Young Writers Society

UWC stands for United World College. It is an international Junior-Senior high school with many locations around the world. This is my application essay. Please give it an honest critique. I want it to be the best it can be!

Prompt: Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

The person who has undoubtedly had the largest influence on me throughout my life is by far my mother. She has inspired and encouraged me to take chances and pursue my personal goals. Her influence has also shaped my character and personality by great measure. She is exceptionally kind, even in situations that most would lose their patience in. She does not overreact or seek revenge. I have learned patience, virtue, and kindness from observing her actions. I believe that she has made me able to be kind, even to those who are not kind to me .Even though She has not lived a perfect life, she knows how to make the best out of tough situations and how to smile through the pain. From this example, I have learned to stay strong when things seem to be going wrong for me. She is there to comfort me and support me when I am going through a rough situation. She has definitely made me emotionally stronger. She also provides me with helpful advice when I need it. Her advice has made me able to provide advice of my own to others who need help. There are many things that I would not have been able to do without her support, but with her help I have decided to follow through with my dreams. She has encouraged me to excel in school and get the best grades I am capable of. She also encouraged and assisted me in starting the knitting club I had aspired to create. As a young child I was shy and I had trouble interacting with other children. She taught me bravery and social skills that have continued to help me throughout my entire life. I developed my sense of humor from her, and it has helped me gain many friends and impress many of my superiors. I know the reasons that I have so many friends and am able to get along well with others are all things I learned from my mother. She has taught me to be a good, reliable friend by being one of my best friends. I believe that having a good relationship my mother has helped me with all the relationships in my life. She has shown me how to be happy with and appreciate what I already have and to accept the things that I cannot have. She has several medical conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, that cause her to be in pain almost all of the time, but she still manages to live her life. I can not describe how inspiring this is to me. The way she has influenced me the most, though, is by being an excellent and selfless mother to her children. I think I become a little more like her every day.

Hey Lauren! You haven't written any reviews, but this looks important so I'll glance over it.

The idea of the Influence question is to see what kind of people you find as a role model. The more interesting the person and your reaons, the better it will look. Not to say your mother isn't interesing, but everybody has a mother, and every good child thinks that their mother is the most amazing person in the world. You should pick someone who is more unexpected, someone who can be attributed to your own passion or ambition.

Don't just talk about how this person has influenced you. You should talk about what specifically they have done, what single event changed your view of the world. The more passion you have when you say these things, the more effect they will have on whoever is reading your application.

Lastly: don't forget the basics of literacy and presentation. Break it up into paragraphs, and make each sentence continue from the previous, rather than sticking a list together.

Good luck with the application!

You're applying to UWC? That's amazing! I just applied to the British committee myself, although I really doubt I have any chance of getting in. Isn't the whole thing brilliant, though?

Anyway, your application.

Although Tenyo mentioned that your mother was not perhaps the best choice for an inspirational person, I actually think it was good. Yes, mothers are likely to be the most written about person, but that doesn't matter as long as you write about it in a good way!

The person who has undoubtedly had the largest influence on me throughout my life is by far my mother. She has inspired and encouraged me to take chances and pursue my personal goals.

The first thing I think when I read this is 'how'? How does your mother do this? It's all very well to say that she helps you, but you need to make this application really stand out, and therefore you can't skim over things. This goes for a lot of this paragraph, actually - it seems like you're trying to cram a lot of good things about your mother in, without saying much in particular.

Right now, you're saying a lot of things about your mother. Lovely things, yes, but nothing that really centres this paragraph and brings it together in a coherent and powerful way.

One thing that would be really great for you to do would be to take the idea of you struggling in childhood, and instead of making it an aside actually centre this entire thing around it. Showing how she influenced you would be much more powerful than the list you have at the moment that simply tells. It's a bit like writing a story, really!

Hope this helps - PM me with any questions!

-Amy