the "optional" essay

[DSI]

<p>JWS is strictly for Wharton. Just read their website.</p>

[jrs1125]

<p>I’m not interested in becoming a JWS; I just wanted to know its requirements. So thanks.</p>

[DSI]

<p>Straight from their website</p>

<p>

The Joseph Wharton Scholars (JWS) are a top percentage of Wharton undergraduates. Students are invited to the JWS program during the initial admission process to the University, based on their expressed interest in liberal arts and research, as well as academics. Wharton students are also eligible to apply for admission to the program at the end of their freshman year.

</p>

<p>Hence my uncertainty as to the role the 217 played in JWS selection.</p>

[necrophiliac]

<p>-digression-</p>

<p>well I doubt my 33 ACT score got me JWS. I bet it wasn’t my 660 SAT II in lit either. I haven’t done a single research project that received any kind of extraordinary recognition (competitions) and I did not mention anything about wanting to be well-rounded. In fact, I strongly hinted at that I’m a one-ride pony with business.</p>

<p>However, it is an interesting question why me. I’m trying to answer it to this very day. Got some good guesses but nothing concrete.</p>

<p>-Back to the topic -</p>

<p>here is my partial response to a private message:

the page 217 essay is, in my opinion, a free-for-all. It can be interpreted as you see fit. I know a kid who got in last year wrote about a HS football game (interpretation 300 pages = age to date so 217 is not-so-distant past) whereas I got in writing about myself in 60ish years from now (interpretation 300 pages = whole life so page 217 is somewhere pretty far down the road and with increases in medicine and life expectancy…).</p>

<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with any interpretation. Just make sure you have a definite, unique voice in your essay. Don’t make it a politically correct series of statements. Mine was so controversial and “out there” that my AP econ teacher (who wrote one of my recs) laughed and asked if this is a serious app or a joke.

</p>

[DSI]

<p>Ah well your case is definitely…interesting, shall we say? Haha. At least in my case it is clear – my essays definitively made up for my mediocre ECs and scores (by Ivy standards).</p>

<p>Here is my partial response to a PM, most likely the same individual =)~

If I remember correctly the prompt begins with “You have just finished a 300 page autobiography…” and I assume that it is an autobiography UP TO THIS VERY MOMENT in your life (i.e. the 300 pages chronicle your life all the way up to your 18th/17th year). So I would write about the past.

</p>

<p>— end of nonesense —</p>

[scribbler91]

<p>there are past threads that answer this question. the overwhelming answer is that a large number of people who got in didn’t write it (including me)</p>

[swoopes2]

<p>I applied last year only because my parents made me, I wasn’t interested in the school at all. I basically used the optional essay to sabotage my app and wrote about how most days all I aspired to was to be a stay at home mom. My plan failed miserably and somehow I still got in. Take that for what it’s worth.</p>

[qwt2]

<p>oh wow…so much heated debate…haha
ps, thanks illuminar! this is helpful =)
and hahaha…swoopes2 haha…that is …funny ahha. congrats? </p>

<p>so, this essay could be about the future or the past?</p>

[ChoklitRain]

<p>^ It’s purposely open ended. You can not write it, write about the past, write about the future, approach it as a serious narrative, or approach it as light creative fiction. You can do any of those things and still get in.</p>

[nan0552]

<p>As long as you remember it’s an autobiography, I personally think it is very much a free for all. Being Asian I highly doubt my 3.2 unweighted GPA and my relatively low SAT II scores (only math hit the high 700s) were what got me into Penn. I approached the 217 essay as more of an emotional autobiography than a merely factual one, writing about a dear friend of mine and the effects our friendship has had on me. Nothing about my past accomplishments as I thought my application and additional info supplement covered that sufficiently. Nothing about the future mainly because I was still entirely undecided. Even so, I’m convinced it was a very good essay.</p>

<p>swoopes - while that’s pretty bad, it’s kind of unique so maybe they thought you were being sarcastic? hahaha if you’re a legacy or something that could’ve done it too.</p>

[qwt2]

<p>nan-thats amazing! congrats!~ heh…so basically, what i’m getting here is…if you do decide to write a 217, write it WELL, write it if you don’t think the other essays has properly shown who you are as a person, correct?</p>