Undergraduate / Georgia Tech Essay Prompt: Students are often told what classes they should take. [5]

I don't believe GT has any course specifically related to board games, but they have many courses related to game design and creating games, whether that be through a digital or analog platform. In that essence, you need to think about what it is about your class that would stand out from these other design classes. Think of this prompt essentially as a pitch to GT to actually create the class - why would GT be interested in offering a class about board games?

While board games may be unpopular in Vietnam, I'm afraid that doesn't really relate strongly to a reason to creating a class at GT where the class would be offered to a diverse crowd of students not solely from Vietnam. Instead, your reasoning of wanting to promote board games to improve real-life interactions would be a better selling point.

It's true that you can gain a lot of valuable experience in designing a board game, but that is true in designing practically any type of project. These benefits are not unique to designing a board game, which is one of the biggest points I am trying to get across. Your class in itself should be unique (as in, not already offered at GT), but the lessons and learning done in the class also should try to come across as offering a unique perspective to prospective students. Why would other students be interested in your class, what kind of students would you be interested in teaching if you were the professor, what is the core idea of your class - these are some of the perspectives you should think from when writing your response.

When I said cut back, yes, I do mean to reduce the amount of description about the scenes of the game. It would be fine to include a sentence or even two describing a fantasy-like element to a board-game (though remember not all board games involve this kind of fantasy element, you need to consider that the scope of board games and that they involve many more genres than just fantasy, ranging from sci-fi to historical, and that board games also include strategy games from classics such as Chess to more modern games such as Catan). When over half of your prompt is simply describing a scene of a board game, not even of multiple board games, but seemingly of just one, your prompt comes across as very shallow and wasteful of your already small word limit.

Basically, I think you need to focus your response on the student body and why they would want to take the class. I don't think that board games are essentially so foreign of a concept that you need to give a long description of the class, but instead talk about what student might do in the class, what they should hope to get out of taking the class, and the benefits of the class.

Undergraduate / Georgia Tech Essay Prompt: Students are often told what classes they should take. [5]

Hello Nguyen,

I feel that you are not exactly understanding the prompt at hand. Though the prompt states to both describe a class you would like to create and why you would like to create it, the bulk of your response needs to focus on the "why" and not the "what". On that note, I do not really see anything unique about your class, especially in relation to some of the classes that GT offers over design (such as LMC4813: Experimental Design, where students will have access to the Interactive Products Laboratory to design, create, and execute interactive games).

Although your class does not necessarily have to have a unique concept, you really need to explain the benefits to the class as uniquely as possible. Why should GT create this class over another game design class? Your reasoning of


is very shallow and not fleshed out when this needs to be the bulk of your word limit. Also, I do not recommend including the rhetorical question, as 1) I feel it does not serve your essay very well and 2) you should limit rhetorical questions unless writing about something more personal/stream of conscious-like

To summarize, I think you really need to cut back on some of your descriptive elements, hit straight to the point that you want to create Board Games 101 (or anything else if you come up with another idea), and then really dive into why you want to make the class and what the class could offer.

Hope this helps!

Scholarship / QuestBridge biographical essay - "Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume" [10]

Hi Xiaoyu,

I think the new draft is definitely a step up from your original draft, and I think you did a great job of covering some of the issues I had raised before. Your voice still stands out to me in your revision, but I also have a much more concrete idea of who you are and how your past laid the foundation for your current goals and mentality. I think your response flows very well and I can't see much else you might change in terms of content.

As far as some criticisms, I can only say that the sentence


seems very convoluted in comparison to the rest of your sentence structure. You may want to consider splitting up the sentence or making it simpler so that the sentence flows better.

Also, you speak in the 1st person singular in all points except


You may want to consider changing this to "I" instead of "we" so as to match the rest of your essay.

All in all, very minor criticisms. I'm also not one to really scrutinize for grammatical errors, so I always recommend giving it a pass-through to your English teacher if you haven't already to see if they might see anything you may want to fix.

I think you did a stellar job with your revision and best of luck to you!

Hope this helps!

Scholarship / QuestBridge National College Match Short Answers [7]

Hello again,

Sorry for not responding to your previous posts, however, if you would like to post the new draft in your previous thread, I would be more than happy to read it and give some more of my thoughts if that interests you.

As for the short answers, 400 characters is a very small limit, and as such I think the best way (which you have done) to write these is to be concise and fairly blunt in what you are trying to convey. That is to say, I think you shouldn't be worried too much over whether the short answers seem less flowery or descriptive because I think these essays are solely to provide a little more depth as to the questions at hand. However, I think you could revisit your response to 2 and try to structure it similarly to how you wrote 1, that is to say I feel that 2 doesn't really flow very well, and the ending is especially abrupt and doesn't feel very conclusive to the prompt, rather feels that it should have been moved to the middle.

For 3, I think that the writing is fine, but the content is somewhat controversial in my eyes. It really depends on whether you would like to take the chance with writing something a bit more radical, or whether you might want to be conservative. For example, in a similar prompt for an admissions essay, being a declared Physics major at the time, I wrote about Newton's First Law of Motion. Similarly, having an interest in Psychology you could write about the Action Potential of neurons firing. Again, this isn't really a criticism, but rather a choice that would be up to you to make.

For 4, I feel that you wrote the prompt as if you were sending a letter rather than meeting the person face to face. I think if you could write the response more as a conversation, perhaps even interjecting your own personal opinions towards the ideas of gay rights in Milk's responses towards your questions, you might be able to really flesh out more of yourself rather than in asking these somewhat vague questions. For example, in your question "What role would I, small and lacking an air of authority as I am, play in it?", you might have yourself acting as Milk respond in a way of promoting activism or interacting with support groups or etc. I think the biggest thing to take away would be to have the meeting be more of a 2-way street.

Hope this helps!

