"She was a 7lb 11oz bundle of joy" - UT admission essay number 1

Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.

Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

this is all i have so far.

All throughout receiving an education, there is one thing that I can fully recall; assemblies. They started when I was just a little tot and have not changed in anyway shape or form since (besides different presenters). The main purpose of a great portion of the assemblies was to inform children and adolescents about the side effects of drinking and driving, doing drugs, and/or having unprotected sex. For some students, the information retained might have made a small impact on their lives, but for most, it went through one ear and out the other, therefore having little or no effect.

This is a great issue of importance to me because I feel that low self-esteem has a much bigger impact on children and adolescents in this time period. With eating disorders, mental, physical and sexual abuse, bullying at school and neglect becoming more and more widespread, low self-esteem is on a rise. We mistakenly compare how we feel with how others behave. Inevitably, most others will behave more happily than we feel. So we conclude that no one else could feel as bad as we do. This creates a vicious circle and our self-esteem drops further, and no one ever acknowledges this. Music, I feel, is the voice of your heartbeat and the sound of your feelings. A person can relate to music in some way or another. Whether it is just everyday listening (while driving, shopping, reading, etc.), religion purposes or another type of reasoning, music is always there .When a person is feeling depressed, he or she can listen to a song that has a meaning of how they are feeling inside, or has a way of brightening them up and making them feel how they want to feel; happy and hopeful. Another instance would be if an individual is getting ready to go out for a night on the town, they will most likely listen to music that get's them in a "get-up-and-go" mood. Not something that is mellow. What do these subjects have to do with assemblies at school you ask?

Suffering from depression and being a victim of emotional abuse and abandonment, I have had my fair share of low self esteem matters. Music has always been a huge part of my life, well-being, and has been the one thing that has kept me relevantly sane. With music also being an enormous par t of today's society, I feel it should be incorporated in schools, not only in music courses or for entertainment use, but in assemblies as well. I feel if modern bands are brought to schools and play about self-esteem issues, then the students will actually listen and be affected. Low self esteem is usually the reason children and adolescents turn to drugs, alcohol and sex. But if we conquer the reasoning behind it in the first place, then the predicaments will most likely reduce and we will be closer to becoming a utopian society.

will someone help me and my brain fart and give me suggestions to what i do have

so pretty much a bit less than...1500 words. don't worry, you'll have enough words, my essay was around 600 words and wayyyyy below the limit.

hmmm I am worried though! haha
I already have 378 words..and I think im not even a quarter done.
I suppose i don't know though because i'm writting as it comes to mind.
ahhh poo! haha..
you said your essay was around 600 words..did you make it in?

yea, last friday.

but my scores kinda helped. ut was my backup (it's not showing off, just giving you a realistic portrait) - i kinda blew off that particular essay. my other ones were a lot better

compared to mine, yours is definitely a lot more defining and strong

so what major are you applying to? i did mccombs and plan II

I am planning on applying to College of Communication and majoring in public relations.
and possibly minor in psychology.
at least that's my plan. :p

is that your top choice? cuz purely from your writing style, i think you can aim for higher.

well, you see I have a plan that I choose not to disclose. haha
With what I want to do with my plan, I will enjoy. It inspires me and I feel I can make a difference with it. Writting, yea, I may be good at it, but only to a certain extent. I'm not passionate about it therefor i don't feel I should embrace it.

Just out of curiosity though, what do you think I should go for?

nono, that's not what i meant. with my poor knowledge of literature, i can honestly NOT tell your character from your essay, so i definitely can't make some arrogant claim on what to do with your future.

what i meant is whether UT is your top choice. from your style, i can tell that you are not a common applicant. it's not just the writing, but also the way you capture the reader, which is definitely a lost art. so i kinda assumed that you are aiming for a higher college, not major or anything.

ps, i kinda wanted to do psychology so that i can read minds (yea, it was a couple of years ago...) but then dad told me that it's hard to get a job and most likely low-paid, so i chose something opposite: CEO hahaha

hmm, i guess i never really thought i was that good. =/
but yes, psychology is low paying. thats why im minoring in it :p
i just want the background because i find it completely interesting and, as i have said before, with what i have planned, it seems to come in handy.

haha, i'm not simply praising you for the sake of it. i just really enjoy your very special way of talking about a very common topic (family member essays are very hard to write, since so many do their essays on that), but you pulled off the start really well.

yes! lets just pray the middle and ending are just as well written! hahah

yea, remember that every sentence matter and that you are NOT losing the momentum or focus at ANY point. Don't put generic statements that everyone else can. Every sentence has to apply to you only.

&& that's what i plan on doing. :) i will be putting an update on here soon.

well, here you kinda repeat the prompt


much more powerful if used as a start

a quick skim of the essay shows that you don't really focus on what your sister's psychological impact on you, except that she loves you and provides you with emotional support, which is great, but not personal enough

your description of your sis' birth is great, and you capture the reader by describing the special bond, but WHY is this so special? can't just be love, or crying, or hugging. it has to be somewhat analytical.

you need to give more specific examples on how your sister was significant to you, other than she is because she's your sister.

