My 300rd post. Happy birthday.
does anyone read sample essays?
<p>oh, that was my 299 post. this is my 300rd post.</p>
<p>im 4 posts (now 5) ahead of you haha =)</p>
<p>i'd say reading sample essays in itself is not useful.. if you analyze the essays looking at the strengths and weaknesses it does help you to write better</p>
<p>ahaaa, sample essays. Great models, but I didn't read the ones my english teacher gave to me. Well, I'm sorta lying; I read them, but didn't pay attention to them all that much.</p>
<p>As a writer, I'm conscious about what influences me to write. After having read a superb essay once, I sat down to write my essays and guess what happened? I had a hard time writing what I wanted to write because I was trying to model my essay with that superb essay. It's the whole "This essay writer got accepted into the Ivies! Write your essay like this student did!" influence that crept into my head subconsciously and manifested into the initial frustrations of writing my essays. My first draft probably scarred my english teacher for life.</p>
<p>Fine. Read the rest of the essays and scrapped them all afterwards, then ordered a Cappuccino Freeze from DQ and started from scratch. I wrote my essays into the wee hours of morning. Some people found sample essays helpful; others, like myself, didn't. I felt it added pressure to mold my essays into pieces that would be up to par with those metaphor-rich, well-executed essays.</p>
<p>Do not let any other student grade your essays..
It might create false expectations..</p>
<p>no... you just need to know who's reading it for you. don't ask people who are lazy and just look at it and say it's fine. ask friends, teachers, anyone who will tear your essay apart to improve it</p>
<p>I think there're pros and cons though. </p>
<p>I used to think people who got into ivies were really superb, but when I read some of their essays, I found that they really showed themselves as normal human beings - not perfect. They said something particularly important for them, so I sought for something as important for me and thought about it deeply before writing. Also, reading samples of successful "why do you want to attend this school" essays can be very helpful when I cannot figure out what to write. Furthermore, when I read others' essays, I recognize some flaws so that I then became aware of making the same mistakes myself.</p>
<p>I asked a freshman who was attending the college to which I submitted the essay. [There're several websites that linked students (of the same nationality as me) in the US together, so I knew some people from there.] A student attending the college can verify some facts that I put specifically about the college in the "why do you want to attend this school" essays.</p>
<p>However, reading other essays sometimes make me fear that I won't be able to make my essay as well-written. However, most of the time, I find reading college essays makes me feel nice (If the essay made the adcom feel awful, the adcom wouldn't have admitted the essay's writer).</p>
<p>Sometimes, the book "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" could also serve as college essay helper. Most stories show how people turn things in their lives into touching stories. Besides, some college essays were also published in this book.</p>