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Posts by linting2012
Joined: Nov 4, 2012		 Last Post: Dec 31, 2012
Threads: 10
Posts: 78  
From: El Salvador

Displayed posts: 88 / page 1 of 3
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linting2012   
Nov 4, 2012
Undergraduate / My College Essay on Archery; All my hard works, for nothing? [9]

Hi guys can anyone please give me some feedback/criticism on my college essay? The harsher the criticism the better :)

This is the essay prompt
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

All my hard works, for nothing?

I was born in Taiwan, a very competitive country. So naturally I worked very hard to be the best. I ignored what other boys considered fun, television, video games, etc. All I did was study. By fifth grade I was already studying high school syllabus. However I was very happy because every time I brought back a certificate my mother would say:

"Hao Erzi" (Good boy in Chinese) and pat me on the head, while I put on my biggest smile.

These shaped my very competitive nature.

I remained very competitive even after moving to El Salvador. This competitive nature had made me lose sight of what is important, passion, until that fateful day:

The weather was perfect for tomorrow's Junior archery competition. I had worked hard for it and I was confident I could win this competition.

I did my usual warm ups. Then I took a deep breath and drew my bow. Everything was calm. It felt as if I was in my own world, the stresses of IB were miles away.

"Crack!"

I jerked forward as this ominous sound woke me up from my world. I looked down but I could already feel what had happened, my bow had broken. I had to forfeit tomorrow's tournament.

Disappointment overwhelmed me. My eyes watered as I slowly remembered all my hard works. The waking up at six o'clock in the vacation just to have a few extra hours to practice archery, the daily two hours practice that I kept even during raining seasons, and the back exercise that I did until the late nights. Then tears started to drop as the memories of the sacrifices I made slowly resurface. The refusals to after school parties just so I could practice in the Friday afternoon and the late night study sessions I had just so I could have an few extra hours to practice. What were all these for? Were all my hard works and sacrifices for nothing?

"żHijo, trabajaste por la competencia o por arquerĂ­a?" (Son, did you work hard for the competition or for archery?) Out of nowhere my coach asked.

I was enlightened; I realized I didn't work hard or make all these sacrifices for the competition. I worked hard because I love archery. Slowly I remembered the joy I had when I shot my first bull-eye, the excitement I had when I received my personal bow, the fun I had when I practiced with my friends, the anxiety I had when I attended my first tournament and the astonishment I had when I first saw the exorbitant price tag of my favorite bow.

This was an epiphany; I remembered the reason why I worked hard. It was something I had forgotten for a long time, it was my passion. I realized that I did not work hard just to be the best but rather for the things I love, for my passions. Slowly the tears in my eyes dried. I was smiling.
linting2012   
Nov 4, 2012
Undergraduate / 'Rotary Exchange Program' - Experience Common App Essay [9]

Well there are some errors but I am not a first English Speaker so I am not sure if I am right

,"but, you are just a person".

Writing went on too be my fount for unrivaled satisfaction

Besides that I think you could make your essay more focus and compact. You talked about being a writer at the start then you changed to something else later, I think it would be better if you focus just on one thing.
linting2012   
Nov 4, 2012
Undergraduate / CommonApp Essay on Alexander the Great's influence [7]

It is sort of boring and impersonal. It would be much, and much better if you could put in a personal story which help you to be identified with Alexander. Read this blog to see what I mean. (Search Show, Don't Tell! (the College Essay, Pt. 2) in Google and you will find the blog entry)
linting2012   
Nov 5, 2012
Undergraduate / My College Essay on Archery; All my hard works, for nothing? [9]

Spencedawg: Thank you so much for the reply. Will organize it better right now
HC2013:Thanks I am struggling with my Grammar because I am not a first language English speaker and your help meant a lot to me
linting2012   
Nov 5, 2012
Undergraduate / CommonApp Essay on Alexander the Great's influence [7]

I still don't feel that this is personal enough. I think it would be better if you expand on the anecdote of your soccer team and show the admission office how you, with Alexander inspired leadership, motivate your teammate and ultimately won the championship.

It could be something like

I was drenched in sweat and I can feel that my legs are refusing to move. Every muscle in my body is screaming in pain, I cannot go on anymore. My brain keep telling me that it is over, "What is the point of continuing the match when you are practically dead?" Its the last 5 minutes of the game, and we are still tied, hours of struggle had led us to nowhere. Trying to cut myself some slack I stop running so fast after the soccer ball. Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone shouted "Who says the world ends in India?". That is my favorite Alexander quote. I thought to myself "What am I doing?" didn't Alexander himself once said, "There is nothing impossible to him who will try"? Shouldn't I always give my best? I picked up my pace and chase after that ball. Running faster and faster while shouting to my teammates " "I'm exhausted" is no excuse.", chase after that ball and (Some inspirational stuff that you did to inspire the team and win the match)
linting2012   
Nov 6, 2012
Undergraduate / 'Parodying Musics' - Caltech: Describing an Unusual way in which you have fun [8]

What do you guys think about this one, do you think the admission officer will understand the joke in the last sentence? Or is it too controversial and risky?

