that a leader needs to embody these traits. That way you can describe how you lead these groups instead of having to detail each event which might end up boring the reviewer.

The final inquiry in this written interview is all about " How do you inspire and influence others to get behind your vision? " It is important that you pick only one leadership situation that best embodies how you get your team to successfully accomplish tasks or overcome obstacles to the group success. Please avoid using slang and disrespectful English terms such as "nerds" and "lazy students". You can call them "uninterested students" (for lazy students) and "overachievers" for nerds. Feel free to use some other term that is not insulting to the person or the reader when you revise the essay. Just make sure you use a respectable term at all times.

Undergraduate / UBC Application...Overcoming homelessness - what it taught me? [2]

N, you were a minor in the shelter system? This is an interesting response to the prompt. The only problem is that you are lacking the backstory that explains how you ended up in the shelter system in the first place. In order to fully understand the relevance, importance, and achievement that overcoming this obstacle gave you, the reviewer needs to first understand why it happened. Since you have 200 words, maybe you can give a summarized form of the reason as the first sentence of the response. The date isn't really as important as the reason so you can skip the date presentation. if you can explain the reason this happened, how you recovered will become more admirable and memorable on the part of the reviewer. This has the potential to become a stand out essay, it just needs a little tweaking so that it can have a stronger foundation to stand on in the presentation.

Undergraduate / DISCOVERING NEW PATHS. CURIOSITY MAKES ME A GREAT PARTICIPANT [3]

Phong, the UGrad candidate essay needs to be balanced between your personal interest in the program and your ability to help enhance the participation experience of your group during the semester. It would be great for your essay if you can balance your curiosity about the US/USA/America (whichever of the 3 are acceptable) with something that you know people from America might be curious about with regards to Vietnam. How might you combine the two curiosities to help create a diverse and unique experience during the semester not only for yourself, but for the other participants as well? So aside from your personal and academic objectives, you can improve the essay further by presenting a social objective that promotes cross cultural understanding and international relationship between Vietnam and the United States through the relationships you can build with the participants and your schoolmates. Go beyond curiosity to represent some other aspects of your personality that might make you a great participant. It won't be difficult to do once you focus on the main objective of the UGrad program in your response.

Undergraduate / An exceptionally mathematically able student who is applying University of Waterloo [2]

Brittany, in the first section, you should not waste the space repeating information that can be seen in the documents that you have submitted with your application. Rather, you should be using that section to highlight any accomplishments that you have, both academic and non-academic, that can push your application to the top of the pile. If you have any awards, honors, or recognition that you were not able to list in your CV or you feel you need to call the attention of the reviewer to, then do so in this section. That is what this section is for. Your current response is not interesting and not exceptionally informative. The information is such that the reviewer could confuse your response with another student's who wrote a similar response to that particular instruction.

An internship at an accounting firm for a nameless American company where you did not accomplish anything of note other than backroom work is not going to make the necessary impression on the reviewer. What you described is the work of an office assistant or a gopher. Therefore, you were not an integral part of the office. Which means, you did not make any notable contributions to the company during your internship. When you participate in an internship but fail to leave a mark at the office that could relate t say, a potential job offer to become a regular employee once you complete your college course or a reserved slot in their internship program for college students, then you have not done anything remarkable at the company. Try to figure out something that will impress the reviewer and remove your application from the generic pile.

The response you wrote for the third instruction is inappropriate. There is nothing about the academic, medical, or personal circumstance that would explain the type of grades that you are submitting to the university for review. You need to forget about the past 2 years and focus on the grades in your transcript. Was it high overall? If no, then which subjects did you struggle with? What was your final GPA in that class? Reflect on the reasons why this became your grade and explain it. If you have a medical case that affected your grades, or an inability to pay for fees, you need to represent that previous situation in this section with an explanation on how you plan on preventing a repeat of that situation while you attend Waterloo.