Scholarship / QuestBridge biographical essay - "Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume" [10]

Because I missed the window to edit:

I want to emphasize the idea of reading your essay from the perspective of someone who has no idea who you are. The things that I can gather from your essay are that you are an immigrant, had a troubled adolescence, possibly have improved from that state, and can hear memories in the form of music. However, I don't have the slightest clue of what you enjoy doing, what you might be involved in, or what you want to do in the future? Do you enjoy participating in community service efforts? Or maybe you enjoy dancing or singing? Looking back, I almost think you tried to focus too hard on this conceit of hearing memories as music as being unique. While it's true the idea of writing about your own life isn't very unique, everyone's life experiences are different which makes hearing your story in itself unique. If I had to choose between writing about a really unique topic but with a generic style or writing about a very generic topic with your own personal style, it would definitely be the latter.

Again, I enjoyed your style of writing, but I think you need to revisit the content of your essay and really try to show more of yourself. Try to condense some of your past, and really focus on writing about yourself in the now and who you want to become in the future.

Scholarship / QuestBridge biographical essay - "Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume" [10]

Hi Xiaoyu,

I feel that the essay is really well-written, but I also feel that the essay doesn't fully answer the prompt at hand. While you've definitely given a story that relates to some factors/challenges that have shaped your life, you haven't given any insight into the aspirations or future goals that you are trying to pursue. Not only this, but I also feel that your essay focuses far too much of your word count on the past, while your conclusion is relatively weak. Note that the essay, as with many personal essays, should try to have a lot of substance relating to your present and future (shaped to grow) as the reader will want to know who you are as of today and who you want to be, not necessarily who you were. I'd suggest trying to condense your backstory and really focus more of the essay on how you have grown from this experience and how it inspired you. From your essay alone, I can't really garner how you've improved or how you're trying to improve. Have you been participating in the extracurriculars that you haven't be able to before? Perhaps you are now very interested in psychology as a means to study depression/SAD. Or does the way you can relate memories to music inspire you to perhaps become a musician or conductor?

Also, to the note of your hook: I feel like the premise of your hook does not stand well throughout your entire essay. Particularly, I enjoyed hearing the specific songs that you related to your childhood, but then you relate the music in more vague terms, such as "melancholic ballad". Personally, I would like to see you relate these perhaps to songs you have listened to and can relate to. Like how many people can refer to teenage angst with bands like Blink-182 or My Chemical Romance or things like that, I think it would improve your essay if you honed in on that specificity. Maybe you could relate your SAD to Vivaldi's four seasons, or maybe Chopin's Nocturne might be that melancholic song. I think you really need to develop your essay with this kind of premise if you really want to use the idea of music as memories. Otherwise, the conceit falls a little flat on itself and doesn't hold any real weight towards your essay other than "fluff".

Again, to reiterate - try to focus the essay more on the latter half of the prompt (specifically how have you grown from this, aspirations, etc.) as well as rethinking how you want to use your primary concept of relating music and memories. I think you have a very strong foundation, but you need to do a little more work to really show who you are as a person to the reader.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / ' I am looking for a change of pace' - Why University of Chicago? (Be brutally honest) [3]

Beyond a lot of grammatical errors that you need to clean up, I think your essay really needs a lot of polishing.

While you list a lot of good points, and I think you relate these points back to yourself pretty well, remember that this is an essay and there needs to be a flow to your paragraphs. What I see from your essay are three distinctive blocks of words, there is no connection between any of your paragraphs aside from the fact that they all relate to UChicago. Remember, these essays should almost tell like a story, and you need to have a continuation from your start to finish, rather than a list only expanded by details. Not just between your paragraphs, but also try to make sure each paragraph in itself flows well. For example, your first paragraph feels like you are simply making a lot of statements to the fact "If I love New York City ... a lot to offer then!" is very disjointed and there is no connection between the fact that you love Chicago more (why?) than NY and the fact that you participated in a basketball camp at UChicago.

Also, some parts of your essay read a little too bluntly in my opinion. For example, the paragraph about your aspirations to work in a hedge fund seems very prestige-seeking. While true that UChicago has good placements in the field of finance, you might want to be more subtle about it and focus more on the fact that UChicago might have a good statistics program with a professor you really like, etc. And again, the part about your statistics major and then moving on to your father's owning of a business and your wish to also get a major in Economics also needs some sort of connection.

While not of the same prompt, try looking at this essay written by a UChicago alumni (fyuchicago.tumblr.com/post/5669553195/a-sample-uncommon-essay) and see how the writer carefully crafted his essay into a story. Comparatively, your essay reads very much like a list.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Why Uchicago essay - I'm not sure about it. Tear it apart... [4]

Hello Molly,

To be a little more critical, I would say that you do not fully answer the prompt, especially in regards with the latter half of the question. While you state in your essay some of the things that are attractive to UChicago, you again state that they are not exactly unique to you. You really need to, as the prompt says, be specific about your wishes/goals and how UChicago might allow you to attain them or at least be along the way towards that path.

I enjoyed seeing the bit about "has fun molding and unmolding...", and I think it would do your essay a lot better if you expanded on this part and tried to relate it back to yourself in a way. Why are you so curious? Is it a particular field of study you might be curious about? Are you moreso undecided as to a major and wanted to broaden your experiences? You say a lot of things about UChicago that you enjoy, but I don't really get a sense of who you are as a person, besides the fact that you might be curious (to what?) and enjoy learning. These things are very vague and general.

For example, when talking about the fact that UChicago tries to mold and unmold brains, you might relate that back to Physics and how high school has emphasized the rigorous laws of Newtonian physics, but now exploring the broader horizons of quantum physics you find yourself unmolding and remolding your brain.

Now you may not be a Physics major, but as an example you could try to find something that would work within this similar scheme. This also exhibits that joy for learning as well as curiousity, while also telling a little bit more about your interests without the need to explicitly state that you love learning, etc.