Parodying Musics

One of the quirkiest and the most hilarious stunts I have ever done was parodying music with my friend. We turned the epic and powerful classical song "O Fortuna" into "O for tuna", a nonsensical piece that shows how much cats love tuna. We also changed one of the most influential rock song and the best hit single of the Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody" into "Bohemian Raspberry", a song that depict an epic story about a poor boy trying to taste the luxurious Raspberry. As for our master piece we made the famous and innocent Disney song "A Whole New World" into "A whole new Dick" (My friend's name is Richard), an adventurous song full of funny double entendre.
linting2012   
Nov 6, 2012
Undergraduate / 'teach me Japanese' - CommonApp: 500 word Essay (Evaluate a experience) [3]

Everything was all new to me

I would write Everything was new to me. The all here seemed a little bit redundant

, everything.

Again redundant. I would write something like the air, the people, the language, and even the McDonald seemed a little different.
linting2012   
Nov 6, 2012
Undergraduate / "A pair of recycling hands" Tulane Personal Statement Essay [3]

I kind of like it

Just a little advice of mine

You are referring in the whole piece A pair of hands not hands. So I may change the pronoun you are using right now. Or make it clear that you are referring to the two hands.
linting2012   
Nov 7, 2012
Undergraduate / 'Parodying Musics' - Caltech: Describing an Unusual way in which you have fun [8]

Wow that was probably the most awesome comment I have seen for a while and perhaps my first ever "high five over internet"

Thanks Forest so much for the help and it was a great help

BTW, The British Nickname for Richard is Dick. So the joke (if they understood) is that the song is actually about my friend whose nickname was Dick but due to the nature of his nickname there are lots of double entendre in the song.
linting2012   
Nov 7, 2012
Undergraduate / Cornell Essay - evolution of intellectual interests - "Success!" [5]

Mm.. the essay itself is very interesting. But its kind of risky, just imagine if your admission officer is a computer science major. I think he would denied many parts where you said computer science is not useful and only those "super" computer scientist got to do something useful. Besides that he may also argue that an "average" economics standard would just be crunching numbers in a cubicle to make a company to earn more money. I think it is more about a person's initiative to do something useful rather than the major. An computer science could code a user friendly program such as "Kickstarter" that raise fund for poor people that need money to start a business. Or even code a program that will raise the awareness of how the donation in Haiti is actually hurting the Haititian's business.

This is just my two cents. Don't be discourage and I may not even be right
linting2012   
Nov 7, 2012
Undergraduate / 'World around my little brother' - Stanford-what matters to you, and why? [17]

I still remember my eagerness to welcome the newest member of our family. I had hoped that he would captivate me with his laughter and the first steps but irritate me with his demands to eat more candy and watch cartoons when I wanted to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

This part is a little bit confusing. Why don't you put a comma between steps and but?
linting2012   
Dec 3, 2012
Undergraduate / Papercraft and its influence on my life; extracurricular activities/ work experiences [8]

Hi everyone, thank you all so much for reviewing my past two essays. Can everyone help me with this essay too?

Prompt: Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below (1000 character maximum).

Running the X-Acto knife meticulously down the center of the cutting line and waiting patiently until the glue between two small pieces of paper dried, I came to love this craft. In papercraft each cut and paste has to be perfect, a simple error of deviating 1mm from the cutting line could affect the integrity of work and a small over application of glue may destroy the aesthetics of the craft. However, despite the craft's mind taxing nature, I find it comforting. With every incision and gluing I slowly forget about the stresses of my life: the essay due tomorrow, the pending college application, and the upcoming exams. I, instead, focus on my creation. I pour my heart into every pieces of paper, and every time when the new parts are added I grow excited, because I can see my ideas slowly come to live. Finally, once the last piece of paper completes the craft I would look at it and with a big smile of satisfaction, because my dream had just come true.

Many thanks in advance
linting2012   
Dec 3, 2012
Undergraduate / Various Short Essays, 'Growing Up Military' 'Fighting the Wheel' - Brown University [5]

Even though everyone say your first essay need to answer the question I believe that you are already answered the question. You show the admission officers that your community is a continuously changing one. You also show the admission officers that this community is very important to you because it has an undeniable influence in you. Finally you also show them how it shaped you. Besides that I like the way you use the third person narrative, the repetition of "She" make the prose almost poetic. I think this essay is actually quite good. But it is just my opinion, everyone thinks differently.

