'my parents are Danish' - essay

So I've been working on the first draft of my college essay that needs to be turned in asap, I can't seem to figure out if it's good, bad or just intermediate!

It's 589 words long, so it needs to be shortened as well..

Let me know what you guys think. Comment comment comment plz! And I you feel like something could be left out, let me know!

My family is a complicated case. Both my parents are Danish, but split up when I was 3 years old and have by now both different people in their lives. I have lived in Denmark my entire life and with divorced parents it was something like one week with my dad and one week with my mom. Complicated as it can be.

None of my parents were wealthy or anything remotely close to that, they were both happy middle-class people. My mother was a Nurse and had three kids she needed to provide for: my older brother, younger brother and me. She even put all of us through private school, which meant we did not have much money to spent on pleasure and we couldn't even afford a car (luckily we each had a bike that could take us anywhere anytime, almost). This not having a car, as a kid, in a private school, where all of your friend's parents had a car - or even two, could get slightly embarrassing. I guess this is why we in our family always have been dreamers.

But why is it we always dream of something different and better, instead of just accepting the life we are giving? In my opinion, what we dream of and strive towards is what makes us different from everyone else.

When I was about ten years old my mom met this American man. They started talking and felt a connection right away. He went back to the US and they started writing letters (that's right, 10 years ago people still wrote letters to one another). Letters evolved into phone calls and phone calls evolved into visiting and then more letters, more phone calls, then e-mails and then more visiting and suddenly they had been having a long-distance relationship for about 8 years. The relationship got more and more serious for every year that went by, but as my brother and I were still in school and both had our fathers in Denmark, it was difficult for my mother to pursue her dream of moving to the US to be with the man she loved.

But when I was close to turning 18, she decided it was time. My mother's decision put me in a huge dilemma. Should I stay in Denmark? With all my friends, my boyfriend and where I was able to finish my secondary education or should I go to the US, the country I had dreamed of moving to since I started watching American TV-shows. Well, I ended up kind of going.

My mom sold our house in Denmark, but because of VISA and everything else that needed to be done, we couldn't move to the US right away and as we no longer had a house to live in we ended up renting a beautiful condo in Costa Rica. We spent 2,5 months in Costa Rica. A crazy adventure, I would not ever have been without, but when the time came for us to go to the US I couldn't. I was not ready. I was missing everything back home badly and needed to go back.

The next 2,5 years I spent in Denmark and travelling around the world. Travelling is such a big part of me and now I have ended up in California working as an Au Pair. I absolutely love it here and I would feel so blessed to go to College here and be closer to my family, which I love more than anything else in the world

Sounds great, and ideas to what i could delete or need to change or sth?
I'll take a look at yours :-)

What's the prompt? Is this for the common app?

I think this essay shows that family is very important to you.
In the beginning you mentioned that you're a family of dreamers. You should elaborate on that.
The last paragraph is random. Instead of wrapping things up, it suddenly mentions a new topic "I love to travel".

Overall, it sounds like a list of events of you growing up. I think it's too unfocused and you'd be better off picking one aspect. Let it be traveling, the decision of whether or not staying in Denmark, how living with divorced parents effected you, etc.

Hope that helped. Good lucks.

Yeah it's for the common app.

I was actually thinking that as well, I doesnt sound good with the ending. Any advise on how to move forward and wrap up the essay in a different way?

In my opinion, the opening is fine. You mentioned how your parents are divorced. And how your mom works hard to support you guys. Then you mentions how it's a lil embarrassing to not have cars in a rich private school environment. That's you're a family of dreamers.

I think that's a perfect opening for you to go in-depth about how this living situation has effected you. And how is your family dreamers.

Instead I feel like you just dropped it completely and jumped to your mom's new relationship. Then it leads to moving and traveling to new places.

My suggestion is if you want to describe your experience of living in different countries, put less attention on your family&&money situation. Though I think it's a much stronger essay if you talked about what I said above.

((I hope I don't sound rude, I just think that straight out honest feedbacks are the most helpful, esp since we're so close to the deadline haha))

I'm grateful for your honesty! I need it! So what your saying is that you Think i should cut off everything about money and traveling and go with family and that we are a family of dreamers? My reason for bringing up my moms relationship was that her dream actually came through, should I use that in a different way or sth?

The money situation is good I think, since you suggested that it was the thing that showed that your family are dreamers and how it didn't stop you guys from achieving your dream.

About your mom's part, I think you can leave the part about moving to US to be with her love since you said it was her dream, but not as much details about her. Instead maybe you can write about how her actions/decision has influenced you in pursuing/realizing your dreams? The focus should be on you/your developments.

And I find the details of the last two paragraphs a little unnecessary to the overall idea(about the apartment, comment about how costa rica is a great adventure. how you're not ready.etc) So I'd cut that out.

To wrap it up, I think it works to say that you feel blessed to attend school here where you are close to your family.

&&I hate to ask, but could you please help me with mine?

