please critique my risky harvard essay II

dewitt
Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:04:40 +0000

I think its pretty well written, but:

–hyperbole. language like “bouncing off the walls” and saying your future used to be “composed only of getting married and making lots of money” sounds kind of over the top and childish. I’d avoid calling yourself a boy-crazy diva – there must be something more flattering that gets across the same general idea – that says spoiled, sheltered, superficial.

–it would make more sense to an adcom reader to translate what you learned from the contrast between these environments into your specific plans for college/career (not that these are not always evolving and changing). Obviously, Harvard is not a seminary, so you are not planning to become a nun. But how did the experience inform the plans/interests you DO have? The money vs. fulfillment issue is interesting, but you make it too black and white (“cut and dry”) to be very interesting or provocative.

I’m left thinking that you are someone who is basically shallow and greedy, who had this experience that opened your eyes to an opposite extreme life of piety, but you aren’t opting for that either (in light of the fact that you are applying to colleges and not seminaries.) So what have I learned about you? Listening to stories from nuns about helping people was inspiring? It inspired you to what? We don’t know.