Colorado State University Admissions

I used to get high for a living, naturally anyway. Always ignorantly loving life has been the way I've chose to live my life. Getting any girl I want, being friends with the most popular kids at school, and so on. And believe me I despise arrogance as much as the next guy and I do not expect the reader to have the most pleasant of tastes for me thus far. However we all know "perfection" is a pseudo-definition for something as imperfect as a seventeen year-old boy about to embark on a massive transition in his life. Now would be a good time to explain how I shattered my lazy, arrogant life style. No I'm not going to plaster another boring death story to the reader's to-do list, but a death has had an impact on my life, like many, that has been quite the eye opener. Underneath my fairytale life where I feel nothing goes wrong you will find that I have neglected the most important aspect of my life, a proving education.

I have the typical case of the "shoulds". I could sit here and ponder all the things in my past that I should have done, but I'm guessing your already realizing what those things are. It should be clear to anyone that it's a joke to call me a exceptional student. I have been an awful listener, I've chosen to day-dream unimportant things and then having to abruptly wake up and force myself to turn myself to a neighbor and seek help. I haven't exactly been what many see as a goodie-two-shoes, but I will not get into detail, and worst of all my procrastination the last few years has gotten the best of me. I hope that my honesty and the truth has been appreciated in painting a picture of my life , but I plan to move away from that and I mean now. Seeing a friend of mine torn up from head to toe lying lifeless has been a sure way of getting me to appreciate what's in front of me. Unfortunately for me this has occurred so late in the game.Disregarding how I messed up in my past, no matter where I head in life, I have learned an amazing skill, not taking things for granted. Like telling Mario to where a helmet before he crashed I can still sport my helmet in life. I can proudly say that I am more excited than anyone to test out my new understanding of life, and I'll take anything it throws at me.

I apologize I didn't drop off a an epic story that many would have preferred, and I do feel silly writing a conclusion of my thoughts. So I will make the conclusion of this essay yours, but I guess my "conclusion" is in your hands anyway. By letting me go your losing the passion and creativity from someone who loves life like you couldn't imagine, but at the same time you would be throwing me a curve ball, and now more than ever is the best time for me to tackle that curve ball. If anything I wrote this essay for my beloved friend of 14 years expressing to him how hes impacted my life, but if the reader has any concern I'm also writing this to tell why your better off with me than any valedictorian, sports star the worlds got to offer

Hmmmmm . . . this one needs a lot of work. First, you manage to do a much better job of expressing all of your past negative qualities than you do any of your present good ones, which is the exact opposite of what you should hope to accomplish in this sort of essay. Then, you keep apologizing for not writing what you think the reader wants to hear. If you genuinely think the reader wants to hear something else, write that. If you have deliberately decided to go a different route, then don't apologize for it. What exactly is the prompt for this, anyway? "Is there something you feel you should explain?" "Tell us about a moving experience?" Whatever it is, to answer it you should decide which positive quality or qualities you want the reader to know about you, then dedicate the essay to conveying that message. Don't mention anything negative about yourself unless the prompt specifically asks you to do so, and even then, get it out of the way as quickly as possible in order to focus on what you have learned or how you have overcome it.

Oh, I know how this is! The writer can't know how the essay seems to the reader.

It would be great if the essay started with this line:

Now would be a good time to explain how I shattered my lazy, arrogant life style.

Now THAT is interesting. All that other stuff from the beginning, about getting high and getting girls, has got to go. I understand you, but I think many readers would misunderstand. Certain terms and phrases elicit certain emotions, and the reader is like, What?!

Then, continue:

No I'm not going to plaster another boring death story to the reader's to-do list, but a death has had an impact on

Now, this phrase is a little unclear:

So I will make the conclusion of this essay yours, but...

Now, I think you can spend 20 minutes or so, and re-write this so that each paragraph introduces a separate thought. Start with a topci sentence, and then explain it, and then conclude it and move on to the next thought. Experiment with putting these sentences in different orders. However, if it seems like you are sucking the life out of the essay, change it back to the way you had it!

This certainly comes from the heart, and the reader will appreciate that...

Kevin's suggestions are excellent, especially the part about beginning with "Now would be a good time to explain how I shattered my lazy, arrogant life style." That would shift the entire focus of the essay to your moral development.