Sample result
Sample feedback on a first draft
Here’s my first draft for the prompt about a challenge or setback. It’s 712 words.
Overall
The strongest moment is the paragraph where you are restringing your violin at 11 p.m. the night before the audition. It is specific and it is yours. Right now it arrives in paragraph four, after three paragraphs of background, and a reader decides early whether they are curious.
What to work on
- Opening: you start with “Ever since I was young, music has been my passion.” Could you start inside a scene instead? Which moment would put a reader in the room?
- Paragraphs two and three summarise eight years of lessons. What does a reader need in order to understand the audition, and what can go?
- The ending says you “learned the value of perseverance.” What did you actually do differently afterwards? A concrete action shows that lesson better than naming it.
- Length: you are at 712 words. Cutting the background summary would bring you under the 650-word limit.
Questions to answer before your next draft
- What did you think in the moment the string snapped?
- Who else was there, and what did they say?
- What is one thing you do now that you did not do before that night?
What Clara did not do
No sentences were rewritten. Every change in the next draft will be yours. That is what colleges expect, and it is why the essay will sound like you.
