ashdraniasura

Hey Class of 2008! So you're done with the college application process, and have already deposited (hopefully) with the school of your choice.

I think I speak for myself and the rest of my class as well as those classes below me (09 and higher) when I say that we're a little stressed about the whole college app process for next year.

Especially the ESSAYS!! So if you could help us, we would all be incredibly grateful.

If you want to do something for this charity case, please post:

A) a list of acceptances/rejections and whether you think your essays affected the decision positively/negatively or had no effect.

B) Essay prompt(s) for each college

C) Either your essay(s), a link to them somewhere else, or your email address if it's ok for us to ask you to send them to us.

If you're uncomfortable posting essays, please at least describe/summarize them.

Thanks again! We really appreciate this! Good luck to all seniors next year!!

bco09

you can find A and B quite easily on the internet...

For A all you have to do is look through decision threads on this site, and for B you simply have to go to the university's website

atrophicwhisper

Dartmouth and Berkeley acceptances. Yale (although my second essay was horrible. I'm not sharing that one), Cornell, and Tufts rejections. PM me if you want to see it.

Leviathan08

I would put they suck! If you really want them I'll send it in order to show you, how not to write an personal statement. lol

johr

Good luck Grad 09s, I hope this helps. If you want to see my other essays, PM me. I'm not posting them because my tests/marks are pretty bad and they probably overwhelmed the suckiness/awesomeness of my essays.

A) I was rejected pretty much across the board, but I got into Emerson. The essay probably helped, but I was pretty qualified for Emerson, I think.

B) 1. Much of the work that students do at Emerson College is a form of storytelling. If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it? Why? (I totally interpreted that as “Film” and not “Story”, but obviously they didn’t mind!)

2. Please tell us what influenced you to select your first choice major

C) 1. It’s the big number of a small theatre, lit by the bright Broadway lights beside it: A Deeper Shade of Purple. An odd, non-sequitur sort of name, but what else would you expect from a film about me? After all, I have a tendency towards blind faith, answered prayers and dream-come-trues – and purple is the colour of spirituality. But no wishy-washy lavenders, mind you. All my life I have been a combination of vivid blues and stronger reds. Purple may be confused for serene blue, but fiery, passionate red is needed to create it. I am a purple that gets deeper and deeper the more I mature – not the slow gradation of sunrise but a madcap virtuoso flinging great gobs of paint at his canvas. For I have always grown in awkward spurts, each time growing more intense, more my own person. And then there is the fact that I have always been an artist. Purple for creativity, purple because my pen bleeds lilac, purple because it would make for beautiful colour imagery. I see beauty everywhere, and a film with that title could work in some wonderful visual elements.

Emerson’s colours are purple and gold. Coincidence? I think not.

2. Ever since I was in grade six, I have nursed dreams of publishing. As I wrote more and more prolifically, I realized that perhaps those dreams were closer than I thought. I simply needed a mentor, someone other than high school teachers who rarely required creative projects and even more rarely critiqued those projects. After CTY courses, I realized just how much a teacher can help and confirmed what I’d considered since elementary school – that I would be an English major so I could continue improving.

I want to be a writer; it is simple as that. I know it will be difficult, but I also know that I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life. Writing has always been something I did naturally, like flexing a muscle or breathing. I cannot explain it, but I am driven by that inexplicable voice at 5am that urges you to keep writing, only a couple more pages until you’ve got it. I have thousands of pages worth of scrawl on paper and napkin and coffee filter. I hope a university education will teach me how to organize those bundles into something publishable.

namayani

I wrote a really long essay (ahem 2000 ahem hmm words) but it got me into brown, dartmouth, middlebury, colby, macalester and now swarthmore (I was waitlisted)

I basically talked about how entering the field of working with dogs affected me and my life: struggles I've been to, lessons i've learned and so on. can send it to anyone who wants it.

sapofrio

Hey, good luck with your applications!

a. Accepted: UPenn (attending), Northwestern, UChicago, NYU, BU, and GW.
Waitlisted: Columbia and Georgetown.
Rejected: Yale and Harvard.

I think my essays helped

b.
1. Common App Personal Statement
2. What do you like to do for fun? (UPenn prompt)

c.

1.

Dahlia Gibson (title)

The first time I saw her was in New York. It was a blustery, January afternoon and the balmy, tropical sun of Costa Rica was just a distant memory, blown away by Manhattan’s bone chilling wind. Desperate for a reprieve from the piercing cold, I ducked into the first shop I saw. I wandered aimlessly about, shivering, not sure for what I was searching. Making my way through the crowded aisles, I paused to peruse the classic rock section. Pushing Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” back into its slot, I noticed something in the back of the store. I turned my head and there she was. Her rich, ebony color radiant against the icy whiteness of the winter snow. She was simply breathtaking. “Andrés, where have you been? They’re waiting for us back at the hotel.” My father’s voice shook me from my reverie and I reluctantly followed him outside. I turned back, straining to see her one last time. I spent the night tossing and turning, unable to get her out of my mind. I hadn’t even said goodbye.

I had to see her again.

The next day I went back to the place of our first brief encounter and couldn’t believe my luck. She was still there, even more gorgeous than the day before. Without anyhesitation I approached her, not sure of what my intentions were. My eyes made their way down her long sleek frame, lingering to admire her perfectly proportioned curves. I smiled and timidly ran my fingers up and down her slender neck. Her gentle purr enveloped me in a warm embrace. I knew I had to have her. She was everything I ever wanted.

A week later, she was sitting next to me on a plane back to Costa Rica.

