So there are a few questions NYU gave me to answer and I've only answered the first question. I don't know how much I should write and whether what i wrote is appropriate and ok? HELP
The questions are:
Please answer the following questions in your personal statement and attach the personal statement to this application:
What caused you to leave NYU?
What have you been doing since you last attended NYU?
What has changed now that will enable you to complete your course work?
If you plan to work during the academic semester, what impact will your work schedule have on your ability to enroll in the courses that need you to graduate?
Here is what I have thus far:
Over the course of my gap year, I have come to the realization of what I was doing wrong during my first two years at NYU; failing is okay. Of course I should have gotten back up right after falling but I stayed. Instead of seeing of the option of getting back up, I kept on falling and eventually believed that all I could do is fall. It was a very unhealthy way of thinking and during my gap year, after opening up and speaking with many others who have taken gap years or had experiences and stories of their own, I learned that it's okay to fail. The downfall to this lesson was that I realized this too late, after failing my classes and failing to do better, as a result, I was dismissed from NYU.
In the beginning I was at a loss of words, although it was expected that a dismissal due to failure of meeting the requirements of SAP would hit my road of laziness and loss of confidence. I was upset at NYU for not giving me another chance. I was upset at my friends for distracting me. I was upset at my parents for not supporting me financially. I was upset at everyone and everything but me. It was easy to victimize myself because acknowledging that everything had happened as a consequence of my actions was something I had been avoiding my entire life. It was not easy for me to admit it.
Hi Esther :-) You are right about one thing, your response to the first question is too complete. It ended up offering additional information that was not required by the question being posed. When you were asked for the reason why you left NYU, you were on the right track with your response. The only problem, is that you came to that realization during your gap year. When you should have explained the kind of student you were during your time as a regular student at NYU.
If you felt that you were a failure as a student, then explain why that is so. Those are the reasons that eventually forced you to leave NYU against your will. Clarify that you did not want to leave, but your grades were just so bad by that point that the university thought it best to allow you room to grow and consider what you really wanted for your future. Try to look at your dismissal from NYU as a good learning experience. That way, the reviewer will come to consider your circumstances more and contemplate that maybe, you deserve a second chance to attend the university.
You don't need to present a paragraph that presents your reaction to being dismissed from the university. That is not being requested for in the first question so it is irrelevant as a part of your response. Always remain focused on the question being asked. Simply put, your essay should look this way:
Question + Direct Answer = 1 paragraph.
Done that way, you will be able to respond to all the questions in the list before you know it :-)
Like vangiespen said (which is advice you should listen to), your first answer is overrun. I don't see much of a response for the other 4 questions, so in short cut down the response to the first question and be sure to give a complete response to all of the questions, and you should be looking fine based off of your good grammar and wording style.
Do you think that I should write the readmission essay in an essay format? Or just answer each question in a simple paragraphs?
I would not suggest responding to the questions in simple paragraphs. My belief is that you should use the essay format to respond to the questions in the best and most comprehensive way that you can. Remember, you are applying for readmission so simple answers will definitely not be sufficient enough to entice the reviewer to consider you for readmission. Remember, they have more incoming freshmen and transfer students for the semester, they don't really need to waste their time considering someone they already cut ties with for readmission.
Don't just answer the essay for the sake of giving an answer. I am not saying that you are going to do that but sometimes, it seems the easiest way to respond to the difficult questions the university wants you to respond to. The questions are really designed to be difficult. The university wants to make sure that, should they let you back in, you won't be dropping the ball again and they will have to do what they did the first time again. The best way to develop your responses to the questions in my opinion, will be to engage yourself in some self reflection and soul searching.
Make sure you are determined to get back into NYU. That should be the first purpose of your self reflection. After that, take a notepad or open a word document that outline your answers to the questions. Don't rush yourself in providing a response. Just keep adding answers for every question until you have information there to create a paragraph that will truly and effectively argue your case. Then come back here and post what you've got for the essay. We'll help you clean it up and improve it from there :-) I have faith in you and I believe that you can do this. Your determination to get back into NYU will help you come up with the most effective responses to the questions.
Esther, first of all to be part of NYU is an achievement, having left for your gap year is not the best thing but hey, you do what you have to do and bounce right back up. Failing is a challenge one has to go through to determine what's in store for them and this is a challenge to be taken up and not to be soaked into.
Now, in writing your essay, write as much as you can, you don't need to be answering the prompt in bullet points or in numbers but your essay should give the admissions officer to admit you back in NYU. The questions are guidelines for you to be able to come up with an essay that comprise the information that the admission officer need to know. Don't worry, if they are not content with your essay or if you don't feel that the essay is good enough because the officer will let you know and will tell you what to do next, normally they will let you come in for a follow up interview to verify a few information that will justify re- admission.
I may not be an expert in re-admitting students but here's what I can say, your essay is more of the details why you failed and continue failing, this leaves a negative impact on your application, the admission staff will look for your eagerness to get back on track, go back to school, continue learning and make the best out of your time in NYU.In writing so, you have to prove that you have full dedication in your education and unwavering support to NYU and NYU alone.
