Undergraduate / I CALL IT A REVELATION; common application essay [5]

What prompt are you addressing?

For starters, I feel the topic is extremely dark and morbid. While the story seems to be very interesting and peculiar, I have trouble seeing into how this makes you a person fit to go to college. This I might call is more of a personal secret that you might be better off keeping to yourself, because I just cannot see any relevance of an admission officer wanting to know this about you compared to your passions and your world that you come from.

It's a distant and difficult topic to write about, and it's a topic that people will have problems relating to or even reading because of how grim it can be. I don't mean to be critical or insulting, but while interesting, I don't think it's appropriate for college. Maybe you could turn this whole situation around, of death towards how you overcame it or how you ultimately came to cope with it.

Essays / question about UC ; Describe the world you come from [11]

Hey mmarlene96,

The first four subjects you listed out can literally be combined into one powerful essay, along with your dream to go into the medical field. Understand that though the UC prompt asks for a direct answer, it doesn't ask for a limited answer. Your quality of being the first to go to college despite your parents dropping out of high school who nevertheless provide great support combined with your responsibilities at home and at school can reflect a very mature and confident personality.

Caring for others is frankly too vague. Anybody can talk about a passion for caring, but few can talk about one's history. Dig deep. If you gave this to someone you didn't know whatsoever, what are the main things you would want them to know about? Answer that, and you have your topic.

Undergraduate / Driving a handicap - Common App: Challenged Idea of Belief [3]

This essay definitely has potential, but it feels more of a rant/lecture about altruism and selflessness rather than your experience in challenging a belief. There were probably one or two sentences in the body paragraph that really highlighted what exactly you did, and the rest of it was your beliefs in how society can change. But what I and everybody else want to hear is how the experience changes YOU, which you did lightly touch upon in the ending, but not with enough depth and analysis of yourself and instead in society. Make it more about YOU and less about what you think about SOCIETY.


*lose

And don't be afraid to make the essay more personal. You're using really sophisticated language, which is awesome, but watch out that you don't overdo it because it can get a bit cold and like a research paper. There's nothing wrong in brevity.

But good job so far. Just needs some smoothing of the edges.