<p>Common App main essay, discuss some issue of local,national importance …</p>
<p>Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Post it here? The deadline’s passed. It shouldn’t hurt you imo.
Unless of course, you are concerned for your identity ;)</p>
<p>The deadline is tomorrow…
here is it…</p>
<p>Garbage jammed streets, filthy rivers, unbreathable air and to make it worse, the crowds indifference to all this. These were some of the spectacles that I observed when growing up. So, what is this madness our world is displaying? I asked myself many times as a boy. As I grew up, the answer started to become a little clear. But it was after watching Leonardo Di Caprios The 11th Hour I understood the real picture. Not that I was earlier oblivious to the fact that we our assaulting the place we live in, but it made me understand the gravity of the situation. I was able to conclude that if we have to give ourselves even the slightest of chance, there is no better moment to act than now.
Environmental problems, however obvious they may be, are increasing in magnitude every second. Earlier, whenever I heard the phrase related to saving our planet, I had a sense of sympathy and pity towards it. But, I realized that, planetary collisions aside, the planet is here to stay no matter what we do. However selfish it may sound, but the fact is that we have no one but us to worry about and blame for putting ourselves in such a situation. What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. These words by C.S. Lewis are absolutely true. The major polluters of the environment are mostly people who are much more educated than the average Joe. It came as a revelation to me and I just could not take my mind of the fact that people, even after knowing all the ground realities, were still treating it as a problem that would pass by.
I have been a firm believer in cleanliness since I can remember. So, for me the solution was to clean our environment. In India, the general consensus among people is that if a place is already filthy there is no harm in making it even filthier. This, according to them, justifies their act of throwing waste on the public places. After my efforts of stopping some of my friends from throwing their food leftovers and the polythene carry-bags looked to have no effect on them, I decided to just quietly pick up the waste and throw it in the dustbin. Initially it made me a laughing stock as they thought that I was just wasting my time. But after many pick ups, they realized that they had no right to complain about how dirty the roads are or how the government is not doing enough, if they continue to neglect their surroundings.<br>
The problems have changed my attitude in numerous ways, but not my optimism. I remain positive about the future of humans and believe we can use the human intelligence which we are so proud of and use it to maintain nature’s beauty for the future generations.</p>
<p>Essay in general is nice.
Overall it gives a positive feedback about you.</p>
<p>I’m guessing you might have applied for some Environment related major?</p>
<p>Yeah, Civil/Environmental Engg…</p>
<p>Damn. I wrote a huge reply and lost the page >_<
In simple points:</p>
<ol>
<li>Double-Quote marks on C.S.Lewis’ quote.</li>
<li>A stronger anecdote in the last paragraph.</li>
<li>The generalizations may make you seem pretentious - but that’s only my counselor :P</li>
</ol>
<p>In the original post, I had sugar-coated the above three points in extraneous sentences, trying to sound diplomatic. But I hope you would appreciate this more. Enjoy :)</p>
<p>“we our assaulting the place we live in”, please tell me you corrected this ^^.</p>
<p>It needs to tell me more about who you are as person- all I can deduce from this essay is that you care about the environment. </p>
<p>It sounds more like a shallow essay on how dirty India is and how people never stop throwing garbage on the street. Also the essay has a slightly negative vibe to it, and it doesn’t read well. you should make some corrections to it before the final deadlines of any unis you still haven’t applied to.</p>
<p>Issue 1
For the quotes inbetween:
To begin with, explain how you had optimism at a young age when in your essay you began with a negative description of your residence? This is just something to maybe make clear?
Additionally,
you never mentioned how one can use human intelligence to fix the problem. As in, you did not elaborate or even mention it in a light to which you can recall it in your conclusion. You can, at your own choice, cut this part out and rephrase your sentence to make it more relative to your essay body.</p>
<p>Issue 2
Some minor grammar mistakes in your essay. Do correct them. READ OVER. Few I found:
“of” should be “off”
“were” should be “we’re” to reflect “we are”
“our” should be “are”
Issue 3
The first half gets the audience into the essay quickly. However, do not just list the problem and venture into its details. Iterate more on how your view in helping the cause is. Do not say that the situation is hopeless for your region. If you have done minor things to improve, reflect on how it has made you believe in the saying: “one person is significant enough”. Dig into your optimism ‘to pick up trash in front of your friends’ and make it look like a deep essay, and not a superficial one. At this stage, I can see that you’ve put up a good essay so do not revamp it drastically either.</p>
<p>So, basically I’m screwed…</p>
<p>
Of course, you are not. Look at the brighter side. Adcom members have to read through thousands of essays, perhaps they might overlook quite a few deficiencies in this one.</p>
<p>Yeah, you arent screwed…and i dont think it gives off a negative vibe either
Plus sincerity is always more important than a fancy writing style and big words :)</p>
<p>I did correct some of the grammatical mistakes (our to are) but did not think of it having a negative vibe. I just wanted to express my feelings regarding the situation we face and the lack of urgency…</p>
<p>
You’re not screwed. If I can note the grammar mistakes, so can they. You want a reader who can correct you in these minor things because they entail that you’ve written your essay well. You should be glad that I did not find other mistakes beside the grammar one because that would have been a nightmare…which means you are a good writer.
Overall, your essay is good, it gets my attention. My suggestion was simply that given more character limit, maybe you could explain some of the things I mentioned in my previous post. If you don’t want to, that is your choice.</p>
<p>what I meant was I saw the grammatical mistakes after posting this…
But by the time you posted this I had already submitted it…
Thanks everyone for the feedback…</p>
<p>lol, i was wondering about the time zone difference since US is one day behind the east.</p>