YourShadowScholar

Does anyone ever get accepted based on having outstanding essays?

I primarily ask because I am fairly certain I was accepted to a major university primarily based on my essays.

Now I make a living writing/editing other people's for them. Some of my clients have gotten into big universities ( most recently UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins), with pretty subpar academics.

But I've always wondered if essays really can change decisions that much?

Christan Bale is not the type of person to let anyone, even his agent, tell him what to do. It is most probable that it actually was his idea.

Wouldn't you want to get INTO that mindset?

I love this post, because it highlights why books written on the subject don't really suffice to fill a certain need in the marketplace, and why I am able to find employment (and successfully get people into their dream schools with a very high rate of success).

I would say that the advice here is really worthless so far mainly because it treats the college admission process like something real, and valuable, instead of purely as a game, which it is.

The unfortunate truth is that there is no really simple formula that I, or anyone else can tell you to enable you to write the perfect college admissions essay. It's a bit of an art, a bit of a science; it is really creative writing in one of its highest forms, and not everyone has that talent (or needs it to be successful).

I do free consultations on essays, and almost everyone that sends me an essay ends up using my services.

The only advice that I have found that has really helped anyone is:

1. Write about something truly intense (and dark), the stuff you would think you shouldn't write about.

Examples: Writing intimately about dealing with being raped, having a family member killed right in front of you, etc...

1. Write something very out of the ordinary.

Or, in the case of a prompt, be intensely outside of the bounds (because there really aren't any), for example a project I recently did was for a prompt that asked, "How would you spend your final summer before college given that money is no object?" Most people will answer something about learning more, or maybe spending time with family, or taking final vacation, who knows. For my client, I wrote out a plan for taking over, and socializing the global petrol industry and using the money to fund medical research and healthcare for the world.

Writing a good college admission's essay is like writing a great short story while playing a game of chess. You have to see all of the possible moves, and take the best ones.

If you really want to get into your dream school, hire someone that can actually get you there.

You may have had some piss poor history teachers, hah.