<p>Hi there, I was just wondering if everyone accepted to Cornell could give me a brief description of their essay? A sentence or two is fine, I just want to get a feel for what the admissions staff looks for/what kind of topics people write about since I have no clue (my family immigrated here and I'll be the first to go to college). I've already started my essay (I want to apply ED) and I just wanted to compare and see if I'm in the ballpark.</p>
<p>Also, I might visit campus in a week or two. Will the admissions staff have a record of this and will it benefit me for when I apply? I don't want to make a 5 hour trip for nothing.</p>
<p>Thanks ahead of time! I really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Not sure if you mean the common app essay or Cornell’s supplement, but if you mean the latter…try to connect your ECs with your academic interests if you can, and explain how you’ll use specific resources within your college/Cornell as a whole to achieve your goals. That’s exactly what I did!</p>
<p>Thanks guys! It seems like I’m on the right track so far.</p>
<p>sheep11- my essay sounds similar to yours! I’m writing about how an almost fatal car accident (but I won’t be going into details as to not appear as if I’m playing the sympathy card, it will be very brief) renewed my faith in God and improved my relationship with my brother.</p>
<p>countryangel926- Thanks for the tips! Cornell’s supplement sounds very similar to the 150 word elaboration of an EC on the common app, am I correct? How long does Cornell’s have to be? And I guess I have to talk about different things then as I don’t want to sound redundant, right?</p>
<p>From the research I did when trying to decide what to write about, I found that almost all sources pointed to the idea that they dont want to hear about death or tradgedie, illness, divorce, things like that because everyone that applies can basically write about one of these things and though they are valuable parts of their life, it may not/usually does not reflect why their institution (cornell) is the right school for them. However, I feel that if it is just your main common app essay, then it would be more appropriate, but still, adcom’s get very sick of these essays i think.</p>
<p>wtreed2- So I shouldn’t write about what I was planning on? I’ve thought about that, and that’s why I said I’d briefly be describing it as to lead up to the depth of my essay because basically it was more of a miracle- my car had flipped twice and I was absolutely ok, didn’t even suffer a headache or any bruises or anything and so obviously, the experience was very spiritual and thus renewed my faith in God and helped my relationship with my brother. Otherwise, I haven’t the faintest idea of what to write about so keep your essay topics coming everyone so I can have some inspiration!</p>
<p>I just mean that should you choose to write about that event that you should do so very carefully so that the ones reading your essay know that it is not a ploy for sympathy or attention. </p>
<p>p.s. I wrote my essay on the development of my faith and the places its taken me.</p>
<p>i wrote about a near death thing for my regular common app essay and i got in…</p>
<p>honorstudent, realize theres 3 essays to complete the application:</p>
<ol>
<li>common app essay - write about basically anything, i think your car accident thing should be fine.</li>
<li>activities miniessay - short description about an EC, pretty self-descript</li>
<li>cornell supplement essay - 500 word essay that basically asks why the college within cornell, and cornell itself, is right for you. this is where you wanna avoid the death and tragedy stuff, and talk instead about your experiences and stuff that deals with the major and school you are applying for.</li>
</ol>
<p>Cornell’s supplement is basically a “Why Cornell?” essay, except that you need to focus on the specific college that you’re applying to. They’ll specify the word limit in the directions, so read them carefully! The essay isn’t quite the same as the EC one, although it could be similar (mine did overlap a bit)…just to give you an example, one of the things I mentioned was that, as someone interested in journalism/writing, I look forward to working on the Cornell Daily Sun and exploring Cornell’s English Department and writing seminars. In the EC description of the common app, I went into much more detail about my work as Editor-in-Chief of my school newspaper.</p>
<p>Feral24- Ok thanks for the information! It helped clear things up!</p>
<p>countryangel926- Thanks for clarifying and providing an example! Now I know what to do I think. I guess I have to do some background research on Cornell and that trip to campus will be worthwhile after all!</p>
<p>Thanks again to everyone who’s posted! I think this is the most help and actual useful information I’ve ever received on CC!</p>
<p>Np! Definitely do your background research…it shows Cornell that you’ve actually been thinking about their institution and how you’ll fit into it as a student :)</p>
<p>I wrote about a conversation I had with a jehovah’s witness that came to my house…showed my penchant for debating and interest in other ideas/culture. i think it was pretty original, and it was well written if i might add ;P</p>
<p>collegebound2009, I wish I had something as creative, interesting, random, and as original as that! Would you mind pm’ing me your essay? I’d love to read it.</p>
<p>I wrote my extracirricular essay as a dialogue between a surgeon and I (show don’t tell approach).</p>
<p>I wrote my general admissions essay on my volunteer work abroad, my love for the Spoanish Language, and my desire to become a physician serving abroad. (My point is make them feel like there is NO other school for you but Cornell.) For example my love for Spanish fit my desire to live in the Spanish house. My desire to serve the global community fit the vision of the College of Human Ecology. If you can research the schools you love well, you can do this. Best of luck on your Cornell application and I hope to see you here soon!</p>
<p>Thanks you FLCornellian’11! I hope to see you there soon as well! But the reality is probably more like in my dreams, ha. Was the dialogue you wrote real or hypothetical? I was thinking of doing something like that for my common app. It would be a hypothetical situation in the future of me having a little one-on-one informal interview with the president asking me why I should be considered for the job of Secretary of State. Then from there I would talk about what fueled my desire to work in IR (my car accident made me want to give back as much as possible and help do good on a mass scale and the steps I’ve taken and also how I’m trilingual would like to put my language skills to good use but then this would mean abandoning the essay about my brother- I go into a little more depth about both of these on the first page if you didn’t see). I would hope to make it clever and have it show personality while still showing my desire to work in IR and my passion for helping others. But I don’t know if this is a good idea. And sorry if what I’ve written is incredibly choppy towards the middle, I realize that, lol.</p>
<p>I realize you prob have summer assignments but I might consider writing on both topics to start out with. Maybe you can find a way to incorporate both in an essay through some sort of connection? I had the issue you had (choosing to focus on volunteer work or my younger sister’s terminal illness for an essay). I decideded on the preceeding subject. Also make sure you edit! I went through at least 5 drafts of my essays. </p>
<p>Additionally, there is a downfall to the commonapp IMO. That is, the prompts for the essays can make your delivery sound impersonal and not directed to any school in particular. I actually wrote seperate, very similiar but slighty modified, essays for the application. This will help you, asm I stated before, ensure the institution that YOU are perfect for them and you will one day be head of the CIA or President and make the school look good LOL</p>
<p>FLCornellian’11- Thanks a bunch! I think I will go ahead and write two essays since the first half of my essay will stay the same. I was just afraid that writing about how the accident made me more involved in the community and whatnot may sound trite but I think if I spin the hypothetical interview bit into it it will be alright. And so to make it not sound impersonal, it would be alright then to name-drop Cornell towards the end of “the interview” and be like my time at Cornell made it possible for me to be here or w/e (along those lines, you know…). It would be just a quick sentence or two or should I just save that stuff for the supplement. Or would it show on top of applying ED that I really want to be there?</p>
<p>Ok wait, new idea. I think the essay about my brother really shows how I’ve changed because it also tells of how I overcame my obsessive compulsive germophobia which is what hindered our relationship and then I could do the hypothetical interview and tell of how my time at Cornell helped me go get to my (future) current position of being considered for Secretary of State.</p>
LOL</p>