Why Clark? I am already a Clarkie in my dream.

The prompt is: A full tuition, room and board scholarship is a good reason for anyone to have an interest in a college, but what other things about Clark University and about your own personality and values have prompted you to consider becoming a Clarkie? Why Clark? (Word limit is 400)

Is there any grammar errors, uncommon phrases, and tone and style issue? Do you think I can answer to the prompts?

my personality has prompted me to become a Clarkie

Why Clark? Maybe if I spent two thousand dollars and flight to the USA to visit Clark campus, talk all day with the current students to get a sense of "an engaged learning community," or what it is like to experience LEEP at Clark, which liberal education I cannot get from my country, I would give a really strong answer to this question. Sometimes, I frustrated for the fact that the school that I want and the place that I now live are isolated by two oceans, Atlantic and Pacific. Maybe if I dig through the earth, I would land more easily at Clark or If I had a flight superpower like John Hancock, I perhaps would be writing this essay next to the Freud statue on the Clark campus, one of the few people that I admire. Unfortunately, I haven't born with this power but a power to dream. I dream of Clark that I am talking all nights with my roommate, writing a paper on macroeconomics for Econ Class, studying the relationship between psychology and economics, and working on a project with my professors. I dream that I am spending my leisure time, seeking adventure, playing club soccer and conducting the Spectator, a mutual improvement club for a wide range of knowledge. I dream from trivial to impossible as if I am there, feeling everything with my heart and five senses. As a result, my friends often call me an idealist. However, I believe that both idealist and dreamer are able to imagine an outcome that is better than anything otherwise conceive of. It is true that sometimes their ideas are impractical, but the ability to recognize an outcome is the first to making it possible. Even when their projects scatter in front of their eyes, they move forward to the best so they embrace the challenges. They also impact the community with their fresh perspective, question the reality, and act on their insights, and therefore, they change the world for goodness. I am already a Clarkie in my dream, and that is my personality that has prompted me to become a Clarkie.

Khusel, when you are asked "Why Clark?" and then you are specifically asked to relate it to your character traits, you should do more than just present a list of reasons why you cannot attend Clark and what kind of dreams you have in relation to social relationships. That is the wrong approach to this essay. The fact that Clark University is a private research university means that you have the opportunity to become more than a mere student. The university is a liberal arts institution that allows you to create your own major, cross enroll in courses or universities nearby in order to create a unique educational experience should more than provide you with valid reasons to want to study college at this university. These are some of the reasons that more academically inclined students would desire to attend Clark. I don't get a sense of this in your current essay. It appears that you do not know anything about the university nor do you have valid personal reasons, related to your academics, that you can relate to the prompt requirements. You need to do some research on the university in order to come up with a more believable and applicable response. Balance the social aspect of your intention to attend the university with your academic side. That will create a solid and more planned response to present to the reviewer.

@Holt
Dear Mary, I take your words and I wrote a new essay. What do you say now? I got rid of the social aspects and more inclined to academic aspects of my intention to attend Clark.

My heart has always been related to a school that challenged me to think, a school that allowed for the excellence of a broad field education, and I found out that Clark University is exactly the school that I want to study. The Clark is not just a private research university, but it is a liberal arts institution that allows me to create my own major, cross enroll in courses to create a unique educational experience. Being born in a small town and studying secondary school in a capital city Ulaanbaatar, where the education system is highly influenced by communist perspective, I didn't know until I graduated my high school that there is a school where I can experience totally new kind of education that Liberal arts college offers. However, I couldn't know it if I didn't take a gap year. During my gap year, I was learning English as a second language and was exploring my interests and passions. I was also exposed to a new world. I found out that economics is the major that I want to study and yet that I am also passionate about psychology. Since then, I have looked for the school where I can combine these two majors, creating my own studies that will result in a deeply invested college-to-career future. At Clark, I believe that I can transform this passion and interest in broad subject areas into the careers and purposeful, accomplished lives that I wish. Since I took gap year twice, I am two years behind my peers. One of the remarkable things about Clark is its a unique cost-saving opportunity through its Accelerated B.A./Master's Degree Program: any students can earn both a bachelor's and master's degree in five years with the fifth year tuition-free. I will work hard and push myself to a limit in order to earn this opportunity so that I catch up my peers. I don't know any other schools which offer exact same opportunity as Clark for students like me who is going to college two years later. Because of these reasons, Clark University is a perfect school for me because it offers unique, rare, and great opportunities that I could find nowhere

Khusel, the part of your essay that speaks of the fifth year of education being free of charge sounds like you just took it out for a student brochure or the website itself. I believe that you should omit the reference to that because the information is readily available to anyone interested and, as the prompt requirement indicated, should not be part of the consideration for your choice of Clark University as your college of choice. Why don't you mention something else like the fact that you can do research on topics of interest to you that could help you in creating your unique major? Or perhaps indicate an inclination to move immediately to the masters courses offered by the university ? These are more relevant reasons that would direct you to choose Clark for your college experience.

@Holt
Here is a broad instruction of the essay. Under this context, do my essay demonstrate my potential?

