I suspect it's not stupid readers, it's me trying to be too clever. It doesn't really work, does it?

Hey, everyone. I need some help with this grad school essay. Stuff that I know needs work: I need to cut the number of characters by more than half. The opening can probably be a lot shorter, but I'm not sure what to cut out. I'm switching between formal and informal style a lot, and I need to settle it somewhere. I'm not sure how to conclude it. I'm not really sure how well I'm "selling myself": Berkeley is my absolute first choice school, but my grades and test scores just put me at borderline levels for acceptance, so I need this essay to show that I really want to go there and that it would be a really good idea for them to accept me, and I'm not sure that it's doing either one of those terribly well. (Edit: be brutal. I'm pretty sure this essay needs to be torn apart several times before it'll be done.)

While doing research at the REU at Cal Poly this past summer, I worked on a progam in Maple to produce Mahonian statistics for various placement rules. I had worked out programs for most of the simple rules, but the more complicated ones gave me trouble. One Friday afternoon, I figured out how to get the program to run properly. I started inputting some numbers as the variables, and I generated a fairly large table of output. My partner and I spent a few hours analyzing this data, and we came up with a few conjectures based on the patterns we saw. Some of the patterns we saw were approximately what we had expected, but others didn’t seem to make much sense.

My partner and I discussed the problem over dinner. I commented that the numbers just didn’t make sense. I went over the algorithm for the program in my head, trying to figure out why that process was producing those numbers. Then I realized: the algorithm I was considering actually wasn’t the one in the program. I’d included an incremental in one loop when it should have been in a different one. The data we had been analyzing all afternoon were completely invalid.

I decided that I’d take some time over the weekend to work out the flowchart for the program, and then fix the code Monday morning. I finished the flowchart by Saturday night, and figured that I’d take some time off to go into town on Sunday. Sunday morning, though, I realized that I couldn’t just let the incorrect program and data sit on the hard drive when I knew how to fix it. I went to my office and corrected the code, then ran enough input through to have a fairly good output table and a conjecture to discuss with my partner and our advisor Monday morning.

I think that that sort of drive to make things work and make sense is why I am so interested in math. I love the feeling of completing a proof and getting all the variables to fall into their proper places, and I’m willing to work hard and puzzle over things until I can figure them out.

One of the reasons that Berkeley is my first-choice school is the option to concentrate in Foundations of Mathematics and the strong logic program. The course that I’ve found the most interesting as an undergraduate was a graduate-level course I took in mathematical foundations of science. My first-semester project for Senior Seminar deals with lattices and order, and I plan to base my second-semester thesis on some topic in foundations of math. Also, I have been president of the Tulane branch of Women in Science since sophomore year. I’ve appreciated the support structure this organization created, and I’ve tried to have at least one program dealing with women in mathematics each year, so I would be very interested in being involved with the Noetherian Ring.

Just to make it clear, Hil, your piece starts with the line

While doing research at the REU

is that right?

I think it'd be a good idea for anyone posting their pieces here, if it's not incredibly obvious, to say STARTS HERE or something like it. Maybe even make any piece be a separate post.

[EDIT: Aha, your edit makes it clear!]

Also, you need it cut by half?

My first thought is, who's going to be reading this? Because me not knowing much about math and not knowing anything about the educational institutions, this sentence:

While doing research at the REU at Cal Poly this past summer, I worked on a progam in Maple to produce Mahonian statistics for various placement rules.

contains 27 words, six of which are meaningless to me. It might as well read "While doing mahonian programs at REU Poly I wrote a placement in Cal" for all the difference it makes.

But if the intended audience understands them, and they contribute to your story, just ignore me.

I think the central point of your story, as narrative, is the bit where you can't bear to take Sunday off when you know you can get hold of the good data. That's the key point, so cut around that.

As someone who knows Nothing-with-a-capital-N about math, but spends a lot of time reading stories and essays, I'd say the story in the first five paragraphs needs to be cut drastically, and the hook-- the point-- of the essay, which currently occupies only the last paragraph and therefore comes across as almost an afterthought, needs to be moved up and made longer.

t edit xposted with John, who says all good things.

But if the intended audience understands them, and they contribute to your story, just ignore me.

