Undergraduate / Common App essay on swearing (Prompt #1) A Funking Piece of Ship [4]

Hey Rutwik ! You certainly developed an imaginative essay that hooks the reviewer simply from the title that you created. It is informative and really introduces an aspect of your personality that could be perceived as unique and meaningful. The only problem is, the essay isn't about a personal background, identity, interest, or talent. It is more like an essay that you wrote on the fly for the sake of wanting to create an interesting essay. So why not try doing this, change the prompt to suit the essay rather than writing a totally new essay to suit the prompt? You can use the following in place of the first prompt:

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

This prompt instruction suits the essay you wrote to a T. I don't want you to waste the time and imagination that it took for you to create an extremely well developed open prompt essay. You should definitely use this essay, but change the prompt to suit your written presentation. You can even use your parenthetical explanation as the creative prompt instruction itself. Excellent work. I can tell you have writing potential within you. To paraphrase Star Wars: The writing force is strong in this one...

Writing Feedback / [task 2] International aid: necessary or not? [2]

Gang, you did an extremely good job in the prompt paraphrasing, but the overall discussion was faulty because you did not clearly identify that you were discussion public opinion A, public opinion B, then your personal opinion in the paragraph discussions. You also made a conclusion regarding the topic when you were not required to do so. The job of the task 2 essay is not to make a decision for the reader but rather, to inform the reader based on 3 aspects in order to allow the reader to come to his own conclusion. The concluding statement was just for the summarized discussion as I taught you before. I'll have to break down the various aspects of the essay at this point because you had some strong points and some weak points.

TA - 5 due to the lack of point of view representation and the improper format of the conclusion.
C&C - 7 because of the logical presentation and clear discussion progression
LR - 6 as some of your word choices are inappropriate for the discussion (e.g. stand aloof = be aloof, conscience will be bitten = conscience will be bothered, etc.)

GRA - 7 based on mistakes that caused some errors in grammar. However, it did not create confusion for the reader so it scored well.

Based on score averaging, your final outcome might be between a 5. 5 to a 7. I can't be sure of the actual score because the examiner may have some other concerns or considerations for your essay at this point that I am not privy to.

Writing Feedback / Which would be cooler, a castle or a tree house? Language advice needed! ;) [4]

Bobovikisan, you sold me. I can definitely recognize why you would prefer to live in a castle instead of in a tree. The comparisons you made between the two are right on the mark because you did your best to engage the imagination of the reader and the practicality of each structure. When you consider everything, we were all raised, in one way or another, on fairy tales that all took place in a castle, not a tree house. So the instant fascination that a person has with the castle is easy to understand and connect with. The tree house, not so much since that is mostly connected with horror stories and real life allergies in most cases. Good job. Grammar issues aside, this is a pretty good persuasive statement. I just wish you were able to write something longer. It feels like the statement abruptly ended. Any chance you can lengthen the discussion a bit?

Scholarship / The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak... [3]

Mazen, your overall essay is useless. It doesn't respond at all to the prompt requirements because of the academic focus of your response. Let me tell you this, the minute you submit an essay that does not properly respond to the prompt requirement, you are automatically disqualified from the scholarship consideration. You will not get a second chance, even if you wrote 4 essays. Your first essay will automatically disqualify you. Therefore, when the prompt requires you to prove your leadership and influencing skills in a professional setting, that is exactly what you have to do. That said, the only part of this essay that could possibly be used to write a new, more prompt responsive essay is the portion that is only a 2 liner in this essay. The one that deals with your work as a member of the Nestle brand team. However, I do not really sense a true leadership and influencing drive in that part. You only wrote one line about it when it is the only proper reference to the prompt in the essay. So go back. Delete this whole essay. Write a new one that focuses on your leadership and influencing participation as part of the Nestle team. The only problem is, if you were not the Team Leader, you might not be able to provide supporting evidence of such in the essay.

Scholarship / All three universities are known for the quality of their researches and teaching methods [4]

Indra, this essay is very weak in terms of justifying your education background in relation to your profession. It also does not carry any weight in the presentation of your professional skills in relation to your interest in the courses you mentioned. These are the two most important paragraphs that you will have to write for this essay so do not compress mere references to each in one paragraph. Develop the presentations in a manner that best highlights your academic training and professional foundation for these courses you wish to study.

As for the discussion of the universities, you do have to write individual paragraphs for each university. Don't just explain what the courses are about. Tell the reviewer why or how these courses will help you to improve your professional skills based upon the expected end result of these studies. Focus on explaining the kind of professional that you will be after you complete each course.

