Question by Liberator: Does this sound about right?
The college application question:
Articulate the goals you have established for yourself and your efforts to accomplish these. Give at least one specific example that demonstrates your work ethic/diligence.
My answer:
If all my goals were brought together, they’d have a single underlying motivation: independence. Ever since I realized I was living off of someone else’s hard work, I decided that someday I would break away and be fully functional by myself. In America, education is the way to go in order to become a valuable asset to society. I picked up on that right after 6th grade. I saw my grades go up in middle school and especially in high school. I was nominated for the air force leadership academy and I immediately chose to go. For one week I learned how to live by myself and much more. I still look for ways that can help me to obtain the skills to become independent. That is why I have yet to go to college.
Is this alright? I may have a few grammatical errors … if so can you please point it out ^_^ Thank you.
Best answer:
Answer by Scott
Good job, on the whole. Here are some suggestions I have:
Change “education is the way to go in order to become…” to “education is the best way to become…” It is less wordy and more clear.
When talking about improving your grades, you sound passive (“I saw my grades go up…”). Use more assertive language (“I realized this after 6th grade and steadily improved my grades in middle school and especially high school.”)
I would omit the final sentence. If you feel that you need a closing sentence like that, make sure you connect how the going to college will be another step towards reaching your goals (“Attending and excelling in college (if you really want to brown-nose, name the college here) is the next step towards reaching my goal of independence, as it will teach me to be self-reliant in addition to helping me grow in knowledge and wisdom.”) I’m not sure I even like my suggested example there, but do you see what I’m getting at?
Also, while I think your paragraph is pretty good, I am not sure it does a great job answering the question. You list one of your goals (Independence), and you state that you realize that education creates independence, but you don’t describe how it does that, or how you realized this. I think it’s great that you mention the grades and the air force leadership academy, but if this is your example of demonstrating your work ethic and diligence, describe some of the tasks you did at the academy that showed your diligence.
Good luck!
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!