My family, The world I come from. MIT essay.

Help please! Tell me what do you think? Any suggestion is welcome.
Btw, some ideas are the same as in essays for other colleges, just in case you have read them.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs,school,community,city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?(*) (200-250 words)

Knock knock...
She ran in direction to the unknown man. As the postman left the envelope, he returned walking... it was a small city. The girl had lived there her whole life.

It was one where people can go walking almost everywhere, as she did to school. Predictably, her school was not very large; one of those where the teachers get very familiar with each person sitting in front of them when giving a class. This is how one of her teachers noticed her delight in Mathematics and led her to participate in the national Olympiad; then she was selected to participate in a Math program, which became an important part of her world. It gave her a lot of opportunities and shaped many of her aspirations; among those opportunities, the most exciting experience in her life: represent her country in international competitions. She became part of the history, a woman in Math competitions; besides that, they also brought her many remarkable moments. They were much more than the mere competitions: true friendship and cultural and scientific interchange define them as well. Diversity was a profit.

There she could compare her small country with many other high developed places. She understood the importance of sciences in the development of a society. She became aware of the necessities of her country, but also what it certainly has: people with capacity. She knew then what they have to do: believe in it, work for it.

Her dreams took a clear shape; she promised herself somehow she would contribute to make her country a better place.

I hope one day that girl who ran to receive the confirmation of acceptance from MIT will be me. That day, my dream will start to come true.

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About 291 words.
Is the word count a big deal? :S

Any comment or suggestion will be appreciated! :)
Thank you in advance! :)

I think you could leave out the parts where you only describe your surroundings and not how they influence you, such as when you talk about your parents and city.

I would focus on the parts where you talk about having a smaller school, being familiar with your teachers, and how they gave you opportunities to compete in math. That would make for a much nicer, focused essay. (:

Wait a minute, now, you're first paragraph is about 2 different ideas! One paragraph = one idea. Let that first paragraph give the essay's MAIN idea, and then write a thoughtful paragraph about the experience of growing up in a small town as it affects someone with your specific, unique aspirations.

Here is where your writing becomes excellent: one essay = one big idea, expressed in the first and last paragraphs, and supported by sub-ideas in the middle paragraphs.

Ok! I see your point!
I will work on this!
Really helpful, thanks a lot!
:)

While I think you have some good ideas, I think they could be organized a little bit better. Focus on one message that can run through your paper and contain everything you want to say.

I also wrote this topic , It is good and very convivial but however, I think that it would be better if you expand your dreams and aspiration by giving specific examples, it would touch to the administration officers :)

Thank you for your time and contributions.
Here is a new approach which have just come to my mind.
What do you think?

capitalize a subject only when it's a specific class, like Math 101. In this case, i believe it should be minuscule 'm'


same with all your other math's


yes, you might wanna shorten it to less than 250, it shows that you know how to confine yourself and follow instructions

overall, it's creative, but you don't really answer the prompt. It asks for how your world had shaped your aspiration and dreams, but you only vaguely mention that. You talked about the country part, yet what is the problem? If there are a lot of people with capacity, then why are you needed?

There's only 2 things i got out of your essay: you like math (and did a lot of things concerning it), and your country seemed underdeveloped.

Although these are very good points, I think you ought to give more details about yourself, and talk further about your country and how you will contribute will add more information about you.

For the word limit, i think you ought to take away anything that deviates from your main point.


if the door is closed, then how do you know it's the mailman?
I don't think you need the whole mailman thing as a start, directly say "it was a small city" seems more powerful and to the point.

you should rework the last sentence. I don't think that you should put MIT as the start of your dream, since you'd probably do fine anywhere and achieve your dream in any college. Rather, i think you should come up with a sentence that echoes with the whole "it was a small city" idea. Something like "a big dream". but talk about your dream!!!

Thank you so much for make me to hate my own essays and lead me to improve them! :)

I reworked on the prompt, and here is what I got. Once again, I will appreciate constructive criticals.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs,school,community,city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?(*) (200-250 words)

Children selling candies on streets, entire families sleeping under bridges affirm once again that El Salvador has the highest level of poverty in the region.

Is hard to see that a few hours of unceasing rain were enough to cause millions of damages to thousands of houses and to end with the lives of more than 180 salvadorans who had a common characteristic: they were poor. Against the nature we all are weak; but my country is weaker because is poor.

As a child, I didn't understand why I couldn't get the new Barbie in the market or why I had to reuse the last year sport shoes. Certainly, my family wasn't the poorest, but it was by no means wealthy. My parents have always ensured that anything we got was as a result of our own effort.

Later, knowing about the importance of effort encouraged me to travel two hours every Saturday to go to a national math program. Surprisingly I, the girl from an extremely small and modest school in the interior, was selected to represent my country in international competitions.