Graduate / XXX University - International Trade entrance essay [2]

Natalia, the essay is extremely long. It is so long that eventually, I found myself distracted by other things while reading it. You may want to cut down the presentation of your biography to only the mist important elements. Compress the information about your early education into one paragraph. The focus of the essay's academic slant should be on your college accomplishments. Informing the reader about more awards and achievements could only work to your benefit. What I feel is missing from this essay is a direct reference to your full time job. How does the Korean factor fit into that? Part time jobs are not really considered as heavily as the full time jobs due to the lack of career progression and achievements. You may want to rethink that aspect of your presentation. Your post study plans are nice but it lacks a focus or a goal. It seems like you just want to keep working without a personal goal in mind to keep you focused and on track. Try to include a paragraph that covers that point in order to strengthen your closing paragraph.

Scholarship / I create organization called Charity Youth, where I am the leader and life coach [5]

Samsam, your intention for creating the organization Charity Youth is one of the strongest points of this essay. However, you do not accurately present the improvements that you have made in the lives of the people that your organization has helped. This essay cannot be a badly written 2 paragraph essay, which is what it is right now. This has to be a fully developed 5 paragraph essay with at least 250 words in it. If you can explain the results of the leadership and influencing activities of the organization, in which you had a direct hand in making it happen, Then you will have a competitive essay on hand. Focus on the problems in the country and then explain how you led a program of change in this area through your organization. Explain how you influenced the women to go to school and how successful this program has become under your leadership. The potential of this essay to showcase your ability to lead and influence on a community level is what makes it impressive even though it is technically a profession related leadership and influencing essay. There are instance when the community leadership can more than make up for the lack of professional presentation. This is one of those instances.

Writing Feedback / It is equally important for the government and individuals for paying attention on healthy diet [2]

Sandra, Your opening statement shows that you have been learning how to properly paraphrase prompts. There is however, one tiny mistake that you made which would affect your score. Please be ever conscious of the fact that an opinion is never presented in the opening paraphrase as there is no room for you to explain your opinion in that paragraph. Aside from that problem, and the fact that you should have said "health care" instead of "health take care", the paraphrase could earn you a pretty decent TA score that could boost your chances to pass the test.

One other problem, is that your second paragraph does not discuss the responsibility of the government when it comes to promoting a healthy diet. You should not be discussing how the government should help the farmers in this instance. You should be discussing how the government should oversee the restaurants and their menus, offering healthier alternatives to the current slew of junk food being offered. This is, after all, an essay about diet considerations, not farmer cultivation problems.

Your third paragraph is on the mark. But you did not present a personal opinion as indicated in the essay. Always remember that the personal opinion is not considered part of the closing statement. That is always completely defended paragraph presented prior to your concluding statement. In this instance, the essay does not have a proper closing statement.

Now, as per points deductions, the problems I indicated above will have an overall effect on your TA score. Which means the TA score you will get for this essay will not be so high because of the problems that you have. Once the TA clocks in with a lower than passing score, it will be difficult for you to pass the rest of the requirements and the test in general.

Scholarship / As a sophomore in political science, I came across with the opportunity to show my leadership skills [3]

Catherine, you should not submit this essay because the focus is academic in nature. Chevening, as per the scholarship prompt requirements for this essay requires you to share your ability to lead in a professional setting because that is where the Chevening scholars are expected to help install positive changes in their country, through their profession. Your essay does instill a sense of early leadership in your depiction. However, it does not tell the reviewer if you are ready to be leader, a game changer so to speak, within your profession. Leadership in academic settings and community service cannot be interchanged with professional leadership because the demands of each type of leadership differs in commitment, action, and results. While you explained your influencing skills very well, I am afraid that it will not be received well in the screening portion because it does not appropriately represent the main requirement, which is the professional setting. You will need to write a totally new essay in order to even have a chance at consideration at this point.

Undergraduate / Being Chinese and adopted set me apart from others, even in my own family. Common App Essay [4]

Jess, this is a very enlightening essay. Your essay is very warm and your conflict is evident on the page. Your journey towards self discovery and redemption is only marred by one little fact. You forgot to mention what the supreme catalyst in your story is that led to your epiphany. I think you presented that after you spoke of the epiphany. I think you did that in paragraph 5. You just need to properly build it up. What was the personal journey that you were on that led to your realization that you could never had it so good in your life if you had not straddled these two worlds? While your identity uncertainty may still exist, that does not mean that you have not learned how to benefit from belonging to two worlds. I would like to see you develop that explanation in this essay. It will create not only an interesting background story, but also deliver a highly impressive identity story, regardless of your confusion about which world you truly belong to.

Scholarship / A leader must be able to enlighten the future with new ideas and transform these for a better future [5]

Hadeer you are mixing your leadership and influencing essay with a networking essay. That is why the essay sounds extremely well to others here. It is actually a very bad essay. It requires a total rewrite in order to create a tighter focus on what matters in the essay, the leadership and influencing skill. There are some things that you can do to improve the essay though. Let me see if I can point you in the right direction.

