<p>Dartmouth</a> Admissions Uncommonly Asked Questions: Last Minute Application Tips Video</p>
<p>The dean of admissions and the assistant director says,
"don't me metaphorical, be direct, we read 8 hours a day. We don't want to spend time trying to figure your essays out."
Your opinions?</p>
<p>I think that there is a fine balance to be struck.</p>
<p>Personally, I find metaphors an essential part of any solid piece of writing - but you can be direct and be metaphorical at the same time. I think being obscure and unnecessarily… mysterious… with essays and metaphors is what Dartmouth is referencing here.</p>
<p>All in all, just realize that there is a good chance your essay will be read by tired eyes.</p>
<p>For most essays, it’s completely impractical to fit in metaphors. When an applicant is describing an intellectual experience, it looks ridiculous if he or she tries to implement metaphors.</p>
<p>It seems that a lot of high schoolers like to write with flowery pose. I wholly blame this on Henry David Thoreau.</p>
<p>That ■■■■■■■ ruined generations of writers.</p>
<p>Well I wish this came out when I EDed to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>How about Hemingway? That ■■■■■■■ did even worse.</p>
<p>"How about Hemingway? That ■■■■■■■ did even worse. "</p>
<pre><code> The falsest statement you could ever utter, my friend.
</code></pre>
<p>I have to agree with pentium. I don’t think Darthmouth is telling applicants to never use metaphors ever. It says, more broadly, don’t be metaphoricAL - the impression I immediately got from this was someone writing a whole essay about one subject and then at the very end revealing that it was really just a convoluted metaphor for something else.
Metaphors don’t have to be obfuscating. In fact, sometimes metaphors demonstrate points more clearly and more concisely than other methods are able to.</p>
<p>Hemingway?! The guy who thrived off of painfully blunt and bland prose? He was the most direct person ever…</p>
<p>Anyway I don’t like what Dartmouth is suggesting. I am more inclined towards the metaphorical and abstract essays because they tend to be more nuanced and well thought out. If someone did write a whole essay that was just metaphorical representation of someone or something then I’d think that reveals more than the typical direct essay. I dunno but what should be understood is that this is just something Dartmouth prefers. At a college like Macalester or Uchicago I’m sure metaphorical writing would be more welcomed and perhaps even strongly encouraged.</p>
<p>LoL never believed that this would be a featured discussion…
But still, I don’t know, I’m hesitant at making things too vague or metaphorical.
These people’s brains are probably fried by the 5th or 6th hour and they might not appreciate having to read through your essay three times to understand what it was saying.</p>
<p>Lol. When I applied to Dartmouth, my entire essay was a metaphor. Hmm… lol.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Alas, sending Dartmouth a metaphorical essay is apparently barking up the wrong tree. :)</p>
<p>sorry guys what essay are you talking about, I applied through commanapp and there were no essays on dartmouth’s suppliment, Are you talking about the Personal statement?</p>
<p>yeah. Don’t worry though, if you did it in a clever way, then I’m sure they will appreciate it. I doubt they’ll refuse to read it just because it’s “metaphorical”</p>
<p>Admissions officer on left:
“We look at you as an individual student, we don’t compare you to others in your high school, others in your city or town, to others in your state, we really think about you as an individual applicant…we’re not comparing you to the kids sitting next to you in your high school class…”</p>
<p>Admissions officer on right:
“'I’m thinking about a student’s academic achievement … how do they stand out compared to their peers in their own high school…”</p>
<p>HAHAHAHA</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAHAHA</p>
<p>talk about fail</p>
<p>For some reason I felt adventurous during application season and wrote a completely metaphorical (even allegorical I daresay) essay and sent it to half of the schools I applied to. All of them rejected me except Dartmouth.</p>
<p>But that was the era before this dean’s.</p>
<p>I’d rather go with the admissions officer on the left. Not being impartial, but I think comparing someone else to other people isn’t necessary.</p>
<p>HAHA Hemingway was the epitome of good, terse writing. Now if you look at F. Scott Fitzgerald…</p>
<p>Make sure you show your love for partying too, in a direct way. They forgot to mention that. Even if you just append “I love partying” to the end of your commonapp essay, they’ll love it.</p>