<p>I’ve decided to start work on essays over Winter Break, so I’m tackling the CommonApp first (and, by extension, UC’s first essay prompt). I want the basic gist of most of my essays to be “I’m not just a techie who likes math and spends his free time solving related rates problems”, and I’d do this by bringing up my various languages, sports blog, Wikipedia edits in history, etc. etc.</p>
<p>The CommonApp prompt 4 is “Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?”, and I want to talk about how serene I feel in Russia, discovering the other half of my culture and family, etc. etc. I really want an effective hook to my essay, and after some thought, came up with the following:</p>
<p>"I feel most content in an environment uncomfortable to most people, a goat pen in Russia. I enjoy the creak of the rotting old building, the dampness of the berries and grass outside, the bleat of the animals, and the revolting but nostalgic odor of goat manure. "</p>
<p>While this hook sounds decent, I was wondering how it would compare to a more shocking, attention grabbing quote, like: </p>
<p>I’m just a senior applying for colleges, so I don’t have much credibility but I’ll give you my two cents anyways. I feel like so many applicants are encouraged to start off their essays with a simple sentence that is out of the ordinary, yet attention grabbing, that it is actually becoming cliche. For example, the sentence you gave, “The smell of manure really attracts me.” is certainly eye opening, but when you see a majority of essays starting with that format, the underpaid and overworked admissions officer will probably grow tired of the “Shocking Hook” and label it as unoriginal. I don’t know how true what I’m saying is, but it may be worth considering. Personally, I like your first idea better: “I feel most content in an environment uncomfortable to most people, a goat pen in Russia. I enjoy the creak of the rotting old building, the dampness of the berries and grass outside, the bleat of the animals, and the revolting but nostalgic odor of goat manure.” It’s much more descriptive and starts off the essay better and more efficiently as compared to “The smell of manure really attracts me.” Again, I am just a senior who has written a decent amount of sub-par essays, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>The smell of manure is kinda grotesque. If you wanted to be shocking you could say “I like goats.” But seriously unless your whole life is about goats I don’t think that is a good idea.</p>
<p>An environment uncomfortable to most people, a goat pen in Russia I feel most content in. I feel most content in a goat pen in Russia. I feel most content in an environment uncomfortable to most people. </p>
<p>I played around with this, but the bottom line is:
My advice: Eliminate “…an environment uncomfortable to most people…”
Reason:</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with an attention gettiing opener. However, I would avoid those that are deliberate hooks (or in this case, borderline gross). That you prefer to be in an animal pen in Russia should be “hook” enough. And, even though this is the opener and a description of the environment is important, it is much more critical that you quickly get to what this means and sais about you as a person and an applicant.</p>