Use the lecturer experience that you spoke of here. Only instead of discussing the two sets of students, focus only on the 3 problem students. Talk about what kind of students they were in your class and show how you helped them to focus their energies in a proper manner through your leadership. Then discuss the problem with their project and highlight how you influence, not not engaged, them in such a manner that the were able to successfully complete their work. That is the extent of the leadership and influencing discussion that you should be presenting in this essay. Everything else may be useful in the other prompt requirements depending upon the requirements of the prompt.

Scholarship / I plan how to lead my students through their educational way, to develop their critical thinking [3]

Hebtullah, it is true that you have not shown a clear example of leadership and influencing skills in this essay. If anything, you showed how your friends led and influenced the method by which you performed in your profession. So this is not the essay that you should present. This will not be acceptable because the discussion is incorrect and the minute the reviewer realizes this, he will cancel your application. One mistake in any of the essay presentations and your scholarship quest comes to an end. The best thing to do in this instance is to have you write a totally new essay. One that you have written after you have considered if you truly have any leadership and influencing abilities to speak of. Since it has to be professional in nature, you can opt to discuss an experience you had leading and influencing a problem student you had in your class. If developed and discussed properly, such a situation could fully illustrate your leadership and influencing abilities for the essay.

Scholarship / University of Nottingham, College London and Leeds. My study in UK chevening Essay [3]

Hi Alvin, welcome to Essay Forum. Let me see if I can help you out with your essay. the first observation I had is that you only present your future career goal in relation to your line of study in the various courses. I would suggest that you withhold on explaining the goal of your studies because that should be the basis of your post study plan. This essay should discuss individual career applications per course. You did not really explain the individual applications because you ended up describing the course curriculum instead. Next, this essay always requires at least one paragraph for an academic preparation for these courses and one professional explanation of how your work experience has best prepared you for these studies. You jumped directly into a discussion of the courses without really developing the so-called foundation paragraphs (comprised of 2 paragraphs) first. These paragraphs can be located at the beginning of the essay or divided into 2 presentations, one at the start and one at the end. Don't worry about your grammar for now, you still have the information presentation to perfect first.

Scholarship / Three MSc University courses towards an electrical power engineer - studying in the UK question. [2]

Mudiare, you are not supposed to repeat information from your previous presentations. So your opening sentence, which I recall, you used in a different essay before this one, should be removed. That will be taken against you as it is repeated information. Discuss your professional background instead by explaining how the problems you now face at work can only be solved by higher education. Before you present that discussion though, it would be best to present an expanded discussion of your academic studies and how it prepared you for your current occupation first. Your university choice weakness is in the fact that you do not present any future application for the studies in your workplace. The prompt indicates that you have to explain how these course choices can help you with your future career goals. So you have to make mention of that in at least one sentence at the end of the university choice discussion.

Scholarship / Chevening networking skills essay, give and sit back, the outcome will come [3]

Selma, you don't really show how you develop networks outside of the university and how these helped you to advance your career. Neither do you qualify the reasons why Chevening should believe that this sort of network is one that can be of importance to the organization and your mentoring career should you become a scholar. We need to read solid evidence of how you built a network, used the network for work (not personal) objectives, and how the network has grown from the first time you used it. Did using one network lead to the creation of a new network based on a common connection? Perhaps there was some way that, as you said, the professional and business interactions you participated in led to the opening of other opportunities for yourself or your work? The main problem with your essay is that you indicate part - time employment. That does not really indicate the need for you to develop a usable professional network because you do not have any command responsibilities that require you to make networking decisions nor require you to actually network for your job improvement. So you should first, fix the presentation of your job to reflect a full time position, then figure out how you can present a usable network based on whatever semblance of networking you currently have.

Scholarship / "Networking with an open mind" Business networking is important in my everyday job. [5]

Angela, since your academic networking skills are not required in this essay, it is best to remove that reference to it. Focus only on the presentation of your professional skills because Chevening needs to assess the applicability of your network to the needs of their alumna and current students in fields related to yours. That is why they ask you about the strength of your networking skills based on its ability to help you influence and lead others in a similar profession. Academic networks do not help you achieve such a status unless, you cultivated those academic networks to become usable within your profession. If you can prove that, then you go ahead and justify your academic network presentation.

Your social network doesn't indicate any connection to your profession, which is the whole point of the essay so you can safely remove that reference as well. Your closing statement is strong but could be made stronger if you include a clear explanation as to why Chevening should consider your network important and how you hope to help the future scholars by becoming a mentor and using your network to help them promote their own career improvements.

Scholarship / I will join Federal Board of Revenue Anti Money Laundering Unit - Clear Post Study Goals [6]

Naveed, remove the outline at the start of the essay. You do not need to explain how financial policing is done in Pakistan because those do not relate to your post study plans. Start immediately with the opening paragraph instead. Now, I will say that you impressed me with all of your career plans. You have a clear idea as to where you see your career going in the immediate future. However, you do not have any reference to a money laundering project that the UK government supports in your country. Please try to find that reference because that is crucial in terms of final considerations for your scholarship application. Surely there is some sort of project ongoing in your country. Perhaps you can look up anti-terrorist projects in Pakistan that are supported by the UK with some sort of focus on anti-money laundering as it relates to the terrorism threat. That would be the best way to indicate that there is a clear cooperation / connection between Pakistan and the UK in a manner that relates to your chosen masters degree course and future career.

