personal statement question Forum

[justadude55]

i open with this sentence:

My heart pounded, and I felt a colossal lump weighing down my throat like a two-ton dumbbell

should i take out the dumbbell comparison -- too corny? stupid, or is it alright?

[CanadianWolf]

I would delete it since it seems overly dramatic.

[2807]

It is too simple. Leave it out for now and move on. Give me the next few lines or something to see if we can group-effort attack it and come up with something for you?

dig it?

[justadude55]

d

[ShuckingNotJiving]

I would suggest that you do not use that sentence anywhere in your essay. Think about what you're saying and describe it delicately. There's nothing sensory conveyed through that sentence. No understanding of how you felt. It seems like you just stuck in a hyperbole for hyperbole's sake.

[kellower]

I agree with everyone else that I would not use the sentence as it just feels too cliche-ish. Personally, I would in fact take out a lot of the "fancy" words. It read to me like you used a thesaurus on about every other word and it took awhile for me to figure out that you stutter (I think?). I am not an admissions counselor, but it seems not only do they want someone with strong intellect and vocabulary, but someone who can communicate to the reader without the reader having to work to figure out what the person is saying. For me at least, the paragraph just felt cumbersome to get through, I'm not sure if you stutter or what the issue is for sure and so many phrases were repetitive... "mission to marzipan. Now Mission to Marzipan..." "most agreeable. Nonetheless, with each agreeable..." "ordering my ice cream, my ice cream had ordered...". Just my two cents worth.

[justadude55]

I agree with everyone else that I would not use the sentence as it just feels too cliche-ish. Personally, I would in fact take out a lot of the "fancy" words. It read to me like you used a thesaurus on about every other word and it took awhile for me to figure out that you stutter (I think?). I am not an admissions counselor, but it seems not only do they want someone with strong intellect and vocabulary, but someone who can communicate to the reader without the reader having to work to figure out what the person is saying. For me at least, the paragraph just felt cumbersome to get through, I'm not sure if you stutter or what the issue is for sure and so many phrases were repetitive... "mission to marzipan. Now Mission to Marzipan..." "most agreeable. Nonetheless, with each agreeable..." "ordering my ice cream, my ice cream had ordered...". Just my two cents worth.

no, it's along the same lines but a different communicative thing. in the rest of the paragraph, i am trying to generate interest without saying directly what it is. i'm going the short story route, because in my life, you learn much more about a writer based off how they tell a story. i did take the dumbbell reference out, though. that was purely cliched in the end as a previous user wrote.