College Essay/Letter

College Essays
1

<p>This is my appeal letter to UCSB</p>

<p>Dear Undergraduate Admission Officer,</p>

<p>I am writing to appeal my admission decision Thank you for your careful decisions on the admissions. However, UCSB has always been on of my top choices for few reasons. UCSB has one of the most excellent biology and pre-med programs in undergraduate department and I believe by being able to attend to this school, I would be able to gain a significant knowledge and interest towards the major which I wish to major in.
Throughout high school, I have always believed in taking on difficult challenges to be interesting. Aside from the positive reason, I spent my freshman year to junior year filled with advancement placement and honors courses due to selfish reasons such as appearing to be intelligent. This thought process clearly turned out to be ineffective and negatively affected me as a student. The pressure I received from courses which I was not capable of taking turned into unwillingness to work, thus leading to procrastination and lower grades.
Realizing what my limits were, I decided to spend the senior year continually doing extracurricular activities while taking courses which I could manage. The courses remained just as hard with less amount of work, but aside from the academics, one of the awards which I received was for being the most active person in the volunteering club. Due to constant volunteering, I was unable to attend to more than half of the Science Olympiad meeting. But this has turned out to be one of my biggest accomplishments. After spending the time which I had left on preparing for Science Olympiad competition, I was able to win second place in the Science Olympiad team. I have also continued to be involved in the track and filed team at school. Some of the major accomplishments which I have made in the team this year were becoming part of the varsity team and becoming the team captain of my particular event. I have also been taking in part of the physics bowl team, which is planned to compete at a national rank.
A minor mistake which I had made on the acclimation was the English course which I had failed during freshman year, which does not satisfy the “a – g” requirement. I have been taking an online course from BYU in order to satisfy this requirement and will be testing to bring the failed grades higher to a passing grade.
Although I have spent most of my high school years under my selfish reasons, my selfishness has further allowed me to realize what my limitations were act according to it. With all respect, I would like to ask you to reconsider my application once more.</p>

<p>Any grammatical error as well as content suggestions are what I'm looking for. Thanks in advance to anybody who will be commenting.</p>

2

<p>Try to focus more on what you’ve learned from taking too many AP courses: </p>

<p>“Although I have spent most of my high school years under my selfish reasons, my selfishness has further allowed me to realize what my limitations were act according to it.”</p>

<p>This is good, but talk more about it and more in-depth. It seems like your “act according to it” is you just listing your EC’s again. Maybe write about how you’ve grown as a person, or what you’ve learned as a result of more focus on EC’s (instead of just listing accomplishments). Link your involvement w/ EC’s to how you can contribute to the community at UCSB.</p>

<p>Also, try to keep it from sounding like you decided to give up on academics because it was too much work. That’s not the message I get from reading this, but someone else could take it that way. </p>

<p>Overall, I think this has the potential to be really appealing. I like the idea you’re pushing for. Just make it even clearer what you’ve learned and why UCSB is THE place for you.</p>

3

<p>I am writing to appeal my admission decision Thank you for your careful decisions on the admissions.
^seems contradictory…“I don’t agree with your decision but thanks for making careful decisions”?? </p>

<p>UCSB has one of the most excellent biology and pre-med programs in undergraduate department and I believe by being able to attend to this school, I would be able to gain a significant knowledge and interest towards the major which I wish to major in.
^some awkward and repetitive wording…“most excellent”, “by being able…be able”, “the major which I wish to major in”</p>

<p>Throughout high school, I have always believed in taking on difficult challenges to be interesting.
^“to be interesting”? Have you taken on challenges to be an interesting person, or did you find the challenges themselves interesting? </p>

<p>Aside from the positive reason, I spent my freshman year to junior year filled with advancement placement and honors courses…
^grammatically incorrect…“spent my year filled”–>“filled my yearS” </p>

<p>The courses remained just as hard with less amount of work
^seems contradictory </p>

<p>Due to constant volunteering, I was unable to attend to more than half of the Science Olympiad meeting.
^meetingS </p>

<p>But this has turned out to be one of my biggest accomplishments.
^subject of “this” is not clear…has your absence been your biggest accomplishment, or has S.O.? </p>

<p>After spending the time which I had left on preparing for Science Olympiad competition
^confusing </p>

<p>accomplishments which I have made
^awkward wording…“some of my accomplishments as part of the team this year” </p>

