Hello everyone! I am an auto-admit to UT, but need the extra help in getting into the major (business) I want at the school.
I was reading over this prompt, and it was all too hard for me to understand on HOW to approach and structure/write this essay. I was hoping that someone out there could please help clarify what exactly I need to do for this essay prompt?
I’ve written my first draft about just focusing on one extracurricular, explaining what I learned from it, and why I’d like to join the business world. However, a Harvard graduate completely scrapped my essay and said it was utterly boring.
Help? Thanks in advance.
Here’s the prompt.
ApplyTexas
Topic C
Considering your lifetime goals, discuss how your current and future academic and extracurricular activities might help you achieve your goals.
For starters, the opinion of that “Harvard graduate” does matter at all unless he happens to be employed as an AdCom in the schools to which you’re applying.
Calling an essay “utterly boring” is not helping-- it’s indulging in an ego trip. Had he offered you concrete changes, it would have been one thing. But he chose instead to put you down. He’s not worth your time.
Here’s how I would approach the essay:
First, make a list of your lifetime goals-- a bucket list of sorts. A pie in the sky, anything is possible list. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20, 50 years? Personally, professionally, spiritually? Where will you live, what will you do, what sill your home look like, who will you share it with?
Then walk away from it.
Tomorrow, write your high school resume. All the things you’re currently involved with. And also go to your school’s website and print up a list of all the extra curriculars available.
And walk away.
Later in the week, take all that out and match what you have and what’s possible to what you want to achieve.
Thanks @bjkmom ! I actually basically did that already! I’m just having a hard time thinking about how to write the actual essay. The “start your essay” part is bugging me. I don’t want to bore the reader, and I feel like by just telling them all these things, they will be very bored with my essay.
Dive into the middle, then go back and come up with an intro.
It’s so much easier to edit than to write. So just write, give it your best shot, and then go back and edit. You can erase the “boring” in the editing phase.
I had that same problem for the longest time, but mine was the neuroscience department. I just recently finished that essay. I did what bjkmom said. But when beginning my essay, I really thought back. What moment did you realize that you wanted to pursue business. Was it after the success after your first lemonade stand? Or maybe number crunching is a hobby. I would utilize the first realization as a hook, kind of like an example to draw the reader into the story. EX.)
“Lemons not only lemonade, but profits as well. That was the lesson I learned in third grade. After bankrupting my entire neighborhood of quarters and selling my business for a gross profit to my neighbor, I realized that this could be a career. Through my academics and activities this realization flourished into a passion, allowing me to fully envelope the idea of becoming the first female entrepreneur to hit the Fortune 500”