Undergraduate / The trip to a football stadium turned out to be more than an exciting experience; Common app prompt [8]

CaptainCook,I agree with what TheRoy said, you can choose any place that you want, provided you frequent the place for a specific purpose. That of feeling happy, content, and complete. It can be any place nearby or far away. I have read essays where people have chose their minds as the place where they feel the most content and happy. I know that it seems unbelievable but it is true. Some people actually run away to a peaceful part of their minds when they want to feel inner peace. It is kind of finding a zen like place even when in a crowded and noisy area. So does it need to exist in real-time? Not exactly. It can be any place that you wish.

For example, you can use your mind as a unique place where you escape to. You can relate it to the trip to the stadium because you can explain that the stadium is a place where you escape to inside your mind. Explain how each time you remember the trip to the stadium, you feel content and happy because it was one of the best times of your life. Maybe you and your father bonded there. Or you discovered something new about yourself while watching the sport or talking to people. It can be that special place where you run to in your mind when you need to develop confidence or guts to do something you did not think you could do.

The above example is just one of the unique ways you can present a place when you feel comfortable and content. It also carries a very important meaning because your mind can take you anywhere you want to go as long as you have the imagination for it :-) I hope my suggestion helps.

Undergraduate / Imagine yourself in a tutorial at Williams. Of anyone in the world, whom would you choose.... [14]

RevtZ, there is a problem with your essay in the sense that the prompt asks you to pick only one other student to be with you in the tutorial class. You have chosen more than one student to be with you in the class. So you need to revise the essay by choosing between the two science greats. Choose the one who best aligns with your purpose and study and whose influence will most likely have the greatest effect upon you.

By choosing only one student, the prompt is asking you to expand upon your discussion by telling them what kind of influence that person will have upon you and how you hope your collaboration might rock the scientific world. This essay is all about your futuristic views in relation to past scientific principles. It is not about inspiration and what you can learn from whom. Although you will surely learn a great deal from all the men you mentioned, I am sure only one of them truly fits your imaginative futuristic view of what you wish to accomplish scientifically. So choose the student who will help you achieve the most in terms of changing the world of science.

There are also grammatical and sentence structures in the essay but we can overlook those for now in favor of developing the proper content of the essay. The words and thoughts will still change as you revise the paper so it is best to leave those corrections and revisions for later. I hope my suggestions help you. Good luck with your new version :-)

Scholarship / "From Gujarat to Georgia" - Biographical Essay for Questbridge [9]

Paku, sorry the delayed reply. I have been having internet issues over the past few days that have made my presence intermittent on the board. I was able to bring your word count down to 544. You have additional words to use in the conclusion relating to the scholarship now.

Undergraduate / "Progress and Service" what does that mean to you? [3]

CaptainCook, you need to tell us if this is a word or character limited essay because the essay you provided is too short. So we need to know the criteria we should use to review it. When considered in terms of being a word limited essay, the paper is acceptable enough in the sense that it offers a short common definition and a personal definition of the term. As a full length essay though, the paper is problematic.

The problem is that this paragraph only serves as an introduction with your thesis statement. It cannot be considered a full paper. Also, the topic of "progress" and "service" should have been discussed as individual paragraphs prior to being discussed in connection with one another. So if you need a full essay composed of at least 3-5 paragraphs and 250-300 words, your essay needs to a big-time revision. Otherwise, it is fine as it is :-)

Please load the criteria for the review of your statement at the soonest possible time so that we can do a better review of the content. We are looking forward to giving you a more accurate review very soon :-)

Undergraduate / The trip to a football stadium turned out to be more than an exciting experience; Common app prompt [8]

CaptainCook, you need to revise the essay. You used more than half the page describing your trip to London instead of describing the way you felt upon arrival in the football stadium. In fact, after having read your essay twice, I have come to the conclusion that you totally missed or did not understand the requirements of the prompt. What you described in the essay is your experience of watching the game in the football stadium which has nothing to do with the place or environment where you feel content, your experience there, and its meaning to you.

Your essay vividly describes your experience going to the football stadium and what watching the game was like. It was an overall experience that you described. There was nothing in the essay that told me that you went to this place numerous times and always had the same feeling of contentment there. There was no real personal connection between you and the stadium that you visited only once in your life.

The best places to use for this type of essay should be a place more local that you frequent. Any place from your house,bedroom, a garden, park, local playground, library, gym, or any other place that you frequent in order to find a sense of calm, inner peace, or just to sort out your thoughts. I am sure there is a place or two in KL that you frequent wherein you feel these sentiments. I suggest you use those for a more connected and familiar feel to the way you write the essay.

In this essay, you sounded more like a tourist describing his first trip abroad and the places he visited there. Nothing more. That is not what the prompt requires. So you need to consider another place that you can use as the setting of your essay.

Writing Feedback / IELTS- celebrities set a bad example to young people? [2]

Sam, while your paper does have grammar errors, we can't begin to fix those until you have perfected the content of your paper. So I will offer comments below to help you improve the content and correct the errors of your paper. The grammar can follow after.


- Sam, your introductory paragraph does not follow the essay writing rules. You need to restate or rephrase the essay prompt in the form of a discussion sentence, then offer your stand on the issue. You need to briefly mention the facts and supporting evidences that you will be discussing in the essay. The way you have your introduction right now does not follow that format and is therefore weak.

-Your first and second reasons should be discussed as two separate paragraphs because you are talking about two different topic sentences. You should never merge the two into a single paragraph. One topic sentence per paragraph. That helps keeps the reader on track while reading your paper.

- "The celebrities are famous for." Famous for what? You what is that sentence trying to convey? You mention famous people, offer examples of celebrities who are good and bad examples to set the tone for your comparison.


- Use "On the other hand" or " However", you cannot use both as words connote the same meaning. Bill Gates is not a celebrity in the sense that the word connotes in this essay. He is a noted businessman. Use someone else as an example, Perhaps JayZ or Madonna, Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus would be good examples to use.


