Undergraduate / I want to approach my values like limits in Calculus [19]

Mualla, my apologies if I accidentally insulted you when it came to the difference between the two terms. That was not my intention. I hope you won't take it against me. It is just that most females I know who are big into the feminist cause are usually so familiar with the terms, I beg them to stop telling me about it. Hahaha! Mostly because the discussion ends up in group debates where at the end of the night, the friends go home miffed, but still friends somehow.

I would like you to try a new opening paragraph for your essay. This is for your consideration and use if you wish to do so:

Having grown up in a rigid Muslim environment where the movement and rights of women are controlled by the men, I grew up rebelling against the system. Mostly because I felt that as a women, I should have rights as well. I never knew the meaning of feminist rights and the feminist cause until I began doing research for colleges. At Barnard, I hope to blossom as a feminist and come into my own identity under the feminist cause based upon the college's desire to promote female activism. This is a cause that I must learn about if I am to return to my home country and make a change for the women there. The education I will receive ...

Now, for the final statement, don't say math and science are underrepresented by women because that may not be the case in all countries. Be specific say it is under represented in your country and you hope to change that. Then end the essay. I think we can finalize the content then.

Undergraduate / I want to approach my values like limits in Calculus [19]

Not a bad start for a beefed up paragraph. Keep working on it and let me know when it is ready to be reviewed. I think you are getting to the point where the essay can be considered to be in its final phase of editing. As an fyi, do not confuse women's causes with women's success. Those are two different things. Women's causes are related to women's rights. I am amazed that you are not familiar with the term since you are a big defender of women's rights in your country. If you want to fully understand how women's rights and women's causes are related, look it up using a simple search. Doing that research just might help you to develop a better response to the essay. Work some of the issues and solutions into you essay if you can.

Graduate / The road I chose. SOP Review for PhD Computer Science with Specialization in Artificial Intelligence [3]

Raymond you need to focus the essay on more relevant information pertaining to your background in AI. For starters, your educational summary, summary not narrative, should pick up from the mention of your college degree then your masters degree information. At this point, your college degree and masters degree information are not as relevant as you think it is. Mostly because you are expected to already have proper professional, not amateur nor academic research, experience. That is because your PhD should directly reflect a continuation of your masters degree thesis and a desire to produce a specific type of research while you are a student at NTU. We need the dissertation proposal summary presented in the essay. If you notice, you did not really present that information in this version. While your college awards are notable, these should not take up a single paragraph. It should only be summarized information because it is old information that does not reflect anything more about your abilities to succeed as a PhD student. That is what the masters degree discussion is for. Finally, you need to better develop the discussion as to how and why NTU is your university of choice. Presenting the reasons that you feel you can accomplish more as a student at this university and also, how the university can help you achieve your research goals or career plans will make for a strong closing statement to the essay.

Undergraduate / As an American Muslim, I love immersing myself into conversations. [5]

Mualla, if there is nothing else that you want to add to the information in your statement then, I can suggest that you go right ahead and use the essay. It is already complete and, I feel that it best represents your ideas for "Why Tufts?" It is short, informative, and allows the reviewer to get to the point of your response in a manner that saves him time and effort when it comes to reading your essay. I specially like the opening statement that gives the universities that you have considered different personalities. It shows that you don't just consider the academic capabilities of a university, but their overall ability to deliver a well rounded, diversified, and accurate education as you require them to. By the way, go ahead and use the Doing School essay that you developed. I accidentally closed the window on that so rather than searching for it again, I am letting you know that the essay is in its final form here. Good luck with all your applications!

Undergraduate / Paideia - the complete education of mind, body and spirit. Contribution to the Reed community [5]

Batjin, why don't you do the opposite during Paideia week? You can still watch the movie, The Martian, but, since the movie has already been Scienced out in discussion by Neil De Grasse Tyson and other scientists, why not look for the flaws in the movie and discuss it instead? That sounds like it would be more fun than actually looking for the science in the movie. Doing that would also open the movie to non-scientific minds of people who are observant and may notice some flaws in the movie that may or may not be connected to science? The connection with Paideia will be that just because a movie seems scientifically accurate, does not mean that it is 100 % accurate. Such an essay presentation will make the topic you chose more interesting and allow for a wider discussion and / or debate after the movie viewing.

