Please be brutal! I need this to be a great essay! Also, are the intro/conclusion too focused on summers spent up north??
prompt: To help the reviewers get to know you, describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you. Use your own words and limit your response to the space provided.
Many of my fondest memories are from the summer weekends I spend up north visiting my grandparents. Each visit to their lake house means a few blissful days of swimming, tubing, hanging out with cousins, and playing rousing games of Sequence, Golf, and Bananagrams. Of course, enjoying the lake and making memories with my relatives aren't the only things I've done during these weekend retreats. I've also had the opportunity to observe my grandparents in action at the head of the Kort clan. What I've concluded is that they are unbelievably amazing people whose example has had an enormous influence on the importance I place on family.
When I was younger, the main reason I would go visit my grandparents at the lake was that my parents needed someone to look after my sister and me. My grandparents were always more than happy to babysit; in fact, they would often drop hints that perhaps my parents would like a break from the two of us, and that the "Up North Inn" was always open! They would do anything to help out a family member. In fact, if there's one thing I've learned from my years of interaction with the two of them, it's how extremely important it is to take care of one's relatives. "Family comes first," my grandpa likes to say.
My grandparents don't quit being superheroes when the leaves begin to change and it's time for the lake house to go into hibernation. Never taking off their capes, my grandparents zoom from one side of the state to the other, and back again, in a dizzying effort to make an appearance at every concert, competition, and graduation of each of their thirteen grandchildren that takes place between summers. I love having my own personal cheering squad when they come to my events, and I look forward to our tradition of a celebratory ice cream run afterward.
I'm sure there are lots of grandparents who are devoted to their families, but I don't know how many have the dedication to do what mine did a few years ago, when my uncle fought and lost a long, hard battle with brain cancer. Through it all, my grandparents warred alongside him. They were always available to help out with anything that needed to be done, from driving my uncle to appointments to watching his three children while my aunt enjoyed a brief respite. My grandparents' courage and perseverance in such a hard situation sets them apart from other grandparents and shows exactly how dedicated they are.
I may be a little biased--I do have half of their DNA, after all--but I've concluded that my grandparents are really admirable people. They've set a superb example by consistently being available to support and care for my relatives and me. They are always ready to fill any role with finesse and enthusiasm, be it babysitter, cheerleader, or something in between. Whoever said that kids don't learn anything during summer vacation obviously didn't spend their summers at the lake house, because I consider instrumental in my education the time I spend up north with my favorite teachers, my grandparents.
"Up north" is general, and if you replace it with something more specific it will be more hypnotic to the reader. The hypnosis happens when the reader is entranced by the details.
hat I've concluded is that they are unbelievably amazing people whose example has had an enormous influence on the importance I place on family.
I don't really like this as the last sentence of the first paragraph. The first paragraph has to end with a sentence that plants a very interesting idea in the reader's mind. "Amazing" is general, like "up north." Know what I mean? But if you said resilient people, or singleminded people, or anything that carries a specific concept... do you know what I mean? The ESSAY has to express a particular concept to the reader. "Amazing" is not specific enough...
Great use of the word zoom. :-)
Okay, and here you call them admirable people at the end. See how the concept expressed in the essay is too general? You can dig deeper, and try to see what it is that makes them amazing and admirable. What is it that they know that I don't know. They must know something that makes them this way. :^)
