Show, Dont Tell! (the College Essay, Pt. 2)

Show, Don’t Tell! (the College Essay, Pt. 2) QUOTE: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. -excerpt from George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946. So once upon a time, I wrote a blog comparing the college essay to froyo. Since then, the application has been revised, and although I still believe in the merits of the first blog in regards to a long college admissions essay (500-1000 words), it definitely doesnt apply completely to the new short-answer system that MIT adopted. A few months ago, I created a bogus account on my.mit.edu so I can actually catch a glimpse at what the new application looks like (it really doesnt look that different, ha) and Ive been thinking about how I would approach these essays. Although nothing here is the product of intense cognition, I thought Id share some of my views on these small essays. Essentially, you have 5 mini-essays What You Do For Pleasure (pleasure 100 words), Department at MIT (department 100 words), What You Do Thats Creative (creativity 250 words), World You Come From (world 250 words), Significant Challenge (challenge 250 words), and thats it! Less than 1000 words total. The easy things first the Pleasure and the Department prompts are not really essays, but short answers, so they can be easily answered. My advice is just to go ahead and be honest with them (well, you should be honest in your entire application ;P), especially with the Pleasure essay. The admission officers (adcoms) are not looking for standard answers, and you wont get brownie points by putting down programming, building robots, or other MIT-y answers (although they also definitely wont penalize you if they do happen to be things that you do for fun). Just be honest! Many people stress out about the Department essay, but I can tell you that MIT DOES NOT admit on a quota, and you WILL NOT be penalized by which department you put down on that blank (I dont know how many emails Ive gotten on this subject already seriously, the adcoms are not lying at you, and no there is no conspiracy either). Therefore, you will not seem more impressive if you put down Philosophy, over, say, Mechanical Engineering. When I applied, I put down Chemical Engineering (oh, such were the days of my innocent youth, when I believed that Chemistry was trivial), but now Im happily a Biology (and pending History) major. Your interests may shift after you enroll at MIT (and realize how brutal some of the courses here can be), and thats perfectly fine! So dont worry too much. For the Creativity essay, I would encourage you to look at the connotation of creativity from a new angle (in a sense, be creative about exploring creativity :P). You can go broader than physical things like creative projects or creative inventions. I would investigate writing about creative ideas, creative ways of looking at things, creative ways of solving problems, for example. I wrote about a concrete research project I did when I applied, but I thought that was quite boring in comparison to the other things that could have written about, so I encourage you to explore this topic a bit further. :) Ah ok, now we come to the challenging 250-word essays. So back in the day, we had a choice between these two essays to write a long essay on, but I guess now theyre requiring you write on both of them, but as shorter essays. Actually, I really enjoyed the world essay and I thought it was the one of the best prompts out of the prompts for the 15 colleges that I applied to (number one was still Stanfords photograph prompt I loved it. Sorry MIT :P). The challenge now, however, is how to condense all the things you want to convey into mere 250 words. In order for me to see what a 250 word word limit is really like, I wrote a 250 word essay. Not on MITs prompts, though. He held up the sheet of wrinkled paper, his eyes in silent protest. The tattered bill requested 13,800 dollars for a three-day hospital stay. Why call the ambulance? Just leave me alone! the frail old man muttered. Just a week ago, Mr. Vu suffered a stroke that required hospitalization. Because he could not understand English, Mr. Vu had not applied for health insurance, resulting in the exorbitant bill. An internship at an Asian clinic opened my eyes to the untold story of limited-English proficiency patients, who often struggle to obtain health care in a maze of foreign forms and convoluted policies. Suffering from a worsening stomachache, Mrs. Wong was neglected in the county hospital for over two hours, unable to flag down a passing nurse for assistance because of the language barrier. Clutching a X-Ray order, Mr. Park searched in vain for Radiology in a blinding flurry of English letters. Over the summer, these stories became too common accounts of immigrants fighting for their right to care in a shockingly monolingual health system. After the internship, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed as a Mandarin health interpreter in November. I wanted to change the status quo. My experiences this summer solidified my conviction of entering into public health, especially immigrant health, as my future course of study. America has long prided itself as a melting pot of cultures. Isnt it only fitting that there exists equitable access to health care, regardless of the language