<p>VERY busy with finals. I can’t work on anything until Christmas break. Please email me then and I’ll be happy to go to town =)</p>
<p>I will not be able to review any essays from December 16 until January 2.</p>
<p>If you are looking for someone who will provide total honesty and constructive criticism, you must send your essay to wayward_trojan/<a href=“mailto:jrapp@sas.upenn.edu”>jrapp@sas.upenn.edu</a> .</p>
<p>I applied to Columbia University ED, thinking I didn’t really stand a chance against the competitive applicant pool. I have so-so test scores, so I think my essay had A LOT to do with my acceptance. After I sent him my first draft, he replied with a fancy word doc with a bunch of corrections. There were comments after certain sentences and words he didn’t like, and a long, helpful critique at the end of my essay. I cannot stress enough how much James has helped molded my essay! With his help, I managed to gain admission to CU!</p>
<p>Thank you to all the people simply offering so much help to us applicants! I am just appalled that there are people helping us through the disarray of senior year frenzies!
I’m considering having a few of you look over my essays so expect some emails sometime this week… and that’d be fantastic!
Happy Holidays everyone! :)</p>
<p>May I ask when finals at UPenn end?</p>
<p>December 22. </p>
<p>Fantasticoheidi: Look up the word appalled… =)</p>
<p>For those interested in essay help, please email me at <a href=“mailto:jrapp@sas.upenn.edu”>jrapp@sas.upenn.edu</a> in ONE week’s time and I’ll be happy to edit to my heart’s content over holiday break. I’ve been VERY flaky these last few months and apologize to those I didn’t get to, but I’m freeing up soon and eager to start reading essays again.</p>
<p>Please include:</p>
<p>Essay in WORD document
Name
Deadline
Prospective schools</p>
<p>My bad, haven’t gotten sleep in the past few days, and had just been in a brawl with some dismissing peers, so I’ve been rolling around in words of negative context.
You know I only meant well. 
I’m interested!</p>
<p>haha I jest, I jest</p>
<p>I definitely recommend wayward_trojan as an essay reader to anyone who is looking for help! He looked over a couple of my essays and his suggestions/comments were certainly helpful! Contact him if you are looking for some honest, constructive criticism.</p>
<p>i recommend debski, he helped cut my essay down</p>
<p>I finished my finals, so I wouldn’t mind reading an essay or two. I plan on becoming an editor sometime in the future, so it’s all good practice. :)</p>
<p>suggestion: don’t go with the editors who call themselves “incredibly brutal.” honestly, nit-picky, overly harsh criticism isn’t helpful and is depressing. :)</p>
<p>Brutality is relative. I’d like to think I’m an advocate of tough love :)</p>
<p>^i got burned by a “brutal” reader. every other reader told me my essay was very good except him; he called it “below average” and “sub-par.” i freaked out because i had already submitted it to my first choice, yale, and because i fancy myself a writer. well, guess what? i got into yale EA. had my essay sucked, i wouldn’t have gotten in.</p>
<p>telling someone their essay is poor-quality is not constructive criticism, i am sorry.</p>
<p>@tres: false optimism may be inspiring, but the crushing blow of reality shatters dreams (and lives)</p>
<p>i’m not talking about false optimism here. i’m talking about destroying hope. honestly, i thought i had NO chance after that. i’m not a particularly incredible applicant besides (what i thought were) my strong essays. who knows, my supplemental and activities essays could have carried me, but i doubt my main essay was total crap.</p>
<p>i’d recommend going to parents or people you know instead of college students.</p>
<p>Telling someone their essay is of poor quality is only non-constructive if there isn’t a sound explanation of why. Tough love can be very helpful and illuminating, but only if it’s tempered with encouragement and has a reasonable premise. Parents and friends are a great resource, but college students have been through the gauntlet of admissions and have fresher experience as well as a more objective eye, not to mention they’re still in school and are continually sharpening their writing skills. Editors can be very hit or miss, so get multiple opinions to see if there’s an outlier. Keep in mind also that your editors, even if some are jerks and respond with what sound or feel like (or simply are) personal attacks, are trying to help you. Again, I like the tough love approach, but some people do cross the line and are jerks, so just ignore them and go with someone else who balances criticism with encouragement. </p>
<p>In the words of Don Corleone: “It’s not personal; it’s just business.”</p>
<p>(Or in the words of Michael Scott: “Business is always personal. It’s the most personal thing in the world.”) Good luck and Merry Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve!</p>
<p>im ready to aid those in peril</p>
<p>Wayward_Trojan’s hype is COMPLETELY, ARTIFICIALLY FRAUDULENT! It’s embarrassing to the rest of the people on the site.</p>
<p>Did any of you realize anything funny about how many people post about him, compared to the rest of the other readers?</p>
<p>Did any of you bother to think of it at all?</p>
<p>He TELLS them to post praise about him on this thread. I know 2 other CC readers who don’t do that, and one of them has helped over ONE HUNDRED people last year alone. Imagine if she told all her graders to “post praise” about herself on this thread. It would have 40+ pages saturated with praise.</p>
<p>She does it because she wants to help. Wayward_Trojan is an attention hungry kid. Look no further than how much he posts on this thread.</p>
<p>I’m surprised a moderator hasn’t looked into his actions yet. If he’s going to steal attention like this, then make his own thread. Don’t take advantage of a STICKIED thread by a moderator as a platform for his own purposes.</p>
<p>Well, enough of this has gone by. I’m reporting this.</p>