<p>Hello everyone, </p>
<p>After having two of my english teachers (both qualified AP teachers in a great public school) read my CA and supplemental essays, my guidance counselor gives me advice that entirely contradicts what my teachers have said. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what to do, especially since I thought I had nailed both essays. I am doing the CA failure prompt and have the NYU supplemental. I would share more but my essays contain a lot of personal information.</p>
<p>My own writing style consists of rather long sentences though I have varied them in length significantly and, following the advice of my lang teacher, incorporated semi-colons and colons for even more sentence variety. Both teachers have also expressed that my writing in general is very distinctive and that the topics I have chosen for both essays are "excellent".</p>
<p>On the other hand, my guidance counselor has advised that I break up my sentences even further and for the most part remove the "flowery" language that my english teachers said was in fact great. Although there were one or two points at which I agree I could cut down on the thesaurus-sounding language or vocabulary with questionable diction, there are also times at which I felt the suggestions entirely removed my voice from the essay itself.</p>
<p>So tl;dr, is it better to stick to one's own style of writing, even though it may be a little more literature-like than a simple resume of what I've done and want to do (assuming my writing skills in the first place are quite good), or to get right to the point even though it does not reflect my voice?</p>
<p>Also, is it better to use passive or active voice, a mix of the two, or does it not really matter?</p>
<p>What about ending a sentence (namely the first sentence...) with a preposition? Do the readers really care about that? </p>
<p>Sorry it's pretty nitpicky, and thank you in advance!</p>