Hm. "REU" and "Cal Poly" ought to be familiar to the people reading it, but the rest of the sentence doesn't make much sense without a lot of other info. (Actually, now that I look at it again, it isn't phrased terribly well even to someone who knows what the words mean.) I can probably get that part to be clearer.

I think the central point of your story, as narrative, is the bit where you can't bear to take Sunday off when you know you can get hold of the good data. That's the key point, so cut around that.

Good point. I can probably take out a bunch of stuff from the first two paragraphs to get to that more quickly. (And hey, taking out a bunch of that first paragraph would mean that I wouldn't have to figure out a way to explain exactly what I was doing, since the "why am I writing this program" was about three pages of our final paper.)

I'd say the story in the first five paragraphs needs to be cut drastically, and the hook-- the point-- of the essay, which currently occupies only the last paragraph and therefore comes across as almost an afterthought, needs to be moved up and made longer.

OK. I can do that.

I think Rebecca and I agree. But we always agree, right?

OK, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but is the whole point of this story "I'm an obsessive who can't rest until I've solved my math problems"? because, much as we all love you for it, how is that going to distinguish you as an applicant from the other mathy people?

but is the whole point of this story "I'm an obsessive who can't rest until I've solved my math problems"? because, much was we all love you for it, how is that going to distinguish you as an applicant from the other mathy people?

Very good point. I think I need to somehow make it less "obsessive" and more "dedicated," or something. And I think that shrinking that section and expanding the rest about my specific interests might do that. Maybe if I put in some more about what I'm working on now, since it's more representative of what I want to concentrate in in grad school, anyway.

Deletes in // // and additions in (( )). Mind you, I haven't the faintest clue about your subject, so if I ruin the line of thought, ignore me.

While doing research at the REU at Cal Poly this past summer, I worked on a progam in Maple to produce Mahonian statistics for various placement rules. I had worked out programs for most of the simple rules, but the more complicated ones gave me trouble. One Friday afternoon, I //figured out how to get the program to run properly. I// started inputting some numbers as the variables, and I generated a fairly large table of output. My partner and I spent a few hours analyzing this data, //and we came up with a few conjectures based on the patterns we saw. Some of the patterns we saw were approximately what we had expected,// but //others// ((some of the patterns)) didn’t seem to make much sense.

((As)) My partner and I discussed the problem //over dinner. I commented that the numbers just didn’t make sense.// ((,)) I went over the algorithm for the program in my head, trying to figure out why that process was producing those numbers. Then I realized//:// ((that)) the algorithm I was considering actually wasn’t the one in the program. I’d included an incremental in one loop when it should have been in a different one. The data we had been analyzing all afternoon were completely invalid.

I decided that I’d take some time over the weekend to work out the flowchart for the program, and then fix the code Monday morning. I finished the flowchart by Saturday night, //and figured that I’d take some time off to go into town on Sunday.// ((but by)) Sunday morning//, though,// I realized that I couldn’t just let the incorrect program and data sit on the hard drive when I knew how to fix it. ((Or maybe something like: "but by Sunday I was itching to fix the code" For some more urgency)) I went to my office and corrected the code, then ran enough input through to have a fairly good output table and a conjecture to discuss with my partner and our advisor Monday morning.

I think that that sort of drive to make things work and make sense is why I am so interested in math. I love the feeling of completing a proof and getting all the variables to fall into their proper places, and I’m willing to work hard and puzzle over things until I can figure them out.

One of the reasons that Berkeley is my first-choice school is the option to concentrate in Foundations of Mathematics and the strong logic program. The course that I’ve found the most interesting as an undergraduate was a graduate-level course I took in mathematical foundations of science. My first-semester project for Senior Seminar deals with lattices and order, and I plan to base my second-semester thesis on some topic in foundations of math. Also, I have been president of the Tulane branch of Women in Science since sophomore year. I’ve appreciated the support structure this organization created, and I’ve tried to have at least one program dealing with women in mathematics each year, so I would be very interested in being involved with the Noetherian Ring. ((Comment: This paragraph is more difficult, but I think you could drop the sentence about the graduate-level course? And maybe drop the phrase in the last sentence about having programs dealing with women. Depends on how important that is to you.))

Don't know if this halves your word count, but I hope it gives you some ideas to work with. Good luck!

Testing to see if we can actually do strikeout tags here: deleted stuff regular stuff inserted stuff