spoken? The word limit is kinda short. Now, a disclaimer: I want to stay that this is not intended to be a model essay (I think the ending can use some more work, among other things), but I thought this would be easier in illustrating a point. If you look at the essay, I like going narrative - point - how it connects to me. In fact, this is what I use for most of my essays :3 Heres the same essay, deliberately made worse (but to illustrate a very common problem in college application essays): Last summer, I worked in an Asian clinic in Oakland, California. Over the course of the summer, I realized the plight of immigrants when it comes to obtaining equitable health care. In the modern health industry, immigrants and other residents who possess limited English proficiency are often overlooked because of their inability to communicate their symptoms to the doctor and complete paperwork in English. This problem is exacerbated when they cannot apply for health insurance, resulting in exorbitant health bills. In a country that claims to be the melting pot of cultures, this kind of neglect is no longer acceptable. Many patients suffer extended waits in the hospital, unable to obtain assistance. It is possible that a worsening stomachache is the initial sign for appendicitis, which needs to be treated expeditiously. Often, hospital signs are also not translated into other languages, making navigation difficult for elderly patients. These scenes are played across hospitals in the nation everyday. After my experiences this summer, I realized that I wanted to channel my energy into the revitalization of this system. It is no longer sufficient for us to stand on the sidelines and watch. To this end, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed as a Mandarin health interpreter. I hope I will be able to contribute my efforts to the field of public health, especially immigrant health, in the future. These patients cannot afford to passively wait for language-accessible care and continue to sacrifice their right to treatment. Also 250 words, but this essay is riddled with problems, many of which Orwell pointed out in the blurb above. 1. The essay is filled with extraneous and needlessly difficult words. (I wanted to channel my energy into the revitalization of this system) 2. The essay lacks a personal voice its very passive (These scenes are played, immigrants are often overlooked, the problem is exacerbated) 3. The essay never shows it only tells. Show, dont tell! I cant emphasize this enough. This essay points out many problems of the health care system, but doesnt offer any examples of the problems. At the end of the day, which essay will readers remember better? An essay that speaks in general terms or Mr. Vu with his bill? Personally, I think after MIT made the switch from the long essay to short essays, this point is even more pertinent. You just cant afford to waste words speaking in vague terms that doesnt convey much in terms of meaning. When adcoms read thousands of essays on end, you need to stand out. Ideally, your essay should pack enough punch (thats a cliche :P) so that your readers have a take-home message (another cliche :P). Simply put, you need something memorable about your essay. If you feel bored writing your essay, chances are that the person reading your essay will be bored too. Make it vivid let your story shine. Finally, the other point I want to convey: Trim the extra fat! I narrowed down the first essay from over 400 words to just 250. Chances are, you can do the same too. The second essay is plagued with extraneous words, and actually it can be narrowed down to just this without loss of meaning: Last summer, I worked in an Asian clinic, where I realized the struggle of immigrants in obtaining equitable health care because of the language barrier. They often cannot apply for health insurance, resulting in exorbitant bills. This is not acceptable in America, which claims to be a melting pot of cultures. Many patients suffer long waits in the hospital, unable to get help. A worsening stomachache can lead to appendicitis that requires rapid treatment. Often, signs are only written in English, making navigation difficult for elderly patients. It is no longer sufficient for me stand on the sidelines I want to make a difference. To this end, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed in Mandarin. Eventually, I hope I can work in the field of public health, especially immigrant health. These patients cannot afford to passively wait for language-accessible care and continue to sacrifice their right to treatment. This new essay is only 154 words. Although it definitely sounds stilted and shouldnt be submitted as a complete essay, it still goes to show how much excess fat one can usually trim from a typical essay. Not to reiterate myself too much from the previous blog that I wrote, but the effective essay, IMO, is the essay that really shows who you are, where youre coming from, and what your loves are in your own voice. Both the world and the challenges essay are structured so that its focused on you and your stories. Use these opportunities to tell a story to convey who you are. Theres no need to repackage your tale in fancy rhetoric or educated vocabulary. Just as we see in world literature: often the best stories are, really, the simplest stories.