Scholarship / I maintenance my networking by creating a good relationship. Networking skills essay [5]

Sofi, you should only provide information on the positive and successful aspects of your networking skills. You should remove the reference to the failure to influence regulations regarding breastfeeding because that indicates a failed network, even though it succeeded on other levels. Your essay has a severe problem when it comes to tense usage. You must refer to everything in past tense such as :

I WAS chosen TO BE a team leader...
When we became THE SUPERVISORS of a ...
He suggested THAT I had...

... along with numerous other corrections to the grammar structure. You could try running this essay through the free grammar editing software online like Grammarly to get you started on the necessary grammatical changes or, you can look up our services and have experts do the editing and revisions to the essay for you. Either ways, you can't go wrong.

Scholarship / I have used networking to promote and advance peer-to-peer learning. Scholarship writing [5]

Chaarvi, your last 2 paragraphs are perfect for the networking essay. It is really clear about how you came across, developed, and continue to value the networks you have created. I strongly urge you to use these last 2 paragraphs for your overall networking presentation without any edits. The first paragraph speaks more of a learning experience than a networking experience. Also, you make specific mention of a person in that paragraph. Normally, it is best to mention organizations but not people connected with it because the expectation will be that the person you mentioned will write you a recommendation letter to accompany your essay. If you will not be able to attach his recommendation letter, it would be best to not mention this part anymore. If you want to mention it though, then remove the name of the person (change it to the organization name) and make it sound more like a networking event rather than a learning experience.

Undergraduate / I fear looking in the mirror and not recognizing what I see. Yale supplement? [3]

Ishani, you really have shared a tremendous amount of information about yourself in this essay. However, the prompt and the reviewer in this instance, expects to read about only one thing that you feel you have not yet shared in the application essays. While the topics you have presented are interconnected and interesting, you need to pick the highlight of the presentation to discuss in this essay. You need to focus on that one topic and build on it. For example, if you want to discuss why you don't want to wear makeup then discuss that. If you want to discuss reasons why you don't want to look in the mirror, then make that the subject of the essay. One or the other, not both. The way I read it, your story about why you fear looking into the mirror is the most relevant topic you can discuss in this essay. You can tie that into the reason why you don't wear make up. So the topic statement should be along the lines of:

I don't wear make up because I fear not recognizing who I see in the mirror.

In this instance, the way that the two separate topics are framed to interconnect with the anchor subject (looking in the mirror) leads to a soling, single reference discussion in the essay. This will create a more informative presentation that focuses on only one subject based upon one reason (not putting on make up).

Undergraduate / Wellesley 100: Hilary Clinton (This is the first of 2 paragraph) [5]

Deng, considering that Hillary Clinton is currently under investigation in the United States due to so many levels of corruption and criminal accusations regaring political and economic espionage, based on her political dealings, it would be best for your essay to pick someone less controversial and more inspiring for your essay. You could pick from other women who do not have questionable backgrounds on both a personal, social, and political level. Women such as Princess Diana ( due to her work with mental health and HIV research during her lifetime) , Mother Teresa (for her charitable activities during her lifetime), Oprah Winfrey (for her philanthropic activities), Amal Clooney ( as an international human rights lawyer), and Ivanka Trump (due to her work promoting an end to human trafficking, funding women entrepreneurs, women empowerment , promotion of women's rights, and fair treatment of working families), are some of the notable, inspirational women who truly embody an enlightened sense of leadership and serve as inspiration to countless women across the world everyday. Don't use a woman whose previous and current actions have people questioning her motives as a politician and citizen of America. That will not do your essay much good. While I understand why you would be misled to admire her, if you read up on her current situation in the United States, you will definitely not want to use her as the basis of your inspirational women talk essay.

Scholarship / Every moment and stage of my life had been a meaningful journey that led me as a successful leader [3]

Kim, do not focus on grammar changes for now. There are too many content problems with your essay which will change the way that you have the essay written. Since the content will change, the need to edit the grammar in the essay is negated. That is done at the very end, when your essay content contains its final information for presentation. It is not done mid editing of the content.

Since the Chevening leadership and influencing essay is based on your ability to prove that you have the potential to lead and influence people towards becoming positive members of your country within a professional setting. The final paragraph of your essay focusing on religion should be removed. Chevening is a non-sectarian scholarship program and as such, does not give much weight to leadership experiences in a religious or church setting. While it will not weaken your application, it will not carry the same weight as you believe it does in your presentation. The effect of that presentation will be negligible at best. So it is best not to present that portion at all in your essay.

