"My Hidden Treasure" - University of Illinois Essay

prompt-essay of 300 words or less, choose one extracurricular activity, work experience, or community service project from the list you provided on the application and explain why you initially chose it, why you continued with it, and how you benefited from it.

My Hidden Treasure

The famous author, Mark Twain once said, "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure". I "dug up" Young Life in the summer of 2007, before I became a sophomore in high school. Growing up a Catholic in Naperville, Illinois brought me through the first chapters of becoming an individual, but my recent participation in Young Life, a non-denominational Christian youth group for teens, truly motivated me to put effort into becoming a man of respect and moral fortitude.

I truly learned who my group leader, Rob Hankins, and who my closest friends really are during the Young Life camp last summer by listening to their inputs on subjects young people struggle with. The greatest aspect of selflessness I learned during these discussions was that no one will ever understand their impact on others until "they walk in their (others) shoes". Experiencing things like para sailing and obstacle courses while at the same time learning about my relationship with God and others made it easy for someone my age to realize the potential we have in becoming a part of today's society.

However, there is more to Young Life than just camp. There are service projects and yard sales that the teenagers take part in as well as weekly meetings. Throughout each school year, leaders bond with us and learn who we are, so that they can help us to mature both as Christians and adolescents. Listening to the personal experiences of others helped me to appreciate life and teaches me that as one person out of six billion in the world, I have the ability to "dig up my own hidden treasure" and impact society and the environment around me.

Suggestions?

However, there's more to Young Life than just camp, there's service projects and yard sales that the teenagers take part in as well as weekly meetings.

This is a comma splice -- two complete sentences spliced together with a comma rather than separated with a period or properly joined with a semi-colon. To fix the punctuation, replace the comma after "just camp" with either a semi-colon or a period. (I'd choose a period.) However, you're still left with the problem of weak verbs. I like the "there's more to Young Life than..." as this plays on the common phrase "there's more to life than..." but the rest needs to be strengthened. I'd suggest:

However, there's more to Young Life than just camp. Participants volunteer with service projects, stage yard sales, and attend weekly meetings.

Here are a few quick thoughts:

Capitalize Catholic and God.

Put the period on the inside of the quotation marks (you have tucked one in, but there's another outside of the quotation marks).

. . . before I became a sophomore in high school . . . this feels a little awkward to me. Maybe reword it to something like: the summer before my sophomore year. If you are applying for college, they can safely assume that you have only had one summer before one sophomore year and that was in high school.

has taught me a lot of important values . . . getting rid of the word has strengthens the verb while omitting a lot of tightens things up. A lot of is vague and doesn't add anything to the sentence.

Tr ying things

there'sare service projects (but Simone
's fix is better).


This is one of sentences that Simone was talking about with weak verbs. You also have some issues here with the first part of the sentence not being tied to the rest of the sentence. It needs some rewriting.


You repeat "get to know." I am not crazy about this sentence, but I am not sure how I would change it at this point either.


This sentence has quite a few extraneous words in it. Try something like: Listening to the personal experiences of others helps me to appreciate life and teaches me that as one person out of six billion in the world, I have the ability to "dig up my own hidden treasure" and impact society and the environment around me.

Here's a shot at fixing one of the sentences Notoman flagged:

Throughout each school year, leaders bond with us and learn who we are, so that they can help us to mature both as Christians and adolescents.

This is actually a guess at what you mean, since the original phrasing was unclear in addition to being wordy and vague.

The famous author, Mark Twain once said, "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure." I "dug up" Young Life in the summer of 2007, before I became a sophomore in high school.

^would it not be possibly to switch the two clauses around. Then 'I' can become the direct object as well..
(I am not sure if the correct word is direct object or subject...)

Growing up a catholic in Naperville, Illinois has taught me a lot of important values, but my recent participation in Young Life truly motivated me to put effort into becoming a man of respect and moral fortitude.

^You can omit 'growing up'.
-important values sounds a bit vague. Expand on these. Important values are debatable because they can differ from person to person.
-You can also remove the comma and the 'but', and start a new sentence., however then you would have to say 'has truly motivated'
-put *an effort
-of moral fortitude and worthy of respect.*

I really got to know my group leader, Rob Hankins, and truly got to know who my friends are during the Young Life summer camp last summer.

The greatest aspect of selflessness I learned at camp was that no one will ever understand their impact on others until "they walk in their shoes".

^walk in their own shoes or other people's? Not clear...

Tying things like parasailing and obstacle courses to learning about my relationship with god,
^Respect God. He deserves a capital letter.

and others made it easy for someone my age to realize the potential they have in becoming a part of today's society.
^revise this sentence.

However, there's more to Young Life than just camp, there's service projects and yard sales that the teenagers take part in as well as weekly meetings.

^Seperate the two clauses with a full stop rather than with a comma.

Throughout each school year, leaders get to know teenagers at a more personal level to get to know who we are and help us to mature both as Christians and simply adolescents.

^And get to know...*

Listening to thepersonal experiences from both people that I know and people that I have yet to really meet help me to appreciate what I am given and teaches me that even though I am one out of six billion people in the world, I have the ability to "dig up my own hidden treasure" be making an impact on the society and environment around me.

^Too long such that the sentence structure has become rather clumsy, therefore the meaning has become unclear.
Revise and rephrase it.

Suggestions?

Liebe makes an interesting point -- you might want to specify your values, and how exactly your camp experience shaped them. At the moment, you talk in very general terms, which makes the essay less interesting than it could be.

Thanks for all the help guys, here's a revised copy so far, (i know I'm going to try and make it a bit more specific).

Take out every instance of "truly" and "really."

Followed shortly thereafter by "there is" and "there are," though this will require some rephrasing rather than simple deletions.