Never judge anything by its appearance

Prompt: In an 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.

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When the volunteer coordinator assigned me to volunteer at the extended care section for seniors, I was disappointed. I wished to volunteer at the emergency room where all the excitement happens. At first, I thought taking care of senior patients seemed repetitious and interminable. Never judge anything by its appearance; I finally learned what the sentence truly means through my volunteer experience.

I did not like my job at the extended care section until I started volunteering. Patient's family members sent them to the extended care to ease care stress. Some family members choose not to visit the patients at all. Sally (not her real name), lives in the extended care section. Sally likes to sit beside the window and count the airplanes in the sky wishing to fly in one. Then I realized that I needed to pay more attention to Sally.

Unlike other patients in the hospital, Sally's family members rarely visit her. Volunteered in the hospital for over a year, I only saw Sally's family members visit her once. When other patients in the extended care section received flowers from their relatives or friends, Sally's face would become bittersweet. I felt heavyhearted every time seeing her depressed face. Therefore, I decided to entertain Sally more to make her joyful.

Every Sunday afternoon I would play games or read books to Sally. Sometimes when Sally tells me that she wants to go back home, I would take her on a walk in the hospital. During the walk, I would tell her to look at different pictures hanging on the wall to distract her from thinking about going back home. Gradually, as Sally thought less about going home , she started to smile and talk more often. I enjoyed playing games, reading books, and entertaining Sally. Seeing her become happier makes me realize that volunteering in the extended care section is not as boring and dull as I thought would be in the first place. The volunteer experience makes me feel that I accomplished something.

Volunteering at the extended care section seemed uninteresting and unexciting at first. However, the interesting experience and the delighted outcome were heart warming. Everyone needs care, giving cares to others is a kind way to benefit others. Sally's mood changed from a depressed and unhappy to loquacious and cheerful. It is altruistic to prejudge something without experiencing it. Never judge anything by its appearance.

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Please comment on it.
My essay has 415 words, please me on cutting it down to less than 300 words.
Thank you for reading it :D

Pretty good from what I read, sometimes it gets really random. You have to have some transitions, even if they're short. You can cut some of the more repetitive stuff out if you have some transitions. Good Luck!

You still say Sally way too much.

In hylacy's essay, hylacy repeats this name too much. Hylacy likes to do it.

Does that sound good?

Use other pronouns to replace Sally.

Altruistic? This word definitely does not belong. Please be careful of the vocab you choose. This one statement is enough to make me want to move on to the next essay.

You've got some good ideas here, especially the part about what you did with Sally. Nice touch. Try and make the rest of it resonate with that part.

Is it ok if I change that sentence to
" I feel so happy that I have helped someone . "

it is... wrong?... to prejudge something...

No, of course not. But it isn't altruistic. Altruistic means charitable and generous. Prejudging is usually associated with a lack of generosity and less than a charitable perspective.

Please believe me, vocabulary choice--every single word--is extremely critical in these essays. If I have 100 students to choose from, and all I have are their words, how will I decide? By the ones who know how to use language to communicate effectively. As it was, if this were one of those 100 essays, there would be 50 better.

I'm not being critical of you personally, hylacy. You just need to realize that you have a lot of competition, and even the smallest errors can send you and your essay straight to the slush pile.

You have great ideas. Just figure out a way to make this essay shine brightly so they won't be able to forget you.

Except for some minor grammatical mistakes, your paper looks great!

Thanks EF_Stephen for commenting on my thread.
so should I change altruistic to "wrong" ?

I think you can just say something like, "We sometimes miss important things about people when we prejudge them." Does that sound better?

I think your writing skills are very good.

i envy you.

I think you can just say something like, "We sometimes miss important things about people when we prejudge them." Does that sound better?

Thank you so much EF_Stephen!
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I did some editing on my last paragraph.
Please criticize it.
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Sally's mood changed from depressing and unhappy to loquacious and cheerful. Volunteering at the extended care section seemed uninteresting and unexciting at first. However, the interesting experiences and the delighted outcomes were heart warming. We sometimes miss important things about people when we prejudge them.

See? That sounds so much better and fits in better now with the rest of what you are saying.