Undergraduate / Cornell Engineering Essay - for the Artificially Intelligent [5]

Yes, this definitely speaks to your interests on a better scale than the first version. Consider that you have thoroughly explained your futuristic idea and how Cornell can help you achieve that. I would just like you to consider editing one part of this essay. The portion in the 4th paragraph about how Cornell has won awards and the mention of the world class education isn't really necessary. The reviewer is well aware of these types of information. So it just takes away precious word count from the full development of your essay. Remove the paragraph since it does not serve a purpose in advancing your discussion. You can replace it with some other information if you wish. It is not really necessary to do so though.

Undergraduate / The one particular friend. College Essay for Virginia Tech. [3]

Ryan, your essay deviated in focus from the prompt towards the end. The discussion is about you and a superpower that you would want to have and why. So the story of the essay should be something imaginative and relevant to your real life. It should not be about someone else and how you would use that power for that person. The focus of the essay has to be on you and no one else. This is a reflective essay based on your wish to change something in your life or in society. For example, if I could have a super power, I would want to have the power to turn back time. I have made some mistakes in my past that, in hindsight, I would like to change now because of the aftermath of those decisions. So, if you are like Barry Allen in The Flash and you have the ability to run back in time, I bet you would do it. You would change the past to alter your future. That is the sort of essay response that you should be thinking about. Think about the most outrageous power that you can dream up and explain why you would want that power. How does it affect you as a person to have such special powers? Discuss from that point of view.

Undergraduate / "How have you Improved the Life of others" MIT prompt. [4]

Abishek, you have chosen a topic that is so broad in coverage that you were unable to respond to the final part of the prompt throughout your written work. Nowhere in this touching essay was there an indication of how you helped to improve the life of others in your community. You are reaching for Mars when you should be reaching for the moon. You indirectly being asked to represent a discussion regarding your volunteer activities that have helped those in your community. As a boy scout, you have probably have had the opportunity to make changes or touch the lives of your community members through civic service. Please write something about that. This topic is not really applicable to such a simple essay statement. Remember, you need to have made a difference in the lives of the people you helped. So choose the most memorable one that you can remember, other than this one. Make sure it is simple enough to matter though.

Scholarship / I want to show my values and make my essay better! [Global UGRAD Program] [4]

Yes. That is exactly what you have to do in order to develop a more relevant response to the prompt. Make sure to revise the essay according to the suggestions so that you will not have to try to figure out what to change, what to keep, and how to revise certain points. I already gave you instructions for the revision. All you have to do is apply it. Remember. talk to the reviewer as if he is in front of you. So be clear and to the point. The flowery words are not necessary. This is one time that you need to just be understood instead of making the reviewer jump through hoops to figure out what you have to say. I am looking forward to the changes that you will be making. I am eager to review your essay. Hopefully it will be ready to use after this edit.

Undergraduate / Cal Tech and I - Cal Tech supplemental essays [12]

Andy, if you still want to keep the version that you have then go ahead and do that. I am not here to change the voice of your essay. You need to make sure that your personality is reflected in the essay. So always go with your gut feeling when it comes to using certain parts of your essay. Even if I don't agree with you, it is what makes you comfortable with the essay content that counts the most. I guess there is only so much humor that can be injected into this essay. However, I still feel that you need to develop the part about how you came to the decision to just blurt out the question in some way. That is after all, the launching pad of the whole discussion. So if you can, try to develop something for it. Otherwise, you can make do with what you've got.

Undergraduate / Cornell engineering essay - my contributions to the engineering field [4]

Yes, I really believe that only some slight adjustments and developments are necessary to make the essay more interesting and prompt relevant. The essay has some very strong points to present. It just needs to be done in a better manner in order to gain you more chances of strengthening the essay so that the reviewer will be more interested in what you have to say. I am actually looking forward to reading your revision because I know that it will be ready to use upon the application of my suggestions. I hope that you can revise it soon and post it here for final review. You don't have to add anything more to the essay. It is going to be more than qualified as a prompt response once you have applied the suggestions I made above.

Undergraduate / I want to approach my values like limits in Calculus [19]

Mualla, I feel like we need to add another paragraph that will focus solely on Barnard and the reasons why it is a good match for you. The essay has so many parallelisms that I fear the comparisons will be the attention calling element of the essay instead of the reasons that it is a better match for you. Can you develop another paragraph for a proper conclusion? One that circles back and reiterates the strongest possible reason that really has you saying that Barnard will be a good match for you? Go beyond the STEM discussion. Try to find something along the lines of a woman's cause that you can identify with and support as an advocacy while you study at the university. I think that will work well to conclude the essay.

