<p>Don't ask me why this is on my mind, but it is. Last year, my HS had a weird policy that students had to turn in all scholarship apps due before mid-January in November (mostly for counselor recs, which this app did not require). I had a scholarship app due in late December and, because I had already collected all the recs and there was little or no work to be done by the HS, figured I could turn it in in December. About a week before the HS' deadline, I was informed that my app had to turned in in its entirity or it would not be sent. I couldn't use my common essay for this prompt, so I wrote an essay in one or two nights, had my parents and English teacher run through it for mechanics (not content), revised it in one night and sent it off. I had worked for weeks on my common essay, gotten TONS of (free) input (and ignored a good deal of it. so my essay wasn't "rewritten" by a professional or anything!), revised countless times, etc., so I wasn't expecting much on this second, rushd essay (the topic was the division between meaning/content and mechanical aspects in speech). Fast foward to Feburary for my scholarship interview when my interviewer mentioned she particularly liked my eaay, deeming it very "clear." I was bowled over in a good way!</p>
<p>Which leads me to the question of what makes a good essay; on CC, the general answer seems to be a good story, but I wonder how much of a good essay comes from just being a "good writer" (whatever that is!) in general. My three page treatise on a elementary school speech pathology class vs. a Japanese speech contest wasn't my favorite topic to write on and doesn't seem like a "good" topic (neither bizzarre nor sad) and yet however I said it seem to have worked...</p>
<p>So how much difference does writing "talent" make in the quest to write a college essay, IYO?</p>