Common App Extracurricular Short Answer - Rowing

Please have a look at what I came up with. Comment honestly and helpfully :)

On a dark winter's evening, [my high school's name] Boat Club witnessed an unfamiliar figure making it's way into the training room. Eye-brows were raised, crew stretching halted, there were grins of contempt. "You're not starting now, are you?". The prospect, self confident and assertive, answered "Yeah, I thought I'll give it a go". Over the next seven months, eye-brows continued to be raised as records were hit and oarsmen were beaten.

It's September. I glance upon the tasks that lay ahead of me: admission to my sought-after college, academic assignments, leading the Economics Society and my new role as Captain of Boats. The latter task calls for a leader, role-model and key athlete. My recent inheritance of power and authority demands for an equal measure of responsibility and maturity, both of which are weaved into my personality. I did not give up becoming who I am today. If my followers adopt my worth ethic and perseverance, there will be no limits to what we, as a rowing club, can achieve.

Hope it's good!

My College List:
Penn (Wharton), Brown, Cornell, BU, NYU, Northeastern, Harvard, Stanford.

You sound like someone I would NOT want to hang out with. Be less arrogant. If those are the top four "tasks that lay ahead" of you, you should probably not be going to these schools.

So do you reckon I should just talk plainly about Crew as if I'm telling a story?
I'm trying to make this stand out- Any suggestions?

Are you a senior btw?

I agree with voteforandy - you sound like an asshole. "My recent inheritance of power and authority demands for an equal measure of responsibility and maturity, both of which are weaved into my personality" You may be trying to show your qualities, but you're doing it wrong. Show them how you are responsible and mature. Was there a conflict within the team and you were the guy who stepped in and fixed it? Did you bring a new work ethic to the team? How did you manage to break those records you mention?

Don't mention that you have college apps on your mind, adcoms hear it in every other essay.

Your first few sentences are good, expand on how you worked hard to prove all those naysayers wrong. You just kind of jump to an unorganized stream of consciousness in your second paragraph. Try to focus on something specific about rowing.

Good luck.

"My recent inheritance of power and authority demands for an equal measure of responsibility and maturity, both of which are weaved into my personality.

Rather than saying "inheritance of power and authority", which gives the image of you being the son of a tyrannical king, say something along these lines: "I have been given the duty to lead... etcetc."

It took me a while to realize what your first stanza was even about. I thought someone was getting beaten up for a while, especially when you mentioned things like dark winter's night and unfamiliar figure--both things that connotate darkness. You might want to try making it more clear that the prospect was you starting Crew.


its*, but if you're mentioning a particular person of a gender, you should probably use he or she.


eyebrows


The whole sentence feels like a run-on. You might want to say something about how there were grins of contempt on the members' faces as they looked at you or something because it feels awkward.


Take out the period, it's unnecessary. You should refer to what you're starting, specifically. Just because you mention Boat Club once does not mean people will know what "starting" is going to actually take action as.


Punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks.