Undergraduate / I frequently find myself to be a very Yujyufudan person - essay elaborating on 'My biggest flaw' [6]

Kristy, on the contrary, I believe that you have described a unique flaw in your personality. It is because of the many fields of interests or extreme excitement about new things that you are prevented from promptly and accurately making decisions about things presented to you. This is a major flaw in a personality once you know how to spin it. Within the essay, skip everything explaining about your interest in Japanese culture and how long you have been studying Japanese. Instead, focus on the weakness that the word connotes, that "flaw" in your decision making process. Explain how you are unable to make up your mind because of the many ideas in your head and how that has led to some very uncomfortable situations or failures in your life. Like i said, the "spin", or how you use a term to make it either positive or negative, is what is important in this essay. Your reasons may be positive, but the outcome of the inability to decide on your part has for sure, resulted in missed opportunities, failed attempts, and confusion on your part in certain instances. Show us that side of your personality, that weak side brought about by your indecision and you will have successfully discussed the flaw in your personality :-) I suggest keeping the Japanese term to describe indecision. It makes for a very interesting hook in the essay :-)

Undergraduate / Born and bred in Nepal, I am familiar to myriad diseases people fall prey to all year round [23]

That being the case, I hope you will remember to post your revised version, with the correct word count here so that we can make sure that the essay did not get lost thematically during the word editing process. I am not saying it will happen to you but it does happen sometimes so we need to make sure that we prevent that. If you have any further problems with reducing the word count, or you feel that you need a template to follow in doing the word reduction, let us know so that we can help you by providing a template for you to follow. We just need to know what the minimum and maximum word count is in order to be able to help you out :-) The best of luck with your revision! We are here to help anytime you need us :-)

Writing Feedback / TOEFL - more happy live and more chance to become successful for kids raised up less strictly [4]

Mophicyao, your essay is flawed in reasoning. You have failed to consider that children, at very young ages do not have any study habits nor do they know that they are supposed to study after school and complete their homework. Two activities which are the basis of discipline and worth ethics in a person's life that eventually leads to success for them in the future. You spoke of an example of a person who was given control of his study time at a far more advanced age, when the foundation for discipline in relation to studies had most likely been established by his parents already. You have therefore used a weak example in your essay. The best example to use is always based upon personal experience due to the insight that it gives you about the topic you are discussing. I would have chosen to discuss a comparison of my own study habits as a child and how the strict supervision of the parents was necessary at the start, slowly working up to the fact that eventually, the strictness can have its negative effects on the child who could no longer know how to be a child because of the incessant strict rules the parents apply to their study habits and the like. If your can prove that a slow, relaxing of the rules benefits the child in terms of his future success, then you will be able to better argue the points being implied within the essay.

Grammatically, the essay needs work. Since you need to revise the content though, it is best to do the grammatical corrections when the revision for the content has been finalized. That way you only correct the grammar once instead of throughout the theme revision process :-) Good luck with your revision! We look forward to reading the next version. It is not easy to self teach yourself for the TOEFL test. We will be here ot help you with your review as long as you need us to :-)

Graduate / What is my "gift" and what is my purpose in this world? Master of Social Work [8]

Betsy, you have the essay written in reverse order. That is why the hook is missing at the beginning of your essay. My suggestion is to strengthen your first paragraph by giving us your closing paragraph instead. The part that reads


.

From there, you begin to answer the prompts in chronological order which, as far as I can tell, will help bring a sense of order and smooth transitions to your paragraphs. Remember that there is a particular order in which you write an SOP for masters studies. Normally, you start with your most current work experience, working your way back to the first and then explaining your desire to attend masters studies. Now, since you did not graduate with a degree in social work, you need to develop your extra curricular activities relating to the field in a stronger sense in order to prove that you can handle the demands of the course even though you do not have the background for it. The main reason that your application becomes weak, is because you do not have the strong foundation that the studies require. You do not even have prerequisite courses in your transcript of records to show that you have a background in social work. Hence the difficulty in your application.

