MIT essay. A time you used your creativity.

I'm an international student. Thank you for your help.

Prompt: Tell us about a time you used your creativity. This could be something you made, a project that you led, an idea that you came up with, or pretty much anything else. (*) (200-250 words)

When I was 8, the most favorite game in my place was playing with paper toys. All children in my neighborhood knew the way to make toys from characters in many manga books we read. We use a carbon paper to copy images of the characters into a blank sheet. After pasting the sheet onto a piece of cardboard, we cut the images out. In this way, we could create many heroes from Dragon Balls or monsters from YuGiOh. However, since the toys were 2D models, they could only look at a fixed direction, making the game awkward. For example, if a character was facing left and we wanted him to run right, we could not turn him around but let him run backward!

That problem was hard to deal with. There was a long time when we used to laboriously draw reversed images on the other side of the toys by our pen (we could not use carbon paper because it could only make the same images which have no use in this case). This method was also inconvenient and difficult for people who did not have any painting ability like me.

Finally, one day while copying a dragon from a book, a question popped up in my mind: why did the image form only on the underlying sheet rather than on the book? Then I found that the carbon paper had something like ink on only one side and by this notice, I could use it to create a reversed image even simultaneously with the copy. I put below the page of the book a carbon paper following by two blank sheets. And below these blank sheets I put another carbon paper so that the "ink" side of it facing the sheets. As a result, I had one copy on the above sheet and the reserved version of it on the below sheet.

Though I made many things later and this method may seem trivial to someone, I always consider it my first discovery. And it is the most memorable because it was the first time I could contribute something significant to our activities and see the children in my neighborhood joyfully spread it while talking to each other:"Son found the new method".

PS:Son is my name.
375words, I am so worried about that

maybe a more catchy start?


i have no idea what you're talking about here. maybe too much encumbering details?

yea, 375 is not ok. you need to cut it to 250 below

i had a lot of trouble with this topic. It's really hard to capture something significant dealing with creativity in 250 words. However, I do think that you should think harder and come up with something more...impressive. I wrote the topic 5 essay (greatest challenge) on PSAT test and my teacher said: it's well written, but I don't feel that MIT would get impressed...

on the second thought, I wouldn't call your project trite, as it's unique and special to you, but if you were to stick with it, cut down the really complicated details about the origami process and focus more on the inner part. i just don't think that mit cares that much about the process of folding a paper. Maybe be more abstract and "sound" like it's a big discovery, if you know what i mean.

Thank you.
I think I need to write another one.

good luck, if this makes you feel better, this was my weakest essay and i absolutely hated it...but really couldn't find anything better than talking about this internship i did at a lab. the problem is that mit kids r mostly GENIUSES. they've done pretty amazing things even before getting in, so how exactly r we supposed to write on a topic that surpasses that?

I don't think MIT require a kid to make a machine or sth like that. Dont worry. In this essay I think commitment and passion are not less important than intelligence.

I decide to write again just because it is so obscure that readers can not understand my technique. I will made it clearer and easier to follow or maybe choose a new topic, if I cannot.

Thank you.

yea, i guess so, but still...it's MIT, and the kids who can make machines will most likely write essays that show commitment and passion...o well, it's not like i can change anything at this point.

Do you want to use a dash in this sentence? Like this:
This method was also inconvenient and difficult for people like me -- who did not have any painting ability. like me.
I like it that way.

Don't write most favorite. "Favorite" means "most preferred" already.
It would be this:
When I was 8, the most favorite game in my place was playing with paper toys.

However, you should cut out some unnecessary sentences to make it shorter:
When I was 8, [s.. my friends and I could create many heroes from Dragon Balls or monsters from YuGiOh. However, since the...

this last sentence seems awkward to me because it looks like something kids don't actually say.
Other than that, focus more on your creativity, not the way the carbon paper blah blah works.

Please read my essay if you have time: