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Let your struggles become your motivation - Common App Prompt 1 Essay


rp22 2 / 2  
Oct 4, 2014   #1
This is the first draft for the Common App Prompt #1 (biographical essay). I have written about 450/650 word limit, so I have space to add more information/detail.

"Promise me you'll be someone in life, so you don't have to pass through these hardships" they said, "promise" I always replied. From ages zero to thirteen, I traveled from hospital to hospital, with my parents and brother, in the back of our run-down 99' Ford Windstar.

By the age of six, I was so accustomed to the familiar routine that broke down into three simple steps: A) Hear my father's excruciating cries in the middle of the night. B) Pretend to sleep while my mother carried my brother and I to our van, after snatching us from our bedrooms. C) Cover my ears with my blanket, attempting to muffle my mother's desperate cries as we crossed the border.

From there, the routine would shatter. The hospital location would always differ, but the situation remained the same. At age 34, my father had his first inguinal hernia surgery. A few months later, he had another, and then another, and then another... It was an endless cycle of crossing the border, in hope of finding an inexpensive doctor who could not only repair his strangulated hernia, but who could also ensure that it would never become strangulated again.

My family eventually hit rock-bottom when I was eleven. I didn't notice at first, but I gradually became aware of the different house I seemed to live in. Both my parents were unemployed, my father couldn't walk, and I didn't get play with him at the park. For the next six months, I resided with a mother and father whose depression seized the household.

Despite our infinite struggles, my parents insisted that I do well in school. Being immigrants from Mexico impeded them from being able to read my English homework, but they always made sure it was completed. My parents even drove extra miles in order to ensure that I received the best education possible.

It was during my Junior year, when I thought I would fail them. I hesitated taking all honors classes, specifically in math, since the content seemed rigorous and impossible to understand. Many students dropped out within the first week. Keeping my parents' struggles and hopes in mind, I stayed in the class and spent my afternoons in the tutoring lounge, determined to master the content. By the end of the year, I had received an A on all my tests.

As I look back at the situations I have lived, from watching my father almost die, to not knowing when my next meal was, I never let them become an obstacle in my life. I thank my parents, my true inspirations, for instilling in me the best motto in life: "let your struggles become your motivations".
vangiespen - / 4,134 1449  
Oct 4, 2014   #2
Could you tell us what the actual prompt is so that we have a guideline for reviewing your paper? Right now, this just feels like a creative writing exercise to the reader. So I will just review the paper in general rather than point by point for you.

While it is interesting to read all about your father's struggle to get the proper medical care and attention that he needed, and it was truly heartwarming to discover that you stood by him as a family during his trying time, I find that the essay is shallow in content because you never really explained to us how the medical struggles of your father relates to your motivation in life. This is a struggle that your father underwent. How did it affect you personally or academically? Why do you feel that this is your motivation to do well in life? Is it because your father still needs medical care and you want to finish your studies so you can get a job and help him get the care he needs? Or is there another reason? You need to make it clear in your essay. Also, there seems to be a disconnection between your opening statement and your motivation. Why did you need to promise to become someone in life? So you did not have to pass through these hardships? Which hardships in particular? Not having medical insurance?

You have a motivation to become somebody in life because of your family's financial and medical difficulties. But you never mention what those experiences have motivated you to do. How did it lead you to your career path? Were these the events that motivated you to choose that path? Informing the admission officer about those things will help him relate better to the narrative in your paper. Clarify those points in order to give your essay a theme and thesis. Right now, it is just a creative writing experiment that needs to be revised in order to better suit the prompt.
carnivorousgods 1 / 2 2  
Oct 5, 2014   #3
Overall, I think this is well written but skeletal. There are the bare bones of your father's experiences with medical issues, and a related anecdote about struggling and ultimately succeeding in a challenging class. I think it could be improved in three major ways:

1. Connect the health struggles to your academic struggles. Maybe something about how your family's constant overcoming of struggles has bled into your own life? How does witnessing your father's struggles inspire you to approach other struggles in the same way? How, specifically, did you utilize the resources available to you? Try to draw a more direct comparison between the issues with your father and the issues at school.

2. Flesh out how this affects you at a personal level. I agree with the other commenter who said that this feels like something of a creative writing exercise. Because we don't know anything about you or events in your life, this feels too much like a description of events. It's too removed from you, and how you handle things. Ask yourself how this has affected you, and how it's made you feel. How does it impact your life now? Why is this experience in particular the one that has motivated you to do well in school, or brought you to the point you're at now? How has it motivated you?

3. Add sensory details. I think that this is mainly a stylistic thing, but it will help the audience connect with you. What did it feel like to travel from hospital to hospital in the back of your parents' car? Were you concerned for your father? Worried about the future? Hopeful that this might be the last hospital you had to visit? Adding things like that will help the reader connect to your story.

I think that this has the potential to be an excellent essay once you've fleshed it out more. Good luck!
mrmdeir 1 / 3  
Oct 6, 2014   #4
The introduction is very generic, many people have the same intro. Make it flow a bit better, some transitions to connect everything. It would also be helpful to know the prompt.


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