jessav24

[jessav24]

For my object, I chose my travel bag. I like to bring this with me whenever I go on vacation and get pins from the places I travel to. Some of my pins are obvious and have the flag or name of the place I went directly on them, but others are just from a store I bought from where I traveled. I also have a few I purchased myself from local stores and some from my dad that he gave me. The pins on my bag represent the places I’ve gone, my family, and my interests. I hope that as I get older and travel more, I’ll be able to collect more memorabilia, and the bag will reflect more of my personality.

[jessav24]

Why "Just Writing About Yourself" Isn't That Easy

Writing about yourself seems like an easy task. After all, you have been yourself for as long as you know. However, in terms of the college application essay, this can be one of the most challenging and confusing tasks a high school senior does. The paper allows college admissions officers to get to know their applicants personally, beyond academics and extracurriculars. Because of this assumption, many students write essays summarizing an event that happened to them or their interests. Although these reports may seem to respond to prompts on the common app, they don't necessarily provide what colleges are looking for. 

Warren's "The Rhetoric of College Application Essays: Removing Obstacles for Low Income and Minority Students" explains that the essay is argumentative rather than just a personal statement. It should be written to persuade your audience that you would fit their school well. This is one of the factors that makes it much more challenging to write. This is mainly due to how this type of essay, at least in my experience, is rarely practiced in school. In English class, written assignments are usually about summarizing a book or doing a research paper and never as personal as college essays are. Most students aren't used to writing solely about themselves in an academic setting. This process causes students to reflect on every characteristic about themselves to find something they think will make them appealing to colleges. While some students can immediately think of an event or trait that defines their entire character, others, like me, have been thinking about this essay for months and have yet to come up with an idea that feels good enough. 

Many students do not know what colleges seek in their personal statements. G.P.A. requirements or S.A.T. scores are just numbers; you take them as they are. This is not the case with individual traits. Characteristics such as motivation, ambition, and social skills are unquantifiable. There is no way to measure or assign a grade based on how charismatic or passionate someone is. But these traits are just as valued as a high G.P.A. and S.A.T. by colleges. "Getting In," an article by Malcolm Gladwell, describes elite Ivy League colleges as "luxury brands." They are looking for students who fit into their ideal image of what a graduate from their school looks and acts like, and different schools value different traits. Writing becomes difficult when you have to think argumentatively and try to present characteristics that you're not even sure a college is looking for while still keeping it deeply personal.

The more I became aware of what colleges were looking for, the more impossible it became for me to write my essay. While I was sure I had at least some of the traits colleges search for, I couldn't think of any time when I displayed them interestingly enough to write about. I started by writing a list of everything interesting that happened in my life, hoping that I would write the idea and suddenly everything would click and I'd have my perfect essay. 

I thought that to write a good essay, I would need to have experienced something so exceptional that the admissions officer would have never read anything like it. However, reading Paul Rudnick's "College-Application Essay" made me realize that even if someone has an unbelievable story or an incredibly traumatic experience they went through, it does not guarantee their essay will be good. Having a unique experience certainly could make the essay writing process more manageable. Still, if the writer comes across arrogantly or writes with irrelevant details and over-explaining, it can ruin the entire work. Rudnik's essay is a satirical piece, but it still captures the thought process of many applicants. Everyone is looking for the thing that will make them stand out among "all the other kids with perfect S.A.T. scores and Arizona rock-climbing epiphanies, or siblings who'd died in their arms." 

The college application process can be terrifying when you first begin, mainly because you need clarification on everything. I didn't know what colleges were looking for, how to write the essay, or what topics would catch the reader's attention. When I began reading the articles I referenced, I felt my feelings of stress towards the paper grow. The task of writing my essay was incredibly daunting for me, and I would avoid doing any work towards it as I felt so unconfident about all my ideas. However, pushing off the essay for as long as possible would not get it written for me. I needed to start seeing the positives of the situation, and although the college essay was much different than expected, I'm now much more aware of what colleges look for. 

While my essay is not yet completed, I feel a sense of confidence and motivation that was not there before. With the information I have learned from these articles, I have the resources and knowledge needed to write an essay that not just impresses colleges but impresses me and makes me confident that I will be seen beyond my grades.