Undergraduate / Tech's motto is Progress and Service. What is your role in your family? Max 150 [4]

Zhao, if you want to still use the original essay, you can call yourself the "tie that binds the family together" or "The great family organizer". You only need an interesting title to call yourself to serve as the hook for the essay that you wrote. However, creating a title for you in the family will require you to create a new opening statement that can accurately explain why you call yourself this as a lead into the description of the family life that you have. That way, you will have a connecting paragraph that seamlessly connects the example with the explanation.

You can also write about your extended family based upon your volunteer experience. However, I am not sure about what information you plan to present in it so I would need to read the draft of the essay before I can decide if it will be useful and more helpful to your application than the first essay.

Essays / Which option should I go with? [6]

Sorry, I am only allowed to delete anything myself. I can only post on the thread as well. You will have to contact the admin in order to get them to delete the specific section. Don't worry about it for now. Just post a new thread. The admin will know to delete the second posting in this thread because they are constantly monitoring the site anyway. Please be patient with me as I try to catch up. I think I still have one or two essays from you pending in my list. I am working feverishly to catch up. Please post the revised essay as soon as you can so that I can finalize that one for you and hopefully, help you relax a little bit. Try to just breathe and relax. You won't get far by panicking. I am here to help you and support you. So you will get through this deadline with a companion. Just breathe.

Undergraduate / Beyond rankings, location, athletics, why Georgia Tech? Why Gatech? [8]

Benny, please consider removing the reference to the Japanese club. From the way I read the essay now, the club is an extra curricular activity that does not tie in directly with the academic nature of your interest. More importantly, it raises the question, "Why study about Japanese culture in the U.S?" Somehow the inclusion doesn't make sense at this point. I think it would be better if you just focus on the actual organizations, clubs, and areas of study that relate directly to your major or field of interest so that the response is more focused on what you can actually take away from GAtech that relates to something tangible and useful to you in terms of your future career.

Undergraduate / My Motivation for applying to Lafayette College [3]

Mubarak, the first part of your essay has to be revised in totality. The first reason that it has to be revised is because you are admitting to not being familiar with the university at all. The second reason, is that you are saying you are only interested in attending the university because of the scholarship finance package. These are the worst reasons that you can give for opting to see admission to a university overseas. Never tell a university you want a free education because they have students from their own country also seeking scholarships to attend the university. Why should they opt to give you a scholarship when the grant for you could be given to a citizen student of their country? While it is an enticing idea, your reasons for attending should show more of a keen interest in either the academic program of the university or, the idea that you can develop a better sense of professionalism and an idea as to how you can better help your country once you complete your education there. Skip the keen interest in free education. Specially since you are claiming later on that you want to participate in the study away opportunities of the university. The whole essay just sounds like you want a free ride out of your country to another, without really wishing to accomplish a proper and acceptable goal.

Essays / Which option should I go with? [6]

Mualla, you are being lax and panicking. Don't forget the forum rules about one essay per thread. If you choose to panic instead of focusing on getting the essays done, I will not be able to help you. Don't violate the forum rules. That will make your tight schedule even tighter and worse, risk getting you suspended when you need help the most. So I will do the first essay and then you can post the supplement as a new thread.

You need to develop the unafraid part with another paragraph. Discuss how you mastered being unafraid because of the realizations that you had after the operation. Connect each fear that you had prior to the operation with a lesson learned after that helped build your confidence in yourself, in others, and in the fact that there is nothing to fear in the unknown. Rather, the unknown should be embraced as a life changing and career building opportunity. I think that developing the essay more along those lines should result in a clearer representation of how you conquered being afraid of the unknown.

Essays / Which option should I go with? [6]

Hi Mualla, sorry about not getting back to you sooner. I will be catching up on your essays. I am currently swarmed with the number of essays on the board. I'll always get back to you when I can. Now, with regards to the essay choices, I am not sure why you are torn about the choices. At this point, we are going for variety in your essay content so no more computer science or math topics. Go with Helen Keller or this time around. I am assuming that you have a solid reason for choosing her to speak to? I would love to read it. Katherine Johnson is only an option for you if you can manage to discuss something other than math or science or computer science. If you major in the unafraid, the same rules apply. So the discussion regarding a time when you thought of dropping computer science is also out of the equation this time. Pick some other time, post the essay here and let's see if it works. I will be on stand by for you so we can get this over with sooner rather than later. Don't worry, I am not overwhelmed by your essays. I just need to play catch up because of the holiday season activities of my family.

