'Continuation of family legacy' - AUC, American University Of Cairo

Hello, I'm applying for AUC and they require 200 - 600 word essay asking you "why you want to join AUC?"

Greetings staff of AUC! I would like to introduce myself, I'm Islam Torky. I'm a student in Modern American Schools Of Egypt, this is my last year within this school I feel sad for leaving it but happy at the same time that I am moving on. I have two siblings, my brother who is a Civil Engineer who is about to finish his Masters Degree, and a sister who is a Architecture Engineer, but is starting her Masters Degree. My father is also an Engineer, a civil Engineer to be specific, and my mother is an Electrical Engineer. As you have just read my whole family are engineers, so it would only be right if I too became an Engineer. I also wish to become an Engineer like my siblings and parents, and I would especially like to become a student in the American University in Cairo. But, all that is judged by the staff reviewing my application deeming me worthy or not.

First of all my main reason to becoming an Engineer is to continue the legacy similar to my family. Without meeting me you would assume that I'm being forced into Engineering, but that is completely and utterly wrong. I've always loved studying and solving math, and physics. Learning new things within both subjects makes me feel educated and well informed. I have a knack for electricity and thermodynamics, ever since Mr. Osama a fellow teacher within MSE started teaching us new things regarding it I have gotten superb grades in Physics and Mechanics. This not only gave me knowledge about how electricity works, but also has helped me in real life problems. For example when it's okay to touch a circuit and when it is not, I do not want to go into details regarding this topic since I'm limited to a certain amount of words.

All in all, I would like to join AUC for its prestige education, and its wide known reputation as being one of the best universities in Egypt. I'm sure that if I became one of the students I will be one of the most dedicated and hard working students within the university. Determined, dedicated, hard working, and committed are going to be my main characteristics the moment I become a student within AUC.

Hi, islamtorky. I like the upbeat vibe I get from your essay - it'll put a smile on the admission officers' faces, I bet!

Your essay hits all the right points, but I noticed that most of it is devoted to why you want to be an engineer rather than why you want to pursue your engineering education at AUC. Remember that there are lots of places to get an engineering degree. They want to hear why you want to get your engineering degree there.

I think if I was writing this essay, I'd start off the way you did, discussing why you want to be an engineer. I'd probably leave out most or all of the information about your family, and focus on why you personally like engineering and feel like you'll be good at it (you did a great job of talking about that in the last two sentences of the essay.)

That would then leave enough words to expand on what it is you like about AUC specifically. You mentioned that its reputation is impressive - perhaps you could mention that going to such a prestigious institution could help "open doors" for you later in life - sometimes, special opportunities are only available to people who attend prestigious institutions. Or even better, expand on why the institution has such a great reputation in the first place - is it the quality of the teachers, the scale of the classes, special learning opportunities?

If you are happy with the structure of the essay as is, I can instead try to help you edit the word choice and grammar.

Hope that helped!