Introduction There have been some great guides on how to write a college essay, the most accessible of which to VietAbroaders is definitely chị Trang (muskeeterlady)’s. Search VA forum’s essay box if you haven’t heard of it before. I myself found it very valuable for beginners and have gained a lot from it when applying. However, chị Trang’s guide was very general and stopped at an introductory level. With this guide, I hope to take it one step further by closer looks at writing techniques, case studies on and examples from chosen essays. The importance of the college essay Are you a bunch of inanimate numbers, awards, and extra curricular laundry-list? I hope not. The college essay is the only way for you to show admission officers the real you (some may say that interviews also count for this, but I disagree, unless it’s an interview with an adcom’s representative – NOT an alumni interview). I have read somewhere, probably Princeton Review, that admission people pick whomever they like, reasons or not. How are they going to like you? Through your essay(s), of course. While the college essay cannot compensate poor academic performance, perfect numbers alone are not likely to get you into your dream school. High scores are just necessary, not sufficient. In fact, after your scores have reached a certain point, say perfect minus 5%, a boost of 5% won’t make any difference at all. It’s then the turn of other factors, including your essay, to do their jobs. Your essay is the only chance for you to raise your voice. It’s the only thing in your entire application that you can control and do anything you want with it. Do something wise. Is it fair? Of course not! Not all interesting people are good writers. This guide is to help you on your way to become the latter; the former is up to you. Getting started Muskeeterlady’s guide did a pretty good job on how to start – read it for your own reference. I will give you the method that my junior year’s counselor, Melody Wong, handed out to us. Begin with yourself “Writer’s block is the temporary paralysis caused by the conviction, on an unconscious level, that what the writer is attempting is in someway fraudulent, or mistaken, or self-destructive.” – Joyce Carol Oates

Start by being honest with and about yourself! a/ List 15 characteristics about yourself that you’d want others to know about. (They do not have to be positive) If you can’t list 15, do as many as you can and then ask family, friends and teachers to describe you. b/ Look carefully over the list. Choose 5 that you especially like or you can write more about. For each of these 5 characteristics, write a paragraph describing, IN DETAILS, how you demonstrate this quality. Offer a SPECIFIC anecdote or situation, if possible. c/ Look careful over the paragraphs. Choose 3. d/ Now, identify, in as much details as you can for each of the 3 characteristics that you choose, the MOMENT that you realized you had this quality, and then write a ½ page narrative about it. e/ For this first draft, structure it like this:

1- Previous knowledge/student 2- Beginning of realization stage 3- Realization stage 4- Reflective conclusion, e.g. “I now know…”

f/ Read your draft aloud, preferably to someone else. Does it sound like you? Does it make sense? g/ Get feedback from someone you trust, who knows you and will tell you what s/he really thinks about your essay. h/ Revise your essay for: i/ content and structure ii/ conciseness – you only have 500 words so make each one count! iii/ sentence flow and word choice Repeat f, g, and h as necessary. i/ Proofread your final draft very very carefully for grammar, spelling and punctuation. “An essay is a work of literary art which has a minimum of one anecdote and one universal idea.” - The Passionate, Accurate Story by Carol Bly, 1990. Brainstorming College Essay Topics In case you can’t think of anything to write about, try these…

1. Most significant personal event/incident in your life 2. Another significant personal event/incident from your life 3. The most amusing event in your life 4. The greatest learning experience/incident in your life 5. The most important person in your family 6. The most important person NOT in your family 7. The most important person in history 8. The most important change you’ve made 9. The most significant historical event 10. The most important current news event 11. The biggest hope/dream/goal for yourself 12. The biggest hope or dream of the world 13. The most important NON-school teacher in your life 14. The biggest problem you’ve overcome 15. The most significant idea you’ve encountered 16. The most embarrassing moment in your life 17. Your most important achievement 18. The most important change you’d like to see in the world 19. The most important lesson you’ve learned 20. The most important class you’ve taken 21. The greatest challenge you have faced 22. The most important value you hold 23. The historical person you would most like to spend some time with 24. The most important or significant book you have read 25. The best piece of advice you have received 26. The invention you would most like to develop or see developed 27. Your most important nonacademic interest 28. The word that best describes you 29. What you’d most like to be remembered for from your first 18 years 30. Your favorite piece of music 31. The most important advice you’d give a high school freshman 32. The best job you’ve ever had 33. The most important reason for going to college 34. The most memorable conversation you’ve ever had 35. The most interesting place you’ve lived or visited 36. The place you’ve not been to that you would most like to visit

A few past college application essay topics You have just completed your 300 page autobiography. Please submit page 217. (University of Pennsylvania) Reflect on these words of Dorothy Day: “No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.” What is the “work to be done” for your generation, and what impact does this have on your future as a leader? Write a creative, reflective, or provocative essay. (University of Notre Dame)

When asked by Pope Boniface VIII to prove his skill as an artist, Giotto (1267-1337) drew a perfect circle freehand. What seemingly simple action would demonstrate your ability or skill and how would it represent you? (Northwestern University) Are you honorable? How do you know? (University of Virginia) Tell us about one of the best conversations you’ve had. (Stanford) Describe your most important academic accomplishment or intellectual experience to date. We don’t want to know about test scores or course grades; rather we want to know about your creativity, your willingness to take intellectual risks or your affinity for scholarly endeavors. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Ask and answer the one important question which you wish we had asked. (Carleton College) To learn to think is to learn to question. Discuss a matter you once thought you knew “for sure”, that you have since learned to question. (Bryn Mawr College) Choosing what to write about “The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom… The informal and personal essay (in contrast to the formal and impersonal) is characterized by the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style,… novelty of theme, freshness of form, and freedom from stiffness and affectation… But the essayist must be a good storyteller…” - The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate. 1994. They key word is personal. It’s not called a personal statement for nothing, right? Anything, as long as it’s personal, is already half-way there. What is personal? Below is a demonstration of what is NOT personal. “Math and sciences exist in every aspects of our life with diversity. We always use them from little things like buying food at the market to bigger things like building a house. That is why math and sciences become the most enjoyable subjects to study and research not only for me but also for a lot of people all over the world.” -From http://www.vietabroader.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=8598 This is something more personal, although not good: “I have always enjoyed math and sciences. When I was small, I always looked at buildings and think about the structures, forces and other underlying physics principles – while other kids of my age just passed by with indifference.”

