Scholarship / Experiences on living in San Francisco and Panama City - Motivation for Pursuing Graduate School [11]

Hi Kathryn. Thanks for the compliment. You were also a joy to work with and I will not mind working with you again in polishing more of your essays. That's what our community is here for :-) Good luck with this current application of yours. I am confident you can make the most out of the essay that you have :-)

As for your other question, I am not sure what you mean by "giving back to the website". You can always just "like" our posts if you like the advice you are given. That is one way of giving back. Responding to the other posters in this forum is yet another way of positively giving back to our little community. We can always use the extra pair of eyes or advice for other participants in need :-) You can also help spread the word about our little website by referring your other friends who might need help with their essays to us for assistance. Any little form of promotion or advice giving on your part will already be a major way of "giving back" :-)

The mere fact that you are thinking of giving back to the website really warms the heart. That makes all of the time and effort we've spent helping the students here worthwhile :-) Again, thanks for the kind compliment. It was unexpected yet much appreciated on my part :-)

Undergraduate / Common App - Loss of Father - we have shared the "special thing" [2]

Aly, I think that you need to revise this essay. The main point of the prompt is to allow you to present something regarding your background, talent, interest, or trait. So the essay should focus solely on you as the point of discussion. In this case however, the focus of the story was on your dad. Since there was nothing extra remarkable about the "hide and seek" game that you played with him, it just comes across as flat and part of an ill conceived essay.

If you want to discuss your dad, then it has to be in relation to something specific about you and your development as a person. While this open topic essay allows you to discuss any theme that you want to, you, as the writer, still need to adhere to some specific requirements from the prompt. Only the topic is open, the category that it should fall under is not.

Can you tell a different story? If you want to keep your dad in the equation, then use his death as the focal point of the essay. Have his death become the foundation of your coming to terms with and understanding what death is all about. I think that would work very well as a background topic for your essay. Otherwise, there are a number of other topics that you can consider as sub category of the choices you were given for discussion.

Undergraduate / We are a community with quirks... - University of Virginia (UVA) Supplemental Essay [7]

LOL Nahiyan! This is one animated essay that is sure to catch the eye of the reviewer. Imagine, you have one extra ordinary quirk. Talking to yourself is never a good sign but in your case, you may just get a pass for it :-) It was an interesting look at a specific character trait that you definitely need to point out before it freaks anybody out. That said, I believe the essay is quite strong and an excellent response to the supplemental prompt.

A few corrections:

IT'SNOT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW ME!"

Yes, this entire conversation you just witnessed was one with me, myself, and I.

whenever I had a serious problem, I would talk it out with myself.

But s Soon, it became constant conversations and arguments.

I argue with myself on ABOUT whether or not I need something. Whenever i'm I'M stressed,

My problems are solved, and people don't think I'm crazy. OR DO THEY? HMMM... So ANYWAY, next year when you hear arguing COMING FROM from my dorm room, don't worry my roommate and I are fine.

Undergraduate / RICE UNIVERSITY (Early Decision applicant): Supplemental Essay Criticism [4]

James, I think that the discussion about your father talking to you about paintings is a bit too abstract for this essay. My belief, is that you can better discuss the concept of harmony starting with your second paragraph that deals with your real world experience and need for harmony. You can better explain the need for immediate harmony in our daily world much better in that paragraph.

The rest of the essay paragraphs are well connected and transitioned from the end of one paragraph to the start of another However, I find the essay to be to verbose at this point. Somehow you made the 500 word maximum your target instead of using it as a guide in expressing yourself instead. That is why the essay seems to sometimes become heavily worded. While it is great that you can manage to use all 500 words, it is important to keep the essay short enough to keep the reviewer interested in reading it.

That said, if you can find a way to shorten your paragraphs and simply bring your contributions to the front sooner rather than later in the essay, you should have a tighter and better written essay that the reviewer will enjoy reading. Remember, just because the limit is 500, that does not mean you need to present 500 words if it means the essay will become repetitive or boring. Just bat for somewhere in between. Say 250-300 words should be sufficient.

Undergraduate / "COTTON CANDY CLOUDS" What Matters Most to Me - STANFORD [8]

Alyssa, the revised essay is almost sheer perfection in my opinion. You were able to highlight the important details of your opinion and also managed to offer some pretty reflective thoughts. The overall effect of the essay is quite good because the essay engages the imagination, contemplative, and analytical side of the reader. Therefore, the essay is not a mere response, but a call to action as well. That is some fancy work you did there :-)

There are some grammar improvements that can be made though:

After a long period of studying and homework, I find comfort in WATCHING the fiery sunset that marks each evening.
Will the stars STILL shine through the thick, polluted air? Will the LIGHT OF THE sun's rays penetrate the smog? THE ANSWER TO ALL THE QUESTIONS IS, MAYBE NOT. SO I BEGAN TO THINK. How could I, so small A MERE SPECK OF AN ENTITY ON THE PLANET and among so many , possibly prevent this?

I am active member PARTICIPANT in it.

Applying the aforementioned corrections should bring the essay into its final format. Ready for you to use.

Scholarship / LEADERSHIP THROUGH DISASTER. - CHEVENING LEADERSHIP QUESTION [14]

Haye Farzana, we seem to have skipped the paragraph about your volunteering your services to "Doctors for You". You really should not skip that part because it transitions the paragraph from your being a new doctor to your countryside experience. Was that part of the word count problem for you? If so, you need to just rephrase that paragraph to become shorter. It is a necessary part of your response and should not disappear from your essay.

Changing the way you wrote the date of the event is alright. You do not need to provide the precise date in this case because you are just discussing it. If you were presenting a research paper, then that would have been a different case and you would have needed to present the whole date for accuracy purposes.

With regards to the comment about political complexities, I have been curious as to what the results of your request to re-allot the doctors would be. Could you provide a simple reference to the potential results? I believe it is necessary in order for the reviewer to understand why you made that very specific suggestion to your leader.

Everything else about the essay is alright. It has become really polished as you have worked on the revisions. Let me know if you are still having a problem with the word count so that I can help you edit that as well. It won't be a bother :-)

Scholarship / Where did the dream come from? Studying in the UK Question - Chevening Scholarship [4]

That will definitely work well for your essay Amanda. Don't forget that your goal in expressing your plans in a co-related manner is to show the development of your interest in the connected fields. As you do that, you can offer an insight into the ways and means that you see yourself achieving professional growth in the process.