You graduated from a very different major in college. As for your negative grades. It is good that you were able to present an explanation for it. However, you did not own up to your shortcoming. Instead, you blamed the failure on something else. Own that failure, show them that you take responsibility for your actions. Remember, as a social worker, you will handle far worse cases so you need to prove that you are mentally, emotionally, physically, and socially capable of handling the demands of the course and the actual job.

The essay needs to be revised for theme and prompt adherence at this point. Once you have done that, and the essay finally behaves the way the prompt requires it to, corrections to your grammar issues can finally be applied. There are a number of words that needs to be replaced or deleted in order to make the sentences behave or make more sense. There is no sense in doing those corrections at this point as there is a strong need to replace the content of the essay and as such, asking you to correct the grammar errors at this point would be a waste of time. That process can be saved for the last part :-)

Undergraduate / Female Characters in Video Games - Common App Essay #1 [10]

Natalie, now that I know the essay prompt, I believe that you should cut the discussion down to only one character and how it relates to your personality or interest in your field of study. Choose wisely and make sure that you choose the character that embodies all that you have learned from playing video games. You don't really need to discuss 3 female characters because that would end up making the essay too long and a bit confusing to read. By concentrating on only one character, you will be able to you fully develop your essay in such a way that your central identity will be fully developed and discussed. I cannot choose the character for you so I hope you can make the right choice by yourself :-) Please try to revise the essay based along those lines and then post it here so that we can help you with the clean up and polishing of the content :-)

Undergraduate / Prosperity. What makes a country prosper? Application Essay for HKUST - PERSONAL STATEMENT [4]


- The main question you have to answer in this personal statement is, why HKUST? What is is about the university, its programs, curriculum, or internship programs that makes you sense that you will be able to achieve your objectives in taking this particular college degree? What set the university apart in your mind, from the others in the sense of how it can help you evolve and grow as a student and person?

You truly gave us an insight into the background of your interest in Economics and how you plan to achieve the best kind of training possible in order to ensure a successful career for yourself. However, you failed to mention how HKUST will be able to help you achieve these personal ambitions and goals. There is a need for you to show us the career path you wish to take in the future in order for us or the admissions officer, to get a deeper understanding of the motivation behind your actions and your goals. Without those kinds of information, the essay just feels long and slightly informative instead of highly informative.

Undergraduate / Born and bred in Nepal, I am familiar to myriad diseases people fall prey to all year round [23]

Suvekcha, that suggestion that you read would actually have worked if we were doing a flashback essay. Since you are not writing one, it is best to just keep it in chronological order. I am glad that you saw the change in flow the way I saw it :-) I really believe it works best for this type of essay. Having read the whole paper once again, this time in the new format, I believe that you have successfully altered your original essay already. This version is fit for submission to the university of your choosing and should work well for your intentions. However, if you feel that you need to add information to the essay, go ahead and do so. We can work on fitting it into the overall feel and context of your essay if possible :-)

Undergraduate / What single activity listed in the activity section of Application are you most proud of why? [3]

Nikita, is this a word limited statement? I ask because you have posted quite a short response to the question. So I am not sure if you just under developed the essay or if you really need to keep the answer short :-) If you are not interested in teaching then I do not advice that you use this particular activity as the one you are most proud of mainly because it does not relate to your chosen major. All of your answers to the common app essays and statements should somehow tie in directly to your chosen major in order to show the development of your interest in your chosen field and your dedication to further improving your craft in that area of study. If you can choose another activity, I suggest you do so. Otherwise, try to find a way to relate this answer to your desired major to make it work better with the common app, SOP, and personal statement essays.

Graduate / Let me first express my deep appreciation for your government help for Syrian refugees [4]

Ahmad, let me start off by saying that this letter is too long. It presents way too much information about you that tends to run on and on and on. Not all of this information is necessary in a scholarship application essay. I strongly suggest that you whittle down the information provided to only the most important bits and pieces that will present you in the best light to the scholarship committee. Try not to go over 500 words, or 2 pages maximum, double spaced. Even such a letter would already be considered a bit too long but is still within acceptable limits.

