Essay Test: why do you want to attend our school?

Breugel, Fall of Icarus, 1558

The following essay was submitted by a student in response to the question:

 Why do you wish to attend our school?

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April 10th, 2011. Going through footage from this date of Hibbs Hall’s steps, I’m sure you noticed two legs sticking up toward the Virginia blue. You may have thought of Breughel’s Icarus. I did not. They belonged to my six-year-old brother, who, ravenous after seeing a bottle of Coke at the bottom of the trashcan, dove in. My stepmother and I pulled fruitlessly at his heels for a few minutes, until my dad told me to go into Hibbs.

Hibbs Hall

Inside, I found the English department, its offices full of books from floor to ceiling. I saw a few professors, their hands full of coffee cups and graded papers. I saw students hanging around, waiting to talk to them. I walked between them slowly, noting posters advertising an exhibit about Civil War-era medicine and a performance of The Bluest Eye.

I left the building for the Cabell Library, where my grime-festooned brother inexplicably triggered an alarm. Within Cabell, I found peace from the panic-inducing clangs: elegant encyclopedias, posed artfully, yet still bigger than my head.

Being on campus felt like reading one of those books, teeming with wisdom, ancient and modern. And I am one who loves the sensory seduction of books; even more, I love the seduction of the words inside them. I hope that not all that far along in my journey, I will publish my own book: “Spite, Marshmallows, and Other Tales from Summer Camp.”

But more bad news, I’m afraid (in Shafer this time). I interrogated a group of Norfolk-accented biology students about their schedules. Both people and books come under close scrutiny for me. Questions are my weapons and my gifts.

Shafer

I wish to spend the next four years of my life at VCU as a bleary-eyed, boundlessly curious student, my arm around a behemoth of a book, always smiling as I pass a certain trashcan on my way to class, composing stories to post on the walls of halls and minds.

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What can you tell about this student given what she has written?

Does she know VCU well? Why or why not?

Some guidebooks warn students about suing humor on application essays. Do you agree?

Would you want to meet this student or teach this student?

Is this student smart?

Can telling a story through detail, even about a college visit, make for a great essay?

Do the photos add to the story?

Did you find Icarus in Bruegel's painting?