Hi everyone! Please take a look at my supplemental essays for Conncoll. I really appreciate comments about grammar and word choice. Thank you all a lot.
1. What, in particular, influences your desire to attend Connecticut College?
Every hour, there are sixty minutes but each of those minutes is unique. Time is irreversible. And since I disbelieve in the next life, "to experience as much as possible" has become my lifetime purpose.
Throughout my seventeen years of life, I have seen a lot, felt a lot, and loved a lot. From the immense fields with carefree buffaloes to the grassy hills with nonchalant hawks, everything is beautiful and that beauty has motivated me to go out into the world. I want to see more, to feel more and to love more. So I desire to attend Connecticut College!
I have once sat on the bank of a pond, immersing my feet in the water while passionately discussing with my friends about the world economics. And now, I dream of the endless converstions at Concoll's Coffee Grounds with tasty drinks and sweet melodies. I have once wandered all around a submerged field with my classmates a summer noon, catching frogs for our following day's biology lesson. And today, I imagine myself at the new State-of-the-art Science Center, eagerly exploring the usage of an eye-catching equipment.
Everything at Conncoll, from the helpful MOBROC to the life-changing internships, promises me new lessons which are completely different for all what I have learnt before. I cannot wait to join a class discussion, where the 9:1 student-faculty ratio would acquaint me with each of my classmates' stories. And I am eager to learn how surprising it is, dropping by the Sprout weekly and finding out the leaves on my plants has become greener and bigger.
I want to go to Connecticut College so that someday, when the last moment of my life comes, I can proudly tell it: I have lived all my life.
2. Tell us about your favorite place and why it holds special meaning to you. It can be close to home or on another continent, your kitchen or a mountaintop.
* Explanation:
+ Ban chung is a traditional Vietnamese rice cake which is made from glutinous rice, mug bean, pork and other ingredients.
+ Tet holiday is the Vietnamese New Year holiday (in lunar calendar).
When I am writing this essay, Tet is coming and the spring winds are starting to draw in my mind the incredible beauty of those square rice cakes. As an unchangeable truth, I love wrapping banh chungs and I love the boiling process, during the twelve hours of which I would be attached to my little garden corner.
Regularly putting firewood into the fire has every reason to be called a dull task. But to me, in that tiny space, my day is not simply engaged with a boring job. In the morning, I am never off-duty, having to maintain and start the fire over and over again, feeling smoke stinging my eyes and heat burning my vulnerable face. In the afternoon, the fire gets stronger and I would have a warm, enjoy my books while inattentionally hearing my mom reminding me not to let the cakes overdone. And at night, I find it interesting putting everything I can into the fire, expecting an unexpected reaction.
Inside my heart, that messy garden corner is not trees, flowers nor garden-stuff. It is also not fresh air or lovely faint winds. It is the unforgetable atmosphere of my every Tet holiday. It is something that cannot be mixed up with anything else. Something flows in every blood vessels of my body - the Vietnamese tradition!
Not only in the big cities, but also right in my place nowadays, when I ask, my friends are no longer able to tell me their special knowledge about how to make a banh chung. I am aware that it is a decided trend. But personally, I promise my "prospective children" that in the future, they would still have a garden corner to describe in their college essays.
Hello,
I only had a chance to review your first essay and it is in really bad shape. Not only does it not make any sense, but also, it is fraught with poor grammar and content that is absolute nonsense. You do not mention anything unique to CC college and just ramble from one topic to the next. What this essay wants from you is a sense that you have fully researched the institution and the resources they have to offer. It should be your goal in this essay to display this knowledge as well as to give the admissions committee a sense that you know exactly how you wish to utilize the resources of the college to help you achieve your future goals. We can help.
Hope this helps
Any other idea, please...
No one? T_T Deadline is coming...
This is the last time I ask, anyone please??? =))
Gotta agree with admission2012 on some points - your first essay doesn't answer the prompt, they really want to see you have knowledge about the school and its programs. If you have an alumni in the family that also like that to be mentioned - the continuation of "the legacy' sort of thing. I would also advise against the inclusion of your religious belief, because agnosticism/atheism doesn't usually sit well with the older crowd who is reviewing your essay. I would suggest a total rewrite.
Lots of grammar mistakes - you used "but" and "and" at the beginning of sentences way too much. It was also hard to follow. Your concept isn't bad but I would suggest a total rewrite - you didn't talk about a place, you talked about a holiday. Once you've rewritten it, send it to a friend and have them read it out loud so you can fix the mistakes together. Also, never acknowledge in the essay that your writing an essay
The first essay is a little odd because you seem to say that by attending Connecticut College, you have lived your whole life, which is odd because you would most likely be there for 4 years and you are there when you're young. I'm also not sure how what you liked about the Conncoll allows you to live all your life. I dunno, just me.
There are also some grammatical errors.
In the second essay, "feeling smoke stinging my eyes and heat burning my vulnerable face" seems out of place because this gives a negative connotation when you're supposed to be describing something positive (maybe you like feeling smoke stinging your eyes and heat burning your face, but if you do, then I think you should make that clear). Also, I don't think that inattentionally is a word, and I googled it too. I kind of know what you mean, but I can't think of the word right now.
"expecting an unexpected reaction" is a little weird for me, and I had to read it a couple times to understand what you were trying to say...
The last paragraph is weird too, especially the first sentence. What is your "place"? Is it the garden corner? I didn't think it was your garden corner since it seems like you're alone in your corner. What is a decided trend? Is it baking banh chung? Why would it be a decided trend? I don't think you should mention that, at the end, you should mention having a garden corner for college essays because it seems like you're trying to set up their life to get into college. I would say that you want them to have a garden corner to call their own for the experience of having one.
Hope I helped, and I hope you don't get offended from this response; I'm not trying to be mean. Also, take this response with a grain of salt because I don't really know what Conncoll is looking for, and what I think might be the opposite of what many others will think. I hope this makes sense...
Hm, seems sad, doesn't it.
But can you guys suggest me some ways to rewrite the second one? How can I describe a place and its meaning without mentioning what I do there, when I do those things and what those things mean to me? I don't think that describing how the place appears is what CC wants.
About the first essay, I have mentioned many unique aspects of the school indeed: Coffee Grounds, Off-Campus programs, 9:1 student- falculty ratio, Sprout, State-of the-art Science Center, MOBROC... I don't understand why you say I didn't mention anything. T_T
And, this is not a point here, but I hope that your guys were not influenced by admission2012. He is an advertiser and he negatively citicises every essay he choose. I have checked his profile, already.
Thank you alot for pointing out my grammar mistakes. It certainly helps. But deadline is coming so a rewrite is impossible to me. I just want to know how to fix my errors.
Thank you again! And go on helping me, please. ^^