In your essay, you need to concentrate on explaining why you feel you deserve the scholarship. This is usually based upon academic merits and social awareness, added to the financial aspect of your application. Whatever your intentions for the future, after you complete your studies through the help of the scholarship should also be mentioned in order to show that you have a career planned for yourself.

You should devote a paragraph or two to explaining how the scholarship can help you achieve these intentions. By representing the way that the scholarship foundation can help you, there is a chance that you will also be able to discuss how you plan to repay them for their act of kindness either by giving back to your community or becoming a scholarship sponsor yourself in the future. Those are just some ideas that I believe you can present in the essay. You can discuss anything you want.

Right now, our main concern is cutting down the word count, lessening the paragraphs, and making the essay more interesting to the reader. The grammatical errors can be fixed after those problems are cleaned up :-)

Undergraduate / Born and bred in Nepal, I am familiar to myriad diseases people fall prey to all year round [23]

- Suvekcha, the essay will flow better if you make this paragraph your third instead of first paragraph. There is a certain flow, chronological order, and feel that creates a seamless read to the essay for the reader. In this particular case, I believe that the flow I pointed out will work best for you :-)

The reformatted essay works to a certain degree. Applying my suggestions should make it work best :-) Shall we see if you will like the new order?

Undergraduate / My goal is to help women and protect the environment - Pitzer Supplement [4]

Sam, while I admire your essay for being passionate about a cause, you kind of missed the mark with regards to the prompt because you are talking about how the university will teach you how to use the core value on solving the social situation close to your heart. The thing is, the prompt is asking you to use one of the core values as the basis for problem solution. Meaning, you have to choose a core value that you can use to help you start or initiate a solution to the problem or cause that you posed. So you need to revise the essay to present an idea about the personal solution you came up with, based upon the core value of your choice. Right now you are just talking too much about the cause and how you think the university can teach you to solve it. The essay is asking you to present a clear picture of your problem solving and analytical skills and that is what you should be presenting an answer to.

Undergraduate / Comment/Suggestions for Semester at Sea Application Essay [3]

Jessie, a semester at sea is all about learning about diverse cultures and traditions by having the opportunity to immerse yourself in that world through your port stops across the globe. The best way to answer the essay would be to first, talk about the country that you are looking forward to visiting from the itinerary list and explaining why you are excited from a global perspective. This means explaining how you hope to learn more about the country and perhaps changing some misconceptions about the country that you gained from the world perspective or presentation of the country. From that point, you can go on to explain how the global perspective creates the first image of a country in the minds of people. Take one or two country destinations from the list at this point, then mention how the global community views them. Then explain how through the Semester at Sea, you hope to go far beyond the global perspective because the only way to truly understand a country and its people, is by immersing yourself in the way of life there, an opportunity that the Semester at Sea offers the students by stopping for a few days at every port of call. Do you think you can revise your essay to reflect that?

Undergraduate / Georgetown: Karate, Non-quitting Spirit, and Moving forward! [8]

Nancy, the problem I see with your essay is that you are talking about your talents and skills but you are not telling us how that will help to feed the diverse energy that the students of Georgetown have. Instead of telling us about your talents and skills, tell us how you plan to use those talents and skills at Georgetown. For example, you compete in Karate right? So delve deeper into that by saying you have an interest in joining (or starting if Georgetown does now have one yet) the competitive Karate or Martial Arts team of Georgetown. You speak Arabic fluently right? Surely there will be other Arabic students on campus who will be looking for other Arabs to create friendships with or to seek academic help from. Talk about founding an Arabic club along those lines because of your expertise in Arabic. Basically, the essay will benefit from you making plans about how you can best socialize with and help the members of the Georgetown student community on an academic and social level. This will show your diversity and also explain how you understand the diversity of campus life at Georgetown, closing with how you plan to help make it an even more lively and colorful student landscape with your future addition :-) If you can write a completed essay for us to better critique and review, I think we will be able to help you align it better than going paragraph by paragraph or idea by idea.

