<p>rgal, I had that same question last year when I applied to LSM. Remember if you don’t get into LSM you’ll be considered for admission to the College or Wharton, so talk about that as well in Why Penn. In other words, write the Why Penn as if they won’t see your LSM essay at all.</p>
<p>You guys are such trifles.</p>
<p>I liked the essay :D:)</p>
<p>too generic. sorry.</p>
<p>theoneo: too late now:(my why penn essay was more about me than penn! sigh. like 5 short paras about me, and my experiences thus far, and one super long para about why penn = my expectations, and why i think that id be a good fit there. Theres like almost NO specific details about penn except management 101 (but i got all the things about the attitude and the culture from the admissions officer that came to visit our school, im pretty sure she remembers me). so my LSM essay talks about why business, why sciences, and why LSM…darn.</p>
<p>lol, ur worrying too much rgal, im sure most applicants thiink therz something wrong with their essays after submitting it and then reviewing it later</p>
<p>dont worry, I even made a blatant grammatical mistake on my columbia essay!! yikes…</p>
<p>dude, i hope you get in. tell all those guys giving you crap to chill out. let me know when you get in, and when all those posters giving you crap do not.</p>
<p>i should hope you understand that many of the posters “giving you crap”, including myself, are current students who would also like you to get in here.</p>
<p>but we can’t sit idly by and praise an effort that was lacking in some aspects.</p>
<p>wish you had posted for help prior to the application deadline, when we could have helped you incorporate feedback into the essays.</p>
<p>best of luck in 2 weeks.</p>
<p>good writing, but you could use this essay for all your other schools by replacing a few words. It’s pretty generic, so you might want to change the tone (the Why Penn one, anyway).</p>
<p>Padfoot’s celebration of Penn minutia comes off a bit phony to me. Crew races are in the Schuylkill River, not the Delaware. Is Penn really cold? (It has the distinction of being the southern-most Ivy as well as the "Party Ivy.) Do Penn students really hang out in Houston Hall?</p>
<p>There seems to be a lot of emphasis in this thread that the “Why Penn” essay must explain why the applicant is a good match for Penn (as opposed to Penn being a good match for the applicant.) Maybe there is something to this, but I think this is tricky. Suppose an applicant puts in some “why I am great” material. This isn’t enough, the applicant should address why his or her greatness is specifically something Penn would value rather than Columbia or Princeton, etc. I think that is quite a challenge. The Ivy schools seem to rank students pretty much the same same way. HYP get first pick, Columbia/Penn get second pick. I suspect that students differ more in what they think of the schools than in what the schools think of them. So if the focus of the essay is why the student likes Penn, rather than why Penn should like them, that may not be so bad. After all, the title off the essay is “Why Penn?” not “Why me?”</p>
<p>Put in another way. The case for why a student would be a good catch for Penn is made with the student’s stats, and other stuff on the application. Penn has to compete for top students with Columbia, etc. Penn, like other places below HYP, is going to be interested in accepting people who want to come (to keep their yield up). So it seems like a pretty good strategy for a top student to focus on making a compelling case in the “Why Penn” for why he or she would go to Penn, when the student will obviously have their pick of many top places.</p>
<p>Is Penn really cold? Holy crap, I almost died when I visited last April. I couldn’t wait to get out of the wind. I can also say that Houston Hall WOULD be somewhere I would visit often if it houses the Creperie. I can’t remember exactly if that’s the one. I am many things. But not phony! Give me the benefit of the doubt on this, por favor.</p>
<p>I realize I took a lot of risk and made what many of you consider “errors”. I don’t want to refute everything anymore, because it makes it look like I reject criticism and am cocky - both untrue. I just have to say I am GLAD I didn’t post my essay before decisions, because it probably would have caused me to second guess everything and rewrite the entire essay. And if I get rejected because I wrote one slightly off-topic, “phony”-sounding :(, wacky essay, at least I had fun with it…which is more than I can say for most of my other college essays.
But anyway, I thought this thread was over. Keep dishing it out if you wish; I’ve been thinking Penn probably isn’t the best option for me even if I do get in. I have been blessed with a terrific option down in Durham, NC.
