<p>Okay, so my first question - I’m applying to Colorado State University. 250 words or less, and also they give the option of choosing your own prompt. I didn’t like any of them there, so I chose my own - this one:</p>
<p>‘Names have a mysterious reality of their own. We may well feel an unexpected kinship with someone who shares our name, or may feel uneasy at the thought that our name is not as much our own as we imagined. Most of us do not choose our names; they come to us unbidden, sometimes with ungainly sounds and spellings, complicated family histories, allusions to people we never knew. Sometimes we have to make our peace with them, sometimes we bask in our names¹ associations. Ruminate on names and naming, your name, and your name¹s relationship to you.’</p>
<p>I was wondering if I should include the prompt in my essay? I need responses quickly - This is due on February 1st! (Yes, I’m running late, I know XD) What other formatting things should I include? Name? Double spacing? What? </p>
<p>Then, if you could have a quick look over my essay? I’m pretty happy with it - there are a lot of stylistic elements in there, like stylistic fragments, so be warned about that.</p>
<p>`My name is Alice. Yes, like in Wonderland. Understandably, Ive taken quite a few jabs and jibes about it throughout the years, and at first I hated it. I tried to go by Ali, Amelia, even Melody, at one point. But none of the nicknames every stuck, and I was unchangeably, Alice. It wasnt just the Wonderland jokes that made me dislike my name so; it was so plain, so boring. Why couldnt my name be something elegant and mystical? Aphrodite or perhaps Ambrosia would have been much more suiting. I envied girls with long delectable sounding names, when I was stuck with a name that I couldnt even find a suitable nickname for.
`Time passed, as it always will, and Alice was still my name. Nothing had happened to change it, my parents hadnt had an epiphany and realized what an awfully horrid name it was, and Ali had still not caught on. And I found myself beginning to refer to myself as Alice. The thing that I had never thought could possibly happen was happening! Could I truly be beginning to like my name? Apparently so, as I found myself caring less and less about the jokes made about it, and my own hatred of it had long since fallen away and, the less I cared about the jokes, the less they seemed to come.</p>
<p>`Perhaps I simply didnt notice them anymore, but the truth was, even if they came I didnt pay them any mind. I liked, more than liked, loved, my name. It was unique; it was charming, not plain and fuddy-duddy as I had once thought. Yes, it was short, it was not Aphrodite, and it was reminiscent of a time gone past, but that was okay. Because Im Alice, I will always be Alice, and I cant change myself anymore than I can my name.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help!</p>
I figured it was pretty obvious without the prompt, and after talking to a school councelor, I decided to just title it “The Importance of Names”, and leave it at that. I have double spaced it, it really does look neater that way! Thankyou so much, again :)</p>