Undergraduate / Female Characters in Video Games - Common App Essay #1 [10]

Natalie, this is certainly an interesting essay answer. Unfortunately, you were not able to give us the essay prompt that you are trying to answer with this essay so I can't really judge if you are answering the prompt properly or not. Kindly post the prompt as soon as possible for a more accurate review coming from all of the participants here :-) To give you an overview of my comments though, I find that the essay does not center enough upon you. It deals too much with the video game representation of women instead which is the subject of a research paper and not a common app essay. However, we can probably spin your essay to better answer the prompt once we know what we are dealing with here. There are a number of interesting points that can be used as a take off point for answering the prompt. We can choose which one that will be as soon as the prompt is revealed :-)

Scholarship / Skillset in a million over a perfect student [5]

Victor, I have some points for you to consider for addition or revision within the essay listed below :-)


- Victor, what is the relevance of this sentence to your scholarship paper? How did this research affect the study you mentioned earlier about the body-machine relationship?


- You should discuss more about your participation in this club because it is relevant to the college degree you are taking. Maybe there is some way you can relate your experience with the group with the need for your scholarship as well?


- Why can't you make money on your own to cover your expenses? Tell them your story. What is your job? Do you work 2 or 3 jobs to stay in college? Explain why you can't make enough to help cover the remaining 70 % of your expenses. More importantly, how do you plan to give back to the scholarship foundation or the community hosting your scholarship while you are a student and after, should you be granted a scholarship that is. How do you plan to pay it forward and make a difference that the scholarship foundation can eventually be proud of?

Graduate / Write about experience - Description about my Internship [13]

Nurba, go back to the original essay. Then refer to my previous responses that advice you about how to shorten the essay in a logical and acceptable manner. Apply it to the new version of the essay format that you will be writing and then post it here. Let's see what we can do about providing a more informative paper that does not run like a research paper in word count :-) Try to just include the most important information about you. Remember, this is just a summary version of what your submitted documents should already be presenting. Be concise but not overly informative. Select only the information you feel needs to be highlighted about you for inclusion in the essay. I look forward to reading your latest version as soon as possible :-)

Graduate / Traveling to a new places, studying new things and learning more about different culture and psyche [4]

Man, I believe that the only way to turn this around in order to make it a convincing essay is to somehow find a connection between your degree in soil engineering and your current interest in oil and gas engineering. I feel that this should be an application that approaches the prompt from a natural resources and environmental preservation standpoint. That way you can somehow connect the study of soil engineering with the lessons from oil and gas engineering. Your direction will be trying to find a way to balance the two separate fields into one unit, thus creating a new and environmentally responsible method of oil extraction in the future. That kind of mindset and vision will require higher studies that combine the two fields. Can you write something along those lines? It just might work. I will work with you on it.

Undergraduate / Explain how Kalamazoo College's approach to education will help you explore your ideas [17]

Not really. The main prompt thatyou have to answer is


So we are specifically dealing with Kalamazoo and no other college. Your considerations for the educational institutions are irrelevant in this case. All you have to concentrate on is how you can use the teaching style at Kalamazoo to further advance you academic career. It is already assumed that you have settled on Kalamazoo as your choice of school. They are not interested in finding out what your other school choices or criteria was for choosing schools because obviously, you would not be applying for admission to their university if it did not pass your criteria for an educational institution.

Undergraduate / Born and bred in Nepal, I am familiar to myriad diseases people fall prey to all year round [23]

Suvekcha, the problem with your essay at the moment is that it is rehashing information about you from your original personal statement. In this case, I believe that the central identity story you should tell his about how you evolved as a person after joining SAATH. Talk about how you came to know about the organization and the reasons why you decided to sign up as a volunteer. From there, talk about the sense of fulfillment you get from helping the children. Close the statement with the idea that because of SAATH and the volunteer work that you do for them, you finally got to know who you are as a person, what matters most to you in life, and how you plan to integrate those ideals into your future career.

