Mark’s Blog

College. It’s the word on everyone’s mind, especially during senior year. For many parents, it’s a process that begins well before a child is even born. Money is saved in the hopes their child will attend an Ivy League or otherwise famous college.

For students, high school often ends up being a time where they try desperately to impress colleges, rather than a period to explore various interests as well as enjoying youth. Many overload themselves with Advanced Placement courses, volunteer for a plethora after-school opportunities, and essentially stress themselves to the point where they are unable to keep all their commitments or perform as well as they could be as an individual. Lack of sleep and irritability are common.

For college admissions officers, it can often be a repetitive process in which hundreds (if not thousands) of nearly-identical applications are submitted. Although each student is his own “set of numbers”, there is not much else to distinguish one from another, save for the essay. Unfortunately, many people choose to write about how great a person they are, how they help numerous charities, or how they once saved a baby girl from a burning building at two in the morning. In my personal experience with dealing with repetitive tasks, it is often best to streamline the process in order to finish it faster. I see no reason as to why a college admissions officer wouldn’t do the same- if an essay appears to be exactly same as the previous within the first several sentences, it is doubtful the rest of it will be read.

Am I just another number?

The above is merely a rough draft (written in approximately 10 minutes) of a college essay assignment for my senior English class. Any comments? Post below.

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