BITS cricket team - Write about an incident that had the most profound influence on you

I am applying to a B-school and I need help with the essay. Here is the first draft. I am looking to improve on the influence part (3rd and 4th paragraphs) and want to cut down on explaining the incident part (first 2 paragraphs) as this essay focuses more on the influence. All suggestions and edits are welcome.

Word count - 336
Required Word count - 300

Here goes the essay -------

The BITS cricket team

It was July 20, 2012, and I was still on the waiting list of one of India's premier and my dream engineering institute - Bits Pilani. I had already secured a seat in VIT, Vellore and their session had started a fortnight back. I started having doubts about getting into BITS as only one iteration of the result was left after this. Accessing the situation, my dad didn't take a chance and booked my ticket to VIT. What followed in the coming days taught me some important life-changing lessons.

Despite being physically present there, I was mentally absent. After spending a week in VIT I concurred that the exposure I needed to become better in life could not be found there. But I lacked the courage and confidence to take the decision to leave college as the only other option was to take a gap year. My parents were against taking a gap year which made the decision all more difficult. I guess I needed a trigger for that and soon it came.

July 30, 2012 - the day of the final iteration. My hands trembled as I logged onto the BITS admissions website. There were those daunting words - "Sorry....". I couldn't read further. I was devastated. I knew the time had come. I had to make a decision. Two days later, I left VIT after completing all the formalities.

Fast forward a year later, I was there on the BITS admissions website again. "Congratulations," it said.The decision I took on July 30, 2012, made me realise about the hidden quality I had - the ability to take critical decisions in pressure situations. That decision had a profound effect on my self-belief and confidence. This is the confidence that enabled me to be a part of various initiatives and leadership roles such as captaining the BITS cricket team.

I believe that ISB can give me a platform to build upon my abilities and give me the requisite skillsets to tackle diverse challenges and take initiatives to overcome them.

Antriksh, with a 600 word count essay, you need to come up with a better narrative for this response. There is so much missing information regarding the background of the story that could build the proper foundation for the include that you are talking about. There is no clear representation of the influence that you are talking about. Do not withhold information regarding the influence angle since that is the focal point of the essay. In order to properly make suggestions about editing and revising your essay, I need to read the full draft. Unfortunately, this isn't a complete draft so you have to fully develop the essay before I can accurately analyze your work for review. Right now, the only clear portion that should be removed is the last sentence since it doesn't relate to the prompt instructions. At the moment the include that you speak of is really unclear, under discussed, and under represented.

@holt The word count is not 600 but 300.I have written 36 words extra. Kindly now review the essay.

In all honesty, the incident and the profound influence that it had on you as not as striking, memorable, or impressive as you hoped it would be. That is because of the lack of development regarding how the rejection had a profound influence upon you. The essay is not asking you to discuss what you learned about yourself from the incident, it is asking you to represent how the incident influenced you to become a better person. Realizing that you have the " the ability to take critical decisions in pressure situations. " does not count as an influencing event in your life. An influencing event is something that happens and then spurs you to do something because you realize that "it is the right thing to do" or "it can make a change". It does not have anything to do with you realizing that you finally have ability to make decisions in pressure situations. That is not an influencing moment but a realization moment. Those are two different things. By definition, influence "is the power to have an important effect on someone or something. If someone influences someone else, they are changing a person or thing in an indirect but important way." Therefore your essay doesn't follow the expected response for the prompt.

Since this is my last free review for your essay, you will have to either list your revision as an "Urgent" thread or close this thread and then start a new one using the revised essay that you will be developing. As of now, I can no longer respond to you in this particular thread with regards to any improvements or changes that you might be making to the essay based upon my current review.

Thanks for the review. Even I wasn't getting the feel of the essay. You have rightly said "That is not an influencing moment but a realization moment". I think this incident made me realise but it did not influence me. I will try to think of something else.