This is my essay for the common app. The essay topic was "topic of your choice". Please let me know what you think and I will gladly read one of your essays! Any feedback is much appreciated- negative or positive :) Thanks!
At the age of four, I attended my first 30 minute Irish dance class. Today, I attend six hours or more of dance classes each week, every week, year round. I perform in school recitals, at community events, at nursing homes, fundraisers, and parades, but I also dance competitively.
I love competing. I don't always win, but I always try my best. Irish dancers compete at feiseanna or festivals. Feiseanna occur on the weekends year round and are hosted by Irish dancing schools and Irish cultural societies. Typically at a feis, I compete against 20 - 45 girls my age.
As a competitor, I have grown as a dancer and moved up steadily through the different levels. I reached the highest level of competition, open championship, at the beginning of ninth grade. I have competed at five Mid-Atlantic Regional competitions (the Oireachtas) and one North American National competition. When I competed at Nationals, I was extremely nervous. There were more than 300 top competitors in my age bracket from North America. It was very intimidating. After dancing, I felt satisfied that I tried my best, but I knew most of the girls were better than I and the results proved it. While I was disappointed that I did not do as well as I had hoped, I used the experience to push myself to work harder. I did not give up and have improved greatly as a dancer since then.
I am qualified to compete at the Oireachtas again this November as well as Nationals next summer. Most recently, I have been selected by my teacher to participate on a ceili team and compete at the World Irish Dancing Championships. A ceili is a group dance. We practice often, working to perfect the dance. To compete at the Worlds' level is very prestigious and I look forward to representing my school and New York on a world stage. I am very excited for the upcoming events and I believe that if we all continue working hard, we can achieve great rewards!
Irish dance has always had an important place in my life. It has shaped who I am today and I love every bit of it. Dancing is my passion! Irish dance has helped me to overcome my shyness and to gain poise and confidence. It has helped me to form a strong work ethic and made me tenacious. I have learned the importance of prioritizing and time management in order to keep my grades up, play a varsity sport, and compete year-round in Irish dance. Finally, Irish dance has taught me that cliche expressions are founded in truth. Always keep your head up! If you fail, try again! Practice makes perfect! And perhaps, most importantly, you can accomplish anything, if you put your mind to it and work hard!
It's a really good essay!
I feel like the 1st and 2nd paragraphs could almost be combined, since they're both so short- however if you're adding why you started Irish dancing if the first place then this won't matter.
Maybe expand more on the festivals?
It has helped me to form a strong work ethic and made me tenacious I feel like this sentence just ends a little awkwardly. I'm not really sure what to put there though.
Just my thoughts! Good luck :)
You go into a loooooot of specifics without tying them all together with some underlying theme. In your essay, all you do is list out all of the activities that you have been doing as a result of Irish dancing and how you decided to perservere despite results that weren't as satisfactory as you would like them to do. While this is a good way to start the essay, there needs to be more substance.
Regarding the sentence structures themselves, they are rather short and choppy. A lot of details. Little insight or analysis. How can you make your essay be remembered by the OA's who have to read many many many many of these?