Again, I emphasize you to try not to format your essay as a listing of things that you enjoy about UChicago, but try to show some more of your personality in your essay. The admissions office at UChicago already knows of a lot of the things that people are attracted to, but what they don't know is how they relate to you and even who you exactly are past your app. The essay is a chance to show more of yourself and really show that you belong to the culture the admissions office is trying to create at UChicago.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Juan, while I think you've done a remarkable job over all the iterations of your essay, you still need to brush up on your grammatical errors, and I suggest that you have some friends/professors look over your essay for you before you submit your final draft.

e.g.



Also, I would like to suggest a better structure for you. You've done a great job opening with how you first began to be interested in the field of study. After that, though you need to expand more on what you did to satisfy that interest (remove the 2nd paragraph, or condense 1st and 2nd into 1 paragraph, expand 3rd paragraph to be the main body and most detailed, last paragraph tie everything back together to your field of study).

Try to emphasize events that occurred more recently to you and your interest in the field, as these are more relevant to the kind of person you are today.

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Hi Juan,

I believe Louisa is helping you with your other essay, but upon reading through it I definitely get a better sense of who you are than from this essay. As you rewrite this essay, try to compare what you have done with your leadership essay and this essay. You can see substantial evidence that does not tell, but shows your qualities and traits. Comparatively, this essay does a lot of "telling" and not showing.

Some quick notes on the leadership essay:
Your use of anecdotes is great, but you are constrained by a character limit, as Louisa had said. Try to choose the most important anecdote and detail on that. If you can, it would be great to have a single anecdote serve as 2 or even 3 of the qualities that GT's motto wants you to demonstrate.

Fix the errors pointed out by Louisa
Your concluding paragraph seems great to me, besides the "improve the human condition part". It just sounds too saintly and out of place with the rest of your conclusion.

Otherwise the essay looks pretty good! Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Sorry, I just want to add an addendum. When I mean to say you might be confusing why with what, I don't mean that it's a bad to have reasons that correspond with the question why. What I mean to say is that I think you are too confused with the why and that your reasons for why don't really show anything about yourself as a person. When I read your essay, all I can see is that you might consider yourself a humanitarian given that you are trying to find other sustainable worlds, and that you are interested in AE because of your interest in space travel.

When writing these essays, you need to express more of yourself and your qualities to the admissions office, so that they can see who you are as a person beyond your test scores, GPA, extracurriculars. That's why I recommend that you talk about some anecdotal tales because those are often close to one's heart and often show a lot of personal qualities. For example, let's say you loved tinkering with legos and then moved on to model rockets. You began to try to optimize the rockets for distance and see which designs performed more favorably. Already, in as little as a few sentences, you can demonstrate your creativity in trying to come up with your own designs, your thirst for knowledge/inquisitiveness, show that you are science-oriented, and show that you worked hard, even for just a hobby, in pursuance of a goal.

Compare this to your essay right now. Your essay reads more like a fact sheet rather than an expository piece.

Hope I haven't come off too harsh or anything, and good luck!

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Hey Juan,

While I can't really give you a clear-cut answer, I think you should try comparing it to other prompts that are similar.

For instance, Columbia "If you are applying to Columbia College, tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the field or fields of study that you noted in the Member Questions section" or Cornell "How have your interests and related experiences influenced the major you have selected in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences?".

Note that these prompts aren't really asking you for what it is about the school that's appealing to you, but rather what appeals to you in the area of study you've selected.

Contrast this with prompts such as MIT "Although you may not yet know what you want to major in, which department or program at MIT appeals to you and why?" or Penn's "How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania?".

Note that these prompts explicitly state something along the lines of at our university.

Personally, I think GT's prompt seems a lot more similar to Columbia and Cornell's prompts, and thus should be written more specifically about your interests and not necessarily about what the school can offer you/what you can offer the school. Of course, it probably wouldn't hurt to add mention that something in GT coincides/aligns with what you're interested in (e.g. C-STAR), especially since it will propel your interests going forward, but I don't think that you should necessarily center your essay around GT for this prompt. Are any of the other prompts asking for anything more GT specific (e.g. why are you interested in coming to GT or anything along those lines), if so then you have more leeway for this essay to talk more creatively about your passions and inspirations in AE.

As for your most recent revised essay, you have some grammatical errors (e.g. using be instead of me in the 2nd sentence). Also, I agree with Katheryn's post about that.

I'll try to focus more stylistically. Rather than listing a lot of companies, you should try to go deep into one or two of the things they've done to inspire you. You'd rather have a narrow but deeper focus than a wide but shallow one. Something I think you should do is try to incorporate an anecdote about an experience in the past that really pushed you to pursue AE. Maybe it was something as innocent as seeing Marvin the Martian in cartoons and becoming really interested in space, or perhaps your parents bought you a lego spaceship set. Maybe you watched a documentary over the Apollo missions in your teens.

However, I think your revised essay is still not substantial enough. The thing about mentioning things in the distant past vs things that happened recently is that anecdotes about the past show a developing and continued interest. I think you are confusing the essay with a statement of purpose.

Sentences like


are, in my opinion, not really relevant to the topic at hand. Is the fact that you will be able to apply and develop your skills representative of your interest in AE? I think you are confusing the prompt with "Why are you interested in studying AE" rather than what.

And sorry for the late responses, hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Sorry, I hadn't had a chance to read your latest response, and I see that you are now below the 2000 character limit.

My thoughts on your essay:

First, I feel like your current essay reads too much like a sci-fi plot than an essay. While you may really wish to pave the way to search for other habitual planets, the next Mars rover mission is slated for 2020 and the next manned mission to mars is not slated until 2023 (2021 at the earliest). The timeline between us traversing the solar system and us traversing the next nearest is much too far to be a concrete goal. I think it would help to be more realistic, such as wanting to be a part of the next rover launch, hoping to help engineer the Orion or its successor, etc - something that is more concrete and tangible to the reader so that they can align themselves behind your view. The fact is that the fate of the Earth is too far in time to be of any relevance to the average reader, and that the reader of your essays is not necessarily anyone with any sort of interest in your selected program. Therefore you should be concrete and substantial behind your essay in order to have a strong backing.