Even when you see an impersonal prompt such as: Reflect on the relationship between passion and compassion. (Bennington College) Write about something personal. Write about what passion and compassion mean to you. With that in mind, we’ll proceed to the next step. Topics to avoid Muskeeterlady had a very good post on this. Read it again, learn it by heart, don’t ever forget it (especially number 1): http://www.vietabroader.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=390&view=findpost&p=2679 More topics to avoid There are some topics that are not necessarily dumb like those above; however, they tend to be overwritten by college applicants. If you choose to write about one of these topics, your essay is very likely to end up being one among thousands similar others. + Death and divorce: people who has lost a loved one or whose parents have divorced have a strong tendency to write about it in their essays. The event may have affected you genuinely and deeply, but unless you can write well enough to make your experience unique, don’t try. + Drugs and sex: these are just absolute NO’s. + Depression: many people write about it and it won’t make a good essay. Note that you are often encouraged to write about failures; but depression is different from failures. You have failed but you are positive about it and the failure shows some revelation of yourself, usually your strength, integrity, sensitiveness… Depression only shows that you are a poorly defeated kid who doesn’t want to do anything. How will you enter college if you are depressed and don’t want to do anything? You won’t. Don’t write about depression. + Sports: this formula is somewhat similar to muskeeterlady’s number one. You tried a sport, you liked it but you were not good at it, you practice hard until you are and there’s a final competition, then you either lost it or won it. Either way, you got some useful lessons out of it. Congrats, I’m glad you did! But don’t write about it in your college essay. + Being a first generation student: simply because your classmates will write about the same thing. My opinion on what’s a good college essay topic

Based on my experience: + Essays that describe a long process (e.g. from Vietnam you become an exchange student in America but something is wrong and you have to find out what is, then you have to fix it….) are usually not good. First, you usually need more than 500 words to convey what you want to convey convincingly. Second, you need to get your story flow in a specific way or a timeline, and “I did this, then I did that. Then the next day I did this. However, I also did this, although I did that. However this didn’t work…” won’t make it flow. If you are not confident in your ability to use transitions, try to use them less. + Good essays I have read usually capture a moment, or are about very small things. There are many moments in your life, and they are many small things on your way to life, so you’ll find something unique to write about. Don’t talk big; the bigger you talk, the more distant you seem to the readers. Self-revelation lies inside smallest things. How to write So you have finished choosing a topic? Good. But college essays (or any essay, as a matter of fact), aren’t only what you write. It’s also how you write. Before you learn how to write a college essay, you have to learn how to write (anything) first. Go learn some writing basis if you haven’t already done so, then… 1. Punctuations are your friends. But use them correctly. Periods (.), comas (,), exclamation marks (!) and question marks (?) aren’t all of punctuations. Semicolons (;), colons (:), dashes and hyphens (-) are also there for some good reasons. Learn how to use them and use them wisely; your text will start getting richer in no time. Some rules, for your reference: punctuation comes with no space prior to it and a space after it. Like this. You see. And if there is a quote, the punctuation is inside the quote. “Like this.” Yes, that’s right. Also, learn the difference between dashes and hyphens. Dashes are to separate clauses or phrases. Hyphens are to connect words. These-are-hyphens. This – is a dash. 2. Use relative adverbs/ pronouns Sentence structure awkwardness can be magically fixed by using some relative pronouns/ adverbs. Original sentences: “I had a cat. She was brown with white stripes, and slept all day long. She left hairs wherever she went. My mother hated her for this.”

Fixed sentence: “I had a brown and striped cat who slept all day long. She left hairs wherever she went, and my mother hated her for this. 3. Use transitions The title says it all. Nothing’s more boring than: “My name is ABC. I love dogs and ice cream. My dog is brown. I want to be a doctor when I grow up.” 4. Use participles

Original: “I always listen to music when I study.” Fixed: “I always listen to music when studying.” 5. Use active voice

Active voice is much stronger and more assertive and convincing then passive voice. Most of the time, you’d want to use active voice. For example, “I was named the winner” is bad. “I won” is shorter and better. However, you wouldn’t want to omit the passive voice altogether. When to use what depends on your purpose. It may be better to say “I was dumbfounded by the scenery” than “The scenery dumbfounded me.” 6. Sometimes, simplicity is the best It’s good to have a variety of everything: word choices, sentence structures, subjects, verbs, etc. However, sometimes the opposite is true. This is one of my favorite pieces of writing (source : http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/essaym.shtml ), although it probably won’t make a good college admission essay. But hey, we’re just talking about writing. When I Grow Up

When I grow up, I will get good schooling. I will go to college for six years, get my Master's Degree, and become a teacher. I'll go to Penn State. I hope to have an "A" average.

I will move to Washington, D.C., probably in my early twenties, and buy a normal, two-story house. I will be humble. Everybody says they will be a billionaire [sic], but not me. I

will also not use drugs. I may not even buy a car. If I do, it will probably be a Saturn, preferably [sic] red.

My job will be a teacher. I will go to meetings to learn how to be a better teacher. I will relate life to teaching to help the kids. I will make an average salary and probably not earn much extra money on the side.

I will buy a great dane, and call him "Buffalo." I will marry around thirty. My wife will probably the same age as me [sic]. I will tell her she may have any job she wants. It really doesn't matter if we have kids, although I'd like a boy. I'll do a lot of cooking to save her the trouble.

I might get a weekend cooking show for a month or so. It will be the only extra money I earn. I will be like Graham Kerr. I will cook only main dishes.

This is what I plan to do when I grow up. I will be very humble, but I don't care. To me, money isn't needed. I just want to be happy.

So, you ask, what’s the difference between a boring, poor essay and a simple but effective essay? The answer is INTENTION. How did you intent to write it? How did it turn out to be?

Myths about college essay

“I have written you a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one." -Blaise Pascal Myth #1: length doesn’t matter. Write as long as you want. Pages if you want. Truth: If your essay is good, perhaps the consequence of those *hundreds* extra words are not as serious. However, it’s just wrong to say that length doesn’t matter at all. In some cases, like MIT’s online application, you can’t go over the word limit because they count the words and will give you an error notification if you try to submit something overlength. If I were an admission officer, I would also feel really frustrated about having to read extra words when still having 40 other applications to move on to. Remember, a good writer is someone who can say in 5 words what others have to say in 50 words. Besides, at least you should show admission officers that you can read and follow instructions. “50 words over the limit isn't a big deal, don't worry about it. :-) People who totally ignore the limit and submit 1000 words, however, are telling us something about their ability to write a concise essay... ;-)” -Ben Jones, from http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/as_the_saying_about_assumption.shtml