Scholarship / My dream of Logistics. I want to contribute back to my country Vietnam as well as the US society. [2]

Lana, the main problem of your essay is that you wrote it in the method of a college application essay. Which the Global UGRAD program is not. It is a specific one year scholarship program to the United States where the participants do more than just study the subjects related to their intended major. This is an overall learning experience that takes you out of your comfort zone and expects you to participate in a give and take type of learning scenario. My suggestion is this, read the objective of the UGRAD program on their website. Make sure that you understand their objectives and how the participants are expected to promote the objective during your time as a scholar of the program. Then go and write a new essay. One that accurately represents the reasons why you embody the scholarship objectives and how your participation can help to improve the learning experience of others participating in the program.

Undergraduate / The value of teamwork and math and sciences. Unites States Naval Academy admissions essay [3]

Nick, you need a transition paragraph after the opening paragraph that talks about team work. Your transition paragraph should be representative of the connection between team work, math, and physics. Analyze the story of the attack on Bin Laden. Try to figure out how Math and Physics played a role in taking him down. Was it through the calculated attack? Was there a physics equation involved in how the soldiers successfully enacted the plan of action? Try to make a connection between the two so that the explanation that you give about math and physics in the current 2nd paragraph makes more sense and has a better connection with your presented discussion. By the way, you need to double check your essay for proper noun usage. Some important words are written in lower case when it should have been capitalized at first. I am hoping that you know you did that and that the error was forced by the fact that you are writing a draft version of the essay.

Undergraduate / The cues of the Yoruba, Igbo and the western culture. MIT Cultural Background Essay [6]

Davidson, the instructions cut off before you could complete it. What are you supposed to do if you need more than 100 words to complete the essay? I need to know specifically what action you have to take because you seriously need more than 100 words to properly present this essay to the reviewer. For starters, I want you to choose only the top 2 representations of your cultural background. What is your culture popular for? How are you known to the world? Or, choose some little known facts about your culture that you can share with the reviewer. Again, no more than 2 so that you can fully develop the discussion as per the prompt requirements. Take your time. Do not rush the development of this essay. Choose carefully. You get only one shot to make a strong impression regarding yourself using your cultural background. Don't blow it by rushing through the essay.

Scholarship / I want to show my values and make my essay better! [Global UGRAD Program] [4]

Ngo, your essay speaks volumes about your passion and your background, but it does not really speak of why you are an excellent candidate for the UGRAD program until it reaches the part where you quote your professor, which by the way, it out of place in this essay. You are presenting very creative information in the essay and I can see why you are a good fiction writer, but that is not what this essay requires. It needs a direct to the point discussion of your skills, learning aptitude, and openness to other cultures and traditions. This is a formal discussion, not an essay for creative writing class. So hold back on the flowery words and just discuss, without beating around the bush, your character traits that you believe will make you a successful candidate for the program. Some of the topics you can discuss here is your ability to care for yourself overseas, your eagerness to share your culture with others and to learn from their culture as well. You need to be less dramatic and more serious in this discussion. Focus on your character, not on your adventures or the opinion of others about your ability to succeed in the program.

Graduate / Apply to get many knowledges, supervisions, materials, networkings, tools, and methodologies [2]

Ahmad, never use the term "I guess" in any essay that you write. That is the voice of uncertainty that, regardless of what discussion it is representing, does not give the reviewer much confidence in your skills. If you cannot revise the statement to have an aura of certainty, don't use it at all. A statement of purpose is only made strong by the confidence that the student has in the writing of his paper. That means your words must contain confidence and not "maybe" sentiments as embodied by the phrase "I guess".

Place the information about your research in the paragraph after you present your academic overview. Since the research paper is part of the masters degree requirements, it should be placed in that position because it will help your essay the most in that position in the essay. Remember, use a certain tone. Be confident. Say "This is what I plan to do!" not "I might do this."

For the final part of the essay, please make sure to explain why you have chosen to attend this particular university by explaining how they can help you achieve this dream of yours. Clarify your short term goals as a post study plan covering 6 months to 5 years.

