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I DAYDREAM A LOT; my Common app


Grltwinz 2 / 7  
Oct 12, 2013   #1
Prompt: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

I need someone to help look through my essay and give me some advice. Harsh criticism is welcome!

I daydream a lot-when I take a break from hours of hard work, before I fall asleep every night, after witnessing or experiencing something inspiring-it can occur whenever I'm not occupied. It has become some kind of strange habit before I noticed I liked to do it. I can't control what I daydream about (if I could, then it wouldn't be daydreaming, would it?); it just happens. When I daydream, I silently slip into another dimension of the world, where anything can happen and no one can know. You may think this is just an act of no importance at all except for evading the reality-nothing to take notice of. But to me, it is exactly the contrary.

"Come on! Let's take a break! We've been working on this for a whole day already!" My partner pushed himself away from the desk and moaned. Resolutely, I shook my head because I remembered one of my most frequent daydreams-my future.

One of the most frequent things I daydream about is the future. 1 year later, an excited freshman of my dream university, eager to try out everything new... 5 years later, a graduate filled with cherished memories of university life, eager for the life ahead... 10 years later, a civil engineer enthusiastically designing and constructing beautiful pieces of work... 15 years later, a mom with a wonderful family trying her best to balance life and work...As I daydream, I come to understand how extremely hard I must work, if all my visions were to come true. This pushes me to focus on my goal and put all my effort in developing my overall abilities.

Unlike other people's occasional daydream, in mine, I'm not always myself and things are not always good. I may be the girl in the news who lost her parents on her graduation day. I may be the old lady sitting in front of the dingy nursery home. I may be the homeless child starving on the streets. In these daydreams, I get so involved in the grief, the fear and the desire of these people that tears spring into my eyes. As real as my daydream seem, it isn't reality, after all. For every portion of pain I feel, they must have gone through pain ten times tougher. Whenever I think of this and how much better my life was than theirs, I feel the urgency to go out there and do something to help them. This is why I joined the school's Red Cross Society, volunteering frequently in orphanages, nursing homes and other places where people yearn for some help and hope.

I daydream about a lot more just the two aspects above, some simply nonsense, some strangely inspiring, but it doesn't matter. What matters is I don't let my daydreams go unnoticed. They enable me to experience things people don't normally do and teach me things no one else can. In my daydreams, I create my own image of the future, one that deserves a good deal of effort and determination. In my daydreams, I see the world through others' eyes and learn to imagine how disadvantaged people feel. But it doesn't stop there. I transform my daydreams into action. With the picture of my future in mind, I never allow myself to give up or stop trying; it is my motivation. After grieving over the pain of others, I strive to do all I can to help them out. I believe I am getting closer and closer to my dream and during my volunteering jobs people have really benefited from my efforts and felt a little better.
Joohi24 3 / 8 2  
Oct 12, 2013   #2
I daydream about a lot more just the two aspects above, some simply nonsense, some strangely inspiring, but it doesn't matter.

incorrect sentence formation

Your essay is amazing !!! Good luck
tayleeb - / 19  
Oct 12, 2013   #3
Really, really spectacular essay! Only really minor things that need help:

As real as my daydream seem, it isn't reality, after all.

This doesn't completely sound right-maybe change it to "As real as my daydreams seem, they still aren't reality." or "As real as my daydream seems, it still isn't reality." (I think you were just missing the S on seems so I wasn't sure which!)

1 year later, an excited freshman of my dream university, eager to try out everything new... 5 years later, a graduate filled with cherished memories of university life, eager for the life ahead... 10 years later, a civil engineer enthusiastically designing and constructing beautiful pieces of work... 15 years later, a mom with a wonderful family trying her best to balance life and work...

Numbers at the beginning of sentences should always be written out, so just change these to "One year later," "Five years later," etc.

I would really elaborate on the Red Cross Society, and what exactly your plans are to help in the future. Your entire essay is about daydreams regarding unforunate situations, and how that affects you so much that you want to help. But then you only really have one sentence that focuses on HOW you're going to help. Are you going to join the Peace Corp when you get older? Do you give money or food to homeless people when you see them on the street? Stuff like that! Just specific examples of how you want to help people, or ways you already have.

And it gives me physical pain to say this because I am obsessed with dashes...but I think there might be a bit too many at the beginning. Try to switch some of them to semi-colons or split them into two sentences. Since dashes are such a strong puncuation, you don't want to use too many and then diminish their effect.

Really fantastic essay though! Good luck!
OP Grltwinz 2 / 7  
Oct 12, 2013   #4
Thanks a lot!!!
Your advice is really helpful! And yeah, I did leave out an "s".
I'll try my best to improve my essay!
OP Grltwinz 2 / 7  
Oct 12, 2013   #5
Joohi24
Thanks a lot for your suggestion (and praise too)!
admission2012 - / 477 90  
Oct 13, 2013   #6
Hello,

This is not what the prompt is asking you to explain. Submitting this essay to a top program would certainly deduct major points from your overall application score. Daydreaming is not something that is central to your identity, nor would you really want it to be when applying to top schools, in fact, what you are explaining here is more of varied thoughts that pretty much everyone has. What you tried to do here was transform this essay into an essay that showcases your thought process as it relates to your future plans while sneaking in a bit of your non-academic activities. However, this is just not what the prompt requires. It is very important that you pay attention to the prompt. To correctly answer this question, you need to dig deeper to find something that is truly central to your identity. -Admissions Advice Online

Hope this helps


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