Writing essays and personal statements

Nowadays I am a little free-er before I get busier in 1 month's time (when school starts), so maybe I will post a bit more...

Today I will talk about writing essays (I am not an expert, Fiona is but maybe I will share some 'cliche' tips about what I know).

When I first tried to write my essays, I didnt know how to start either. Your essay seems like the key to let people put all your achievements into perspective and it seems to be the only thing that is really entirely within your control at that moment (you cant really change your grades by very much nor can you suddenly accumulate 5 years worth of extracurriculars, but you can change your essay) and you want to make it good.

The difference between UK and US essays is, from my opinion, US essays tend to be more 'storytelling', while UK essays tend to be more 'matter-of-factly". In US essays, they want you to tell them a story that will show them what your personality is like, instead of you telling them what you are like. In UK essays, you can emphasize all the achievements you want and they will be happy to take it.

To me, UK essays were easier to write, simply because all I needed to do was to write a list of my best academic achievements, put in some grades and elaboration of courseload, and then list more achievements again. One more reason why you can get away with a laundry list in the UK personal statement is that there is nowhere else you can list them other than your personal statement. There is no section in UCAS that says "extracurriculars" or "leadership positions" or "academic achievements". That gives you more reason to put it in your personal statement and emphasize your intent and passion for the course that you are applying for.

US essays are a little more tricky because they require you to tell a good story about yourself. Now it would be easy to talk about your friends wouldnt it, but it's always harder to talk about yourself. It is even harder to think of an incident that characterizes who you are, because you have been living with yourself for as long as you can imagine and you dont understand what makes you you. When you thought of that incident that characterizes who you are, then it's hard to show people what you are like instead of telling them.

Mr Allan told me that my aim in the essay is to make the reader (in this case, the admission officer) want to come up to me and shake my hand. So that's quite a useful tip, to know what you are aiming for.

The starting is always the hardest part, so I have a few suggestions:
1. Brainstorm. Think about the things that you enjoy, a turning point in your life, a conflict and how you resolved it, etc. Please dont write cliche things like how you went for a mundane CIP project and you felt so touched witnessing the smiles on someone's faces, because I think it sounds overused and uncreative. If you want to write about that, perhaps use a different choice of words or something?

2. How do you know if you are having a problem telling instead of showing: You write "I am a very happy person" instead of "I am always smiling", or "I like physics a lot" instead of "I am always seen with a physics book in my hand".
How to resolve it? The best tip I can give is to think about 2 words: For EXAMPLE. If you want to tell your friend that you like physics a lot, what will you say? "Oh I like physics a lot. For example you will always see me with a physics book. If you dont believe me I can show you 2 physics books in my bag right now". So you think about how you would tell your friend what your point is and support it using "for example", and there you have it, showing but not telling.

3. Start early. Cant emphasize this point enough. Starting early = more time for people to look through your essays = more time for corrections = hopefully better essay

4. Dont hesitate to rewrite. Expect many many drafts. Margy had 20 drafts, and I had maybe 10? or 15? including minor edits.

5. Dont assume that just because one person says it's bad, it's bad. One very important thing I have learnt is that every person views your essay differently. For instance, in one of my essays, there was this line that garnered many different responses. I thought it was funny. Some agreed that it was. Some felt that it made me seem pompous, some felt that it was extremely irrelevant, and some thought it captured the essence of my essay. So dont assume that just because 1 person thinks it's bad, it's bad - even if that person is the college counsellor because the other college counsellor may not think so. *winks*

6. It's your essay. When you have differing opinions about some of your content, remember that it is your essay and you decide whether it should be in or not. For me, I left that line in because I really liked it and I dont think it hurt me.

7. You = your essay, not your essay = you. See the difference?

8. Ask your friends/relatives/seniors/juniors/whoever to read your essay because you never know what they may say about it. Sometimes they may point out something that you never noticed, or offer a fresh perspective on yourself/some issues that you wrote in your essay, tell you that you spelt something wrongly, or even just give you encouragement by saying "I think it's very well written". Making that effort to ask may lead to a totally new inspiration for a better essay, changing minor details to reflect better English usage, or whatever - and ultimately a better essay. And all you have to do is just ask! Reading other people's essays to repay that favour may give you some inspiration too for your own!

9. Dont worry about the word count when you first start writing. Just write, and get something going. And people will then tell you which parts are redundant as they read your essay.

10. Every word is important, and can affect the meaning and tone of a sentence. In addition, 1 word saved is 1 more word you can use to express yourself.

11. Borrow books from Mr Allan. :) There is this green book by Harry Bauld which is quite good, and some others that are quite worth reading. --> THIS applies to year 4s too, it's never too late to start reading these books before people from your level borrow it away as deadlines approach!

As a guide, your essay should be about 1 page on Microsoft Word.

After submitting the essay:
1. Relax. Even if you regret writing some stuff in the essay, it's too late now. You have done what you can, so just let the adcoms do the rest.

2. Even if you dont get in the school of choice, remember that admissions involves a lot of luck, dont feel worse about yourself just because the school rejected you, at the same time, dont be cocky if you got accepted, because the place that you were offered may have easily gone to another candidate who was equally qualified but rejected because he/she was just unlucky.