I am glad that you agree with me regarding your repetitive content. I was almost sure that you did not realize you had done that and just needed to be reminded about the prompt requirements. Try to fill in that part with more information about the university course, specific problem in Brazil that it addresses, and how you plan on using these studies to help solve the problem. Giving an imaginative solution to the problem at this point will help since it will illustrate a deeper understanding of the course usefulness on your part.

Be sure that you develop your connections very well in the essay. Just remain focused on the discussion of the course and the relevance to your career goals and objectives and you should be fine. Check yourself for deviations from the prompt requirements and immediately correct such instances :-)

Scholarship / Career Plan upon returning Home question - Chevening [4]

Hi Nafysa :-) I do not believe that you need to refer to Sri Mulyani Indrawati as your role model for your career prospects. You are not being asked whom you are modeling your career after so this paragraph is really not necessary in driving your response along. I tried removing this reference in a word program and then reading your essay again and I find that skipping this paragraph in totality brings the full focus of the reviewer on your career plan. Which is the aim of this essay. So, I believe that you can remove the opening paragraph without affecting the content of your statement.

For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with Mckinley, I suggest that you offer some sort of quick overview regarding the work that this company does and why you would ambition to work for them. Assume that the Chevening reviewer has heard of the company but has no idea what it actually does. So explain the goal of the company and how working there will be integral to your future career plans.

The rest of the essay is a definite improvement over the first version.You have really spelled out your short and long term plans for the reviewer's consideration. That is a definite plus for your application. I hope you can revise the portions that I suggested soon. I will always be here to help you polish the content of the essay :-)

Scholarship / Where did the dream come from? Studying in the UK Question - Chevening Scholarship [4]

Amanda, you most likely have already offered the information about the problems in Brazil in either your personal statement or statement of purpose. I have a feeling that this is already rehashed information that the essay is specifically asking you to avoid. Not only that, but you also spent more than half the essay discussing this problem when the focus of your work should have been on the three courses and universities you chose to study in.

You need to revise the essay in order to relate the problems of Brazil and your future plans withe specific university courses, not necessarily the university itself. The reviewer expects to find out how you plan to study certain courses at these places of learning in relation to the professional career plan you have for yourself for your immediate present and future goals.

Right now, your discussion of the university courses does not really tell the reviewer much about the relevance and connection of the course with your future plans. You need to only write 3 paragrahs for this essay. Eahc one dealing specifically with one university and course offering. Mention the subjects you want to study there and why it is important to your goals and future career plans.

Don't make the problems of Brazil and your goals for the future take up the first half of the essay. This work will be more effective once you incorporate those ideas and plans you have with specific courses. The tie-in will show that you have given great thought to your academic studies and its relation to your future plans and career aspirations.

Writing Feedback / 'Nowadays, students study a gamut of subjects in different fields'. TOEFL - Writing question [2]

Chadni, in your opening statement, don't say that you believe students should not make student study many subjects in different fields. Always remember what the prompt requires of you. In this case, it wants you to either disagree or agree with a statement. Therefore, your response should have been worded as such. For example " I disagree that universities...for a number of reasons." Forming your response in such a manner makes it more prompt responsive and shows the examiner that you understand what the prompt requires in terms of response formatting.

Your first paragraph would have been stronger if you had closed it with a reference to the kinds of grades that the students would get if they are forced to study related and unrelated courses at the same time. This is the logical final sentence in this paragraph since you discussed how confusing studying more subjects would be, specially if there are non-major related subjects being studied by the student.

Your second paragraph forgets to consider the fact that the first 2 years of college are generally geared towards general courses and does not necessarily have the major subjects involved. Remember, the first 4 semesters of college are meant to help build the foundation of your research, science, and math skills. So yes, any college graduate should be considered a jack of all trades because the universities require him to build a general foundation for his academics before he concentrates on his major. So arguing that a student would become a "jack of all trades, master of none" is not really an acceptable line of reasoning in this case.

Finally, your conclusion is too short. You need to lengthen it to at least 3 sentences covering the basics, the summary of the prompt, final discussion overview, and your restatement of your opinion. Right now, your conclusion is not an acceptable TOEFL length conclusion. Over all though, this is not a bad attempt at essay writing TOEFL style. You proved you understood the instructions and could present understandable supporting discussions for it. Grammar issues aside, you did quite well with this essay.

Undergraduate / The Magician's Apprentice; The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success [3]

Ahnaf, this is a really engrossing life story on your part. It really showed us the kind of world that you come from and how hard it was for you to have dealt with the issues stemming from your failure in class. The way you got up from your fall alone is really impressive and should be noted by any reviewer. However, I have a tiny issue with the way you wrote the essay.

I need some clarification though. The moment when you did not study anything during the entire vacation, please specify if you mean summer vacation, winter vacation, or something else. Since your parents were hoping that you would pass the test, I assume it was during the school year. Just mention with specificity, when the failure happened in order to match the latter part of the essay where you said you gave your father the winter report card, which was after you failed your math class. It is required for continuity sake in the essay.

You had made a big deal about your father not teaching math anymore after you failed. So you worked hard to redeem yourself. Did you redeem yourself for him or for yourself? The paragraph that talks of the time when you handed your father the winter report card, bring it up in the essay. Place it under the paragraph that ends with "I must!". It just feels that the paragraph about your father would fit best and serve its best purpose in that particular position.

Applying these edits should help to better prepare the essay for submission. They are minor corrections that are sure to enhance your essay. Good luck with your application :-)

Graduate / This is my 1st "LOI" in life. Letter of Intent for "Masters in Professional Communication" [9]

Fahmida, listen, you don't have to go all the way back to high school when writing your letter of intent. You just need to concentrate on delivering a very simple, 5 paragraph letter to the reviewer that outlines a number of important points related to your interest in receiving a masters degree. The current first part of your letter is irrelevant. The part about your professional career, that is relevant to the letter. So you will need to revise your work in order to better suit the requirements of a letter of intent.