<p>Although I have spent most of my high school years under my selfish reasons,my selfishness has further allowed me to realize what my limitations were act according to it.
^seems contradictory…“selfishness is bad but it helped me”??</p>

<p>I applaud your bravery in trying to appeal your decision, but I would take another look at this letter before you send it out. While some of your reasons and insights were good, the way you explained them made kind of made it seem like you were making excuses. I would also be careful not to reiterate your entire resume here; the adcoms already reviewed it in making the decision that they did.</p>

<p>I wish you the best of luck!</p>

4

<p>I made few changes to the letter and it probably still has most of the grammatical errors, I’d like to share this one as well.</p>

<p>Dear Committee Member,</p>

<p>I am writing to appeal my admission decision to UCSB. There are several new pieces of information which I have left out on the previous application that I would like to share.
One thing which I failed to mention in my essays was the true difficulties of the challenges which I had. The courses which I took are the most difficult courses at a very competitive high school. Track & Field at Torrey Pines is also very competitive and required the athletes more than ten hours per week of practice and competition and it often interfered with my studies. Although I was not able to maintain a grade letter of ‘A’ in most of the classes, I have learned much from my high school experience. I have learned to be able to see which challenges are manageable and are not for me.
An error which I have made on the application is my failure to complete an English course during my freshman year, which does not satisfy the “a – g” requirement. I have taken an online course from BYU and will be testing in order to meet the “a – g” requirement.
I have won few awards and accomplishments as a senior. The awards I received are the most active member of the community volunteering and taking second place in the Science Olympiad regional competition. Some of the accomplishments I have achieved are becoming part of varsity team and an event captain of the Track & Field and physics bowl team, which is planned to compete at regional level.
I have continued to take considerably difficult courses as a senior at school and am doing much better. I currently have four A’s and two B’s.
Although my grades may have been considerably low, I have learned to take challenges which I could manage. I believe that with what I have learned from my experiences at Torrey Pines, I will be able to successful at UCSB. With all respect, I would like to ask you to reconsider my application.</p>

5

<p>There are several new pieces of information which I have left out on the previous application that I would like to share.
^reconsider the wording here…the info is not really “new”; it’s more of an elaboration on previously-submitted material. </p>

<p>One thing which I failed to mention in my essays was the true difficulties of the challenges which I had.
^grammatical stuff/would reconsider wording. Unless you got horrible grades/had extraordinary circumstances that hindered your studies, I would avoid using words like “challenges”, “struggles”, etc. I would personally try to focus on my effort and hard work. </p>

<p>The courses which I took are the most difficult courses at a very competitive high school.
^watch tenses/repetition of “courses”. “I took the most difficult courses possible at a very competitive high school”. </p>

<p>Track & Field at Torrey Pines is also very competitive and required the athletes more than ten hours per week of practice and competition and it often interfered with my studies.
^subjection confusion with “the athletes” and “I”. I would cut the competitive part and simply say that you spent 10 hrs a wk doing Track& Field, and that it often interfered with your studies. </p>

<p>I have learned to be able to see which challenges are manageable and are not for me.
^grammatical/subject confusion. Instead of doing the “are…are not” thing, maybe talk about carrying a manageable load/balancing track and studies, etc. </p>

<p>I have won few awards and accomplishments as a senior. T
^Do you mean “a few”? </p>

<p>The awards I received are the most active member of the community volunteering and taking second place in the Science Olympiad regional competition.
^awkward sentence order…“I received the m.a.m.o.t.c.v. award and TOOK 2nd place…”</p>

<p>I have continued to take considerably difficult courses as a senior at school and am doing much better. I currently have four A’s and two B’s.
^the Admissions rep may wonder why you have suddenly started doing better? Attitude change? Less extracurriculars? Etc. I would elaborate on this. </p>

<p>The things I wrote above are largely nitpicky. :slight_smile: I think you include good details and that this is a nice draft. You may want to elaborate on certain parts…from the Admissions Rep’s perspective, a lot of kids may be involved in extracurriculars and still earn excellent grades. Think about what makes <em>you</em> stand out from that crowd.</p>

<p>As a sidenote…I really liked when you mentioned how you loaded up on advanced classes as an underclassmen and changed your perspective later on in your first draft. I think that detail shows that you are a bright and reasonable person. Consider sticking that back in there! :)</p>

6

<p>I didn’t read the comments, but your essay is littered with at least a couple dozen grammatical errors, rendering any relevant points obscured.</p>