This document showcases a real Comprehensive Editing Order as it was returned to the client. [Bracketed phrases] have been used substituted for the client’s name and other identifying information.
Hi [client],
First, let me thank you again for trusting me with your essays! Most of the business I get comes from word of mouth recommendations—I only advertise a little bit—so I was excited to see an order from a person who came to the site from Google! As with all customers, I will do my best to make sure you can submit your statement with full confidence and that you will never need to go anywhere else for admissions help.
The format of my edits is very simple. In addition to these introductory comments, you will find general comments in the same blue italics before each of your statements, local comments in the margins using the track changes function, and then finally the revised version of your statements. The revised versions will be very different from the originals in some ways, but don’t let this bother you. Don’t skip the comments either, as they will highlight areas of possible confusion or suggest possible additions in addition to explaining my changes. To date, all of my customers have been very pleased by this format, but I welcome your thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses.
For a first general comment, I will say that these essays seem a bit short given the expressed word limit of the scholarship competition. Brevity is almost always considered a virtue in admissions writing, but the idea is often that you should say as much as possible and then figure out a way to tuck your ideas into the word limit. Perhaps that is not necessary here, but in my experience that has been the usual approach. I think it would be especially important for the first essay since it deals with your Hispanic heritage and the prize is geared toward Hispanic students. To this end, I will take some opportunities to highlight additional material you may want to add to fill the essays out a bit.
Describe how your Hispanic heritage has influenced your academic and long-term personal goals.
This essay has the potential to make a very strong impression on your reader, but I think some more information will ultimately be needed to achieve its full potential. I have made a lot of margin comments that you should read, but the basic idea is that I would like to hear more about the problems Hispanics are facing and how you can help them address those problems. You seem to have had a moment in your youth, perhaps supplemented by other more recent moments, in which you took special note of the good aspects of Hispanic culture as well as the difficulties associated with being Hispanic. This is a potentially very powerful angle to take, but its not enough to just remember that moment. Your reader will want to see a more direct relationship between it and your goals. This means explaining what you thought about your experiences then and now and how this informs your future.
This is a very difficult exercise—no doubt about it—but my guess is that you have a lot of this information ready to go. The challenge is linking it to a future that is very uncertain. Don’t worry so much about this—it’s ok if you don’t pursue the exact goals or issues you present here. You reader won’t even really expect that. What’s important is that you show you are capable of thinking about these issues maturely and making connections between your past and future.
I will edit this essay as normal, but I do hope you seriously consider the suggestion for more material.
Original Version
Tiere la bola! Chulo [NAL1]screamed. It was hot and muggy, no breeze in sight[NAL2]. I was surrounded by smiles and laughter. I had just turned ten years old and I was in the mountains of Puerto Rico a town called [Puerto Rican town]. All the children in the neighborhood played in the park all day long. They were scanty clothed and all their families were very poor.[NAL3]All the families always asked me to join them[NAL4] for dinner and offered to share anything that they owned. They did not have much and I realized they were offering me dinner! Why weren’t these people sad they were poor?[NAL5] I realized these people had no material possessions but were so giving with the little that they had.[NAL6]Most of the families had around eight to ten people living under one roof with maybe one car. This culture shock made me realize that I should be happy with what I have because many people do not have nearly as much as I do.[NAL7]I still take the lesson I learned from years ago in the mountains of Puerto Rico and incorporate into my life today.[NAL8]I am currently enrolled in Spanish III for my senior year to further my skills in my culture. I am also hoping to get a business administration degree [NAL9]then on to lawn school to help in representing the Hispanic people that do not have representation[NAL10]. Sometimes our culture and education level causes problems here. I know of a woman who arrested for spanking a child with a belt at a store. She was arrested for child abuse.[NAL11] This seems like our country many years ago. The trip to Puerto Rico has changed my life for good and I will never forget my experience there.
Revised Version
I first recognized the dynamism of Hispanic culture when I visited the Puerto Rican mountain town of [Puerto Rican town] as a ten-year-old boy. On a hot and breezeless day, I was first accepted by the town’s barely-clothed children as they played soccer in the park and then invited to several homes for dinner. [Puerto Rican town] is a poor town—families often live ten to a house and money is always tight—but their invitations were unmistakably earnest. I was moved, even as a young boy, to appreciate my own good fortune and to join a community capable of such personal warmth.
