<p>Froma, yes your first essay was poor because I could already predict what you were going to say and how it was going to end and it’s been said a million times. Your second essay sounds more interesting but believe or not, still pretty standard. But at least would make me want to read past the first paragraph. Don’t make it sound to cutsie and careful about clobbering the metaphor to death. If I tell you that I have a strong work ethic, would you believe me? As legendofmax says…show me you have a strong work ethic. (2 jobs is the good way to do it)</p>
<p>Thank you, Legend. The showing vs. telling is a concern of mine as well. In various parts of the essay, I do a lot of “telling” despite the fact that it’s done in a creative, well-written fashion. I don’t think I do much showing except in the last 2 paragraphs, where I briefly mention the first time I had to pay for my own sushi and how it impacted me. But perhaps the “showing” of my essay comes from my writing style as well as my personal voice within the words? I feel that the reader will definitely glimpse my personality thru the words themselves…and in the way that I do convey or “tell” about myself. </p>
<p>What’s wrong with “telling” if I do a great job of depicting who I am in an entertaining way?</p>
<p>So… do we need to take risks by writing about topics that we usually don’t? Is it possible to write about a common topic and make it creative and unpredictable or is it better to chose a topic that is different? Like that guy above me with sushi</p>
<p>Yohoho sorry just saw your post. Didn’t see it when I was addressing Legend. I doubt my essay would seem standard to you if you were to read it. My concern is that I do actually “tell” too much…but the problem for me with the standard storytelling that “shows” is that it can also be complete BS and doesn’t always portray one’s personality as extensively as it should. I can always write a new essay that indicates how I’ve grown, but I won’t have written it with the same passion and candidness that I did with my sushi essay. (Sushi is really a huge part of my life…I eat it tri-weekly and pay for my own meals etc.) </p>
<p>So that’s my defense for my essay…but I totally hear your points. I just have to make a decision as to whether this is the correct route for me to take.</p>
<p>Froma, “Like a Dragon roll with extra fish eggs and tempura flakes, I am rife with personality and pizzazz.” Wouldn’t/couldn’t we figure out that your are rife with personality and pizzazz from your essay alone? BTW, I’m interested in why you eat sushi 3 times per week.</p>
<p>And yes, both “telling” and 'showing" can be completely BS. But at least the 2nd one is a more interesting read, and for that alone, an adcom may be grateful!</p>
<p>I eat sushi thrice a week because I love it…and I guess you could but that sentence was used to sum up a paragraph… I was trying to be descriptive and make use of the theme. But those are sentences I have to consider when revising my essay. Thank you.</p>
<p>warlands719:</p>
<p>Admissions officers blow through thousands of essays. They’re able to do it as quickly as they do because so many essays are just regurgitated copies of each other. You can read a couple sentences and get the point in a matter of seconds and predict how the rest of it will unfold with ridiculous accuracy. Instead, you want to write something that’ll catch the reader’s attention and make him/her <em>want</em> to pour over every word because your essay is just that good. </p>
<p>It is possible to take a common topic and make it creative, sure. The problem is that too many people who write about the same common topics tend to write the same essays even when they think they’re being creative. A unique topic not only adds another dimension to your essay to help you stand out against the crowd, but it has the benefit of being less predictable/boring.</p>
<p>Consider the following opening lines to essays that Stanford admissions officers have claimed to like:</p>
<p>“I have old hands.”
“The spaghetti burbled and slushed around the pan, and as I stirred it, the noises it gave off began to sound increasingly like bodily functions.”
“I’ve been surfing Lake Michigan since I was 3 years old.”
“On a hot Hollywood evening, I sat on a bike, sweltering in a winter coat and furry boots.”
“Unlike many mathematicians, I live in an irrational world; I feel that my life is defined by a certain amount of irrationalities that bloom too frequently, such as my brief foray in front of 400 people without my pants.”
“I change my name each time I place an order at Starbucks.”
“When I was in eighth grade I couldn’t read.”
