This is the essay for the honors college application at University of Alabama in Huntsville -- What is your favorite word and why? The essay should be at least 350 words. I'm especially interested in comments on the first couple sentences and concluding sentences. Thanks!
When I was really young, my parents would have said my favorite word was no. I used to say no to many things I was told. But nowadays, I think that my favorite word is yes for many reasons, even if I can't say "yes" to everything.
I love community service and am in multiple service clubs, such as ROTARACT, INTERACT, and was in Key club for two years. Helping people is a joy to me and I try to take every opportunity for service I can. This is one of the situations where saying yes comes in handy. Saying "yes" has allowed me to have multiple experiences in community service that I wouldn't have otherwise had I said no.
Another time where saying yes helped me was during a vacation towards the Canary Islands. I had a choice on whether or not I wanted to go, and I did think about it quite a bit. I had planned on a more relaxing time then, but I decided to say "yes" towards going. I think that the trip was one of my favorite experiences I ever had and I'm glad that I went, as I got to take many neat photos of the beach, animals, and of mountains and plateaus.
Saying "yes" has even helped me in clubs outside of community service clubs. For example, though it did put a lot on my plate, I had said "yes" to three different events in Science Olympiad, one of which being Bottle Rocket. This was one of the biggest things that made me choose to go into aerospace engineering. Also, it has helped me meet new people, when I said yes to run for my college's engineering club's student council representative. I would very likely not have met those people had I not said "yes", but because I did say "yes:, I met many more people and am happy I got to meet them.
These are some of the reasons why yes is my favorite word. Though I can't say "yes: to everything, since sometimes events will overlap and I can't do everything at once, saying "yes" has definitely helped me gain experiences that shape me into the person I am today.
Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,844 
4785 Reading the full essay showed me that there as no reason to include your parents saying that your favorite word used to be NO. Since you are focused on the yes aspect, you should not involve the no part anymore. Not unless you use it to explain why you say yes to everything. That would be unnecessary in this presentation though so just remove the no reference and stick to the yes part. By the way, emphasize the word YES since that is the highlight of your response and pivotal to the presentaiton. If you want to keep the NO part, then you should connect the two in some manner so that it makes sense to the reader when you say that you say YES to everything.
