The Most Uncommon Essay: The Common App

As you open your notebook and twiddle the pen in your hand, the common app calls to challenge all your creative faculties. Cause it is an essay beyond your academics, your extra-curricular activities, and your community outreach. 

This is an essay that extracts the juices of your written word to spark the imagination of the reader at the other end, asks you to lend the element of surprise, add the charm of intrigue, create a feeling of warmth, serendipity, joy, sadness, discovery and self realization! This essay wants you to step outside of yourself and introspect, and then create word magic through it.

Your story is unique, and so are your experiences. Pick up one story from your life, churn the wheel of wisdom, add in a dash of fun, smooth the curves, add twist to the ordinary, and write down a collection of paragraphs that does not let the reader put it down till he has absorbed the last word, and wants to re-read the essay.

A fantastic opportunity to put creativity within 650 words, the common app is many times the harbinger of admission decisions. With most applicants at similar academic and other achievements, it is through this essay that you get to showcase something about you that tells someone that you bring something unique to the university. 

Whether it is about that dance in the rain, watering the plants or turning off the tap, what did the cool comfort of water help you with? Else it maybe walking down the path of nostalgia and realizing the importance of a gone by event. Maybe you failed, learnt and failed again, then learnt something more, to finally succeed. Makes perfect sense for inclusion in the common app essay, it does absolutely. 

There is no right or wrong method to pen the common app, no story more important than the other, no narration that is not worthy of a read. It just demands the introspective appeal of virtue, the flow of prose, the amalgamation of poetic expression, and the ability to create the snowflake effect in your narration - the one of a kind, relatable essay - the common app.  

Your common app can be a source of inspiration, an extraordinary take on wit and humour, or a simple sharing of soul searching and becoming the better for it.

As you stop that twiddle of the fingers and as the crisp vast canvas of the paper starts to fill with your thoughts, make that first draft....then refine it, re-refine it, and then some more. The flair of an experienced essay writer and the guidance of the expert can position it at an altogether higher level. Reach out for that absolute genius of a written narrative - your common app essay.



Copyright Disclaimer: The content on this post and all subsequent posts on Penned Perfections is the sole copyright of Varrtika Mudaliaar and prohibits copying whole or parts of the content by any other person.  



   



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  The First Steps: Settling into your Overseas University You have packed your bags, taken the long haul flight and the bus ride to your university campus. You are excited and afraid at the same time. The huge campus of your foreign institution seems daunting, as do the unfamiliar faces and the languages you hear spoken but do not understand. Take heart. There are simple things you can do to transition safely into settling down. ·     1.  The first step that every student should do on arrival at   the campus is to meet with the student ambassadors, unless they are waiting on the gate to welcome the freshmen students. They are generally the senior students who have experienced their first years at college and can give you tips and insights for a safe and comfortable stay. ·     2.  A priority should be to register at the university international office if that is where all students are expected to report on arrival. You may have met the rec...
Read more
  Study Abroad and the Dichotomy of the Underprivileged Student: An Indian Perspective  Within the international mobility of students for study abroad, India contributes one of the largest number of students to overseas universities each year. Helping these students make informed choices is an equally large pool of study abroad agents and the staff from overseas universities for whom competing in an increasingly complex and dynamically changing Indian market place is both challenging, and necessary. In the recent years, the most nuanced terminology used by universities for their internationalization efforts and in their marketing and promotional activities are ‘inclusion and diversity’. The marketing messages of agents spell out high success rates for top admits, visa approvals and devising special counselling cells for the students aiming for Ivy Leagues and Oxbridge institutions. Yet do these inclusivity messages hold true for the entire pool of eligible and bright stud...
Read more
  To Dress It’s Best: the Etiquette of the Well Written Curriculum Vitae While you showcase your grades and other profile details in your application columns to the admissions committees, they are reaching for that one page document that summarises your entire portfolio and narrates your entire gamut of achievements - like putting a shine on your persona and a sprinkle on your unique qualities. If you are looking to get admission in the university of your choice overseas, you need to dress your curriculum vitae (CV) like you would dress yourself for a formal interview – with poise, élan, and professionalism. The CV should capture the essence of your uniqueness while stating how you are the best fit within the educational ethos of the institution and its long term vision for its alumni pool. CVs are even more important if you are going back to upgrade your professional acumen during mid career, after you have gathered work experience and want to further it with an extra dollop...
Read more