Prompt: Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
I decided to write about my family and how their love and care supported me. would that be too uninteresting?
I decided to write about my family and how their love and care supported me. would that be too uninteresting?
Honestly? Yes.
um. well thank you for the short answer but it would be nice if I could get some advice on how to make that topic more interesting.
honestly, theres nothing really interesting about my life so I'm just gonna stick to this topic, but I need a way to make it unique. like make it stand out among millions of other essays that talk about family.
make it stand out among millions of other essays that talk about family.
Well, that would be the problem with writing about your family -- so many other people do it that it's hard to make it interesting. Certainly, taking vaguely about love and care isn't going to do the job. Why don't you tell us a bit about your family, community, and school? What's unique about them? What experiences or anecdotes involving them stand out as having shaped your current character? Give us something to work with if you want us to help you find a more interesting approach.
I didn't finish this essay because I wanted to get feedback on whether the topic was unique enough or too common. Please read this essay and tell me how I could make it more interesting like what sean said.
To me, family is like lottery. One man among all men meets one woman among all women, and they create a family, having their own children among all other children in the world. Considering this fact, I feel like the luckiest person who had won a jackpot by being born into such a loving and caring family. With their support and love, my family raised me up to reach for my dreams and to be exposed to the many opportunities of contributing to society.
My parents worked hard to give me and my sister good education and give us everything we wanted. Being young and naïve, I did not realize then how my parents had given up their jobs and left their family and friends in Japan in order to provide for us better lives in the United States. My mother focused on my education ever since I was little. When I entered middle school, she signed me up in reading and math programs that would prepare me for high school and SATs.
At that time, I thought it was silly to be engaged in such programs when I still had many years to prepare for my future. I also did not understand why my mother was so intent on giving me the best education when she, as a teenager, had gone to college without ever studying hard or being pressured by her own parents. While these thoughts lingering in my head whenever my mother scolded me for not studying, I still maintained good grades in school, but did not put much effort in truly working hard and preparing myself. I was completely different from my sister, who was so hardworking that she gave up anything that would distract her from studying, such as computer and television. Soon after, new and harder challenges overwhelmed me as I entered the most important four years that would shape my future.
Starting my freshman year in high school, my days were filled with two-hour tennis practices or three to four-hour matches everyday after school and coming home late at night only to expect tons of homework. As I began taking Advanced Placement classes in order to challenge myself, I felt myself weakening more and more. What helped me not give up and get through these times was my family, who felt the same pain I felt. My parents did everything they could to ease my stress and helped me build up my strength and hope. My sister, who attends UCLA, also tried to do her best to help by giving me words of advice and encouraging me. Because of my family's endless support, I was able to keep up with my studies and sport.
You've done a good job with the topic you've chosen. The lottery analogy is nice. (Though it might be nicer if you acknowledged that families come in lots of different flavors, not just man+woman+children.) But, I'm going to stay with what I said before: Writing about how wonderfully supportive your family has been will not make you stand out from the crowd, especially since your family seems very typical. You could also choose to write about your community or school. Or, if you must write about your family, focus in on your parents' decision to leave Japan, what they left behind, what (culturally) they brought with them, and what you carry with you that is rooted in that experience of displacement and change.
Your essay is plain. There isn't much out of the ordinary. It is true that many people share your experience but you can still make your essay shine. If your experience isn't unique, your writing has to be. I give this advice to a lot of people but you MUST develope a style of writing. Think about your organization. How will you captivate the reader? You should have one focused example to expand upon. And you have one! The fact that your parents left Japan for YOU is huge! Perhaps you should make the difficulty of this feat a lot more apparant in order to show how much your parents care about you.
Most imporatntly, how did you change due to your parents support??? You never change in your essay. Also, mentioning your sister adds nothing to the essay.
Good Luck
thank you for the feedback.
i agree with both of you, im planning on completely changing this essay to make it more unique. haha
at first i was going to write about the time when i moved from japan but i heard that too many people applying to uc write about immigration.. so i just changed the topic.
simone: I wasn't sure about the lottery idea because I didn't know if i should show that analogy throughout the whole essay.. is it okay to just leave it like that in the intro?
llamapoop123: yeah I was thinking of having a unique style of writing but i couldnt think of how to do it.. could you give me some ideas maybe..?
please give me any constructive criticism that would help me make this essay really stand out.. i really want to get into a good college..hahah
and to be exposed to the many opportunities of contributing to society.
I don't understnad what this is doing in your essay because you don't explain it.
Anyway what simone said is more important. Focus on your parents decision to leave Japan. Ask yourself some questions. What are some difficult things your parents faced that most immigrant families did not? What did they leave behind that was dear to them? Maybe a change in ideals was hard? Perhaps your families shift from japanese ideas to american ones was a challenge. Can you think of something that your family might have done in Japan but is looked down on in the U.S? More importantly how did it effect you? I see that the only change in your character is the change from thinking SAT prep is silly-hard working?
Your content will mold your writing style. Make sure you ask yourself what each sentence adds to your essay. What do you want the reader to feel?
Good Luck
Your essay seems very general. You should mention a specific event. (Like if you studied with your sister/mom or something)
It might be a more interesting essay if you kept the topic at family, but mentioned specific events with one or two family members.
I agree with ppthecat. Your essay could be copy/pasted into a lot of other applications without many changes. You talk about how time-consuming tennis was. If you still want to talk about your family, could you include a specific anecdote that's unique and interesting perhaps pertaining to your experiences during tennis season when you were swamped with practice and schoolwork? Seems like that was the highlight of your growth that I got from this draft, not your family as a whole. Just my two cents. :]