In the first paragraph, rephrase the reference to "cell group leader" as that has a tendency to be misconstrued / misunderstood to have terrorist leanings. Word usage and formation is also of extreme importance when you write these essays. One wrong reference and you could end up on a terror watch list. So remove that reference. While I know it means something innocent to you, the connotation of that term in public means something else so let's not test the waters regarding the popular meaning of that phrase within your application.

Do not mention that you are a president of church youth groups either for the reasons previously mentioned in relation to religion. Instead, just present your definition of leadership as you have come to understand it in the performance of your duties as a teacher and assistant expedition leader. The definition of your leadership should always be based on a professional setting. So unless your profession is actually being a pastor, priest, or something religious, those discussions should not factor into this essay.

Scholarship / Why and what I chose to study in UK [10]

Hiwi, you were right to assume that I will have you remove the city descriptions in the essay. Go ahead and do that. Paragraph 2 and 3 should also be removed to tighten the focus and presentation of the essay. It is important that after you present your academic and professional capabilities, that your next paragraphs focus on the universities and courses itself. That way you will have totally achieved an accurate presentation based on prompt requirements and also, assure yourself that you will be under the word count. As long as you write more than 100 words, the essay will be acceptable to the reviewer. It does not matter that you use the same opening sentence successively in this instance. You are not taking an English exam. You are just writing about why you have chosen the university. While there is a focus on your grammar skills, the decision to accept you into the program will not be based on whether or not you can write what you want to say in 12 different ways. It is more focused on your know-how and preparedness to take an MS course. There is no need to edit those 2 paragraphs based on your presentation of the opening sentence. Ideally, for this type of essay, 450 words will be more than sufficient to address the task. After you remove the references I made in this comment, you can assume that your essay is in its final form and ready for submission to the Chevening committee. I wish you the best with this submission.

Graduate / I am determined to contribute more to the future of our information society. SoP for Master study [3]

Yang, let me help you differentiate between the two so that you can revise this essay to turn it into an SOP which is what the prompt requires you deliver. What you have here is a mix of a SOP and a PS. There is actually a world of difference between the two.

Let's start with the PS or Personal Statement. A personal statement allows you to present the foundation of your interest in a particular field. So if you were interested in library and information science because you loved to read as a young adult and could get lost for hours in the library. Or you hung out at the library so often that you and the local librarian were on a first name basis and you no longer needed a library card to take out a book, this is the essay to present that in. This is the essay where you talk about the influences that led to your decision to study library and information science. You should also make a quick reference as to why you chose the university in this discussion. Keep it short. The long version should be in the SOP.

The SOP is, as it is called, the statement of purpose. For this essay you need to present the following information:
1. What your current occupation is and how long you have been working in this position
2. The reasons why you want to study this masters degree. Normally it is related to a problem in the field that you feel needs to be resolved but you lack the advanced training to develop the solution that you envision.

3. Discuss your academic preparation as in college studies and a short presentation of your related thesis, training you participated in, and seminars attended in relation to the job. When applicable, you can also discuss relevant internships or other jobs that you held in relation to your current occupation.

4. Explain what your mid range (5 year) career plan is and how this masters degree is relevant to the preparation for those plans.
5. The major reasons why you chose this university and how you hope to use your masters degree to push your career forward. Make a quick reference to a thesis statement in relation to your chosen masters course. Discuss what aspects of the university curriculum helped you to decide that this university would be the best choice for your studies in this field.

So, now that you know the difference between the two essays, and you have a guideline for the SOP in relation to the prompt requirements, you should be able to revise your essay or, write a totally new essay that will better reflect the SOP requirements.

Writing Feedback / Voluntary service is not a compulsory part of high school programmes... yet [3]

Liou, your discussion is not aligned with the prompt requirements. You are being asked to discuss one side of the topic. Either you agree or disagree. You did not present an opinion based on the selections in the essay that you wrote. Therefore this essay fails immediately based on the TA portion of the score. Your paraphrase is incorrect. Although you did not copy and paste the original, as erroneously commented by the previous poster, you did not give an accurate representation of the prompt either. Here is a sample of the correct representation:

Community service is not currently a part of the compulsory subjects in high school. Some people have the opinion that unpaid community service should be part of the subjects taught in secondary school because there are some lessons for them to learn in the process. I strongly agree with the latter statement for a number of reasons that will be discussed in this essay.

Your current discussion deviates from the prompt. That means, you are not discussing the essay in a manner appropriate to the original instructions and therefore, ended up failing the essay test.

Scholarship / Winning Noble Prize. It is what I'm going to achieve in my life. [4]

Hala, this is definitely not a leadership and influencing essay. Neither is it a personal statement. In fact, I do not know what it is that you wrote here. The only thing I am sure of is that you cannot use this as a leadership and influencing essay. There is nothing in the essay that shows a seriousness on your part regarding your application for the scholarship. It sounds like you are taking it easy and you don't care whether you get the scholarship or not because you did not take care to properly represent the prompt in your presentation. This is almost written like a joke. Which is what you wrote at the beginning and which is what the reviewer will remember when he discards your application. Delete this essay from your files. This is useless and will not apply to any Chevening prompt.