Letters / Recommendation letter for Chevening program (engineering and urban) [3]

Naseer, you failed to introduce the recommender within the body of the letter. That should be part of the opening statement. He must first introduce himself, his position, and the organization that you both work for. Only after he introduces himself should he indicate that he is recommending you for the program based upon the length of time that he has observed you as a worker in the organization. I don't really find this to be a strong letter of recommendation because it contains run of the mill information. There is nothing exceptional about your review of your work (I know you wrote this and you still could not find anything exemplary to say about yourself to make your recommendation stand out). Your information is just basic and could apply to any applicant. A recommender should be able to highlight something exceptional about you as a worker under his supervision. Why does he think you will make for an exceptional candidate? Was there a difficult problem that you resolved? Did you gain the attention of the other bosses that helped to elevate your status as a worker? What is it about your work skills, traits, and abilities that might set you apart from the other applicants? There is no sense of that in this essay and since this is for Chevening, you need to make sure that your information stands out and can compete with the other recommendation letters that will be submitted.

Graduate / MIS Academic Statement from someone with professional experience - but no research experience [2]

Daniluk, your opening statement doesn't make sense. If you are using that as an example of the critical problems facing the world of information then you did a very bad job at it. The reference to one social media survey is not indicative of the problems of a growing internet population. Now, if you had phrased that in relation to "fake news" instead, in a direct manner, then you would have made a better impact on the reviewer. Using the words of someone else also does not help you respond to the first question because, first of all, it comes in the middle of the essay and not at the start as the outline has it presented and Danah Boyd's words are her words based upon her impression of what the critical problems facing the field of electronic information are. So it doesn't count. The reviewer wants to know your take on the matter. What is your opinion about the problems and why do you consider it a problem?

You only responded to the first two questions in the prompt listing. A response that is focused on the first question and second question alone will not tell the reviewer anything else about you in relation to the required information for this interview. Therefore, he will not consider your application good enough to consider. It will be in your best interests to make sure that you outline the questions, list your responses, then expand the discussion per topic requirement. You obviously did not outline your responses otherwise you would have realized that you wrote an extremely long but unresponsive essay. The revised essay needs to include information regarding the remaining topics which are:

What is your understanding of the School of Information (UMSI)?
How will an education help you reach your aspirations?
What would you contribute to the community and to the field as a whole?

Undergraduate / Leadership style for Global UGRAD can be applied in different programs [5]

fajrin, your opening paragraph is totally unnecessary as it is your vision of leadership and what a leader should be like that you are describing. You don't need to do that because you are merely paraphrasing the quote from John Quincy Adams. Instead, you should kick off the essay to a strong start by using the second paragraph as your opening statement instead. You should combine the line from your first paragraph that starts with "I personally believe that a leader..." as the first half of the new opening paragraph that will tie in directly with your second paragraph, thus creating a new opening presentation for your essay.

Now, you claim that your leadership style is collaborative. However, in the discussion of the last paragraph, you came across as a dictatorial leader instead. There was a lack of presentation regarding your collaborative approach to leadership in that section. So it ran counter to everything that you said at the start. Additionally, since you are still awaiting the results of this particular activity, you cannot say that your leadership style, in this instance, has led to something successful.

You must present a successful leadership style as an example in order to convince the reviewer that you do have a collaborative leadership style and that your leadership style is effective when it comes to leading your group towards success. Think of the quote that the prompt gave you and try to think of a time when your leadership abilities embodied the quote. Use that as your response to the question "How do you inspire and influence others to get behind your vision". Your current response to this question is sorely lacking in the required representative answer.

Writing Feedback / IELTS essay; escalating crime rate in many places, especially in metropolitan areas [2]

Le, your opening paragraph is good but is hindered by your lack of proper sentence development. You have two run-on sentences, as indicated by your constant use of a comma to separate your discussion ideas, when you should have used periods at the end of every discussion topic change in order to meet the minimum 3 sentence requirement. Additionally, you are supposed to present a 5 paragraph essay for the Task 2 discussion. These are the reasons why, even though you present some pretty good ideas in this essay, you will most likely not get an impressive passing score in an actual setting.

Your opening paragraph is exaggerated. It is important for you to understand that the TA section of the scores are based upon the method by which you present your opening paraphrase. Therefore, your representation of the original discussion must be accurate and without additional information that is not included in the original prompt. In this instance, you said that the problem is a "headache proving" one. That is never implied in the original prompt and therefore, should not be present in your paraphrase. You also indicated that this problem is causing a "controversy" when what is presented in the essay is a simple discussion and not a controversial presentation. Based upon these two exaggerations, you can bet that you will lose major points in the prompt paraphrase section. Accuracy is important because this indicates that you totally understood the original presentation and that you are capable of accurately restating the facts as delivered to you in order to avoid confusion or exaggeration.

