But just because it is a common perception does not make it a correct one. Custom essay services actually create model essays for their clients – not do their clients’ homework. They draw up an essay plan, do the research, aggregate and arrange the information found, and then, write a solid essay that can be used as an example for students to write their own.

They are just like tuition teachers. For one, they help you in your efforts to improve your essay writing skills, and thus, score in your assignments. Imagine if you were stuck with a sub-par college tutor. Who is going to help you improve your essays? You’ll definitely have a hard time producing good essays simply because you’ll never have the chance to actually read one.

Or, they could just help you save time. Heck, not everybody has the luxury of tens of hours to delve into 1000-page reference books just to find some examples. What if you had to prep for an athletics meet the whole week before your assignment deadline? Surely it would help if you had a well-researched essay to refer to.

Of course, the temptation of submitting the model essay as your own is extremely great. After all, the custom essays produced by these services are supposed to be completely original, and will never be given out to another client. Your teachers would probably never find out, especially since custom essay services rarely ask for your personal information to ensure their clients’ anonymity.

So, clearly custom essay services can either be a great help or a mere crutch, depending on the character of the student involved. If you are a responsible student who merely needs good help, then these services will surely be a boon. Of course, you would have to be pretty loaded as well. They aren’t cheap after all.

So, what must you have to really stand out? Excellent extracurricular participation? Advanced classes? Well, all of these would definitely help, but one of the most important would be essay writing skills. In fact, for large-scale scholarship competitions, good essay writing skills are of equal, if not of greater importance to good interviewing skills.

This is because judges read your essays before they actually get to meet you. Your essays provide scholarship judges the first means of ascertaining your character. You might be the most reponsible, dynamic and flexible individual out there, but if you can’t convey these qualities to the judges through your essays, you might not get a chance to even meet them during the final interviews. After all, good essay writing skills tend to be the key determinant in the preliminary rounds of the scholarship application process.

This means that you’ll have to ensure that as much effort as possible is put into writing any essays asked for by the scholarship application committee. You might be tired and weary after school examinations or prior scholarship applications, but if you think you can get yourself into the final interviews without well-written essays, dream on. Sharpening your essay writing skills will also be critical. Most often, you’ll see students practicing their interviewing skills with their teachers, friends, and paid councillors, but how many people actually practice their essay writing skills? Remember, there’s no use practicing your interviewing skills if you can’t even get pass the preliminary stages.

So, it should be clear to you that essay writing skills are highly important in applying for scholarships – especially the more lucrative ones. Like good interview skills, good essay writing skills can easily separate the very best students from a pack of good ones.

Although GMAC stresses that results given out through this system are comparable to results before the system was introduced, I’m not too sure about the ability of a computer to judge style and content. Understandably, the Analytical Writing Assessment component of the GMAT is compartmentalized enough that an advanced computer software package should be able to grasp the main ideas of a student’s essay and style. But errors in judgment can and will occur, and the worst part is that we will not be told anything about it. Heck, I’m not sure if the administrators would know anything about it either.

Of course, you could argue that grades given out by human essay scorers are not error-free either. Human essay scorers could very well take the easy way out when their individual workloads number in the thousands. That would mean giving high marks to long essays, multiple examples, and bombastic words, even if the overall package ends up mediocre. Computers, on the other hand, do not get tired, and will mark all essays based on the exact same criteria – ensuring that there’s no impartiality from different examiners.

So, it does seem that a computerized essay scoring system has its benefits. But whether the advantages from such a system outweigh the disadvantages, or whether the move is a profit-motivated or resulted-oriented one is unknown.

In normal conditions, you have all the time in the world to plan the essay, research for examples, compose the content and tweak the style of the essay. But when it comes to limited-time conditions, e.g. 90 minutes for a 1000+ word non-fiction essay, you have only a set amount of time to plan and compose the content. You have no time (or rather, are not allowed) to do any research. And I’ll even go so far to say that only a fool (or a professional) would allocate time to style.

So, this means that you have to adjust the principles and techniques used in normal essay writing to high speed essay writing. Instead of taking half an hour (or even one hour) to create a detailed essay plan, you’ll have to make a concise essay plan in ten to fifteen minutes. You do not have the luxury of brainstorming for very long or writing out every idea that comes to mind. Short forms and symbols will have to be used, with any variant of shorthand a bonus (if you are sufficiently good at it).

Most importantly, you will have to think as you write. Many of the best high speed essay writers are able to write non-stop, fleshing out the elaborations and examples in their heads. Students weak at writing essays quickly are known to pause very often between sentences and paragraphs, and this weakness alone drains most of the time they have. Admittedly, writing non-stop is a skill in a class of its own, but there are ways to train yourself towards achieving it.

How? Seemingly simple really. On the content side, examples and details have to be learned in-depth, with most basic facts committed to memory. On the stylistic side, an oft-used vocabulary coupled with memorised idioms and quotes are necessary. Last but not least, practice, practice and practice. The more often you write quickly, the better you get at high speed essay writing. Therefore, if you stop writing essays quickly for weeks, expect your essay writing speed to fall.

