<p>Hello guys, I am applying to Amherst College as a transfer student in the fall of 2015. Can anyone give me some ideas of how to write the Amherst college transfer essay supplement?
I am supposed to write an essay about a prompt. The prompt is “Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted.”
Can anyone explain to me how to go by this essay? Thank you</p>
<p>@Bkay571 can I ask where you are transfering from and why. It may hold the key to understanding the prompt.</p>
<p>The prompt is very strait forward. What is it that you are finding difficult?</p>
<p>@Singersdad actually I will be completing my associate degree at Allen County Community College and would like to continue to get my bachelors at Amherst College. I currently have a 4.0 gpa.</p>
<p>I applied to Amherst as a transfer for the spring 2015 semester and like you, I am currently a community college student. I wrote my essay on that exact prompt, and wrote about struggles I endured and how I overcame them. Good luck!</p>
<p>Good work Bkay and polysci93 I asked because in prompts like this you have to look to the challenges you have overcome. For example what kept you from applying or getting into Amherst right out of high school ? Maybe talk about how you overcame those challenges or for that matter any obstacles.</p>
<p>@Singersdad If you ask me, this essay can make or break your way into the school. I wrote about a struggle I overcame that will most likely either get me into the school, or get me automatically rejected. But when I called the dean of admissions, I was told that Amherst likes hearing stories about overcoming obstacles.</p>
<p>@PoliSci93 no doubt you are right. A great school like Amherst wants to know you have the critical thinking skills to reflect on your life experiences, the communications skills to effectively tell the story, and the tenacity and intellectual ability to perservere to graduation and add to the conversation in class.</p>
<p>That said, I wish both of you luck but even more so perseverance. Very few students transfer or otherwise are accepted into Amherst, maybe as few as 5-7% of transfer students who apply. Loads of qualified students are not accepted. Although we hope for the best make sure to have a plan “B.” Remember what this prompt is really about, achievement is all about overcoming obstacles. Barriers are only there to test you and see how much you want something, be it a great education, a job you love, your personal vision of happiness.</p>