What do you think of this essay??

<p>I want to form an essay sort of like this, do you think it’ll work?</p>

<p>It’s a Sunday morning and I love everything; the filtered light from outside complements the wooden floors of my kitchen table perfectly and there is John Mayer playing in the background.</p>

<p>Such are my Sundays, which I have designated “Homework Sundays.” I look forward to them all week, my day of rest and productivity. I spend them in the home in which I was raised, at the same table I have eaten many a meal at; slaved many a night at, trying to conquer one math problem or another. I even broke the table once when I was younger, much to the displeasure of my parents. It is the same table the light plays across now, and I feel the years stretch out beneath me, marking time.</p>

<p>Sunday is the only day of the week that passes with a quiet fluidity that I can’t get enough of. My dad, whom I call “papa,” is working at the kitchen counter nearby. My glass of seltzer is in front of me, disconcertingly close to the papers with which I am working. Our two parakeets, Oiseau and Pajaro (the words “bird” in French and Spanish respectively) refuse to stop chirping shrilly to one another. It’s business as usual. I feel so comfortable here. Having grown up inside the sun-yellow clapboard and the red front door that characterize my house, I know everything about it, from the best hiding spot in a game of hide and seek (the top shelf of my closet) to the nuances of the sound our ancient microwave makes when it has finished heating (something between a beep and a honk). My journal is one floor up, probably in a stack that also contains my Larousse French dictionary and a plate from last night’s stay-awake snack. I have everything that is familiar to me here, at my fingertips.</p>

<p>I have not yet changed out of my pajamas and I’m getting cold due to the draft coming in through the screen of the sliding glass door in front of me. It’s autumn, after all, and Vermont autumns are nothing to be trifled with. I’d wear my slippers if I could find them, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my sister took them and is keeping them in the back of her closet. I shift my position and sigh, brushing my hair out of my face. The bun I put it in ten minutes ago is falling out but I’m too distracted by the math problem in front of me to do anything about it. I’ve been working through the foreign, seemingly random steps that math necessitates for about an hour now, and I’m more than ready for an English break.</p>

<p>Words are language I speak, and I can feel myself sinking into my center as I begin to write the sentences. I’m not a person who blushes as a general rule, but my face gets warmer when I write. There is not unpleasant tug of something else I don’t want to do, no overcoming of will to get the writing done. Noise doesn’t matter. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing and it’s simple but it’s perfect.</p>

<p>Not only does it content me for the moment but it’s something I’ve never tired of: words have carried me throughout my entire life. I chronicled my childhood in Five Star notebooks; I supplemented my sister’s and my Beanie Baby games with newsletters and scripts and lists. It defines my past and is all of the momentum I feel for my future.</p>

<p>As I’ve grown older my passion for words has expanded to include French and Spanish. I rarely go a day without getting a word from one of these languages stuck in my head. Today it’s “faire les courses” or “to do the shopping” in French. I often find such phrases running through my head at inopportune time, and I have to physically shake my head, scattering the myriad verbs and adjectives to whichever overactive corner of my brain they came from in the first place.</p>

<p>I lay my pencil down when I have finished my assignment and sit back, enjoying the afterglow of being done with a task. I’d like to clean out my car before the day is over, and possibly update my scrapbook. It would be a great time to go running on the bike path behind the high school as well.</p>

<p>I have the entire day at my disposal. </p>

<p>[Connecticut</a> College : Admission - Sarah Seigle '12, Montpelier High School, Montpelier, VT](<a href=“http://www.conncoll.edu/admission/7425.htm]Connecticut”>http://www.conncoll.edu/admission/7425.htm)</p>

<p>Come on people 17 views and no comment?</p>

<p>Please someone reply.</p>

<p>Okay, I’ll reply:) What was the prompt for this essay?</p>

<p>Nice writing in general, but didn’t reveal much about the writer. What I mean is, this can be a normal day in the life of anyone. Some of the sentences were slightly awkward, like this one:</p>

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<p>I’m horrible at essays, but my humble opinion:
its a lot of description without going anywhere…and ditto to the above comment, you didn’t say too much about yourself. You didn’t say how you’ve changed or why you’d be a good applicant. All you pretty much said is that you really like that table, and you look forward to doing homework on Sundays. I don’t know how to improve this essay…but I do think you need more of a story, or some character development. And THEN worry about sentence fluidity/grammar, since there are some awkward sentences.</p>

<p>^The OP didn’t write this essay; he/she found it as a sample/example essay on a college website and want our opinions on it.</p>

<p>To be honest, I’m not crazy about it. But an essay similar to it could be fine, it just depends on how you do it, I guess</p>

<p>Okay thanks guys :slight_smile: Just wanted to see your opinions on it.</p>

<p>What do you guys think this essay would fall into? What topic # would this essay go into on the CommonApp??</p>

<p>this essay in my opinions doesn’t stand out, it has a lot of imagery but I don’t see a value to it. It doesn’t tell me anything about the writer except what she does on Sundays.</p>

<p>And make sure your essay is less than 300 words. I talked to a lot of admission officers and they say they hate it when the essay is 500 words. Make their life easier and convey your idea in less words but accurately. As for what topic on not sure why any college would have a topic that supports this essay, it’s pointless.</p>

<p>Don’t ever write an essay based on an example, it will turn out very very very unoriginal! Especially having read this one, which by the way was bad in terms of its purpose, which is to show how the applicant is special. This one just showed how he/she is absolutely average.</p>

<p>to each his own. </p>

<p>while the essay didn’t particularly stand out, i think the adcom at Ct college was particularly won over by sthg else this essay represented for - to me, i thought it stood out as something extraordinary from the ordinary. she is able to magnify ‘a day in the life of’ , it is unpretentious, and in a way, makes her a round, easily relatable character who is comfortable with carrying out the seemingly ‘boring’ tasks.</p>

<p>You can do better! Keep at it.</p>

<p>laparapluie, i agree with you. it’s your essay. you only apply to college once (or, i guess twice, since it’s transfer season), so find out who YOU are, and put it beautifully on that piece of paper.
this essay is average; i got bored and only skimmed through it. my guess is that the admissions people will do the same.</p>

<p>this essay is copied straight out of the conn college sample essay page. [Connecticut</a> College : Admission - Sarah Seigle '12, Montpelier High School, Montpelier, VT](<a href=“http://www.conncoll.edu/admission/7425.htm]Connecticut”>http://www.conncoll.edu/admission/7425.htm)</p>

<p>^ Yeah, I know, I just wanted ppls opinions on it because i wanted to form an essay sorta like it. But i decided against it.</p>

<p>It’s very very pretty and descriptive.</p>

<p>It read like creative writing, rather than a college essay</p>

<p>I have seen several similar essays and none of them, while very pleasant, have left any impression me. Essays like this are not compelling. They don’t give me reasons to admit you (unless you are going for a creative writing major. Even then, this mood/tone/theme is rather prosaic).</p>

<p>They don’t give me reasons</p>

<p>i wasn’t too impressed with this essay, to be honest. there’s a lot of pretty language, but it’s merely a veneer for a very weak essay. it didn’t draw my attention; rather, it tried too hard. </p>

<p>the key to a decent essay is showing the reader what you mean, rather than telling it.</p>

<p>for example, “the filtered light from outside complements the wooden floors of my kitchen table perfectly and there is John Mayer playing in the background” sounds nice, but all it does is TELL the reader what’s going on. it’s all really very prosaic to me. it doesn’t entice me.</p>