Undergraduate / My first step out the airport - Personal Statement.. My Wake up call.. [4]

Shaninda, the personal statement that you wrote does not answer of the two prompts that you think it can be used for. However, now that I know that your teacher said there will be not be a prompt requirement, I believe I can help you better direct it now. For a personal statement, you want to get the admissions officer to get to know who you are. As an immigration story, the essay is incomplete. It talks about what you saw and very little about how it affected you as a person. This is the problem with the essay. A personal statement, by the context of the word personal, should talk about you on a deeper level. That is why I suggest that you write this essay on more serious level using a prompt that I will provide to you. It may just help bring out the personal connection you have to your immigration to Egypt and the reason for your future. Here is your prompt as I see it:

Some students today move from their homeland to a new country in the hopes of a better future. It could be because your parents decided the move was best for everyone, or because they had no other choice. Tell us your story. How does the combined influence of your old and new world inspire you to strive for a better future? How do yo u hope to achieve that?

I believe that this is the story you are trying to tell. You just need to be guided in how to tell it properly :-)

Undergraduate / When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that's when passion is born [2]

Ansh, you seem to be addressing two different essay prompts in this paper. Can you provide me with the essay prompts just so I can have an idea of what the question being asked is? I just want to make sure that the essay is truly answering the prompts. It will also help me spot any problem areas in your writing that need to be improved upon. The essay presents quite a number of facets to your personality that seem to be answers to various prompts so the essence of the essay, its central theme is not really that clear. I believe that the concentration should be on the non-support from your parents but I need to be sure about that :-) Reading the prompt will help us review the essay better.

Undergraduate / A day in 'the good life' begins with waking to the sound of jazz [2]

Taylor, this is a very good flash forward into the good life that you envision. However, the essay is asking you to define the good life as you understand it in your present, current life and how the University of Florida may help to further enhance of evolve that definition for you. Your essay speaks of your future expectations and plans, which is not the center theme of the essay. Please review your definition of the good life and revise the essay to present your current understanding of the prompt rather than a flashback or flash forward. You only need to define it as current and how UF can help refine, improve, and give further meaning to your definition in the future.

Undergraduate / I'm a green butterfly - it symbolizes a sense of gentleness, serenity, and warmth; William and Mary [5]

Joe, did it ever occur to you that the butterfly has a very short lifespan? Also, all of the descriptions that you mentioned apply more to the caterpillar stage of the development of the butterfly instead of the butterfly itself. Perhaps you would want to consider discussing the enigma that you are in relation to the development of the butterfly from the caterpillar stage instead? I feel like that development is more applicable to the way you discussed yourself in the essay. Look up the development of the butterfly on the web so you can better understand why I am recommending that you do this. The development of the butterfly from the caterpillar stage is truly in line with the way you describe yourself :-) The way I see you, you are a creation of your own doing and being, very much like the butterfly that emerges from the caterpillar.

Undergraduate / Caltech ethics and challenge prompt [4]

Jaime, actually, the essay is unable to properly answer the prompt because the situation that you are being asked to consider is one where your ethical beliefs are challenged and how you responded to it. There was no ethical challenge in the care of your mother, only personal considerations, which do not pose the same sort of challenge as an ethical one. An ethical challenge asks you to consider between right and wrong, good vs. bad. Something along the lines of having an opportunity to pass an exam because you have a copy of the test answers or studying and maybe failing to pass the test. That is an ethical challenge that requires a response from you. You need to prove your integrity of character within the essay answer. The situation you presented does not fall within the prompt requirements at all so you need to reconsider your answer and write a totally new essay that is more in tune with the requirements of the prompt :-)

Undergraduate / Expression Through Hair - Common App Essay [7]

Kennysha, this is the perfect discussion to add to the essay. Go ahead and find the place where you feel it will be best suited within the essay and then post the new version of the essay here so that we can consider the effect of the essay as a whole. Who knows, there might be room for more improvement or perhaps additional information once again :-) Let's see what else can be done to further polish the overall feel of the essay :-) If you think there is any information we have missed or that you want to add, let me know or go ahead and add it when you post the new version.I'll be sure to work with you on it.

