comments/critiques on college essay?

Parents Forum
1

<p>I just finished my 1st draft of my common app essay. Any thoughts?</p>

<p>I stood on the stage and wondered how I could have possibly thought wearing my jelly sandals today was a good idea. Oh yeah, I would impress the director with my quirky style, showing the desirability of casting me as the star in his play. Now, under the harsh, pretension-stripping 1000 watt lights, all I could think of was the pool of sweat that I was sure was about to spill out of my sandals. The only thing bound to leave an impression on the director today was my pair of shaking, jelly legs. Why had my previously faithful bodily functions gone haywire? My hands had grown sprinklers that shot forth perspiration and I must have accidentally swallowed a colony of butterflies. What was I doing here?
As if nothing else could top the terror already latent in that day, some genius decided to start the music! Through sheer instinct I opened my dry mouth to sing. It actually took me a measure and a half to discover that despite my hyperventilation, no sound was exiting. After pondering on this predicament for several more bars, I decided that my humiliation would not be entirely in vain. I heard a squeak leave the desert of my throat. Finally, a sound! “Why would a fellow want a girl like her?” Cinderella’s Stepsisters’ Lament was quavering its way out into the very first row of seats (if I was lucky). The words that had seemed so witty yesterday, suddenly took on an ironic twist of meaning. Why would a director want a girl like me?
I stumbled through the first page, promptly and thoroughly forgot the rest of the words, mumbled an incoherent apology, and squished down from the stage in wet sandals. What was I doing at an audition for musical theater? Why couldn’t I have stuck to what I was good at? Public speaking I could do, violin recitals I could give, I could even perform a hilarious improv skit when called upon, but a musical theater audition was obviously something that I did not excel at.
Gasp! I wasn’t good at something! The very foundations of my thirteen-year old mind were shaken. From infancy I had been taught that there was nothing I couldn’t do if I put my mind to it, and to tell the truth, I hadn’t encountered many things (beside long division) that were substantially difficult for me. I told myself I would put this little incident behind me and go on with a life that no one else thought lacked activities. But I couldn’t. I loved musical theater too much to stand on the sidelines. Something definitely had to be done.
So, with the pleading persuasiveness possessed by every teenage girl anywhere, I managed to get myself into voice lessons and began the endless process of auditioning. Auditioning for theater, I discovered, takes more than just talent. I could improve singing and dancing talent just as I could improve a debate speech, grades, or a violin piece. But auditioning requires persistence and calluses. You learn not to take it too hard when you are rejected for no apparent reason, or when the “other girl” gets the part and not you. You learn you can’t constantly compare yourself to every “other girl” you ever meet. You learn to enjoy the road and do what you love.
Last Sunday evening I dressed up as a man wearing a patched tailcoat and danced across a floor playing my violin in a silent and dark room. This is a situation that in and of itself I would not normally enjoy. But Sunday was different; it was closing night of Fiddler on the Roof and I was playing the fiddler and having the time of my life. It’s hard to express how much I love acting, but as I walked backstage to get ready for the curtain call, I realized that this was the reason I had originally stood on that stage shaking in my jelly sandals.</p>

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<p>I really like this essay. As a fellow actress and dancer, it perfectly describes how I kind of felt at my first audition and all. Some of the words were too superflous and were really unnecessary. </p>

<p>For example:
"Now, under the harsh, pretension-stripping 1000 watt lights..."
( I think you can easily get your point across if you left out pretension-stripping)</p>

<p>"Why had my previously faithful bodily functions gone haywire? .."
(I just didn't like the sentence..it didn't sit well with me..maybe rewording it a little bit differently?)</p>

<p>Maybe find some more simple words that mean the same as the words that you used. You have beautiful imagery...when I read this, I felt like I was there, experiencing all of your emotions. Overall, with some editing, I think it would be a very good common app essay.</p>

<p>"My hands had grown sprinklers that shot forth perspiration and I must have accidentally swallowed a colony of butterflies."
(Beautiful imagery, maybe rewording it like: My hands had seemingly grown sprinklers that shot out perspiration, and while under the hot lights, it felt as if I must have accidentally swallowed a whole colony of butterflies.) <em>Not the best sentence in the world in my part, but maybe rewording it like something like that.</em></p>

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<p>FIRST draft?!? Very nice! It makes me want to meet you (and hear you play your violin in a silent and dark room). Keep tweaking (I agree with thesiren), but for a first draft, I think it's very good.</p>

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<p>Actually, I completely disagree with thesiren. "Pretension-stripping" adds flavour, the haywire sentence is a cleverly non-trite way to express a common emotion, and as for the last suggestion, I'm sure the admissions committee will know what a metaphor is. They won't think you actually had sprinklers for hands. Don't worry. (If you put "seems like" and stuff like that, it adds superfluous words and makes the sentence weaker.)</p>

