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On September 20 2010 13:42 ramen247 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 13:27 imBLIND wrote:
Why would colleges care about you doing chores? That's something you do, not something that defines you. Just keep thinking "so what" for every sentence you write. hey what do you mean by "so what"
For example, the first line of your essay is "Chores are one of life's challenges that I used to complain about."
So what? You do chores and you complained about it. That tells me you grew up, which is kinda obvious cause you have to grow up to go to college.
"I can always see the hidden strain on her face and the slight arch of her back to scrub at the entire family's dirty dishes, just looking at her makes me tired; yet I promise to myself that I will do the dishes tomorrow. "
So what? You procrastinated even though you saw it pains your mom. Tells me you're lazy
"I never complain while doing dishes or any chores anymore"
So what? You learned to shut up. Tells me you learned to keep your thoughts to yourself.
"At least when I leave for college, my mom will have one less set of dishes to clean."
So what? You're just going to college to please your mom? This tells me you're guilty about stressing your mom out and going to college just for her.
You're entire essay is filled with "pointless" stuff. Sure it's a life story, but it tells me nothing (or really bad things) about who you are and why you're going to college.
EDIT: oni summed it up pretty nicely
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I'm glad Australia's system doesn't have this sort of appllication to get into uni.
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United States10774 Posts
i say scrap this essay and instead write about how being rude on teamliquid has taught to you act differently in real life
on a different note, if you are going to keep this essay, it obviously needs a ton of work. this shows me nothing about yourself besides the fact that you are now finally mature enough to contribute back towards your family. what exactly happened? what are you even trying to say? the presentation is flat and uninteresting. the grammar is not clean, and the structure needs to be fixed as well.
it's hard for me to imagine that there is no other experience with your mom/other inspirational figures in your life that you can write about. what are you passionate about? what makes you who you are now? who are you?
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definitely work on improving your writing skills. professors have no tolerance for fluff like this, and while this essay may be acceptable for a high school student, you really should be more personal and detailed. write with passion if you want to succeed.
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So this may come off as a little strange, but I am actually a professional tutor. If you would like me to do a hard analysis of your essay and maybe do a video conference about how to improve it, feel free to let me know. I can also link you to my tutoring profile if you want so you can see why I am qualified to help out.
My biggest tip is the following, write something you would want to read <3
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CA10835 Posts
don't listen to the people telling you about the rigid format. that's completely off-base when you're writing a college essay. it just needs to have your clear voice in it, be organized, and flow well. and i disagree with people saying that this is a bad topic to write about. you can write about anything you want, even if it a mundane task, as long as it has the "so what" part to it that others have previously mentioned. i agree that it has a lot of work to do but what you have at the moment is not a bad start. try to show a little bit more of your individuality through the essay. don't be discouraged, i find that the average student has to do about 3-4 rewrites per essay, and that's with someone's help! also can you share the prompt with us?
as for my credentials... i work at a tutoring center and i'm currently helping about 16 seniors with their college apps in coordination with 2 english teachers. these students are applying to all sorts of schools, ranging from top tier ivies down to super safety level state schools.
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Try using a format. . .I recommend Jane Schaffer method. Since you probably don't know what that is i'll go ahead and give you a brief outline. Basically you're going to start out with the introduction then go straight into your thesis. After that the format goes like this.
*Concrete Detail
*Supporting Details
*Comments
*Conclusion
Editing this in: You don't need to stick to a strict format but you should definitely be thinking about the things on that list.
It goes like that for every paragraph. You need to remember the point of your college essay is to sell yourself. This isn't an expository page about chores and there affects on childhoods. You need to stay focused on you. The people at admissions don't know you at all, the essay is your chance to show them things about yourself that they can't figure out from your transcripts and test scores.
I find when writing a persuasive essay, especially one that will be accompanied by statistics, it's important to appeal mainly to their emotional side (pathos people!). They already know your numbers and grades so focusing to much on logos probably wont gain you much. You need to really rethink your tone when you're writing to a person. In the essay you wrote, it really feels like you were forced into it. Like someone said above, it sounds almost like a rant, or at the very least a bit robotic. Try to make your writing sound more like you. Include some kind of hobby or life experience that you think distinguishes you as a person.
Trying to keep this stuff separated a bit so it doesn't look too much like a giant wall of text. lol
Anyways, for an essay like this you don't really need a strict thesis. That doesn't mean you should go off on some meandering story about your entire life. Keep it to the point, anything you say should be directly related or linked back to the fact they should accept you into their college.
Some things you should avoid:
*Sweeping generalizations. ex: "Everyone does X" "If you X then you X". Generalizing is a bad habit.
*Symbolism: Don't get me wrong here. . .I like symbolism and it definitely has its place in writing, just not in an essay like this.
*Abundance of metaphors: I like metaphors a lot and I include them when I write. I'm not saying you should discard them totally from your essay just don't use a lot of them.
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From what I noticed, you spend a lot of time writing descriptive elements for the sake of writing them. Imagery is good, but it only if it advances a point. And frankly, yours does not ("I don't know why..." doesn't count). Even the most self-indulgent memoir needs some thrust of argument to make it worth reading.
Oh, and I agree with the chorus of voices telling you to scrap this essay. Don't write things (however honest) that shade you in this much of an unfavorable light.
Oh, and on a bit of a tangent (sorry!):
Right... try getting into CALTECH, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, London School of Finance (Not sure) and etc. University of Chicago, man comparing it to the world too?
Ranked 33? Best in the world? Heh.
Hint: there's a good amount of fields (at least in the sciences) in which the undergrad you go to has little to no bearing on what post-grad schools you can get accepted to, and rankings aren't the best indicator of "how good" the school is. Elitism is good--the tuition bill, not so much.
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EPT
