The student was incredibly proud to have finished her essay a full week before the deadline. However, after reviewing it, we felt that her chances of acceptance—especially to Columbia University—were too slim given the current level of depth and personal insight.

We suggested a complete restructuring, incorporating flashbacks from her childhood through high school to vividly illustrate how her aspirations were shaped, from her backyard to the future she envisioned on Columbia’s campus.

Understanding the importance of the essay, her parents immediately agreed to the revisions and sought our assistance in crafting the new version. To make a long story short, the revised essay played a pivotal role, as evidenced by Columbia's acceptance letter, which arrived just before Christmas—the best gift she could have received.

Here is her original pre-submission essay:

For an end-of-school party, a good friend had a sleepover, and invited the usual group composed of closely-knit females. Being that it was the end of junior year, I became extremely excited for the end of school and for the party as the date grew nearer and nearer. A week in advance, I had even picked out what movie I would bring—the old Mission Impossible, since I was already sick of seeing every possible variation of a “chick flick.” School ended, and later that night we all arrived at her house. We did the usual—ordered pizza, washed grapes, opened bags of pretzels, unwrapped five bars of Godiva raspberry dark chocolate, and dug in to the pile of freshly baked cookies. Everyone agreed on watching my movie first, so we all found a cozy spot on the sofa, and waited in anticipation for Mission Impossible to begin. But the DVD player was not working. We were using a newly purchased plasma television, and apparently, the hostess’s dad tried fixing it, and had several technicians to look at it, but none of them could get the TV to work with the DVD player. I volunteered to look, since I have a natural talent for repairing things. Like Ethan Hunt’s mission to steal the ‘NOC’ list of agents, there were many barriers that were keeping me from fixing the television.

The wiring looked fairly simple—there were the three cables from the DVD player that were plugged into the television, VHS cables, the satellite cables, the audio system cable, and the power cable. All were plugged into the appropriate designated areas, so what was the problem? I looked over my shoulder, and everyone looked bored already. It had been at most ten minutes since I started looking at the system, and the grapes were half finished, the cookies were gone, the four out of five bars of chocolate were nowhere to be seen, and there were only a handful of pretzels left. Not only was I working against this stubborn plasma TV, but also the time that was keeping the group of hungry female teenagers from eating the rest of the food. I asked for the manual, but I was warned that her dad had already examined the booklet from the front page to the last numerous times. I was thoroughly convinced that I could figure out the problem before pizza arrived. I found the page that included information concerning the installation of media players, and I read it through, step by step. The movie still did not work. I even tried skipping forward a couple of chapters, but nothing appeared on the crystal clear screen. I tried switching the DVD cables to other output channels and pressing different buttons, but again, it was a fruitless attempt. The pizza had arrived, and everyone was getting their hearty portion. I refused to give in to the temptation, and I poured over each word in the manual with two times the concentration as before. And then I noticed a phrase that I had not taken heed of before. I followed its obscure and vague directions, and I saw a flickering light from the front. As I emerged from behind the television set, everyone had their head turned as they saw the end of the scene where Tom Cruise has successfully  hacked completed his mission and is hoisted up by the wire but accidentally drops his knife. The TV worked, but something else was missing. The sound.

With enough patience, I was able to figure out what was wrong with the plasma TV. And yes, the sound system worked after a bit of fumbling with the remote. Since I had fixed my first pair of rollerblades at the age of seven, I have been on a constant lookout for things that need repairing. Whenever my dad needs a helper, or my mom has a household appliance that does not work, or my brother needs his computer speakers fixed, I am always there. I love helping people, and it seems that wherever I go—even to a friend’s house, I am always on the job.

You may continue to read the new essay after reconstruction: A Successful Columbia Essay to see if you agree.

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