<p>Caveat: other parents routinely send their children off with the equivalent of $160K in their pockets and no direction but I like to make sure mine don’t waste too many credit hours swanning around. My nightmare? A friend of my son’s is a full pay, unintentional women’s studies major. By the time she decided what she wanted it was too hard to get the courses and too hard to go abroad. She ended up majoring in that field after taking three courses for pure interest.</p>
<p>Also, many majors–pre-med, IR (at some schools), engineering–do not have the bandwidth for farting around. A serious student needs to get on top of the requirements–and the opportunities–from the get go. I assumed ch (Indian academic expressing an interest in medicine), was one of those students.</p>
<p>A smart kid can learn a ton about a school–and himself–from delving into the course listings and the fac bios. It doesn’t hurt to lay out a spreadsheet of ‘dream’ classes for the four years–mixing in a few pure fun courses with that, ugh, organic chemistry. A thorough knowledge of the course offerings can help to make the final decision of which schools to apply to and which to attend. A smart kid finds out what courses make his heart beat faster–and what courses sound like his version of hell on earth.</p>
<p>Both of my sons can look through the lists of course offerings from a couple of different departments, verify the professors on RateMyProfessor–and know whether or not they would learn what they wanted to learn in that class. </p>
<p>One Professor at Princeton I would like to work with is Dr.Alex Todorov whose research interest is how do we form new memories which is a function of the hippocampus which is the structure my research project is on.</p>
<p>Another such professor is Dr. Elizabeth Gould whose research interest is neurogenesis and hippocampal function also something I am interested in and how similar experiences to.</p>
<p>Is this worth mentioning in an essay at all?
Too bad there’s NO such thing as a recruited researcher otherwise I could just contact these professors.</p>
<p>Another reason I feel this program fits me is because it is neuroscience but also on a social scale. Some of these other professors are analyzing the social effects of neuropsychological problems which I feel is quite necessary to the advancement of this amazing field. </p>
<p>Does this show some of the passion for my EC’s which people said I was lacking? I do have passion and hope to continue my research in college and even beyond. I have passion for all my other EC’s too even my jobs. Especially the one at a rehabilitation hospital where I directly talked to and intereacted with patients. This might be perhaps the reason I want to into neuroscience. I met kid there who was hospitalized due to a neuro disorder and was only 18. This really got to me. No one deserve to be in a hospital at that age when they should be enjoying some of the best years of their life. This made me want to go into neurosurgery as well as research.</p>
<p>I think the last section you wrote is really nice, and you could use it in either one of the Princeton supplement essays or on the Common App, since they both ask about a person who has influenced you.</p>
<p>For the question about the professors, you should look at what each school asks you to write about and see if it would fit. It might depend on whether you choose to use the Common App or the school-specific app. You should see which form gives you the most opportunities to show your passion (if that option is available for the school you are interested in) This is why essays can take such a long time.</p>
<p>Now you’re starting to express your passion…</p>
<p>Tell me…why do you think neuroscience is an amazing field? Why is it more amazing than…psychiatry?</p>
<p>What do you mean by neuro disorder? What neuro disorders do you hope to cure with neuro surgery?? What do you see as the social side of neuro surgery? How is that different from psuchiatry? </p>
<p>(I know a couple of neurosurgeons–one of whom has invented a number of surgical tools for neurosurgery. Can’t say they struck me as socially concious guys–just bloody brilliant and doggedly determined).</p>
<p>Isn’t the majority of neuro-surgery done for injuries and strokes?</p>
<p>It’s all about using the space wisely. About three incredibly well-crafted sentences ought to do it.</p>
<p>I want to go to school X in part because of the neuroscience program which would allow me to work with top names in the field such as blah blah and blah.</p>
<p>I think the 100 characters does not included spaces. And if I recall, the Columbia one was more like 150.</p>
<p>This makes for less than 50 words. The other 50-100 can be used to describe why ch wants to major in neuroscience (experience working with patients at rehabilitation center and working with an 18-year old with neurological disorder).</p>
<p>I’m glad you are now focusing on your ECs and passions! They are what will distinguish you from hundreds of other applicants with similar academic achievements.</p>
<p>Write to Columbia and get permission to go sit in on a class. You need more specifics and more excitement in your statements about neuroscience.</p>
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<p>This statement still needs some juice. When I read it, I still don’t understand why you love neuroscience and that doubt makes me wonder about your passion. Your description of why YOU love neuroscience, why you wnat to dedicate your life to it–that statement should be so powerful it makes me regret that I chose architecture! :eek:</p>
<p>Didn’t you say that you had and English teacher who was a fan? Re-write this with more detail–try to get at the very HEART of what it is about what it is about Neuroscience that thrills you. Then take that short essay to her to edit–and ask a few of the above posters to review.</p>
