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QuestBridge biographical essay - "Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume"


angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Sep 10, 2016   #1
Please let me know if you thought the metaphor I used was original. Since this is a biographical essay, obviously the topic of narrating my life won't be too unique. I just want to know if the first line and the way I wrote the essay piques your interest, and any revisions and advice is appreciated! The limit is 800 words and right now I'm at 793.

Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume: I can hear my memories in the form of music.



It began on December 16th, 2006, the day my grandmother and I, with approximately fifteen English words between us, boarded a plane in Beijing to Tampa, Florida, where my mother had immigrated to a year prior. The first piece in this musical photo album was a melody used for three songs: Twinkle Twinkle, the alphabet song, and Baa Baa Black Sheep--the extent of my English skills. In January, I was thrown without ado into the second half of second grade. No one looked or spoke like me. I clutched my three songs closer, put my head down in books, and didn't look back up until I had won my class's vocabulary contest three months later.

Like all children of immigrants, I grew up before my time. I learned the language of landlords and car salesmen and tax forms before turning ten. During this, I struggled with my ethnicity in an overwhelmingly white school. Rallying against stereotypes, I painstakingly memorized "Fifty Nifty United States" and sang it in my choppy accent for music class. (I was still an outsider, but hey, it wasn't a complete waste--to this day I can still recite all fifty states in twenty seconds.)

The summer after fifth grade, we moved to a suburb near Detroit for my parents' jobs, when the turbulence of adolescence began. I did not handle relocation well. While I had friends in school, I dropped most of the extracurriculars that I had flourished in because my parents had no time to drive me. Feelings of inadequacy compared to my peers and insecurity about what we couldn't afford began and would continue for years to come, and my family life began its slow decline.

My father, who'd followed my mother here to support her endeavor of becoming a doctor, felt trapped and unproductive. He longed to be doing surgery in China; instead he was doing mind-numbing lab work in a country where he didn't belong. Meanwhile, I was sullen, impatient, and stopped talking to my family in favor of my computer. Three years later, he left for a new surgeon position in China. Said he had to make something of his life, said a man's calling will always be in his career. I didn't think this would affect me; after all, it was only "temporary". He still hasn't come back, and I had never been more wrong.

A rocky transition into high school, my family seemingly falling apart, and one of the worst winters in decades culminated in seasonal affective disorder. I was frustrated and angry with myself, stubbornly denied that I was unwell, thought I had no right to feel this way. It wasn't until my mother heard me sobbing late one night that she found out I had been like this for months. The music, if I had to describe it, would not be a melancholic ballad. It would not be poignant, nor tragically poetic. Those words imply beauty in darkness, and for me, there was no beauty.

Slowly, however, the soundtrack of my life was revived. It started small, just a timid, single-string violin melody at first. Then, a piano would key a few bars of harmony, adding depth. Then the drums kicked in, picking up the pace, and finally, to announce my triumphant return, cymbal crash! Well, not so much a crash as a haphazard clang, and not so much triumphant as a shaky hobble. But I was back, and I didn't intend to go away again anytime soon.

My mom achieved her goal, miraculously landed a residency position in Buffalo, New York. We moved again. This time I was grateful to leave bad times behind. Junior year was approaching, and I was going to work harder than ever to compensate for the two years I'd already lost. There was still lingering bitterness: Why did I have to get sick? Why didn't I have this clarity of mind earlier? If I had been a better daughter, would my family be whole?

Those thoughts have no power over me now. I've learned throughout my life and especially in my recovery that I can't change how the music of the past sounds. I'm still learning, because my newfound success is meaningless if I do not evolve and aim for constant improvement.

I can't hear the music of this time right now, but I know it will be there. It's never fully formed in the moment, much like how it's impossible to determine what the future will be. I simply try to compose a score that will add substance to my collection. This is my song to write, and I'll make it a good one.
TJLuschen - / 241 203  
Sep 10, 2016   #2
Hmm, your writing is very good, but to me this doesn't seem like "a special skill". And if I didn't read your title, which I didn't the first time I read your post, I would have a hard time telling exactly what your special skill was based only on your essay. To me it seems like you are somewhat ignoring the specifics of the prompt so you can write an essay about the story of your life. It seems like if they wanted that, they would have just asked "Write 800 words about your life so far". As for your opening, I think it got my interest, but I couldn't quite figure out what "it" was, and I never really got an answer from reading your essay. Sorry if I am overly harsh, as I said, I enjoy your writing, you obviously have a lot of talent.
OP angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Sep 10, 2016   #3
Hi! Thank you for reading and leaving a comment! I probably should have added the prompt in my post oops... The prompt was actually to "narrative your life":

We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow?

I just used the "special skill" thing as a hook, the prompt wasn't actually to write about a special skill haha. The bolded first line (I don't know how that happened) is misleading too, my bad. Thanks for the feedback on how vague "it began on Dec. 16..." was, I'll do something about that.
TJLuschen - / 241 203  
Sep 10, 2016   #4
Oh, I see, sorry for my misunderstanding! I will give it another read and make some comments tomorrow - thanks!
TJLuschen - / 241 203  
Sep 10, 2016   #5
Hi, Reading your essay again, it is very poignant. I definitely like the metaphor, it is a good way of making your essay much more than the typical "story of my life". I guess I would like to know more about how you actually recovered from your depression (I also suffer from S.A.D., and we used to live in Michigan too - in Birmingham, near Detroit.) You talk about how the instruments start filling in, but I don't really have any idea of what that correlates to in your actual life/decision processes. Maybe moving to a new location was the impetus, but to me it is not that clear. Let me emphasize again that you are a fantastic writer! I am sure you will be successful wherever you end up after high school!
aikoashiya 1 / 39 26  
Sep 11, 2016   #6
Hi Xiaoyu,