- You concluded without ever giving your personal opinion. The essay clearly asked you to agree or disagree to a certain extent with the statement. Where is it? I think you need to revisit the way you wrote the essay in order to fall in line with the requirements of the prompt.

Writing Feedback / "A little love, a little pain, a little work then it's all over" - DEATH [4]

If this is supposed to be a narrative essay, why did you write it in poetry format? The format is all wrong and makes it difficult to read.If you want to write a flash forward essay, you should be writing it from the point of view of welcoming and hoping to attain death. Mention the things that will exist for you upon death. No more pain, no more problems, no more need to work, no need to be responsible for yourself or anybody, no deadlines, no pressures, nothing to make you feel stressed. You can finally relax and bask in the infinite sleep that you so look forward to attaining. Or something along those lines.

When you write about things that you will miss, you will be writing a flashback. Avoid mentioning those at all costs. The main theme of the flash forward essay is to look ahead to the future. So you need to write about the topic using a hopeful outlook. Consider the task similar to being asked the question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?". In this case, the question you need to answer is "What is it about death that you are looking forward to?". Answer the question in essay form and you are done :-)

Scholarship / The pain and struggles in life is what develops a true experienced successful person!- Questbridge [5]

Okay, first up, I noticed you used two quotes for the paper this time. You need to pick one, all encompassing quote to use to describe your life, situation, and personality. This won't be as hard as you think. Just Google relevant passages and choose one. After you have chosen one, just one quote, I want you to sit down and think of all the important life events that you have had which are relevant to the passage you chose. You will come up with a lot of ideas and situations that you will want to use. Pick the top 3. After you pick the top 3, brainstorm and outline the content that you want to discuss regarding those 3 topics. Just list it down. Then, examine the outline for any possible changes or additions. Now, you are ready to write the draft version of your autobiographical essay. Expand upon the top 3 topics, developing each idea using the outline that you created for the content. By the end of this process, you should have a well thought out and developed autobiographical essay.

Your current essay is alright but the use of 2 different quotes makes 2 different autobiographical essays appear before the reader. What you need to do is present a concise and well developed essay that talks about you. Don't rely so much on quotes to set the stage for your essay. You can do this without those. If you prefer to use it though, then go ahead. I must just repeat that you use only quote to do the job.

I hope my advice continues to help you :-)

Undergraduate / Many applicants to college are unsure about eventual majors. What factors led you to your interest? [6]

It would help if you tell us what the word limit is so that we can better help you analyze and revise the essay. Any chance you can let us know what the word count is at this point? All I can offer for now is an overview of the essay with some revisions to shorten the length. There are some sentences that are too long for the paragraph so I am making some suggested versions of the sentences to help streamline the paper.


- My interest in science steams from a desire to think about unique problem solutions in relation to computer programming and logic


- I've been studying all things computer related relentlessly so I am quite proud and confident about my knowledge in the field. I know that studying computers will offer me infinite learning possibilities and will always allow me to create a new computer programs that will help advance the field.


- I have learned ...

Overall, this is a very solid short statement. I hope my suggestions help. Good luck with your application :-)

Undergraduate / Two short personal statements: one based on diversity, the other based on growth. Which is better? [7]

Having read your previous thread on the same topic, I decided to read these versions for comparison purposes. Having done that, I need to tell you that I have changed my stand on the matter. In this particular instance, I would ask you to submit your first option for the essay. The reason is because I find the accomplishment in this essay to be a very important one that truly reflects the kind of joy and satisfaction that you get from helping others, tutoring them, or teaching them directly. I just have to know, are you applying to educational school? You sound like you are going to become a teacher in the future from the narratives that you have been using.

While the second option shows why you will become an asset to the academic community, the first one shows how you are already an asset to other people by becoming a part of their lives. You have shown your ability to help those in need successfully and that your accomplishments in this regard is always something that you share in common with others. Therefore, this essay answers both prompts all at once in my opinion :-)

That said, I strongly recommend that you submit the first option for your school application. It is the best shot you have at being considered for admission. Good luck with whichever version you finally decide to submit :-)

Scholarship / Scholarship Appeal Letter for droping below credit limit [3]

Neveritt, I noticed that you mentioned that you dropped below the 15 unit credit limit and not the 12 limit. I suggest that you mention what your current college year level is in order to give the committee an idea of where the confusion might have happened. You mention an oversight and that you failed to double check the requirements. The committee does not have the time to ask or find out what your year level is so you should mention it for clarification purposes.

Also, you mentioned being overwhelmed at the start of the semester. You took an orientation for the scholarship grantees where you were told about the credit requirement, you should mention something about having been so excited about college that you forgot all about the credit limit that was mentioned at the orientation because of it.

Don't forget to mention the specific reasons you were overwhelmed by your class load. Explain in vivid detail the reasons you chose to drop the class in Humanities. That is after all, the reason you lost the scholarship.

Next, do not assume that the additional class you enrolled for which ends in December will be automatically accepted for credit by the scholarship committee. Instead, beg for their indulgence and request that they accept the late enrollment as a part of your current load credit, thus restoring your scholarship. It may also help to mention your current grades in other classes. A stellar academic performance on your part might help get the scholarship reinstated more than the late enrollment.

Finally, close the statement with a hopeful outlook towards their decision. Remind them of the good effects the scholarship has had on you and that you plan to help the scholarship in the future. You just want them to give you a chance to prove that you are worth reconsidering for the scholarship.

Just another thought, ask if you can attach a supporting letter from a professor to your appeals letter. The supporting letter should support the stand that you are an academically excellent student who should be given a chance to get the scholarship back so that you can become a future asset to society in your field of expertise.

Writing Feedback / "A little love, a little pain, a little work then it's all over" - DEATH [4]

ylarial, it would be easier to help you if we knew what the prompt for this essay is. At this point, only an over view can be given for your weak points. Nothing about the topic or prompt itself. I will try to give the best input I can provide :-)

- This sounds more like an effective part of a closing statement than an introduction. I suggest you try to use this as a part of your concluding statement instead.

