How is school meeting your needs? Columbia transfer essay.

Hi everyone, I'm applying to Columbia as a transfer applicant for F09. Though I know this one is a huge reach, I just want to give it a shot. (Hey, if you don't try, your percentage of success is zero :D)

Prompt: How and why is your present school not meeting your needs? Please limit yourself to 250 words (1 page).

One important way in which Edmonds Community College is not meeting my needs is that it does not offer fine counseling and resource services. When approaching the academic advisors for help in the college search and transferring process, all I receive is ineffectual suggestions and several Associate degrees' planning worksheets. The global approach of Columbia's commitment appeals to me greatly due to the effective communication from your busy admission officers. When receiving frequent responses regarding transfer admissions from them, it became easy for me to see how strongly you treasure the responsibility of communicating with students compared to other institutions.

With regard to academic aspects, the Economics department at Edmonds does not fully provide students with strengths and distinctive features of the educational program due to limited availability of full-time faculties. Therefore, should I gain admission to Columbia, I would have a chance to unfold my interest regarding this major with 54 current instructors at your department of Economics. Especially, I choose to be a dynamic part of Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs' class, who has been an inspirational leader in his field and placed among 100 most influential leaders in the world by the Time magazine. His research in poverty and debt reduction in poor and developing countries matches my own interests. I look forward to gaining a more specific focus in this field regarding these issues that support my educational pursuit.

In lines with available reasons, I believe being at Columbia will indubitably assure my needs whilst adding valuable experiences to my memory from strong familiarity with the faculty and my fellow students.

*I'm afraid that I'm going off topic. But I don't really have anything to talk about. Edmonds CC is a CC and I have to transfer after graduating. That's all. Could you guys pls give me more feedbacks? Thank you in advance.

The essay at the moment tends to be wordy without actually saying much of interest. Try focusing more on the specific drawbacks of Edmonds, and on how Columbia, specifically, can help you address those drawbacks in a way that other universities could not. This would give you a more focused essay, while at the same time giving you something meaningful to say so that you could write concisely while still filling the page.

Thank you so much. I'll definitely rewrite the essay.

Good luck. Don't forget to post the revised version here for further feedback.

Yes, they want a clever answer. That is why sometimes they ask weird questions like this one: to get you to be clever. When you revise, make every paragraph about how [name of present school] is NOT meeting your needs. In this way, you convey your interests. I think you should use the word "not" at least 5 or 7 times in the essay, preferably in the topic sentences at the start of paragraphs.

[name of school] does not have a [name of resource at the school to which you are applying], and neither does it have a [something else].

One important way in which [name of school] is not meeting my needs is that it does not have [name a specific prof from the new school], who has been an inspirational leader in her field and under whose guidance I would love to study.

etc.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Thanks Kevin -- I think you explained what I was trying a say considerably better than I did.

Thank you Mr. Sean and Kevin so much. You've been wonderful.

Hey, awesome!!

admissions officers.

This is really great!!! You seem smart and serious! I am impressed.

You have a solid essay there. Good luck.

Thank you so much. I just followed your helpful advice. Wish me luck.

P/s: Could you please delete this thread for me? Thank you so much in advance

See the TOS!! It costs money. We give good help, but then the essay stay here to help other students. Sorry!!!! But rest assured, this sort of works like a copyright, because you can refer people to this site if there is ever any question of who the original author is.

Perhaps the permanence of threads should be mentioned somewhere a bit more prominently on the site. I notice that students often seem to miss the fact that the threads will not be deleted when they are finished with them. Possibly this has to do with the fact that virtually no one actually reads TOS agreements for websites and software programs?

Thank you so much for your help