I feel that the essay is really well-written, but I also feel that the essay doesn't fully answer the prompt at hand. While you've definitely given a story that relates to some factors/challenges that have shaped your life, you haven't given any insight into the aspirations or future goals that you are trying to pursue. Not only this, but I also feel that your essay focuses far too much of your word count on the past, while your conclusion is relatively weak. Note that the essay, as with many personal essays, should try to have a lot of substance relating to your present and future (shaped to grow) as the reader will want to know who you are as of today and who you want to be, not necessarily who you were. I'd suggest trying to condense your backstory and really focus more of the essay on how you have grown from this experience and how it inspired you. From your essay alone, I can't really garner how you've improved or how you're trying to improve. Have you been participating in the extracurriculars that you haven't be able to before? Perhaps you are now very interested in psychology as a means to study depression/SAD. Or does the way you can relate memories to music inspire you to perhaps become a musician or conductor?

Also, to the note of your hook: I feel like the premise of your hook does not stand well throughout your entire essay. Particularly, I enjoyed hearing the specific songs that you related to your childhood, but then you relate the music in more vague terms, such as "melancholic ballad". Personally, I would like to see you relate these perhaps to songs you have listened to and can relate to. Like how many people can refer to teenage angst with bands like Blink-182 or My Chemical Romance or things like that, I think it would improve your essay if you honed in on that specificity. Maybe you could relate your SAD to Vivaldi's four seasons, or maybe Chopin's Nocturne might be that melancholic song. I think you really need to develop your essay with this kind of premise if you really want to use the idea of music as memories. Otherwise, the conceit falls a little flat on itself and doesn't hold any real weight towards your essay other than "fluff".

Again, to reiterate - try to focus the essay more on the latter half of the prompt (specifically how have you grown from this, aspirations, etc.) as well as rethinking how you want to use your primary concept of relating music and memories. I think you have a very strong foundation, but you need to do a little more work to really show who you are as a person to the reader.

Hope this helps!
aikoashiya 1 / 39 26  
Sep 11, 2016   #7
Because I missed the window to edit:

I want to emphasize the idea of reading your essay from the perspective of someone who has no idea who you are. The things that I can gather from your essay are that you are an immigrant, had a troubled adolescence, possibly have improved from that state, and can hear memories in the form of music. However, I don't have the slightest clue of what you enjoy doing, what you might be involved in, or what you want to do in the future? Do you enjoy participating in community service efforts? Or maybe you enjoy dancing or singing? Looking back, I almost think you tried to focus too hard on this conceit of hearing memories as music as being unique. While it's true the idea of writing about your own life isn't very unique, everyone's life experiences are different which makes hearing your story in itself unique. If I had to choose between writing about a really unique topic but with a generic style or writing about a very generic topic with your own personal style, it would definitely be the latter.

Again, I enjoyed your style of writing, but I think you need to revisit the content of your essay and really try to show more of yourself. Try to condense some of your past, and really focus on writing about yourself in the now and who you want to become in the future.
OP angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Sep 16, 2016   #8
Thank you again for the feedback! I have vigorously edited my essay and now it definitely has clearer details and more information. I might post the new draft in another thread soon, and if you have time to read that, comments are always appreciated! :)
OP angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Sep 16, 2016   #9
Aiko, I want to give you a huge thank you for taking the time to write so specifically about my essay. Your advice was very much heeded and really helped guide me in the revising process. I made my backstory shorter and added a lot more to how I began to thrive in my new environment after moving to New York, as well as how I've become stronger after SAD and my future goals of being a psychiatrist. As for what you said about not being able to get a sense of my interests/passions, my main goal in this particular essay was to demonstrate my character development (which the new draft does a lot better than this one!). This essay is for a scholarship application which has several other shorter essays and short answers where I made sure to showcase my interests, such as social justice, politics, and playing the violin. I'm new to this website, so if I wanted people to critique a new draft of this essay, would I start a new thread or copy the essay into a comment on this thread? Thank you so much again and I would be grateful if you read the new draft as well, if you have time!
aikoashiya 1 / 39 26  
Sep 24, 2016   #10
Hi Xiaoyu,

I think the new draft is definitely a step up from your original draft, and I think you did a great job of covering some of the issues I had raised before. Your voice still stands out to me in your revision, but I also have a much more concrete idea of who you are and how your past laid the foundation for your current goals and mentality. I think your response flows very well and I can't see much else you might change in terms of content.

As far as some criticisms, I can only say that the sentence

It began on December 2006, with the melody used for Twinkle Twinkle and the alphabet song--the extent of my English skills when my grandmother and I boarded a plane in Beijing to Tampa, Florida, where my mother had moved to a year prior.

seems very convoluted in comparison to the rest of your sentence structure. You may want to consider splitting up the sentence or making it simpler so that the sentence flows better.

Also, you speak in the 1st person singular in all points except

After fifth grade, we moved to a suburb near Detroit for my parents' jobs.

You may want to consider changing this to "I" instead of "we" so as to match the rest of your essay.

All in all, very minor criticisms. I'm also not one to really scrutinize for grammatical errors, so I always recommend giving it a pass-through to your English teacher if you haven't already to see if they might see anything you may want to fix.

I think you did a stellar job with your revision and best of luck to you!

Hope this helps!


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