- This is a very touching sentiment to present to the reader. However, without the prompt, I am unable to understand your mindset and the need for this discussion. Also, the paragraph is a bit too long and should therefore be cut into two. That is because you present two different topics within it. The thought of when you will die and what will happen after your death. So separate the two paragraphs for a clearer flow of thought and proper paragraph development.

- Thinking about everything I will miss when I die makes me often think about death. Contemplating my demise has made me realize that I have the greatest gift the universe can give me, life, and yet I tend to squander it on needless worry and doubts. So I have decided to not let life slip by me. I will take more chances, I will live my life and enjoy it to the fullest. I will appreciate that my life has offered and will continue to offer to me. I will treasure my precious moments with family, friends, and acquaintances. Those shall the true treasures of my life. Memories that will tell me on the day of my death that I truly lived and did not just exist in life.

- I made a suggestion about how to better construct your paragraph. I hope you like it :-)

- If you combine the statement at the start with this concluding statement, your essay closes with a very strong statement about death, acceptance, and life :-)

Writing Feedback / IELTS: Writing Task 2- Crime in The World [3]

- Mann, problems are different from crimes. So you should not say " Many kinds of problems appear everyday". The keyword here is crime and that is the word that should almost constantly be appearing in this essay. How do you plan to prove that crime is rising every year? Crime does not almost occur everywhere in the globe, it does happen. There are no suppositions in introductory statements. Only facts. In order to portray yourself as someone who is familiar with the topic, you need to use words that make you sure about your statements. You have a very good point of view on the matter. The method you used for restating the prompt was also creative.

-The essay asks you to discuss crime from a global perspective. While it is nice to know that Indonesia has set up systems to help combat graft and corruption, that is not the kind of example that this essay needs. It needs something heavier such as the UN Commission on Human Rights, Interpol (for international crimes and wanted people), and the International Court of Justice, for trying certain types of crimes on an international level. Remember, the question is that with crime happening all over the world, nothing can be done to prevent it. The correct answer is, something can be done to prevent it and the aforementioned international organizations are proof of that.

Based on the suggestions that I made which will further align your thesis with the prompt, I suggest that you revise the paper and use those organizations as the factual samples for international crime prevention. Don't forget to discuss inter law enforcement agency between countries cooperation when it comes to solving and arresting crimes as well. The FBI works with the international communities to prevent certain types of international crimes as well.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: The reasons of keeping our old friends [3]


- Here lies the first problem of your essay with regards to content. You never state an assumption or supposition in your introductory statement. You always state a fact as a thesis. You first present the restated prompt and then your point of view (agree or disagree), and then explain a little about how you plan to prove that in the essay.


- This is an irrelevant sentence that does not prove your supposition about old friends being able to help you in crisis conditions. Your second paragraph looks like it promises to do that though.


- I was mistaken. This paragraph does not answer the prompt provided either. You said you can rely on old friends support during times of crisis. But you never actually speak of any concrete examples to that effect.


- This is the paragraph that should become your first body paragraph. This is the point that relates to the whole prompt. I would suggest you make this stronger by comparing the difference between opening up to new and old friends about your problem. Compare the advice you are given and then talk about how these people know you differently so the advice they give is different. Thus proving that the old friends can be expected to help you more in times of crisis.


- This is a very weak conclusion that does not offer any substance towards restating the prompt as you proved within your essay. That is because the overall essay deviated from the prompt and made no effort to provide clear examples and facts to base the truth of your statement that old friends can help more in a time of crisis.

I must suggest that revise this essay in order to align it more with the requirements of the prompt. Right now, you have an interesting comparison of two friendship types but no emotional or psychological connection that proves old friends are more reliable than new ones in times of crisis. That is the theme of the essay and that is what should be discussed. As for the grammar problems, we can correct those later. The content is more important at this point.

Writing Feedback / IELTS: Without communication technology and transport, the foundation of modern life will crumple [2]


- Solid introduction with a good thesis statement. This essay is off to a very good start. However, I seem to be missing the rephrased essay prompt in the paragraph?


- You could actually combine these two paragraphs into one in order to create a well discussed and connected pro and con discussion on the issue. I suggest a little more reasoning development along those lines.


- If you could just add a statement or two in support of the prompt before this discussion it would become better balanced content and information-wise :-)


- Your statement about the crumpling of modern life is a new idea that should be discussed separately. Develop a separate and new conclusion. . Surely you can lengthen your summary of facts to create a more solid conclusion.

Excellent effort. This is a paper that shows the development of your analytical skills, speed comprehension, and thought coherence. Overall, I would give this a grade of 7 based upon the reasons I stated above :-)

Writing Feedback / It is vital for arts to have prolific conditions to thrive and be accessible for people [7]

I can understand your nervousness. I would be nervous too if I were in your position again. The only advice I can think of giving you at this point is, don't pay attention to the clock. You are paying so much attention to not going overtime and therefore not finishing the paper that you cannot concentrate on anything else. That is why you are finding it difficult to concentrate on what you want to say in the paper. It is one of the reasons that your discussions are under developed as well. You need to relax and just let your thoughts flow. Regardless of how the grammar turns out.

Remember, the test you are about to take is first and foremost, a test of English comprehension skills. That means they are trying to gauge how well you understand the English language. It is important that you can understand the language in order to enter American colleges and universities or British, Canadian, and Australian universities in the case of IELTS. If you cannot prove you understand the prompt, then it can be assumed that you will not understand the English mode of instruction.

So you need to practice your comprehension and analytical skills. The language and grammar skills can be built over time. Just make sure that you can present all of your ideas in your essay in as clear a manner as you can for the exam reviewer to understand. Write from the heart every time and the content may just turn out the way you hope it will in the end :-)

Graduate / Poured my heart and mind in writing SOP for Mechanical Engg at Purdue. Expecting valuable comments. [5]

- I suggest that you do not give any information that they are not asking for. At this point in your career, you are expected to have already done notable things in your field of expertise. Which is why you feel that you need to pursue higher learning. It is the reason behind the higher learning that the admission officer is interested in learning about. The SOP is a preliminary interview. If the admissions officer decides to look further into your application, he may decide to ask for additional information later on. Do not be presumptuous and provide information that is not required nor expected.


