<p>I think I'm not allow to post my essay here. Let me know if you're willing to revise it. Thanks </p>
<p>HERE IT IS: </p>
<p>I could no longer wait for the acceptance email. I was confident but anxious about being accepted in the Prince George’s County Honors Band as a bass clarinet performer. For my director to send us an email saying that none of us made into the Honors Band, a lot of hours, energy, and sacrifice had been invested.
I quickly logged into the original website to see if my band director was joking. Those same words that I saw on the email were on the website, conforming that I was not accepted. I dropped my head into my escritoire, and said to myself “why!” I quickly prompted myself to not let this bitter disappointment invade me emotionally. All I could do to express failure was cover my face and wait for this disturbance to go away.
Music is interesting to me. It is a motley kind of art. I play with music by trying to remember sounds, testing each unique note, and training my eyes to quickly recognize music patterns. I’m just glad that I develop an interest for it as a child because if I had not, I would have miss an opportunity. It is like missing a carnival, after finding out that it was already held.
After the short desperation of the acceptance notification, I quickly let it go without having any negative effect on me. I was smiling and said to myself, “At least I didn’t give up; maybe there’s something else I can do other than auditioning for the Honors Band.” This is what it means to be a solid person. Life will not meet every wish. Some people work a thousands times harder than I do and see failure as a result. However, life will not guide one directly towards defeat but it should rather train one. I was bitter at myself after acknowledging the presumption I made of being accepted into the Honors.
I remember that I always sweat for small things and that in some cases the unexpected will be an end or result. After reading the email and thinking about other past non-fulfillments, with ardent feelings inside me, I felt impenetrable. I didn’t care if my effort made me loose a game, get a bad grade, or anything of that nature; but I was willing to give my all and exceed my limits.
I took this type of mentality towards my academics. I pensively speculated on how the past experience- whether good bad- can actually help me in school. Everyone knows that feeling-“If I had not done this at that place, I wouldn’t be here.” I now always remember that the most successful artists, scientists, writers, or survivors are the most unluckiest people, and are the ones who struggled much more than I did. I use this as a motivation and remember that suffering is included in the syllabus of success. I now feel more pride and can see my unbreakable future. </p>
<p>To start off, I’ve seen worse essays, and I also am of no authority on whats good and bad. That aside, I think you’re trying too hard. It seems like your trying to squeeze as much large words as you can into the essay, it becomes stiff, and unmanageable. Also, try to think of another story that’s more interesting, or close to you. I know that getting turned down by something that you wanted to get into is tough, but there must be something else that you don’t have to strain writing about. A very eventful day, that one time when things went bad fast, your most traumatic moment (The people who read the essays love all that dramatic stuff), or something else that is unique to YOU. find something that you think is different than anyone else, and exploit it. </p>
<p>The graders who read these sort of things want to know about you personally, not how many big words you can use in a sentence, or what meaning you can derive from an unattached event. Try to write something that perfectly represents who you are. If you can do that, you’re good.</p>
<p>Overall pretty good. Not ivy-league, but will get you somewhere. Keep working on it.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with Jolex, it seems like you’re trying really really hard. I think what you should do is show, not tell. Don’t say you were disappointed, talk about the way your heart fell or your breath stopped. “Why!” sounds silly and childish. You also use an inordinate amount of big words and they seem like you’re trying to overcompensate or something. I think if you use less SAT vocab and more everyday jargon you’d be a lot better off. Don’t put quotes from yourself, very elementary. Definitely you need to focus on showing and not telling. You cannot say you were a good student or you put your failure towards your academics, you have to show it. It makes the essay much more interesting and makes sure that they know your personality. Also, I think you could tell a better story. Although I respect you for talking about your failure, it’s very basic to speak about it in an “I overcame it and now I am strong, etc. etc.” way. Admissions officers read 100 essays like that, and you need to stand out. You could talk about how that lead you in a different direction that ended up being better (one door closes, another opens kind of thing) or you could talk about what got you into music (like the way every note seemed to brush against your skin, soft and comforting. OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, I DO NOT PLAY MUSIC). It needs to be a more personal story. Ask yourself, “could anyone else have written this??” Please spell check as well, because you have a lot of minor errors that could be easily corrected. Using words like “impenetrable” or “escritoire” are unreasonably pretentious and you should definitely get rid of them.</p>
<p>Please don’t take this harshly, I’m just trying to help. I think if you told a personal story that is less cliche I think it would turn out a lot better. Don’t generalize either, I think that it would do you good to be more specific to YOU. You’re awesome, represent YOU.</p>
<p>@kidacat Do you guys suggest to throw away this story and come up with a more dramatic one? I will do some edits to make it sound like me and change the “telling” to “showing.”</p>