<p>Hey-</p>
<p>Just wondering about how long everyone's spent on their essays. Individually or collectively. About how long did it take to finish one?</p>
<p>So far I've written 3 essays. Each first draft took about 1.5 hours. Second draft of each took about the same amount of time.</p>
<p>So I guess that's 9 hours.</p>
<p>Took me 2 years for 1 essay!!! And its still no good. :(</p>
<p>same here :(</p>
<p>6 months on one and still no good.</p>
<p>i wrote 5 fully edited versions of my hopkins $10 essay, probably over a continuous period of 10 days.</p>
<p>how long is the total application taking for everyone? (filling it out + essays)</p>
<p>Lol. Here's the secre to writing a good essay without spending much "time". Sit yourself down and write for around 40 minutes. After that for the new few days read it again with a fresh new mind and edit again and again. You'd be surprised how many errors and mistakes you'd catch that would make you say "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?"</p>
<p>Good idea dhy322, thats what my English teacher always taught me. The problem is, what do you do when you aren't even sure what to write about. I'm deciding between 2 different topics.</p>
<p>dhy322,
thats sounds interesting...i think i'll try it out..</p>
<p>Well about 15 hours so far. Granted, a lot of those essays I'm not even using anymore</p>
<p>damn...this ****'s gettin scary...i havent started any essays and i'm applyin to 7 schools...</p>
<p>I wrote 2 fantastic college pieces. The hardest part was brainstorming = go on and ramble on Microsoft Word and just write anything that is even remotely related to your topic.</p>
<p>Wake up the next day. Come back from school/sports. Look at it and edit.</p>
<p>Rinse and repeat. Read the stuff out loud and you'll get an excellent feel for the tone of your essay. I'm looking at my essays right now and I'm just browsing them again to pick up anything that could be said better. Simple, concise and YET strong and meaningful is the way to go. No one likes to read fluff.</p>
<p>My best way is to just write what I think...not to analyze it too much. Then I can go back and do the necesary editing. I find it makes them more raw, personable, and passionate.</p>
<p>I've been working on my essay for 2 months, on and off. My essay is very different from my first draft I wrote back in August. When I read the old version, I'm just like, wow, I'm SO glad I started early.</p>
<p>I've been working on one essay for about a month and a half. heh.</p>