Soo, here's my essay...comments please:)

ddjones007
Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:19:06 +0000

I don’t think you need to tell a story necessarily. I think you have a good basis from the point you are now. Just go back and cut it to the bone of everything that seems a tangent, then elaborate on those essential points that remain.

Although I wrote quite a bit of narrative fiction and all other genres, even way back then (and 1980, I have been told by my kids, is way back when), I didn’t approach my essay as if it were a writing competition. Instead, I related what made me tick, as you have done in your essay. Some people can best convey themselves through a story, but I don’t think that is at all necessary.

One big thing is we didn’t have the web back then, so we didn’t have all this wealth of opinion online about what to do.

I can only imagine what these people on the committee must wade through in the course of an admissions season! Best bet is an old Shakespearean adage, “to thine own self be true.” If it is genuine, it is true, it conveys who you are in a way your stats can’t, you’ve done well.

Don’t let people get you paranoid, smarterrturtle–you are on the right track!