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Is it bad to be TOO poetic in a college essay?
I showed my common application essay to a teacher of mine and he said it was beautiful, but that it was too poetic, i.e., not straight forward (maybe too flowery?) for admissions officers to fully appreciate unless they're English majors or something of the sort. If I write my essay in layman's terms, I'm not sure it would due my topic justice the way that I wanted. I'm writing about learning has changed my perspective in life, so when I write "beauitfully" it's to express the way that I see the world now. Should I ignore his advice to re-write it in a more "beurocratic" way? I've seen essays accepted by Ivy Leagues that use high vocabulary.
Granted, I may not speak exactly how I wrote my essay, but like I mentioned, it's the only way I can full show my feelings toward the topic.
3 Answers
- ?Lv 76 years ago
Yes, an essay can be too poetic. You should not use "high vocabulary" (whatever that is) just to try to impress people. Should you rewrite? That is up to you. Admissions officers are looking to see how applicants express themselves and also what they reveal about themselves beyond the transcript and test score. You have to be true to yourself. try to look at it this way. If it was Friday at 4:00 PM and you had read 100 essays a day all week and this was your 99th essay of the day, would the essay you wrote be interesting enough to read or just pretentious? Would the reader of you essay know more about you than they did before reading it?
- Anonymous6 years ago
If you're using "high vocabulary" just for the sake of using "high vocabulary," chances are pretty good that you're using words you don't understand, and you're going to end up saying things you don't mean.
And in any case, you'll sound stupid. And it has nothing to do with whether the person reading it is an "English major or something of the sort"; English majors probably detest fake "high vocabulary" MORE than other people.
Just write in your own voice. And throw your thesaurus into an incinerator.
- 6 years ago
Well I am not in collage yet but my advice is to maybe re write it and make it half and half. Or you could try to do it the way your teacher wants it. My English teacher is super strict about how our eassays are done. It sort of depends for you.
