College Essay Bootcamp
Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Throughout the process of creating and refining my college essay, I learned that I needed to improve most on how to be more inventive with my vocabulary. My essay contained the reoccurring idea of what the scent of a hospital meant to me. In order for that theme to come across well, I had to weave it throughout the essay. In my beginning drafts, it read like a broken record, and I was essentially hitting people over the head with my theme. You could find the phrases “hospital smell,” and “antiseptic scent” repeated multiple times. However, these phrases were needed in order for my thought process to be represented accurately, so I had to come up with innovative ways to say the same thing, all the while not sounding like a walking dictionary. With the help of the internet and multiple peer perspectives, I was able to organize my phrases and ideas in such a way that it was not repetitive and was more interesting. In my final draft, no phrase is repeated twice, and you can now find phrases like, “peculiar hospital scent,” “whiff of that unmistakable aroma,” “integral antiseptic scent,” “the smell of a hospital,” “pungent smell of antiseptic,” and a few more. This way, the same meaning is being perceived, but more innovation is being used in order to keep the reader engaged.