Help on an deffered essay

<p>Hello Parents,
I wrote this essay for my early action school(MIT) where I was deferred :(. I want to edit it a lot more because I don't think its that great yet. Although writing is my weakness, I really want to make this essay stand out.
Any help with editing/formatting and writing style will be awesome. I plan to just revise the essay for most of my schools.
Thanks</p>

<p>School: Columbia
Essay Topic: Describe yourself and who you are.</p>

<p><strong><em>On a heavy monsoon day, I was walking home from school. The ground was full of puddles and earthworms of all sizes were crawling to seek shelter. My rubber gumboots were half-filled with water and I could hear the dripping sound as drops of water touched the flooded roads. Soon, I reached my building, picked up the mail and ran up to our apartment. Of course, all this time I had an umbrella neatly tucked in my school bag; I never saw the need to use it. I loved getting wet and playing in the rain.
_</em></strong><em>This was a typical day, and my thirteen-year-old mind had planned out an afternoon of Table Tennis with friends. My mother didn't greet me as usual at the door that day, and by the seeping pieces of hushed conversation, I knew something serious was going on. Soon my dad approached me and announced, “We will be moving to America.”
_</em><strong><em>Ten months later, I was disembarking the plane at JFK international airport in New York City. My mind comprised of mixed emotions, but I was thoroughly ecstatic to experience my future endeavors. I have always aspired to be a doctor and my decision averred every time I saw my grandmother lying in bed, suffering from lymphoma, during joyous occasions. I optimistically looked at the future convinced that there would be myriad of opportunities in America to learn more about medicine. My mind wondered would I be the next Dr. J.C. Bose, who discovered several diseases in plants; or would I be the next Sir Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin
_</em></strong><em>With the arrival of autumn started my colorful school days. The first time we played baseball in Physical Education, I accidentally ran with the bat held firmly in my hands, a funny yet natural mistake since I was used to cricket. After the incident, I started to make a conscious effort to get accustomed to the New World and its cultural practices. In the midst of discovering my identity, I was helping my parents to reinvent theirs by becoming their cultural interpreter. On the road to this new journey, every step was accompanied with motivational values from my Indian culture: patience, gratitude, respect for elders, and worship of knowledge. I consider myself fortunate of having the opportunity to experience the two cultures simultaneously. I have now learned to emulate the best of both worlds creating a unique personality for myself. In this process, I have also learned to become a well-rounded person.
_</em>
_My dreams and aspirations have not been shaped overnight. They have developed progressively. As I grew older, my love for medicine has grown stronger because of the increased exposure to the field. My parents have given me the greatest opportunity and resources by immigrating to America, which I might not have had in India. There are numerous challenges that usually accompany an immigration experience; mine seem negligible comparatively, perhaps because of my attitude towards it. I look at my journey not as a regret, but as the opportunity of a lifetime. My sister once said, “The world has not shaped you, but in fact you have shaped the world around yourself.” When I think back to the years that have passed by, I know I have been successful, however, the journey is not yet over. There is still the ultimate goal to achieve – the day when I fulfill my dream and become a doctor.</p>

<p>In my opinion, your essay is too detached. It holds the reader at a distance, covering a tremendous amount of sweeping ground in fairly shallow generalizations. I could have written your essay about coming to America, dreams of the New World, etc. and I've never done any of that.</p>

<p>I believe that successful college essays are those that expose YOUR personality to the adcoms, ideally something positive about your personality that would lead them to believe you would be a positive contributor to campus life. I think the easiest way to do this is to take one small experience in your life and paint a picture. For example, an essay about your struggle to let go of cricket habits and relearn baseball habits could be a wonderful metaphor for "coming to America" that could show us something about you. </p>

<p>"There is still the ultimate goal to achieve – the day when I fulfill my dream and become a doctor." This is an example of a sentence that tells us nothing about you, except that you are like the 98 billion other kids who have applied to an Ivy League college to get into a good med school.</p>

<p>"My mind comprised of mixed emotions, but I was thoroughly ecstatic to experience my future endeavors." Of all the emotions that must have been racing around in your mind the day you stepped off the plane, does "future endeavors" really communicate your thoughts or feelings. This is the kind of emotional detachment that I think hurts so many college essays.</p>

<p>I hope this constructive criticism helps. Find a narrow topic, drawn from a life experience, that sells something positive about you. Then, sell us by drawing us into a little slice of your life, experience, or personality.</p>

<p>InterestedDad has it covered. Too formal, too pretentious, too distant. It's stronger if they get to know you, not a chosen facade.</p>

<p>so should i start over?</p>

<p>I apologize if this shows up twice: MIT, you got some great suggestions when you posted this essay previously. You might try to search for that old thread.</p>

<p>As a parent of a son who was deferred and then accepted to MIT last year I advise you to start over. Answer: Why am I "right" for MIT......speak in your regular voice -- forget the flowery descriptions. My son hated "talking about himself in college apps" but in his deferral essay admitted that and then wrote a nice essay explaining "why MIT" in his own voice. It seems to have worked. Good luck.</p>

<p>Yes, start over. See also, "We had to burn it to save it."</p>

<p>hey 1down, 1togo
Did your son just send in another essay on the same topic or did he write an essay on "WHY MIT IS RIGHT FOR ME"? and when does it have to be send in by?
Is there anything else i can do to increase my chances?
thanks</p>

<p>Wow, so you were the one that got the MIT sn. Meanie!</p>

<p>hehehehe :)</p>

<p>He just wrote a letter to the admissions department in January.</p>

<p>any other help with the essay?</p>