University of Georgia Essay Example by an Accepted Student
The University of Georgia is a large public research institute and one of the top public schools in the nation. If it is one of your school choices, it’s important to write strong essays to help your application stand out. In this post, we’ll share an essay a real student has submitted to the University of Georgia. (Names and identifying information have been changed, but all other details are preserved). Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. Read our University of Georgia essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompt. Prompt: Tell us an interesting or amusing story about yourself from your high school years. Cooking is one of those activities at which people are either extremely talented or completely inept. Personally, I’ve found that I fall right in the middle, with neither prodigal nor abhorrent talents. After all, it’s just following instructions, right? Unfortunately, one disastrous night in my kitchen has me questioning that logic. The task was simple enough: cook a turkey stir fry. In theory, it’s an extremely simple dish. However, almost immediately, things went awry. While I was cutting onions, I absentmindedly rubbed at my eyes and smeared my mascara. (Keep this in mind; it’ll come into play later.) I then proceeded to add the raw turkey to the vegetable pot. Now, as any good chef knows, this means that either the vegetables will burn or the turkey will be raw. I am admittedly not a good chef. After a taste test, I decided to take a page out of the Spice Girls’ book and “spice up my life”, adding some red chili paste. This was my fatal mistake. The bottle spilled everywhere. Pot, counter, floor, I mean everywhere. While trying to clean up the mess, my hands ended up covered in sauce. Foolishly, I decided to taste my ruined meal anyway. My tongue felt like it was on fire and I sprinted to the bathroom to rinse my mouth. I looked in the mirror and, noticing the raccoon eyes formed by my mascara, grabbed a tissue. What I had neglected to realize was that chili paste had transferred to the tissue—the tissue which I was using to wipe my eyes. I don’t know if you’ve ever put chili paste anywhere near your eyes, but here’s a word of advice: don’t. Seriously, don’t. I fumbled blindly for the sink handle, mouth still on fire, eyes burning, presumably looking like a character out of a Tim Burton film. After I rinsed my face, I sat down and stared at my bowl of still-too-spicy and probably-somewhat-raw stir fry, wondering what ancient god had decided to take their anger out on me that night, and hoping I would never incur their wrath ever again.
This is a great essay for the prompt! Don’t assume that the admissions committee wants deep, personal stories with hard-earned lessons in every essay. They are people too, and they want to be engaged with amusing stories. This essay does a great job of being light, playful, and funny, while still revealing a lot about the student who wrote it. Starting off with the story the student chose, it works so well because it is so specific. Focusing the essay on a short period of time—making dinner—allows the student to include a lot of details that wouldn’t have fit in an essay that tried to explain their entire history with cooking. This is proof that zeroing in on what might seem like a mundane experience can make for a really strong essay. Another thing this essay does really well is structure the story in a clear, sequential manner. The essay starts by setting expectations for the student’s cooking abilities, which builds anticipation for the reader. Then, the essay follows the various steps of the cooking process almost like following a recipe. The beginning of each paragraph establishes each new step of the story—”The task was simple enough”; “After a taste test”; “Foolishly, I decided to taste my ruined meal anyway”; “I fumbled blindly for the sink handle”—which creates momentum for the essay that makes reading it quick and easy. Perhaps what makes this essay so stellar is how much the student’s voice shines through. This student is unapologetically themselves and admits to their shortcomings as a chef. By sharing a funny and embarrassing story, the admissions committee reading the essay gets a much better sense of the student’s character and personality than if they had shared a story about the time they scored the winning goal at the soccer game. The language is casual and informal and it feels much more like the student is telling a story than writing an essay, which should be the goal of any college essay. Another aspect of this essay that really allows the student’s voice to shine and makes it so enjoyable to read is the humor. Including humor into essays can sometimes be hard, but when it’s done successfully it give the reader a sense of your personality and can brighten their day. Including interjections like “(Keep this in mind; it’ll come into play later.)” and references to pop culture like “I decided to take a page out of the Spice Girls’ book and ‘spice up my life'” gave the audiences little chuckles as they read. Especially for a prompt that wants an amusing story, the humorous tone and inclusion of jokes throughout the essay really made this essay stand out. There isn’t much this student could do to improve the essay. It’s very well-written and a perfect response to the prompt. However, to really strengthen the essay, the student could remove the first paragraph. The first paragraph isn’t bad, and it starts to introduce some of the humor seen throughout the essay, but it doesn’t directly relate to the story being told. Removing the first paragraph would allow the student to jump right into the action of the story and have more words to add details and more jokes during the rest of the essay. Do you want feedback on your University of Georgia essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!
Essay Example – Humor in Cooking
What the Essay Did Well
What Could Be Improved
Where to Get Your University of Georgia Essays Edited