- Your statement of purpose should not be longer than 2 pages, double spaced maximum unless otherwise specified by the application. Therefore, you need to pick out only the most important information relating directly to your application for graduate school. The motivation behind your application is the most important. That will include a portion of your personal and academic background along with your relevant work experience. These parts, when combined, creates the reason behind your SOP.


- While you may consider all of your work experience important to your application, they may not be relevant to your purpose for applying to graduate school. There is a difference between the two. So choose your professional experience that you feel was directly involved in your desire to pursue higher studies. You need to keep the paper short but interesting and informative. Otherwise you will lose the interest of the admission officer during the preliminary round.

Of course I can only make suggestions that I feel will improve your paper. The final decision regarding the content and its presentation are all up to you :-)

Scholarship / "From Gujarat to Georgia" - Biographical Essay for Questbridge [9]

Paku, this is an excellent version that provides a fantastic look at how you became the person you are today. Your ideas are now well developed and enhanced to highlight your accomplishments and skills as student and person. However, I have a few notes on revisions:


- ... did have a positive effect ... used to constant changes and challenges .


- ... technical college that allowed high school students to enroll in college...

As for the conclusion, it is actually a very solid statement on your behalf. However, it lacks a certain message. That is the message of how the scholarship will be able to help you achieve your ambition of attending college. Do you have any notable traits or accomplishments that fall in line with the mission, objective, and criteria of the scholarship program? You should mention those points because scholarships tend to favor students to can prove that they embody the scholarship requirements. Most specially, you need to to talk about how you plan to give back to the scholarship as a student and any plans you have for showing your gratitude to them in the future ( after graduation). If you can add a portion about that, we can finally polish the content of the essay for submission :-)

Writing Feedback / 'The argument draws conclusion based on poor and insufficient information'; "Woven baskets" [5]

xatutik, you are getting better with every essay that you write :-) Your thought process is becoming more coherent and you are learning how to outline your supporting evidence very well. I can see all of that through the grammatical errors that are still present in the paper. That is the main reason that I am commending your work on this topic. That said, we now need to clean up the grammar problems so that the paper can develop a more polished look.

- ...However, archeologistsrecently discovered... from Paleaby the Brim... boats .However.. ... the absence of which ...

- ...inthe Lithos area. Therefore, we need evidence to prove whether Lithos boats were found in Palea instead. If Lithos boats were found in Palea, then maybe the traders of Lithos were the ones who came to Palea and thus secured a basket for themselves.Or perhaps there was another route to Lithos that did not require a boat from Palea. In order for the author's claim to become valid, no future evidence of Palean boats should be found either in Palea or Lithos.

- The latter is just an idea that I thought would help this sentence develop further strength.

- The author's argument based solely on boats crossing the river is weak because he has not presented any evidence to prove that there is no other way to reach Palea except by river. If an alternate route to Lithos exists by land, than the Paleans did not need to cross the river.

- This where your own argument becomes weak. You are not familiar with the work of archeologists. Their job is to time stamp the existence of everything from the dust on the road the to sand beds of the sea. If the Brim River existed in a different shape in the past centuries, they would have found that out using various methods of ancient area mapping and soil dating. Therefore, your argument about the river changing due to climate change becomes weak and shows a lack of knowledge about archeology on your part. Find a different supporting reason for yourself.

Overall, this is an excellent effort xatutik :-) You should be proud of yourself.

Writing Feedback / 'Modern time makes all people busy with their job' - how to solve traffic problem? [2]

Yulis, can you clarify the prompt for me? I just need to get an idea of what the prompt requires you to answer. Right now, your essay is quite confusing to read because you have your paragraphs all mixed up and your thoughts are scattered at the moment. Let me see if I can direct you towards a better way of discussing this :-)


- Where is the restated prompt? How does the busy lifestyle/job connect to the traffic problem and why are you being asked for a solution to it? We really need to read the prompt here.


- I don't see you actually discussing any of these things in the essay that you wrote. You know very well that you have to discuss each reason you give in detail right? So you have to do that with at least 2 reasons.


- It really sounds like you did not take this essay seriously Yulis. There is a lack of understanding of the prompt requirements and you failed to present any valid solutions to the traffic problem nor relate it in a clear manner to the work or lifestyle of the people. You need to revise this essay overall. At this moment, the essay does not make sense and is not worth the time that you took to write it. I know you can do better than that :-(

Writing Feedback / What life would be like without the internet? [4]

Truc, while you presented a good discussion. I believe that in order to answer this essay, you should merely look to the past. To the lives that our parents and grandparents lived before the internet was invented and became a part of our daily lives. That means that we would still continue to live life manually with communications still being done through simple contact methods like fax machined and analog mobile phones.

I believe it was wrong of you to say that we would not be able to listen to music or watch movies to relax. My reason is that our parents and grandparents were doing those things through video rentals and listening to the radio. So you are making a wrong assumption when it comes to that. Social media was also limited to real physical parties or fact to face interactions. Basically, life would have continued the way that our parents lived it. Technology would also have developed as a glacial pace and globalization would not have been possible.

Perhaps there are other samples of what life would be like if the internet were not invented. All we have to do is do a blast from the past :-)

Scholarship / The pain and struggles in life is what develops a true experienced successful person!- Questbridge [5]

I cannot overlook the large amount of grammatical and sentence structure errors in your essay. However, that is not the biggest problem of your paper. The biggest problem has to do with the confusing content and themes you discuss within it. I have listed it down below and given suggestions regarding why it has to be fixed and how you can fix it. We can deal with the grammar and sentence problems after fixing the content of the paper.


- I have a problem with your first statement. First you say that you are more comfortable with English but you mention "Dora the Explorer" who is a cartoon character who teaches kids how to speak in English and Spanish. Then you mentioned that you enrolled in bilingual classes but your teachers had you transfer to English classes because you did not understand the bilingual classes. Then you say that you came into the 2nd grade and struggled because you had a problem with English. Do you see the problem I am pointing out? You cannot say you are comfortable in English and yet have all of these previous problems with the language. I think you should revise this paragraph. Your thought process, what you want to actually say is not clear here.

but my mother always at the end gave me a reason to pursue education. Having a chance to accomplish what many refer to as the American Dream, my mother stayed within the United States holding off seeing my potential.

- Again, a problem with your thought transference to paper. When you say your mother stayed in the United States "holding off seeing my potential", this means that your mother refused to acknowledge that you had the ability to achieve the American Dream. I am sure this is not what you mean so I am pointing it out to you so that you can fix that very important part of this paragraph. I think you want to say "hoping to see me reach my full potential instead.

When I returned, it was summer. I did not get to finish eighth grade as I failed every class due to my conditions. The middle school principal decided to let me pass anyways since she knew my conditions from the start but felt I have potential. I took the summer to return back to New York bettering my health before high school started and promised myself that I would try my best to showboat my potential and never let anybody put me back down.

- What was wrong with your health? You should describe it and explain how it affected your grades. That is a requirement of this essay.

Throughout junior year, I faced tons of struggles mainly low income and still having a responsibility to provide for my grandparents who are very ill. At the end, all of these struggles is that have made me obtain experience along with motivating me to do way better. My decision of career has derived from when I used to get bullied about my weight. I later found a fascination with the human body mechanism, physiology, and interest in biology. My career choice of becoming a physical therapist formulated through these interest and fascination with helping people so they can finally fix a smile on their face after struggling not being able to do physical activities. Along with physical therapy, I developed an interest in bio-medical engineer due to wanting to go down the research path and contributing to the world happiness.

-You have too many topics going on all at once in this paragraph. Since each topic is important, you should separate the discussion into paragraphs. Develop the part about your choice of career the most because that is relevant to the scholarship application.

I hope I was able to help :-)

Undergraduate / "Reflection in the Darkness": Common App Essay [4]

While you tell a very nice story about finding comfort and learning in the dark, you did not really set up the story properly in my opinion. Darkness is a state of the absence of light. That is true. But where exactly do you find this state of learning in the darkness? The darkness of your bedroom? The park at night? Perhaps sitting in your car or in a darkened cinema before the movie comes on? You see, the prompt is not asking you for a state of mind or well being, it is asking for the specific place. Darkness is good, but you need to anchor it to a physical place such as your bedroom as you doze off to sleep in order to make the rest of your essay sound connected to your introduction. I would probably go with "The darkness of falling into sleep on my comfortable bed brings me to a higher place of learning and imagination in my dream state..." then continue with the rest of your narration. You can end it with the sensation that you begin to feel as you start to wake up and how content and comfortable you feel after a good nights rest. The meaningfulness comes from the fact that you are able to sort out your thoughts while you dream.

If you would be willing to revise your essay, I'd be more than happy to help you develop its content :-) You can actually mix my ideas with yours and come up with a pretty solid answer to the prompt.

Graduate / TOEFL: 'anticipation of more intelligent class discussions'; teaching is harder than it once was [3]

While you do present some interesting topics in defense of your thesis, I believe that the prompt is asking for something deeper than a comment about the technical aspect of teaching such as methodologies or spoiled kids and demanding parents. I would suggest that you try discussing this essay from another point of view, the view that because of technology and the advent of the internet, teachers need to stay one step ahead of their students. So they need to be able to anticipate more complex and confusing questions from students.

You can argue that teaching now harder that in the past because there was no internet before that allows the students to access information about their lessons far more thoroughly that they could in the past. The internet is the endless encyclopedia of knowledge that has required the teachers to up their teaching game so teaching is now harder for them than before.

Remind them that before, teachers were considered to be the most learned person a student would ever meet. They were expected to know everything and have all the answers. Since students just need to do a quick search on the internet these days, the access to information has been leveled for everyone. So the students might already know or already know more than what the teacher is prepared to teach in class. So this anticipation of more intelligent class discussions has also made it harder to teach class.

I am sure you have some experience in this area. Where the students ask some questions that threaten to unveil the teacher as not really knowing everything about something they are teaching. You could use that as a sample of how it is harder to teach not than in the past.

Of course this is just my understanding of the prompt and my suggestion as to how I would answer it. Feel free to use my idea if you want to try another way of answering your essay :-)

Scholarship / Library in Bronx - "A Change To The Intellectual Community" - Essay for Questbridge [7]

That does not sound like a conclusion to me.However, I think you can add it to the ideas that you have about helping to educate the elderly about computers and stuff. That way, you can show that you have a separate idea of how to better the library based upon the needs of the users. Your concluding statement should be just that, a statement to close the essay. That is normally done by paraphrasing the statement to sound like a sentence instead of a question and then summarizing the content and important facts you mentioned in your paper, then finally, reiterating your stand about the importance of rehabilitating the library for the benefit of the community.

Don't try to insert too many new ideas in the essay. Once you clutter the essay with extra information, you could end up back where you started, needing to edit and revise your paper all over again just to make all the paragraphs connect again :-)

Writing Feedback / Working for the same or different company for all life. Discuss both view and give opinion (IELTS) [3]

kttrung, the essay is asking you compare the advantages and disadvantages of working with the same company for life, or constantly changing companies throughout your life. I read your complete essay and I feel that you have left the essay under developed and lacking in discussion points. You could have discussed better reasons for staying with the same company for life such as possible retirement plans, loyalty incentives, and bonuses for loyal employees.

For the changing companies point of view, your reason pertaining to a person gaining knowledge and skill is valid and should be further developed. Explain that changing companies allows a person to not only gain experience, but also offers him a better chance of finding his occupational niche in the job market. Working for others in various capacities is also a way people eventually come to work for themselves, without being connected to a single company, later on in their lives. You could develop that suggestion of mine if you wish.

