<p>Hi.
This is my initial draft of an essay for Princeton ED.
It says: "Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way."</p>
<p>I would really appreciate any comments/criticisms about the essay.
Particularly, since I am a New Zealand student, I don't really know what the US university admission officers expect when reading an essay.
That's why I thought it'd be better for me to get the comments early on so that I can change the direction, rather than refine the essay and then have people tell me that I am completely on the wrong track.</p>
<p>Also, please note that I can choose to have this as the short essay (about 250 words) or the long essay (about 500 words).
It is over 1000 words right now!
So I'd be particularly interested in if I should get rid of the part about the 'incident' and have the general one, or concentrate on the incident.</p>
<p>I'll post the beginning here, since it's too long for a private message!!</p>
<p>My family moved from Korea to New Zealand on the 21st of June 1998. Like many such families, the following two years was understandably a very difficult time for us. At the time, we decided that rather than attending only the final half-year at a primary school, it would be better for me to wait and start anew at an intermediate school along with all the other kids in late January of 1999. </p>
<p>It is horrible for a young boy to watch the financial situation of the family worsen, his parents lose confidence and stay home occupying themselves with some trivial activity, get extremely lonely yet get sick of seeing each other, finally start having fights about insignificant things which become arguments of divorce, and see his mother cry virtually everyday. The only outlet of my stress was teaching myself how to play the piano. I prayed for time to pass quickly so that I would go to school and make some new friends.</p>
<p>Well, language barrier and cultural misunderstandings only amplified my loneliness, and now that I didnt even have something to look forward to, I became evermore introverted, only expressing my emotions through music. If it wasnt for this one person, it is quite likely that I would now be an extremely reclusive and depressed individual with a pessimistic and cynical outlook on life.</p>
<p>Thanks for that jay01.
Would anyone else like to help me?
74 people read the thread and only one was interested in reading the rest?
Is the beginning that boring?</p>
<p>not sure...parents getting divorced and family tensions tend to be kind of hackneyed subjects of college admission essays...i dont know if it would stick out from the other 16000 applications they're going to get...the writing conventions you use reflect a forced use of a robotic tone to sound eloquent when you really come off sounding like you're trying to hard to impress...the essay could use some work</p>
<p>You need to get to the point faster with your essay. All of that background info can be summarized quickly so that you can begin highlighting the influencial person, and putting lots of emphasis on how that person influenced you. Colleges will be most interested in you and your character, not lots of details about the influential person. The subject of the essay is just a way for the colleges to help you to provide information about your character, personality and values.</p>
<p>Just some grammar feedback, since I was distracted by them while reading.</p>
<p>"Like many such families, the following two years was understandably a very difficult time for us" doesn't make sense. Take out the beginning phrase, because it modifies "the following two years". </p>
<p>The first sentence of your second paragraph is a run-on. </p>
<p>"Well, language barrier and cultural misunderstandings only amplified my loneliness, and now that I didnt even have something to look forward to..." I don't think that "now" works because you're using the past tense. </p>
<p>"If it wasnt for this one person..." I think you shouldn't wait to introduce this person. Keeping the reader in this sort of suspense can't be very good, but that's only my opinion. </p>
<p>I haven't written my college essays yet so this is kind of like a blind man leading a blind man. This is not to say that I cannot pick up on grammatical errors. Make sure to edit and revise your essay. Good Luck. </p>
<p>Note: I know that it's your first draft. Still, I wanted to let you know that there were some grammatical mistakes.</p>