As the description of the letter implies, you must specify your intentions for wishing to study in this masters degree course. As you can most likely tell, the story about the competition you joined and its accompanying tales are not important to this type of essay. So you will have to remove all of the first part of your letter. Instead, start the letter off from the moment you graduated from college. Just mention the school (if you wish to) and your course (a must to mention). The talk about your internship will definitely help your application. Just make sure to talk less about what you observed and instead discuss what you learned through the internship that you did. Right now, you only give an overview of what you did during that time. That is not enough information to help support your intentions for higher study.

Good job in mentioning all of your work related training experience and seminars attended. The reviewers definitely look for that kind of relevant information in a letter of intent. However,you did not do a very good job at the end of your essay. The reviewer will want to know what kind of long and short term goals you have for yourself as a student and a professional. It would have been nice for the reviewer to also know how you plan on using the university benefits to help you advance your skills and career in the future. So, if you can write a paragraph or two relating to that, it would be an excellent addition to your LOI. What career you plan to have in the future really isn't so clear in the essay at the moment.

I will admit that there are glaring grammatical errors in your written work. However, I can overlook those errors because you still have to revise the essay. Don't worry about the word maximum (if there is one at the moment) or the problems with spelling and sentence structure. We can deal with that once the paper already contains the necessary information for your LOI to be successful as a part of your application documents.

Undergraduate / Invent a Past for a Present - UChicago Supplement [7]

Jessica, your point of view in relating this story is quite confusing. Are you supposed to be the person in the story being told or not? You went from first person to second person within 2 paragraphs. There was no transition, nor indication that you would be telling a flashback story. All of which are requirements for this sort of narrative writing. That said, you definitely need to figure out the direction this story will take in the sense of story telling. Will it be in first person? Will it be in second person? Flashbacks or current time?

Your first paragraph can be better improved if you used it to set up the transition to the flashback story of you receiving the gift. You can't just jump into the explanation about your friend's background. As the story teller, you need to set up the scene that will slowly immerse the reader, or, in this case, the reviewer, into the story of Elizabeth and the book. You reached for the charger, saw the book, then wondered why she had given it to you. Then what? How did you end up becoming so nostalgic about the book? What were the factors in the present day that got you to think about the past of the book? Set it up for us. Don't just throw us, as the readers, into the flashback or sea of your thoughts. We'd be lost at sea so to speak.

The rest of the story is good though. It has the potential to be an extremely well developed narrative. You just need to apply yourself to the needed corrections in the aforementioned paragraphs. Once you complete those, the story should be able to transition from one moment to the next in a more seamless style.

With regards to the last paragraph, can you indicate something about you and the gift in present day? What happened after you recalled the story to yourself? Close out the story. Plug in that laptop. Read the book again. Just do something that will bring your reader back to a present day conclusion because that is where the story started.

Graduate / SoP- Masters in Development Research on-Agrarian crisis and impact on peasant women [18]

Hargun, instead of trying to tell stories to the reviewer, you should be concentrating on presenting information that directly relates to your interest in Development research. Either you discuss how you want to help farmers or, you discuss the plight of peasant women in the essay. You really cannot do both. I keep on telling you to choose only one, the most significant and important of your activities as an undergraduate, which will have the most impact upon your application due to your lack of professional experience. If this is the story that you choose to use, then go ahead and use it.

The only advice that I can give you which I hope can help you better utilize this story is for you to tell the reviewer that you have a definite research study you want to perform while you are a masters degree student which can help ease the plight of the women. Make sure to involve the university by explaining how their department, professors, and resources will be pivotal in the completion of your research. Let the reviewer know that you hope to prevent a repeat of what happened to that women through the results of your study.

Don't just hope to gain more knowledge. Tell the reviewer what you are interested in learning. What classes? Which professors do you hope to work with? By identifying specific avenues of learning at the university, which are in accordance with your own interests and plans, you just might be able to convince the reviewer that you have the ability to successfully complete the course and utilize your new found knowledge in your future career.. Don't forget to mention what that career will be. That is the main purpose for your enrollment in higher studies.

Letters / LETTER OF MOTIVATION FOR RWTH, AACHEN ADMISSION [8]

Prince, your letter of motivation is very weak and not interesting at all. Majority of the information that you provided does not even pertain to your chosen major but rather, your personal interests and desires for studying abroad. The reviewer is not interested in your personal ambitions. He is only interested in the academic and professional aspect of your motivation. That part is not clear at all in your letter. You definitely need to go back and write a totally new letter.

In your new letter, do not mention your consultations with your elders, your choosing between three countries to study in, using Wikipedia to research the information about schools (most definitely not that!), and that you simply saw the student requirement for enrolling in this masters course and then deciding right there and then that you will enroll in this course. Those are not part of an effective motivation letter.

An effective motivation letter allows the reviewer to learn why pursuing the masters degree course is important to you. How it will benefit you as a student or professional, what you hope to contribute to the profession either in terms of research or training others, and how the university can partner with your to achieve these goals. Those are the criteria by which your motivation will be properly judged by the reviewer. Right now, I do not see any development in this letter along those lines. So this letter, in its current form is really useless to your application. Don't use it. Try to develop a better and more focused letter of intent. Don't lose focus. Remember the guide that I mentioned in this paragraph. Use it as the method by which you develop your letter. After you develop the new letter, post it here and we will help you fix it up so you can use the letter effectively.

Scholarship / LEADERSHIP THROUGH DISASTER. - CHEVENING LEADERSHIP QUESTION [14]

Farzana, I think we just need to apply a few more corrections to the content of the essay :-)

On THE 9th OF July 2013

the news filtered through the radio, at our rural health centre,

I offered my services as a volunteer doctor and expressed my zeal .
- No need to mention your zeal. The mere fact you offered your services means that you are enthusiastic about the idea of working with them.

I also involved myself in THE supervising delivery of medicines

and ideated on how to improve DEVELOPED IDEAS HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION AND SOLVE THE PROBLEMS AS A TEAM.
- Always refer back to your leadership and influencing abilities.

On my return from Uttarakhand, I spoke at several medical institutions, including my own, urging doctors to leave their comfort zones and experience working in emergencies. Rewardingly, four doctors volunteered following my example.

- This is underdeveloped. You need to add more information about how you influenced these doctors to volunteer. What was the turning point that made them believe your urging?