Write a new essay that opens with you clearly establishing your place of leadership in one of your many work places. It would be best if you choose to discuss a leadership and influencing skill that is related to the masters degree course you are applying for. Relate an event that shows command responsibility, delegation ability, and influencing skills in terms of you needing to create order from chaos in the workplace. That will be more of an appropriate response to the essay. I repeat, do not use this current essay because it does not accomplish anything that the prompt requires as relevant information towards your application. More importantly, do not try to convince the reviewer that your childhood leadership ability is the kind of ability that the Chevening program is looking for because it isn't. The prompt requires profession related leadership and influencing abilities alone. So that means, current work experience.

Scholarship / The UK has always been my first choice for higher education - CHEVENING SCHOLARSHIP [7]

Rahma, in response to your question, the response is no. You do not have to present your academic background twice in the essay. Once in the beginning is sufficient. Your choice of university courses and universities are presented in an acceptable format. It informs the reviewer about the academic reasons that you chose the university and the course. Please eliminate the references to the townships and beaches in the essay as those distract from the academic focus of the discussion and are not part of the required elements for discussion in the essay. It would be best to keep your academic tone at all times in this instance because the reviewer is only interested in the formal presentation of your choices. Once you remove the references I mentioned, the essay will be in its final format and ready for submission. Good work on the development of this essay. You actually got it on your first try. That makes 2 perfect essays that I have reviewed today. Excellent work!

Writing Feedback / Give reasons for your answer on statement that happiness is contemplated as substantial in our life [4]

Leo, there was an error on your part in representing the prompt paraphrase in your essay. You accidentally did it twice. You are only required to present one paraphrase per essay. Additionally, neither of your prompt representations were accurate. So the failure to properly represent the prompt assured this essay of a failing score. Here is the correct prompt paraphrase:

One of the considerable factors in the life of a person is happiness. For some reason though, happiness has become almost impossible to explain. Perhaps this is because of the differing elements that an individual feels he needs to fulfill in order to consider himself happy. In this essay, I will explain the reasons for my answer and also, present supporting discussions that come form my personal experience and understanding of what happiness is all about.

With that proper paraphrase, the next step would have been to present the discussion in the 2nd paragraph. Your reasoning is acceptable it is just the presentation that is wrong. All you have to do to fix that part is to remove the statement "First, the main reason..." and "Below I will explain..." because those are the mistaken presentations that accidentally created a second topic paraphrase.

As for your third paragraph, you actually did just repeat the discussion. Both were based on individual standards for happiness consideration. So your essay is short by 2 more justification discussion paragraphs. There is just no way around that error in this case. So, the wrong paraphrase, the repeated paraphrase, and the wrong discussion method all combined to make sure that you got the lowest possible, non passing score for this essay.

Scholarship / After my graduation upon returning back to Afghanistan, my plan is to work with the UK projects [3]

Fatemah, this is unbelievable! I am highly impressed by your presentation. You have done the complete essay, represented all of the required elements, given a strong presentation of your plans (most notably the UK supported one), and delivered a deliverable Post Study Plan essay. I reviewed your essay number of times before I came to this conclusion. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't letting anything slip through the cracks. That is when I realized what an excellent job you did with this essay. It can be used as an example for those who will be coming after you. It is a short, informative, and highly developed discussion of your post study plans. Each aspect interconnects with the paragraph discussion in a manner that shows exactly how this course will best prepare you for your future career, whichever one it may be. Excellent work. Good job! Use this essay with your application.

While others may fault you for your grammar errors, I do not want you to change those errors because those grammar errors add to the credibility of your statement. It shows that you considered all aspects of the discussion and did your best to present a high level of academic presentation within your own capabilities. The capabilities shown in your discussion development shows that, even with grammar errors, you can accurately get your message across to the reader. Which is all that these essays require in terms of clarity.

Scholarship / THREE CHOSEN COURSES TO DEVELOP MY CAREER IN ANALYTIC FIELD. Studying in UK Question [2]

@maknae33 your presentation of your professional background is good but tends to come across as rushed because you use some informal terms such as "et cetera", which is not commonly used in format academic essay presentations. I suggest you remove that term in order to preserve the formality of your presentation.

Next, present your academic background as a separate paragraph. That should not be included in the professional discussion. Remember the standard rule for paragraphs. Only one topic per presentation in order to offer the readers a clear chance to understand what you are trying to say. By presenting your academic background in a separate paragraph, you will be able to better illustrate how your college studies prepared you for your job and why that education is a relevant basis for your interest in these 3 courses. Your academic foundation is just as important as your professional foundation in this instance because, if you don't have the academic background for the courses you have chosen, you will find it hard to complete your masters studies.

