risky essay? please help!!

College Essays
1

<p>so I'm applying to UT austin for engineering and wanted to write the optional essay to explain my situation. i moved to US about five years ago and barely knew english and this affected my grades - i couldn't take advanced english and social studies classes because of the reading. also, it affected my extracurricular activities because of a general low level of confidence. i basically want the university to know that my sat score, grades, and list of activities, don't reflect/do justice to how good a student i am.</p>

<p>so here's the topic for the optional essay:</p>

<p>There may be personal information that you want considered as part of your admissions application. Write an essay describing that information. You might include exceptional hardships, challenges, or opportunities that have shaped or impacted your abilities or academic credentials, personal responsibilities, exceptional achievements or talents, educational goals, or ways in which you might contribute to an institution committed to creating a diverse learning environment.</p>

<p>so when i wrote the essay, i talked about moving here, the difficulties, how i overcame them, and some things i learned from the experience, and then talked about how my grades and stuff don't reflect how good a student i am and that the admission officers should "consider the trends in my high school career - my increasing academic rigor and involvement".
so on one hand, when i called UT and asked how i can explain the situation, the guy said that i should talk about it in essay C (the optional essay).
on the other hand, i'm afraid it would sound like i'm making excuses and in some ways make me look bad.</p>

<p>so i wrote another version which doesn't talk about my grades not reflecting me as a student, but focuses on the challenge i faced and how i overcame it (i just mentioned once that my grades and involvement were affected) and what i learned from it. so i'm guessing the university might decide to consider that when looking at my grades and scores. but really, the reason i wanted to write this optional essay was to talk about how my grades aren't a good reflection of me as a student.</p>

<p>so i don't know if i should submit this essay. what do you guys think? i'd really appreciate some feedback!</p>

<p>(and if you want to take out some more time and help, please let me know so i can send you the two versions of the essay - they're not even a page each.)</p>

<p>thank you for reading!</p>

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<p>I would focus less on your grades and more on your personal experience and how it shaped you as a person. You may want to write about that first day in the classroom and not being able to understand what was going on around you. Perhaps a particularly embarrassing moment that was caused by your language barrier (again, helps if this takes place in the classroom...I think the point about your grades will come across without you having to be explicit about it). </p>

<p>I emigrated to the States when I was six and started school speaking almost no English. I still vividly remember having to have a girl in my class translate everything the teacher said for me and a rather mortifying experience (for a six year old) when I was asked to draw a pancake and instead drew a frying pan and a birthday cake, because I had no idea what a pancake was. </p>

<p>Anyway, some things to stress in your essay: let your personality come across, show how you've grown, and make it vivid and personal.</p>

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<p>thank you very much for replying!
great advice! i'll rewrite the essay considering that
thanks again!</p>