Four years have passed since that dreamy day in New York. After all this
time, I still get goose bumps whenever I hear her melodious voice. We are more inseparable than ever and have traveled the world together, from the Rocky Mountains to the European Alps. She loves everything about me: my silly poems, my morning breath, my dorky fanny pack, and the way I rock her in my arms while I sing her a lullaby. And I adore everything about her: her sweet melodies, her versatility, the way she challenges me to reinvent myself, and her knack for making me feel like a rock star. Our passion for
music unites us as we are moved by Mozart’s “Requiem”, jam to Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”, and groove to the sticky beats of Madonna. My life would not be complete without her.

Man, I love my guitar!

2.

As amazing as it may seem, there are few things in life that bring me such joy and pleasure as eating. Sure, I enjoy soccer and volleyball, but nothing beats the thrill of a plate of food waiting to be devoured. I know it's going to be a good day when I find a homemade chalupa on my plate. The delicate crunch of the tortilla, the unmistakable subtleness of warm frijoles, and the rich, ripe tang of tomato-ey salsa. Holy guacamole (literally)! The food itself is only part of this heavenly pleasure. There are other important factors involved: comfortable seating, correct lighting, and if possible, good background music and good company. Few things stress more than eating in a rush or not having the time to savor each bite of my meal. For me, this is a not matter of survival. I do not eat to live; I live to eat.

anhtimmy

sapofrio, you made my mouth water with ur 2nd essay
XD

sapofrio

hahaha thanks (i guess)!!

stormgren

My essay got me in to CMU (attending), UChicago, and a few others.

I thought the essay made a big difference for me. PM me if you want it.

Actually, you know what, I'll post it. Because I like it that much.
---
The light casts an eerie, pale-blue glow on my face as I stare wide- and glassy-eyed at the screen. The room is silent apart from the loud click-clacking of keyboard keys. I unravel the difficult algorithms and untangle the graceful threads; the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Compile... run... success. There is nothing quite like seeing something that you made, especially something as intricate as a computer program, finally work. I love distilling complex puzzles down to simple, elegant solutions.

Elegance is a difficult concept to define. The idea was probably best described by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who was not only a well-known French writer, but also an aircraft engineer. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” When I write a program, I look for a solution that captures the essence of an intricate problem with a minimal amount of code.

I began programming in third grade. There were no programming courses offered at my school, so I taught myself. The first program I ever wrote was in QuickBASIC. BASIC was a very simple language to learn: the programmer used simple phrases of what was essentially English to program the computer. I distinctly remember being fascinated with writing complex loops and elaborate series of instructions and seeing the results of my effort carried out before my eyes. Within weeks I was making a colored circle bounce around the screen.

I moved on from BASIC relatively quickly. The language was clumsy, and it seemed to go against my personality. I do not like to write pages of complex prose when a few clear paragraphs will achieve the same effect. I aim to accomplish as much as possible with as little text as necessary; BASIC uses lots of words, but says very little. I quickly learned more complicated languages like C++ and Lisp that allowed much greater depth of expression.

For the past few years I have been a programmer for an online game based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, a series of quirky fantasy novels. I create the cities that thousands of players explore and construct the quests and puzzles they labor to complete. The custom weapons I write are some of the most sought-after in the game. I am the benevolent leader of an appreciative people. The areas I build always have a surprise twist. A primary theme in one portion of the game I wrote was “fairy tales gone wrong.” I would take a story like Sleeping Beauty and twist it so that the player was suddenly responsible for cursing the fairy tale castle and it was up to him to correct the problem: the player was both the villain and the hero.

I also enjoy creating computer-generated art: three-dimensional realities of my own design. My art attempts to be photo-realistic, but I try to add a twist: one of my most elaborate pieces is a re-creation of M.C. Escher’s Ascending and Descending, which centers on an impossible staircase. However, my favorite creation is a landscape inspired by my grandfather’s paintings. My piece appears to be just a lighthouse until the eye draws back and realizes that there is no sea in sight.
I love these sorts of twists. I enjoy manipulating things to see them in novel and different ways. I am often able to grasp concepts in science and mathematics that are difficult for others to visualize. I love challenging myself to find solutions that leave others bewildered. Being able to see the heart of a problem makes me an effective computer programmer as well; the obvious way to deal with an issue is generally the crude way. I am frequently able to notice different, less obvious solutions.

As I sit and type, my face aglow with the pale blue light of the monitor, I construct programs that blur the line between the aesthetic and the mechanically precise. I craft places that combine the scientific and the artistic. I write poetry in the form of code, works of art masquerading as mathematical equations.

I create worlds.
---

fizix2

stormgren, I really liked your essay

This is my common-app essay from 2007. It was probably the weakest point of my application, but it did get me into Caltech (the only place I applied).

livingtea

eh why not. when i was slogging through applications, i wanted to read some more winning essays to see whether i was going in the right direction with my essay or not.

applied to: university of maryland-college park (safety), nyu (match), boston university (match), jhu, washu in st. louis, mit, upenn, columbia (ed), brown
rejected from: mit, upenn, columbia (deferred, then rejected)
waitlisted at: washu
got into: umcp (full ride), nyu, boston u, jhu, brown (where i'm going!)

for columbia and umcp: write an essay which conveys to the reader a sense of who you are.
for the rest: i used mit's prompt-"describe the world you come from and how it has shaped your plans for the future or something."

for the first one, i wrote about my fight with procrastination. it did not shed a very flattering light on me...

for the second one, i wrote about my parents and how they've influenced me.

pm me and i'll show you the second essay.