As for the rest of the essay, I don't recommend changing anything because the presentation ties in with your introductory discussions.

Scholarship / One of the key to success is establish connection. Writing essay about networking [3]

Mochamad, your essay sounds like you used an online translator to write it in English. I cannot understand anything you are trying to say in the essay. What I can manage to pick out of your essay, tells me that this is not the networking essay that Chevening is looking for. This sounds more like your training manual than a discussion of your existing contacts outside of your office, how you developed that network, and what that network has done to help you with your job. This is more of a job description essay on your part.

A networking essay ties in with your leadership skills. In order to remain at the top of the office chain, you need to create contacts outside, but within the same profession, who can offer you assistance when performing office tasks that cannot easily be accomplished without outside help. That is the idea behind the networking essay.

You have to discuss how your network can help you improve your skills and why this network will be useful to Chevening scholars as well. Your essay is nowhere near providing the required information so you cannot use this essay. Try to look at the examples of networking skills essays here. Maybe you can get an idea as to how to write your own from their examples.

Scholarship / In five years after my scholarship, I would reach higher managerial level in my country. Chevening [7]

Mariam, the conversation with the British ambassador does not represent any UK supported project in your country that can tie in directly with your chosen major and potential future career. That is an extremely long but useless paragraph. The reviewer has no direct interest in the data that you are presenting. He is only concerned with how you can justify being sponsored for the scholarship based upon the interests of the UK government in your country. As such, you need actual UK supported projects to represent in the third paragraph. Remember, the post study plan needs to show how you can repay the kindness of the UK government when they sponsored you as a Chevening scholar. These projects that they have in your country that you can assist in further developing is one way of payback for their kindness. Try to find that project. Without it, you will definitely not get this scholarship so you might as well not even try to apply. Your application will fall under the non-priority projects / country and as such, will only qualify for a limited scholarship consideration, for which there are many applicants of the same kind as yours. It might be difficult for you to get a scholarship slot in that instance.

Scholarship / Career Plan for Brightly Civil Engineer - Chevening Scholarship [4]

Any reference to your future career plans and how you plan to achieve them should be included in the Post Study Plans essay. While these plans do have some relation to the reasons for your study, the developed discussion of that belongs in the Post Study essay. That can be the basis for your post study plan presentation. It might be easier for you to connect your company to a UK project in your country. It is important that you do not duplicate information in the essays you are presenting. That is a Chevening dictate that must be complied with at all times within all essays. So the study plan should present your career plans that omit the plan to start your own company in the future. Since you have 3 courses to consider for the study plan, you can create unique career plans for each one. Thus allowing you to fully skip the "build my company" part for future use.

Writing Feedback / The increase in university fees and tuition for a family goes far beyond the consumer price index [2]

Lanya, there are a number of problems existing in this essay that makes it impossible for me to consider it a properly developed IELTS essay. The rundown of the problems are: improperly presented prompt restatement, improperly formatted paragraphs, incorrect number of paragraphs. and information in the opening statement is presented which is not require nor allowed since it is a paragraph meant solely for prompt restatements. Now for the nitty gritty of your mistakes.

The prompt restatement is as follows: There is a belief that the the quality of education can only be improved if universities increase the salaries of their professors. While others may agree with this statement, I tend to disagree with it. In this essay, I will be presenting my line of reasoning, with accompanying evidence to support my stance on the topic for discussion.

A simple paraphrase just restates the information originally provided in the writers own words. Extra information is not required at this point because you are being scored on your ability to paraphrase and follow instructions. The 3 body paragraphs is where the actual discussion and presentation of information takes place.

Since there is a 5 sentence, 5 paragraph limit to the discussion, you should not try to over emphasize your discussions as you have done so now. Just pick one, easy to discuss and justify reason for development in the paragraph. Anything more than one becomes harder to justify and present within the allotted time frame. Remember, you still need to edit, revise, and proofread your essay before submission. So writing a short informative paragraph is always best.

Now, as per my understanding this prompt is for an IELTS essay, yet somehow, you have chosen to discuss it as a GRE essay. It is a GRE essay because you are insisting on discussing the statement of an author when no article has been provided for your review. You were only given a simple statement that must never be attributed to anyone in the discussion because there is no actual source for the statement. That "author" reference is one of the major reasons that this essay became weak and failed to follow the instructions for discussion as originally provided.

Scholarship / Chevening essay: Being a LEADER and INFLUENCER that spread the positive vibe [2]

Aidell, the second paragraph does not clearly show a leadership and influencing skill. You were simply implementing a job that already had present rules and conditions for you to follow and remind (not influence) people of in order to make the action successful. That is why I don't want you to use that story in this presentation. The one that has more leadership and influencing potential is the story about the Rhino conservation. Don't mention when the activity took place, just say that it happened. That way the year you did the task becomes irrelevant to the presentation of your skills. Taking the initiative is always representative of a leadership skill. Develop the story about the campaign not having any funds. What steps did you have to take to lead the people to believe that the project can be done with or without financial support? Then explain how you influenced the fund raising activities so that it became successful. Develop an additional paragraph at the start of the essay in order to create new, more applicable opening statement. Then go directly to the discussion of the fund raising situation. I have a sense that this will create a very effective leadership and influencing presentation for you.