The closing statement is quite good so don't change that. Just address the comments I made and everything should finally, be set :-)

Graduate / PTCAS personal statement that include response to APTA statement. [4]

Phu, you have a tendency to lecture the reviewer. You often refer to information that the association has already established and is already well known to the members or physical therapists. Please don't do that. Telling the reviewer that you know the textbook definition for the word optimize does not help him learn anything more about the reasons behind your desire to become a physical therapist. Try to avoid mentioning common sense information in your statement unless you can connect it to a deeper meaning within the context of your desire to become a PT.

Would you kindly clarify what the APTA statement that you are responding to is? At this point, I cannot tell which part of the statement is supposed to be a response to their question and which part is solely your personal statement. I have to know what the specific question is so that I can tell if you seamlessly blended the response for both and used the personal aspect of the statement to respond to the APTA statement successfully. The perfect blend of these two answers into one statement is often the goal of writing these combined response essays.

Your last few sentences are not really strong enough to make an impact in your essay. You are reiterating your qualifications as an applicant but there is not enough evidence of that in your essay. Your first paragraph story needs to be better developed so that it can convincingly portray itself to the reviewer as one, if not the main reason, that you decided to become a physical therapist. In my opinion, I would rather have seen you use the story of your mother having a stroke and her physical therapy process as the main factor for your career desire. Having a personal connection with regards to your decision to pursue a career usually has a stronger impact than the incomplete, romantic story of a patient whom you do not really have a strong personal bond with.

Writing Feedback / Essay - Education(ESL STUDENT) - should kids have a school curriculum for being a good parent? [2]

Thomas, your essay is uses quite a lot of words. However, not all of those words were necessary in order to discuss the prompt. Due to the numerous reasons that you listed per paragraph, none of your ideas were quite solidly developed in order to support your stance. The essay lacks a clarity of expression and comprehensive thought process. These drawbacks weakened what could have otherwise been a very enjoyable essay to read. To be blunt, your thoughts were there but the expression was lost.

Normally, when writing a simple essay, you only need 5 paragraphs that contain only 1 supporting and one opposing reason for your discussion. The contents of each paragraph need to be discussed in a manner that will be understandable to your fellow ESL students when necessary. That means, you should only use simple vocabulary and try to thoroughly discuss your reasons within 5 sentences at the most. Anything more than that and your essay paragraph just keeps going round and round with redundancies / repetitions of content. You want to avoid that at all cost.

Your tone of voice should also be less formal and more casual because you are not discussing an academic essay. Sometimes, making your voice sound friendly makes the reader more receptive towards what you have to say. So try to avoid using terms like "argument at depth" , "due to the fact", "there is sufficient evidence", "it can be elicited", and "firm agreement". It really makes it sound like you are trying your case in court :-) Just relax. Nobody is arguing with you. We just want to hear your thoughts on the topic :-)

Undergraduate / "COTTON CANDY CLOUDS" What Matters Most to Me - STANFORD [8]

Alyssa, the prompt is asking you to discuss something that matters to you. I think you misunderstood is as something that you like to do which, in this case is watching "cotton candy clouds". You said that the sky matters to you but you don't really offer a solid discussion of why that is. You need to thresh out the details of its importance either through the activities that you perform, or through your beliefs about the sky and the clouds in it.

For example, when I think of the sky and why it is important to me, I can't help but think of the thinning ozone layer and the changing world climate. My essay would therefore, be centered along those thoughts. So, if I were to discuss this essay, I would most likely say something along these lines (I'll try to incorporate the cotton candy clouds theme into it):

----------
Each morning, I wake up, look out my window and stare at the cotton candy clouds right outside my window. As I sit and stare, I can't help but feel saddened about the situation of what lies beyond the clouds, the sky and our ever thinning ozone layer. The reasons why we have an ever changing climate that seems to try to end our world with every storm that comes across our planet. That is why the clouds matter to me. If the clouds disappear, what will be left? Our damaged skies? Would our world still be the same without the clouds that protect us from the rays of the ozone layer? Is there something that I can do to help prevent any further damage to our planet?

Those are the questions that linger in my mind as I start my day with what I term to be my "sky watch". Those are also the reasons that have led me to become an environmental conservationist. For if we do not take care of our environment, we risk the loss of the clouds and the sky, and losing those, will mean the end of our world as we know it.

Our cotton candy clouds hold the protect us from the illness of the skies above. I understand that concept. That is why those cotton candy clouds are very valuable to me.

-----------

What i wrote above is just an example of how you can tackle the essay using your chosen theme. Feel free to use my work or develop something new for yourself. Use the statement I wrote as your guide. Good luck with your revision :-)

Scholarship / Career Plan upon returning Home question - Chevening [4]

Nafysa, the career plan that you have listed for yourself at the moment has an extremely generic and lazy feel to it. The generic feel is because you talk about your plans in general terms of helping your country. The lazy feel is because you have not set a time frame for your career advancement. So it seems like you are saying that you will advance in your career when you get around to it. In the meantime, you have some tentative plans for what you will be doing to eventually get to your end goal. That is not how this kind of essay is formatted.

What you need to do so that the essay will become more focused and deliver a solid image of you as a leader, not necessarily of your country, but at least your profession, is to outline your career goals in a yearly bracket manner. That means, you will need to come up with your short term and then long term plans for your career. The normal time span of a short career plan is 5 years. While the long range plans can range anywhere from 10-20 years. I find that mapping out your career for 5 years and then 10 years best suits these types of scholarship prompts.

You have already mentioned how you plan to enact your career. The essay shows a clear understanding of your career path and how you plan to achieve it. All you have to do is divide the plans within the two groups I mentioned above. Adjust your closing statement to reflect the final plans you have for your career. However, avoid saying "With the experience I will obtain" because that means you are not looking forward enough. Rather, you should say something like "Eventually, I see myself becoming the head of my own..." That will close the essay with a stronger and more imaginative message.

Undergraduate / A passion for volleybal - Columbia Supplemental essay [7]

Valerie, if we were to use percentages to judge how well you responded to the prompt, you would get a 25 % total score. The minute you said you were proud you led the team to victory as captain, you got on the "proud" boat, but somehow got off the boat before it could set out to sea. The rest of your response was just not applicable.

