<p>Help! One of my teachers who is giving me a recommendation has my entire packet (I know, stupid move by me) and I need to write the essay before I leave for a trip to Boston on Friday. I have two questions:</p>
<p>1) Is the topic that hellogoodbye wrote above what it says on the application verbatim? I just want to make sure before I begin.</p>
<p>2) Is 500 words the maximum or the minimum? I would assume that it is the maximum, but once again I would like to be sure.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Thanks, I finished my essay last night before I saw your post, but it follows your suggestions and works well. </p>
<p>The 500 words is a guideline. If I remember correctly, it asks for an essay of around 500 words.</p>
<p>The deadline is coming up, so here's a bump. Thanks for the helpful anecdotes.</p>
<p>Gahh! I have this totally obsessive principal who made me cut my 531 word essay down to exactly 500 words! It totally killed my essay. Is there any point in that at all?</p>
<p>I didn't cut mine down. It remained at ~540.</p>
<p>Add sentence variety as well - this is important in all writing but particularly in a short piece.</p>
<p>I wrote about the most important ec for me and related it to what I want to do in the future and sort of incorporated some of my other ECs into it. I also talked a little about value. But my was a little over 600 words. I don't think they would actually count how many words you have. And the page that the essay is suppose to go on had plenty of space left.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't think word count is too important...."about 500 words". I bet that they just didn't want to be swamped by thousands of autobiographies.</p>
<p>Yeiks this essay is a nightmare! Mine is as dry as the taste of styrofoam.</p>
<p>p.s. In my defense, it takes a bad analogy to effectively describe a bad essay.</p>
<p>I was wondering....would it be bad to write 'excuses' in your essay? Like, just slip something in about the challenges I've faced that have kept me from a very high GPA or the top ten % of my class? I don't know if they only want to hear the 'good things' about you, but I'm afraid my mediocre grades will kill my chances. </p>
<p>And also, are they looking for a laundry list of achievements? Because that's kind of included in other parts of the application. I don't know if the essay is just to show your creativity or something. Oh, and does everyone else have to write a resume as well? I just heard about that. :/</p>
<p>Your counselor may be able to provide you with specific advice as it applies to your situation. I believe my S touched on his chronic health condition which caused him to have frequent & prolonged absences & resulted in slightly lowered grades but did not make that the FOCUS of his essay. It is true that the app lists all your ECs, so I think it's best to focus on one or a limited # of ECs & elaborate on them (what I learned/gained by being involved in them).</p>
<p>I finished my NM essay yesterday.</p>
<p>I elaborated on two of my strongest ECs while tying it with a metaphor of mountain-climbing (one of my out-of-school passions). I found it too difficult to attempt to talk about all the ECs I did in 500 words, so I gave up and focused in (which I thought worked fairly nice).</p>
<p>I focused on "what sets me apart": my passion. I used it to relate to my life and then to my passion for politics and government and my aspirations in that area. </p>
<p>Mine was like...700 works <em>sheepish</em>...I couldn't cut it down...I loved my essay. It was ME =). And I made it fit on the page...only size 10 font. lol.</p>
<p>I envy all of you people who have "so much to write about" that you have trouble staying within the 500 word limit. Am I the only one who has no passion or focus, and has not yet discovered myself and established my long-term goals? I'm just a good student who is open to new experiences. I don't have a list of impressive extracurricular activities, I haven't performed any research with professionals, I am not the president or founder of anything, I have won no musical awards. None of my writing has been published. What is there to talk about? I'm just an ordinary person.</p>
<p>You can talk about what you'd LIKE to study at the university (general subject, not specific career goal yet), experiences thus far that you have enjoyed--whether academic or otherwise. You can also speak with your counselor & teachers for more inspiration & ideas.</p>
<p>Advice from a National Merit Finalist:</p>
<p>First of all, don't stress about it too much. 15/16 semifinalists become finalists.</p>
<p>Second, talk about what you enjoy. I have three passions -- God, performing arts, and people -- but I have no idea of what career I want to pursue. At the time, I even had very little idea of what major I wanted. My intro paragraph talked about all of this. I talked about how I didn't know my career, and though my major would probably be in math or science, I didn't know exactly what it would be. But I said that when I do select it, it would be something that would allow me to pursue all three of my passions at least on the side. Then I talked about my passions, and my accomplishments in them. Oh, some of my accomplishments were pretty small. For example, even though I love the performing arts, I'm not a star in any of them. But even though I didn't have any awards or anything, I had accomplished stuff for myself, personally.</p>
<p>So that's one way of talking about yourself and your accomplishments, plans and goals, if you don't know your specific goals yet and don't have any "wow" accomplishments.</p>
<p>What a wonderful message, BookAddict.
When one reads the absolutely stupendous accomplishments of many of the HS kids on CC, one wonders what is left for them to study or do in the college. For vast majority of the millions of the kids, it is just enough if they have only dreams and small personal accomplishments. The world will be just fine.</p>
<p>:-) thanks BookAddict</p>
<p>thank god for this thread</p>
<p>i agree... this is one of those moments when i'm actually thankful for the glories of CC (and not the intimidation)</p>