With that said, don’t let the word limit limits your writing. Although hundreds of words might be a problem, a couple of extra words won’t hurt. Your essays aren’t word-counted. How much longer can you go beyond the limit you ask? As long as the readers don’t realize it. However, as a last note: what counts is quality, not quantity. Myth #2: Admission officers would like to hear about how great America, American education, and how great their schools are. Truth: Save the “how great their schools are” for the “Why XYZ” essay, not your personal essay. I have always been thinking that your essay shouldn’t have the name of, or even allusion to, the college you’re applying to. There’s a fine line between opinions and flatters, judge for yourself. For example, it’s OK (but not encouraged) to say: “After the incident, I feel like I’m now ready for America and all the great things it brings.” It’s probably not OK to say: “Looking at the map, I just immediately know that the Great America, the land of Dreams, the land of Hope, is where my future lies.” What you should or should not do 1. Stay reasonably within the word limit. There are several ways to write an essay. Some people write very little, then elaborate more. Some write a lot, then trim it. Either way, your final product should be somewhere around the word limit, which is 500, in this case. According to my observation, most people tend to be the kind of writer who write a lot in their first drafts – in that case, trimming for the word limit will serve you good. Not only will you have a shorter essay, you also get good practice. In the process of trimming things, you will learn how to recognize what you have to cut off, and how to rephrase some ideas so that they can be conveyed in fewer words. In other words, you learn to be more concise and precise – and so will be your essays. 2. Do not try to impress the readers. Be sincere. Be true. Be yourself. “We can tell when students are trying to impress us and when they’re passionate about something. They shouldn’t be the person they think we want them to be.” -Robert Kinnally, former Dean of Admission and Financial Aid of Stanford

One of the reasons why you shouldn’t try to impress the readers is the same as why you shouldn’t choose a popular essay topic : thousands people are doing the same thing, and your readers are getting bored. But, the bigger reason is: you can’t be yourself when you’re busy being someone else. Your writing lacks the elements that admission officers, or any readers in general, look for and will fall for in an essay: sincerity, comfort of the writer, self-confidence (you’re trying to say what they to read because you’re not confident that what you really are will impress them as much), humor, originality (thousands of kids try to do the same thing in exactly the same way), and most essential, the real you. What do I mean by “trying to impress the reader” ? Many people don’t seem to get this. Applicants try to impress admission officers in many ways, but “the ignorant achiever” type seem to be very popular among Vietnamese students. These people always suddenly and “accidentally” reveals that because they were so absorbed in their favorite book, they were late for the Award Ceremony for Best Student of the Year – then they go on writing about the book without any further reference to the ceremony in their entire essay. Or, they just “happened to” conclude that their losing the football match made them depressed and didn’t even want to come to their AP Cake Baking class which they’re the only ones in their school taking. Gosh, don’t do that. 3. Do not include a list of achievements somewhere in your essay Vietnamese students have a tendency to embed a mini brag sheet of them somewhere in their essays. (“Ever since that day, I have tried really hard. I chose all the most difficult course work and became the best student in the country, I took a soccer playing summer course in Harvard college, I earned hundreds of gold medals in one year, I joined the fireworker team and saved 1024 people in a terrorist attack in the middle of the sea…”) As a matter of fact, you have already talked about these things in your extra curricular and job/award lists. Why waste some valuable words of your essay mentioning them again? Besides, it make you sound pompous, untruthful, uncomfortable, distant, or just plainly ignorant.You only have 500 words, make each one counts. 4. If you are a creative writer, do not hesitate to show it I enjoy creative writing more than any other forms of writing, and thus when I wrote my college essays, I wrote it as creative writing pieces. Don’t be afraid that it’s too incomprehensible, too romantic, too “superfluous," etc. If you love it, it’s a part of you. Show it. 5. An old advice that always works: show, do not tell Simple. Do not say “I am a hard-working kid.” Say “I wake up at 5 every morning to go to work.” Do not say “I am sensitive.” Say “I love looking at the beetles flying over the leaves of the old tree.” 6. First line counts

Your first line is your readers’ first touch with your essay. It will either catch your readers’ attention and curiosity, or make them think “Oh no, another one! Save me!” Polish your first words, let them make you stand out. 7. Last line also matters. Actually, it matters a lot. Ken Hoffman – my music mentor and my bandmate – always says that the most important part of a song are the beginning and ending. If you play lousily at the beginning and/or at the end, people will remember it. If you play beautifully at these two parts but somewhat bad in the middle, it won’t matter as much. Writing an essay isn’t different, really. The most important part in your essay is the ending. The second most important part is the beginning. The impression that these two give will stay with your readers after they have finished your essay; that’s the impression they have of you. Make your ending short, concise, straight to the point, and preferably unexpected. 8. Revise. Revise. Revise. “You don’t learn to write by writing a lot. You learn to write by revising a lot.” Everyone has a different writing method; after some trials and errors, you will find out which works best for you. I myself am a first draft writer, which means I don’t revise (unless to trim my essay for the word limit). I write a first draft, I edit it a little, and that’s it. No second draft. On the other hand, it takes me slightly longer than what it takes other people for my first and only draft. However, for the majority of people, their writing methods include revising states – which means after your first draft will come second drafts, third drafts,…, nth drafts. Don’t be surprised: there are people who write more than 10 drafts for their college essays. Look at what wonder revision can do to an essay. The follow drafts are by a former student of my junior year’s counselor, Ms.Wong. They’re taken out of Ms. Wong’s hand-outs. First draft (or how you can tell right in the beginning that this is going to be a lousy essay): When I was younger, my father died and it really upset me because we weren’t as close as we should have been and now I don’t have more chances to get to know him better. This incident really affected my cultural identity about whether I was Chinese or American. I was born in China, but my whole family moved to the States when I was really small so I basically grew up English-speaking and my dad and I didn’t talk much as I was growing up. Because I was an American, not a Chinese person, we didn’t have

