Posts by izlong

izlong

Dec 3, 2009

Undergraduate / BU Supplement Three Words Essay "Questioning. Everything. Always." [8]

Hi Conor,

Your approach to this essay is creative.

The thing I liked about your first draft was that you were ACTUALLY always asking questions. I thought it was intentional, although the general feel of it was rather messy and cluttered. Your second draft is a little neater, it tells us more about yourself, BUT it does not really support the claim you made at the start of the essay. It fits more into a "Thinking. Very. Hard." essay.

However, I don't really think that's the point of the essay in the first place. You've spent a bulk of your essay PROVING that you ask a lot of questions, but I think the essay requires you to devote more words to explain how you would CONTRIBUTE to the BU community. Being a good engineer is a good point, but you need to try and link it to how that would benefit BU to make your essay more impressive. Spend less time proving the existence of your characteristics, and more time talking about why BU would want you.

Do more research on BU. Find out what's in their community: the clubs, the programs, the people. Figure out how your characteristics will benefit them. You might want to change your 3 charcteristics if it will help you to do this more easily.

izlong

Dec 3, 2009

Undergraduate / Engineering, an Artist - Critique my UVA Supplement essays? [7]

I love your style of writing! It's expressive and vivid, especially your second essay.

I agree with Yang though, the first essay is just way too generic. Sort of like an afterthought. Like Yang said, you probably should research more about the engineering program you're interested in. Talk about the qualities of the program, go into one or two details, as much as your short word limit will allow.

But I completely empathise with your dilemma. I just wouldn't know where to cut! Where yang suggested would be a good start. If really necessary, you might want to brutally shorten one or two of your very descriptive sentences, especially in the first paragraph. I figure the focus of your essay would be about your eureka moment, which ties the whole essay together very nicely, so you might want to spend less words praising your teacher and describing how difficult the question is.

izlong

Dec 3, 2009

Undergraduate / Implications of Time Travel - Stanford Essay on Intellectual Vitality [5]

Thank you for the help and kind words! It is much appreciated =)

izlong

Dec 3, 2009

Undergraduate / "Stop playing video games! " - Commonapp Short Answer and Personal Essay. [6]

Okay, I stopped editing your essay halfway. There are quite a lot of grammatical errors and problems with expressions, which you probably should get someone to help you look through and edit. But the reason I stopped was because I thought you might want to change your essay (a little? a lot?). Firstly both your essays are on the same topic - it might work for the reviewers, but in my very humble opinion, I would want you to talk about more aspects of your strengths and abilities. Talk about other things you're passionate about, or other interests that will show the reviewer a bigger picture of who you are.

Also, your essays are written very narratively. Personally, it's not my kind of thing, but I must commend you for bringing out your feelings and detailing your thought processes quite clearly. You also described the scenes quite vividly, which may be good, but I had hoped to read more about you. All your essay shows is that you learnt an important lesson that benefitted your musical experience, and you took a lot of words to do it. Maybe you would want to elaborate on what makes piano such an appealing activity to you, or what you hope to accomplish in the future? Talk about more aspects of yourself, because I'm not finding out enough about you.

Just my 2 cents worth.

izlong

Dec 3, 2009

Undergraduate / Implications of Time Travel - Stanford Essay on Intellectual Vitality [5]

Hi, would really appreciate your help in reviewing my essay please!

#1 Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.

Having completed Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, the idea of time travel has yet again fascinated me greatly. Apart from Einstein's Relativity Theory and wormholes, the implications of time travel are also very intriguing.

Can one go back in time to kill one's grandfather? Novikov's self-consistency principle says 'no' by postulating that events that would create paradoxes just will not occur (barring parallel timelines). The universe simply prevents it from happening and ensures that causality is maintained. This principle is apparent in Niffenegger's novel, where the protagonists' lives were so complexly intertwined due to Henry's time travelling. Nothing the characters did could prevent them from meeting, falling in love, and Henry from dying, even though they knew when and how, and even saw it happen.

Being subject to this deterministic world is both a depressing and exciting thought. Ignoring his inability to control his time travelling, Henry's ability brought a certainty to his life, a kind of wealth in the currency of knowledge. Initially, I envied him. This power is something I know I crave, as uncertainty about my future has been the source of much angst for me. I hate waiting, wishing, wondering about what my future holds for me.

But I don't know if I can deal with the futility that comes attached with this forbidden fruit - the knowledge of both good and evil in my future. If I feel powerless not knowing, wouldn't I feel even more so if I could read the script of my life, but not be able to change it? I mulled over this, wondering which was the lesser of two evils. In the end, I couldn't decide. But I reflected that since the present is all I have, the present is what I will treasure and live to the fullest, whether it made a difference or not.