Along with your will to go back to the university, make sure that you prove a strong desire to learn and make a difference not only to yourself but to the community as a whole.
I hope to see a revised essay here on EF so we can assist you further.
Thank you guys so much for the feedback. @justinivy03 I know...I very much regret that I wasted valuable money and time during my time at NYU which is why I don't want to give it up. I made a full draft so lots of constructive criticism and help with editing would be much appreciated. I am still lacking a lot in writing so I will take every single comment into consideration. Thank you!
1st Paragraph
Over the course of my freshman and sophomore year, my life revolved everything but the important investments for my future. I let myself get distracted with my social life. I allowed myself to become lazy and constantly let myself fail as a student. These inexcusable factors resulted in NYU giving me the best thing they could give me, a dismissal, a wake up call. I was given several chances to improve through academic probations but I failed. There was a part of me that definitely wanted to keep on trying and get out of this situation but another part of me wanted to stay in my room and escape the reality of the fact that I was failing as a student and as a person. As I began to fail more and more classes and my GPA plummeted, NYU gave me two chances to improve. NYU gave me two academic probations where I was given the chance to prove to them that I was capable of improving and doing well in school. However, time passed with no change and reality kicked in when I was notified about my dismissal. As a result of my poor grades, I was dismissed from NYU.
2nd paragraph
Shortly after the notification of my dismissal, I began to work at a primary care physician's office as a medical assistant for a little over a year (May 2014 to August 2015). I learned a lot more about the medical field in terms of patient care, confidentiality, and productivity. Working with older people and working in the real world was a big change for me. I was responsible for all my actions and it was important that I gave each patient their undivided attention during their visits because their health mattered and still matters. As November was coming to an end, I was given the opportunity to intern at Project Achieve, a non profit organization part of the largest clinical trials program dedicated to the development and testing preventive HIV vaccines worldwide. As an intern, most of my responsibilities went towards recruiting people for the current clinical trials. I spoke with myriad of people and learned that there are so many people who are willing to do make such impactful contributions to society, by volunteering, by choice. After 8 months of interning at Project Achieve, I realized to make an impactful contribution to society I need to fix my life first. One job that has completely solidified this motivation occurred this past summer.
This past summer, I worked with elementary students as a reading comprehension teacher for a 6-week program. By becoming a teacher, I learned to become a leader and become more confident in myself by learning from my students. They constantly failed at writing a complete sentence, reading words properly, and getting question right but that didn't stop them from correcting their mistakes. Instead of feeling bad about their mistakes, they completely forgot about it, learned from it, and simply moved on. I realized this is something that I should have simply done during my first two years at NYU but I let myself get caught up with the thought, once a failure, always a failure. Also just as my students had so much hope in their souls, my heart began to gain hope. Their hopefulness, simple mindedness, and eagerness to learn, rubbed off on to me and made me want to challenge myself without being saddened about my failures but hopeful with my potentials. Teaching definitely was a catalyst to my registering at BCC. I was given a particular advice from the Ms. Linda Chin, the Asisstant Director of the Office of Student Affairs at NYU Steinhardt, in May 2015; to take college courses to prove to NYU that I am capable of being a successful NYU student. Initially, I disregarded it thinking that this was just a way of telling me to attend another school and not NYU but after teaching over the summer, I realized this was Ms. Linda Chin's way of telling me that I can prove myself to NYU. I thought that just gaining experience after getting dismissed would be enough to prove to NYU that I have changed but now I understand why Linda Chin recommended that I take extra college courses. Throughout the year and a half of no college education, I learned to have a great appreciation for the level of education that I received at NYU and that I took the prestigious education for granted.
3rd Paragraph
Although learning at BCC is so great and refreshing, I still yearn for the level of rigorous education and challenge that NYU offers. Currently while I am taking classes, I am also working two jobs. This has helped me learn to manage my time and use the extra time I have more efficiently. I learned to value the time that I have and not to spend it by watching videos and procrastinating. I've come to an understanding and reflecting of how valuable my time was and is and that I don't want to waste it anymore. Initially I wanted to attend school solely as a part time student so that I may have a sufficient amount of time to be able to study and do well in the two courses I am currently taking however I realized that if I come back to NYU that would not be the case. I would definitely be taking four to five courses along with extra hours for internship, volunteer or work. So I decided to get two jobs in order to fill in more time in my schedule. This has taught me to discipline myself in resisting the tiniest distractions that would become an interference with my goal. I have also begun to read more on the side even with the workload I have for class and the amount of hours I work with my two jobs.
4th paragraph
What I needed during my freshman and sophomore year was for someone to widen out the tunnel vision that I had of my life. How I was living my life limited me from gaining precious knowledge, growing as an student, and becoming a responsible adult. I am confident in myself on how much I have improved as a student and as a person and I hope that NYU will be confident in me as a student and person as well.