My memory of [Puerto Rican town] is vivid, but I have learned in the intervening years that many Hispanics in the United States, despite the heritage of strong community, face seemingly insurmountable problems.[NAL12] The national issues of gangs and drugs are well-known, but there are also more subtle cultural issues at play. I know a woman, for example, who was arrested for child abuse after spanking her son in the supermarket. Suchbasic cultural challenges have inspired me to make a difference, and my dedication to Hispanic society is strong. I study Spanish in an effort to develop necessary communication abilities, and I have plans to pursue an undergraduate degree in business administration before going on to study and practice law. As a lawyer with a close understanding of Hispanic culture, I will be able to represent individuals in times of need while offering them some avenues to overcome the gaps in their education. I know that one person cannot change everything, but my experience of Hispanic culture and generosity in Puerto Rico inspires me to do my part.
Describe how you contribute to your community and what you have learned from you experiences.
This is another essay that I think has potential to be very powerful if we can add a few more critical elements. You do a good job of introducing the problem in this essay (although after my edits this section will likely get a bit smaller) and you seem ready to take a starring role in the creation of the neighborhood watch program, but then you don’t discuss your personal contribution that much. Since the question asks for a description of your contribution to the community, I think it’s important that you go beyond just the original idea. Did you meet with neighbors, help design a phone tree system, hang posters about the neighborhood watch, orexplain the new system to elderly residents? It’s not that you have to do any one of these things in particular, but just that I want to hear more about your individual actions. The idea that “a neighborhood watch was enacted” just seems too impersonal. I don’t think you have to take this essay to the 600 word mark to make it work, but some additions in this vein would be helpful.
Original Version
I have had several community and volunteer activities but this project means the most[NAL13] I live in an older neighborhood on the golf course. Many of the residents and neighbors of mine are of older age[NAL14], most likely around the age of 70. The neighborhood was having a problem with break-ins occurring regularly. People were going out of town and getting many things stolen from them. There were incidences of a man knocking on their door at 10 pm and 1 am asking for the telephone. He was barefoot and disheveled. I believe he was trying to see if they were at home before he broke in the house. Cars were getting broken into and valuables were being taken from them also[NAL15]. [NAL16]I came up with the idea to set up with a neighborhood watch program to help this problem from reoccurring[NAL17] regularly. All the residents of the neighborhood were contacted for a meeting to occur at the local clubhouse to discuss actions that needs to be taken. My mom spoke with the sheriff since I was only 16. [NAL18]The sheriff had a meeting with all of the neighbors and we had about 50 attend. These break-ins were occurring and we found out all kinds of things were occurring on different streets and none of these were tied together. He gave ideas on how the neighborhood needs to help watch out for one another. The obvious is to not answer your door if you do not know the person at 1AM! [NAL19]A neighborhood watch program was enacted and ever since, a year now, there is a united front against people just walking through. To my knowledge there has been no more break-ins. I feel that this program forever on will help keep my neighborhood safe. I have learned that together the people in the neighborhood had a lot of power. These were mostly elderly residents who were scared. When they met with the sheriff and united they discovered that working together we could accomplish a lot. People coming together for a common purpose can accomplish more than they think.
[NAL20]
Revised Version
Two years ago, my town developed a serious problem of break-in robberies. The majority of the residents in my neighborhood are elderly, so even though most incidents occurred when people were out of town, many felt unsafe in their own homes. When a strange man knocked on our front door and asked to use the telephone, we refused for fear that his real goal was to see the house before later robbing it.
This was not the community I wanted, so I thought of ways that I could make an improvement and ultimately concluded that a neighborhood watch might be helpful. I worked with (?)[NAL21] to contact the neighborhood residents and we arranged a meeting with the sheriff at the local clubhouse to discuss the issue. Our neighbors must have shared my discontent, because no fewer than 50 attended. We began by reporting all of the incidents that we were aware of in search of any possible patterns, but it seemed that there was none. The sheriff responded with some basic safety tips and then we cooperated to establish the neighborhood watch I had imagined. I…[NAL22]
It has been over a year since we put the watch program in place, and it seems that the project fixed the problem before it got out of control, because to my knowledge there has not been another break-in. This experience has been an important reminder of the strength of a united community. My elderly neighbors went from scared residents to confident citizens thanks to a good idea and solid leadership. I am proud of my contribution and I will remember the value of such cooperative action as I approach similarly difficult problems in the future.
