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_say
ing_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_semian
nual_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