Undergraduate / CHESS. Tons and tons of losses helped me to understand the simple, yet elusive, essence of a game. [3]

Bat, you need to work on the length of this essay, it takes too long to get to the point. You spend more than half of the essay explaining your love for chess and how you could not find a playmate, etc. all of which do not help to move the story along. The point is that you failed to do something. Get to the point or express the failure as it happened by the end of the first paragraph. If you wait until the 2nd paragraph, or in your case, the 3rd paragraph, the reviewer will already have stopped reading your essay and moved on. If possible omit the background of how you fell in love with chess. Just show the reviewer how your chess skills were inadequate for you to win at the start. That will be more than enough of a foundation for your essay response. Aside from the problematic introductory paragraph, the rest of the essay works well for the discussion.

Graduate / Imperial College "Concrete Structures" Personal Statement [6]

Eng, your personal statement accidentally includes a second paragraph which is better suited for your motivation essay, if one is required of you. A personal statement is only supposed to introduce the overview of your educational background, work experience, and interest in enrolling Imperial College. The reason that you chose this major and other information, should be contained only in the relevant common app prompt. So your essay should only contain paragraphs 1, 3, 4, and a longer version of paragraph 5. Since paragraph 5 is supposed to reiterate your desire to attend the college during the upcoming term. BTW, do not add a long term plan to a personal essay. That is more for the statement of purpose, not for the personal statement. Only provide relevant information per prompt. There is no sense in adding long term plans here because that does not introduce you and your background to the reviewer. This is only the first of many common app essays that you will be writing. The long terms plan will fit into one of the later discussions for sure.

Undergraduate / The cues of the Yoruba, Igbo and the western culture. MIT Cultural Background Essay [6]

Davidson, I would like to help you cut this down to 100 words but unfortunately, you did not provide me with the complete instructions for the writing prompt so that I can review your work for the most relevant parts that we have to keep in order to present a proper cultural background for you. Kindly provide the complete prompt as soon as you can so that we can review the statement for proper response requirements. It won't be hard to complete 100 words as long as we know what kind of information is required of your response statement. I want to be sure that we can use such intricate references to your culture without explaining what the traditions mean or how it is performed in relevance to your cultural background.

Undergraduate / My future still remains as foggy as it has been before - Common app [3]

Buyanbat, the first question that occurred to me as I read this essay was, "I am not learning anything about you as a person in this essay". Aside from your ardent interest in math and your background in the subject, as a reviewer, I am not learning about your development as a person, your abilities as a student, or your interests in life beyond this subject. I have a sneaking suspicion that you are a math major right? That is why you opted to talk so extensively about the development of your love of Math in this essay? Sad to say, such a detailed discussion is better used in a personal statement and not a background, interest, identity, or talent prompt. The reviewer needs to get to know about you beyond your academic interest. What do you do for fun? Aside from Math, what other topics interest you? Why are you interested in it? I can't really figure out how Math is supposed to help me get to know your character traits as a person. The essay just doesn't develop your character traits very much in the essay. Personally, I would ask you to revise the essay to show more of your background in terms of character.

Undergraduate / Common App #2: Failure - I am well-versed in the poetry of orchestra [8]

Angela, this is a well written essay and is easily understandable for people with a musical background I myself have a history in Piano so I easily understood the technical terms that you used. That is where my worry lies with regards to your essay. Are you aiming to be admitted to music school? The reason I ask is because this essay, while interesting, relevant, and applicable to the prompt, uses one too many technical terms which, to the untrained reviewer may come across as boring in terms of topic and somewhat snobbish of you as an applicant. Isn't there a less technical failure that you can share with the reviewer? This is just a concern that I have. However, if you are comfortable with this essay and you are confident that it will be read by music background reviewers, then go ahead and use this essay without any corrections. The work is fine.

Undergraduate / Why Duke? To be part of the next generation of global leaders and technological innovators [7]

Mubarak, don't use the reference to the self taught web page development when you were 8. That story does not carry a compelling reason for your to opt to try to gain a student slot at Duke. Instead, use the second paragraph as your opening statement because it directly responds to the prompt. It would be best if you just develop a new secondary paragraph that will also help to better deliver reasons as to why you chose Duke. Try to find a unique reason that had you decide that only Duke could help you gain the kind of knowledge and insight in Computer Science because of specific interests that you have in the field of learning computer science. Try to avoid generic and generalized statements as you have now. Be specific about what attracted you to this major and to Duke in particular.

