Amanda, I think you need to focus your essay more on the story of how your mother's illness jump started your entrance into adulthood. Always remember that the center of the essay must never deviate from the main character, namely, you. If you review the first part of your essay, your mother is actually the focal point. So when you start to talk about yourself, you constantly refer back to her illness, which should not be the case. I think fixing the introduction should work well in this instance. For example I would say something like:
In the summer of 2011, my mother suffered from a Myocarditis. As she fought for her life at the hospital, I fought to help my father keep my family together. This was a turning point in my life. This was the time when all my life experiences converged to help me develop into an adult.
Then you can tell the story of everything that you did while your mother was in the hospital. Close it with her return home and the main lesson that you learned that made you feel like you were an adult now. By telling the story this way, I really think that you can keep the focus on yourself as the main character.
Hi Josh, I feel that your essay is both good and bad in the sense that it clearly responds to the second prompt but does not accurately portray how the navy can help you achieve your long term goals. Your response to the first prompt is really quite vague and long winded. I believe that this particular section of your essay can do with a little more extra work. For example, rather than vaguely telling the reader about the opportunities that the navy offers a graduate or a student, explain certain interests that you have which will have a chance of growing or being enhanced by your studies at the naval academy. The idea is to show them that you have a clear career path in mind, using their in-house educational system. That way, you can truly represent your ideas and how the naval academy education seamlessly integrates into those plans to make them a reality.
Aisha, the reason why you got lost in the middle part of the essay is because you tried to explain too many aspects of your background at once. In writing any effective statement, it is always best that you choose the most important topic for you to concentrate on discussing. This means choosing the 2 most closely related parts of your background to portray in the essay. So in this case, it would have to be your father's disorder and how it affected your family. Leave the community out of it.
Try to focus on the direct relation of the incidents to your development as a person. You can revise the introduction to start with the fact that you had to move homes because of his disorder. You don't really need to define the disorder for the reader. The real center of the story is how you had to move homes because of the bipolar problem. Your story is interesting and engaging to tell. Work on tightening it and making sure that the focus does not move from you as the center of the story. Be sure that you present how this experience helped shape the person you have become by explaining the lessons you learned from the experience. That is what the reader would like to learn more about towards the end of the story.
Hi Li, I have to say, your writing style is quite humorous and allows the reader to get to know you in a very lighthearted manner. The letter to your roommate was hilarious and could almost be imagined by the reader as the story would unfold in your dorm room. However, I think that you should also tell your roommate about how you do manage to wake yourself up in the morning. Just so the person will know what to expect in case you have some eccentric morning ritual they should be aware of.
As for the second response. It would be nice if you could find a way to merge the two things that matter most to you in a method that shows these two lines of learning have merged into the person you have become. That way, the reasons as to why these matter take on a more solid and coherent personality in a character trait of yours. That would certainly show that what matters to you is the person you have evolved into because of these interests. In my opinion, the stories you shared don't really give much strength to your beliefs as dictated by the anime story and Jon Stewart. Rather, the story should be about your vision for your future and how these lessons that you learned helped you come to that conclusion. After all, it is the conclusion that matters the most :-)