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Hey guys a little peer review? 
I haven't written anything for a class in a little bit over a year. And this is a very very rough copy. Tear it apart with criticism if you want to. I'm looking for pointers and to see if I'm in the right direction. I want to keep it under 500 words so it's a bit short. This is also a personal statement, because I'm transferring. I read online guides to get a general feel of what I should include, but still don't know if this is right. Soo here is...
+ Show Spoiler +To me the most important thing in life is a challenge and the risks that, that challenge contains. The victorious feeling of overcoming any challenge is something that cannot be described with words alone. The greater the challenge, the more intense that feeling is when having surpassed it. Having faced many challenges through out life, many have been overcome and to be honest a decent number failed.
I come from a family that has had to overcome a lot to be where we are today. Both my parents grew up in Mexico, on small ranches where the only work available was underpaid, making it impossible for them to move forward. Migrating from Mexico to the United States, they worked the only jobs they could find. Although the work was hard and strenuous they were determined to give their children a chance at a promising future. My parent’s experiences have left a mark on my life and I will never take that for granted.
Speaking very little English, school for me was anything but manageable. Most of the material taught was not impossible, but hard to interpret. Seeing that my parents knew as much as I did at the time, I had to be self –taught-. Whenever I had a question or found a particular subject difficult I had to resolve things myself. While others had their parents to look for clarifications I didn’t have the same luxury. This forced me to be self reliant with my studies. Being self reliant is a very important characteristic that I am thankful for learning early on.
My main goal for the future is to become a pediatrician. Being the eldest of three I have learned a lot from my siblings. I have taught them a lot and in return they have done the same. What makes me want to become a pediatrician is having the possibility to have a positive affect on the future, which are our children. I believe very much in the Indian proverb, “We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.” These words summarize my feelings towards our future. It is the responsibility of everyone to help in making the future a little bit better and I want to do my part.
Dedicating the next several years of my life to your premedical program and then medical school will be a challenge as well as a risk. Certainly paying for medical school will be part of the challenge; however I am one hundred percent sure that this is what I want. I am confident that by admitting me to your school I can and will offer something of value to the table.
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1. First sentence ending is awkward, "that, that challenge contains" can be changed into "that the challenge contains" or something.
2. Third sentence is awkward. "... the feeling is when having surpassed it" just confused the hell out of me.
3. Last sentence of first paragraph is "ugh" as well. I would change this to "Although I have failed many of my challenges, I am proud to say that I have overcome many of them as well." Something like that, I'm not an English major and I'm not great at compositions either :-/
I'm so hungry right now, I'll try adding more later
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you have to rephrase some parts to make them easier to read and more understandable, for example:
"To me the most important thing in life is a challenge and the risks that, that challenge contains. The victorious feeling of overcoming any challenge is something that cannot be described with words alone." becomes
"I live my life for challenges, the riskier, the better. Words cannot describe the glorious feeling of victory."
or something like that.
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it sounds okay, but i think its a bit too common for an essay topic. I've read many of my fellows essays and a lot of them have something to do with diversity and hard work, I'm sorry to say. There's nothing wrong with writing an essay like that, but it has to stick out from the 99999 other kids that write it. Maybe you should add some more anecdotes, like "so-and-so i was unable to do so-and-so but i resolved that i had to do so-and-so" and so on.
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Well technically if everybody decides to do a "creative" essay then the ordinary essay will become creative again haha
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General tip: for a good personal essay, you want to take a specific experience from your life (something that happened over the course of an hour, day, week, or something thereabouts), and use that as a lens to display the aspects of your individuality that make you attractive to colleges: teamwork skills, leadership skills, problem solving skills, ability to look at a situation from more than one perspective, philanthropy, compassion, etc.
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On February 23 2008 09:10 zdd wrote:
General tip: for a good personal essay, you want to take a specific experience from your life (something that happened over the course of an hour, day, week, or something thereabouts), and use that as a lens to display the aspects of your individuality that make you attractive to colleges: teamwork skills, leadership skills, problem solving skills, ability to look at a situation from more than one perspective, philanthropy, compassion, etc.
In another word, brag w/o bragging.
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I'm a grammar nazi, so I edited it for grammar, not content. Listen to the others' suggestions with regards to content.
