<p>I'm planning on applying to Rice ED. I've already written my essay, but I'm not really satisfied with how it turned out.</p>
<p>The question is very open ended, and I'm not really sure how personal I should be and how much information I should cover. I feel it would be very helpful to read an essay or two that responds to the question. Is there anybody out there who applied in past years to Rice who would be willing to PM me their essay (I think the question is the same this year as the past few years)? Obviously I promise not to us any part of the essay (it would be dumb to do so anyway because it would be impossible for the admissions reader to gain a holistic view of me).</p>
<p>I really love Rice and would love to go there, so any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I have something that might work out as well or better. I'm a Rice Junior and I am a writing consultant paid by the university to look at other student's papers, from research to applications, so I have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. So if you would rather, you can email me your essay at <a href="mailto:meparks@rice.edu">meparks@rice.edu</a> and I'll critique it and offer some advice and send it back to you. Anyone can feel free to send me their essays but please remember I'm doing this for charity, not money, since you are not yet Rice students! :) So please don't overwork me, haha. I hope this is a good alternative.</p>
<p>I don't really know, short of showing you reciepts of my checks from the English department. But frankly, what do you have to lose here? You email me your paper, I read it, send it back to you, and voila. The worst that can happen is that my comments are either stupid or I don't get back to you at all. So... I'm the one putting myself on the line here by giving you my Rice email address.</p>
<p>lol; no I didn't mean it in an an unfriendly way at all...I just meant...how do I know my essay won't be stolen you know? I just don't want people to have that problem :]</p>
<p>Ah, sorry. Ummm, I don't know, haha. I guess you'll just have to trust me. If you're not ok with that, that's fine. I'm just offering my services. I guess that's why I hesitated to give out my old admissions essay to you all who are currently applying. But I can assure you I've been at Rice two years ( <a href="http://www.rice.edu/Internet/search/query.php?search=marie+parks&tab=People%5B/url%5D">http://www.rice.edu/Internet/search/query.php?search=marie+parks&tab=People</a> ) and I'm not going to be plagiarizing your work to get in to the school. :) So I encourage you to take advantage of this, but if you don't want to, it won't hurt my feelings; I understand. Best of luck! And sorry I got defensive ;)</p>
<p>Marie, you're so sweet! I might take you up on your offer sometime in the future. My email's evenangelsfall at yahoo.com, so you'll know who I am!</p>
<p>Just want to note that Rice has a very strong honors code and I think if you already feel like you want to "look" at someone else's essay it may not be the school for you. Also, the school wants YOUR point of view. Having someone else read your essay and give you comments is certainly more acceptable, as long as they don't rewrite it for you.</p>
<p>lauras50: I obviously wasn't looking to read somebody else's essay to look for ideas on what to write about (that would be silly unless there is somebody else out there whos lived the exact same life as me). I certainly understand your perspective, but I think insinuating that my request is unethical is going a bit far. I'm sure you've read over friends' application essays or a book of essays (i.e. 100 Successful College Application Essays), and I'm certain your English teacher has passed out an example essay or two. This would only be unethical if you were to lift portions of the essays.</p>
<p>A little perspective, I'm a parent and I know my son wasn't given other essays (or books of essays) to read,nor did any English teacher give out any, that I know. We wanted my son's essay to be different than others, not ghostly images. My husband is a prof and all I hear about is outsourced term papers, cut and pasted work from the internet and buying other's homework (I'm not talking about team work).
We're a little worried about the future of the workforce (I'm also a recruiter for IT pro's) if everyone is looking to borrow other's work. Sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine. I also saw on the parent's site someone else dug into someone (might be you) on asking to see other's essays. Do you're own and then let someone read over it, but at least it's your ideas and your perspective.
I couldn't help replying to this thread because I learned to write by trial and error, practice, practice, practice, thinking outside the box (I'm also an author of a book) and reading the "great works" not by borrowing from others.</p>