Are the short takes supposed to be light and humerous? Please critique.

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>Please critique harshly. Thank you.</p>

<ol>
<li>You have been granted a free weekend next month. How will you spend it?
My world is turning sideways. The boat is threatening to throw me into the ravenous water. The canvas flutters and falls silent. I am sailing.</li>
</ol>

<p>2.What is something about which you have changed your mind in the last three years?
I took the plunge. Worried about the effects of soda, my reserve melted once I experienced the power of caffeine. I now have 27 hours to my day.</p>

<p>3.What is the best piece of advice you have received while in high school?
My teacher told me to follow my heart. I do not think she realized how literally I would take her advice, because I did not follow the ordinary route.</p>

<p>4.What do you wish you were better at being or doing?
Patience is a virtue that I do not have. My home is in a vortex of whirlwind activity, but sometimes, I need to turn off the tornado that is my life.</p>

<p>5.What is a learning experience, in or out of the classroom, that has had a significant impact on you?
I could not equate cash to a credit card until I saw the bill I had inadvertently racked up. I understand money now, but have no card to prove it.</p>

2

<p>I think your responses are very nice and lighthearted.</p>

3

<h1>4 is a variation on a theme that D1 once told me is a prevalent Yalie humble brag: My biggest flaw is that I work too hard :rolleyes:.</h1>

4

<p>To be honest, I think they sound ridiculous, bordering on incoherent for some of them.</p>

<p>I’d tone it down a bit.</p>

5

<p>“I need to turn off the tornado that is my life.”</p>

<p>This one sounds very, very weird. Don’t tell the adcoms that you need to turn off your life, please.</p>

6

<p>I answered mine very directly, six or seven words each, I didn’t think that was the time for extended prose. I was at a New Year’s Eve party and wrote them about 20 mins out from the deadline, so I’m no authority. I checked them a few minutes after I told my friends I submitted, and there was a typo. I have no cares.</p>

7

<p>FWIW: My son, a junior at Yale, answered most of the questions directly, but added a touch of humor here and there. From three years ago, here were his answers:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>What would you do with a free afternoon?

</p></li>
<li><p>Recall a compliment you received that you especially value. What was it? From whom did it come?

</p></li>
<li><p>If you could witness one moment in history, what would it be and why?

</p></li>
<li><p>What do you wish you were better at doing?

</p></li>
<li><p>If you were choosing Students to form a Yale class. What question would you ask here that we have not?

</p></li>
</ol>

8

<p>Yeah I’ll second what gibby said. Be straightforward with your language, but make the content interesting.</p>

<p>The reaction that adcoms have after reading the short takes should be a nod and a smile- excessively descriptive and winding sentences will definitely make that harder.</p>

<p>The best advice I got with the short takes was to think of them as casual interview questions. Read your answers out loud: is that really how you would respond in conversation?</p>

9

<p>If it helps, I answered very directly and was admitted via the SCEA process. I think that they just want to get to know you a bit better.</p>

10

<p>heads up everyone, the deadline for submission has passed already.</p>

11

<p>^^ I think all the posters on this thread are aware of that.</p>

12

<p>you’re trying too hard</p>

13

<p>^^ I agree.</p>

14

<p>if the humor were a little bit less convoluted and easier to follow it would’ve been better</p>

15

<p>I feel like you should just take a deep breath and respond as if you were answering a close friend. That’s the easiest way to show off who you really are.</p>

16

<p>Deadline over and I think the OP gets it by now. Closing thread.</p>