Let's Help This Musician with Her College Application Essay!

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Essay Prompt: A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

Our Sparkler's Response:

From the time that I was eight years old to present, music has captivated me and has taught me many lessons. From my music background I have learned the values of responsibility, musicality, and most of all, the importance of having passion. It is this establishment of pure dedication in my life that would allow me to bring diversity to a college community; I put passion into every aspect of my life and am proud to say that its passion that makes me unique.

To me, diversity is a characteristic that makes one unique amidst a particular environment. When one has such a strong motivation within in them, you can see it in their eyes; a drive to be better, a need to share that passion, and a genuine love for what you do. These are qualities I possess and qualities that I owe to my background in music. Piano sparked my passion, I began taking lessons when I was eight and have been growing in piano ever since. In middle school I joined band, which truly ignited my passion for music. It was then that I felt a part of a family- a family called music and I wanted to grow in it, to be the best I could be, to speak fluently in the language of musicality, and to share my new found passion. I owe my passion to piano and band. Since my devotion for music erupted, I play over ten instruments, have kept up piano for nearly ten years, led the mellophone and French horn sections in band, obtained multiple solos, and became field commander of my marching band. I am incredibly proud to have been so involved in music where my passion could truly flourish.

Overall, passion has made me a better person.  I am now not only passionate but compassionate; I have a greater appreciation for everything around me and drive within me to put passion into everything I do. My dedication for music has also made me more passionate towards life around me, where music is becoming more and more influential in our culture. Music personally influences me on a daily basis and is always capable of brightening my day and helping me to be a more positive person.

Diversity is not always defined by race, sex, economic status, or any other aspects of the like, but by what sets an individual apart from the rest. I am unique because my dedication to music and life in general is a motivating factor to me on a day to day basis.   I would be honored to bring my dedication, my drive, and my passion to a college community and share my love of life and music.

Our thoughts:

Hi! Thanks for sharing your essay!  You do such a great job of conveying your enthusiasm and dedication to music. It was definitely clear how much of an impact being involved in music has had on your life. Here are a couple suggestions for how to improve the great start you’ve already got here.

First, some little things:

1. In the final sentence of the first paragraph, the “its” should be “it’s.”
2. In the first sentence of the second paragraph “in” might fit what you are trying to say better that “amidst.”
3. In the second sentence of the second paragraph, “within in” is a typo and should just say “within.”
4. In your opening sentence, you don't need to say "to present." It reads a bit awkwardly, plus it's implied.

Here are some “big picture” thoughts about your essay:

1. The essay requests asks for “an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.” You obviously chose to focus on the first half of that prompt, and that's fine. You do a really good job of explaining your background with music, but I think that you might be able to paint a more vivid picture by sharing a specific example of you playing an instrument for the first time, rushing from one instrument practice to another, or some other musical event that sticks out in your mind.
2. Keeping with that theme of diversity, I noticed that you use some form of the word passion 15 times in your essay. Working to use more variation in your word choice would add more color to your essay and give you an opportunity to really let the reader know the depth of your love of music.
3. The paragraph about how your passion has led to compassion and other great qualities is a bit off-topic. In your essay, you try to explain and prove that being an extremely passionate musician adds diversity to the college community. You should spend that paragraph's worth of space showing your reader that this is true. One way to do this is to give the reader a specific example, as I mentioned before. You want to be memorable, so give 'em something to remember.

Overall, you’ve got a really great foundation for this essay, and focusing a little more on describing specifics will make your essay unique (ehem, thus adding to diversity). As a reader, I really want to hear more about your growth through music to find out what led to the passion you feel so deeply.

Do you have any tips for this Sparkler?