Now, you have 3 body paragraphs with which to present your discussion of facts. Each paragraph is allotted only one topic for presentation in a maximum of 5 paragraphs. This is so that you can fully explain your reasons in a manner that will not confuse the reader or leave the presentation of your ideas under developed. So, instead of trying to tackle 2 topics in one paragraph like you did now, you should have used 2 paragraphs for each topic and then used the 3 paragraph to present a solution that could collectively be applied to both situations as you stated them. Deterrent devices would have been the way to go instead of adding the DNA explanation which was not really effective in presentation and lessened the impact of your deterrent discussion as well.

Your concluding paragraph is nothing but a long run-on sentence again. That means, you failed to properly represent the summarized discussion points of your essay. For every error that you made in your presentation and discussion development, you have lost major points in the overall scoring for the essay. It would be a stretch for this essay to gain an acceptable passing score based on the mistakes you made within the 4 criteria for scoring.

Undergraduate / Fashion design has always intrigued me. Application essay. [3]

@feyisope52 I am not exactly sure what the point of this essay is supposed to be due to the lack of proper common app prop representation. I can't accurately review an essay if I do not know what the interview question you are responding to is about. Sadly, I can only respond to this thread once (unless you make it URGENT) so I hope that my review can still be of help to you even though I do not know what the question you are responding to is.

If you are not entering fashion school for financial gain, then you should explain further about this personal need to attend fashion school. You are right that it doesn't make any sense to spend 2 years of your life attending school when it is not meant to help you advance your career or improve your financial capacity to earn. The reference to your paternal grandfather is not well developed as he is not a direct influence on your love for fashion design. It should not be included in the essay because of this problem. If you cannot connect him as a physical rather than spiritual inspiration, then it won't make any difference in your essay. There is a lack of current connection between your interest and his own skills in the field.

Truth be told, the essay doesn't make much sense to the reader. Your paragraphs are jumping around in relation to your narrative. It is almost as if you aren't sure about what you want to write about. If I knew what the prompt you were responding to was, I would have a better idea as to how to advice you regarding the direction that this response statement should be taking. As of now, I am at a loss as to how to help you further beyond the most obvious problems that I have observed in your work. I hope that my suggestions can still help you revise your narrative somehow.

Should you decide to post the prompt for this essay and you want to get further advice from me, please make sure to make the thread URGENT so that I can come back to help you out.

Graduate / Statement of Purpose - MPS Communication Design - Parsons School of Design [2]

Tseng, you need to summarize your background to only the pertinent information. This whole essay focused on your background alone and irrelevant community activities. There is no focus on a tentative study plan or explanation of how you intend to focus on improving the field of your choice. Actually, of the 6 explanations you are supposed to give in this written interview, you only responded to the first one. Which means that this is not an interview that the reviewer will consider informative nor give any weight to because the response that you wrote shows that you are not qualified to attend the program. I seriously want to encourage you to write a new essay. This time, I would like you to consider outlining your response first. List down the required information and then outline your response to each in draft form. Once you are absolutely sure that you have given a relevant response to each of the 6 required information, then you can proceed with expanding your explanation in a narrative form which will then comprise you proper written interview response.

Undergraduate / Coalition main essay "To be free is what I've always wanted." [2]

Kailin, I don't think that you should be relating this essay to freedom because the topic and its supporting narrative is all about the development of your sense of self-discipline. It is not about freedom because there was no fight for freedom involved. Rather, it was a fight for self-control and discipline in the face of a hostile situation. The jade pendant signified a reminder of your father's confidence in you and that you would learn how to control your temper, eventually. That pendant signified a character building moment in your life the minute you associated it with helping you control your temper in a situation where you would normally have flown off the handle. This is a very good response to the prompt for the University of Washington. You just have to revise the portions that refer to freedom because, as I explained earlier, this essay deals more with your original character and what events took place that helped to shape the effective improvement or change in your character. Refer to self-discipline and self-control rather than freedom in specific and evident parts of this version of the essay.

