6 Tips For Writing A Great University Admissions Essay

6 Tips For Writing A Great University Admissions Essay Each year I had a two hour seminar course every day, in which half of the grade is based on discussion, and the other half is on papers. This has given me unique experience both in practice with writing analytical papers on a text, as well as practice with reading and discussing a text in a deeper way. This experience will not only be beneficial to me in discussion, but will hopefully raise the quality of a seminar for the class as a whole. The small enrollment size of as well as the overall approach to education makes St. John’s the ideal place for me to extend my positive experience of high school into the college setting. Merriam-Webster defines satire as “trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.” Catch-22 clearly fits within this definition. However, I find this definition lacking, good satire should hold up a fun-house mirror to society to accentuate its problems and perhaps offer hope for the future. Unable to take this beloved course a second time, I chose my senior classes with more than a touch of melancholy. I was skeptical that even the most appealing humanities class, AP Literature, would be anything but anticlimactic by comparison. I’d become so accustomed to reading the function-focused writings of Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Thoreau, that I found it difficult to see “literature” as anything more than mere stories. I wanted substance that I could actually do something with, and I didn’t expect to find it in AP Lit. When I think about my principles, I think about how I aspire to the humility of Helen Burns and the resolution of Jane Eyre and the stoicism of St. John. But more than anything, I would like to live my life thoughtfully. When I think back, my favorite memories and my moments of greatest esteem are not those when I was victorious, but when I was thoughtful. I treasure the philosophical debates I’ve had with friends, the snow days spent reading in bed, the essays I labored over until they were a source of pride. When I was a freshman in high school, The Colbert Report debuted. Attending a religious school in rural Missouri, most of the faculty and students were rather conservative. I know too many people who are content with limited knowledge and are discontent with limited possessions. I want to expose myself to as many ideas and viewpoints as possible, and I want to be more than a consumer. Maybe not, but I loved the rules, the structure, and the big questions that surrounded organizing a government. I thought about these things constantlyâ€"while brushing my teeth, doing chores, and driving to school. Any pessimist can simply expose and discredit vice and folly. Even calling something “vice or “folly” discredits it. To make a reader care, an author must place an earnest heart within their satire and at least hint that we can do better. This would place satire in the realm of speculative fiction, the genre that includes science fiction and fantasy. St John’s advertises itself as the school for readers and thinkers, people who want more than a degree. I know too many people whose only hope for college is to earn a diploma, and if they can do it without learning or growing, even better. We have put up walls around ourselves and entrenched our ideas, ready for war. Satire is an ideological Trojan Horse, and, when used well, a powerful sneak attack on ignorance. My senior year, my class was assigned Kafka’s Metamorphosis. My peers neglected the reading, doing only what they had to do to maintain decent grades. I came to class having read the story and enjoyed it. They weren’t stupid; they knew the joke was on them, but it was funny enough that they watched the show and read the books. It certainly wasn’t enough to convince them to abandon their political identities,but it did have them absorbing ideas that they wouldn’t have entertained for a second if those ideas hadn’t been couched in wit. With the increasing division caused by social media’s ideological bubbles, satire has become a necessary means to provoke thought and conversation outside of one’s normal exposure. I want to spend the rest of my life learning as much I can, because getting a diploma without expanding your mind is like saving a receipt for something you don’t own. I know too many people who want to silence their opponents instead of understanding them. I want a safe space for inquiry, not a safe space for ignorance.