“As an Indian-American, I am forever bound to the hyphen.”
“Some fathers might disapprove of their children handling noxious chemicals in the garage.”</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I think most of those are pretty interesting and leave me wanting to know more. As you can see, they’re all fairly unique topics.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from writing multiple essays to play around with. There’s really no one right answer to your question. Write one essay about a common topic and another one about something unique and see which one yields the best results. I just personally think that writing about a “common topic” is a bit limiting, in practice. Others may disagree.</p>
<p>Froma2z123: </p>
<p>Many of the admissions officers I’ve spoken to have said that the best essays tend to avoid making things too explicit. You want to paint a picture and have the reader draw his/her own conclusions. The better you paint your picture, the clearer your message will be. </p>
<p>You raised a concern that showing over telling “doesn’t always portray one’s personality as extensively as it should” – but I would return the counterargument that telling just isn’t all that effective. Simply telling me you have strong work ethic is ambiguous. Just how strong is it? “Really strong”? Well, okay, but that’s still ambiguous. There’s no proof. “Well, I have two jobs.” Better, but are they easy jobs? “No, they’re hard.” How hard? “Pretty hard and time-consuming!” Now we’re being vague again – can you show evidence that will make me reach that conclusion without being told, either via example or by appealing to my senses in some way?</p>
<p>And so on, and so on, etc.</p>
<p>My point is that you shouldn’t <em>have</em> to tell me that you have good work ethic. Your essay should make it clear that you have it on its own merits. It’s not only more fun to read that way, but it’s more convincing. This is, after all, what the essay is ultimately trying to do: Convince the reader that you’re more interesting than the other guys applying for the same spot. Convincing someone by just telling them what they should think is not empirically effective – you have to show them the evidence.</p>
<p>Just for kicks, try writing an essay that “shows” more (still keeping your sushi idea in mind) and see what you come up with. You say you eat tons of sushi all the time. To me, this is fertile ground for coming up with interesting anecdotes to leverage.</p>
<p>Legendofmax,</p>
<p>Your use of the hook sentence to shake the rather bleary-eyed adcom back to consciousness is wonderfully shown rather than told. You have great examples. I have lots running around in my head. They stick. As a book by 2 smart mba guys says (Made to Stick) and that virtually hundreds of books have said afterward with varying neurological or cognitive data, we are wired for stories. Abstractions are afterward.
Hegel has a different take but the result is the same. A guy like me walks through a forest and sees trees. A biologist sees oaks and spruces and maples, an environmental scientist sees the spread of certain tree diseases on the leaves etc. Same forest but it is the details that lead the rest of us to learn to see things instead of abstractions. Hegel never really said that. He is a verbose and impossible read, but this is what he tried to say. In any case, details are the crux of the matter. You teach me your world by details. I cannot see perseverance, I cannot see hard work, I cannot see fortitude. Throw them down the chute.Thanks you all for some great stuff I will steal for myself and my need to think about all this in a more useful way</p>
<p>I totally recognize your point. I need to evaluate whether my essay “shows” enough. Would you like to read it, Legend? I can PM it to you.</p>
<p>Sure, go for it</p>
<p>Sent. Let me know when you’ve read it.</p>
<p>Just finished reading it.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: This is meant to be constructive criticism to help your chances (and keep in mind I’m just a random dude) so please do not take anything offensively. I’m not good at “sugarcoating” my advice, but I do hope it helps you. Apologies in advance for my jackassery!</p>
<p>I felt like the essay was 100% what I expected – all “telling” and no “showing.” As a result, I don’t feel like I know you much better for having read it. The essay is largely about looking at attributes of sushi in the food-domain and then telling the reader that those attributes apply to you as well in the human-scale domain. It ties back to what I said about predictability: Just from that one sentence you posted earlier, it pretty much tells me what the rest of the essay is going to sound like. </p>
