I am not confident on my college admissions essay. I am in need of opinion on it.

Link?

Am I missing something?

My bad. Here it is:
Every incoming freshman is advised to become involved in extra-curricular activities and the community because it is a crucial part of their high school career. I took this to heart and began trying clubs and activities that I was interested in and enjoyed. My involvement in these extra-curricular activities continued throughout the rest of my high school career.
During my freshman year I decided to join my high school’s marching band, chorus, and drama club. However, shortly after completing my freshman year, I realized that drama club was a great fit for me, while marching band and chorus were not.
Sophomore year I continued my journey into the wonderful world of drama by doing every production that my drama club did. In drama club, I solely worked backstage building sets for the plays. By the middle of sophomore year I had become what is known as a crew lead. A crew lead manages a small group while building sets for the play. At the end of sophomore year I had been inducted into International Thespian Society which is an organization for high school students who earn enough points by participating in productions and fine arts.
Then, in junior year one of my teachers introduced me to Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America. I soon became involved in activities relating to the club. I even ran for an executive position. Running for an executive position was difficult because I am a shy girl and it was out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, it was a success and I became the Vice President of Community Service where my job was to co-ordinate club community service projects. The community service projects that I organized included involvement at the local Soup Kitchen and in a local March of Dimes walk. Then the beginning of my senior year I became the Vice President and still remain extremely involved in Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America.
As I look back on my extra-curricular involvement in high school, I can now see the impact that being involved has had in my life. Being involved in high school has helped me break out of my shyness and has taught me how to be a real leader.

I will take any help/pointers/criticism you are willing to offer me. Also, if you honestly think that I need to just trash my first attempt and start a new. I will. I really want to get in to this college and if it means starting over on a new attempt I will.

Can you provide us with the guidelines for the admissions essay? It will be easier to give you pointers if we know what exactly you are striving for.

The only guideline that I was given is the length. The length has to be between 250 and 650 words. I have a word count of 366. The topic was one of two options: 1) write about an obstacle that you overcome 2) Any topic of your choosing.

How vague! Is the purpose simply to find out whether you have a sufficient grasp of English? Or do they want to know more about you?

I ask because your essay is mostly a list of things you have done, a sort of timeline. What would make it a more interesting, more personal essay is to talk about your connection to theatre. This is fine if they are expecting a kind of resume, but not if they want to learn about you as a person.

So, instead of saying what you did each year, say very briefly how long you have spent doing theatre, and then spend the bulk of your essay talking about specific incidents or experiences that had an impact on you – and how they changed you, if they did. More importantly, they should show a progression towards your last paragraph. You quickly mention overcoming shyness a couple of times near the end – but how did that happen? Is there a particular story that you can briefly tell that illustrates this point? Same question about becoming a “leader” – there is more to that experience than the job title.

If this is meant to be a personal essay, I think you can do more to make the reader appreciate your experiences.

Hi, so I took glacial’s advice and I decided to rewrite my essay. For anyone who is willing to give me insight on my new version, I appreciate it. Here it is:

Ever since elementary school, I have been an extremely shy person. Being shy has been such an obstacle for me and has stopped me from participating in numerous activities and clubs. Shyness has even had its effect on my academics. In the eighth grade, I had to give a five-minute speech for my English class. I had difficulty practicing my speech with my friends, let alone giving the speech to my whole English class.
Overcoming my shyness was difficult, but because my extra-curricular involvement in Drama Club and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America I am now an outgoing individual.
My freshman year, I decided to take a progressive step in overcoming my shyness by joining the drama club. Then, in my sophomore year I continued my journey into the wonderful world of drama by participating in every production. In drama club, I solely worked backstage building sets for the plays. By the middle of sophomore year I had become a crew lead. A crew lead manages a small group while building sets for the play. Being a crew lead, I had to give instructions on how and what to build. In order to be a successful crew lead, I had to be more comfortable in my abilities and begin to break out of my shell.
Then, in my junior year one of my teachers introduced me to Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America. I soon became involved in activities relating to the club. I ran for an executive position. Running for an executive position was difficult because I am a shy girl and was completely out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, it turned out to be a success and I became Vice President of Community Service where my job was to co-ordinate club community service projects. In March of my junior year, I attended State FCCLA Conference to compete with my Interior Design project. By competing with my project, I had to present my project to a table of judges. I ended up getting fourth in the whole state. At the beginning of my senior year I became Vice President in Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America.
If someone were to tell me when I was a freshman that my senior year that I would be the Vice President of a club, I would have had difficulty believing them. However, today as I finish up my high school career, I am more comfortable with speaking to people and being a leader. My extra-curricular involvement in high school has helped my break free from the shy girl I was my freshman year and has taught me how to be a real leader.

