I need my common application essay to be critiqued! Please be honest, and let me know if you would like me to return the favor! Additionally, I'm not just looking for grammatical errors, if you think I could use more paragraph hooks or if the essay does not flow well just let me know!
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
"So... can I speak to the owner?"
I hear this every day, however, I always reply with the same answer: "You're looking
at him!" Skepticism always encompasses their faces, but I guess I should learn to expect that. I
mean, how many teenagers own companies?
It was the summer of 2010 and I told my family and friends that I was going to start a
business, with my buddy. Skepticism encompassed their faces too: "Are you crazy? Do you
know how much work it will take?" I guess I can understand why they were surprised. I was a 15
year old with no work experience, no passions, and mediocre grades.
My buddy, Kaleb, and I went to the Petoskey News Review to purchase an
advertisement for $350.00, which was nearly all our capital, and decided to name our business
ComputaCure. Within a few weeks we had completed 25 on-site computer repair jobs and
by July 2010 we had a prime retail location. ComputaCure was a microcosm of startups:
idiosyncratic and unorthodox. While fixing computers Kaleb and I would sing all day, however,
as we expended change came quickly. Once we got a contract with Meijer, a billion dollar
grocery store chain, everything started to change. We hired an intern... and my Grandma.
Our "singing parties" were replaced by quasi-board meetings and within a year ComputaCure's
revenues exceeded $100,000 annually.
It seems now as if ComputaCure has become part of my daily life and identity. Luckily,
my life metamorphoses daily: virus removal, programming, networking, accounting, and
marketing are just some of the tasks I preform.
Even though I enjoy the money I make, the emotions and sense of responsibility are most
important to me. The emotions are analogous to a high; whenever I fix a computer or satisfy my
customer I get a certain rush, unique to entrepreneurs. The money I make allows me to buy toys
and invest in stocks and options, but more importantly than material objects, the money produces
a sense of responsibility to my customers and company. I am responsible for fixing computers
360 days a year with 60 to 70 hour work weeks in the summer.
Looking back, ComputaCure has had a profound effect on me as a student, person, and
entrepreneur. Prior to Computacure I was apathetic towards school; I didn't see the point in
learning "worthless information inapplicable to life", however, ComputaCure has showed me
that the knowledge we learn in school is relevant. Additionally, ComputaCure has forced me to
come out of my shell. I've always faced social anxiety, however, ComputaCure forced me to
communicate with strangers, and in doing so it transformed me from a social outcast to my
school's homecoming king. Finally, ComputaCure has given me the gumption to create ideas
and run with them. Thanks to ComputaCure I am now a true serial entrepreneur.
I think that the fact that you started your own business at fifteen will impress any admissions officer no matter what your essay looks like, but here are my suggestions:
I was a 15 year old with no work experience, no passions, and mediocre grades.
fifteen-year-old
ComputaCure was a microcosm of startups:
idiosyncratic and unorthodox . While fixing computers Kaleb and I would sing all day, however,
as we expended change came quickly.
These sentences sound kind of awkward and out of place, like you used a thesaurus or something.
Luckily,
my life metamorphoses daily. metamorphoses doesn't sound exactly like the right word.
Even though I enjoy the money I make, the emotions and sense of responsibility are most
important to me. The emotions are analogous to a high.
Describe the emotions, don't just say you have them.
allows me to buy toys
and invest in stocks and options,
I would take out some of the more unnecessary details in the middle and elaborate more on what you touched on in the last paragraph because that part was the most interesting to me. Good luck, you have a really cool story!