Then, there is the problem of the new idea that you introduced in your conclusion. You know very well that new ideas cannot be presented at the end of an essay. So you will need to develop the globalization idea in relation to the two choices and then come up with a new conclusion that summarizes the content of your essay.

Writing Feedback / I went to Thailand this summer for a school service trip - Narrative Essay [6]

Gilchrist, I marked the suggestions in blue. Comments are in green. This is a highly improved paper with only minor corrections and editing needed :-)


- I was feeling adventurous when I joined our school service trip to Thailand.
- There are times when you can combine 2 themes in your introduction. This is an example of that.


- ... I've learned to value all opportunities and material things that I have. I also learned to make the best out of what I have in life.


- I ate my food in a flash and threw up just as fast.


- ... contained all the food groups...


- it was then...


- Regardless of the culture clashes...



- build a house for anyone...


- The statement about your sister not having to build houses for anyone is more relevant.


- ... better place if the citizens could do that.


- ... and helped me grow as a person.


- It was the best week of my life.

Scholarship / "From Gujarat to Georgia" - Biographical Essay for Questbridge [9]

Don't fret Paku. Let me try to help you out here. The problem with the essay is that there are more words and facts than are actually necessary to tell your story. So we need to edit it for content. We will keep the essence of your essay using less words. I'll show you how to do it.

- When I was born in India on Aoril 11, 1998 during the feast day of Hanuman, who symbolizes strength, intelligence, and education. Needless to say, high expectation were set upon my academic accomplishments by people because of my birth date. It was a challenge that I accepted with open arms as I was enrolled in kindergarten at the age of 3.

- This whole paragraph is not really relevant to your quest for education and development as a person so you can skip directly to your parents migrating to America.

- Around this time, my father immigrated to America for job purposes, my mother followed soon after. My sister and I joined the after 3 years. Touching down at the Atlanta, Georgia airport in 2005 and immediately got overcome by culture shock. I went from a small town in India to a large imposing city in Georgia. From a country of people who looked alike, to a country of varying races and skin colors. I knew I was in over my head when I could not express myself in English because, even though I could read and write in the language, I was never taught how to speak it.

- My biggest challenge was overcoming the language barrier. So for the next two years, I concentrated on only that. Doing well enough in school to pass to the next level only because I had already mastered the material in India. It was a struggle that I had to work to overcome because having a language barrier was preventing me from making friends and performing academically. Over time, I began to master the English language and eventually, began to blend in with society. I also began to adjust academically and started progressing well enough for me to gain confidence in my newly developed language skills.

- You don't really need to say so much about this time. You could compress it and deliver the same message.

- Eventually, high school rolled around for me. Enrolled in multiple AP classes and having great teachers helped me develop more confidence in myself because of the school's partnership with a local technical college that allowed me to take classes tailored to my interests. Being a non- American citizen, I was forced to pay full rates at the college but the extra expense was worth it because I was able to enroll in 2 out of the 5 college level classes that I wanted to. With my sister attending college at the same time, my parents were financially spread thin so I was very grateful that they helped me take advantage of the opportunity.

- I had to struggle to reach the academic position that I am in at present. From being a C student who could not speak English, I am now a thirty three ACT scoring student. I am at the top of my class thanks to my hard earned fluency in English .

Paku, look over my suggested changes to your paragraphs. I think the essence of your statement is intact but with lesser words. If you decide to revise the essay, I'll be here to help you refine it :-)

Scholarship / Library in Bronx - "A Change To The Intellectual Community" - Essay for Questbridge [7]

Andy, this is a much improved version of your essay. But I still caught a few portions that we can correct or improve upon. Let me point it out for you.


- Libraries have historically been the place where people go to acquire more knowledge because it is like a school, a place of learning, but without teachers.


- activities, materials, and equipment ...


- ... they are still part...


-smartphone.
- Watch out for the capitalization rule . You only use capital letters at the beginning of a sentence or with names, titles of books and organizations.


Now, all you need is a strong and solid concluding statement :-) Excellent work! Keep it up.

Writing Feedback / IELTS: government should focus on investment both of arts and public service; equally important [3]

This is an interesting topic and I can tell that you feel strongly about the issue by the way you wrote this paper. I have some suggestions regarding how to further improve it below. I hope my suggestions are acceptable to you :-)

- The government plays an important role in developing a country. That is why there is an argument as to how the government should invest more in either arts or public service. Each side believes their cause to be more important than the other. Which is why the claims as to which is more important between the two has escalated into a hot debate. Personally, I believe the government should invest equally in both because of specific reasons.

- It is important for the government to invest in the arts such as music and theater. Without performance venues, music and other public arts would become a dying art. Right now, tickets to professional performances cost too much. So much that ordinary folk cannot afford it. With a government subsidy, people from all walks of life will be able to enjoy the best shows the arts have to offer. Arts is also an investment that gives back in reference to the interest the government can make on the price of the tickets. With arts being a strong magnet for tourists, it can definitely help increase a country's earnings in a year.

- Public service on the other hand, is something that the government is expected to support using publicly collected taxes. the development of a country is measured by the amount of public service that is offered to its people. From transportation to government hospitals, the government always has a budget allocated for those needs every year. It is the arts that does not have assured funding on a yearly basis.Let's face it, both the arts and public service are important to the growth of the nation and the ability of the people to evolve socially. Therefore, both sides are equally important and should be equally funded.


- For the conclusion, you need to create a better conclusion that summarizes your prompt, thesis, and facts. I suggest you revise this part.

Writing Feedback / It is vital for arts to have prolific conditions to thrive and be accessible for people [7]


- What happened to restating the prompt at the start of the introduction?


- Don't use fictitious situations. The thesis statement should be about government funding for the arts. That can't start in the 2nd paragraph.


- This is a weak argument in support of government funding for the arts. You should speak of the fact that arts would not exist without the government that builds museums and funds the development of the arts at the grass roots level.


- You need to strengthen this discussion by researching reasons that people would rather the government stay out of the arts. There are better reasons available than the one you presented.

