English is not my first language,any help or comments will be very much appreciated!! deadlines are coming fast and I'm only nervous because i only could write cheesy-crappy essays :(
A.Discuss how your family's experience or cultural history enriched you or presented you with opportunities or challenges in pursuing your educational goals.
B. Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
UW ESSAY A
WRESTLING WITH MY FEARS
My sister is an epitome of a bright student, having straight A marks in every year of her report card, becoming an outstanding high school chairman who led many school events, she practically becomes the "more" exceptional child in my family. Shortly, I had always been overshadowed by her accomplishments in every aspect at the early journey of my studies. The dreadful comparison intimidated me, which resulted at my low eagerness to achieve at school.
However, things began to change when I entered high school, I was chosen to be a part of speech team on my school club where students became frontiers in joining prestigious English competitions. I was remarkably doubtful at first since I was quite a shy person, and I utterly fear speaking in public, but my peers had always supported me and I probably yearned for an opportunity to be acknowledged by people around me, so I promised myself to give the best. I still remembered each detail of my first competition; the way I felt terribly clueless at preparations, the way I attempted to lower my expectations due to the fear of disappointment I might receive latter, the way I felt my heart swelling like it was about to explode, and also the way I felt faith in my subconscious, where I finally valued myself, where I felt something burning up inside me, where I finally became passionate at something. I stood on the podium, elaborating my point of view about my topic:culture, I felt vibrant, seeing those emotions I created on the audience's face was priceless. I tried to not be intimidated by the judges' stares. Finally, one of them smiled. I changed pitch when I was giving emphasis. It felt like the longest 10 minutes of my life until my speech finally ended.
I believe that results always come second to the process, what matters the most is that I always contemplate on the learning process and that I'm always on my toes to give the very best of me. So in the end, I had sincerely prepared to lose at my first competition, losing with pride and satisfaction of the accomplishment on giving my efforts. But the result was an antithesis of what I felt. I was ranked 2nd out of 60 participants all over the state, while in fact, I was still a tenth grader. I was the least experienced compared to the rest of participants. I consequently found that I was the underdog that insisted to be a fighter, not a quitter, and I finally defeated myself. I learned that people can found their expertise even in the scope they are the least capable at, as long as they have guts to wrestle with their fears.
From then on, I valued that determination is the significant key. I realized that this is a wake up call for me to not waste my time, I became more competitive at school, I joined more activities like: school orchestra, tennis, tutoring, and of course continued joining speech competitions, which also improved my skills gradually. I took my grades seriously, and I became more comfortable of myself. I finally found the triumph and delight in learning things in life. I learned that this is not about the result, or the goal that I may reach, this is about how I'm giving my best in everything while enjoying the process. There's always sincere satisfaction after we somehow work our heads off. So this time I'm doing my best not for those people who compared me to my sister. I'm giving all I am because I'm passionate in learning and I'm willing to contribute my capabilities to the enhancement of the environment and people around me.
My sister is still a bright example for me, but her accomplishments can no longer be a threat, instead they become an inspiration to me; her leadership, her determinations, they encourage me in developing my own expertise. My sister becomes another fuel for my pursuit to be better each day. I believe that people could shine, not only because of their accomplishments and results, but also because of their efforts that can never cease.
I feel your essay is on the right track to something great! :) which is a good thing, I'm not much of a person to correct grammar and polish essays but I can give you some information on how to change your essay so it can probably excel to someone else who is also going to be reading your paper.
First, since the essay is about YOU, I feel you shouldn't be talking about your sister in the first sentence of this essay. Try to make it all about you as much as you can. Of course you can include your sister, but maybe after you introduce yourself so the reader can know what the essay is going to be about.
Second, try to remove the negative stuff you wrote about yourself; maybe a sentence of how you once were can still be enough to show your reader how much this experience has changed you. Try to focus on all the positive changes this wonderful experience has done to you and your life in general.
Third, maybe expand on how these new skills that you learned have made your life better. How did you become more competitive at school? Were you in clubs? Were you in any kind of sports? How did you take your grades seriously? Did you join tutoring? Did you study more on your own? Did you ask your teachers for extra help during lunch time?
Lastly, I understand that their will always be sibling rivalry, but maybe cutting out that last portion and putting something more positive about your sister may help your essay a little more. You can just mention on how your sister has been an inspiration toward your success and that due to this inspiration you have learned the true values of what it is to succeed in life.
hope this helps in shaping your essay a little better :)
Louisa, I have to have to ask you is whether you have a choice between the topics presented as A and B. If you had a choice, which prompt did you choose to answer? Or did you decide to answer both prompts in one essay? The reason I ask is because your essay needs to be tamed in such a way that it responds to only one of the two prompts. It is cluttered with too much information right now and your stories are not smoothly connecting with each other. The grammatical errors and the informality of the application essay, which serves as an interview on your part, also need to be corrected and/or toned down. However, those problems can only be addressed properly once you have developed the correct theme for your essay. Let's work on developing the theme first shall we?
Louisa, try to concentrate only on yourself when writing this essay. Your sister should only be a mere mention if need be. Prompt B is very specific. It has to be totally about your experience and what you learned from it. Be very sure to pick a personal story that portrays your character development in a very positive light. The experience should be something that really shows a serious degree of development in your personality and makes your character transformation very noticeable and important. Some themes to consider are:
- Recovering from failure
- Facing an obstacle and overcoming it such as
- a family tragedy
- social issue directly related to you (bullying, etc.)
- completing a task people thought you were not capable of doing
I hope my suggestions help you some more. I look forward to reading your revised essay in the coming days :-)
This is another revision, i modify the last part quite a lot
I'm still trying to elaborate my values and character along with this issue without omitting the rivalry between my sister and me.
critiques and suggestion please :D
i would also really appreciate grammar revisions, since some of this parts are redundant and there might be some awkward/misplaced words.