much in common. Then he died – I guess I’ll never get to know my Chinese side now. I really miss him. And the last paragraphs of her 7th draft (or how you can write about a popular topic like death and still stand out) As I approach the door, I avoid looking through the clear window into the sterile room. It’s ironic that nothing is allowed to be alive in there except my father – and he’s dying. I’m intellectualizing because I cannot cry. The antiseptic acrid smell of Bactrine and alcohol causes my nostril to pinch involuntarily and the first thing I notice is that my father’s wrists have been tied down to the metal guardrails on either side of the bed. The outrage I feel reassures me that I’m still alive inside. I still fell something after the terrible numbness of this week. Out of the corner of my eye – I am fixated on my father’s strangely small body – I look around for something to sit down on. A carefully printed line from a more-innocent age flashes into my memory: “Metaphor: My Papa is a mountain.” I want to cry. I don’t want to sit on the lone hard stool. So I stand beside the high bed, reaching out to the only warmth in the coolness of this pale green and metal beep-beep room. I now know what a death rattle sounds like. Even though there are plastic tubes up his nose and taped in his mouth with an X, I can still hear him breathing hoarsely and his fragile barrel chest shudders as it rises and falls weakly. Such guilt – I left him alone here with the English-speaking doctors and nurses whose alien assumptions, manners, and incomprehensibility would have frightened him, even though he’d never admit it. They tied him down! This western world has emasculated my Papa… I watched my tall, charming, hard-drinking and gambling rogue of a father grow old, worn and worried, shrinking into an illiterate immigrant janitor who knew only how to catch the bus to work and back, buying a Ligumac/homburga/firayofrish for lunch or dinner when there weren’t leftovers from home. We are alone, so amidst everything else pouring out of me – I wonder if the spirits, once freed of their human minds and bodies, understand every language… I hope so because some things I know only how to say in English – I tell him in Chinese though, just in case, that I love him and that he was a good father. And remember, this is just the 7th draft. I heard that she wrote 10 drafts. So you can imagine what the final draft would be like. Of course, it was a big step to go from the first to seventh draft. My junior high school year counselor, Melody Wong, who is also an inspiring English teacher, had to sit with the author of the above essays for hours guiding her through her writing process. She did this by simply raising questions where necessary. What happened? What was your reaction? What did you do? How did it feel like? How did it smell like? How did it taste like? What’s the more precise word for that feeling?

9. Use humor Humor means wit… and who doesn’t like humor? Below is one of the many essays I wrote for my college application – one that uses humor. It’s exactly 500 words, by the way. - I would buy you a bumper sticker that says : “I love Math, but they forced me to take French.” I recall these words from Greg – my counselor – while waiting for Carey – the academic coordinator, for her ruling on whether I can continue teaching myself the IB Further Math course, as I have been doing for two months. Unfortunately, since I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers, I fail to feel delighted about getting one. Instead, my eyes stop at the notice board, on which lies a sign up sheet for those wanting to help cleaning up the recently flooded area of Guanacaste – and my name is on it. Maybe I’d prefer a bumper sticker saying “I’m allowed to help people in the world, but not allowed to help myself to Further Math.” In September, when starting taking Further Math, I felt that it was a right decision – and my classmates thought so too. By that time, they had developed the amazing ability to know exactly when I would shout out my notorious “Math is my therapy!” – even before I knew it. Nevertheless, I can’t remember where that motto came from. According to my best friend, it was first said in one Higher Math class, after which Mr. Villarino decided I should be given some reading and homework on Sets and Groups, for the sake of my healthiness. Why Sets and Groups? I’m not sure; maybe his inflated high school standards (due to his teaching at the National University of Costa Rica) told him that something totally unrelated to the Higher Math syllabus, like this, would make the best treatment for someone having a slight cold. Yet, the extra work interested me, even long after the cold faded away. Mr. Villarino, bothered by my presence in all tutorials, eventually told me about the IB Further Math course – which my school didn’t offer. This discovery was followed by my decision to drop French and take Further Math self-taught. Not that I terribly hated French, though. I just happened to already have six IB subjects; and before being a French freak, I was already a Music freak, Physics freak, Math freak, and English freak. “It’s a lot of work.” – I had been told. However, what I didn’t know was that it seemed to be against the IB regulations. Therefore, now, after a week arguing with Carey, I’m waiting for the answer she got from IB Organization. Finally comes Carey. “I’m really sorry”, she begins to say. Leaving her office in disappointment and frustration, I wonder whether I could write a paper on how students should be able to self-study courses not given in their schools. Having to catch up with French after two months, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to

bother me much. “I’m seeing Greg for my bumper sticker” I tell myself, imagining him saying that I’ll have numerous chances to take Further Math topics in college. That’s exactly what he says. That’s exactly what I will do. 10. There’s a question. Address it.

Right, there’s an option called “topic of your choice” in the personal statement section of the common app. However, according to Greg, my senior high school year counselor, it’s best not to choose “topic of your choice”, but one of the clear question options. Why? Because then you can demonstrate your ability to approach a question/topic and how you can write in relation to it. That’s what colleges want to see. (Besides, for some schools that don’t use the common app, sometimes you don’t have the “topic of your choice” option. MIT’s an example. You have topic A and topic B, and you choose either.) That’s why I always ask “what’s the prompt?” when someone hand me their essays. There are even essays that don’t seem to be really good at first, but then you see the prompt – and you realize that it is. Here’s my MIT main essay, to which many people commented that it was more about grapes and the cities or anything else than bout me: Every week in harvest seasons, my grandfather came with a basket full of grapes. My sister and I would rush out and grasp a handful of the soft, purple fruit – afterwards brought to our rooms, while the rest stayed inside the fridge. Pieces of straws, projecting out from the basket’s tattered wall, stung our hands and made them tingle. The grapes differed from year to year. When in elementary school, my sister and I cycled to the vineyard every day. Grandfather would greet us with a big smile and let us sit on a cracked bench, beneath a coconut tree. From there, we could see him walking between rows of creepers, with his head and hand moving skillfully, picking the best bunches. The grapes would be washed and brought to us in a porcelain bowl. Under the blazing sunlight, tiny water drops on the grapes’ strained skin shone. He watched us enjoy the juicy sweetness with the contentment of a grandfather and the pride of the premier viticulturist in our town, Ninh Thuan, “the vineyard of Vietnam”. After I entered junior high school and no longer visited him frequently, it was his turn to come to us. Every Saturday afternoon, grandfather put the grapes in his straw basket – firmly tied to his motorbike’s secondary saddle – and rode to our house under the intense heat. Through each year, the white powder stained on the skin became harder to wash, and

once in a while the mere smell of pesticides slightly drifted up. The grapes decreased in size and increased in quantity. When soaking and rubbing them in salt water, I always overheard the adults talking about the emergence and domination of green, imported grapes, the falling price, the withdrawal of other cultivators, and my grandfather’s despondency when observing his comrades’ vineyard being leveled down for new constructions. The grapes’ taste had also altered. Sour ones turned up more often, the sweetness was no longer as pleasant as it had been. In the end, I would watch grandfather as he walked out, small, gray-haired, wrinkle smile. Nevertheless, he kept coming during my senior high school years. The straw basket swelled and worn out faster, with the increasing weight it had to carry. Grandfather sold less, thus gave more. Now, he had to put a sheet of paper – torn out from a local newspaper – on top of the grapes to prevent dusts from the roads to reach them. After removing and throwing it into a trash bin, I’d have to wash my hands – stained with dust which smelled of oil from car and motorbike engines. The grapes were then placed in the fridge, sometimes next to a plastic bag of other green, big, pleasing sweet ones. I remember watching grandfather, small, white-haired, wrinkle smile, walking slowly past our gate on the day when he told us he had sold half of his vineyard – on which the buyers would build a department store, amid other sites of constructions that used to be green bushes or vineyards. The greenness of the area gradually disappeared in the name of the development and expansion of this city-soon-to-be town. And I was afraid that one day he would no longer come with his straw basket. His white hair and wrinkle smile followed me when I boarded the train to Ho Chi Minh City, from where I would fly to Costa Rica. “Grandfather will miss you,” he said. “I’ll miss you too, and your purple grapes.” “You’re lying. No one misses my grapes.” “But I will.” I told him. “One day I’ll bring the clean and fresh greenness around your vineyard back to you. By then, be sure to bring me your old-fashioned basket, and you won’t have to cover the grapes with anything.” But then they read the prompt: Describe the place where you come from and grow up, and how it has shaped your personalities. Judge for yourself. The short essays

