sherpa's essay help

College Essays
1

<p>I’d like to volunteer to be an essay reader. PM me your essays, and I’ll PM my comments back. I won’t edit or rewrite, but I’ll try to give constructive advice.</p>

<p>Like most essay topics, my advice might seem trite and overused, but here goes:</p>

<p>*Make it real, and make it about you.</p>

<p>*It’s OK if your topic isn’t original. Every topic there is has been tried already, and been done well and done poorly. Do an overused topic well, and you’ll be fine. Do it poorly and you won’t.</p>

<p>*Don’t take on too big a topic. Keep it as simple as you can.</p>

<p>*You don’t need to impress anyone with your vocabulary.</p>

<p>*Your grammar needn’t be perfect.</p>

<p>*You don’t need to rewrite/edit it to death. You could edit the life right out of it. Don’t.</p>

<p>*Don’t expect to have to spend hours and hours or weeks and weeks writing an essay. When you hit upon the right topic and start to roll, it should come very quickly.</p>

<p>Two years ago I watched my son struggle to interweave his personal religious, ethical, and philosophical belief system into the story of the death of an acquaintance for his Princeton essay. The topic was too big, he spent too much time on it, he was miserable for a few days trying to make it work, and in the end it wasn’t very readable. He finally decided to start fresh with a simpler, less serious topic, and wrote the new essay in less than an hour. The new topic was trite and cliché, about a simple experience that taught him the importance and value of education, but it was written in a fresh, whimsical, and personal way. He spent no more than an hour editing it. I thought it was beautiful. His essay may not have gotten him into Princeton, I don’t know, but it didn’t keep him out.</p>

<p>My last bit of advice is to try to not be afraid of putting yourself out there for people to see. The best essays give the reader a personal insight into the author, which requires that the writer let down his guard and open himself up to be seen.</p>

<p>So feel free to PM me your essays. I'll try to give you good feedback.</p>

2

<p>Sherpa provided excellent feedback on my essay!</p>