<p>You mention that you’re diverse and enjoy things like theater, Model UN, hanging out with both jocks and nerds alike, analyzing starfish/studying astronomy, etc – but it’s just a laundry list of activities (which is a common thing you see in many college essays). Furthermore, I’m sure most of the activities you mentioned here already manifest themselves elsewhere in your application. The essay should be used as an opportunity to show a side of yourself that isn’t already reflected in your classes/recs/extracurriculars/etc.</p>
<p>You also say that because your father won’t pay for your sushi habit, you take on two jobs. While it’s great that you work two jobs, this is going to get mixed reactions. Lots of people work multiple jobs just to make ends meet, and so working for your sushi habit, while responsible on its face, sort of feels like a #firstworldproblem to me when you use it as an example of your hardworking nature. It’s what I would consider a “wrong” kind of risk to take.</p>
<p>All in all, the essay is telling me that you are a variety of things (and explicitly does so in the text): serious, frivolous, concerned, irksome, fervent, passionate, zealous, energetic, spicy, saucy, flavorful, hardworking, driven, versatile, perseverant, etc. At the end you tell me you’ve learned “time management, frugality, balance, dedication, and so much more about employment and life.” It’s all fine and well, but again, it’s a laundry list of self-description. You’re asking the reader to take your word for everything.</p>
<p>This sort of essay won’t necessarily keep you out, but it’s not going to help. It reads like the exact same essay everyone else writes when they compare themselves to a random item/object/etc. I can tell that you’re lighthearted and funny, but it doesn’t convince me of anything past what I’d probably see in the rest of your application. </p>
<p>I think this essay would be so much stronger if you took the idea of sushi another route and made an interesting story out of it that was full of your humor. You don’t have to tell people you’re outright comparing yourself to sushi – make a story that “shows” it and leaves context clues for the reader to arrive at the comparison him/herself. People like it when they can figure out the contextual puzzle you’ve laid down for them, and it also reflects well on the intelligence of the writer who’s able to put everything in place (it’s why so many people enjoy reading good books, after all). I also think the resulting story would be far funnier, and I know this because there’s one particular sentence in your first paragraph (you know which one!) that is absolutely hilarious. Unfortunately, that’s the only spot I really get to see your humor shine!</p>
<p>Anyways, hopefully this makes sense and gives some decent food-for-thought.</p>
<p>Thank you, Legend. I appreciate the constructive criticism. I just felt like this was the best way to describe who I am as a person. The “showing” through a ******** story will also come to the reader having to take my word for it. I don’t know how I’ll be able to convey that much of myself through a narrative…but maybe I don’t need to show that much. I’m going to ask my guidance counselor. If I gain her approval, I’ll keep it. If she agrees with you and the others who have presented a similar argument, I’ll have to write something new. </p>
<p>Do you not think that the writing style “shows”? Meaning that my tongue-and-cheek writing gives insight into my personality? Or the topic itself? That I’m clearly an excessive person to eat sushi 3 times a week and to pay for it myself? I know I tell throughout the essay, but I feel like certain things “show” through within the essay. Let me know if you think that’s a possibility.</p>
<p>When people talk about “showing vs. telling,” they’re talking about the content of the writing. Any piece of writing is going to naturally reveal <em>something</em> about the person who writes it, but I would be careful of assuming that this automatically means you’re “showing” something in the same way (i.e. content).</p>
<p>The reason why it’s so important to learn how to “show” is because you remove ambiguity and doubt when trying to make a convincing point, which is ideal since the whole point of convincing someone is to remove ambiguity/uncertainty and get them to focus on things you want them to focus on. I Googled an example from the following site [url=<a href=“http://www.sfwriter.com/ow04.htm]http://www.sfwriter.com/ow04.htm[/url”>Science Fiction Writer Robert J. Sawyer: On Writing — Show, Don't Tell]http://www.sfwriter.com/ow04.htm[/url</a>] :</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously, this isn’t a hard-set rule. There are times when it is better to tell rather than show, but for the college essay? “Showing” really, really goes a long way due to the nature/goal of the medium. <em>Everyone</em> applying is going to argue that they’re hardworking/bright/personable/driven/etc, but you can’t figure out who’s the real deal and who is overestimating themselves from the same set of words alone. You need good evidence to set yourself apart that simultaneously gives the reader a peek into your mind.</p>