Second, is the prompt asking about your interest in GT's AE program, or just about your interest in AE in general? If the former, I believe you need to delve into more detail about what GT has to offer you. The mention of C-STAR is a good start, but you may want to be even more specific about what accomplishments they've achieved and what you hope to bring to their future research projects. If the latter, you may not even want to mention GT's facilities and instead try to focus more on writing like your first paragraph - talking about your inspirations of Neil Armstrong and SpaceX, perhaps mentioning some new innovations in space technology that you may hope to work on or improve, and the such.

Note that the prompt is asking you what about your program interests you, and is not necessarily asking for your goals to accomplish. As such, I think you should try to end your essay with a concluding thought about your interest in aerospace engineering, rather than ending with your goal, as it leaves the reader somewhat confused as to the nature of your essay. Again, while your goals can be aligned with your interest in the area, you should try to be more specific, while also mentioning some broader aspects of your area of study. For example, while you mention propulsion systems, you never delve into any other aspects of AE, and as you should know, AE comprises of much more than just study of propulsion systems.

Hope this helps.

Undergraduate / Transfer admission essay for Georgia Tech. I need help forming an excellent essay which I lack of. [19]

Hey Juan,

I haven't really done a read over through your essay, but a friend of mine had applied transfer to GT the previous year and got in. When I looked over his essay, it was much shorter in length than yours, and I note that in the beginning you state that the essay limit is 2000 CHARACTERS which would be only around 300 words. Before continuing to revise your essay, I'd advise you to re-look at the essay prompt and see if it is 2000 words or 2000 characters.

Undergraduate / Write a brief statement outlining your personal and academic goals [5]

I think your revised essay is a lot better than your first essay, but you should think about changing your last sentence. The school already knows implicitly that you are trying to attend the school to pursue your goals, so it is somewhat redundant to state that obtaining a BA at certain university will allow you to complete those goals. And again, the prompt doesn't ask for a plan to achieve the goals, but merely to state what your goals are. Instead, I advise you to scrap the last sentence and use that word count to better support your two goals, and to better explain what your academic goals are (which should be related to something academic i.e. getting into a journalism program, graduating with a high GPA, research with a professor, etc.).

Undergraduate / I am really bad at writing and need help on my supplemental essay for my Georgia Tech application. [3]

Hey, I'm quite familiar with GT having been born near there and having quite a few friends who attend, so I think my advice will be really relevant.

Georgia Tech prefers being called GT, not GIT, and you will never hear anyone within GT call it anything other than Georgia Tech, GT, or Tech - so try to refrain from calling it GIT (petty, but a lot of schools seem to dislike this i.e UPenn prefers to be called just Penn).

Don't use 2nd person (your).

Try not to mention things like resume or career because it makes it seem like you are chasing after prestige which, even though most students are, is frowned upon.

The prompt says to refrain from mention athletics, so you should remove the bit about the Equestrian team.

And overall, I would say that your essay would be a lot better of by focusing on one thing about GT that you are really excited about and to write deeply about that, than to spread yourself thin by simply mentioning things that are great about GT. For example, you might talk about your great interest in computer science, and transition that into how great their modeling and simulation thread is, and what you might expect to do in there and what you might contribute to it. Right now, I feel that your essay is just a simple listing of things of why you want to attend GT rather than an essay.

You can also look to this essay for some advice that I and Louisa had for the student's essay to GT (essayforum.com/undergraduate/git-short-response-max-words-georgia-tech-64566/). Here too, we advised that the student make their essay more focused and specific.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Advocacy for LGBTQ Individuals in the East - Common App "Why Transfer" [4]

Depending on where you are wanting to transfer to will play a big part in how well your essay needs to be written.

On a cursory glance, your opening paragraph is certainly interesting enough, but I'd consider cutting it down to improve upon your body paragraph which is really where you should have your most important content. Also, consider shortening the phrase "African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian studies" by making your own acronym or taking an acronym from another college i.e. Columbia's "MESAAS", as the long repetition really detracts from the flow of your essay.

As you want to focus on the reason that your current institution lacks your desired major, you should consider splitting your body into 2 parts. One describing your past major and the reasons you want to change (shorter part), two expanding on the reasons that you want to study the new major (longer part). Again, your body paragraph is the most important part of your essay, so you really want to get the message out about why you want to study the new major.

In your concluding paragraph, you have no need to restate all that went well at Drexel seeing as you have already stated them above in your second paragraph. You can simply nod to Drexel that your time there has been great, but when you praise your current institution so much, it does not make it look like you have a real desire to leave despite lacking your desired major (especially considering many change their majors many times throughout college, but you cannot easily change how you feel about the college). And again, you shouldn't talk about all the things you were involved in at Drexel, especially since you've probably listed them before in the activities section of your Common App - a simple notion that you were very involved and would like to get involved at a new institution would be fine.

When I read through your essay, it reads very much more like a listing of things rather than a flowing essay. When I compare your first paragraph, which is a nice anecdotal tale that ties into the theme of your essay, to your second paragraph which seems to list the things that were great about Drexel, the reasons that you chose to attend Drexel, and the reasons you want to switch majors. You want to write your essay in such a way that you explain these reasons, but through showing rather than simple stating. For example, if you didn't particularly enjoy the sciences you might reference that you lamented over learning about negative feedback loops or oxidation reduction reactions. Then you might transition into saying how you sat in on a lecture about Egypt and their social constructs and relate how interesting it was and how immersed you felt. However, you really need to find a way to not just state your reasons but come up with a way to tell them, almost story-like.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Reasons on applying and attending Swarthmore - both entail the exciting concept of social science. [4]

quite a few grammatical errors i.e (I love the story of humanity and its never ending complexity,; the interaction between individuals is simply the definition of life. , It' s also my ticket to the past where people have lived lifetimes. , I honestly see myself, for example, at Clothier hall, the intercultural center, conversing with students over theretheir culture and histories , They have stories, anecdotes... , etc.)

try not to use rhetorical questions in your essay

Stylistically, I feel that the essay doesn't really flow well at all. In part, I feel that this is due to the many grammatical errors that plague your essay. I urge you to review over this essay, especially with your English teacher, to get all those errors fixed. Also, your essay kind of jumps all over the place in that you just jump from one topic to the next - you begin talking about the interaction of people, then you talk about the number of people living, then you talk about the differences between people, but with no real connection between them. Also, they already know implicitly that you want to attend Swarthmore by the simple act of applying to the college, so statements such as "I want to..." are redundant.

