Great essays to Harvard and Cornell, plz!

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1

<p>Hi all and TransferAdmit (I'm trying to contact you all these days)!
I've completed my common app short essay and the transfer essay also. Now I'm really hoping for helpful feedback, plz. And plz help me immediately, cuz time is running out.
Thanks all.</p>

<p>Below is my transfer essay: Provide reasons for transferring and your objectives</p>

<p>“Are you serious?”- my cousin, amazed at what I just said, stared at me while I was writing down on my to-do list: “apply to transfer...”. I nodded firmly. She still looked unconvinced, but that doesn’t matter, because I know exactly what I’m doing.
Just six months ago, I flew for thirty six hours to America. Upon landing, my heart thrilled with delight: I was here, the heaven of education. Indeed, my first semester shows my travel was worthy. I have taken valuable classes with great professors, made friend with people from around the world, and definitely become more knowledgeable. It was not easy at first to adjust to this whole new world, though, and the fact alone that distances in this city are huge really dazzled my small-town-girl eyes. Still, I appreciate all the changes that compelled my maturity growth, and I’m surely grateful to my cousin for a “free” bed to sleep, even when it is twenty miles away from school.
Though I haven’t taken any major-concentrated courses, my interest field has almost been formed since high school. I was always curious about how the market can regulate itself to survive even the harshest fluctuations. My handbook was “Rich dad, poor dad” by Kyosaki, a thorough tip to saving and investment. Increasingly, I realize my passion in economics and business, in engaging myself in the adventurous world of cash flow and competition, and ultimately in improving my country’s as well as the world’s economy. For such ambitions, I feel a great need to challenge myself with the best courses possible, which only your school’s economics program, with its high demands and unsurpassable prestige, can offer. Having a constant thirst for progression, I find transferring to your college undoubtedly my first choice.
Distance, on the other hand, has become a real problem. However, it’s not about four hours walking and on bus each day, which has actually tempered my resiliency. It’s the amount of time wasted in transportation that hindered me from making the most out of my commitment to campus activities. Your promising aid for on-campus housing will allow me more time for volunteering and student government. I love at heart enriching the diversity of campus life with my very own voice, heart and brain, since it not only develops essential skills for my future career, but I can also present the quintessence of my country to international friends through my active and colorful leadership style. Impressed by your school’s amazing magnitude of student body, I’m very excited about giving meaningful devotions there.
My cousin may never understand how I foolishly want to leave the familiar feel her house offers, but it’s time I stepped further. I won’t stop here and let distance keep me at the other end of who I want to be, as I know I possess just the right strength to make a significant move. Transfer to a transformation- that’s what I’m going to do.</p>

<p>And here's my short-answer essay: elaborate on your extracurricular activity</p>

<p>"Good leaders must first be good servants." I felt like mocked the first time I saw our group's leadership motto. Obsessed by the glorious image of Bill Gates at speeches, I couldn't stand "servants" next to "leaders" that way. Still, I chucked and let it pass, totally unaware that the volunteer life I'm about to live would reflect exactly that "silly" saying. That day, we held a free Tet-holiday show for the disabled people within our district. I was in charge, but since we lacked volunteers, I myself assisted paralyzed people to get into the auditorium. And I saw her, a small girl on a wheelchair. Smiling to her, I pushed her chair forward, but it turned out to be heavier than I'd thought. The girl, realizing my problem, suddenly said very softly: "You're the leader, right? Sorry, you shouldn't have to serve me." I was dazed in a second. At that very moment, our motto shone in my mind more clearly than ever, and I hugged her: "Oh no, I lead because I want to serve people like you."</p>

<p>I welcome all feedback about the "show dont tell" format, the specialness about me that you feel in the essays, and everything else. Overall, do u think these are great?</p>

2

<p>Immediately edit your post and remove your essay. It may not safe to post your essays publicly (although people do that on the essayforum.com all the time). You can PM people.</p>

3

<p>I don’t want to dampen your spirits, but what is great is highly subjective.</p>

<p>“For such ambitions, I feel a great need to challenge myself with the best courses possible, which only your school’s economics program, with its high demands and unsurpassable prestige, can offer.”</p>

