Evaluate a significant experience.

College Essays
1

<p>Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
250-500 words.</p>

<p>I had always wanted to run for student council president for my school for I was going to have the chance to improve the school and make a change for the better. Normally, there would be no more than three candidates running for election and they just delivered a short speech to the entire school, but this year there were six. Something different had to be done; I had to come up with “avant-garde” ideas</p>

<p>I compared my run for presidency to a proper national election one, and among the differences, there was one which struck me the most: The lack of a campaign. There had never been a tradition of doing so in our school so I thought I should start it.</p>

<p>I wanted to make a connection with potential voters, so I designed catchy posters and stuck them around the school and I personally baked dozens of muffins which I took to school the next day. We didn’t have a good cantina service in our school so I would offer them for free during the break. With the help of my friends, we set a table in the recess area and used it as a free muffin giveaway stand. A horde of children from all ages roared towards the table, raving for “Free Muffins!” </p>

<p>Everyone was pleased they were getting free muffins, something which had never happened before, but my opponents were perplexed. In a matter of minutes, they appeared with improvised cardboard posters and one could hear the shouts of their supporters crying their names; Then I realized, I had started a proper campaign and everyone was now being involved. By the end of the day, the hallways were full of improvised posters and slogans made throughout that same day plus the ones I had taken the time to design.</p>

<p>A faint twinge of excitement floated through my body that night, for I would be delivering my speech to more than 600 students. Stage fright was not an issue, since I had had various opportunities to practice my public speaking skills in other activities. My speech came out quite well however, I did not win the election. Nevertheless, after sleeping on it, I realized I had learned a lesson from the experience. A sense of enthusiasm and an ardor was created among the school due to my introduction of the campaign idea. For the first time, students from every year got involved with the elections. Directly or indirectly I had sparkled the school’s attitude towards the elections.</p>

<p>This acquaintance had a positive impact on the way I see things now. My willingness to introduce something new, my desire for innovation or the appetency for a change in the way things were, actually served as an enlightenment or an inspiration for many and the “change” I was longing for, actually occurred. “The campaign idea” will now be a legacy to upcoming students and that is what made me proud; because progress is made through creativity and innovation.</p>

<p>499 Words</p>

2

<p>^^
“appetency”?</p>

3

<p>You might hate me for this, but the essay has issues. The first of which is some of your words are not used well: referring to peers as ‘children’ either sounds like you are condescending or that sentence was written by a teacher. Other word uses like “this acquaintance” are not correct.</p>

<p>But more improtantly, the essay is safe and boring. Risk, moral, delemna, achievement, significant, are all words in the essay prompt, but the events you describe lack any sense of any of those. Taking credit for a campaign in an election is hardly worth writing about, nor is baking muffins. No matter how you spin that, a few posters will not change my opinion of this, and if no one in your school ever thought to campaign for office, clearly theoffice does not mean much. (that’s how i would see it anyway).</p>

<p>The risk was running for an office in high school. The risk was failure and rejection. The achievement was getting your friends to help out with posters and banking and campaigning. The lesson was something redemptive. Write that essay and you have a good college essay.</p>

<p>This is just my opinion, an anonymous writer on a message board, take it with a grain of salt. Free opinions are worth every penny you paid for them. I will say you are a decent writer and I think you can easily recraft that esay to be more interesting.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>NEVER post a college essay in a thread. If you want someone to read then just ask for help and PM people who reply.</p>

5

<p>I would like to comment on your opinion but I really want to delete this post…
Can some mod please delete it?</p>

<p>Thanks…</p>

6

<p>Inigo Montoya’s advice was very accurate and thoughtful. I’d like to also add that the “heart” of an essay - transition - is missing. When schools ask for a “significant experience,” they are actually looking for something that CHANGED you - made you wiser, stronger, more independent, etc… Even the fact that you said “stage freight was not a problem” made it worse. The best essay would take you from hesitant, unsure, and a bit timid to the “changed you.” This essay has just a bit too much “I’m so great that I am leaving a legacy for future generations at this school…”</p>

<p>Oh puleeeeeze.</p>

<p>On the plus side, this could be a great topic if you pull back and restructure it and let the reader discover how good you are versus blasting it out like a TV infomercial.</p>

<p>–Robert Cronk, author of Concise Advice: Jump-Starting Your College Admissions Essays</p>

7

<p>The theme of this essay does not correlate to a SIGNIFICANT experience. If I were you I would scrap the whole thing.</p>

8

<p>It was a significant experience for me though.</p>

9

<p>@Imontoya</p>

<p>What you said would be a good essay isn’t true thoug. I did the whole campaign thing by myself and my friends just helped me on the break time. The rest I did myself so no one actually helped me. And, in what sense would that be redemptive?</p>

10

<p>@digmedia: Thank you, coming from you, that means a lot. (that was sincere, you have great insights).</p>

<p>@DJ Sash: I am not saying to be dishonest, I guess I was using those as examples of what could have been within your essay. As a reader, I thought no more highly of you at the end of the essay than I did at the beginning. You say it was a significant experience for you, but you end it with claiming credit for creativity and innovation. Were campaign posters and muffins creative or innovative? To the average reader the answer is no. </p>

<p>Revisit the question, and ask yourself, have you made the case for why you are wonderful, special or worthy?</p>

<p>Again, just my opinion! :)</p>

11

<p>Well, it was innovative for my school as i stated though…</p>

<p>So, I could for example mention that although I lost, I took part in the “School Committee” as the event organizer and used my what I learned from the elections (creativity innovation etc) to organize better parties by encouraging change and innovation and adding new things? (This is what is happening now)</p>

<p>Would that be some better starting point?</p>

12

<p>I disagree with Transfer2Best… “significant” does not mean publishing a novel or curing cancer. It means something that is memorable in the student’s background, and - preferably - an event that made him or her a better/stronger/wiser person. Running for office is a fairly significant event, but the treatment of it must be improved over what we see here.</p>

13

<p>I’ll tell you what I told my S - you need more feeling and emotion and less of the other “stuff”. They want to know about you as a person.</p>

14

<p>Well thanks for the advice. It is better to hear some constructive criticism than a bunch of idiots who don’t realize there are people behind the screens (I posted this in another forum).</p>

<p>I will restructure it and I will ask for opinions again.
Would any of you be willing to re-read it? I would send it by PM-</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>