To be blunt, I feel that the essay needs a lot of work. Not only does the essay lack a sense of mechanical understanding, but I also feel that the content of your essay is weak, and that you don't really reveal anything unique about why you'd be interested in attending Swarthmore, what they have to offer you, and most importantly, what you have to provide for them. Swarthmore is quite a competitive liberal arts college, and I feel that you would increase your odds by putting a lot more thought and effort into the essay.

Sorry if all this seems harsh, but I truly think there is a difference in level between your essay and Swarthmore, being a top 10 LAC.

Best of luck and hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "Jonathan, you're just not good enough" - Benchwarmer: The Power of Perseverance - Personal Essay [4]

Honestly, I think it's a little too cliche, especially against the prompt being something so meaningful to your background.

All-in-all, especially against the extremely competitive students you'll be applying against, I think that perseverance is something easily indicated by the non-essay portion of your application, and writing about SAT, NHS, etc. seems a little redundant considering you've likely already stated them in your academic portion of the Common App.

Other than that, I think the essay is sufficiently well written, but I find that the content doesn't really resonate with me or make an impact.

I may be a little biased though because personally, I always think that that prompt is a little on the weaker side if you don't have something particularly unique to write about.

Undergraduate / Invent a Past for a Present - UChicago Supplement [7]

In writing this kind of narrative, where you jump in time a lot, you need to keep track of your tenses and keep them consistent within their time frames.

i.e.: "After all, her friend needed it more than she doesdid .
"Now, she could make it here too, in the city of New York because she hashad the book with her. She knew everything willwould be alright from here on. " (this sentence is also a little awkward to read due to the placement of your prepositional phrases)

If there's no word limit, then there's not necessarily a reason to cut words unless you can do so effectively without hurting your overall story. It's much better for your essay to be long, but well flowing (so as to keep the reader's continued interest), than to have sloppy cuts which would break your flow and the reader's immersion. However, if you did want to cut, I'd recommend doing so from Elizabeth's background (mainly as this is -presumably- fictional, and so much more likely to have been "fluffed" on)

The essay is kind of cliche, but I believe that stems mostly from your ending. If you were to elaborate more on the present day you in your ending, it would allow for a more personalized and unique story than seeming cliche.

Other than that, I think the narrative fits well within the scope of the prompt. However, I also think that you could make your voice become more alive in the essay. Really try to incorporate aspects of yourself into the essay so that the essay is really a reflection of some part of you. You revolve the essay mainly around this fictitious character, and therefore the essay amounts to not much in showing off yourself.

For example, another extended essay prompt "Were pH an expression of personality, what would be your pH and why? (Feel free to respond acidly! Do not be neutral, for that is base!) was answered first by detailing the many different definitions that the student had learned about pH, offering their own view on what pH would be defined if it were some sort of expression of personality, and really focuses the essay on himself by offering examples all culminating in calculating the student's pH. Now, this prompt is a lot easier (not all prompts are created equal) to answer as a reflection of yourself, and this prompt doesn't lend itself as much as to write explicitly about yourself, but therefore you need to invoke in your essay some sort of view of your own that reflects who you are. Like if you were to write about the odd numbers prompt, some would show their propensity towards mathematics and write about proofs and patterns and etc. which are all reflections of their way of thinking, while some would probably look at the prompt more linguistically and assert that oddness should be embraced and that odd numbers are actually normal and not actually odd (being different). But note that each of these answers, while not talking explicitly about themselves, offers a view into their thinking that is unique and different for each person. However, your essay really tells me a lot about Elizabeth, but not so much about you (really I can only tell that the book was a beacon of hope to you).

Definitely don't mean to discourage you, but these are my honest (and slightly more harsh given that I like to err on the side of caution) thoughts.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Intellectually-rich culture and traditions such as the Scav Hunt - Why UChicago Essay [6]

This essay is much better than your first, but still somewhat lacking.

For instance, I can kind of grasp what you are trying to say about the Core, but your preceding sentence that you want to explore gardens of knowledge is somewhat contradictory to the Core (being that the Core serves as a mandatory curriculum you must learn, therefore again you are being forced to learn certain material instead of an open curriculum, like Brown, which would be more supportive to your earlier statements.

Beyond that, the trick to many of these kinds of prompts (Why ______?) is that you not only need to identify some of UChicago's major selling points for you, but you also need to show what you can contribute back to UChicago. Admissions officers already know why people are interested in going to such a renowned school, so just telling them this information is rather useless. They are attempting to pick and mold the incoming class in a way that the student body would feel at fit with UChicago, and so you need to demonstrate some of the ways you would be a part of such a student body.

For example, a lot of schools other than UChicago have an East Asian Studies program, as well as study abroad opportunities at many various countries. But what about UChicago is particularly special that you would want to attend and learn from their program, perhaps they have many volunteer opportunities that you would like to be a part of, perhaps they have some sort of mentor group set up in the city for middle school kids to experience learning a language, etc.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "I really hate my hair" - Common App Essay [7]

Hey Erin,

Sorry if I said rewrite - I meant basically what you said that you should shorten the parts about your introversion and elaborate towards the end. Again, I believe that the main crux of your essay should be about your "transformation" so at least half of your essay should be a focus on that, imo.