Presumably, you will have already listed most of these activities elsewhere in your application. If so, then you probably shouldn’t reiterate them here. The essay questions are your chance to go beyond the dry data of your life and reveal some of your inner life, philosophy, character, and aspirations. It also your best shot at showing them how well you express yourself in writing. They want to get some sense of the person behind the data here. As it stands, not much of that comes through. I’d recommend a start-over.

Good luck!

I go along with @glacial and @thorninmud . The essay has to be made more personal. What is it about the activities that you chose that appealed to you? What did you find challenging and what did you do to overcome the challenges? What types of people did you interact with? There is a good essay lurking in there.

You posted your rewrite while I was writing the above, so I was talking about the first version. Let me read the new version and get back to you.

Much better. Now it’s a story about seeing the obstacle that your shyness presented and mustering up the courage to work through it. There are still several little grammatical glitches (you’ll need to find those on your own) that will absolutely need to be corrected. And now that you have the tone that you’re looking for, continue to think about it and add refinements and color.

Again, good luck!

Sorry for missing the rewrite. It still needs a little more color. What was it like at the start? Were there parts that turned out to be easier than you had imagined? Were people supportive? Did you meet any resistance on account of being female? You have done some praiseworthy things in overcoming your shyness, but the essay comes across as a little boastful. I am sure that is not your intention. Remember that the purpose of the essay is to show your writing skills, not to rehash the credentials that are already listed elsewhere on the resume.

@LostInParadise ” Did you meet any resistance on account of being female? ”

I do not think this sort of essay is the best place to air such an experience. It might come across as whining, even if she had a legitimate complaint..

@sarahhughes1996 I still think this version is excellent. :)

The phrase “wonderful world of drama” jumps out at me as hackneyed. I would rephrase that.

I think college admissions officers are looking to be bowled over by narrative and fresh writing. If you can tell a compelling story about overcoming an obstacle, it may catch their eye. I think you are on to a good idea with the focus on overcoming shyness but maybe instead of a recitation of accomplishments you can show how a unique experience in one of these clubs signaled your growth. Don’t be afraid to use dialogue if it helps.

“There I was, up on the stage in front of 500 people.. Me – the shyest kid in Mrs. Turner’s fifth grade class. How did I get from there to here?” (Don’t use my words, but this is an example.)

Remember they are reading hundreds and possibly thousands of essays. Yours needs to stand out.

I am a freshman in college, so I just went through all of this. The college admissions essay prompts are usually very vague, especially the common app (where you can basically can pick anything—like what your prompt is). What everyone else has said is spot on, especially the “overcoming the obstacle” part. What colleges like the best is something that is less like a résumé and more like a personal experience or an interesting story in life. For example, change “I am a shy girl” to “I was a shy girl”, implying you overcame an obstacle.
My college admissions essay was about a negative role model. The person was the leader of my section of the marching band and I described how that person was a jerk. I then went on the explain what I learned from the negative experience: things like “I’m not going to let what jerks say settle in too deeply”, “I’m not going to lose faith in myself”, etc).

Just following up to let you all know. I heard from the college, I got accepted! :) Thanks everyone for helping me and giving me feedback!

Congratulations! That’s wonderful.

@sarahhughes1996 Terrific!

Fantastic! Thanks for letting us know!

Congrats!