What you have to do at this point in your essay is discuss all of those personal reasons for enjoying basketball into a reason why you are proud of it. Show the reviewer that you learned lessons from playing the game and that you became proud of learning those lessons because it helped you become a better person. Then you can maybe compare your attitude before and after you learned the lesson.

In the closing paragraph or sentence, don't say that volleyball relaxes you or anything else personal along those lines. Instead, talk about your future as a volleyball player and make the reviewer believe that you are looking forward to more "proud" moments on the volleyball court as you continue to improve your personal traits, and grow your talent as a player. That would be the best way to close out this kind of statement.

Undergraduate / The Socks and Uniform - VA Quirks Essay [5]

dBres, let me try to spice up the statement for you. Let me know if it goes over the word count limit and I'll fix it for you.

I wouldn't be a good poker player. I dominate the poker face, IN A GAME OF POKER, HAVING A POKER FACE WOULD BE USELESS FOR ME. I CAN PULL OFF A POKER FACE JUST AS WELL AS ANYBODY AT THE TABLE, BUT MY HAND QUIRK WOULD BE ENOUGH TO GIVE MY HAND AWAY TO THE PEOPLE I AM PLAYING WITH. MY HANDS transform ME into transparent matter.

I must compulsively fix my nails in a methodical manner: remove the cuticle, apply two coats of nail polish, and meticulously clean my nails' edges.

If I am nervous or anxious, I'll grab my lower lip
- Grab? How would you do that? Show rather than tell the reader.

My need to constantly entertain my hands is essential to my identity. If I'm not twirling my rings, I'll be playing the piano or braiding somebody's hair. I will always be expressing myself, whether I want to or not, through my hands.

- Why did you say that your hands are essential to your identity? What does this quirk represent in totality? Wrap up with essay with a summary or additional explanation.

Graduate / Letter of Intent for Admissions to Masters of Public Health - how this program fits to my goals? [5]

Ceekay, I have a suggestion to make. I would like you to try moving up the last paragraph that mentions TED Talk and bring it up as your opening statement. Then, move the existing first paragraph that you have now to the end of the essay, making it your new closing statement.Review the essay for content and relevance to the prompt. I think you will find that doing so will improve the essay content because the basis of your intention and your goals for study are clearly represented and indicated to the reviewer. I sincerely feel that keeping that highly informative statement for the very end of the essay makes it less useful. Mostly because the earlier part of the essay is not as interesting or informative as it should be. You really need that statement at the top to hook the reviewer in.

Paragraphs 2 and 3 are acceptable as work experience but falls short when it comes to the Public Health aspect. Try to present a better description of how these activities relate to Public Health management so that it can be accepted as such by the reviewer. Did I mention that you can actually use that information to make your letter of intent more exciting? These two occupations can serve as the basis of your research study during your tenure as a student. If you can use the work experience to develop a relevant Public Health Management case study idea to the reviewer, he may very well overlook the lack of relevant experience on your part in lieu of your future research that should be aimed at helping to improve the Public Health Management field.

Sometimes, a good and clear letter of intention just requires an imaginative mind to get around and shortcomings of the applicant. By redirecting the attention of the reviewer to your potential research, you will be able to divert his attention from your work related qualifications. If the topic you choose to research, and your explanation as to how the university can help you complete the work is quite good, it often helps to boost your application chances :-)

Scholarship / Multimedia Artist and programmer. Career Plan essay for scholarship [2]

Dana, basically, the essay is asking you outline your long and short term plans. So you should present these plans in your essay. Here is a tip, start with your short term plans. These are the plans that you see yourself completing within 5 years or less. Then outline your 10 year plan, which will pick up at the end of your 5 year plan.

The idea behind the prompt, is to make sure that you understand the relevance of the subjects you will be studying and that you realize the real world applications of the classes. The reason that you should start with your 5 year plan first is because these are the immediate plans that you can enact soon after graduation. The ten year plan, not so much as you might find that along the way, you might need to consider even additional studies and hands on training in order to stay abreast of multimedia advancements.

Do yourself a favor and delete the last line that you wrote about. It is not really connected to your career plans so it has no relevance in the essay. It is not a good closing line for your work. No,w, about your plans on becoming an IT consultant, do you see that happening as a part of your career ladder climb or is that a spin-off from your regular work? You will need to think about whether that is a short or long term goal and place it in the proper section. You can't discuss that as a stand alone plan because it needs to fit into your career goals. Just try to figure out where it fits best. I think that should be your ultimate long term goal of working for yourself and helping to modernize the industry as best as you can.

Undergraduate / U Mich Essay #1 on a community where I belong [9]

Chris, one way that you can lower your word count is by using only simple words to describe events in your essay. For example, you can simply say:

Ten years ago, indissoluble bridges linked every house in my cul-de-sac
- Ten years ago, I lived in a close-knit community.

There was a strong sense of conviviality and a powerful camaraderie between the residences of Halsey Lane-doors always stood unlocked,
- Everyone who lived on Halsey Lane treated each other like family, so we were always welcome in each others homes.

Every child, and some parents, partook in the massacre.
-Young and old participated in...

We scattered guts and viscera upon the patio of Ms. Denis,
- The pumpkin mess scattered...

The familiar surroundings of my cul-de-sac
- ... of my community

I would retreat into my room and lounge upon the floor and throw open a book
- I retreated... and lounged on the floor with a book...

to distract myself from the despair and guilt of leaving my comrades.
- ... from sadness of

Sometimes, all you have to do to shorten your word count is to be less flowery and poetic with your words. Just be straight to the point using easily understood terms and the word count will immediately go down.

Scholarship / My former supervisor at Tanzania Cigarette Company had the best leadership and influencing skills [12]

Mwana, let me work on the grammar corrections for your first essay at this point. I will address the new essay in a separate thread.

This was possible because I am a fast learner and therefore, I understood
quickly and transfer TRANSFERRED the knowledge to the rest of the team. Moreover,
I organized A video conference with the experts from THE JTI (the mother company of TCC) head offices in Manchester and Geneva,
to help team members to execute IN EXECUTING challenging tasks.
Being a team leader in A&SP has given GAVE me a tremendous experience on REGARDING how to lead a team and motivate them.

