<p>squarehead: good point, although I'm writing this for the common app prompts, which are probably as open ended as prompts are going to get.</p>
<p>banedon: "use back that one"? I'm not sure what you mean by that.</p>
<p>It sounds very ornate and eloquent.</p>
<p>The essay is easy flowing and I liked it.</p>
<p>There are few very minor grammatical mistakes (like missing a comma) but those would not detract from your essay quality.</p>
<p>Again, as others mentioned, cut down the length...and make sure that you are not becoming too wordy by using too many adjectives or any other non-essential descriptive word. In other words, get to the core... nothing is more irritating to admission officers, who literally read hundreds (if not thousands) of essays, than reading an essay with a Boeing 747-load of Shakespearean adjectives. (I am NOT saying that yours is like this, but you get my point).</p>
<p>The essay is very personal, and this is defintely your plus. Now, try to make this plus your edge :)</p>
<p>I think this is a great generic personal statement. You could prolly use this for the UC app if you cant cut it down. The UC app allows a 600 word essay</p>
<p>Hmm, the essay looks a bit long (but other people have already pointed that out)</p>
<p>Also, do all the people on here use the SAME vocabulary? All of these Princeton Review SAT words seem so forced into these writing pieces.</p>
<p>Sorry to be a stickler, but almost no helium is found in the human body.</p>
<p>Sorry to be a stickler, but almost no helium is found in the human body. Helium is a noble gas and is thus not capable of involvement in biochemical reactions.</p>
<p>thanks, that's good to know!</p>
<p>Westernmass: I don't purposefully use big words to sound smart or impress people...sometimes, they're just the first ones that come to mind.</p>
<p>Word count: 606 (I never thought I'd get it down so far! thanks for all your kind words and encouragement.)</p>
<p>*Last March, my parents kicked off their spring-cleaning binge with a new mission: eliminating household dust. Intent on ridding my bedroom of the offending particles, my dad marched into battle, armed with a vacuum and a feather duster. He emerged several hours later, victorious. The task of cleaning up the debris was left to me. Scattered across my bedroom floor were volumes of miscellany, the flotsam and jetsam of my life. I plunged into the mess, wondering what I would find buried in the clutter of years long past.</p>
<pre><code>In giddy moments of serendipity, I discovered countless treasures: old diary entries, forgotten musings in sketchbooks, and letters from pen pals. I probably looked ridiculous, smiling and cradling a jar of dusty pebbles as if it were the Holy Grail. That humble jar sent me back to the second grade, pretending to find agate and jade in playground gravel with other amateur geologists. And now, I was still doing that, searching for precious stones of memory amongst scraps of paper and Ziploc bags. I was reclaiming parts of myself that I had accidentally discarded.
</code></pre>
<p>My greatest find was a binder filled with charts of constellations and photocopied articles about our solar system. With the pages of star maps and pictures of planets came the potent memory of one summer night spent stargazing. That evening, my dad had heard a radio report proclaiming that the planet Venus was visible to the entire Western Hemisphere. Father and daughter ventured outside, necks craned upwards, straining to find it in the vast ocean of night sky. </p>
<p>Venus was a sneaky planet. We were inept astronomers. By the glow of a street lamp, we pored over star charts pulled off the Internet. Which way was North, anyways? We found the Big Dipper, only to lose sight of it half an hour later. We traced our bumbling course across tangles of constellations, hopelessly lost and confused. Eventually, we gave up our search. Though we didnt find Venus, I was perfectly content, absorbed in quiet awe at the beauty and mystery of the glittering heavens.</p>
<p>My dad and I never got any better at stargazing. However, that has not stopped me from turning my eyes skyward. Looking at the night sky is more humbling for me than standing before the ocean. I know those twinkling pricks of brightness are in reality giant balls of burning gases, inconceivably far away. The light that reaches my eyes is that of billions of years ago. I am not looking at the present; I am staring far into the past. </p>
<p>Those stars are composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen - elements that are also part of me. I am made of stardust. Whenever I glance up at the sky and the stars, I am sensing a connection thats too ancient for my mind to properly comprehend. It is deeper than looking through piles of childhood memories that span only a few years, yet it is also very much the same. </p>
<p>By glimpsing into the past, I cement myself more firmly in the present. I am not just the person I am right now; I am a collection of thoughts, feelings, and experiences spread out over sixteen years worth of time. As I dig through my past, I find and spin common threads, weaving all the pieces of myself together. I turn my sights to the stars, and connect myself to a much greater span of years - the history of the universe, painted out for me across the sky. I am going back, but by doing so I am also finding myself, maturing and growing and going forward.
*</p>
<p>tell me what you think, please. I've read this over and over again so many times that I'm starting to have it memorized, word for word. x_x</p>
<p>A lot of people have pointed out 'small grammatical errors'. Could you please elaborate on that? I'm not terribly good at grammar. thanks.</p>
<p>The vocab words in your essay didn't seem particularly forced, but sometimes a one-syllable word could easily replace a three-syllable word without detracting from the meaning (and with with the added convenience of reading less syllables). On a different note, "I find and spin common threads, weaving all the pieces of myself together" is a bit cliche; there is a much more concise way to convey this idea, try to avoid useless analogies.</p>
<p>606 words, like i said, you could use this for the UC essay if you are applying there</p>
<p>No she can't, because she expresses herself as a human being here and not a bunch of statistics and special circumstances. Good writing skills and lessons learned don't get you any real points in the UC system.</p>
<p>nice essay! reminds me of isabel allende's works.</p>
<p>flows really nicely...
just one comment...what's the point?</p>
<p>a good essay will help you anywhere</p>
<p>Didn't use eleemosynary or verisimilitude did you? lol, yep, I'm the master of ridiculous language....<em>awaits rejection letters</em> hehe</p>
<p>In giddy moments of serendipity, I discover</p>
<p>serendiptiy = good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries</p>
<p>This just doesn't make any sense to how this word is normally used. Remember you are just going through piles of old stuff in your room. I can see you might be giddy at finding your old stuff, but...and it (and other phrases) do sound very forced to me. Simpler is better.</p>
<p>wow, you got so much feedback!! i am tempted to put mine up here but i feel like it would make me nervous worrying about plagarism and stuff... anyone interested in PMing me and doing some editing/suggesting?</p>
<p>wow i really really liked it. Don't try to edit it too much...just polish it up alittle bit more if you can...looks good to me as it is now.</p>