Scholarship / Global UGRAD ESSAY; being open-minded towards everyone's way of life [2]

Hitesh , the quotation you used to kick off the essay is nothing more than a word filler. It is totally unnecessary and does not add any value to the paragraph below it where you actually explained the quote and its relevance in your own words. However, Since you did not create a connection or transition sentence to incorporate the quote it became a sore thumb sticking out without a real anchor within the actual essay. It would be best if you don't use the quote at all. You don't need the word filler since your essay is tremendously interesting and engaging without it. In fact, presenting 477 words or less (the minimum is 400), would be much appreciated by the reviewer because he can quickly review and analyze your essay for quality, relevance, and stand out points. Your concluding sentence is weak. I suggest that you just bring that up as the final sentence of the current 6th paragraph. You can also merge the first and second paragraphs for a more complete and relevant presentation in that paragraph. One final observation, in the part where you promise to bring stories about Indian mythology to the table, drop the mythology reference and just keep the part about the strong sense of cultural awareness. That is more important for the reviewer to know rather than the idea that you want to be a story teller who will regale the participants with stories about your mythology. That is making an assumption that the people in the group will be interested in that when there is no assurance of such. The same goes for the reference to "future world leaders". You are talking too much in a hyperbolic sense and that creates a sense of an unrealistic expectation of what the program can deliver to you. Keep it simple and just discuss realistic references to your potential for consideration as a candidate.

Undergraduate / "My Passion for Environmental Protection" - Why NYU Essay [2]

Erica, this is an interesting interview essay response to the very simple question of why you chose to apply to NYU. The only problem that I have with this essay is the second paragraph. Since this is your interview, your voice needs to be heard. Your opinion of yourself is more important to the reviewer than what your parents think of you and your advocacy, whether or not they are in support of it. I would rather you remove the reference to China and shorten the reference to the environmental problem in China. Instead, connect a short description of the environmental problem with the global internships that you could attend as a student of NYU and other environmental societies, clubs, organizations, and classes that can help you pursue a heightened sense of being an environmentalist. By the way, you may want to consider balancing the essay by also adding some information as to why you chose NYU in the sense of developing your social skills, creating a college network of friends with the same, similar, or differing interests, or something that shows how you plan to have fun at NYU. After all, you aren't expected to spend all your time studying. Try to explain how you also plan to spend your free time or time between classes enjoying what NYU has to offer in terms of extra curricular activities. Remember, there isn't going to be a formal interview so you need to deliver a well rounded response to the prompt.

Writing Feedback / I partly agree that children should always follow their parents' counsels [5]

Tat, while you did a very good job in the 2 body paragraphs that you wrote, your opening paragraph and closing summary are both faulty. These 2 areas did not comply with the minimum 3 sentence requirement for a higher C&C scoring consideration. The maximum sentence number per paragraph is 5. You also require one more line of reasoning in the body paragraphs to complete the 3 reasons requirement. The 5 paragraph presentation is always the best method by which you maximize your scoring potential in the overall considerations. This allows you to make more sentence variations in the complex sentence structure manner as opposed to your simple sentence structure at the moment. Your vocabulary is simple which will not get you a very high LR score but it is enough to help you make sure that people understand what you are trying to say. Here is a word of advice regarding the opening and closing statements, avoid run on sentences by using commas. Instead present complete sentences with a period. That way you meet the minimum sentence requirement every time. Just remember that every sentence in the same paragraph needs to interconnect, use only one reason per paragraph, and try to insert a transition sentence to introduce the next paragraph at the end of the present paragraph whenever possible.

Undergraduate / The hotter the battle, the sweeter the victory - surviving obstacles [2]

Nehemiah, I can see that you wrote a common app essay response. However, you did not include the prompt that you are responding to in the text box so I cannot really analyze your content for relevance or improvement in presentation. That is sad because I can only offer you one free advice per thread (unless you make it URGENT I cannot consider giving you second advice in this thread). What I can tell you is that you need to check your essay for punctuation errors. The most common errors I see here are that you do not pay attention to your capitalization rules when starting a sentence, you do not use the space bar to separate the period and the first word of a new sentence (the space break represents the start of a new word or sentence), and you have too may thought topics going on in the essay that make your train of thought difficult to analyze and follow. If you had included the original prompt, maybe I would have a better idea as to what it is that you are trying to say in this essay.