Overall, writing essays quickly might seem to be something all too impossible. But like any other skill, it is one that can be tamed through consistent practice and review. And given that almost all examinations these days come with essay writing papers (e.g. General Paper for A-Levels, English Language for O-Levels, and university examinations), there will never be a shortage of avenues to both practice and display your prowess.

Anyway, the concept is simple. Each participant is to pay a US$100 entry fee, which will then entitle the participant to submit one essay to the owners of the flower shop. If your essay is selected as a winner, you will then be the new owner of the Dial-A-Flower shop - valued at around US$100,000.

The owners of the flower shop hope to attract at least 1,000 participants, which will then net them the value of the flower shop, i.e. US$100 x 1000 = US$100,000. So far, they have managed to get 50 participants.

Oh, yes. The title of the essay is: Why I want to own a flower shop.

[News via The Mercury News]

flower+shop, dial-a-flower

1. Takeaways (What You Learnt)

   The people who will actually read your Personal Statement (e.g. admissions officers, Human Resource Dept. officers) are those that probably have a detailed listing of all your personal information, the activities you participated in and your achievements. So, repeating all this – in any form whatsoever – will not gain any points with them. What they will be looking for is what you learnt from your experiences. Through this, they believe that they will be able to judge your character, e.g. whether you are flexible and adaptable, or rigid and closed-minded.

   Generally, there are ways to fake these takeaways, but more often than not, they will be spotted as it is truly difficult to write about something you did not really experience or believe in.

2. Contributions (What You Gave)

   On the surface, many activities you will participate in will seem like one-sided affairs, where you are supposed to be the one receiving the benefits, e.g. school and competitions. Indeed, you are supposed to be learning from school, and gaining experience, reputation and prizes from competitions. But it is actually possible for you to contribute towards the success of these activities, thus advancing the arrangement into a two-way one. In fact, many of us do, but never bother writing about them in our Personal Statements. Consider the time when you debated on behalf of college and won. You would have brought prestige to your school and some measure of pride to your teachers and fellow students.

   Of course, you could fake your contributions. In fact, it should be easier than faking your takeaways since there are less people that write about their contributions to presumedly one-sided activities. But again, faked contributions tend to sound overly hackneyed, e.g. brought prestige, made someone happy, etc.

So, these are the two characteristics that, in my experience, are most often highlighted by guides on writing good Personal Statements. However, this does not mean that the rest of the characteristics are not as important. In fact, they could even be more important, but I will leave those for Part 3.

By first treating the Personal Statement as an essay, you will be taking the first step in “transcending” the general listing format of mediocre Personal Statements. As an essay, the Personal Statement then becomes a vehicle through which you can actually express you think and what you feel. But treating the Personal Statement as an essay alone is insufficient today. There are many other factors that can contribute towards a good Personal Statement.

In the early years, much could be gained by adding the “ooomph” factor to your Personal Statements – style, elegance and deep insight. However, today, too much style and too polished an essay could end up causing readers to dismiss the essay as an aided one – especially if the writer’s educational background does not seem to match the quality of the essay. And they probably would not be wrong given the large number of consultants and pay-per-essay repositories available on the internet.

So, what is the solution? Honing your essay writing skills naturally, spending substantial time on the Personal Statement, sticking to real experiences, keeping to essay writing techniques that you have mastered and adhering to common essay writing rules are among the steps you can take. Selecting the right type of Personal Statement is equally, if not more important. Not everybody has the necessary background and ability to write a deeply reflective or highly insightful essay after all.

There is nothing to fear though if you cannot write what people call the ideal Personal Statement. Do not forget that all your prospective readers want from your Personal Statement is a good look at your character and your potential. You do not need a perfect Personal Statement to do that.

Of course, this is the same whether we are talking about undergraduate or graduate admissions, but it seems we’re seeing more of such “unnecessary” resources being used in graduate admissions – a stage where applicants generally have more money at their disposal.

So, their (admissions officers) advice is to stick to your own writing skills, spend lots of time on the essay, and get someone close to proofread it for you. In my humble opinion, that kind of generalised advice is precisely why so many well-to-do applicants turn to admissions consultants, but I suppose there is really no way around the problem. Worse still, as universities become more discriminating (academically and essay-wise), more and more students will turn to “help” – no matter where they have to get it from.

[News via The Ticker]

But it seems that only recently (i.e. since the 1999 Columbine High School incident) has more stress and sensitivity been placed on this kind of “mental and emotional screening”. In fact, since the September 11 terrorist attacks, more and more of these “crisis papers” are appearing.

The interesting thing about this is that not only can you see the mental and emotional state of the writer from essays, but also from any form of written response, such as math or science questions – though the conclusions drawn are far more limited.

So, perk up when you’re writing your essays. After all, you never know when you’ll be recommended for counseling for writing an angst-filled essay in your exams.

mental+state, crisis+papers

Now, while you might be thinking: Hah? I say this is an important opportunity to remind us how useful essay writing skills really are. If a fifth grader can win $5,000, imagine how much a 17-year old can win. Of course, I’m simplifying things a lot, but I’m sure you get my point.