To me the most important thing in life is a challenge and the risks that that challenge contains. The victorious feeling of overcoming any challenge is something that cannot be described with words alone. The greater the challenge, the more intense that feeling is when having surpassed it. Having faced many challenges through out life, many have been overcome and, to be honest, a decent number failed.
I come from a family that has had to overcome a lot to be where we are today. Both my parents grew up in Mexico, on small ranches where the only work available was underpaid, making it impossible for them to move forward. Migrating from Mexico to the United States, they worked the only jobs they could find. Although the work was hard and strenuous they were determined to give their children a chance at a promising future. My parent’s experiences have left a mark on my life and I will never take that for granted.
Speaking very little English, school for me was anything but manageable. Most of the material taught was not impossible, but hard to interpret. Seeing that my parents knew as much as I did at the time, I had to be self–taught. Whenever I had a question or found a particular subject difficult I had to resolve things myself. While others had their parents to look for clarifications I didn’t have the same luxury. This forced me to be self reliant with my studies. Being self reliant is a very important characteristic that I am thankful for learning early on.
My main goal for the future is to become a pediatrician. Being the eldest of three I have learned a lot from my siblings. I have taught them a lot and in return they have done the same. What makes me want to become a pediatrician is having the possibility to have a positive affect on the future, which are our children. I believe very much in the Indian proverb, “We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” These words summarize my feelings towards our future. It is the responsibility of everyone to help in making the future a little bit better and I want to do my part.
Dedicating the next several years of my life to your premedical program and then medical school will be a challenge as well as a risk. Certainly paying for medical school will be part of the challenge; however I am one hundred percent sure that this is what I want. I am confident that by admitting me to your school I can and will offer something of value to the table.
Edit: You just had a lot of awkward commas, and omitted commas where needed. Also, "self-taught" is hyphenated; "taught" is not flanked by dashes as you had it originally.
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thanks, you guys never fail
i'll add, rewrite, and try to make it better, the actually due date is in about 2 months I just want to get it sent out early, applying to west chester and pittsburgh and 2 other back up schools
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just so you know, colleges are NOT looking for an earnest plan to what your going to do in college.. they are looking for something light and extremely original and interesting. telling a brief story about something that happened to you that has nothing to do with your plans is a much better idea than writing some generic plea about being an ethical person. Try to take your immigrant background and create a little story, leave out boring details about what your going to do, they dont care about that as much as the quality of your prose. try to put voice in it.
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On February 23 2008 08:13 Equinox_kr wrote:
1. First sentence ending is awkward, "that, that challenge contains" can be changed into "that the challenge contains" or something.
2. Third sentence is awkward. "... the feeling is when having surpassed it" just confused the hell out of me.
3. Last sentence of first paragraph is "ugh" as well. I would change this to "Although I have failed many of my challenges, I am proud to say that I have overcome many of them as well." Something like that, I'm not an English major and I'm not great at compositions either :-/
I'm so hungry right now, I'll try adding more later
Hm, I don't think he is to the point of correcting grammar yet. You need to look at the content/structure.
I like the theme of a "challenge", because it seems appropriate to a medical student. I also like the indian proverb. What I think you should try to do is tie the first part more closely to the second part. The first three paragraphs (hard life, immigrant, etc.) doesn't really do much for you. Who cares? What you need to do is use it to show how it drives you to excel toward your goal of being a pediatrician.
Right now you seem to want to be a pediatrician because its a "challenge". (you also have the indian thing which is a little more than that) What you want to show is that you aren't afraid of a challenge, but also that you are passionate about being a pediatrician itself. Say something like you love children, growing up that way has given you compassion for the less fortunate, etc. Why do you want to be a health worker?
In particular, you could replace these sentences with more of what I'm talking about:
My parent’s experiences have left a mark on my life and I will never take that for granted. could be changed to My parent’s experiences have given me the ability to have compassion for others and a desire to help them.
and you can do the same with this sentenceBeing self reliant is a very important characteristic that I am thankful for learning early on.
But it would be best if you changed more than just those two sentences, try to structure everything around those themes of a challenge and helping others (or whatever your reason is for wanting to be a pediatrician).
edit: and after that, make sure you get like 10 people to check it for grammar 
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EPT
