Undergraduate / BE SUCCINT: WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR WHEN WRITING UNDERGRAD ESSAYS [5]

The golden rule: be succinct.

This is true for any type of undergrad essay you are writing, one of the most important assets adcoms are looking for is effective communication.

DO NOT use any "large descriptive" words. To be blunt: it sounds pretty stupid. In sixth grade you were told to use a lot of words like gargantuan, luscious, etc, and SAT words are there as a vocab quiz. You are strongly discouraged from using them in your admissions essays and your undergrad essays in college.

Also: Have meat in what you're saying.
Sit down and really think about your life: perks, personality, special interests, adventures, epiphanies that changed your life in any way, etc that are important to your life

Delivery: The ratio of your story and yourself
Use a small intro section to get the story across. This is probably one of the trickiest part because you want to be really efficient with word count here, but also have it really engaging.

Then the bulk of the middle should be saying why that's important to who you now (you can do this by contrasting it to who you were) and then say what it says about who you would be in the future

The conclusion: tie in the story again, but also touch on who you are again.
This section you also want to be careful with word count and also it's a delicate section that you want this to be one of the most powerful parts of your essay.

GOOD LUCK CLASS OF 2015

Undergraduate / Stanford Supplements: short answers plus Why Stanford [3]

Any suggestions/changes would be greatly appreciated!

Tell us what makes Stanford a good place for you.
Growing up, I always heard my sister talk about the other school in the Bay. She was a loyal Golden Bear, and football season guaranteed briefings on Berkeley standings. Yet, I always wondered about the school a little further south - the one whose campus seemed so filled with intellectual vitality had captured me from the very beginning. As I got my first iPod, I was pleasantly surprised to find Stanford among the first to offer iTunes University programs. From there, I was transported into the virtual world of conversations with the world's great leaders to courses that challenged my imagination.

One lecture that has stuck with me in particular was by Dr. Tina Seelig, the executive director of the entrepreneurship center at Stanford's engineering school. In a lecture on life lessons, Dr. Seelig advised students that "Success is when passion meets opportunity meets the marketplace."

Even as a high school student, I've found that to be true as my experiences grow. The most rewarding experiences for me, such as tutoring and my own personal lunch-time ventures, have happened at the intersection between my passions, an opportunity, and the marketplace (in this case, my school).

More than anything, I believe that Stanford is a place that nurtures curiosity and embraces failure as much as it does success. While the courses that Stanford offers are comparable to those at other universities, the people it draws together and the community it builds is what distinguishes Stanford for me. While I know I don't have the most stellar academic credentials, I believe that my passion and my ability to soundly execute on ideas where they meet the marketplace are reflective of the Stanford tradition of innovation and challenging the status quo.

Name your favorite books, authors, films, and/or musical artists.

Two of my favorite books are "Hardball" and "Alice in Wonderland." While they may seem unrelated at first glance, both discuss posibilities, and each of them have inspired me. "Hardball" added color to Washington and any cosmopolitan society while "Alice in Wonderland" inspired me to dream.

What newspapers, magazines, and/or websites do you enjoy?

Youtube and Facebook epitomize the era we are in. It speaks to the intersection between the global network of people and the individuality of people. A century ago the radio bridged nations. Now Facebook and Youtube are bridging individuals, media, ideas, and designs. I love being a part of it and seeing where it goes.

How did you spend your last two summers?

My passions range from the sciences to the arts, and I have spent the last two summers exploring each. I helped graduate students in physics at UCR with their project by [whats the project?]. Additionally, I've worked in the environmental sciences department and developed my appreciation for the arts through studying classics and music.

What were your favorite events (e.g., performances, exhibits, sporting events, etc.) this past year?

Newspaper interviews have opened the door to many unique opportunities. It's a rewarding experience to be on first name terms with the mayor and to have the opportunity to interview ambassadors from Ghana. These interviews has taught me life lessons about networking.

What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed?

The fall of the USSR was one of the most unexpected and pivotal events in history. It reminds me how critical an interdisciplinary understanding of any situation is. No one anticipated it and the exact dynamics that happened at that time would have been interesting to witness. History may be written by winners, but it is also one of the greatest teachers for the future.

This one is a little long, can you please help shorten?

What five words best describe you?

Passion, resilience, eccentric, versatile, and calm. I am passionate about life, about what I do, such as the piano, tennis, my activities. I love many different things which normally seem incompatible, such as a public speaker who loves math, plays tennis and oboist. But with so many commitments, I've had setbacks, but I am resilient and versatile enough to recover quickly. I deal with problems calmly.

This one is also a little long, can you please help shorten?

Poetry / Beauty (poem) [5]

Surrounded by a crown of painful thorns,

The roaming thistles gaze upon the world,

Around them is the Earth so greatly torn,

Before them lay the stage where life unfurls.

