50 Successful Harvard Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get into the College of Your Choice by Staff of the Harvard Crimson

Author:Staff of the Harvard Crimson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781466848344
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

REVIEW

There is one sentence in Danielle’s essay in the past tense: a brief reflection on her stunted French four months prior to the scene described. The breezy dismissal of those worries in the rest of the essay has a certain je ne sais quoi, admittedly; however it makes for a strange personal statement. Persuasive essays as a form are often easier to grasp and consider when they are declarative (“Pick me because of this.”) or contemplative (“Let us think about this lobster and convince you to pick me because of my prescient observations about said shellfish.”). This is neither. There is no reflection as to how she felt before her experience in France; there is sparse description of her interiority in general.

But this refusal to engage with the standard mechanisms of personal statements makes Danielle’s essay stand out. It seems alternatively attractive because of its refusal to conform to a seemingly prescribed formula and disappointing because of its reliance on long chunks of hapless dialogue in order to create an interesting plot.

The essay’s strength is its tone: Danielle writes just casually enough to allow a reader to enjoy the essay, and creates a refreshing read, maybe because of, rather than in spite of, its lack of angle. But it is a risky move, and one that could backfire. The safer path, for Danielle, would have been to write about something more concrete. Her willingness to try something different worked for Danielle and produced a high-quality essay.

—Christine A. Hurd

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