<p>Middlebury wants a photocopy of one of your "critical thinking" essays. The only recent essays that I've done in the past two years (aside from a couple rhetorical analysis and a review on a Benjamin Franklin biography) are creative essays, can I turn in a creative essay?</p>
<p>Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>This has been here a while. Bump?</p>
<p>I guess I can turn in one of my rhetorical analysis, but I can't say it's the best essay I've written in the past couple years.</p>
<p>To add to that, my teacher didn't like to grade essays. At the end of the year, she only graded three per semester--three that we chose. All the essays I wrote were creative ...</p>
<p>The college clearly states that they want an analytical or critical essay (not a research paper). Surely you must have written a critical or analytical essay in high school. If I were you, I'd give them what they ask for.</p>
<p>I can honestly say I haven't written a GRADED, analytical/critical essay in junior year. I did write a critical essay for my current English class, but I don't think I'm getting that back anytime soon. Thanks!</p>
<p>I'm sure you'll get the English essay back before your Middlebury application is due. Just hope you did a good job with it!</p>
<p>arduouspallor,</p>
<p>I know Middlebury quite well, as well as several current students and a few alumni/ae. If you haven't written several critical thinking essays in the last year or two AND gotten A grades on them, then your chances of gaining admission to Middlebury are very close to nil. But I wish you luck in your applications -- there and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Thank you arcadia!</p>
<p>And frustration: that sucks, haha. I could always give stuff from my freshman and sophomore year, but I thought they'd want something recent. In my junior year, my teacher had us write plenty of essays (a lot of which were critical essays) and critiqued them (she wrote lots of comments), but she never gave a grade to them. Instead, she had us revise them and gave us an essay portfolio grade at the end of the year. =/</p>
<p>I have a question in the same vein...I was in AP Language and Comp last year; most of the essays I wrote were either reflections or timed in-class prompts. I've been thinking that these are not appropriate, since they're very much rough drafts (some of them came out well, and they certainly have plenty of teacher comments on them, but the fact remains that they're unpolished). Anyway, the other part of my AP class was writing a lengthy research paper, but I don't really want to send that b/c mine was >20 p. long. That just about does it for junior year. </p>
<p>This year I've written one polished essay for AP Lit, defending the fact that a particular scene in a summer reading book was the defining incident in the book. Is it okay that it isn't from junior year, and that it doesn't have a whole lot of comments on it? Is it better to send an essay with plenty of teacher critique or just check marks for good points?</p>