EPTCollege essays + Starcraft - Page 2
| Blogs > docvoc |
|
krndandaman
Mozambique16569 Posts
| ||
|
Juliette
United States6003 Posts
On January 02 2013 12:57 docvoc wrote: The point was less to tell my roomate something as it was to kind of show something that I care about. The point of the roommate one was to tell them that I am not a "Proper Southern Boy." I used that as an example of how I do not qualify as a good ole boy, that said I also used the example of skateboarding and longboarding to be fair. Being truly honest here, college essays are bullshit, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I can't reveal something about me that tells them too much, I have to reveal and withold, but at the same time I can't reveal anything too deep that 2000 characters (spaces are counted as characters) can't explain. I spend a lot of time on video games, they have been part of my life since I was young, and have been a healthy way (sometimes unhealthy) to relieve stress. In a lot of ways, writing an essay about video games shows that I have balls; I am willing to write about something that most adults find as a taboo subject or worse, a waste of time. Like I said, I wrote things that I thought would have an effect on the person reading them, whether or not they knew what Starcraft was or the video games in general. People are afraid to write things like that to college reps, I'm not. All that being said, no video games aren't my first priority nor will they ever be, but I think if you had that kind of a questioning feeling, then I succeeded in at least making you feel. - sorry for the wall of text Juliette  .EDIT: fixed a typo I understand, i wrote one of my essays about video games as well, and how i learned to not be addicted to them. to be fair, i got rejected (from Notre dame non the less, and now they're playing for the title.... -_- ), but i don't think it was because of that. it's just that this guy is gonna be living with you for a year and you don't know what he's gonna be like. college essays are bs to an extent but they're still important because it shows you're more than just a GPA and SAT score, you're a person. the way you write it and what you express is an extension of you, and any opportunity to be yourself should be taken, especially for college, and especially in a dorm where people are gonna be so different from you. you have fair points, it's just that your roommate is gonna think starcraft is huge in your life, which it might not be. I was really just curious whether starcraft is as big of a thing in your life as it seems. videogames seems to be, and i suppose starcraft can be a manifestation of that for now. but i came into college applications loving sc2 and now im really bored of anything related to it :p. instead ive spent time getting to know the people around me, getting involved, etc. best of luck on your applications! hopefully you get where you want, but remember to make it what you want if you don't. i wanted ND so bad, didn't get in, ended up choosing my last choice (Illinois) and i wouldn't trade being here for anything.  | ||
|
theonemephisto
United States409 Posts
The first gives very little context to what you're talking about and barely has a clear idea behind it even if you do already know about the topic. I'm not at all a fan of trying to mush two separate topics into one like that, especially in such a short work. College essays need to be focused and coherent, even more so when you're writing about something that the reader will have no experience in. Putting myself in the shoes of a reader, I would be thinking about the south, wondering what e-sports is, and then wondering what the connections between those are. There's also some idea of generational disconnect and rebellion. And then halfway through I would be hit with a drastic topical shift to skateboarding, and then a brief attempt to bring it back to the ideas of rebellion that were expressed in the first place. It's too much and the connections between ideas are too weak. I think it would be a much better essay if you chose two of those ideas (skateboarding, starcraft, rebellion, south) to write about. The second is just impossible to follow. It's difficult even for someone who has played Starcraft and knows that it's about Starcraft before reading it. Giving that to a reader who has no context or prior knowledge is not going to work. Almost no details are given and everything is described in general or abstract terms or represented with pronouns. It's about as unclear as you could possibly make it. To make it even worse, I don't think it tells much about you even if it is understood and the writing isn't star-caliber enough to stand on it's own as a college essay. | ||
| ||
