Tell us what influenced you to select your major - Emerson College

I have selected the musical theater major. This is a pretty rough draft. Thank you for any advice/critiques!

PROMPT: As you know, the academic programs at Emerson College are focused on communication and the arts. Please tell us what influenced you to select your major. If you're undecided about your major, what attracted you to Emerson's programs? Please be brief (100-200 words).

choice of major at Emerson College

The power of a performance is incredible. When watching a good performance, you are not just observing a story, but experiencing it along with the performers. Fine arts help us to reflect on our own experiences and our perspectives of the world. The theater has the capability to teach, inspire, and cause self-reflection in just two hours (with one fifteen-minute intermission.) I believe theatre brings people together to celebrate and challenge ways of thinking through the telling of stories. What is so special about theatre is that it is created in the moment. Whatever you witness at any given time is unique for every person. Musical theater, to me, is about having the potential to captivate an audience with artistic means and cause change within them. I have selected my major as musical theater because of what it has done for me and what it can do for other people. I want expand my abilities to become an impactful story-teller. The musical theatre program at Emerson stresses educating students who surpass the superficial level of performance and create reality on the stage. I want to be pushed to develop my leadership skills and bring depth to my studies. I appreciate that Emerson College values bringing innovation and intensity to all areas of study in order to create life-changing moments.

I think you should be more focused on this particular school. Tell something unique about it. I think the opening when you talk about theater and performance is too long. Try to write something specific about this school that any other college has it so when they read it they would know that you did not just use the same essay for a different college if it also requires that prompt. Overall it is good.

Ellie, you can safely remove the parts of this essay that refer to the reason that you chose to attend Musical Theatre at Emerson College. That is not being required of you to represent in your response. Instead, you need to use the space to further illuminate the personal motivating factor that led to your decision to study musical theatre. Answer these additional guide questions in order to help add relevant information to your response. Yes, you might need to revise the content of the essay a little bit in the process.

1. Why is it important to you that you learn how to captivate people with your musical theatre abilities? Briefly discuss an epiphany that you had in relation to this question.

2. What musical in particular would you say influenced your love for theatre that could translate into one of the reasons that you selected your major? How did you feel while watching this performance? Is this the feeling that you want to share with the other theatergoers?

3. You mentioned wanting to become an impactful story teller, why is that? How does that relate to your choice of majors? Why not filmmaking?

These guide questions should help you create a more focused and informative response to the prompt. I can sense that you are holding back on the information for some reason. You need to be accurate and informative. The written interview needs to be written in a manner that shows how mature you are in terms of making life decisions and that you are firm in your choice of majors. The foundation for your choice needs to be based on solid ground instead of mere hypothetical situations and implied references as reflected in your current response.