The short essays are, of course, shorter than the main essay – but that doesn’t mean they are of less importance. MIT, for example, has an infamous strictly 100-word essay. Yes, strictly 100 words or less. We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do for the pleasure of it. … to which they noted:

We use the "fun" question in large part to determine whether or not an applicant prioritizes some real balance in his/her life. Students who respond and say "I change diapers at the nursing home" obviously think it's a trick question - that we're looking for applicants to fill every second of every day with "meaningful" things. We're not - quite the opposite in fact.

So in your case, this becomes not about your answer to the question, but how you answer it. If you just say "I job shadow a pediatrician" the readers may think that you're just giving them the answer you think they want to hear. If, however, you expand your answer to really cover why this is fun for you - and I'd suggest injecting some humor or anecdotes to really demonstrate this - then you'll be fine.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between something being really enjoyable/rewarding and something being truly "fun." No doubt that you enjoy your time with the pediatrician and find it really rewarding - but that doesn't make it a good answer to the "fun" question unless it is indeed fun. If it is indeed fun, you just need to show why - and be convincing. Does that make sense?

(Source: http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/qanda/questions_and_answers/bens_second_semiannual_qa.shtml )

What do you learn from this ? Well, your common app short essay about one of your activities is no difference (except that it’s 250 words, and you can even write more if you want). You only have one chance to choose. Don’t use a laundry list, choose one thing that you really want to write about, write about it as if it were another personal statement (but shorter). Depth is always better than breadth.

This is what I wrote for this question:

Every night, I try to embed what I think in what I see and make it truly mine. Every night, I use my words to sketch, color, and shade my world. Every night, I spend twenty minutes coming up with the first line. Then after the tenth sentence, I realize it needs better structuring and start everything over. Every night, I face the frustration from awkward sentences, repetitive phrases, imprecise dictions, and the ambiguous feelings that I struggle to put into words.

Every night I write. Writing hurts. Yet, every night in the study, you can find me writing pleasurably.

This is what Rutuparna Das, MIT class of 2012, wrote:

A wonderful old-book scent greets me, drugging me. I find myself drifting through reality into a dreamland, letting myself fall asleep and wake up somewhere else, meeting wizards and dragons and talking chinchillas. Besides catering to my tiny-but-existent escapist side-personality, it really is a dream, delving into other minds and other lives, finding friends, finding role-models, connecting with people so closely that they become real, no longer figments of someone’s imagination. Whenever I lie down in the soft sunlight of a Friday afternoon, sifting through some other cosmos, this world falls away and the frustrations and fatigue of the week evaporate, leaving behind only an enchanting whiff of pages.

This belongs to Donald Guy, MIT class of 2012. I kind of like this:

Dance Dance Revolution is a special game for me. Though it's a simple concept, stepping on indicated arrow patterns to music, it has some ineffable quality—in the scrolling arrows, the pumping bass, the flashing lights, I lose myself and escape the stresses of the moment. I've been told that “I think too much,” but with DDR, I just play. Perhaps its comparable to the trance induced by ancient tribal dance or an endorphin-fueled “runner's high.” Regardless, I'm sure that at MIT, I would occasionally find temporary escape from a stressful problem set on the student center's DDR machines.

And this is by Lauren McGough, MIT class of 2012, my roommate :) I love to bake! Cakes are especially fun "engineering challenges"; I've constructed four-layer cakes, added butter to self-made frosting to make it stick, built solid chocolate cake walls, and packaged a chocolate cake that I sent to a friend 3,000 miles by mail without its breaking. I also bake cookies, but given my predisposition for burning things... these often come out "crunchy." Sometimes, I bake socially, with crepes for French club and assembly-line "apple-pie-baking-parties," during which my friends and I work together to bake multiple apple pies. Other times, baking just helps me to stay awake through long nights of evil history homework. For me, baking is creative, challenging, social and stimulating. One more, by Will Ung, also MIT class of 2012: “Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” He may not but, I am; we must conqueror the world! What is more exciting and fulfilling then to conqueror the world itself? The world is our board and we shall compete to become the next Napoleon, Stalin or Roosevelt. My friends are worthy adversaries in my quest to dominate the board. But, one by one they fall or they join unite and

trample over me. Should I send my reinforcements to the critical bottleneck point or should I use them to eliminate my adversaries from America? Either way I shall have hours of fun with my closest companions. So, after all these 100 word essay, what’s the message? The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you’d like to do and choosing what to write about. Also, I really enjoy reading these short essays, and I hope you also do. Contact me if you want to read more of them :) Breaking the rules From this guide and elsewhere, you have heard many rules about what to do or not to do when writing a college admission essays (or writing in general). But isn’t it boring just to play by the book? Do you see yourself challenged against the common guidelines of the dos and do-nots? Have you ever felt the urge to do something that everyone is told not to do, and do it well? The most impressive and remarkable essays I have read tend to break one or more of these rules. For example, you are often told, recently by me some sections above, not to mention the college application process in your essay. But, how about this? (Source: http://www.vietabroader.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=787 ) Recently, I spent a day being told that my life is one big cliché. The assembly that morning concerned the writing of the college essay, and the speaker, a former English teacher, proceeded to explain to a once-eager-but-then-doubt-riddled teenage crowd why every essay topic they had ever conceived was taboo. We couldn't write about our summer trip, our dedication to extracurriculars, our views on world issues - in essence, our life up till now, because it has all been done before. The admission officers, upon reading our humble compositions, will let out a long wail from beneath his pile of boring, cliched essays, toss that humble composition in the corner and drown himself in Heineken. Hm. Later that day, someone told me about a theory that there are only twelve stories in the world, and every story I hear or tell is a variation of one of those twelve, thus eliminating any possibility that I could write something you haven't seen before once every twelve applications. Oh. In my Dostoevsky class, we discussed Raskolnikov's fear that life means absolutely nothing unless you are Napoleon or some other person that everybody keeps talking about. In other words, unless you kill a love of people or discover another element, you have to resign yourself to a life full of rush-hour traffic and bank deposits and take-out Chinese food and tax returns and sitcoms and other things that are ridiculous just because everyone does them. Yes, yes, that's so true, concurred my English class. Ugh. Ladies and gentlemen of the admission committee, I have a dilemma. I have been told that my life is one big cliché, and I don't believe that's true. But how can I express this to