Great thank you so much!
I will try the work it out later and submit a second draft here..
Of course I will, I am at work right now, so when I get a spare moment I'll check it out and see if I can come up with anything helpful

i think lt has appropirate legnth.many people will check grammar.so its fine in my opinion

Some things:
-I see a lot about your family in Denmark, but I don't see you. How has Denmark influence you? What did your parent's divorce teach you? What did your mother teach you and how did you apply it in school or your community? What did having ten jobs teach you? Colleges want to know about you, not your family.

-Take out any contractions (wasn't, don't...etc). They aren't professional.

-Take out the "I guess" and "as you can probably tell."

-Use a variety vocabulary to add some *pizazz*.

-Organize your essay. And make the paragraphs flow with each other.

I'm sorry if this means you need to rewrite the whole thing, but trust me, it will be worth it once you get accepted!

No thank you, I need the honesty! I'll work on it, thanks for the great advice!!

Common App Essays, help needed for editing and choosing!!

I have written two essays, don't know which one to use for my common app essay, which one is best?? I am sending in applications for the 1st of Jan, so I really need your help!! I need them edited as well as I will use both of them some where as an answer!

Please read and review honestly, thanks!

First essay: (552 words!!)

"Does anyone want to answer the next question? Laerke how about you?" This used to be my worst thinkable scenario. In elementary school I was the little, blond, shy girl in my class.

I never really participated in discussions and I was never the one to race my finger to answer the teacher's question or share my opinion. Not because I desired otherwise, as a matter of fact, I wished for nothing else than to be successful in school. I wanted to be head of the class, leader of the group. Unfortunately my insecurity, my thoughts of not being good or smart enough made me hide in the shadow and not get the acknowledgment I was good for.

By the time of 7th grade my best friend and I started growing a part. This was the beginning of a whole new chapter for me. I started hanging out with the girls in my class that was unmistakably judged as geeks.

Instantly my grades started racing. My insecurity was still there, but by my new friends in class I was encouraged to race my hand and to speak up.

At the time I started secondary school I was 15 years old. I was so excited, I got to start in a new class, were no one knew me, a fresh start I thought!

As nothing never really turns out the way you saw it go down, I did not end up being one of the leaders in class, as I desired to. We were around 32 people in my new class. More than half of them were over 18 years old and some even older. Once again I saw myself hiding out in class, my grades started declining again, and I felt awful.

In the summer after my second year my entire life changed. My family was moving to the US, as my mother was getting married to an American man. At first I was ready to go away with her. I did not do that great in school anyway I thought. So I dropped out of school and was ready to start my new life once again.

I used to think running away from my problems could solve them. I thought I could just show up and start being another person, or be the person I wanted to be. Unfortunately life does not work that way - I know that now.

So I ended up changing my mind about moving and I was too late for going back to school that year, so I took a year off school.

I travelled around the world, lived in Costa Rica and Bulgaria where I worked with a bunch of other young people, I lived by my own in Denmark, had a full-time job, had responsibilities like a grown-up and that is what I did I grew up.

When I went back to school on my third year, I finally had the confidence to really speak up in class. Suddenly, I was the older and wiser and my classmates looked up to me. I finally learned how to be the person I wanted to be. I got confident and secure, and I learned how to rest within myself.

As the Dane Soren Kierkegaard
once said: "Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward".

Can you please write the prompts. I would be able to better comment on it. If I got to know what you are answering. Please write the prompts and I'll let you know, how is it.

Judging from the contents of your two essays, I guess that the first essay is the topic 1 and second one is the topic 3 in the CommonApp, right? If that the case, please consider some of my opinions.

1st of all, your essays are full of digression. Whether you choose an experience or a person, stick solely to it. When I read your essay, they feel like a summary of your life. For example,

1. Talking about a gap year is a broad topic. You should narrow it down mercilessly. You can talk about a specific lesson you've learned from that gap year. For example, how you obtain the courage to show your knowledge and escape from your own shadow, blah, blah,... You can make a comparison between you before and after that gap year in a specific area (such as courage to speak out your opinion like in your essay) but make that a mere reference, don't focus too much on it, you will be distracted.

2. About your mother, you should not be too detailed about your family situation, just mention it a little bit, OK? Because your focus is the MOTHER, stick to it. You may write about a specific moment while you find life is really hard and how your mother overcame it. Mention some images, like describe how your mother looks tired after a long working day to make money for her three children. Or describe how your mother pursuit her dream, how she made plan to marry that American guy. If available, talk about how they relationship goes, but just a little bit (if you really want to mention that thing in your essay)

Here is just my opinion. Since it is also my first time applying to a college and I hasn't gotten used to writing essays, you may find my opinion not really good. However, I'm really glad to help.

PS: You should also occasionally include some "smart" words in your essay, too. Nonetheless, I'm not the kind of person with awesome glossary, I couldn't help.

Yes it is No. 1 and 3!

Thanks for all you help, I'll try working on it even though time is running out. Which one would you recommend I'd use? I am international, so my vocabulary is not the biggest, but I am trying to squeeze in some nice words here and there..