My freshman year as a member of the class of 2019 - VCU Essay

Prompt: As you start your college career, what is your primary goal as a student and how have you prepared to meet this goal, how do you plan to succeed, how do you feel you will do at VCU

As I potentially begin my freshman year as a member of the class of 2019, I aim to obtain a degree in Clinical Laboratory Sciences. VCU is a strong candidate in furthering undergraduate education because of the School of Allied Health Professions. This offers me a strong foundation to start my career in the medical field and learn as much as I can before I begin medical school four years from now. This school also has a wide range of specialties, many of which aren't available anywhere else in the state. This would help broaden my horizons when it comes to the medical field because, as a high school student, there is so much left for me to learn. As well as the broad specialization that the School of Allied Health Professions offers, VCU also has the ability to help me succeed by offering the Guaranteed Admissions program to the VCU Medical Center. This would allow me to become familiar with the award-winning VCU Medical Center and potentially set myself up to obtain a job there in the future. Having the Guaranteed Admissions program as an option would help my future move in the right direction. As well as the impressive aspects of the VCU I mentioned above, there is also an extensive amount of research opportunities available to me at VCU which can help further my medical knowledge. This department of research would allow me to learn hands-on, rather than just in the classroom.

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Lauren, double check the prompt. The VCU is not asking you how you plan to succeed in your classes at the university.You are being asked about the reason that you ended up choosing this particular major. What were your interests in line with the field and how did you further deepen your involvement in the activities related to it? The prompt is asking you to lay out the previous movements or activities that you have undertaken in preparation for your college major. This will include your extra curricular activities, seminars attended, internships, and other undertakings that prove the strong interest that you have in your chosen field of study. Remember, state your goal first, which is not merely to graduate, but to say, have a private practice in the future, then explain how you have prepared yourself for the college classes. If you took AP or college credit courses in the past, those are worthy of a notable mention. Try to revise the essay along those lines if you can and we will try to help you polish it if necessary. Don't be afraid to ask questions if you are unclear about something in the prompt as well.

I rewrote it using what you said! If you could revise it once more, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you so much, you've been such a great help!

- What courses are these and how are these courses relevant to your chosen major? Don't enumerate all of the courses. Just mention the ones that have some sort of connection with your chosen major and quickly discuss it.


- How did you manage to do that? What seminars did you attend? Any internships or shadowing?

Lauren, let me jump in at this point to tell you that your essay speaks too much in general terms and very little in the specific terms that you should be presenting in this essay. You need to remedy that mistake by presenting the actual courses you took instead of mentioning non-related AP classes.


- Do you have any volunteer experience that exposed you to cases that further fueled your desire to study this particular field of medical science? Present it and discuss it as an important and integral factor in your decision to enter this field.

You forgot to answer an important question. Owing to your previous experiences, how will those experiences help you do well at VCU? Remember the last prompt? How do you feel you will do at VCU? You haven't answered that question yet :-)

Lauren, there is a lot of redundancy towards the end of the essay because you mention VCU so often. You could actually mention the university once or twice and then use alternate terms for college and university afterwards. Just to remove the repetitiveness of the term in the paragraph. That said, you definitely managed to insert the answer to the last prompt quite properly and fast :-) I believe the essay is ready for you to use now. What do you think? We will always go with how you feel about the status of the statement or essay because it is your confidence in your work that matters here and makes the essay finally ready for submission :-) Shall we go for it? What do you say? Let me know if you still want to work further on the statement. I'm always here to help :-)