Your Voice, Your Essay. Advice to applicants about writing honest essays.

[gunit5]

<p>“How do I go about this essay?”
“I would like some feed back on my essay.”
“Please help me think up of a creative ______”
As I look at threads here on the MIT forum, I feel disappointed by the type of question some people are asking regarding essay. The MIT essay questions are relatively short and simple. It’s not like UChicago essay which asks you to “find x” or “don’t write about reverse psychology”. MIT wants to see who you really are. Thus, it should be obvious that your essay includes your voice, your thoughts and your desires. In other words, the essay should be representative of you. Last time I checked, the MIT application represents one (1!) person. Yes, that’s right, one, uno, ichi, en, un, yī (and any other way of saying “one”). What am I trying to get at here? I’m trying to say that you should NOT be asking for advice on how to go about writing this question. Questions that ask others to interpret the question for you. Why? It’s because then the essay becomes their essay, not yours. The essay should be interpreted by only 1 person, you. Your essay should be in response to what you think the question is asking, not what other’s think the essay is asking. When you read the prompt, ideas should pop into your mind. You should not go seek out if your idea matches what other’s would have said. That’s when your essay begins to not become yours. Secondly, never ever take other’s idea and put them into your essay. If somebody says you should add this phrase, or add this quote, don’t do it! That’s called plagiarism!!! And that’s a big no-no. Write you own words. If somebody was to take your essays to a linguist, the linguist should be able to conclude that your essays all have the same voice. A linguist should be able to find out that there are differences in the writing style between two essays. Oh and by the way, from what I’ve been told, college admissions officers are good linguists. In other words, use your own ideas, not others. Don’t have other’s write the essay for you. Some of you might write super eloquent essays that sounds like a adventure, some of you might write very straight forward essays. There is nothing wrong with that. I’m going to bring up a quote from a UChicago representative that I met with when I was applying for college: “There is no right answer and that’s because we don’t know what we are looking for. However, there is a wrong answer. It’s when the essay isn’t yours.” Now I’m sure MIT is looking for something, but your essay is probably going to be right if it fits your application. It’s going to be wrong however, if it seems like you didn’t write it. There is a great MIT blog written by the Director of Communications, Ben, on this topic. In it he reveals his response to a email asking about essays:</p>

<p>

Hi,
Essays are a wonderful way to connect with the selection committee on a human level, i.e. beyond all of the test scores, grades, etc - so we read them very carefully. Quite simply, we are looking for the applicant’s true voice when we read his or her essay. Not some perfect piece of prose worthy of a magazine, or something that has been edited and edited and edited by a variety of different people. Just a voice, and therefore, a connection. We can always tell when an applicant’s essay has been edited to be something other than his or her true voice.
Encourage students to write from the heart and to not have their essays edited by any counselor, service, parent, etc - I can’t speak for all schools, but here at MIT, that’s what we’re looking for.
Best wishes, Ben

</p>

<p>A few good advice:

</p>

<p>The rules are simple: write your own essays. That’s the best advice anyone can give to you. Your application is full of grades and test scores and teachers writing things about you and interviewers writing things about you and things inferred from your participation in clubs and sports and whatever else you do… the essay is the one place where you get to say “hey, I’m a human being, let me connect with you on that level, here is my voice, here is who I am.” That’s all we’re really looking for.</p>

<p>To clarify, I’m not telling you to shut your parents or counselors out of the process entirely. It’s always nice to have someone look over your writing and fix the things that spell-check doesn’t catch, like when you spell “here” as “hear” or “their” as “there” or “they’re.” Or, if you’re so close to an experience that you take for granted that the reader will know what you’re talking about, it’s nice to have someone say “don’t take for granted that your reader will know what you’re talking about.” Stuff like that is fine.</p>

<p>**But there’s a big difference between those little things and the act of someone else rewriting your essay for you to the point that it’s no longer your work - or, even worse, your voice. **So don’t go there.

Happy writing!</p>

<p><a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/advice_on_the_essay[/url]”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/advice_on_the_essay&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[seancarpenter]

<p>Great post, thanks for the advice.</p>