Good luck to other essay writers and everyone who applied to Penn this year.</p>
<p>Duke (?), I’m assuming… if so, good job! (and good luck, if you are still, in fact, interested in Penn)</p>
<p>Different, and very gutsy (Not necessarily in a bad way). I’m interested to see if you get in.</p>
<p>would anyone care to read my essay?:)</p>
<p>i’d like to read it</p>
<p>padfoot, don’t worry about it. I reread your essay and I like it a lot. I think a lot of us were just peeved because it was a very well-written, forceful, and insightful essay that not many people can put together. At least for me, the first time I read it, I said to myself, “Damn… this dude can write!” </p>
<p>I’ve been talking to someone from my school who transferred into HYP and his advice was that the traditional, generic application essay won’t get you anywhere. There is no middle ground in this game- you aren’t going to get halfway, “sort of” accepted. So why not go for broke and write something unconventional, out of line, maybe controversial that will make the adcoms jump out of their seat, instead of a wishy-washy, “ehhhhhhh” essay that no one is going to give a crap about? My friend dropped 2 f bombs in his essay- his opening sentence was (I believe) “I bring the f****** boo-yah, and I bring it every f****** day” (without the asterisks). Granted, that opening would only work for someone with his personality and it seems like certain suicide for many people, but he basically reasoned that while his GPA and test scores were good, they weren’t good enough to stand out from the pack. His goal was to write something polarizing and gutsy, that the admissions officer would either hate or love. I wrote one of my essays the same way, about how political correctness has made people unwilling to seriously discuss and confront race issues- some people I showed it to loved it, others hated it, but they all said that it was pretty gutsy, honest, and unique. I think your essay is the same way. Good luck. I hope you get in.</p>
<p>first of all its not a crew match, more like a race or even regatta and secondly no1, unless they are nutz rows on the delaware, in philly we row on the schukyll, that might make u look bad…</p>
<p>Your Why Penn essay doesn’t really explain anything about education. You start off with a mentioning of the One University policy and then you immediately jump into an essay that basically states “I want to seek shelter from the cold after my sweaty trip to the gym by dodging into Houston Hall, grabbing a cheesesteak and crepe, and then laughing at all my Accounting-concentrating friends before I doze off upstairs.” The only thing I know about you (academically) from your “Why Penn?” essay is that you want to concentrate in Legal Studies and Business Ethics.</p>
<p>I know nothing about your talents or interests and I have no idea what you’d bring to Penn other than a craving for beef and cold weather. Whatever happened to your integration of the One University policy as it applies to your interests? Also, bashing San Diego and referring to West Philly as “rough,” in addition to your desire of an “expensive North Face jacket” is probably not a good idea either. It comes across as elitist, in my opinion. Talk about the positives of Penn and not necessarily the negatives of alternatives. It’s safer and generally says more about you, and leaves a better impression.</p>
<p>Your “Why Wharton” essay didn’t seem to answer the question. Again, all I got was “My teacher said business was crap so I was all ‘I’ll show YOU’ and now I am interested in business, among ten other things. Wharton is the best.” I don’t see any specific reasons explaining your interest in business or any key points about Wharton’s education that you feel are especially desirable to you. </p>
<p>In general, both essays seem very superficial. They are focused on details, but perhaps the wrong ones. Instead of mentioning Pottruck’s five levels or the fact that you’ve met someone at Houston Hall, talk about what you can bring to Wharton and how your interests and talents would make you a good fit. Again I saw nothing about the One University policy, which is a strong suit if you’re going for Wharton (the ability to have a business education but then take a class in something like Philosophy or CS and having it actually count/matter is pretty unique). Not everyone would fit in at Penn (or Wharton for that matter) – it has a certain structure, as do all schools, which is why it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into. This is why this question is so often asked. They want to know that you understand what the school offers, what you can offer, and how you and the school can come together in a compatible way.</p>
<p>Anyways I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m just agreeing with the other Penn students here when we say that the essays could use some overhauling. Unfortunately it’s too late for that, so all I can say is good luck and I hope that you still get in :D</p>
<p>hey legendofmax, since you’'re already in Penn, would you mind rating my “Why Penn” essay…i kinda kept some of the things u mentioned above in mind when writing my essay, so I was wondering if i could PM you my essay …?</p>
<p>Not that this is necessarily indicative of my essay individually, but I was in fact ACCEPTED to Penn’s Wharton School.</p>
<p>I don’t anticipate attending, but since it costs $10,000 less than my first choice (Duke) I may have to.</p>