The second essay, for me, was also great.
linting2012   
Dec 3, 2012
Undergraduate / Piano by my Lonesome --Personal Essay [5]

Bearing the traditional ignorance that comes with having lived for just over a decade, I had no clue what was in it until my older brother confided in me that he was attending his first piano class that he was going to use the new digital piano to practice.

I would change it to
Bearing the traditional ignorance that comes with having lived for just over a decade, I had no clue what was in it until my older brother confided in me that it is a new digital piano that he was going to use for practice and that he was attending his first piano class.
linting2012   
Dec 4, 2012
Writing Feedback / How would Public Funds be spent? IELTS [5]

From my observation, both of them are worthy public funding.

Them here is sort of ambiguous, it could refer to the people advocating the idea or the idea. I would made the point clearer by substituting it with ideas.

Besides that does the essay have word limits? I think you could substantiate this essay with more evidences because as of now the essay does not sound very convincing, but the idea is good though.

By living a healthy lifestyle is only effective for the prevention of diseases but not for curing the exist one.

I would use however instead of by because it make the relationship of the sentence to the rest of paragraph better. Besides that I would also move this sentence to the very top of the third paragraph.
linting2012   
Dec 4, 2012
Undergraduate / I envision myself to be a one of the cornellians ; cocornell engineering essay [9]

Hey Admission 2012

you always have very strong and useful critiques, do you mind looking at my essays?

besides that Sartha reading your essay it makes me think that you would love "3-D Printing" maybe you can read through some articles about it and write about this really novel ways of manufacturing in your essay.
linting2012   
Dec 4, 2012
Writing Feedback / How would Public Funds be spent? IELTS [5]

If that is the case why don't you advocate mainly for your first idea? You sound like you believe more in the first idea than the second. Once you have elaborated the first idea with sufficient evidence you could acknowledge that the second idea may also need some funding with one sentence in the conclusion.
linting2012   
Dec 4, 2012
Undergraduate / Piano by my Lonesome --Personal Essay [5]

Mm... I don't really know, since I am not a musician, just how important your message is.
But I feel (just my feelings please don't take it too seriously) that you incorporated too much messages into the essay. If I were you I would focus on 1 single incidence and develop it from there. Its just that I feel the essay is a little bit disorganized, I don't really get what you are talking about.
linting2012   
Dec 5, 2012
Essays / Who I would (if I could) nominate for a Nobel Peace Prize and why [15]

Yeah, you definitely could. But do you actually meet him or do you have any real personal experience regarding him (Whether it is watching him on television or reading his work)? In the bottom line he must have real influence on you because make up essay are often superficial. But you also have to be careful not to write about him, the essay is about how he effects you, not who he is or what he does.

Hope this helps
linting2012   
Dec 5, 2012
Undergraduate / Inside the Mind of A Chessplayer - Common App EC description, need outside opinion [4]

Why not substitute the terms with more familiar terms

So you can substitute "initiative" with "tempo" or how the match is going with your flow
Substitute "time pressure" with looming automatic defeat when the time run out
etc. just find more normally understand words and substitute them in.

Besides that I would also explain to the reader that when you run out of time you automatic looses the game.
linting2012   
Dec 5, 2012
Undergraduate / My father bought me a telescope - signficant experience ;Common App essay [3]

I remember when I was a little kid how clear the stars used to be.

I would use a comma here, "I remembered, when I was a little kid, how clear the stars used to be"

I remember first using it and learning that some of the dots of light in the night sky, the ones that mesmerize me, were planets!

Revised: "I remembered my first time using it and learning that the dots of lights in the night sky, the ones that mesmerized me, were planets!"

I would post more but its late for me now, maybe tomorrow
linting2012   
Dec 6, 2012
Scholarship / HSF:Describe a recent academic challenge you have faced. Explain how you overcame it. [6]

Hi Amandaco

Thank you for your detailed editing of my essay, so here I am to help yours.

Since you specifically asked me how to make your essay more interesting I will not make any editing instead I will present you with some ideas.

First of all I would like you to read this blog:

mit admissions/blogs/entry/show_dont_tell_the_college_essay

This will tell you how to write an interesting essay.

Now lets talk about your essay. The first part of the essay is great. It is very interesting and it shows that you are a very passionate student and you also care about those around you (Especially your parents). Besides that in the first part of essay you also show yourself to be mature and thoughtful (you considered the difficulties of transitioning from junior to senior).

However the second half of your essay (paragraph 3-5) is trite and boring. Thousands of people have, through hard work, earn the first place of the class and improve 300 points in the SAT. (In fact I improved from 174 in PSAT to more than 2000 in SAT) I am not saying that you shouldn't use the history AP class as an example, but you should present it in a more interesting way. For example you can start the second part of the essay with this sentence "Failing to see my name in the top scorer of the month, I was disheartened". Another thing I want to ask you about is this: do you work hard in history for the 1st place or do you work hard because you love history?

