"The child with ADD; working at Anisfield camp at the JCC" - Common app

Over my past two summers, I have worked at Anisfield, a day camp at the JCC. For both years I was a counselor for incoming 1st and 2nd graders. During my first year as a camp counselor, I was assigned a group of kids that seemed like they were from heaven. These kids were not only polite, but they also happened to be a pretty knowledgeable bunch of 1st and 2nd graders. I got through that first summer with ease because the group of campers made it both easy to instruct and mentor them. In my second summer, I figured that I would once again get a great group of campers that would make my life easy. Instead, I was faced with the most challenging group of campers in all of Anisfield. In my eclectic group of campers I was faced with a child with Down syndrome, and child with severe ADD, and also a child with an anxiety disorder, along with the other twelve campers I had to deal with. As I met with all of the campers and their parents the day before camp began, I thought that my camper with Down syndrome was going to be the hardest to deal with, but I was very mistaken. My camper with severe ADD had a twin sister that he insisted on being with all of the time. He could never stay focused on one activity at a time, and whenever a small thing would go wrong he would go ballistic until he got his way. The camper with anxiety problems and his mom insisted that our whole schedule be mapped out for him so that he wouldn't be caught off guard by any activities that we would do. On days when all three of them were at their worst, they were almost impossible to handle. One day it was raining, and because of the rain we were forced to change our schedule around because we couldn't do some of our regular activities in the rain. So, as we were walking to our second activity the child with anxiety issues realized that something was out of the ordinary, so being the 7 year old that he was, he broke down in tears. Whenever he would cry, it wouldn't just be a tear or two, it would be a 10-15 minute breakdown. He would cry and then at the same time ask us all sort of questions like "what do we have next?." or "where are we going?," and he would always ask us where his morning snack was because that's what his mom gave him at home. So whenever one of these tantrums would occur, I would sit down with him and calm him down or get him his snack while the rest of the group would go on to the next activity. The child with ADD was much more difficult to deal with, when he had his tantrums he wouldn't just start crying but he would also get very aggressive. He would usually hit the nearest camper to him right when he got agitated about something, and there was always one camper who seemed like he was the catalyst of this happening.

That is my common app essay dealing about a significant experience that happened to me. It would be really helpful if you guys could give me some pointers on how to make it better!

Thanks!

Areas that need changes are in bold.


"Over the past two summers" doesn't sound very nice. Try saying "In the past two years during the summer months..."

"JCC" should be spelled out. You may know what JCC stands for but the reader does not.


Use the words first and second instead of numbers.


Assigned to a group. Instead of saying kids, use children.


Again, instead of saying kids use children. Replace the numbers with first and second. "They happened to be a pretty knowledgeable bunch..." is to casual of a phrase. Try rewriting the sentence to say something like, "The children were not only polite, but they were also quite knowledgable for their age."


Using "the" instead of "that" would sound better.


Mom is too casual. Replace it with "mother"


Remove so.


Write out ten to fifteen. Do not use numbers. You should write out any numbers that are below one hundred.


This whole phrase should be altered. To begin, write out the number seven. Instead of implying he is emotional because of his young age, try to explain that because the situation was undesirable to him it stressed his emotions.


Do not use double punctuation. Simply use the question marks.

Is that your entire essay? There was no real conclusion, you should insert a closing statement that sums up your entire experience.

Also, as a general comment, try to avoid using contractions. I noticed you used "wouldn't" quite often. Replace that with would not.

Hope this helps and good luck!