To overcome such obstacle OBSTACLES, I had to adjust myself to their level of understanding
In my view, one of the best ways to influence I INFLUENCED the team is WAS to equip them with necessary skills to execute their duties.

our professional capacity or areas to the IN society.
current students and THE indigenous of THEMabibo area.
their preparation of FOR after university life,
the right balance between sports and , studies and professional life, especially in AN Accounting and Finance career.
personalized advice to THE students on a case by TO case basis.
I always tell TOLD them my success story on REGARDING how I grew from a bank teller to an analyst within two years.

Undergraduate / Undergraduate Application - Why essay for Duke Trinity College of Arts and Sciences [5]

Sarah, your first paragraph is just a rehash of already well known information about the university. You need to develop a fresh paragraph that will show a clear interest in the classes, social activities, and other extra curricular engagements that Duke offers. Discussing those interests will help establish the reasons why Duke is a perfect match for you. Discuss those topics in a manner that shows a distinct interest on your part. Enhancing the perfect fit discussion even further. At the risk of sounding redundant, you need to parallel the Duke experience with your own interests.

The second paragraph does not really establish your interest in the activities you presented. So it just seems like you are going to be a spectator at these events. If Duke has any interesting team, whether academic or intellectual in nature that you feel you could participate in and help to enhance, then mention those and explain the connection between your interest in the activity and Duke.

The final paragraph does not really help move the prompt along nor conclude the essay. So you need to either strengthen that portion or simply write a new conclusion that best wraps up the reasons why you would fit very well into Duke.

Undergraduate / A passion for volleybal - Columbia Supplemental essay [7]

Valerie, we need to correct some grammar parts.

Volleyball has ALWAYS been my passion since I CAN remember.
When I was 10 I finally convinced my mom to let me play (she was hesitant as my sister got a hernia from volleyball)
- Just speak in a normal tone. Don't use asides like the parenthesis to whisper information. This is a statement. So let your voice be heard. Don't make it stand alone.

and it has been the best decision in of my life so far.

Winning regionals twice when WHILE I was a captain of the team
I have really learned from volleyball is that winning a game isn't a necessity THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE OF THE SPORT.

Losing a game can actually bring your team closer together and requires HELPS YOU LEARN TO you to accept failure.

and thus THIS helps me to study for my test.

As for prompt responsiveness, you need to represent the reason why you are proud of this activity. For example, you can say something like your team won a competition while you were team captain or something similar.

Undergraduate / GTown Acitvities Essay- Summer Shadowing [2]

dBres, while you got busy discussing the world of surgery that you entered, you started to fall off in describing the reasons why this particular activity of shadowing a surgeon became a significant event during that particular summer. The opening paragraph was off to a good start with the reference to how you were eager to get into surgery and how you got that adrenaline rush, then nothing.

You began to delve into the background of the activity and your preparation for assisting in the surgery room. Your vivid description of your preparation, from reading relevant material, to preparing yourself to assist during surgery told us that you did your home work and made sure that you would be able to perform any task thrown your way in that room. However, nothing in the paragraphs that you wrote, save for the first paragraph, actually told us why you considered this particular situation a significant event during that summer. All you did was tell us at the end that the exposure you had here led you to desire to become a surgeon.

What your essay needs is more emphasis on the significance of the surgery. That seems to be the highlight of your essay at this point. So it should be dealt with in a special manner. Point us in the direction of the specific events during the surgery itself, that led you to this conclusion. All of the prep work is too technical and intellectual for those activities to have actually made a huge impact upon your career decision. Normally, those types of influence are found within the performance of the activity itself. It is during your actual participation in the activity that you find yourself suddenly realizing something important about your future. If you can just reflect upon those and share it with the reviewer, the essay should become stronger and more prompt responsive.

By the way, since you shadowed a surgeon, you need to set up your background that led to that. Don't just start in the middle of your shadowing, we need to know why you ended up shadowing that summer. It will help explain why you find this activity quite significant as well.

Graduate / SoP- Masters in Development Research on-Agrarian crisis and impact on peasant women [18]

Hargun, I looked over your CV and I can understand why you have a dilemma. However, I cannot write the second paragraph for you. As you can see, I only gave you examples of the information each paragraph has to contain. It is meant to serve as your guide when writing the statement of purpose, it is not supposed to be the actual purpose unless you want it to be.

One way I can think of to help you fix this problem is to have you revise the second paragraph yourself. From the list of your internships , pick the one that you think will help you stand out the most in the application process. Which one internship do you think best represents your abilities as an intern? How relevant will that internship be to the achievement of your purpose? If the internship fits the criteria, then use that one, just one in the essay. The rest of your internships can be referred to by the reviewer when he examines your application documents.

Your main problem is that you keep on trying to place all of the information that you already have in your CV in the essay. The essay is just an overview as I told you before. So there is no need to give more detailed information in it. I know that you are stressed out because I used an internship of yours that you do not feel is strong enough or relevant to your goal. So go ahead and change it. Then post it here so I can review it with you for final polishing. That is the most help I can give you at this point :-)

Undergraduate / Intellectually-rich culture and traditions such as the Scav Hunt - Why UChicago Essay [6]

Jessica, you are in a bit of a jam here. You just successfully managed to insult the reviewer and the university in one paragraph. Your comments about the strangeness of the prompts were irrelevant to the discussion. All you succeeded in doing was angering the reviewer who, at that point of reading your essay, most likely made up his mind that you do not belong nor have a place in the University of Chicago community. While you think that you are complimenting the university, by questioning their prompts and calling it strange, you have done the exact opposite. Do yourself a favor, delete that part.

Aside from being an unspoken rule, it is also quite rude to discuss and compare the prompts of various universities you are applying to. The main idea that you should be presenting is that UChicago is your only university of choice. How well do you think your chances will be for admission if the reviewer openly knows that you are applying to various universities? Nope. That particular line alone just tanked the whole essay. Take it out and salvage the rest of the essay for use in this prompt.

Now, about your reference to the summer camp activity, I am not sure about how that directly relates to your interest in the UChicago curriculum. I would rather that you speak of your repressed childhood and how you were not able to voice your opinions or let your imagination soar because you could not question the adults decisions or comments. That to me reverberates more with the childhood innocence that you hope to regain at the university. Remember, this essay should be all about you and your future relationship with the university. So references to unknown children doesn't really carry much weight in the response. Always have your responses and examples emanate from you, your past, your background, your experiences.