<p>There are two different kinds of essays involved here. One is why xyz school. This is where you want to talk about the program and the people you would like to work with–it shows you’ve rally investigated xyz college and think you would be a good fit. EDIT: You can mention your research on the hippocampus here as something you would be interested in pursuing further.</p>
<p>The other is the long essay. You can start with a vignette describing your work with the 18-year old with a neurological disorder, go on to discuss why you started working in the rehabilitation center (because you were already attracted to medical research? because you wanted to volunteer?). You can then go on to discuss what attracts you to neurological science as such. Is your volunteer work tied to your Intel research? If so, that would be a way to bring in several of your ECs to show your passion. </p>
<p>EDIT: I see that you are doing research on the hippocampus. That is a definite tie to your volunteer work. Bring that in! Make the reader as excited as you are about what you are doing both in your research lab, and the rehab center.</p>
<p>No; the type of job does not matter. What matters is what you did-- as Cheers, says, the details are the important things, and how you describe them. You need to communicate your feelings as much as the specifics of the job and the research. </p>
<p>Remember that the essays are designed to enable the readers to learn about you. Not the job, not the research as such, but YOU. It’s what will make a reader advocate for you, for the adcom to decide to admit you over others equally qualified.</p>
<p>CH, I am not surprised by the fact that you CAN write about your EC (and job) with passion and show where your interest stems from. </p>
<p>I have suggested (a couple of times) to get your hands around the various applications for scholarships and programs such as Questbridge. The main reason was for you to UNDERSTAND how the various pieces of the puzzle that is YOU fit together. Right now, you are still stuck in the mode where you respond to potential questions and try to figure out how to best answer the questions. With a bit of time and effort, you’ll find out that EVERYONE who will read your applications will want to read about what MAKES YOU tick and think. It is YOUR job to sell yourself, but before you can do that, you need to KNOW yourself. And selling yourself does NOT mean to craft an amazing resume. You could tell the simplest story about how YOU interact with people in your activities and how it makes you feel and have a great essay. </p>
<p>People in this thread have been HOPING to see some evidence of your passion. I really believe you have it in you; I happen to believe that you could sit at home in a couple of months staring at multiple admissions. But what I believe does not matter a bit. It’s all up to you. </p>
<p>Again, please pay attention to the deadlines, start writing down your thoughts, start the applications, and polish your presentation. When school starts, DO pay attention to your grades, but I also believe that the differences in your Fall grades won’t matter much at all. </p>
<p>Trust me in that well crafted and sensible applications are easily worth several GPA points. In a sea of 92-97 and superior SAT/ACT, the written words in your essays and applications DO make a lot of difference. </p>
<p>I think Xiggi’s advice on focussing more on what makes you tick is very good. I was going through all this last year, and like you I started trying to write something about an EC. I found it dreadfully boring. I hated the essay I ended up writing then, it just seemed so formulaic: ‘I did this, and I met these people, and I learned this’ It was easy to write because I could immediately think of what to write about, but it said nothing about me.</p>
<p>You seem like you have had an interesting life, and you have certainly managed to inspire a lot of people on here to help you out, so perhaps you would be better to take a different starting point. You could move away from trying to express yourself through your ECs and instead take a more general approach looking at what makes you the person you are. It still makes perfectly usable essays because there are some quite broad prompts on the common app, and in my opinion, they are more memorable for ad comms than a standard EC-related essay. As far as I recall, I wrote only one short essay on an EC, all the rest of my essays were just about me. I also only recall writing one “why X school” response, but that is probably just down to the schools I applied to and using the common app. Princeton, for example, doesn’t specifically ask in its supplement unless you want to do engineering. I guess they just assume that of course you would want to go there!</p>
<p>Yes. Make sure that some of the recs are from teachers who know your academic work; the recs from the hospital and the dentist can be considered supplemental recs.</p>
<p>When you ask for recs, give the recommender a resume so that s/he can refer to it for information; add some anecdotes, for example, about some patient you helped care for; something you did at the dentist… This will help jog the memory of your recommenders and give them some concrete details to include in the recs. Generalities such as "bright, good worker, caring, etc… are more meaningful when supported by actual details. The same goes for teacher’s recs.</p>
<p>Good news guys. I secured the professor recomendation and not only that my superrvising scientist was quite enthusiastic and said she would try to do anything she could to get me into Princeton.</p>
<p>I hope it will have a large bearing. Can this rec make me get admitted? She probably knows some proffessors there but can that make a difference?</p>