<p>Do you ever feel doubtful when you see every poster on CC proclaiming that their essays are excellent, amazing, great, or heartrending? I feel like a lot of these 'excellent' essays may just be formulaic, safe, boring, or maybe even just plain bad... I don't know, it just seems to me like not everyone writes an amazing essay, and I have a sneaking suspicion that not everyone on here does either.Thoughts, feelings, rebuttals?</p>
<p>not everyone writes their essay either</p>
<p>they all probably had the same agency do it</p>
<p>People on CC are much more commited to getting into college than the average population. Very few people on CC would submit an essay that they didn't think was great. Does this mean all of these essays are actually good? No.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the writing skills of today's students are, on the whole, pretty poor. I have read some essays from CC posters that were terrible, to be blunt. And most of the kids on CC are the cream of the crop! I have also seen some excellent essays, including some which were posted publicly last year. It is tough to find the balance between interesting and well-written.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild, would you care to read mine and tell me bluntly what you think?</p>
<p>I would be glad to read it. Send me a PM with it.</p>
<p>actually... could you possibly read mine too, if it's not too much trouble? I'm a sucker for criticism.</p>
<p>filmxoxo17: have you read these essays? how are they bad? do you mean like they are trying to be witty, but it just doesn't work out for them? </p>
<p>momof whild child: could you read mines too? I can't change it though, I already submitted my application</p>
<p>I readily admit that my essays weren't very good. I went back and read them a few days ago and was pretty disgusted to tell the truth..haha oh well. I'm thinking about selling them to gradesaver.com..but I haven't made up my mind yet.</p>
<p>Whether or not they are 'excellent' doesn't really affect you.. they /can/ conceivably be excellent or the poster could be delusional.</p>
<p>i agree with schoens. CCers are (probably) much more serious about their education than the average teens. on the whole, although some may be bad or poorly written, a serious CCer member generally has average or above average or captivating essays.</p>
<p>Jo.InC: "a serious CCer member generally has average or above average or captivating essays."</p>
<p>--Holla!!!!!!!!! ;)</p>
<p>how much could i get from gradesaver.com if i sold them like 6 different essays of mine?</p>
<p>i want to do that too, funkmasta...</p>
<p>i want to sell them every essay written during my high school career.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm thinking of "donating" mine when I'm done with high school.</p>
<p>I've been reading other people's essays on the Princeton forum and so may of the essays are too try-hard styled. There were those that were just simply awful. Some just didn't seem to have a single sentence without a grammar mistake and some were as exciting as growing peas. However- there was one that made me laugh until the tears started flowing.</p>
<p>Generally- I like most essays I've seen but only a few ones are memorable and I would wage my money on them to get into Princeton. Most people think their essays are great- but until you read what other people have written, you won't know just how good your essay is relative to your compeditors :p</p>
<p>momofwhildchild, can you read mine too(i'm verry sorry about joining the queue! they started it!)? just some opinions/thoughts are fine(since I already submitted them weeks ago)!</p>
<p>can you really sell your essays to gradesaver.com??? i want to i want to!!(not that anyone would buy mine)</p>
<p>I've only read a couple around the ivy boards, only one of them had struck me to be amazing though. the essay was interesting to the degree that I had intentionally look (very carfully I might add) for wording mistakes to find one or two. however most of the essays just tries to hard to paint a picture of themself than to tell the story.
its hard to find the balance between well written and intersting like momofwildchild said, but I think its just as hard to balance the right amount of background information with the actual essay(event) content.
another thing I've noticed is that people tend to try for too big of a topic. 500 words (for most applications) is very limited and the topic needs to be narrow and specific. there isn't enough room to put everything down.</p>
<p>Yeah, I've read quite a few essays around CC and most of them are mediocre at best. There are rare exceptions, however, but on the general scale I think students definitely overestimate their creative writing ability.</p>