Your discussion about the Core curriculum works well as an additional response to the prompt. I would not want you to change anything about it because it shows a direct connection between the curriculum and yourself. Mentioning a few classes you want to attend will help to bring more life to the paragraph as well. Try to do that if you can :-)

Scholarship / United World Colleges (UWC) Application Essay [4]

Derri, you know what? If you first discuss your family, background, or experiences that had you mingling with people from diverse backgrounds, you can tie that discussion in with the reasons why you are interested in applying to UWC. A parallelism of the world that you come from and the world that you look forward to experiencing at UWC will be the most perfect way to provide an answer to the prompt. You could allot something like 150 words for that and then allot the last 150 to the discussion of how you plan to contribute to the UWC community and how you think you will gain from that contribution.

You don't have to explain to the reviewer about where you heard about UWC and what the alumni told you about the school. Those first few lines are really not necessary in the essay. You are just telling the reviewer useless information. Useless because it does not tell him anything that he needs to know based upon the prompt requirements. You should revise that opening statement to directly answer the prompt instead. Focus the opening on my suggestions in the previous paragraph and you should have a more attuned response to open your essay with.

Try not to tell the reviewer that one of the main reasons you decided to apply was the fact that you get a free 2 year education out of this. That is obvious information that all of the applicants are after and therefore, is not a strong reason to seek UWC approval. In fact, that is the weakest reason and should not show up in the essay at all. All of the other reasons that you presented were sufficient enough.

Overall, the essay just needs some content adjustment and refocusing in order to deliver a strong prompt answer on your part :-)

Undergraduate / The Socks and Uniform - VA Quirks Essay [5]

Daniela, I am not sure if this is a quirk in as much as it can be better viewed as a controlled way of rebelling against school rules. A quirk is supposed to be indicated as a peculiar behavior or habit. Somehow, the socks and the reasons that you have for wearing them do not seem to fall under that definition. Maybe you have another quirk that you can test for this essay?

Some examples of quirks are playing with your earlobe when you are bored or nervous, biting your lip when you are concentrating on your work, having to lock your front door 3 times before you can leave the house, Playing a particular type of music when you are driving, wearing a particular type of clothing when you attend a game, etc. All of these indicate a strange behavior or habit of a person that strange enough, the person has a specific reason for doing so. Normally, it ties in with a certain sense of comfort that a person gets from doing such an activity It gives the person inner strength or something. I just know that it has a positive reason for being a part of the personality of that person. The explanation you provided for the socks, it doesn't resonate the same way.

I'd advise you to have another go at your essay. First, study yourself and your habits. Find one that seems peculiar to you. Ask your friends if they ever noticed something quirky about you. That normally helps when you are writing this sort of essay. I am sure that one of your friends will have a quirky related tale to tell you about. Use that information to develop a more relevant essay for the prompt :-)

Undergraduate / Pursue a career in medicine after witnessing woman go into full cardiac arrest - Personal Statement [3]

Grace, I revised certain parts of your essay to bring down the word count. Let me show you the revised parts here. You should be able to follow the rest of the paragraph using the ellipses. By the way, the new count is 442:

When I was twelve years old, I witnessed an old lady "die and come back to life". It happened during Sunday service. The 85 year old woman was sitting in front of me in the next pew. I was trying to synchronize my breathing with hers to stay awake during the sermon of the pastor. Just as I was starting to doze off, the lady caught her breath, gasped, and fell to the floor. Within seconds someone was fighting his way to the collapsed woman while shouting for anyone to roll her onto her back. He was going to perform CPR. What unfolded next seemed like a slow motion movie to me. He leaned over her and repeatedly moved his linked arms up and down on her chest. Giving the breath of life every few seconds. I don't know how long it took before he managed to revive her but he did, long before the ambulance arrived.

Never would I have imagined that that day would influence the choices I make today. Witnessing this event sparked a desire in me to help people...

My passion for medicine has driven me to help out wherever I can. My desire to pursue medicine has facilitated my devotion to learning and fascination of the human body...

- I removed the part about helping the other communities because the statements you were making did not directly relate to medicine. You should always try to keep your focus centered on the topic of the essay. Which in this case, is the development of your interest in medicine.

Make the statement about where you see yourself ten years from now the closing statement of your essay. It needs to be a stand alone paragraph for maximum impact.

Undergraduate / U Mich Essay #1 on a community where I belong [9]

Now this is an essay you should be very proud of Chris :-) You were able to represent your role in the community from various angles. The reviewer can clearly see that you are not just a member of the community, but also a helpful member who comes from a community that considers everyone a family member. Not a bad approach to responding to the essay.

With regards to the concluding paragraph though, I still feel that more can be done with it. It just seems to have ended on such a serious note. I think it is because the paragraph falls short of the number of required sentences. Let me see if I can improve on it a bit. Just to give you an idea as to how to better develop that part:

Since then Long after I moved from my childhood community, I've attended continued to attend every single butchering since I moved, . and e Each time I go back, I'm reminded that the cul-de-sac of Halsey Lane is neither gone nor forgotten, and I know that the doors will stay unlocked for me. I guess it is true that family is where you make it and for me, Halsey Lane is proven to be not just a community, but a part of my extended family as well.

Do you feel comfortable with the addition I made? You can use that addition if you want to. Otherwise, try to revise the paragraph along the same lines. I think it will give the essay a stronger ending.

Undergraduate / Brief Abroad Application paragraph. What do you hope to achieve academically & personally? [4]

Kate, here are some variations of "I hope to" that you can use in your essay. I'll leave the placement in the paragraphs up to you :-)

I hope to...
I look forward to...
In the future, I plan to...
I might engage in...
I see myself doing
I see myself accomplishing...

Try bring more balance to your essay Kate. Right now, I can see the immense concentration on the academic aspect of your college life. Yet the prompt wants to you present a more balance look at your academic and personal plans while at the university. So you need to come up with an equal balance in your discussion. I don't think you have a word limit on the response so you have all the room you need to balance out the social wit the academic aspects.