you? How can I get you to say "Yes, Miss Sharon Isaak, we want you to come to Princeton, you are a wonderful example of non-cliché and we want you to come add your non-clicheness to our academic community"? I don't think I can accomplish my task in the frenzied atmosphere of this ominous piece of paper. No, ladies and gentlemen, I think I shall invite you to dinner, and we shall see what happens from there. Let's make it a Sunday; Sundays are good because it gives you a whole weekend to recuperate from the all nighters you pulled the week before (you while reading essays, I while writing them). No need to dress up, though you'll want ot wear sweaters because dinner will be outside, on a wooden table beneath a tree. I think each of us should bring a part of the meal, to put some personality into it. I will be bringing guacamole, of which I'm quite fond, so make your selections accordingly. Once we sat, we can start talking about ourselves. I'm sure that after a good meal of guacamole and whatever, we'll be able to get beyond the problem of the cliche'd existence, for I know that there's more behind the title "we as admission officers," as I am sure you know there's more behind my green and gray resume. I'll tell you some stories, like the one about the time some friends and I baked chocolate chip cookies on an iron propped between a pair of sneakers at Exeter Summer School or about the game of strip poker I won because I was wearing a lot of jewelry, leaving the editor of my school newspaper in his long underwear during a 40-degree-below-zero frostwave. By that time we have dessert and coffee I am sure you'll see that though the world would love to include my life in the long list of already-been-dones (and no matter what I say, the world will always try to do so), I'm much more fun to spend time with than your run-of-the-mill, self-conscious statistic. Hey, the things I do are new when I do them, aren't they? Thinking that way sure makes life a lot more fun than spending a lifetime as a generalization. Anyway, I look forward to your visit. (R.S.V.P by December 15). Another thing that they often tell you about writing is that you have to have a thesis. For a college essay, you have to have a focused characteristics of you that you want the reader to know. But when I was writing my personal statement for MIT, I realized the best piece that I would write would be one without a thesis or a central idea. And this is it, I submitted it as a supplement essay because it’s too long for a 500 word one:

----- This is a photograph of me

Outside, the cloudless sky gradually turns reddish blue as the sun and its yellowish brightness fade out at the horizon. The new cover darkens and reddens everything: the greenness of trees, the brownness of wood, the grayness of asphalt roads, the whiteness of the wall behind me – where light has reached by sneaking through the windows’ glass bars. I place the palette amid the jumble of color tubes and damp brushes. After two months, this room has just greeted my coming back with the familiar smell of acrylic and oil, the

immunity from reality, and the artistic silence which I fancy. Touching the white canvas with my color-stained hands, I feel like a painter. Nevertheless, I’m just a paradox. I strive to enrapture people with the subtleness of colors, the strangeness of expressions, the profoundness of different layers; but I have never invested enough time and effort to succeed. My paintings fail to inspire anyone, except for myself. Then, instead of creating a visible form of ideas, I catch the inspiration and paint it with words. I’m better as a writer. Today, to write about who I am and where I come from, I try depict myself on a canvas. But I soon run into the dilemma of not knowing where to start and which color to use. My life doesn’t have an introduction or a theme, not yet to have a conclusion (if any). My life is just bits and pieces, scattered into layers. So I whisper “thank you" to Margaret Atwood, and I write. This is a photograph of me.

This is Casa Flamingo’s study, where you can find me every night from nine to one. This is a recording of Moonlight Sonata, third movement – performed by Wilhelm Kempff, whose amazing interpretations of Beethoven’s pieces had led me to piano studies. This is a video of Don’t let me down by The Beatles, which inspired Los Escarabajos – my music band – to shoot a parody (Don’t let us fall) on the roof of a dormitory. This is the music room – also the English room – where Ken, Quique, Paula, Ricardo and I can rehearse everyday for five consecutive hours, amid copies of Atwood’s poems and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This is the reusable shopping bag that I carry around Santa Ana every Sunday afternoon. You can still smell the saltiness of soy sauce, the aroma of green tea, the sweetness of watermelons, and the scent of newly-bought sheets of paper. This is a recycle box, placed next to my room’s door, under a white board with green letters : “Note to self : turn everything off before leaving”. This is my agenda, fully marked with red, blue, and yellow highlighters. This is a list of petitions I have signed, books I’m glad I have read (The Catcher in the Rye, The piano tuner, The God of Small Things, An Inconvenient Truth, Sans Famille, A Natural History of Vietnam, Sophie’s World, Comedy Writing Secrets, microwave’s Manual) This is rice and beans. This is the saltiness of Atlantic Ocean. This is la pura vida de Costa Rica. This is a flight between Asian and American’s skies, coming from far back of the photograph, where everything is black and white. You’ll have to look close enough the see. That is the tranquility of a small town in the middle of Vietnam, covered by the wideness of rice paddles. That is the dark house which I avoided when small and adore when young. Once or twice a month, I would come with my mother. When she was busy doing her job, I wandered between rows of beds – on which lay the victims of the Agent Orange. Minh, one of the children, invariably clutched my hand. I’m not sure if he

understood. I’m not sure if he remembered. But he would just hold my hand like that for hours, without even loosening it – so I knew that my presence mattered. That is a vineyard – where the ripen purple-ness enraptured and the enzymic taste mesmerized. My grandfather greeted me with blackberry-purple-stained hands and a wrinkled smile. I – too short to reach the grapes – sat on a cracked bench, awaiting him back with a bowl full of purple-ness. My grandmother, picking grapes with a big basket on her back, looked forward to the joy of The Day – when she imagined me finishing the sufficient high school education and walking down the aisle. That is an expectation I denied to fulfill. Behind that, behind me. That is my mother, who worked everyday in the hospital and in our clinic from seven in the morning to nine in the evening. The day I left, she held me back. “Go to the national university, get a good job, get a good husband, get a good life” – that’s the path she wanted me to go; but I said no. That’s my mother, whose mind I doubt, whose heart I absolutely trust. That is my father, whom I hardly saw except for dinners. People told me he was great, as both a student and a human. Before I left, I had been walking in his shadow, and nothing I had done was ever good enough. Thus I burst to tears when he told me : my life would be full of the possibilities that he had dedicated his life to get. My life would be better than his – and I knew it was true. That is the excitement of having the first supermarket in the neighborhood. That is the nostalgic memory of my early days in Dinh river – now needing rehabilitation. That was when I came home for summer break, and noticed the changes and environmental trade-offs of this city-soon-to-be. That is a wall, on which I have painted with green:

That is the redness of bricks. That is the grayness of new constructions. That is the blackness of water. And this is the greenness I’m missing – it’s almost nowhere to be seen.