Graduate / WORKING WITH AUTISTIC CHILDREN. SLP Graduate Program Essay! [11]

Try both, create a new opening sentence with one version and use the paraphrased prompt in another. See which version you like best. Whichever appeals to you the most should be the version that you use. You will know which version is better when it seamlessly joins the rest of the essay without you wanting to revise the content of the opening statement. The irony is that whether or not you got into SLP, you would still find yourself working with kids and other parents of ABA kids. The content is fine like I said. You just needed to pay attention to some other parts of the essay in order to make it better. When you finish revising the order of the paragraphs, review the content in this new set up. If you still like what you read, then this is the final version that you should use for your essay.

Letters / Doctoral Program at Birmingham Website Application - Letter to supervisor candidate [4]

Ahmad, I am not sure what the purpose of this letter is supposed to be. Can you enlighten me on the reason behind the letter? If I know what the letter is for, I think I will be able to help you clean up the language so that it will sound more fluid in English. Right now, this letter sounds like it passed through a very bad online translator. It needs a lot of work but I can't begin to advise you as to where to start because I don't have any idea what the concept of the letter has to be. Part of what puzzles me about this letter is, who is the professor? Why did you address this letter to him? What is he supposed to do for your application? If you can also clarify those points, I bet the essay can be edited to become more focused and more expressive towards your concern. I'll wait for the instructions for this letter before I delve into a deeper explanation of how to improve this letter.

Undergraduate / The rebelling nerd - I had fulfilled my duty as an Asian kid [30]

Eureka! Yahoo! You did it! Finally! Now, this is the challenge essay that really hits the mark. Most of all, you gave it your own voice. It reflects the battle between unfair parental expectations and the right of a teenager to slack off once in a while. Excellent work. Hold on, I found a typo, in the portion where you said "listening to my parent", parent should be in plural form since I bet they were both talking your ear off to make you put down the fun stuff and bury your head in books. You know what comes next, proof reading and making sure that you are completely satisfied with the work you have developed. I know I am happy and proud of what you have developed. I hope you feel the same way. This essay is great and ready to launch.

Undergraduate / The value of patience and the lesson to be learned with my every loss [10]

In my opinion, you should stick to only one topic for discussion in the essay because the reviewer can tend to get confused when you discuss more than one topic in the essay. For uniformity sake and relevance, it is best to just discuss the related issues. It doesn't matter if you never won the same competition. What matters is that you show some sort of improvement over time which will justify your the lessons that you learned. One of the lessons that you may have learned since you kept losing would be the value of patience and the lesson to be learned with every loss. You can easily fit in that discussion into the essay instead of the new activity. If you add a new activity, the reviewer may tend to get confused and wonder how the new activity fit in with the past. By keeping the discussion focused on only one topic, the reviewer will not lose his place while reading your essay.

Undergraduate / Exposed to counting. How the quest for a shooting star shaped my life. [10]

Hi Karekezi. Don't worry about the late reply. I didn't forget about your essay because I had the thread to refer to in order to refresh my memory. In response to your question, you can most certainly use this essay in the open topic common app prompt. You know it as "other information". This essay clearly has a purpose because you wanted to explain about your bad grades. Which is something that could affect the consideration of your admission so make sure that you do use this essay in that box. It can help better your chances at admission. No, the essay is not too broad and it will fit the box because the box is meant to accommodate "other" topic essays. I hope to read your new essay soon.

Undergraduate / The value of patience and the lesson to be learned with my every loss [10]

Go ahead and add that part. Make sure to properly develop the paragraph in order to make it a valid and important part of the discussion. Keep the maximum word count in mind and make edits, changes, or deletions whenever necessary in order to accommodate the expanded explanation. Sometimes, you will have to sacrifice trivial parts of the essay in favor of the major content. You will have to discern the unimportant parts of the essay for yourself. That is how you will learn to edit yourself for content and relevance to the essay prompt. Please don't hesitate to ask clarification questions if you feel you are uncertain about something. I'll try to respond as soon as I can. I am getting excited about reading your new version. I am sure it will be a fantastic revised version.