<p>Hundreds of thousands of other people would say the same thing. Especially since this essay is going to two different universities, it sounds pretentious to say that only “your” school is the best. A common app is meant for different institutions.</p>

4

<p>It’s kind of amazing how your essay is almost the same as mine (idea-wise).</p>

5

<p>It’s kind of amazing how your essay is the same as mine.
Oh wait, it’s because I just plagiarized it from you.</p>

<p>Just kidding. But think, what if I wasn’t? Like the above said, it’d be in your best interests to edit your post and remove your essay from it as soon as possible.</p>

6

<p>You really shouldn’t post the essay online, but since you did, I’ll give you feedback.</p>

<p>First of all, you absolutely MUST take whatever you write to your current school’s writing center. You need someone to help you clean up your English.</p>

<p>Second, I want to make a comment about how you SOUND. Please don’t mistake me - I’m not saying anything about how you are as a person, I’m just making a comment about how you come across in the essay. You sound completely insincere and self-serving. “Heaven of education,” “unsurpassable prestige,” “a constant thirst for progression,” . . . it just all sounds like you are putting on an act and saying what you think they want to hear. And, it sounds like the real reason you want to go there is because they are more prestigious and hence will benefit you more. The whole thing about how you want to transfer to you can be a better servant to the community doesn’t come across as genuine. OK, I get it, you are on the bus a lot. But, lots of other people find time and ways to give back even though they have commitments like jobs, children to care for, sick parents to care for, etc.</p>

<p>Third, I don’t really get your extra-curricular activity essay. Obviously you want it to reveal something about you and your character, but it should reveal something about you in connection with the activity. I can’t tell if the event was a one-time thing, if you are involved in a group, if you were an official volunteer or just someone who stepped into help someone. Who is “we”? What IS the activity? And, it just sounds very strange that the girl in the wheelchair would say what you say she said.</p>

<p>I’m sorry to be harsh; I hope I helped rather than hurt.</p>

7

<p>^I second everything the above poster said. He was correct on all counts.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I hated this. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>It made me uncomfortable because I was inclined to not believe that this actually happened (because she used the perfect set-up words ‘leader’ and ‘serve’) but I didn’t want to abandon my faith in humanity to not fictionalize accounts of helping the physically impaired. Hopefully your admissions officer won’t have this conflict of life philosophies when he reads your essay.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s too black-and-white. You go from being a hateable caricature (obsessed with the glorious image of Bill Gates, couldn’t stand to see servant next to leader???) to Mother Theresa, going around hugging strangers who are enamored with your selflessness. As someone who wrote a self-critical, i-stopped-doing-this-and-started-doing-that essay myself, I tell you that yours is too unbelievable, or at least written unbelievably. </p></li>
<li><p>You annoyingly objectify this girl. “A small girl on a wheelchair.” “People like you.” Ugh.</p></li>
</ol>

8

<p>Thanks, my friend was looking for an essay to use in his transfer application.</p>

<p>Guess you’ll just have to write another.</p>

9

<p>Wow guys, I don’t know, I think alot of us are being unnecessarily rude here. That said I agree that it’s not a good idea to post your entire essay on CC.</p>

<p>IvyInt, correct me if I’m wrong, but judging by the small grammar errors in your essay, I’m guessing English probably isn’t your first language, and I guess the American college application culture probably isn’t all that familiar to you either.</p>

<p>In all honesty I do have to agree with the posters above that your essays seem contrived, as if you’re saying what you think the universities want to hear instead of showing your own, genuine thoughts (really, how many of us actually think thoughts like “Good leaders must first be good servants” on a daily basis). But I also think that is completely understandable given the language and culture barriers, and I know that the tone of this essay doesn’t actually reflect who you are as a person.</p>

<p>I actually think the best thing for you to do is just start over and be completely genuine. I find that honesty often shines through despite language or culture differences - but if you don’t have time, I do think the suggestions above, even if worded harshly, are accurate and worth listening to.</p>

<p>Best of luck with your transfer application =)</p>