Okay so I am mid mental break down and I don’t know what to do.
I’m applying to the University of Florida and the application is due November 1. I drafted my essay two days ago, and it took me extremely long to write it (6 hours) but when I finished it, I felt like the essay truly conveyed who I was.
My problem is, when I sent the essay to my SAT Tutor/ College advisor, he edited my essay and I felt like while it did sound more formal, he had taken away a lot of my voice.
I do plan on including some parts of what he fixed for me, because it just sounds better, but should i still keep the parts that showed more of my voice?
Should i go for the formal version, or the one that includes more of my voice?
well ultimately it is your application, not his. do what you want to do. take his suggestions into consideration but still make your essay sound like yourself.
It’s more important that the essay sounds like you than that it’s “formal.” Depending on your essay topic, formal language might not even be the most appropriate.
It dependseems – By more formal, do you mean fixing grammar / sentence structure?
Feel free to PM me the essays.
At the end of the day, you should be happy with your essay.
This all depends on how it was edited. If your original essay’s “voice” was incoherent or babbling, then I wouldn’t go with it. I would, however, also heavily advise against using someone else’s words verbatim in an essay that is supposed to reflect your personality. It is dishonest and ultimately will work against you.
Finding a voice is one of the hardest and most challenging aspects of writing. If possible, open a dialogue with your tutor and ask why he/she made the changes he/she did. Find out how to channel his/her expertise into something that is genuinely yours.
@jeremyj I sent him my essay to read it over and make sure everything was okay, what he fixed was because i was 10 words over the limit so he helped me rephrase some things. I decided not to keep everything he changed because there are some parts that i like better from my essay, but I’m going to keep the parts that he changed that just make it sound better… i don’t know if you get what i mean… lol