You may want to rethink your conclusion after you do additional research to improve the content of your paper :-) This is a good effort, but it can be better.

Writing Feedback / Once I was; now I am [4]

I am not entirely sure what the prompt is for this paper and if it is supposed to be poetical in style or essay type. I wish you had informed us about those things along with the post of the essay you wrote. It would have helped a lot in reviewing this paper. That said, I will do my best to make comments and offer suggestions for revisions based on what I can see of the paper.

Let me start with the grammatical errors:


- It was the day of the Math exam. The test was to start at 9 a.m. I thought I could wake up at 8:15 and reach the exam center by 8:50. I did not know that there was a political demonstration that day near my exam center. I was stuck in a traffic jam for almost an hour and reached the center half an hour late.

- What were the consequences of arriving an hour late? Was that what influenced you to become a changed person?

Those are my comments and suggestions for now. If you can provide additional information about the requirements of your statement, I might be able to make further suggestions :-)

Graduate / Poured my heart and mind in writing SOP for Mechanical Engg at Purdue. Expecting valuable comments. [5]

You are writing a statement of purpose, not an academic and professional biography. I suggest that you stick to the statement of purpose by presenting your dreams and aspirations for the future. Limiting your work and academic experiences to only the most influential events that further gave you reason and direction for your desire to enroll in this course. Remember, you need to keep your statement of purpose concise and not overwhelmed with information about work and academic related experiences. That is not the purpose of an SOP. At this point, the essay makes for cluttered and confusing reading because you are cramming too much unnecessary information into it.

- You can remove this whole portion because your statement of purpose only comes in after all of this. This is information that I am sure will be discussed in a separate essay application.Deleting this will make your essay easier to read and bring your SOP closer to its requirements.

- This deviates from your SOP. This is part of a personal statement and this thus, unnecessary in this essay.

Your SOP could actually be quite short and direct to the point if you delete the unnecessary paragraphs. I suggest you try to delete these paragraphs and then read the new version. Compare the two. I am sure you will see what I saw :-)

Writing Feedback / I helped Tony - this event marked my transition to the adulthood [2]

Mantoes, you must be commended on the way that you developed your story. From the first paragraph onwards, I felt totally engaged and involved in the story. You told it really well even with the grammatical errors that were minor and almost ignorable. I will offer some grammar corrections and suggestions if I see any portions where further improvement can be made :-)


- I was just wondering if we could learn more about this strange habit of yours that they all hold. It seems to be an interesting trait of yours that could very well be introduced in the first paragraph so that when Tony comes along, we already have an idea of what must have been going through your mind at the time :-)


- A little more information about TaiDong is in order. Could you describe the ind of children there? How they normally act among friends and enemies? I feel that it is important for you to establish that character of the children to give credence to the advice that you gave later on.


- things . At that moment... because the kids looked up to me for direction in their young lives.Yet, there was ... Little did I know that the void was about to be filled by one of the children in my care.

- We just needed a transition sentence at the end to introduce the new event.


- Tony is the kid who will forever be etched in my mind. He was a dyslexic, cleft lip kid who came from a financially strapped family with a single mother as his only parent. Regardless of his physical, financial, and social drawbacks, Tony always came to class with a smile on his face. Sometimes overeager to participate.

- The sentence felt too cluttered so I tried to clean it up for you.


- ... In the middle of one class, he burst into tears... the rest of the day consoling him.
- The word bully is already descriptive of the action and does not need additional descriptions.


- pain that both he and I knew he did not deserve.
- Don't use shortcuts in a formal essay. Specially in school application essays. Be formal at all times because this is a written interview.


- Again, you need to properly describe the habit and then explain what advice you gave the boy that was very adult like in manner.


- frown flipping back to a smile, and a hug that I ... Suddenly, I felt that the void I could not fill was finally filled,with love and a desire to help children like Tony.

- The sentence was incomplete because you needed to describe how the empty void now felt for you.

Writing Feedback / Theme : about alternative medicine treatment and dangerous risk from it [9]

In my opinion, your essay makes some sense in relation to the theme, but your concentrated on the wrong part. You see, most of the discussion about alternative medicine, the controversy around it, is related to the medicines being taken instead of the treatment applied by alternative medicine healers. You see, alternative medicine healing is now part of what is known as "holistic medicine". Some forms of holistic medicine is already being accepted into the medical mainstream treatment. Examples of these would include chiropractic and massages. But once those practitioners begin to prescribe drugs, drugs that have not been government approved and tested in the form of "herbal medicine with no approved therapeutic claim", the dangers and risks of alternative medicine become a reality. That is why I was telling you to concentrate on the alternative forms of medicine instead of the treatments.

You can discuss the alternative treatments if you wish, but you still need to mention the drugs that they prescribe for treatment as well. The drugs are not government approved nor have they been tested by government drug regulation boards. So the effects of the medicine as far as positive and negatives are concerned, are unknown. If someone dies, it is not the alternative treatment that is usually blamed but the drugs that were prescribed with so many unknown factors existing.

Tell you what, try to balance out the essay by discussing both the holistic treatments and the drugs they often prescribe with their treatments in relation to the debate. Don't forget to make your stand on the issue very clear to the reader :-) I look forward to reading your new version , if you decide to write one ;-)

Graduate / 'I have been fortunate enough to have my grandmother be a part of my life' - PA school motivation [5]

Definitely a huge improvement content-wise. I have some additional suggestions and revisions for you to consider though :-)


- Mary, the admission officer may want to verify your information so you need to give the name of the hospital.


- Where and when did you graduate?



- This is a separate paragraph.Discuss how you gained a deeper understanding of the topics you mentioned. What hands on participation did you have?


-Develop this further as a new paragraph.


- I called ( you indicated that you did this in the past by saying you volunteered)


- plan of action(The Red Cross works right after a disaster strikes. They act on helping people, not improving them.)


- Your essay is starting to suffer from too much information. Pick only the most relevant experiences that answer the prompt. In this paragraph alone, you mention one to many activities that are not fully explained so it does nothing for your essay.



