Undergraduate / The Statement explaining why I would want to attend the Oxford Summer School programme in 2016 [5]

Hi! As with the poster above, I agree that it is somewhat generic. It seems like you focus a lot on the great things about the UK, and the essay reader may see that as you caring more about the location than the school that you are applying for. That is one of the biggest issues I saw.

I suggest that you try to include more of a personal reason for wanting to attend Oxford, one that will really stand out and show the reader that you are unique. It would allow your application to stand out. However, the part where you mentioned your plans to study law was good for that reason - it was a personal connection. Looking specifically into the law program at Oxford and using specific examples could improve your essay in showing that your are truly interested in Oxford.

The part where you say "help me look deeply into law" sounds a bit awkward to me and I would change it to something like "allow me to understand law on a deeper level." It's minor, but it jumped out to me as I was reading it because it just sounded awkward to me.

Good luck with your application!

Poetry / So Mean (toward the softest rose...) [3]

I really like the strategy of parallelism you used in this poem, but I think there are some words and phrases that could be changed to make it more effective.

Let's start at the beginning. I like the first line, but I don't really understand the second line. If you were trying to construct it like your other lines, maybe you can consider using a word like "pierce" in order to show the hostility that you are trying to.

I really like the second stanza, but you may want to consider changing "see" to "feel" in order to maintain consistency with the sense that you are describing.

In the third stanza, the first line is interesting in that it is keeping up with the theme of paradox that you have in the rest of the poem. However, second line sounds a bit awkward. Instead of the phrase "go out," a phrase such as "escape" may make more sense and flow more effectively.

The fourth stanza does not seem to make a lot of sense to me. "Darest" is not a word, and an adjective such as "raging" would make more sense. I also don't understand why you conclude that there is going to be a fight. To me, it also makes little sense to describe yourself as a raging river when you consistently describe yourself as gentle in the rest of the poem prior to this. It seems like this stanza is meant to be the poem's turning point, but it could be much more effective if it were worded differently.

The next two stanzas are very good and are a nice shift from the beginning of the poem. However, the last line could be worded better. It is in the past tense when the rest of the poem is in the present and future tense. Changing the line to "if you are so mean to me" would allow for more consistency. Overall, I really enjoyed the concept of your poem!