Undergraduate / Expression Through Hair - Common App Essay [7]

Kennysha, this will definitely work with the paragraph that you have chosen to add it to. There is a definite idea in the additional sentences that show how you were not defying your mother, just the image and prejudice that existed for you at school because of the hairstyle that your mother chose for you. Would it be possible for you to include some additional information in this paragraph as well? We need to show a paragraph that shows how you tried to ask your mother to let you change your hairstyle and why. By letting us know how that conversation went between the two of you, an understanding of why you chose to simply surprise your mother with your high school-do will be better presented. You tried to tell her how the hairstyle was bad for you at school but she wasn't listening so you decided to show her how things could be better for you at school without it. Something along those lines should work. After that, I promise, we will work on bringing the essay all together in its final form :-) I just think that statement is necessary to make the discussion fall into place :-)

Undergraduate / We are not so powerless as it seems - Bentley [9]

- Philipe, let's try to expand upon this statement by mentioning if Dani was already a part of their program and you volunteered because you wanted to do more for him and others who were suffering the same plight as him. It will help explain why you chose this program in particular out of all the volunteer programs out there.

- So this not a current experience for you? Is it ongoing? We need to clarify this portion because as a reader, I just got confused as to when all of these things started happening for you. So now we need to concentrate on 2 things, introducing Dani, the program, and when exactly you started with it. Point out if this is an ongoing experience for you as well.

- You need to get personal with this part. Tell us the changes that happened to you as a person because of the experience with Dani and the program. Show us that side of you that the other common apps may not touch upon. This is your chance to do that. Don't be timid. Tell us about it.

Undergraduate / A woman, carrying her newborn on her shoulders, was selling utensils - Making a difference essay [10]

Pranu, you spend too much time reflecting on the story of the woman selling utensils and your friend instead of yourself in this essay. You practically mention yourself as an afterthought at the close of the essay. That is not how this essay is to be written. Choose between the story of the woman and the story of your friend. Which one best explains your reasons for wanting to become a teacher? Use only one story to highlight your decision. Then concentrate on the way you came to this realization as you stood, teaching 90 kids and how you now wish to help enact the change that you want to see in your country. Remember, you have to concentrate on your central identity, not the identity of other people and how you felt about it. That does not answer the prompt. Concentrate on yourself, your identity, and how these people helped you discover who you are and what you want to be in the future.

Writing Feedback / A family in small village have superb natural resources and weather [3]

Mohammed your essay is totally under developed, does not follow the basic IBC (Introduction, Body, Conclusion) format for essay writing, and offers very little information about your stand on the given prompt. Is this the first essay you have ever written in English? If so, I need to tell you that you still have a long way to go in practice. You need to learn to develop supporting facts based either upon research, public knowledge, or your personal experience in order to make your stated reasons more effective and acceptable to the reader. It is hard to support a stand when there are not enough reasons provided to convince you that the person talking knows what he is talking about and can support his own stance in a strong manner. Right now, you can try to further develop the reasons you already stated in this essay by providing supporting evidence for it. Then post is here again so that we can help you further improve upon it and offer more advice to help you become more proficient in essay writing :-)

Undergraduate / I will not sacrifice - Why BU is a good fit for me. [5]

Kennysha, you have actually answered the prompt quite well. I will caution you against mentioning that you plan to study all over the world by the time you finish college though. Universities are looking for students who will stay the course with them. Not jump around like a tumbleweed, gathering no moss. The university wants to make an impact upon you and your life. Let's try to avoid any reference to not staying till graduation ok? I really think it will help :-)

With 145 words, you have plenty of room to develop this statement. Why not discuss your major and minor choices in greater detail? Detailing how the academic style and teaching at BU fits into your idea of the perfect education because of your chosen fields of study. Explain how the combination of the two make sense to you when it probably won't to the other people who read it. After all, you have chosen two distinctly unique subjects to study and right now, I don't see any relation between them. If you can connect them in some way, then the essay stands a good chance of being noticed and remembered by the admissions officer :-)

Undergraduate / "Stop ladies pray!" - The importance of music throughout my life Yale Admissions essay [3]

