<p>Can someone help me out with my dilemma? Alright so I know you have to write 3 essays for the UC's and two have to be 200 words and the third one should be 600 words. But how should I write the shorter essays? That's my question because I'm limited to such a short amount of words, so how can I get into it? I'm working on my first essay, the one about how I took advantage of my educational opporuties, but when I started to free write I wrote up to 3 pages! So should I just give a general answer to the question with a very short storty behind it? Because I don't see how I can fit a short story under 200 words. Can someone help me?</p>
<p>My son is going through this right now, with several 200-word essays to write for his ED school. He also is having trouble staying within the word limit.</p>
<p>I think a good method is to choose your topic, write down everything as it comes to you, and then pare it down little by little. leaving only the best, examples to prove your point. Sometimes putting an essay down and looking at it again a day or two later helps see it in a new light. Still, it's very difficult. Admissions people want great essays, but they don't seem to want to spend too much time reading them. It's a shame, because a lot of what makes an essay come to life is the descriptive stuff that ends up getting cut out.
Instead of focusing on a whole topic (a job, EC, etc) you may have better luck focusing on just one particular aspect of that topic. It might leave you a little more room to embellish and make it personal. They'll still know what you've accomplished from reading your application.
Last - many schools list their favorite essays from previous years on their websites to give applicants an idea of what they're looking for. They were nothing like what S originally had in mind for his.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, On the first essay I am focusing on specific event, but I still find it hard to be very descriptive and make the event sound vivid and memorable under 200 words. So do you think I should just cut out some of that stuff? Should I just leave it as a more general story?</p>
<p>I think anything that makes it more personal - that gives them insight to who you are, what's important to you - is better than something general. I'm certainly no expert, but I would include just the very best stuff, along with maybe a quote, some dialogue, or a descriptive visual-- the things that are most apt to make an impression. Supposedly a little humor doesn't hurt either. An ivy admissions person recently told S's GC that, outside of student transcripts, he considers the short essay the most important part of the application. 200 words sure isn't much to work with, though--</p>
<p>anybody else?</p>
<p>really anybody else?</p>
<p>just in case you have this confused, you can pick any one of the three topics to be 600 words. it's not restricted that the third topic must be the 600 word one. i chose the first topic to be my 600 word essay last year.</p>
<p>No I know that, and I'm using the second essay as my longest. But I'm just asking how I should approach the shorter essays? Should I just answer the question in one paragraph, or provide a very very very short story?</p>
<p>in my case, the first essay was 2 paragraphs and the second essay was a paragraph. other than the fact that i didn't have THAT much to say about the topic, i managed to keep it short by being straight and direct. for the 200 word-ers, there's no way you can make it sound fancy and all. providing a story can be risky because it is extremely difficult to tell enough of the story + relate it to the topic + add something about yourself in there.</p>
<p>yea alright, i think i'll just be direct then. thanks for the advice</p>
<p>No the problem with the UC essays is that the UCs don't even read them. Why make people spend 3+ weeks writing these stupid essays if they're not even going to read them.</p>
<p>Your moral judgement is lacking sfboy, look at optional schools. Also, never walk and talk with an ego that is combustible and deflating to the interaction of the genus.</p>