This is a sheet of paper, on which I have written : Things I hope to do (and definitely will do) about it.

This is my journal, through which I had learned that a word after a word after a word is power. This is my words, above which I am unseen. This is me you are reading, and I invite you to continue to read.

-------- Now, you may be thinking “So the best way to write an excellent essay is not to follow anything that people have told you. Why bother learning about them in the first place?” Because you have to know what the rules are, to understand what it is that you’re breaking. A sample essay with comments

This essay is written by a former student of Ms.Wong, my junior high school year college counselor. The comments are hers. It’s critical enough. Prompt: Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc. ) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence. “Smothered in his own filth, John Proctor collapses to his knees in abject defeat in front of the judge. The judge holds the parchment in front of him, gesturing for him to take it, and speaks to him, “Sign it, and you will come to no harm. Your sins will all be forgiven.” John, through swollen and tear-rimmed eyes, slowly lifts his head. With a stroke of a pen, he can grant himself amnesty, freedom from death. But what about the truth? Shall he sign his name and spit in the faces of all his friends who have died for the truth? He angrily shakes his head and pounds the moist earth with this fists in indecision. He thinks about his affair with Abigail, about the pain he had caused his wife. He thinks about the nightmare that he helped created. He cannot die for the truth like a martyr, for he was no saint.” Albert and I stood in front of Ms. Wible, my 7th grade English teacher, unable to meet her piercing gaze. “Who was it? If one of you doesn’t fess up, both of you are going to suffer.” At this my eyes shot to meet hers. It was my fault. But I could not bring myself to say that it was me, that Albert was innocent. Ms. Wible was notorious for her bad temper and I had no desire whatsoever to incur her wrath. Silence hung in the air for nearly ten seconds. Then, Albert spoke up, “It was me, Ms. Wible, I’m sorry.” I immediately looked at him, and he looked back. Since that day in English class, I was compelled to raise my standards of integrity in all that I do. But, I never had the courage to go back to Ms. Wible and tell her I had let Albert take my blame. Reading “The Crucible” four years later was a reawakening for me. It showed me that, as in John Proctor’s story, it was the same element of shame that prevented me from ding what I knew was right. It taught me that I must learn to overcome my shame, to break the chains of guilt that bind me. I must take action not only for my own sake, but for others. John Proctor went to the gallows a man broken and beaten in body, but unconquered in spirit. This was the very aspect of him that I admire and respect the most. John Proctor’s story inspired me to do the things I must, though it may mean that I will have to drown my pride. No longer would I selfishly suffer in self-pity and allow guilt to rein my decisions, to hold me back. Truth must be upheld, not merely because it is right and morally correct, but because it is just. I do it out of honor and respect for my friends, whom may be the ones hurt most from my lies. I realize that I will continue to make mistakes from time to time, but the point is not perfection, but reconciliation. Comments: “Smothered in his own filth, John Proctor collapses to his knees in abject defeat in front of the judge. The judge holds the parchment in front of him, gesturing for him to take it,

and speaks to him, “Sign it, and you will come to no harm. Your sins will all be forgiven.” John, through swollen and tear-rimmed eyes, slowly lifts his head. With a stroke of a pen, he can grant himself amnesty, freedom from death. But what about the truth? Shall he sign his name and spit in the faces of all his friends who have died for the truth? He angrily shakes his head and pounds the moist earth with this fists in indecision. He thinks about his affair with Abigail, about the pain he had caused his wife. He thinks about the nightmare that he helped created. He cannot die for the truth like a martyr, for he was no saint.” If you only have 500 words to write about yourself, I’m not sure if you want to use so much of it to provide context about the play? It only leaves you with 3 paragraphs of your actual essay? Albert and I stood in front of Ms. Wible, my 7th grade English teacher, unable to meet her piercing gaze. “Who was it? If one of you doesn’t fess up, both of you are going to suffer.” At this my eyes shot to meet hers. It was my fault. But I could not bring myself to say that it was me, that Albert was innocent. Ms. Wible was notorious for her bad temper and I had no desire whatsoever to incur her wrath. Silence hung in the air for nearly ten seconds. Then, Albert spoke up, “It was me, Ms. Wible, I’m sorry.” I immediately looked at him, and he looked back. Since that day in English class, I was compelled to raise my standards of integrity in all that I do. But, I never had the courage to go back to Ms. Wible and tell her I had let Albert take my blame. Reading “The Crucible” four years later was a reawakening for me. It showed me that, as in John Proctor’s story, it was the same element of shame that prevented me from ding what I knew was right. It taught me that I must learn to overcome my shame, to break the chains of guilt that bind me. I must take action not only for my own sake, but for others. This is the point in your essay where you need to talk about YOURSELF. So can you offer an example of how you have overcome your shame, so that your reader can compare your 7th grade self and who you are now? If you’re going to talk about a mistake in the past, show evidence of growth and improvement. John Proctor went to the gallows a man broken and beaten in body, but unconquered in spirit. This was the very aspect of him that I admire and respect the most. John Proctor’s story inspired me to do the things I must, though it may mean that I will have to drown my pride. No longer would I selfishly suffer in self-pity and allow guilt to rein my decisions, to hold me back. Truth must be upheld, not merely because it is right and morally correct, but because it is just. I do it out of honor and respect for my friends, whom may be the ones hurt most from my lies. I realize that I will continue to make mistakes from time to time, but the point is not perfection, but reconciliation. As a reader, I am still waiting for some description or example of how you actually live up to these personal principles. It’s easy to talk integrity, but have you lived it? My favorite essay

This has been my most favorite essay. I think it’s beautiful. Wherever I have writer block or disbeliefs in writing, I read it again to catch the inspiration. I guess you’ll appreciate it much more if you have read and understood The Catcher in the Rye, but even if you haven’t it’s still a nice piece of writing. It’s also taken from Ms. Wong’s hand-outs, and its author went to Stanford. Or did she? Well… Prompt: Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence. Or: You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217.