This is a very interesting piece of work Megan. Your depiction of learning how to play the violin over the holidays is something that made the story engaging. There are not many females interest in playing the violin these days so that talent alone makes you a stand out and separates your application statement from the rest. unless another girl happens to be a violin protege that is :-) That said, I think that we need to add a more personal connection between you and the music that you play. Right now, we see only the good side of music in your life. The fun side that you connect it with. However, the essay could have a little more impact if you had a memorable tale to relate it to. Perhaps something heavy happened in your life in the past and music helped you get over that episode somehow? I believe that you need to present that side because the title of your essay includes the words "importance of music throughout my life". Hence the need to show how music has always been there for you through the good and bad times. Do you think such a think could work for you?

Letters / Hydrocarbon resources plays a vital role to a wide range of fields; purpose letter statement [2]

Olajide, you should save your academic achievements for the latter part of your statement of purpose. The chronological order of writing this should be as follows:

1. State the purpose for your interest in higher learning.
2. Explain how it can help you advance from your current position as an employee.
3. Discuss your relevant work or internship experiences
4. Give an overview, not a detailed description of your academic background and important achievements.

I noticed that the letter is only half finished. If you implement my suggestions from the drafting stage, you may just find a way to finish drafting the statement of purpose sooner rather than later :-)

Scholarship / I have a desire to make a great things; UWC experience [2]

Asem, the essay is not informative at all. If you are planning to use it for a scholarship application, it is not going to work. You have not truly discussed anything about your future plans in college that could depict the kind of impact that you wish to make in the world. Though you implied it, you never stated it flatly. You need to make them believe that your plans to help mankind will be the reason that they should consider giving you a scholarship. Maybe it is a breakthrough program or project that you feel will put the university on the map, or an activity that will highlight the mission and vision of the university alongside your own. Whatever your reasons, you need to state it clearly because the readers cannot read minds. Now is not the time to be mysterious, now is the time for direct statements. You need to revise the essay in totality because because nothing about it works. Not even your statement about the diversity of the school campus. Instead of focusing constantly on yourself, talk about how the diversity will help you with your learning process. Discuss your strong points as a student and as a person. Do not show any weakness such as telling them this will be your first time living alone and what skills you wish to develop during this time. Try to develop a stronger essay for the benefit of this prompt and the chance at the scholarship.

Undergraduate / Explain how Kalamazoo College's approach to education will help you explore your ideas [17]

Pratibha, the essay you wrote is quite good. However, the first two paragraphs are just fillers that need to be deleted because you need to concentrate on the demand of the prompt that you discuss how KC will help you explore your ideas and interests inside and outside the classroom. There is no need to tell them about how you searched and found their college. The prompt is not interested in that. I advice you to delete the following portion:

Then start your actual essay at this point:

Build up this particular section with more active plans for your academic studies such as any research you look forward to doing or working with particular professors, detailing how you hope to learn from this particular process. Start a new paragraph after this where you will discuss the social activities and student community of the campus and how you plan to bring a new type of energy to the social scene by learning from them and sharing yourself, your history, and your interests, with the community.

Doing these two things should help wrap up the essay just fine :-)

Undergraduate / A truly effective leader must be visionary - North Carolina State [4]

There is a disconnection in the essay between your definition of being a leader, which is that of being a visionary, while the rest of the essay talks about your activity as a leader in an organizational sense. Therefore, you definition and your actions as a leader to not support each other. You need to either change your definition of a leader or mention more visionary centered leadership activities that you participated in. Your essay will benefit from the definition you choose either way. I suggest choosing leadership in an organizational sense because it will mean that you won't have to revise anything other than the introductory portion of your essay. Feel free to follow your own decision though. I am merely advising you regarding what I believe to be the correct action to take :-)

After you fix the theme and concentration of the essay, we can finally fix the grammar and punctuation problems that exist within it. Don't worry, you will be able to submit this essay within the word limit. I'll make sure of that even if you go over the maximum word count assignment for this essay :-)

Undergraduate / Diversity is a beautiful thing. Imagine how boring the world would be if it were homogenous [8]

Andrew, just a few more comments and suggestions for you regarding the new opening statement you created for the revision.


