Undergraduate / Amherst common app supplement essay, need help revising it! [6]

''Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted.''
Attributed to William Hastie, Amherst Class of 1925, first African-American to serve as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals

Well, the classic (perhaps even cliched) way to answer this would be to tell a story about a time when you were facing a difficult task and how you achieved it. Make it personal, make it powerful. Pick something unique to you - something you really struggled with.

Just from the fact that you're applying to Amherst, I'm assuming that you're pretty strong academically. They can find that out from your transcript and SAT scores. Use this essay as a chance to show them other sides of you : passion, dedication, ability to bounce back etc

Undergraduate / Princeton Supplemental Essay: Transforming Stones into Diamonds [8]

Pretty good essay. A little heavy on tell, with little show but you write well and I think it works. Your intellectual vitality really comes through. But

I sincerely believe that every great thinker has this in common-the capacity to carry a great burden of stones, even if none becomes diamonds. Persistence, passion, and innovation are what allowed Da Vinci, Aristotle, and Einstein to make so many discoveries. While they are credited for having more diamonds than most, they also suffered under the weight of more stones than most because "Some questions cannot be answered./ They become familiar weights in the hand,/ Round stones pulled from the pocket, unyielding and cool" (Hirshfield) .

Get rid of that quote. It's horribly awkward and completely disrupts the flow of your essay. Also, just pasting in the quote is pretty bad writing. Fix that and you should be good to go

Undergraduate / "We're moving." -School Life and Diversity - The University of Washington Essays [15]

Just a few thoughts...

Your diversity essay gets a little repetive.
I moved here --> it was hard --> something unique to the school --> classes i liked
You might want to consider switching it up a little.

Also, you should expand on the Pakistan move. Why was it hard for you? Guessing ABCD (def happened to me), and you might want to mention specifics.

Your conclusion is a little trite.

Basically, I think there should be less of what you did and more of how it affected you. Don't be afraid to get personal - the more unique it is to you, the better.

Good luck!

Undergraduate / the Pacific Ocean, Describe a personal event- common app [5]

I'm guessing that you mean the 150 word short answer of the common app about an extracurricular. Basically, just that describe an extracurricular.

It's a good start. Vivid descriptions and the sea is just such a powerful topic. You might want to add a little more about sailing, just to emphasize your passion and commitment to it.

Undergraduate / calligraphy + the English Corner I found -Short Answer of the Common Application [9]

It's a pretty hard choice between the two. Calligraphy's more personal but the English corner is probably more impressive. Actually, the English Corner sounds very impressive. What's your main essay about?

Undergraduate / COMMON APP ESSAY FOR DARTMOUTH, UPENN, NORTHWESTERN AND OTHER SCHOOLS [37]

I'm a little picky when it comes to people being philosophical in their essays. Basically I don't think some of these ideas are that deep/interesting/thought provoking.

I mentioned some of it. The absence of light in science - how? But this is para's filled with them:

As I continued to work, a latent external force seemed to pick up and guide me: tranquility. I was oblivious to it for a while, and its effects were gradual, but this calm that came from my empirical work soon took over. It wasn't a satisfaction but it can't be fully translated. However, in this state, I wasn't seeking relationships between different forms of science; rather I allowed them to engulf me. I was at ease, I was accepting; I was accepted. I let the forms around me dictate what happened. I wasn't waiting. I allowed myself to be paralyzed by the unknown in the results. I still sought to eradicate its existence, but for the first time in my life, I felt the unknown. I didn't just acknowledge it; I felt its harmony, rhythm and ambiguity. This was science. This was the light; it wasn't a form of hope like it had been before, rather a wave of harmony that comes from grimacing right at it and seeing all the rays burst out in all directions and knowing there is a form of prosperity staring at you all the time.

Different forms - huh?
The last sentence also makes no sense. Wave of harmony?... grimacing right at what?... form of prosperity? These are vague at best, and boring at worst.

As to your point about gaining something from paralysis - that's not "naivete". Just like not finding light in science isn't "hapless". Words are important, choose them wisely. You're playing with an interesting ideas here: knowledge from ignorance, power from submission but you haven't expanded on it enough to conclude anything. Don't resort to empty, meaningless statements.

I have let that lightI know keep shining
The "I know" doesn't fit

Undergraduate / COMMON APP ESSAY FOR DARTMOUTH, UPENN, NORTHWESTERN AND OTHER SCHOOLS [37]

Thank god, I thought I was being too harsh.

So basically, I love philosophical essays but I'm just picky. now a few clarifications:
1. I think your overall structure is GREAT. There's a real sense of evolution and thought here
2. You are playing with some very interesting ideas and you definitely have a fairly unique view of things.

BUT

Your essay just needs some more development. Let me just sketch out what I see is the main narrative thrust

1. You find "light" in subeject (I like this idea, keep it)
2. BUT science doesn't have that light - give an example of what you mean. did you feel science was too abstract, too pointless, too structured? And then say how you felt - probably not hapless but maybe frustrated or bored even with science

2. Research --> Real science --> Sense of power
3. BUT it didn't work as planned --> Data didn't make sense
4. A paradigm shift - this is IMPORTANT. I get the sense of what happened but you need to really hit this one out of the park. So go back to basics and just write in plain language what the change was, then gussy it up

5. This new paradigm will guide you - Is this really naivete?

So basically I think 1,4,5 need to be fleshed out. Just what I think

"The idea of zenith was superficial, we create the apex in science, not the subject, but the calming presence told me all I needed."

Zenith/Apex vs subject - What's the relationship?

Undergraduate / U Chicago main essay: flashdrives and k-pop [8]

Tap tap tap. I heard my mother knocking loudly on my bedroom door, wanting to come in and grab some supplies. Quickly, I turned off my laptop's media player and switched my Internet tab to a random Wikipedia page. I breathed a sigh of cautious relief as my mother wafted in and back out without suspecting a thing. For a month now, I had been carefully hiding from my parents my newly discovered source of entertainment - Korean music, commonly known as "k-pop".

Just wondering, but were you intending the adcoms to think first of porn?

Undergraduate / CORNELL CAS Supplement Essay- Cheating on Humanities!? [7]

Why'd you lose the affair metaphor partway through? It really caught my attention but then just vanished