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Brown University

The college essay that got me into Brown

June 27, 2017 by Sara Nolan

I wanted Brown badly I wanted to go to Brown University because all my favorite people from high school went there, many of them writers; I wanted to go to Brown because I knew there students had autonomy over course selection and I was used to picking for myself.  I wanted to go to Brown because...it felt like a natural fit. And because I drank the elitist cool-aid, sorta. I didn't exactly approach the process with an open mind, more like a targeted mind that was open to me getting what I wanted most... "I can see myself there!" I said.  And so said everyone else.  Sometimes, everyone else's predictions for you feel annoying.  But it's most annoying-- and probably also most accurate-- to imagine that all of that conviction could be irrelevant.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, Parents, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: Brown University, college essay, finding a topic, meaning, my story, writing process

My college essay got me what?

April 6, 2016 by Sara Nolan

My college essay got me in....to this It's 8AM on a Wednesday. I am 19 years old, drinking my 14th cup of weak college cafeteria coffee, staring at an ancient Greek verb. Eistha. I'm supposed to know something about this.  I have clocked in exactly three hours of sleep. I know about as much as you do, reading this, right now. The verb stares back at me, equally uninformed. My life looked like this chart. My professor, Alan Boegehold (who died this week, 17 years later) is looking out at the two of us expectantly-- because, you got that right, there are only two of us in that class--, a map of Sparta under his thumb. The map is fuzzed at the edges, to appear antique. This is the battle that would change everything. If that everything means anything to you, now, thousands of years out. (But for you battle nerds, this.) Boegehold is recapping for us where all the warships are, waiting to attack a certain strait. He's so into the heated stakes, a scholar's video game. At this moment, the minor things matter the most-- is the verb in the future? Is the ship pointed a hair to the right? I'm wishing I had bought a Starbucks.The kind as black as night should be if you don't live in Brooklyn and if there is no moon. My college essay is to blame To get here-- this school, this class, this major-- I wrote a very very very (apparently) convincing personal essay for my college application essay-- BY HAND.  That's right, by hand. In hand-writing. It was about a junior-year school trip to Spain, where I stayed with a family in Barcelona. On the first day there, I confused two nouns-- mariscos (seafood) and maridos (spouses, husbands)-- and so informed my host mother that I don't eat a lot of things, but I do eat maridos.  Meaning, husbands.  Instead of mariscos, meaning seafood. The car went silent. I have no idea how I concluded the essay, what lesson or trait my personal essay took pains to show. Maybe the importance of detail, the weight of a  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, Grammar, Integrity, Stories, Students, Uncategorized Tagged With: Alan Boeghold, Ancient Greek, Brown University, college essay, Joseph Pucci, Lyric poetry, personal essay, Thucydides

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