One way to balance the essay would be to offer 3 academic and 3 social achievements during your time as a student. Offer at least an overview of how you plan to do this. Mention some specific classes, professors, clubs, organizations, etc., as you see fit. This may require some research pertaining to the university on your part. The aim of the essay is to try to find out how you really know the university beyond what is on their website or student brochures. So try to reflect that in your response.

Scholarship / Being a warrior I have a hunger of making changes. Chevening LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE QUESTION [3]

Amanda, your narrative is really not responding to the prompt in a good manner. You are telling the reviewer all about the influences and mentoring that you received on your way to becoming a leader. You are telling the reader that you are not a leader, but you are capable of learning how to be one. While that is an admirable trait, specially for a woman working in a man's world, it does not offer any information about your existing leadership abilities and influence skills. What you need to present in order to properly respond to the prompt, are examples of your ongoing leadership and influence skills. That is what the reviewer is expecting to read about.

One way to revise this essay is to build your essay around the following portion of the existing essay:

Once finished Building Technical studies, degree in Civil Engineering, scientific researches and internships, I was placed as resident engineer in a Brazilian infrastructure company through a trainee selection where features such as enthusiasm and energy stood out from the crowd. The position assumed required leadership, confidence, balance, team work, dynamic, emotional intelligence, motivation and inspiration for self and others.

That particular part seems to indicate that you had to perform some acts of leadership and influence during your time working there. All you have to at that point, is present some scenarios or situations wherein you were called upon to lead. Maybe there was a major decision to be made and you had to take responsibility for the result of your decisions? Or you had to influence the workers to accomplish a task that they were unsure about. Whatever it was, no matter how small a leadership skill or influence that you had to exert, those are the responses that you should use for this essay.

The Chevening scholarship applicants have actual leadership experiences to relate in their essays. All of which deal with their current occupations or internships. Those are the strong essays considered for this application. Your application currently lacks that experience and ability. I am hoping that by revising the content of the essay, we can make your work more competitive in the application process.

Scholarship / My main idea about leadership is to make a new challenge - an Essay for Chevening Scholarship [3]

Hi Kwajini. I am confused as to why you are discussing what the qualities of a good leader are in this essay when you should be presenting various situations and explanations regarding your development as a leader. That is a prompt deviation that can cost you the scholarship. If you take the time to review the other Chevening scholarship samples in this forum, you will get a better idea of what the prompt expects you to present to the reviewer and scholarship committee. Trust me, it does not include your high school experience as you have mentioned here. Although, with the correct presentation, maybe you can use the high school experience to highlight you influence skills. I'm just not sure if the reviewer will accept that as a valid example because it was so long ago and not related to your current profession or social skills.

The essay is quite specific with its requirements, you need to provide examples of your leadership qualities and ability to influence people. The high school experience that you have related does not really fall under these considerations. I did not see any real leadership role nor ability to influence people. The reason behind that is because you were simply too young to do such a thing. The most effective examples of leadership that you can offer can be related to some college activities such as leading a school organization, founding a school organization, work done as an intern, or any part time jobs that required your to lead and influence others.

Applicants for Chevening scholarships have some of the most impressive leadership qualities and influence abilities that can be found in future masters degree students. They take the essay very seriously and try their best to promote themselves as current leaders with the potential to become even more influential in the future. That said, the essay can never be about your future ability to become a leader. It is about your ability to lead at this very moment in time.

Do you have any relevant work experience that you can use to highlight your leadership and influence skills? It does not have to be a major event that you were involved in. Simple leadership and influence stories will suffice. What matters is that you can present current examples of your leadership skills. High school experience does not count at this point. A masters degree student must have more impressive leadership experiences than that which relate to their current occupation or socio-civic involvements.

Scholarship / Leadership & Influence Essay - Little help here for a non-native English speaker! [8]

Mayara, you hit the nail on the head! This is perfect! Even without real leadership experience, I could clearly see, through your narrative, that you were entrusted with leadership like tasks that helped mold you into a potential leader who knows how to properly use her influence in creating a network of business contacts. Good job! One suggestion though, can you please add a paragraph that will highlight how you managed to influence a group of people or a person so that you can have a stand alone proof of your influence skills as the prompt requires? That will really help make the essay stronger.

Corrections:

Par. 1:
Leadership is not ABOUT directing a group of people
It is rather about inspiring people to reach their full potential and supporTING them in moments of need.
the specific needs of the team and actING upon it. Therefore, I will describe situations when RE I saw that

Par. 2:
Being an intern means being in a position of constant learning with few opportunities of FOR leading.
The biggest event of the year I worked WAS INVOLVED IN there was the Rio+20 conference.
and by the end of the task force we delivered 50+ pages of content.
I learnt ED how to coordinate groups with different backgrounds,

Par. 3:
Those qualities were PROVED TO BE an asset
when I later became A Government & Public Affairs (GPA) intern
I tried to always take MAKE the most out of this position by
At first , my job description
and to lead discussions withIN other areas. Due to my performance I was contracted as GPA analyst,
trusted to be THE GPA representative

Par. 4:
being a better leader than I was on the day before.

Undergraduate / How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? [4]

John, don't waste your word count by including information about the founding father of university. The reviewer is quite familiar with Benjamin Franklin and his relation to the institution so any reference to him is not only a waste of space, but also a waste of the reviewer's time. Those are just references that you are using as a word filler. You don't need to do that. The reviewers prefer short and concise answers regardless of the word maximum.

Simply respond to the requirements of the prompt immediately so that you can concentrate on better building up what it is that you have to say. I would have liked to have seen more reference to specific classes that you are planning to enroll in. You really need to focus more on that. Most of your references to those aspects as just a bit too generic and general sounding for me, if I were the reviewer. Do some research, discuss the classes you want to attend and why. Show the reviewer that you actually know more about the university than just who founded it.

Keep the essay concentrated on the academic aspect. The discussion about Locust Walk and the diverse community of the university is ill placed in this essay. It is not even an option to respond to in the prompt so adding it to the essay will only weaken the content of what should be a strong piece of written work. Just discuss the academics please. Giving the reviewer information that is not required nor implied will not only waste his time, but also make him think about how well you can follow instructions. That will not be a good thing for your application. Your intellectual interests are already well represented with your paragraph relating to your founding an aviation club and other related activities.