"We're looking for students who are exceptional scholars and who demonstrate the potential to represent ..."

And the first essay was "Why Clark? essay. Here is my revised one.

At Clark, I will become more than a mere student. The Clark is not just a private research university, but it is a liberal arts institution that allow me to create my own major, cross enroll in courses to create a unique educational experience. Being born in a small town and studying secondary school in the capital city, where the education system is highly influenced by communist perspective, I didn't know until I graduated my high school that there is a brand new education - Liberal Arts college. However, I couldn't know it if I didn't take a gap year. During my gap year, I was learning a new language and was exploring my interests and passions. As a result, I found out that economics is the major that I want to study and yet that I am also passionate about psychology. Since then, I have looked for the school where I can combine these two majors to create my own studies that will result in a deeply invested college-to-career future: behavioral economics. And that is how I come to Clark. Since Clark offers various undergraduate research opportunities, I also want to conduct my own research project on "economic behavior" during my study at Clark that will deepen my knowledge in the fields that I interest along with building a strong relationship with professors and peer students.

Basically, the academic part of your response is already relevant to the prompt. So we don't have a problem with that part of the essay requirement anymore. What we have to fix now is the part about embodying the values of a Clarkie. Their requirements are very specific (thoughtfulness, empathy, commitment, and self-confidence) so we need to become highly specific about those aspects in your essay as well. Can you identify a time in your life when you embodied at least 2-3 of the indicated values? I am guessing that you might be able to reflect on the empathy and self confident part since you come from a country that was communist in nature. The empathy should come from your ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Try to discuss something about the economic disparity in your country and how your life was touched by it, causing you to be helpful to the less fortunate in your country. Try to think of an incident that you can share with the reviewer regarding that. The self-confidence part can be represented by the time you spent studying abroad. If you write about those 2 traits properly, you just may be able to create a convincing argument regarding your in "economic behavior".

@Holt
I revised it again, Mary. Let me hear what you say. Thanks

In 2008, I was exposed to an economic depression for the first time. I saw my father's friend and our neighbors were losing their home for a bank loan. Many families who lived in my town also lose their jobs and left their town to escape into cities. Some nights, I heard my father with a concern was talking with my mother about paying money for a bank loan. When I asked tomorrow whether we would leave our home as well, he said that "No, Son. But if we don't know how the economics works, we will." I didn't understand his words completely, but what I understand was that economics influence our life directly and sometimes horribly. As a result, I found out that economics was a really interesting subject because I was curious to know the cause of depression and more importantly, the remedies to alleviate its impact on many families. Until I graduated my high school, therefore, I see an economist as a tool to solve a problem, and my parents, too, support me to become an economist because of its high-ranking major in the society. After graduating my high school and taking a gap year, however, I discovered that I am also passionate about psychology and started to be intrigued by its interaction with economics as a complex human interaction system. Since then, I have looked for the school where I can combine these two majors to create my own studies that will result in a deeply invested college-to-career future: behavioral economics. And that is how I come to Clark University. The Clark is not just a private research university, but it is a Liberal Arts institution that allows me to create my own major, cross enroll in courses to create a unique educational experience. At Clark, therefore, I have a lot of opportunities to become more than a mere student. Using all these possibilities, I want to expand myself academically in order to gain a thorough knowledge in the fields that I interest. If I am fortunate enough, I want to conduct my own research project on "economic behavior" at Clark, and that will deepen my experience by building a strong relationship with professors and peer students. After graduation, I want to work for people to educate them on economics, especially from a behavioral perspective, and contribute my knowledge and research experiences for a social goodness by using innovative, entrepreneurial, and yet practical approach to social problems.

The only problem with the story that you told is that you have not made a clear commitment to go back to your country in order to help those who need the help of a behavioral economist such as yourself, to help them recover from their economic problems. You should be specific about that because that is a Clark value that the university is searching for in their students. Show empathy through your understanding for the economic problem of your community and your commitment to help them recover through your studies. The rest of the essay is acceptable but I want you remove the part in the end that refers to "If I am fortunate enough..." because that is not part of the reason that you want to be a Clarkie anymore. That is one of the plans that you have for after graduation, which is not part of the prompt requirement for this essay.

@Holt
Thanks, Mary. I think I should get rid of these essays and write a brand new one because they seem so weak. Could you please say some advice on this prompt? How can I write a great essay?

Khusel, forget the broad prompt instruction and focus instead on delivering the requirements of the 400 word prompt that you originally responded to. Forget the values of Clark in the expanded prompt as well. Instead focus on yourself in response to the prompt. Answer these questions instead; what makes you a good person? How will that trait of yours translate into a personal value? Do you think that will help you become a good Clarkie? If yes, then how? The response you develop using those these questions will complete your reply as to how you embody the Clark University values. Make that response one paragraph. Use a transition sentence at the end of that to explain why you chose to become a Clarkie. For the Clarkie explanation, you can call back on the original essay that you developed, using the modified version you presented to me. From that point, we can sit the essay again for content and relevance. That should be very close to the final version when you are done with it.