I would venture that your English teachers enjoyed the essay mainly because it paints a vivid story and that the overall structure and language is good. However, note that admissions officers are looking at your essay not as an assignment, but more as an advertisement of yourself to the school. You are selling yourself to the schools you are applying to through your essays, and to do that, you need to portray more of your current qualities as a student/volunteer/athlete whatever, but something that indicates that you are a fit for their school.

Again, I think it's a good topic and something that can be made into something very individualized, but it just needs to focus more on who you are at present.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "I really hate my hair" - Common App Essay [7]

I think the concept is good, but you need to focus the essay more on your triumph over your shyness. About 2/3 of your essay is talking about your hair and your inherent shyness, but you need to condense that and expand more on how your hair became a source of confidence and strength for yourself, and what you were able to accomplish through this. For example, your last paragraph touches on this, but should really be around the 3rd paragraph so that you have more paragraphs to show how this newfound individuality inspired you to do something.

When you look closer into the prompt, you'll see that it asks for something SO meaningful that your application would be INCOMPLETE without it. However, from your above essay, I only really know that you were shy as a child, but now feel more confident in your own appearance. Is this really that meaningful? I'd argue no, but it could be if you were to expand on how your confidence enabled you to -insert here-. I only urge you to realize this because this prompt is answered by many individuals who pride themselves on their very unique backgrounds, and your essay is a very common archetype among this prompt. However, you can differentiate your essay through your voice in the essay, as well as relating your individual experiences. As of present, many of your experiences have been hashed down to a "transition from middle school to high school", which applies to many many people.

I advise you to rewrite your essay so that your primary focus deals with your "transformation" and how you grew/matured through it because admissions officers want a picture of who you are today, as who you are today is who will be accepted into their college in the following months - but who you were 5, 10, 15 years ago doesn't matter much at all.

Hope this helps :)

Undergraduate / "COTTON CANDY CLOUDS" What Matters Most to Me - STANFORD [8]

I think you need to focus the essay back towards yourself in a way that the thing that matters to you shows a reflection of one of your beliefs, passions, etc.

For example, one of my friends who attends Stanford wrote about sandwiches (something very typical, but actually his favorite dish), but tied it together with a reflection of differences in culture and tolerance and was essentially a huge metaphor for his view on life. Another friend is a huge writing/reading/fanfiction nerd and wrote about stories and how they reach across cultural differences and are basically essential to human society.

Now, I'm not saying that your essay necessarily needs to be as grand as that, and this is probably not indicative of every accepted student at Stanford. But, through my personal evidence, your essay does need to show something that you are more passionate about. You may be passionate about clouds, but the only thing that really translates to me in this essay is your necessity for relaxation (which you happen to like doing outside). If this is something you feel really represents you as an individual, then I suggest you elaborate on your need for something like inner meditation, balancing work/fun, etc.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / Georgia Tech acceptance essay (Max: 150 words) - such a great college that's so close to my home [4]

Sorry, I couldn't respond back to you in a timely fashion - I was running a fever for the past few days and am finally feeling better :)

I think that your revised essay is pretty great/excellent. Notably, the essay has a 150 word limit so it's understandably hard to fit a lot of detail in it, but I think this shows the school that you are not just interested in their academic excellence, but also being a great environment for socializing (frat/party life is pretty intense at GT, if you choose to be a part of it).

Of course, this is just my opinion, so I'd also recommend you hearing the opinions of your peers and teachers, but I think this essay is very similar to the one that I wrote for GT a while ago.

Good luck!

Undergraduate / At times Blood is not thicker than water [4]

You have some grammatical and spelling errors, i.e. "endoured -> endured" "I was born in a polygamous family, in the Gambia.", "myself" not "my self" etc.

And stylistically, the essay is very disjointed and unconnected, and some word choices such as "retrograded" are used very strangely.

Also, notice that the prompt states to explain an experience that illustrates how you will contribute to MSU, but your first 3/4 of your essay is mainly a display of your experience while the last paragraph serves to explain how you might influence MSU's community. I suggest you condense the story about your experience, especially because it (imo) can be seen as somewhat of a rant and is filled with a lot of angst which darkens the overall tone/mood of your essay where the essay should be more light and positive.

Lastly, I leave with you a quote that is considered another interpretation of "blood is thicker than water": "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb", or rather that bonds made through friendship or stronger than any familial ties.

Hope this helps :)

Undergraduate / Sleep Paralysis - Essay on having a meaningful 'thing' which completes you as a person [6]

I think you have a good content/topic to write about, but you need to condense your writing about your sleep paralysis and expand on yourself rather than containing the part about yourself to the last paragraph. Admissions officers are looking to see whether you are a good fit for their school, and sleep paralysis is not really a category that they need to fill. However, showing that this experience moved you to begin to be more ambitious/outgoing is something that they will consider.

My advice to you is to focus less on "sleep paralysis" and more on "how it defines you as a person". From your essay, the most I can tell about you as a person is that you have sleep paralysis and that you have become more determined, but I'm sure that you wouldn't describe yourself that way. Again, I think you have a good basis to work on, but you just need to refine it.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "Shortcomings in Mental Healthcare" UW Madison Application [3]

Some grammatical errors: "The feeling is almost routine to me; somehow I have become jaded.", "I no longer pay attention to the media circus following a mass shooting"... etc. Make sure to re-read your essay and catch some of these errors/look over it with a teacher.

You only really answer half of the prompt - you never really mention why the issue is important to you, and the addition that neither you nor anyone you know has suffered from mental illness actually serves to diminish your essay's response to the prompt. You need to connect the essay more to yourself and really focus on the second half of the prompt "why it's important to you". From this essay, admissions officers will only understand that you feel passionate about mental illness, which is a really shallow understanding of a person.

It's mostly more important to write about something that will connect to you, as a person. Anyone can write about something that they feel passionate about, and mostly everyone does have something they feel passionate about. However, stating that you feel strongly about global warming, forest preservations, etc. does not really show much besides your personal stance on the subject. Instead, focus on connecting back to yourself so that you can show the admissions who you are as a person.