1 thing: you sure this fit the character limit?

out of curiosity, why does your sister has a different last name than you?


I was hurt
if you were to stick with have been, it HAS to be spelled out


she has
- i'll stop correcting those things, you get the idea


lol i think it's pretty funny that she thought about it, then became pregnant immediately after


you could shorten this, since it's details not so essential
it's good, but at this point, the reader's kinda tired, so you don't want to add encumbering details


this is some really weird sentence structure. I think i get it, but make it more concise? like instead of "I said yes she does, and then they asked where she was, I told, and at that time escorted them to the back door" maybe say "I led them to where my mom was, and..." also, add "my sister called the police" somewhere cuz it's kinda confusing


i don't think you need this, you conveyed this through the story, and if you just say it, it loses power

overall, great essay!

yang
1 thing: you sure this fit the character limit?
just barely haha, it was 1182 characters, but i am going to shorten "She was talking on the phone, sitting on a lawn chair on the porch with a bottle of Texas Rosé from the local winery a few blocks down, when shay and I asked if we could play outside; she said no. Knowing of our mom's state, I was too young to know what to do about it, and because of this, I became frustrated, feeling worthless and helpless. When she said no I grew angry and told Shay to come upstairs and we'll play in my room"

she also has a different last name because we are half sisters..should i incoprorate that as well?

Don't forget to capitalize Shay's name:

In Del Rio, Texas, on a warm April night in 2005, my sister and I were done with our homework, finished dinner, and had our rooms cleaned. We wanted to go outside and have some sisterly bonding time on the trampoline that was set in our back yard. Our mom's depression had been at an all-time high lately; drinking an increasing amount of wine, mood swings, and suffering from bulimia. When Shay and I asked ...

Below, I'll remove a sentence that I think is not helpful:
...saw that it was policemen. They asked if XXXXXXXX lived here, I said yes she does, and then led them to where my mom was. When I opened the ...

no, you did mention the divorce stuff, plus it's not really important


you mean words? cuz your essay's 6k characters, but i think that might be barely the limit. don't they ask for xx line of 80 characters?

your essay's long, but pretty fun to read. i'd just make sure to go over it again and take out ANY details that might distract the reader.

that's what i was figuring

yes, its 120 lines, 80 characters, you told me previously in the thread that, that was about 1200 words correct?

jk then, your essay's wayy shorter than that


you really need to start a new thread, that'll pass for this time tho...

a lot of use of you's, not a big fan of that.

try to make the overall tone a bit formal


so i take this as your thesis?
if not, then you need to make it your thesis. this essay feels a lot more like an informative/argumentative essay instead of narrative, so the last sentence in the intro has to be the topic sentence of the entire essay


lol, bullying has eating disorders?


I thought that your concern was assemblies? or loss of confidence? or bullying? it's very confusing...


because this is the part where you get to the personal, I take this as the focal point of your essay. If this is the case, then you need to put in the intro: Many suffer from depression and blabla to make sure that the reader understand what your concern actually is.

The assembly part seems solely an attention catcher...which is more confusing than eye-catching. So are assemblies good? Nonetheless, there's a dramatic shift of focus in the middle of the essay, you suddenly began talking about music...why not start with it?

It feels...that the essay has been quickly put together on a topic that you are not completely sure about, thus the "caulfield"-like digressions. It's not personal enough and the reader doesn't feel how you care in about the problem, since in the short 3rd paragraph/conclusion in which you talk about how you were personally impacted...you cover the music part only.

I'd suggest that you start by talking how you've experience the bad things in a wayyy more detailed and emotional way, then move to the big picture, then talk about how music might change it, then end with your plans for teh future.

It'll take some time and effort; if you don't have enough...what can i tell u? i mean, i get that we're procrastinators, but like in economics, there's an opportunity cost for everything!

my concern is that assemblies only talk about sex drugs and alcohol. but there is a much bigger issue; low self esteem. which is a side effect of eating disorders, being bullied at school, abandonment, neglect, ect.

but music is a wonderful therapuic to this.
therefore it should be incorporated into schools because that is where it would have a greater effect on children and adolescents...anddd wouldnt be wasting their time...

ya know?
...
this was just a VERY quick draft...
basically, i am begging somone to be wonderful and use this as an outline and write it out possibly. because im trying to deal with the news of my tumor and my mind is all jumbled up.

yea...that's kinda the problem

because it was done so quickly, and so blatantly (sry for the word, but I really need to convey that a quick essay IS not the way to go, even if you run out of time), your point really can't be conveyed. So again, I wanna reemphasize that it's much better, and easier, to simply talk about the problem of the sex, drugs and alcohol, without going the roundabout way of the assembly stuff


so no more assemblies? lol that'd be weird...sitting in the fine-art performance hall listening to mozart...not very realistic lol


O, so the tumor thing is actually real? You've got my sympathies...but sry girl, it's a busy time for everyone, and it's very unlikely that you'll have someone writing your essay out for you tonight...that's the extent of my help to you...after all, it's a personal essay.