---

everybody running in rye-fields, playing around spinning around so tiny at my feet and I tower above them like some imperfect god surrounded by rich rye-gold and kids, they are a rainbow in their little raiment cliff crazy children fall I catch them. all day long. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot write anymore. I tell my English teacher that everything I have been writing in the past month is absolutely shit. She listen patiently to my wailing. So she asks me, “What does it feel like to be a writer? If it’s so much agony, then why do you do it?” I sit there for a long time. She didn’t mind the quiet and neither did I. “I don’t know,” I break the silence like cracking glaciers. My mind goes blank. No one has ever asked me that before. On the table is a stack of Anglo-Saxon epics we had to write the day after we read Beowulf. Because I want to be a superhero, I concluded. I was just beginning to learn English when I switched schools in first grade. I liked to lie under the playground slide at recess and make faces in the shiny dented metal. A boy in a striped t-shirt peered under the slide. He waves his hand a little, a subtle smile. “Come play soccer.” He gestured toward the hoard of little kids running after a black and white ball, screaming. I shook my head. He scored most of the goals. I counted.

“Why not? Do you hate soccer?” His name was Andrew. He drew pictures on his hand in class when he thought no one was looking. That day the back of his palm was a baby red fox. I looked at the stitches on his chin. He had tried to fly off the kitchen table a month ago and there was no one there to catch him. “What is ‘hate’?” I asked. I had never heard of the word before. To this day, I am dying to remember what his answer was. I could have written an entire book about it. I wish I could say that I went home that afternoon and wrote a story about him. No. In the days after, I wrote a story about a panda named Phooey getting lost in the bamboo forest because he was chasing butterflies. Phooey wanted to fly. Unlike superheroes, none of us can fly. I can’t punch very well either. Faced with a monster, I would probably scream and run away. But I can write. And I can tell you what it feels like. The orphans at the Verbist Caring Center in Mongolia all loved to do one thing: fly off window ledges. Okana, my favorite, would begin by dragging me into the room by my hand, and I would hoist her up next to the window. She would gesture for me to back up again because she wanted to fly further. She would look me in the eye and giggle, preparing herself for the leap and I would wait apprehensively, with my arms outstretched. It wasn’t that she was heavy, but I was always worried that I wouldn’t catch her. With her sudden weight against my chest maybe I would fall. She would jump and soar, her red and white frilly dress puffing out like an umbrella, and she would always land in my arms. With over ten little Mongolian children running around flying off window ledges, the top bunk beds and metal heaters, I felt like the catcher in the rye. The first few lines I write will be self-indulgent and cliché. The words will flow but they will be fake, it will be about something grand and empty like embarking on the road of life and seeing the ocean for the first time, and in my mind I will be horrified, my life is over. I cannot write anymore. I won’t be able to catch Okana. I keep on writing though and pray for a miracle. First drafts hurt. They hurt with anticipation and tension because it isn’t perfect and I want it to be. I wait for Okana to fly. Truth and beauty will leap; I capture them. It will come at me so fast it will be chaos, like children flying everywhere. The adrenaline rushes and I could start to write about pretty people on a sunny California beach, following human tendencies to glorify the gorgeous. I could begin by describing what one of the girls is doing. She is tanning. That is beautiful. I stop writing. I suddenly realize that she doesn’t want to play volleyball with these Baywatch types all day. Nearby is an obese man helping his skinny little two year-old daughter build a sand castle. She watches them. That is truth. And truth is where my story begins. When I catch Okana we decide to take a walk. We walk around the small orphanage at least twenty times a day. We never get tired of it. It’s a game. She will greet the cartoon characters that we painted on the wall two days ago, pat them and say Hello! in Mongolian. I will echo her in English Hello Mickey Mouse! Hello Mrs. Panda! Hello Dinosaur! She will point to dead beetles with iridescent green amor on the sidewalk and baby footprints in the concrete saying Hello! She even puts her little foot in it to see if it fits.

When you write something you have to look at it in awe and exclamation marks. You have to notice the details that might seem insignificant at first, the dead beetles and baby footprints, because they are real and that is what makes them beautiful. And if you look at them condescendingly, you won’t understand. If you see the fat man and he is ugly, then you won’t see his daughter and the lopsided castle. You have to learn how to say Hello! to everything around them and recognize it. You don’t have to love everything with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader with ADHD, but you have to know it is there. And that’s what I learned from Okana. And I want to save everyone from ignoring all the fat men, the rotting insects, the imperfections in concrete, because they are true and deserve to be revere. I want to make people notice what they don’t even notice about themselves, like the baby red fox on the back of Andrew’s hand. Because only the close-minded ignore the truth. And ignorance is a monster. And when people want to fly, I want to be there to catch them.

--- FAQs Q: Why are you using a password? A: Because some of the materials I used are taken from the hand-outs that my junior year’s counselor, Melody Wong, gave me, and right now I don’t have her permission to share them (she is fully credited, though). DO NOT tell me your opinion about legality. Q: Why are you doing this? A: Because after a while, I realized that I had been sharing the same materials, giving the same comments and advice for almost every essay. Q: I disagree with… A: Thanks for your opinion; but I’d like to remind you in advance that this guide is subjective, as it’s meant to be. Before you raise your idea, please keep that in mind. Q: Do you have any advice on how to practice writing? A: Well, why, I do. I’ll tell you how I learn to write, first. Obviously I write a lot. I keep a blog and three unpublished journals in English, and three other journals in other languages. I write entries whenever I feel like (and that’s different from daily), most of them are between 500-1500 words – but I suggest you aim at 450-650 if you want to prepare for the college admission essay. My entries are about anything and everything – think of a diary. Don’think that you have to see them as practice college essays. They are not. But they should be clear and have a main point or two. As I said earlier, I’m a first draft writer. I write then I edit them a little, but I don’t revise (and I’m too lazy to do anyways). However, you may want to try something different. For every entry you write, I suggest you leave it there for a day or two, then revise it. Then repeat. Try to have at least three drafts for every thing you write. As I quoted before, for most of you, you won’t learn by writing a lot. You learn by revising a lot. Contact me if you want some advice on what and how to revise.

What is the final purpose of this? Not that you can have hundreds of college essays ready when you have to write one; but that you can write a college essay as comfortably and pleasureably as you write a journal entry. You may want something like this: http://my.opera.com/catthu/blog/farming-with-dreams , or this: http://my.opera.com/catthu/blog/the-left-overs Q: Can you comment on my essays/ answer a private question about writing? A: Try. I may reply or I may not. But even if I do, it will take a while because I’m kind of busy. So plan accordingly. Q: What’s your favorite cartoon character? A: Totoro! I’m glad you asked. I have a stuffed Totoro at home, but feel free to give me one more :) Copyright notice This guide is Copyright ©2008 by Cat Thu Nguyen Huu. All rights reserved. Vietabroader forum is the only place where this work is posted, please notify me if you find this elsewhere. If you wish to acquire permission, feel free to email me at catthu [underscore] syaona [at] yahoo [dot] com.; permission may or may not be granted at my discretion. * For all questions about UWC, please direct to catthu [at] uwcvn [dot] org