<p>But that's just me. You can agree with whomever you want.</p>

<p>Anyway, it's a good essay. You use a common theme but spice it up with colourful description, so it makes you seem lively and lets us see a glimpse of how you uniquely perceive the world. Good going. </p>

<p>My suggestions:
Structurally, the beginning seems long. Here's the kind of plan you want:</p>

<p>1 paragraph describing audition experience, and only one; currently the introduction is too long. (After "What was I doing here?" we expect you to move on and talk about, well, what you were doing there. The bigger picture. Instead you dive back into the detailed description, and it seems like a retrogression. Either cut out some of the detail or find a way to integrate the first two paragraphs so that it doesn't end twice. A good way to end would be to cite the song lyrics, then say, "What was I doing here? Why would the director want a girl like me?" You don't need to mention the "ironic twist of the lines" or whatever that was. If you just state the line again, the form of the sentence will show the connection, and it will be all the stronger for not having been made explicit. Like the simile vs. metaphor thing above. Anyway, just make the introduction more of an arc-shape; don't let the tension go until you're really done.)</p>

<p>1 paragraph about how you were always good at everything, but flesh this out. The detailed description should function as an introduction to get you talking about the real issue at hand (struggling with something you can't do at first, learning from it, etc.), but currently it's like half your essay. The thing feels unbalanced. So don't just mention that you do violin, improv, and public speaking; instead, write a sentence for each (or clauses separated by semicolons, if you're into that) and use yet another colourful detail for each. And don't present them all in a parallel form; here, since they're expecting parallelism, a little bit of variation of sentence structure between each item would really make it stand out. Maybe just on the last one. You seem to have a good sense of that, so you can experiment with it. Anyway, then mention how disappointed you were about your experience with musical theatre. Actually, you could start out the paragraph with the other activities without connecting into the last paragraph, and then at the end, describe the outcome ("stumbled through the first page, etc.") This keeps us hanging, because we've had the awful set-up at the beginning, but we don't know how it ends. So you keep our attention by delaying that bit. (So like, the main idea is, "I had been able to do this specific concert [describe]. This improv gave me no trouble." Blah blah blah, give a sentence where you flourish at each. Then, "But this time, I was at a loss." Blah blah blah. Without actually saying what's in the quotes, but implying it with detail like you've been doing.) Then state how shocking it was for your thirteen-year-old mind to be bad at something.</p>

<p>Then have a paragraph where you say that you loved musical theatre. Start with that; don't go back to talking about being bad at it, because that was last paragraph's idea. Talk about how you loved it and what you did to improve. Flesh it out and make it sound more arduous.</p>

<p>Last paragraph is fine.</p>

<p>Does all that make any sense? I know it's somewhat disorganized, but it's late here. You can feel free to ignore me if you want, but I think that it would make an excellent essay a tiny bit tighter. So in summary:</p>

<p>introductory paragraph: I was nervous on stage and sucked
body paragraph 1: I had always succeeded at everything else, so I was surprised and discouraged that this didn't come so easily
body paragraph 2: But I loved musical theatre too much to give it up, and so I persevered (adcoms, please note my strength of will and persistent character)
conclusion: Now I'm awesome; look at me go.</p>

<p>If you stick to something planned like that, where each paragraph has a specific purpose in the overall argument of the essay, and where you don't weaken the argument by sticking bits of one idea in another idea's paragraph, your essay will not only be colourful and interesting, but it will relentlessly focus the adcoms' attention on your bigger meaning. Good luck with it, and I hope you don't mind that in my despairing 3-in-the-morning sense of emptiness I've been way too fussy and long-winded (and possibly also incoherent) with this.</p>

5

<p>Thank you guys so much! I had been thinking there were some things like that, but I didn't really know where or how to fix it. Does anyone else have some comments on how to improve?</p>

6

<p>I commented in the other forum. I loved your essay!! Wow. Others have commented on the editorial aspect of it..</p>

7

<p>Loved your first draft. Also have some "word-smithing" suggestions. Are you going to run a second draft by us? If so, I will wait. I thought some of your turns-of-phrases were perfect, very evocative. I thought a few were a little off -eg, "faithful" bodily functions might better be "reliable." I would punch up the first sentence, perhaps by eliminating the opening phrase "I stood on the stage...." and just starting right in with "How could I....?"</p>

8

<p>It is very nice but I suggest you remove the "oh yeah" and the "gasp" It makes you seem cynical (don't get me wrong I love cynics.... but a lot people don't like cynics). Otherwise allow me to <em>spaz</em> and say that is a really good first draft. Pat yourself on the back. the grunt work is done.</p>

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<p>Thanks guys, I'm working on a second draft right now.</p>

10

<p>I like the cynical aspect of it..to me it makes her seem like a real person. It adds personality to the essay.</p>

11

<p>Perhaps a new paragraph at "Through sheer instinct..."</p>