Undergraduate / Religion holds a lot of mysteries where the world would never know - CommonApp Essay Prompt 3 [6]

A common misconception that people have with college essays in general is to answer the prompt with a topic and expound upon the topic. However, what you should realize is that these admissions officers are looking at these essays to get a better picture of you, as a person, and therefore your essay needs to be more about yourself - likewise, it would be great if you had a unique experience that no one else has experienced, however the reality is that many students do not have much unique about themselves from other candidates. A better way to approach this is to really invoke your voice and writing style into your essay and include a lot of personal details to make what appears to be a rather bland essay as something that is actually unique.

Furthermore, you do indeed have a lot of grammar errors, and I suggest you send an essay to your English teacher for some revisions. To be blunt, there are a lot, and I'll leave it to the more experienced users of essayforum to assist you with those.

The essay as a whole really just shows what Roman Catholicism means to you, but you need to show/demonstrate qualities of yourself through your challenging of the religion (revolve your essay around you, not your religion).

Undergraduate / Georgia Tech acceptance essay (Max: 150 words) - such a great college that's so close to my home [4]

Hey Josh,

I'm also a resident of Georgia (though I go to college in the north), and have been accepted to GT, so I think my advice should be relevant for you.

I think the essay is already pretty good. It demonstrates that you have at least done some research on GT (with your references to MAKE, their great Co-Op program, etc.). It may even be ready to submit, however, if you'd like to make it better, then I would suggest you to become even more specific with what you want to do at GT, and exactly what GT can provide for you. Note that GT takes great pride in their ramblin' wreck, their mascot the Yellow Jacket, and being a great public school that is still a top school in the nation. You've really hit some great academic points, but college is not only about the academics as it is about being a place to network and socialize as well as being a place to mature and grow in your world view. Therefore, you may want to do some more research into their student life and try to incorporate that into your essay if at all possible.

However, also realize that GT is heavily aimed more towards academically strong students (high SAT, GPA, some ECs). Many of my friends who had great academics with less than stellar essays were accepted, whereas some of my friends who weren't as strong academically but had written some (imo) great essays were waitlisted/rejected.

If you have any more questions about GT or your essay I'd be happy to look at it again, and best of luck!

Undergraduate / With ardor and devotion - Amore ac Studio. Bates supplement essay [4]

For one, the grammar is a little sloppy. i.e: try not to start the sentence with But and instead combine it with the preceding clause considering that they are related, and your current structure has them disjointed. Also, you later continue that with "So, later that day" - when earlier you stated that this happened every time, so there is a clear disjunct between your times in your essay.

Likewise, the essay does not flow very well for me. While similar, I argue that the difference between with your friends and Bates' decision to include slaves and women is too large to make a relevant connection; also, the fact that they support an optional SAT policy does not stand much for the common sense of the word "bravery" and is diminished by the fact that a true testament of bravery (allowing slaves and women) was stated beforehand.

As for the content, I would say that the essay does not really give me a good reflection of yourself. Do note that in all essays, you should be trying to sell yourself, as a product, to the school, the consumer. Your essay, however, seems a reflection of something that is rather commonplace among other peers and does not serve to differentiate yourself from the many other applicants who will be applying as well. I suggest you write with something more specific in mind and connect that to Bates' mission statement. This essay is simply much too shallow and broad.

Undergraduate / Why GIT short response max 150 words - Georgia Tech is the perfect school for me. [4]

Hey CC98,

I was accepted to GT two years ago (though I didn't attend), so I think I can provide some very relevant advice - and you'll definitely enjoy being at GT if you get accepted and choose to go.

For one, do not refer to GT as GIT/Georgia Institute of Technology/Etc. GT is fine, Georgia Tech is fine as well. (Kind of like how UPenn refers to itself as Penn, it shows a bit of a lack of research).

Two, while the PhD program might interest you, I think you're applying for their undergraduate program and should relate more to some specialties of their undergraduate program like their BS/MS program, etc...

Three, I'm sure GT is a great environment for you to pursue your interests in robotics, but there are many other great schools that have robotics clubs and robotic competitions (i.e. Carnegie Melon, MIT, Cal Tech). Try to be more specific and go into the club pages through GT's catalog and see what exactly interests you. Perhaps the team at GT specializes more in a certain area that interests you. Your overall statement is very broad and typical, i.e, I could very nearly replace GT/GIT/Georgia Tech with another engineering school and still have a coherent essay. You want to be more specific with your statements and show a genuine interest in the school. For example, I, being a physics major at the time, talked a lot about GT's Howey Building and related that a lot towards me. GT also takes a lot of pride in their mascot, being a ramblin' wreck, etc. - so be sure to do your research.

Personally, I would advise you to scrap the entire essay and specify exactly why you want to go to GT. You may really want to go to GT for their robotics team, but your essay does not show a very developed interest in such.

I'd be happy to help you with any more essay revisions as well! Good luck! :)

Undergraduate / I decided to learn something practical, technical and capable of creating huge material [3]

I think it's a pretty good essay. You have a clear sense of growth throughout your time at college and a clearer sense of your own identity in terms of your goals and passions.

You do have some grammatical errors.


And stylistically


I'm not an expert at grammar or style, so I think having another person to look over your essay will be beneficial in terms of making your essay more polished. Again, the content is good. However, you should omit the parts referencing "your school". If you are submitting this essay to multiple schools, I suggest do not openly use "your school" but instead use a generalization. If you are sending this essay to only one college, then I suggest you reference that school more in specific and include more details that are unique to the school you are looking at.

Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "We are not like white people - she can endure this." NYU Supplement (Transfer student) [3]

You may want to look over at some grammatical errors. A few I found within the first few sentences


Also, stylistically
your tenses do not agree


too many prepositional phrases in one sentence


As for content, I believe you spend too much of your word count on your introduction and conclusion. When referring specifically to the prompt of what can NYU can offer you, and what you can offer NYU, your actual content numbers only a few sentences (primarily your second paragraph, and one or two sentences in the third). I would advise you to shorten your introduction, or rewrite it in a way that you can get across your desire to study public health, while not detracting too much from the prompt.