The play of life begins with shining rays,

Exemplifying drops of morning dew,

By striking them with spears of light of day,

And throwing shafts of light of many hues.

What then? when curtains falls and lights go out,

What left of nature is there to admire?

With darkness casting beauty into doubt,

When left alone, does faith and awe expire?

Each day begins with beauty uncontained,

Yet ends with beauty hidden and restrained.

Undergraduate / "Speech and debate are a lifelong learning process" [2]

I carefully walked up to the front of the classroom, concentrating on not tripping on my oversized suit. I took a deep breath and proceeded to deliver my speech on Pakistan and its place in the Middle East. I felt the heat from the glare overhead as I tried to recall the statistics of its military operations and not stutter. The latter was particularly difficult.

For someone who grew up in a universe where children were only to be seen and not heard, speech and debate was an alien realm for me. Ten minutes with just me and a panel of three judges. After what felt like an eternity, I left the room. It turned out that in spite of my mistakes, my stuttering, my oversized suit, I had come in third place - more than I could have imagined when I first helped start the club only a year ago.

The journey to this point was one that came unexpected. I had my hesitations about joining speech and debate with a group of kids that my friends had dubbed the "Hill" kids, the ones who never seemed to quite fit in. What I found, however, was a group of talented individuals who, like me, were there to build a team and shared a similar passion for the world beyond our high school campus.

As one of the founding members, I've watched others and myself grow as speakers. As a team we began to compete in more competitions on the regional, state, and national levels. It was heartening to see these members who only began three months ago walk off the stage with a smile, a trophy, and no regrets.

While I've always kept on top of global events and news, this was a new outlet for me - one where I could move away from only reading the news, to providing my own analysis and communicate my own viewpoints. Coming from a family that downplayed the importance of communication and politics, I found this to be particularly liberating.

I've also learned that speech and debate didn't just end with any one club - it was a lifelong learning process, and one I hope to continue at the best public education system in the world.

Undergraduate / an asian family -UC personal statement: Describe the world you come from [...] [4]

Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

By the time I was seven, my sister had already graduated. All I ever heard was her greatness. My parents would always say, "you should be more like your sister. Look at all her medals!" And it was true, when we moved only two years later, we had to throw away two boxes of trophies because she just had too many.

As a seven year old, and a seven year old from an asian family at that, all I ever heard was get into a good college. At seven years old, my bar was set for me and my parents would always point out to me that she went to a great college with a merit scholarship. That was my life. I was embodied in this atmosphere of nothing but success.

I grew up like this, being a kid only when I could sneak a few moments of television when my parents weren't home. Otherwise, I was in my room doing math problems. My dad would check for quality and quantity every night. If it wasn't 500 problems solved with a minimum 95% correct, it meant a smack on the head and an extra hour of piano practice.

That was who I was when I entered high school. Freshman year I did everything I did everything I was told to: come home, give a report on how school was going including daily reports on pop quizzes and tennis. My parents were very concerned with my education. They would constantly advise what extracurriculars I should do and I was reprimanded for having too much or too little.

Regardless of the rigidity of my family life, I came to love the clubs. It was at these clubs and organizations I met the jocks of the tennis team, the select group of newspaper, the "nerds" of Academic Decathlon, but nothing could have prepared me for Speech and Debate.

They were not your ordinary kids you saw at lunch. Speech and Debate was made by the "Hill" kids. They were your weird ones, the emo, the hippies, the rednecks. Many of them were not even in the International Baccalaureate, whom I've been most accustomed to. Needless to say, when practice first started, it was awkward because I had my predispositions against them. 'Why was I here? Wow, I'm so not cool anymore.' I thought to myself. But as practice went on, I was incredibly surprised to discover that they were very talented people, despite their appearance.

I became good friends with them and went along with their wacky ideas like the Panda dance. But the real shocker came during Tin Foil Hat day. All day we wore tin foil hats: bowlers, Lincoln stovepipe hats, and so forth. Afterwards, I went along with tennis to an away match. On the bus ride, a senior varsity member said, "You're friends with those people? Man, and I thought you were cool." I was shocked, not because he would say something like that, but I was selfishly thinking, oh no. I'm not cool anymore. But then I turned around to see the rest of the varsity team taking turns wearing it and having a good time. It was then I realized, it's okay to be different. I didn't need to be the typical asian kid who took a lunch box to school, or be a tennis jock, or anybody but me.

But after three years of knowing these people, it's hard to change who they view me as. But with a tin foil hat in mind and no boundaries, I hope to find myself in college. I aspire to define myself over the next four years, and the question is only where. I really hope it would be at your campus.

Any comments/editing would be appreciated! And it's a bit long, so suggestions on cutting it down would be also welcome! Thanks!