College essays vary widely on the topics discussed but are all written with the intent of that student trying their best to appeal to the university of their picking. In Kerry Dirk’s essay about genres she explains the term rhetorical situation as the goal in which the writing is trying to achieve. The rhetorical situation for the genre of college essays is the administration team of a university reading the essay and deciding that they need this student to be apart of their school. Students are told to write about something they are passionate about, something that impacted their lives. College essays are supposed to be one page of writing that encompasses all of the best of our abilities as a person and a writer. The genre created is one of reflective stories that have the purpose of showing the best sides of the author. I chose to write my college application essay about my passion of horse back riding. I tried my best to show off my accomplishments in hopes of impressing colleges, while also incorporating lessons I had learned through horse back riding competitively. We as students try to write pieces that show we are unique, studious individuals that would be great assets if added to the student body of the given college. I wrote about the work ethic I gained through riding and how I learned to set goals and work towards achieving them. Dirk also uses the term location in her essay, meaning where is this essay going to go when written and who will be reading it. High school students must remember who they are writing their essay for. I opened my college essay up by using the comparison of Tiger Woods and golf being the same as myself and horse back riding. With my location of a college administrator in mind I chose the example of someone with a very apparent passion that would be known by my location. My college essay has been one of my proudest pieces I have written that I feel truly reflects on myself as an individual.
Victoria, note the change I made from “their” to “they are” (highlighted in red). Try to tie this back more explicitly to Dirk’s “Navigating Genres”. You discuss your own riding essay only briefly in two sentences at the end. I want to read more about how you used that topic to respond to the “rhetorical situation” and “location”.
Great work! Try to expand upon your usage of personal experiences and what purpose they played in making you a marketable student. Good job mentioning rhetorical situation but see if you can add an explanation of the location in there.
Good flow at the end of the essay, but I recommend attempting to merge the two parts of the paragraph in order to attempt to explain the similarities and differences between your experience and the generic approach to college applications. I think this will make for better fluidity in general throughout the piece. The beginning is a little fractured in how each sentence builds on previous ones so attempt to use transition phrases and work on general flow. Overall, enjoyable read.