These experiences gave me a new vision of life. When standing on the stage, praising the seventh place we had gotten, I thought: I am here because I dreamt high, "the size of our dreams is the size of our achievements".

Now, I dream the biggest. I dream about the highest education, come back to my country and contribute somehow to make it a better place.

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249 words.
At least this time, I did it well with the number o words XD

Thank you for your time!

it's


why I couldn't get the latest Barbie doll (that saves you a couple of words!)


to reuse last year's sport shoes (what! you change your shoes every year? How is that poor? I suggest you come up with a better example of poverty lol)


not sure what you mean


Standing on the stage, being praised for the seventh place my team got, I...


this quote is awkward...you simply repeat what you wrote before. So I'd take the sentence "I am here because I dreamt high", or this one.


now, I dream being the greatest? what you have here doesn't make sense.


I suggest you take out the dream biggest part and simply put this:
Now, I dream about getting the highest education so that I could come back to my country and contribute (somehow? Say HOW!!! with my future math knowledge?) to make it a better place.

Overall, it's a completely different essay, and I do praise you for your persistence.

However, the theme of your new essay is unclear.
you first talk about poverty, then how hard work = compensation, then how you are influence by this philosophy and went all out for math, and finally, how you should dream big. Although it answers the prompt, I feel that it needs better connections between ideas.

Find your main point. Whether it's your dad's philosophy of hard work, or your view to dream big, you need to write the rest of your essay according to it. it just needs a few minor structural changes.

Hi Yang!
I really appreciate your thorough response. That's so nice of you!


I don't! It is just that as a child I got this stupid idea (I think from TV) that I must get new shoes each year to go to school.


How do you say when you live outside the capital city?


That's is my problem! I don't know how to make a better connection of ideas. :S Any suggestion?


I would say the main point is the view to dream big. That's is why I wrote "the size of our dreams is the size of our achievements"; to make emphasis on that.

Do you think the whole essay needs to be rewritten? :S

Again thank you so much! :)

sorry for the late response


rural? like countryside vs urban?


then, write your essay around it! instead of starting with the idea of how poor your country is, you could emphasize on the plight of your family and make it truly personal, then talk about how you got these dreams as a child, and how these dreams evolved as you grew and did all this stuff.

Ok yang!
Thanks a lot for your extremely helpfulfeedbacks!

Here it is the latest version. This is just about to be submitted because the deadline is soon!! Let me know if it needs further corrections! :)

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Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs,school,community,city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?(*) (200-250 words)

For many it may be an indistinguishable dot in the map, but for me is the greatest source of inspiration: El Salvador.

I grew up surrounded by images of poverty, unemployment, violence and natural disasters; but in the small world inside my head I wondered if someday my country would be better. I thought in one day being distinguished not for bad things, but for an economic vitality or a prominent tourism industry...

My family wasn't the poorest, but it was by no means wealthy. My parents have always ensured that anything we got was as a result of our own effort and with this they taught us that impossible is only what we do not try to make possible.

Bearing this in mind encouraged me to travel two hours every Saturday to go to a national math program. After a while, surprisingly I, the girl from an extremely small and not renowned school, was selected to represent my country in international competitions.

These experiences gave me a new vision of life. Standing on the stage, being praised for the seventh place my team got, I thought: I am here because I dreamt high.

Now, I dream about getting the highest education, come back to my country and contribute with my work to make possible the thought which as a child one day I had.

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Have a nice day! :)

the first part has a really awkward structure, do you mean "I hope that my country will one day associated not with bad things, but with an economic...?"


getting the highest education, coming back to my country, and contributing (parallel structure, and comma (',') before and.

Hope that you see these minor corrections in time. This essay is well written, and the reader feels your passion for your country as well as your dreams. good job!

THANK YOU SO MUCH YANG! YOU WERE A LOT OF HELP!

I DON'T KNOW IF IT IS APPROPIATE, BUT I WAS WONDERING IF MAYBE YOU COULD GIVE AN WAY TO TALK TO YOU IN PRIVATE SO THAT YOU CAN GIVE ME A FEEDBACK IN SOMETHING THAT I DON'T WANT TO POST HERE! IT IS URGENT!

IF IT SOUNDS INAPPROPIATE TO YOU, JUST FORGET IT, PLEASE!

THANK YOU!

Oh Yang! What a pity!
I couldn't sent you my essay last before the deadline! :(
It was very personal and I didn't want to post it here...
Well... anyway... THANK YOU SOOO MUUUCH FOR YOUR HELP!
Without you my essays would have been a disaster!
Now... I just have to wait for admissions decisions...

I wish you all the best! :)
Have a great day!

glad I could help, and I hope that you get accepted by MIT and your other schools!