- ... grandmother slowly recovered


.cares for the ...


-help people recover from their illnesses.

I hope these ideas and suggestions continue to help you :-)

Scholarship / Library in Bronx - "A Change To The Intellectual Community" - Essay for Questbridge [7]

Andy, you have really put some great thought into this essay and you make pretty good suggestions. That said, I would like to let you know that we can actually improve this essay in such a way that you can use the extra available words to further develop the ideas you have for helping the local library. Let me show you what I mean :-)

- I come from the Bronx, New York which, as everyone knows, is a poor community where families barely have enough income to help support the students in their family. That means the kids do not have access to the internet, personal computers, or books. We have to go to the library for those. There lies the problem for my intellectual community. Our local library has vandalized books that lack pages and the computers meant for homework are taken over by gamers who take hours playing games when it could have been used by students to complete their homework. That is why if I were given a chance, I would work on improving our library system for the benefit of the indigents in the Bronx.

- You can actually skip this whole part because it got incorporated into your introductory and thesis statement already. Thus cutting down your word count and giving you more room to develop your plans to help the library.

- Cut down, these two paragraph simply state: "If given the chance to help my intellectual community, I would start by rehabilitating the local library through the help of fundraising and charitable donations. This means finally getting a chance to replace the worn out books with new editions and adding more computers and printers so that the students and gamers will have equal chances at using the units. Only a few sets will be allowed for gaming. All the rest, will be for serious study time. I would renovate the library by making it look more a Starbucks outlet. Hopefully, the more relaxing and calming atmosphere of the new library will entice my fellow students to spend more time studying in the library. Come SAT season, I will make sure that the local library, in its new image, will be ready to help the students review through tutorial and review classes. By showing how successful the new image of our library is, I will then be able to lobby for more funding for its continued improvement ."

I just brought your word count down to 292. Now you have an additional 208 or something words to help you further develop your ideas for improving the library. Just stick to the important details which you can develop into great ideas :-) I hope my suggestions work for you :-)

Writing Feedback / Theme : about alternative medicine treatment and dangerous risk from it [9]

Hi Yulis, I read your essay and went back to read the prompt because I felt like there was something wrong with your response to the essay question. It turns out, my suspicions were correct. Although you gave a very good answer in your essay, your response was nowhere near the expected response for this prompt. The prompt was asking you if you agree or disagree with the belief that alternative medicines are ineffective and dangerous.

Rather than saying "I agree that alternative medicines are dangerous" and then explaining why, you instead discussed why people would opt to use alternative medicine instead. This is is not about the right or wrong way to treat an illness. The question was asking you if you believed that alternative medicines could do more harm than good to a patient. So you needed to make an educated statement about why these drugs are dangerous. You could have discussed how these medicines do not pass through government drug testing and approval, so the people taking the medicine do not really know if the medicine is safe to drink or if it will work.You need to talk about the medicines itself, not its practitioners. Talk about the way the drugs are created, the lack of product testing and experimentation, the blind faith that people put into these drugs because it is all they can afford. Those are just some suggestions regarding what topics you could have used to answer the question posed.

I hate to say this but you need to go back and revise the whole essay. Your answer does not discuss the prompt at all. Instead, it discusses the choice between a herbal doctor and a professional doctor and the reasons people choose one over the other. This is not about the health treatment options available to people. That is not the answer that the prompt requires. You failed to answer the prompt because you either did not understand or failed to take the time to truly understand what the prompt was asking you to answer.

You need to be careful when answering prompts. Take the time to read the question over and over again if you have to. Ask questions if you must in order to truly understand what the essay wants you to discuss. Take the time to understand the question so that you can answer it correctly. Otherwise, even if you write an excellent essay, if it does not respond to the prompt, you end up with a failed essay such as this one.

I hope you revise the essay. I am looking forward to reading it :-)

Graduate / "What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others remains and is immortal" SOP Speech P. [5]

kk, I have a few inquiries listed that , when answered, will help you to further strengthen your statement of purpose. There were some loopholes that an admission officer would find in the essay so I thought it would be best to plug those holes in your statement before we center upon correcting the grammar errors or reinforcing the message of your statement.


- Could you possibly explain more about how you came to this realization through your classes and the shadowing that you did? The reason you should do this is because you have to show or explain how your purpose came to develop into a passion for you :-)


- Exactly how did an investment school inspire your calling for speech therapy? There does not seem to be a connection between finance and speech pathology. You have to expand upon this statement. It will further strengthen your purpose statement when you constantly show or explain how the passion built up over time within you.


- Where did this happen? Talk a little about what kind of feelings you had on that first day and how you felt by the end of the day with Christopher.


- From where? What course? When did you graduate? Why did you feel a need for more studies? These are all part of your purpose.


- Where in Cleveland? Why did you choose to work there? How is it relevant to your purpose for enrolling in graduate school?

I hope I was able to help. I am looking forward to reading your revised statement of purpose, if you choose to do so :-)

Undergraduate / "You don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have" CommonApp Essay [7]


- Erin, when you quote a passage or something that someone said, you need to cite the source or tell us where you heard it. Quotes can usually be used to open an essay but not in the format that you have it now. You need to tell us to said it and use italics for the characters so that we know it is a separate part of the essayOverall though, this is a very unique choice for a quote. I am glad you used it :-).


-... this feeling totally consumed me... I constantly vomited due to the painful sensations my body felt. My parents and I started to realize something was wrong as I became a shell of my former self. The spirited and hardworking student was now just a confused and helpless victim. The test results were definite, I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder...

- You need to explain what GAD is for the sake of the readers who are not familiar with your illness.


- serious anxiety problems ...


- I am glad your story helped her but it would also be nice if we knew the story behind your recovery :-) Please talk about your own recovery before you talk about how you were able to help the kids at the camp :-)


- ... struggle to overcome it .



- This is a redundancy. You already mentioned this earlier. Try to say something else in its place to make your closing statement stronger. Try to end with a stronger message of hope and strength if possible.