College Essay Examples

College Essay Examples Frozen in disbelief, the chicken tries to make sense of her harsh words. “All the food, the nice soft hay, the flawless red barn--maybe all of this isn’t worth giving up. She just wants to protect me from losing it all.” The chicken replays the incident again. A fissure in the chicken’s unawareness, a plan begins to hatch. The chicken knows it must escape; it has to get to the other side. Like rock-paper-scissors, we tend to accept something not because it’s true, but because it’s the convenient route to getting things accomplished. We accept incomplete narratives when they serve us well, overlooking their logical gaps. On a desk in the left corner, a framed picture of an Asian family is beaming their smiles, buried among US history textbooks and The Great Gatsby. A Korean ballad streams from a pair of tiny computer speakers. Pamphlets of American colleges are scattered about on the floor. A cold December wind wafts a strange infusion of ramen and leftover pizza. I have learned to accept my “ambiguity” as “diversity,” as a third-culture student embracing both identities in this diverse community that I am blessed to be a part of. I look around my room, dimly lit by an orange light. You also want to have an opinion, not step back like an unthinking geek. Write your essay as though you would be a great second date. Sometimes even a single word that stands as a paragraph can make the reader wonder and read on. Put the reader in medias res, that is, in the middle of things. Place the reader in the middle of something happening or in the middle of a conversation. Other times, we exaggerate even the smallest defects and uncertainties in narratives we don’t want to deal with. In a world where we know very little about the nature of “Truth,” it’s very easyâ€"and temptingâ€"to construct stories around truth claims that unfairly legitimize or delegitimize the games we play. I analyze why I think this essay works in The Complete Guide, Session 6. Perhaps you can create a little mystery by not answering the prompt immediately. Maybe you could reveal that in the last sentence of your prompt after telling about all the little things that have some relevance to your area of study. For example, you might describe many natural flora, observe fauna, then list feelings you have about nature to lead up to writing that you want to study biology. What if you were to take the negative approach to answer the prompt? Maybe you can tell what your hopes are by writing what you do not hope for. If you can truly get your point across well beneath the word limit, it's probably fine. Brevity is not necessarily a bad thing in writing just so long as you are clear, cogent, and communicate what you want to. If you have to copy-paste it into a text box, your essay might get cut off and you'll have to trim down anyways. College essay prompts usually provide the word limit right in the prompt or in the instructions. As much as you wish to shine, the shine will be lost if your sentences and thoughts do not string together logically. If you look at things a little differently from others you stand out. In answering an essay prompt, you need not always do it the most normal way. If there are a lot of mistakes in your essay, it can not be pretty. If you are on a date, you would naturally want to be smart, funny, nice, caring, unique, not boring. On the wall in the far back, a Korean flag hangs besides a Led Zeppelin poster. As with rock-paper-scissors, we often cut our narratives short to make the games we play easier, ignoring the intricate assumptions that keep the game running smoothly. Do not ever tell other people what they should think. It’s great to be engaged in activist work, but show yourself doing the work rather than using your essay as a platform to make your case. “That was the day I learned how important it is to be kind to everyone.” You just stabbed me in the heart with stupor. If you have shownyour learning, you don’t need to tell them what you learned. If there really is no word limit, you can call the school to try to get some guidance.