<p>this thread is silly. what makes a jaw-dropping essay is one that is unique, one that no one esle can produce. How can you define what makes uniqueness?</p>
<p>The only definite thing that can improve a college essay is good grammar and vocabulary skills, but those are already learned, you have em or you dont.</p>
<p>Anyone seen the movie 21? If so, thats the type of essay (that the med student writes at the end) that is actually amazing…</p>
<p>all great essays have a universal truth</p>
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<p>Pretty much impossible.</p>
<p>What makes a great essay is telling an interesting story in the right “voice.” The voice part is what we were missing before we hired a professional. This is not easy to accomplish and where most go wrong.</p>
<p>An essay that reveals an interesting aspect of the applicant, who is a unique human being, in a detailed way will be sufficiently close to something that no one else can produce.</p>
<p>The truly phenomenal essays are the ones that are sincere and honest. From what I have seen on this discussion board, sincere and honest essays are practically extinct. Why? because they end up on the reject pile with the sincere and honest people. I know this because I am a high school teacher. I read my students’ essays. I know which essays lead to acceptance and which ones lead to rejection. The ones that lead to acceptance all have a faint whiff of exaggeration, if not outright falsehood. You may not want to believe that this is true, but it is. I always advise honesty, but my advice is typically ignored by the Type A’s who populate the top level schools.</p>
<p>^ Why do you suppose this is the case?</p>
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<p>Why then would these “sincere and honest essays” end up on the reject pile? Is it because of students’ inability to turn their sincere and honest essays into something “truly phenomenal” without resorting to “whiff of exageration” or “outright falsehood”? If so, then the problem isn’t the content, but the presentation. </p>
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<p>Perhaps hmom5’s advice above is the answer, at least for some of the applicants.</p>
<p>I’ve read hundreds of essays on this site over the years. My experience has been quite different from that of William Turing (#26). In my experience, students with the most personal, detailed, honest and revealing essays have done well in the admissions process and have been more likely than others to gain admittance to their first choice schools.</p>