The Admission Essay

The Admission Essay At the time, I was taking care of my mother, a single parent, and coordinating her transfer to rehab for alcohol addiction. I became the head of household responsible for caring for my three younger sisters. I became a full-time student, employee, and house mom. Instead of getting discouraged by my setback in calculus, I saw it as an opportunity to grow and reconsider my future. I realized that if math isn’t my strong suit, I probably won’t enjoy a career in banking. The essay prompts on the Common App are predictable and mundane. The options in allowed applicants to describe their accomplishments, the obstacles they’d encountered in life, or the problems they would like to solve. These questions are little more than invitations for stock answers delivered in stock formats . The recent arrests in Operation Varsity Blues put the entire college admissions structure under well-deserved scrutiny. One pitfall of extenuating circumstances essays is they tend towards hyperbole and overexageration. If a story would require 450 words of a 600 word essay, then you’re not going to have a lot of space to express self-reflection and analysis of the situation. Remember that the admissions officers are more interested in your perspective of what happened than the events themselves. In our experience, the main worry that applicants have is that their essay won’t stand out. I feel like many of my friends want to go to business school, but don’t actually enjoy the work or have the skills required to be a successful student. I felt that my decision to pursue finance came not from my own motivations, but pressures from friends, family, and society. They have strong statements throughout that they’re deserving of a space in admissions. They discuss how they will bring a unique perspective to campus and how they seem themselves as a leader on the Forty Acres. They also touch on how their academic goals and beliefs have evolved over time, transitioning from “seeing education as a means to an end” to one where education is a value in itself. This applicant provides balance and nuance to their issues at home and concrete ways that they’ve developed and matured over time. They also link their special circumstances into their proposed major, Public Relations. I appreciate that this essay is very straightforward. They get right to the point why they are at their current university, what they hope to study at UT, and how their goals evolved over time. This is a legitimate concern as you will likely compete with numerous applicants who have backgrounds similar to yours. Therefore, follow these tips to ensure that your essay shines in the competitive admissions process. This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. While the data collected from students admitted to Harvard and Stanford is the most specific, AdmitSee also collected interesting information on other Ivy League schools. Writing concisely expresses to the admissions officers that can organize your thoughts and that you respect their time. Advanced vocabulary should be the spice of the essay to give it flavor, so you’ll use plain language most of the time. Essays that are riddled with advanced vocabulary can seem pompous or even inadvertently comical to the reader. When selecting anecdotes for your essay, pick vivid ones that you can tell succinctly. Before, I viewed education as a means to an end, a minor footnote in my transition to the professional world. A purposeful education produces change within and bettering the world around me. At Houston Endowment, I learned the ins and outs of the workings of a non-profit foundation. Any time a transfer applicant is coming from a four-year university, its important to discuss tastefully why they don’t feel their current university is a good fit. I have always aspired to something greater, something more challenging, something different. These aspirations, unfortunately, were not able to be experienced at UNT. I even had the privilege of personally speaking one-on-one with non-profit executives around Houston. To discuss why UT is a great fit and why you want to transfer often requires developing why you’re currently dissatisfied. Their reviewer can no doubt relate to their story of not knowing what they want as a high school student and how attending college gives them an idea of what they don’t prefer moving forward. It’s a balanced essay that focuses equally on where they’re coming from and how UT can help them explore their interests and achieve their long-term goals.