<p>You might think, “Well, didn’t I mention Model UN and theater, etc? Isn’t that evidence?” It is evidence, but this brings up another issue of just how convincing that evidence is. In this case, it isn’t as convincing because, again, <em>everyone</em> applying can lay claim to something similar (spending time between multiple EC’s, etc).</p>
<p>It might help to search Google for examples of well-written college essays so you get a general feel for how they’re put together.</p>
<p>Froma, I don’t want to bum you out or anything, but you did ask for constructive criticism. Your sushi basis is nice and creative. However, the theme describing an object and comparing it to some of your personal qualities in a telling way is actually a WAY overused method of writing an common app essay. How do you know that it is overused? Because legendofmax, along with most adcoms, could predict how the essay was going to go. Maybe they don’t know the exact 3 attributes that you would try to say that you have, but the format is commonly used. (Even excluding the lack of “showing” aspect, this metaphorical/comparing format is so commonly used; maybe try to find a different slant when writing about sushi.)</p>
<p>The essay would not hurt your application at all. But it probably won’t help you at all either, except if the adcoms remember the 1-liner that lengendofmax thought was hilarious; then it might get you in. Your GC will say it’s fine because I’m sure that it is grammatically correct and well written, as are all of the other essays written by applicants applying to highly selective schools. (I am assuming that you are applying to hightly selective schools, since you are asking about advice on your essay.) However, if I were you, I’d follow legendofmax’s advice. It is so amazingly good, detailed, and on-point; why would you neglect such good free advice? Max, you could probably write a book on this subject.</p>
<p>I am a hard worker. Do you believe me? You should because I am a honest person. Seriously, I am a totally honest person. Why should you believe me? Because I am putting it writing.</p>
<p>Froma2z123: I would just like to point out something: If I can figure out your entire essay (as well as its main problem) before I even read it, from a single sentence, it is certain that the admissions officers (who’ve gone over thousands and thousands of these things) will be able to snipe it from a mile away. You are, of course, free to make your own call, here.</p>
<p>I would also like to echo YoHoYoHo by saying that many GC’s would probably agree that your essay is fine, because for most schools, it absolutely is. However, for top universities where countless applicants have stellar academic stats, and where everyone is able to submit essays that are free from spelling/grammar errors, it really helps to put in the extra effort to stand out.</p>
<p>When you say things like this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It sounds like you are not even willing to try. I’d strongly advise at least giving it a shot. You’ve worked hard for years at your high school, spent countless hours on extracurriculars, and likely put in a good amount of effort studying for the SAT. What’s a night or two (or even a week) in the grand scheme of things if it drastically boosts your chances? The college essay is probably one of the most severely underrated components of the application by the average student applying to top universities. It’s worth doing yourself a solid by following through with what others aren’t (or won’t).</p>
<p>Froma, check out this link. It has many essays, the sublime and the muddy dense ones too…maybe examples (showing) will work better than advice (telling) 
University of Chicago is known for having very challenging prompts.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/164537-post-your-essay-54.html?highlight=move+in+day+tips[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/164537-post-your-essay-54.html?highlight=move+in+day+tips</a></p>
<p>“Like a Dragon roll with extra fish eggs and tempura flakes, I am rife with personality and pizzazz.”</p>
<p>wow this is the most annoying thing i’ve read since lady gaga’s “We are not just Art for Michelangelo to carve, he can’t rewrite the agro of my furied heart”.</p>
<p>Legend and Yoho, thank you for your extensive pieces of advice. I do recognize and appreciate that you have only my best interest in mind. I have to do some soul searching to figure out a topic/format that will really shine and convey who I am. </p>
<p>Bamboo, thank you for your rude, unhelpful comment. I really appreciate your attempt to help. Kindly get a life. Thanks.</p>