Undergraduate / WHY US? - the unimaginable bewilderment after an scary accident [3]

Vinh, the essay focuses way too much on the accident, how it happened, and the aftermath of the accident in relation to your mother. Your character in this story plays a supporting role to her and the accident. That is not good. The essay should be relevant to your transition to adulthood. In this case, it is more as if you are just presenting the supporting role that you played by being an obedient child to your mother. What we need to show is that the accident made you a more responsible person, but not as an obedient child but as an adult who is the equal of your mother in every way. The best thing to do in this case would be to write a new essay that has the focus on you instead of your mother and the accident. Discuss the accident from an awakening point of view for you. How you took charge of the situation after the accident, how you decided that your mother's injuries warranted you taking on more duties at home and wherever else possible, and how you came to mature as a person, taking on more adult responsibilities and an adult mindset, all because of the accident. The essay at the moment doesn't quite have the focus on you that you deserve. Remember, you are the central point of the essay topic, not your mother, not the accident.

Undergraduate / Tech's motto is Progress and Service. What is your role in your family? Max 150 [4]

Zhao, your role in your immediate family is not clear. Are you the oldest child? The middle child? What were your duties and responsibilities as bestowed upon you by your parents? Why did you feel the need to organize the house when it fell into disarray? Was keeping house part of your chores? You did not really make your position in the family clear. So you should work on first introducing your role in the family before you present the problem that you had to resolve.

Can you explain how you equated the mess of your home with the lack of inspiration in the household? There is no clear connection or explanation that connects the two. After all, there are some homes that are messy and yet the members are quite productive. They just did not have the time to clean the house on a daily or weekly basis.

You cannot assume that you can just tell the reviewer that your family made a pact to keep the house clean, or was it to clean the house as a family? You did not make that point clear either. The motivation of your family because of the clean house should be shown as a progressive development thanks to your influence. It cannot be reduced to a single sentence that says you motivated them without evidence of how you did it.

Basically, the premise of the essay is sound but the execution is faulty. I have provided you with some guidance regarding how to best address the problem points. I hope that you will opt to apply the changes. I am looking forward to reading the revised version when you are ready to present it.

Undergraduate / AIRPLANES AND I - Common Application Prompt 5 [6]

Vinh, when you are not sure about what you wrote or if you feel that you cannot fix the essay, it is alright for you to write a totally new one based on the same prompt. It is actually expected of you when developing college essays. When something is not working, you have to try all avenues in order to improve the work you are doing. Don't worry about it. I am not angry. I am happy that you were honest enough to come out and say that you can't make the essay work for you. So go ahead, develop the new essay and post it as a new thread. Do not attach the new essay here. Remember, we have a one essay per thread policy so the new essay needs to have its own thread. You can have this thread closed if you want to.

Undergraduate / The rebelling nerd - I had fulfilled my duty as an Asian kid [30]

Let's see, during the celebration... after the toast, you tell your dad that while you are happy that you got into the school of their choice. You are not happy because you are now facing 12 hour study days. He gets cross with you and an argument ensues. This is why you decide to go to the school to draw the graffiti. When you see yourself in the painting, hanging with school books from the neck, that is when you decide to prove to your dad that you can have a relaxed study schedule and still make the perfect grade that he wants you to produce. Talk about video games, going out with friends, etc. All with the balance of allowing yourself ample time to study before going to bed at night. Your parents don't like it but they can't convince you to do otherwise. Report card day comes, perfect grades, they change their minds and are more accepting of you relaxing before studying. So you have conflict, resolution, and an "I'll do it again" response to the prompt. Do you think this can work for you?

Undergraduate / The rebelling nerd - I had fulfilled my duty as an Asian kid [30]

Here is an idea that I just came up with. Take Triet out of the equation. Tell the story from a first person point of view. So you had the success, you had the party, and you had the feeling of drowning in academics. I got the idea from the painting that you drew. Keep that reference. Then come to a realization. Rather than allowing yourself to drown in academics and books, you would challenge the idea. No longer will you cater to 12 hour school days. Instead, you decide to take charge of your time. You study when you want to once you get home. Offering time for relaxation and friends before studies. You found that it wasn't a bad thing to do. You kept your grades up and you did not feel like you were drowning anymore. Much to your chagrin, you have continued down this path. You learned that they were wrong and yet they refuse to admit that you are right. Academics need not be rigorous for one to perform well. One only needs to better apply himself during study hour. So you rebelled against the thought that 12 hour academics is the only way to excel by taking time for yourself. The examples of how you did that is up to you. Given the chance, you will definitely do it again if it means that you will be able to change the mindset of the parents regarding the effective study method for their children. Do you think you can try to develop something like that?