What should a good essay do to the application?

College Essays
1

<p>I'm rethinking my Yale SCEA app and getting a little worried. </p>

<p>*Should a good essay further reinforce on what's already evident on the app, such as the two main passions/ECs? *</p>

<p>I have two main passions: astronomy/sci&tech, as well as politics/activism. Of the three writing samples submitted, the Short Answer was about an activist project I led which failed, the main Personal Statement was a mix of science and current affairs centered an astronomy theme (sort of a train of thought in my own voice and adding snippets of my personal experience), and the Yale Supplement essay wasn't related to either of my passions, but a personal (non-academic) experience in the classroom.</p>

<p>Now in retrospect it does seem a little jumbled up. Personally I'm more interested in astronomy and science, but politics/activism has more items on my EC list. That's why I chose to focus on the former for my main Essay and then gave only the 170-word Short Answer to politics/activism. But would that seem confusing?</p>

<p>Or should a good essay, or at least one of the essays, focus on personal experiences completely unrelated to anything else on my application? Would it detract from the application?</p>

<p>I've always wondered about this. Anthologies of sample successful essays often focus on such personal experiences, like hiking trips, and this adds a new dimension to your application but at the expense of the opportunity to reinforce your main passions. Should I still do unrelated personal experiences anyway? Would that make my app seem all over the place?</p>

<p>What would be a good allocation of writing samples?</p>

<p>Since there are 3 components in a typical application: short answer, main essay and supplement essay, what would be a good way of distributing them among passions and unrelated personal experiences? </p>

<p>Are expositions a good idea?</p>

<p>Just a question. Of course, probably no one would write a completely academic essay without using "I" or "me", but how would an exposition on an academic subject show your own voice?</p>

<p>Alright, back to writing my essays.</p>

2

<p>Use whatever scheme allows for the most personal, detailed, honest and revealing essays. </p>

<p>The scheme that is best for you might not be best for someone else.</p>

<p>Since college essays are supposed to be personal, rather than contentious, political, argumentative, analytical, or overtly taking a position, it would appear that “expositions” may not typically fit the bill.</p>

3

<p>I’d always heard that the essay is your chance to show them something about yourself that may not be apparent from the laundry list of classes, grades, scores and EC’s on the rest of the application. That doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about your passions. You would just have to make is, as ADad says, personal - why you love it, what you get out of it, how it affects you.</p>

<p>Or you can go a totally different route and mention your passion only in passing or not at all. You can talk about learning to ride a bicycle, why you like the color blue, the day you found out where babies come from, your favorite number, whatever. It doesn’t need to be profound.</p>

<p>Imagine you’re on a first speed date. The date’s read your profile on the dating website. You have 5 minutes to convince her to go out with you again.
Go.</p>