-Watch out for those tricky plural forms. You are speaking of yourself as a first year high school student and you are alone. That makes you a freshman (singular form) and not freshmen (plural form).


- Since the next paragraph in the essay will explain how you learned about the cross country team, you don't need to indicate that "I took it." most specially because that is a hanging sentence. Took what? Why did you take it? Omit it from this sentence and allow the last sentence of this statement and the first sentence of the next paragraph to connect to each other instead in order to create a better and smoother flow of thought for your essay :-)

Undergraduate / Diversity is a beautiful thing. Imagine how boring the world would be if it were homogenous [8]

So diversity has nothing to do with the essay prompt. Yet it came across as the most important topic to be discussed in the essay. I suggest that you eliminate that reference at the beginning because the way you presented it makes one believe that it is the central theme that will be presented to the reader. Try to reword it in such a way that the attention will instead transfer and focus upon the extra curricular activity that you helped revive. Perhaps mentioning that you were visiting the coach's office for some reason, or you were just interested in trying out for a team sport will work. The rest of the essay works just fine and aligns with the requirements of the prompt. So we need to just get the introduction aligned as well and then we can work on any existing grammatical problems :-)

Undergraduate / I hated ballet- Common App Essay [5]

Megan, the story that you told was an excellent choice for answering this prompt. It showed a side of your personality and character development that would not have been touched upon by the other common app questions. The lessons that you revealed to have learned as a part of the learning experience totally shows the reader that you are capable of learning from your mistakes, weaknesses, and shortcomings. However, that is not to say that you do not know how to turn those negative aspects into a positive one. Sharing the lessons you have learned proves that you have been able to learn how to handle yourself independently and that you know how to find satisfaction and happiness in who you are, even though you cannot always achieve what you ambition for. This essay depicts a highly capable person who can be relied upon to make the right decisions even though it will mean quitting, but not necessarily failing. I really cannot find anything to ask you to correct or delete in this essay because you did such a good job at writing it. You should pat yourself on the back for such an accomplishment :-) Good luck with your application.

Scholarship / "Don't feel anything. Don't think anything" - Meditation; Applying to Macalester, Colgate, Rice. [5]

Suravi, now that I know what the prompt is, I feel that I need to warn you about the confused attempts of your statement to tell numerous stories all at once. Each one being central to your identity. When you approach this essay prompt from that angle, you end up telling so many stories that no clear picture of you as a person emerges. Instead, multiple personalities emerge for the admissions officer to consider. That is not the aim of this essay. The main focus of this essay is to portray the story that best defines who you are as a person, a student, a daughter, a peer, a worker, etc. Choose one of the many personalities that you have and focus on the most important character trait that you feel you have. Then tell that story. That is the story that will best explain your central identity to the reader. You don't need to present the multiple facets of your personality to the reader. That just confuses the issue. Just show us one side to you. The side that nobody else knows about or is little understood then explain who that person is in relation to your public persona. Then you will have properly addressed the issue of your central identity in the essay.

Scholarship / "Don't feel anything. Don't think anything" - Meditation; Applying to Macalester, Colgate, Rice. [5]

Suravi, I felt the need to point out some grammatical errors in the essay before I made any further comments.


- could not comprehend the...


Now for my comments. I am wondering what the personal essay prompt you are trying to answer is. While this essay is quite informative and entertaining, I am not sure what the purpose of the exercise that you presented is and how it relates to the prompt provided. Are you trying to write a general personal statement for all 3 universities without any prompts? If you are, let me tell you that you should not do that because each university has a specific prompt for you to answer, even if it is a personal prompt. You should wait for the prompt to be given before you try to answer anything or present any information about you. Now, if you already have the prompt for all 3 universities and the questions prove to be similar, you need to provide those questions here so that we can advice you regarding to how to make the essay unique for every university so that the generic feel of the essay will not be too obvious. I hope you can upload the prompt soon :-)