August 26, 2010
BY GERALD M. BRADSHAW gerald_bradshaw@post.harvard.edu www.bradshawcollegeconsulting.com (219) 663-3041
Dear Mr. Bradshaw: I am a senior in high school and I’m starting to write my personal essay for the common application.

Before I start, I would like to know how important the personal statement is to the admissions process. I have top grades and test scores, so do I really need to worry about it? I’ve gotten mixed reactions from my advisers. — Perplexed student

Dear Perplexed — Almost every college applicant must write an essay about himself or herself.

If a student isn’t used to talking about himself or herself, it can be a little daunting. Your question is common among students. Does someone in the admissions office read the essay or does it just get wadded up and tossed in the circular file?

Rest assured members of the admissions committee read the personal essay and all the other essays you write. They can make all the difference in the world regarding your admission.

Picture yourself sitting in the admissions office with thousands of applications stacked around you — on the conference table, on the floor, on the chairs behind you. Empty soda cans and coffee cups pile up as testament to the hours put in reading them. Committee members grow glassy-eyed from looking at literally hundreds of applications each week. After a while, they all start to look the same — same grades, test scores, awards and extracurricular activities.

Yet, each applicant must somehow separate himself or herself from the pack. There are only so many openings (Harvard accepts about 2,000 students from 30,000 applicants) so when it comes time to vote, how will they decide?

After years as an alumni interviewer, I have no doubt that a well-written, interesting personal essay gets the most attention, and that applicant is the one who is admitted.

Even the short essays are important. And it is a dangerous tactic not to take them seriously.

The short essays are a chance to show a part of you that isn’t reflected in the formal rankings. It is a chance to talk about you — your personal traits, values, the experiences that helped shape your life, and the experiences that give you inspiration for the future.

The personal essay and short essays can tell admissions officials about the person behind the grades and test scores.

I knew the competition would be tough when I applied to college, and I had to stand out. I wanted my personal essay to be the focal point of my application. I spent several hours thinking about it before I started writing.

I let my friends review the first draft. To a person, they said great things about it: that it was well-written, intelligent to read, that it was the real me, etc.

But my best friend thought differently. After reading it, he wadded it up and threw it back at me.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “This isn’t you.”

He said I looked like everybody else applying to college — full of hot air and third-person intellectual baloney. As evidence, he quoted several embarrassing lines, one of which I remember today: “I have always been interested in the philosophical implications of Nietzsche as applied to ancient Greece, etc.”

It scared me that he was the only one willing to point this out. He risked our friendship, but firmly disagreed with the others. I respected his opinion and reluctantly agreed to change my approach and write an autobiographical essay.

It was the smartest decision I ever made. I got into all the colleges to which I applied. My friend and I remain good friends today.

He saved me from making a serious blunder when writing an essay. In essence, he had the guts to tell me my initial essay was boring.

And he was right. My first draft made me look plain vanilla. In no way did it represent me as a person nor did it bring out the personal accomplishments in my life that I valued most — my military service with the 101st Airborne Division or the time I spent at the United States Military Academy as part of the training cadre. I was there for Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famous valedictory address, “Duty, Honor, Country.”

Those were the things that made me who I am today, not brain power or intellectual aspirations.

I wrote and rewrote the essay at least a dozen times. It took me three weeks and a lot of pizza-party bull sessions before I got it right. But I knew when I finished the last draft that it was the one; I didn’t need anyone else to read it. For the first time in my life, I recognized the sound of my own voice.

So don’t look at the college essay as a waste of time. It is your opportunity to blow the competition out of the water.
Source: http://www.post-trib.com/news/neighbors/2642032,gbradshaw-0827.article

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Many students in different schools/colleges/universities get an assignment to write autobiography essays. This is where you introduce yourself: who you are, what interests you have, etc.

An autobiographical essay gives an idea of your:

• Background;
• Personality;
• Character;
• Experience, etc…

You have good chances to succeed in writing the autobiographical essay, at least, because the main object of discussion is you!
So, many students make a mistake thinking that it is quite an easy assignment, a matter of hours. Thus, they put off completing their autobiography essays. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!

To succeed in writing your essay on autobiography, you need to know the requirements and think over each detail you need and are going to present.

1. If your life is all about different events and interesting stories, do not hurry to introduce all of them at once. Mind readers’ interest. What events are worth attention? Which ones are less important and can be omitted in your autobiography essay?
2. If your life is not as eventful as you would like it to be, it is still not a reason to give up. You can definitely write great autobiographical essays. All you need to do is to think of some extraordinary ways of presenting your autobiography essay.

Some students believe that they can find free autobiographical essays and simply copy/paste them. It is not the best option either. Ask your tutor to give you several best examples of autobiographical essays. Read and analyze them.

Keep in mind that your tutors have already read hundreds of autobiography essays. So, your goal is to surpass your precursors and present a captivating autobiography essay!
Still, do not forget basic requirements you need to meet. Your autobiography essay should have:

• 3-4 pages
• Times New Roman font
• 1-inch margins
• Double-spaced

Considering the complexity of the art of writing, it is not surprising that the writing assignments come in so many different genres and types. Each one is designed for a different purpose and will be evaluated in accordance with that particular aim. Autobiographical essays and research papers come up in almost all the subjects. You have to first understand what it is about and what it is aimed at, before you start the research process.

Autobiographical essays are designed to evaluate the capability of a person to relate one of his or her own experience to a particular topic and extract valuable essence out of it. For this essay you will pick a situation from your own life and consider a particular topic in relation to that. This type of essay gets taken for granted because it sounds like the easiest of assignments.

Experiences are always the best teachers and it is the best way to understand and learn life’s lessons. But when it comes down to relating your experiences to a particular topic effectively, it is not as easy as it might sound.

Life’s experiences are scattered and of different nature. When you start writing this essay, you might find that you have had more than one experience which can be related to the topic in question. But do not make the mistake of quoting all of those. Try to focus on one most appropriate experience or a maximum of two experiences, if you find two of them equally relevant. More than that will make your essay look unfocused and disorganized.

It is very important to make sure that the situation you choose is most relevant to the topic in question. To find that out, you will have to take a look at your own life, through a different perspective. You will have to see your life from another person’s point of view. This is absolutely necessary due to the fact that it is very difficult for humans to judge their own experiences without the interference of a biased view.

You might be able to complete this essay assignment without much external research depending on the topic and unless the guidelines specify so. But you can’t say there will be no research involved at all. Here you will be doing a research using your own life as a source. It is an interesting assignment depending on how comfortable you are about discussing the topic in question from an autobiographical point of view.

Autobiographical essay requires quite a bit of writing skill because it is very difficult to make your life look interesting to someone else. When you have to prove a point using your experiences, it is even more difficult. You have to use your language very tactfully in order to bring the best out of your life’s experience and make it fit effectively into the frame for the purpose.

If you are not very good with words you might have to take professional help. Because it is not possible to make autobiographical essays sound interesting by plainly laying out the points. It has to be beautifully written and well-presented to make it an impressive one.

http://www.essaycapital.com/blog/all-about-essay/abesy/896