<p>Sparse is the light of hope that penetrates the two woefully small, grimy windows of a FEMA trailer. For four summers to date, nail-guns, tape measures, and chop-saws have been our church’s chosen weapons to rebuild homes, dreams, and faith. </p>
<p>Each frame raised, each truss laid, is returned with ineffable gratitude. As our motley bunch of workers gathered to bless a new house with the owner, the single mother burst into quivering sobs, choking out “It looks like a house!” A sloppy group hug soon followed; an indelible snapshot of love surrounded by the debris of Hurricane Katrina. Each trip is a poignant reminder of the both the beauty and tribulation of the world.</p>
<p>I plan to keep returning, as long as there is a house left to build somewhere in the world. Besides, if it were possible… a sledgehammer is twice as fun to use when each thud rebuilds just a little more of someone’s life.</p>
<p>It’s my sloppy copy! The activity is 4 mission trips for Katrina relief… please critique it and tell me what I could do differently/better or if I should change the topic or something… but truly, I love doing this. I’m sorry, I’m just not a great writer, and I know it sounds so ridiculously cliche.</p>
<p>I think it is fine. Was going to say that you seem to be one of many who sacrafice content for poetic rhetoric/narrative, but upon a second read I think you have elaborated on your activity well enough. Personally, though, I would be a bit more direct with my 150-word answers, and leave the deeper and more poetic pieces for the supplement essays, which the admissions officers are more likely to take the time to read and infer. Regardless, you answered the prompt (perhaps not squarely on the head, but nonetheless sufficient), time to move on to other essays. (Remember to return to your essays after, say, a month, to revise further.)</p>
<p>Little typo in the “of the both the…” Adamonkey caught it, thanks! </p>
<p>Right, I think I can change some vocab words… although I don’t know if poignant is necessarily a big one. I guess I can drop ineffable, and poignant… </p>
<p>So should I just make it some kind of (more refined) laundry list of details that the mission trips involved? Basically, for 2 of them we did independent work at various places in conjunction with Biloxi First Presbyterian. The other two we worked in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, doing “blitz builds” (where in one week, we raised an entire house along with some AmeriCorp workers).</p>
<p>^I don’t think that DSI implied you should make a list. </p>
<p>I’d agree that you should be more direct. This doesn’t mean saying what dates you went, or who you went with, but maybe along the lines of whose houses did you rebuild? Why did you volunteer to do this? etc.</p>
<p>And being more direct, imo, mainly means removing a lot of that messy language (that is what DSI might have meant). Like the first line, that’s just really distracting. As is almost the rest of the entire essay (notable exceptions including the second sentence and most of the last paragraph. I say most because I don’t know what “besides, if it were possible…” means.). You see how those sentences are cleaner, more direct, less poetic/deep. That is the style this, and most other essays for that matter, should be, imo.</p>
<p>Correct. Short answers do not lend themselves well to overly extended metaphors or flowery language. Leaving it syntactically clean, easy to follow, and clear to the point is what I would urge.</p>
<p>Alright, got it. More details… I’ll include some names, then. And perhaps should I include dates… although the dates are fairly obvious without mentioning them. Summers of 2006, 2007,2008, 2009. </p>
<p>I’ll include something about how a “blitz build” involves building an entire house from just the foundation in just one week… perhaps. Should I include details about what I did? Although just that would use up a lot of words in of itself… framed, laid trusses, insulation, dry-walled, plywood sheeting, cement board, siding, wiring, roofing, and painting. And I’ll remove the first sentence, the last sentence of the second paragraph. Or perhaps just tone down the melodrama in them a bit. </p>
<p>Just a question… should the common app. essay also be matter-of-fact and avoid poetical rhetoric? Or should I turn it a bit more flowery there?</p>
<p>^No, you probably shouldn’t have names and dates imo. Those will be listed on the common app EC section. I think an important question that you should almost answer “directly” is why do you do this stuff and who you help. The superflous details (names, dates, method of building) really don’t matter that much. What colleges want to know is the juicy details: why you do this, how big of a deal this is to you, and (in the case of volunteering) who you help. They don’t care whether you nailed in the drywall versus painting the house. </p>
<p>Common app main essay you have more space to develop your ideas, so what people generally do is use the vivid descriptions in the intro and then focus more on argument or narrative for the rest, with the conclusion generally containing some lofty rhetoric (think Obama’s speeches). But it all really depends on what you write about and how you go about writing it.</p>
<p>Edit: I just reread it another two times. It gets better each time. Adcoms may not give you the second, third, or fourth read though.</p>