Take this as food for thought and good luck
linting2012   
Dec 6, 2012
Undergraduate / Papercraft and its influence on my life; extracurricular activities/ work experiences [8]

Wow, thanks guys so many helpful comments while I was asleep, I think I should sleep more if that is what it takes to get more helpful comments.

Nevertheless @Pahan my point was that the momentary relieve from stresses such as the essays due tomorrow helps me relax. But does it really seems like I am forgetting about the essay completely? If so how do you suggest me to change it? BTW thank you for the comment.
linting2012   
Dec 6, 2012
Scholarship / HSF:Describe a recent academic challenge you have faced. Explain how you overcame it. [6]

I had exactly the same problem. Classwork was easy for me too, even during the most stressful time I can have more than 10 hours of sleep. But the problem is that if I present the classwork as too easy I may come across as a snob. So I decided to write the essays in another way, about my shortcomings. I wrote about how, because I only wanted to win first place, I loose sight of the most important thing, passion. This is my essay, check it out (its not perfect so if you can please give me some feedback too)

https://essayforum.com/undergraduate/college-archery-hard-works-nothing-43615/

So, I believe, that if time management is really the problem you should definitely write about it, even if you were the cause of the bad management of time. If I were you I would present it in the following ways. (Just an idea).

1. Start by recounting the most stressful time of your life. Emphasizing the amount of things you have to do.
2. Then show the admission officers how you manage to overcome this stress or even manage the time better.
3. Then have a really powerful conclusion that tells a lesson

Good Luck hope you make a brilliant essay. BTW if you want I can look at the newly made essay just sent it to my e-mail address (linting2012@abc-net.edu.sv)
linting2012   
Dec 7, 2012
Undergraduate / One of things in my life that have developed my leadership is soccer. [13]

Hi Sarangnerkar

I just think that the example of Neil Armstrong is a little bit overused. Why not use other famous aeronautic engineer as the inspiration? Maybe even a MIT professor? This will make your essay sound more impressive. BTW I am applying to MIT too so good luck.
linting2012   
Dec 7, 2012
Undergraduate / True belief, The salvation of a cynic - Common app;topic of your choice [14]

Hi Anally (funny name)

Your essay was amazing. Though I believe that the V1 is much better than V2. Here are my reasons

1. The first essay flowed better and you sounded more passionate
2. The anecdote of you father is essential, however you only point it out in V1

If I were you I would just modify a little bit of V1 to make it less offensive. So instead of saying a "cynic" use "skeptic", also drop the mother and child metaphor.

Besides that having faith in something is different in believing blindly in something, that you got it right. Take for example having faith in religion and God means that you trust in god and you have evidences (though not concrete) that enables you to trust in God. However believing blindly in God means that you simply believe in God and never question its validity. This is very well explained in your essay. Everyone has their own believe and I don't think any admission officers can penalize you for your believe (though that might be different if you apply to a Jesuit college). However you do sound a little close minded, perhaps tell us why you think having faith in religion is believing blindly?

Good Luck, a very promising essay (I am a Christian too but anyone can have their own opinion, plus Christianity is full of holes, even I start to waver. Take for example the Exodus mentioned in the bible is proven by historians to never had happened in the way described in the Bible, and Jesus may had never existed.)
linting2012   
Dec 9, 2012
Undergraduate / True belief, The salvation of a cynic - Common app;topic of your choice [14]

You know this is what you can mention

Perhaps like this. One day your pastor say something really stupid (Like for example all atheist or satanist and they like to kill people, or like he completely misinterpreted the meaning of "God's Particle" and start talking many stupid things) and all the church goers accept this without questioning the validity of his reasoning. This incident makes you realize that to believe blindly is bad etc.

Hope this help
linting2012   
Dec 9, 2012
Undergraduate / Seeing only the negative aspects of any situation can cause many problems [2]

How about this.

Seeing the negative aspect of the thing can be good or bad. For example seeing the bad side of the situation can make you see the improvement needed for the situation. However it can also make you loose hope for the situation and lead to inaction. So you can mention how it depends on the attitude of the people perceiving the situation to determine whether seeing the negative aspect of the thing to be good or bad.

Think about this and good luck in your essay

BTW is I helped you please like my post
linting2012   
Dec 9, 2012
Undergraduate / My College Essay on Archery; All my hard works, for nothing? [9]

Hey guys thank you all so very much for the replies, especially Amadeco's reply very thoughtful and throughout.
@Anally
I wanted to college admission to see that I am not a person that is all about scores, I am actually passionate about the things I work on. Did I pass this message on effectively? If not what do you suggest?? Thank you very much

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