Prompt: Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
"Get into a good college, so you don't have to go through what I did", my father constantly reminded me in broken English. He made sure that I'd never forget the obstacles he had encountered. At the age of fourteen, my father immigrated to the United States with his parents and four siblings. For Chinese immigrants in the 1970's, finding a paying job to support their seven person family was difficult. So my father, being the eldest of his siblings, dropped out of high school his sophomore year and took the initiative to help his parents and financially contribute to the family. Although I never knew about my father's lack of education until I was about ten years old, it was astonishing for me to discover that he wasn't a highly educated man with a master's degree or a PhD. Despite his lack of a formal education, I admire his dedication to improve his English- a complex and universal language- through our conversations. My father's perseverance motivates me to strive academically and his strong determination to get out of hard times pushes me and inspires me to do the same with my life.
I realized my father's uneducated past seven years ago; when I had just finished school and I was upstairs at home, trying to finish up my multiplication problems. My father had yelled my name, telling me to go downstairs. I happily skipped down the stairs to see what he wanted. I saw him focused on his computer screen, in the midst of typing an email. So I called to his attention and he asks, "Oh Dillon, how do you spell "because"?" My eyebrows rose, wondering if he was being serious or not. I just assumed he was quizzing me to see if I was paying attention in class so I nonchalantly spelled b-e-c-a-u-s-e. It became silent after and I was still standing there, unsure as to why he had asked me. I broke the silence by asking if I spelled it correctly and he replied, "Aren't you supposed to know? I don't know." I didn't say anything after that; I just stood there with a puzzled look on my face asking myself, why did my father want me to spell such a simple word that even I, a fourth grader would know how to spell? Does he not know how to spell? My naïve brain flooded with thoughts and questions. Maybe he just forgot! Yeah, that's it. Later that night at the dinner table, I brought up the incident of what happened earlier with my father. He gave a heavy sigh and informed me that he wasn't able to finish school because he had to take care of his family. I looked up to make eye contact with my father and assured him that he can ask me for help whenever he needed.
Thus, my father was never able to receive a full education, he recently enjoys indulging himself into English textbooks and workbooks during his free time in an attempt to learn. I'm always more than happy to help him through explaining the meaning of a word, or fixing spelling and grammatical errors he may make in emails. Sometimes out of curiosity, he even asks me about my AP English Literature class and what I learned today. I would tell him about Hamlet and his insane story. To see my father's interest in my education and dedication to learn English motivates me to do my best academically. And I also gained a new perspective of my education: no longer do I feel like I'm going to school every day for myself and my future but also for my father and what he wasn't able to receive in the past.
This is a really rough draft. Can someone please tell me if this essay answers the prompt correctly? Leave some comments! Thank you!!
It's a decent idea but I think you could still strengthen this essay. I feel like your story is one that alot of people have and will write about, that your parents never had the complete education and remind you to always pursue it. Also, you don't really show the influence until the very very end of your essay which makes sense but it's only one/two sentences.
I recently heard a good quote about this topic "Admission officers don't want to hear about the traits that grandpa had, they want to hear about those traits of granpdpa in you." Think more about other influences that your dad might have had on you instead of this slightly cliche "motivated me to work harder." By the time admissions officers reach your app, they'll have read alot of them by that point.
Your writing is above average also.
Hi.
I think theme of your essay is very powerful. However, the essay focus a lot on your father, which is not a good sign. The schools want to know more about you, not your father and briefly mention that your father has changed the way you look at your school is not going to work, because your essay is missing out all the important details, your inner thoughts, that cause this newly developed perspective.
My suggestion to you is to cut short the first paragraph where your talk about your father dropping out of school, since you will review this later in the essay anyway, and insert a new paragraph before
Thus, my father was never able to receive a full education, he...
so that you can explore your inner thoughts. The flow of your essay is logical, but it lacks some substance that constitutes a good college essay.
Hope to hear more from you.
G L~
