College essay review?
I am applying for admission to Columbia’s department of Biomedical Engineering because I offer a unique set of skills and knowledge that will set me apart from the rest of the students. I am going to earn Associates of Science degree at Valencia Community College in Electronics Engineering with a specialization in Lasers & Photonics Engineering this semester with an approximate grade point average of 3.7. I feel that my experience with lasers and electronics will complement my Biomedical Engineering education gained at Columbia.
Columbia is the right choice for me because I need a University that offers state of the art technology to study and perform experiments I have personally researched and designed. For example, I am currently working on two biomedical designs. The first is an acute and chronic leukemia treatment that utilizes a coherent light source to filter, target and vaporize immature white blood cells. This treatment would be intended to kill cancerous white blood cells that have spilled into the blood stream and destroy them before they begin to attack other body organs.
The second is a generic treatment designed to warm a cancer patient’s blood temperature to 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit (which is the known temperature at which cancerous cells die), and then simultaneously cool the blood down to the normal body temperature using a semi conductive Peltier device. This design will utilize a temporal catheter such as one’s used in kidney/liver failure patients, but instead will filter blood flow out of a cancer infected organ. Induced Hyperthermia is a well known treatment for cancer worldwide, however is generally unpracticed in the United States.
As you have read, I need to attend a University that can extract my true potential. Columbia’s Biomedical Engineering department is on the cutting edge of scientific research and development in the biomedical field and that is exactly where I need to be.
Comments
The ideas in your essay are good. The fact that you are answering specifically for Columbia is good (I was at a Cornell prospective student overnight for engineering students this past fall, and the woman speaking about engineering admissions said 80% of applicants don't address the school specifically/answer the question). But the way in which you communicate your ideas needs some work. I'm just going to point out a few things that I noticed in your essay:
- Unique set of skills/knowledge is really vague, and "set me apart from the rest of the students" is awkward to put in there, unless the question literally was "What sets you apart from out other applicants/students?" The point is to set yourself apart from the other applicants, but you don't need to explicitly state that in your essay. Let the information in your essay do that for you.
- They have your transcripts, you don't need to use their essay to tell them that your GPA is 3.7.
- Randomly capitalizing university isn't necessary.
- You talk vaguely about "state of the art technology"... do you actually know what lab equipment is available at Columbia? Maybe you should look it up, pick something that applies to work you would like to do in the future, and include it in your essay.
- "would be intended" does not sound like correct grammar, I'd consider revising that sentence.
- I personally wouldn't use parenthesis in a formal essay, but that's just me. Maybe rearrange that sentence and try a semi-colon, or break it up into two sentences.
- The phrase "as you have read" is not necessary. It comes across as juvenile, and detracts from your overall essay.
I think your research and experiments are the most interesting part of your essay. I'd really highlight that more, but possibly include more of your personal experiences with that instead of just reiterating what you researched. Then again, I don't actually know the essay question so that may not be necessary. Good luck getting into Columbia!