Describe a recent academic challenge you have faced, and how you have overcome it.
This is a good essay. I like the tone you create and the message that you are working hard to learn and improve as a student. It is an admirable challenge you have laid out for yourself and readers will respond well to it. My only concern is that you may have focused a bit too much on what colleges want to see and not enough on the inherent value of an education challenge. The truth is that the value comes from two places, what you learn and the fact that others recognize it, but the first is usually the preferred focus for an essay such as this. Other than that, I don’t think it needs too much more alteration or additions, although you could add a discussion of what makes literature a challenge for you and how you have tried to improve if you want.
Original Version
This[NAL23] senior year has been my most challenging year throughout my high school years.[NAL24]It was necessary for me to take two more AP classes; more colleges of my interest notice AP Literature and AP Calculus, to help me[NAL25]. Literature seems to be my hardest class since my verbal scores [NAL26]were not as high as I would like them to be by looking at that score I should have signed up for a regular literature class. This class has been very challenging but I have held my own. [NAL27]These classes have helped boost my resume so schools will not think I just breezed my way through my senior year. It was not only hard to just take the classes but also to make excellent grades in them to keep my GPA up to or above acceptance standards. I learned through these challenges that I need to increase the amount of studying and concentration put into my education. [NAL28]The combining of these skills that needed to be improved in my life helped me realize that to get to where one wants to be, one needs to put all they have got into it.[NAL29]
Revised Version
While it has recently become common for high school seniors to select easy classes in pursuit of a relaxing year before college, I have gone out of my way to seek challenges during my senior year. Two demanding AP classes in calculus and literature anchor my school day and force me to stay focused. For me, literature is the more difficult of the two; English has never been my strongest subject. My standardized test scores would have placed me in a regular literature class, but I was determined to hold my own. It has been a challenge to earn good grades amidst the best students, but the workload demonstrates my serious approach to top colleges. I have realized that I will need to continually employ more concentration and self-discipline as I pursue higher levels of education, but my initial success has also given me confidence in my ability to succeed in any academic environment.
[NAL1]Since Chulo never reappears in the essay, it seems like it’s not worth introducing him at all. As a rule, specific moments and people are only worth using in an essay if they have some particular relevance.
[NAL2]This is perhaps overly picky, but since you can’t really see the breeze I will change this expression.
[NAL3]This material is all important to “set the scene” for your essay, but I would ordinarily want it to be a little shorter in the delivery.
[NAL4]Why were you there, and who were these people? Relatives of yours?
[NAL5]Rhetorical questions are very common in admission/scholarship essays. I would prefer to see this phrased as a statement.
[NAL6]The sentences before and after the question overlap a lot. I think we can just use one of them.
[NAL7]Was it just that they had less or that they were happy with less that made such an impression?
[NAL8]This statement begs the question, how?
[NAL9]As an undergraduate, right? I ask only because I deal with a lot of MBA applications.
[NAL10]In what sense? What are the legal problems Hispanic people need the most help with? Immigration process? Taxes? Criminal? Civil? Protection from bad landlords? I think some discussion of the problems these people face and how you think you could help would be a powerful addition to this essay.
[NAL11]I’m not sure how to read this. Are you saying she shouldn’t have been arrested since it wasn’t that bad or that she really seems far behind the times? If the latter, what can you do about it as a lawyer?
[NAL12]What are the problems that you know most about?
[NAL13]This introduction is much flatter than it needs to be.
[NAL14]Let’s use the word “elderly.”
[NAL15]This is a classic passive voice sentence, and some people are very averse to using this construction. In this case, since we don’t know who was committing the crimes, it isn’t really a problem, but I point it out just to say you should be careful not to overuse it.
[NAL16]As in the last essay, up to this point is basically all setting the scene for your actions. I think we should condense this portion a bit so you can talk more about what you did.