While talking about the prompt, your second paragraph is excellent as it addresses specific details of NYU that have attracted you to the school, and you also elaborate on what they can do for you. You should consider writing in the same manner for what you might offer NYU. Your third paragraph addresses much of the same that you talked about in your introduction - your desire to study a subject in public health. Either remove this, or rewrite it so that it better fits with what you can offer NYU. To that point, even the sentence beginning with "Subscribed to World Health..." does not really show what you can offer to the school, as the school would already hope/expect you to have a devotion for learning after class ends. Consider writing more about your "leadership and innovation" and how you might be involved in certain clubs or if you might hope to establish something new at NYU (which is probably hard to do considering the school's size and popularity). You may also expand on your blog and how you might hope to establish a connection with the school editorial to bring items, such as the "asian stigma" towards mental health, to the public eye.

Hope this helps!

.

Undergraduate / Educational Goals and Interests; Biochemistry/Forensic Science; Waterloo Essay [2]

Content-wise, I believe that your introduction is much too long. You've spent nearly half your word/character limit talking about your interest in your major, which is fine, but the university is looking more for a "Why Waterloo" type of response. In that respect, your response of "Co-op" program and "solid base in Chemistry" is not particularly that unique to a certain college.

You should consider shortening your introduction, as you do not have to go that in depth as to why you're really interested in your major of choice. Consider researching more about Waterloo and name specific reasons as to why you wish to attend Waterloo. You may mention specific courses or teachers that are only offered at Waterloo, or perhaps elaborate more on the co-op opportunities. Upon quick research, you might mention that Waterloo offers a chance to be a research intern at Harvard Medical which is definitely a unique and outstanding position to have (uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/programs/biochemistry).

Of course, I'd like to preface this by saying that I am not that knowledgeable about college admissions in Canada, and I am only assuming that they would be similar to admissions in the States. Hope this helps!

Undergraduate / "Gay man of color"; It is imperative for me to be a sinner - Stanford essay [7]

I think the start you've given is much better than before. Not only is it more intimate and personal, allowing the reader to feel more connected to you, but also you've said all you need to say about introducing your thing of importance in less words than before. This will allow you to write and expand more on what the LGBTQ community means to you, and why as an active member of it you feel a certain way. However I do recommend removing the "OMG" and replacing it with its appropriate meaning.

As you continue writing the body of your paragraph, try to focus on why this community is important as well as relating it back to yourself. Does the LGBTQ community give you a sense of pride, unity, etc? As a member, do you do anything to gather support? While I don't mean to sound crass, but simply being gay is probably not as important as one might think. Therefore, you must write less about being gay and more about what being gay, being around the LGBTQ community means to you. How have you and they shown support for others, how you might have overcome any personal struggles, etc. Just make sure you do not sound too whiny or self-entitled as the admissions office is looking for someone who will fit in the Stanford community.

Of course, this is just my opinion on how you should write your essay and you and others may disagree. Take what you like and hopefully this helps!

Undergraduate / "Gay man of color"; It is imperative for me to be a sinner - Stanford essay [7]

I would advise reviewing your essay as it just reads awkwardly to me. For example, "It is imperative for me to be a sinner...". The word imperative seems awkwardly used. Moving onward in the same paragraph, the sentence "As I realized..." is also awkwardly written, and you should consider rewriting the dependent clause. Also the semi-colon is not necessary after "It's sort of like", as well as "links to the ancient culture [are]" instead of "is".

Consider reviewing the essay for grammatical/stylistic errors.

As for the content, your essay is written very artfully, but I feel that it lacks a substantial meaning towards yourself that happens to be unique. I don't mean to offend anyone, but there are many members of the LGBTQ society that have been prone to bullying, discrimination, etc. Stanford, which only accepts the best and brightest students, are perhaps looking for something more unique. You may write about your experience as a member of the LGBTQ community, but you might want to consider writing something more personal so that the admissions office can get a sense of you as a person from what you find important. To that note, all I can really see from your essay is that you are an active member of the LGBTQ community as well as an advocate for them. This is not really a distinguishing characteristic for a prestigious university as Stanford which accepts all sorts of applicants. With that respect, consider removing some sentences such as "to think that two men...". In my opinion, it is kind of redundant.

I think this may have been pretty critical, but I hope that you may find some advice in here that you like. Best wishes!

Undergraduate / Growth of Resilience - UC Personal Statement 2 [4]

Like Lindsay above, I believe that the essay is very clearly written, though some spots might warrant a re-write such as "or anything an average kid would reasonably cry about- change this to a comma or separate into another sentence but because of my Science teacher teasing me about a boy".

While you have a fairly interesting start, the content in the body is rather generic of many shy/more introverted people, and you never get to the present-you until the very last paragraph. The admissions office wants to know about who you are today, not who you were or who you used to be, so while you can talk about your past you really need to relate it back to how it has changed you. What does facing everything with a smile now mean to you, or what does it mean that you "simply grew up" because many people grow up and many people face hardships with a smile.

For example, your second and third body paragraph essentially state the same thing as your first paragraph - that you were asked questions in class, but overcame it. You may want to instead consider how you overcame it, how "growing up" has made you a more confident person, etc. Honestly, the only sense of you that I can glean from your essay is that you were a more sensitive child who eventually matured which is something that really most people can attest to. Adding more details about yourself, or relating more context to yourself will help explain to the reader who you have become today.

I hope I didn't come off too harsh, but this is just my 2 cents! Hopefully it helps :)

Undergraduate / Senioritis - a term used to describe the lack of motivation displayed by students [4]

Thanks Carol, that's exactly what I was thinking - I just wanted to see if it would work or not! I'll now close this thread.