Undergraduate / Guitar player - Essay about an interest you have pursued outside academic classes [3]

Uyen, you should revise the essay to first explain what drew you to guitar classes and why you decided to pursue it as a hobby. You discuss the action of playing the guitar as something so mechanical that it seems like you were trying to relate it to your academic interest in some way. That is not the purpose of this statement response. Rather, you are being asked to share an activity that helps you to relax after school. The reviewer wants to know if you have any talents that could be of benefit to the student community. As a guitar player, maybe you have plans of joining the university orchestra or volunteering to teach others how to play. You don't always have to justify your activities in terms of being a student. Sometimes, as in the case of this essay, the reviewer just wants to get to know you beyond your academic interests and personality. Who else can you be other than a student? Try to use a more casual tone in this essay. Terms like Furthermore, Amelioration, and Therefore are a bit too formal for this semi-formal response. Keep the respectful tone, but be less academic about it. Think of how you speak to your parents, that is the tone you can use here.

Undergraduate / Linear Humans - Columbia Engineering Why School [3]

Guan, the forum has a one essay per thread policy. Since you posted 2 essays here, I will only be able to respond to one. Please post the second essay as a separate thread so that I can advice you about that essay as well. In the meantime, here is my review of your first essay.

You do not really explain what you value most about Columbia in your essay. You speak more of the opportunities available for learning in your essay rather than why you think a Columbia education is valuable. The essay will improve if you focus on something that is unique about the quality of the university. Just pick one. It could be the quality of the professors (you can pick one professor whom you would like to learn from and build the essay around that) or the way that the students of the university go on to better and highly respectable jobs in the field of their choosing. Or something else altogether. Think of the "value" of a Columbia education on a personal basis. It isn't just about discussing the labs, the competition, or the courses. Think beyond the obvious, that would be the more impressive response for this essay.

Scholarship / Support till achieving an ambition is the leadership ... [7]

Asmaa, do not use an outline format for your presentation. All of these prompt require an essay format in its presentation. As Aidell said, this is not the proper essay to be presenting. I am confused as to why you have chosen to focus on your academic leadership and influencing abilities. Is this because you are not performing in a leadership capacity in your current workplace? Or because you are applying for the scholarship even though you are short on meeting the required elements of the program? Either way, the presentation you have chosen to use is not applicable to the prompt requirements. What is your current occupation? Discuss that and then think of an instance when you had to come forward as a leader. What was the situation like? Would you say that your leadership and influencing skills were discovered or first presented at that point? If you feel that is so then relate that story. That may be the best chance you have to write an essay that properly meets the prompt requirements. Don't go with this presentation. It is only good for a college entrance application paper.

Scholarship / Uniting people around shared ideas and delivering results - Chevening leadership and influence [2]

Imran, you have a very impressive leadership background. It is so impressive that you have a very strong chance of being considered for the scholarship. The only problem is, the scholarship essay is titled "leadership and influencing" so you cannot win the scholarship solely on your leadership resume alone. It would be in the best interest of your essay if you choose the more noteworthy accomplishment of the work presentations you have made and build a proper essay around it that balances your leadership abilities with your influencing skills. For more applicants, the most recent work experience is the most applicable one to the prompt. In this instance however, since you have so much relevant leadership experience, I will leave that choice up to you. The reviewer is not interested in reading about your work history. He just wants you to prove that you know how to handle pressure situations in the workplace in your capacity as a leader in the company. Handling pressure situations requires 2 movements from the employee, a leadership ability and an influencing style that will help to steer the team towards the proper completion of a project or resolution of a conflict situation.

Scholarship / To build a future we need a team and a leader. Chevening Question of LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE [3]

Esam, the first thing you have to remember when writing formal essays to a review committee is that you should not treat it like a creative writing piece of a common essay narrative. That means, the whole tone of this paper, from beginning to end is disrespectful to the reviewer. Do not use exclamation points. Don't you dare shout at the reviewer. That is what you are doing you know. There is no need for over emphasis as this is just a written preliminary interview. Your over emotion could result in your getting cut from consideration simply because you did not know how to treat the reviewer.

Next, the essay itself is not powerful. I am not clear on what your real occupation is and how you led in it. If you are a pharmacist, what is the connection of the neonatal intensive care unit? You have just confused the reviewer and he will decide that you are not really taking this application seriously. A leadership and influencing essay has certain discussion focus points that need to be addressed. None of those were handled in your presentation. Look at the samples here and learn from their mistakes in order to improve your own essay which is also, riddled with mistakes that have made it unusable for the leadership and influencing essay.