So, I wrote my essay about getting stuck in a snowstorm (my failure to listen and my failure to consider the consequences of my actions) but I’m starting to wonder if it tells enough about me as a person? I made sure to answer all of the requirements in the question and I think my essay is well-written. My teacher told me to add more things about me (“You play tennis and sing. You don’t defeat blizzards.”) but I am already very close to reaching the word limit. Any advice for me?
IMO, just concentrate on a very few aspects that are important to you. From my experience, trying to include everything in one essay makes the essay worse and messy. After reading the essay, the reader forgets what he/she just read (haha, yeah that happens). So go with your guts, choose the topic that is meaningful to you and shows some of your “most important” aspects.
Remember the point to this essay. It’s not an audition for reality TV, it’s not Confession, it’s not therapy. It’s your opportunity to “give them a reason to say yes” to your application.
You don’t want to waste too many words on the background. Yes, we need to know that you got caught in a blizzard. But we don’t need to hear about the swirling snow or the sound of the windshield wipers.
What we really need to know is how it helped you grow.
Every single word you write should be with the intention of giving them that reason to say yes. You want to come across as a genuine kid who made a mistake and learned and grew from the experience.
Does that help?
Yes, that helps a ton! Thank you!
@bjkmom’s advice, although well intentioned, may mislead you a bit. Yes, you should give them reasons to say “yes” but you should also deliver it in a compelling and visually rich narrative. You have to get your reader hooked; the best way to do that is with sensorial descriptors – sight, smell, sounds, etc. Intrigue them. Or provoke them.
The direction I would give is, “Show, don’t tell.”
Actually, the advice I gave was not my own.
It was perhaps the most concrete answer to the question I’ve ever heard. We got it from an adcom at one of the colleges we visited last winter, at the Q & A session. The question wasn’t mine, though I’ve repeated the answer frequently and my son used it on his essay.
The advice was to “Give us a reason to say yes. Make sure that every word you write has that aim in mind.”
I’ve read far too many flowery narratives here that did far too little to further that aim.
But, as always when you’re taking advice-- particularly from strangers-- you have to decide which piece of advice seems to make the most sense to you.
One more piece of advice before I get the kids rolling and get out the door to school: It’s December 11. PLEASE get those essays done, and get those applications out!!
I’ve been teaching college writing since 1986. It’s my experience that narrative essays are the hardest to write well – though students often think they are the easiest. There is something to be said for the “show, don’t tell” advice. Given the stats that OP posted [url="<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18966024/#Comment_18966024%22%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18966024/#Comment_18966024"]here[/url], I doubt that’s an issue in this case; still, it’s good to keep that advice out there where students can be reminded of it.
Like bjkmom, I find that when students write a narrative essay, it’s the essay part that they often lose track of. The best writers will provide a compelling experience that engages multiple senses; but in doing so, it’s very easy to lose track of the point, or to deliver the point as an afterthought.
This particular essay prompt even gives explicit instructions about making sure the response is more than a story: “How did [the failure] affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?” I suspect OP’s teacher was somewhat off the mark with the “You play tennis and sing” comment. But the “You don’t defeat blizzards” part of the comment suggests (I can only speculate) that the essay has indeed gotten so wrapped up in the blizzard event that it has lost track of its point.
I don’t think we are far apart on our assertions, WasatchWriter and Bjkmom. I believe what we agree on is that it must be a well-told story. To meet that criterion, it mustn’t lose its point nor be dry as crumbs. Any great narrative is going to make the reader feel what the writer felt. And learn what the writer learned.