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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Paste it here. I doubt it good.[/quote]

Not the OP but I asked it to create one that I cross posted to the other essay thread. Here it is below. Thoughts? Personally, I think it is better than many of the samples I have seen from "essays that worked" sites and books.

______
At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”[/quote]

When I read this, it seems so "conventionally brilliant".  Despite all the flowing prose it seems very formulaic.  In fact it reminds me of one about Romanian immigration and recipes and baking that I read by following a link on this site.

It's full of tropes and overused effects.  For example...

-Being young and insecure
-Something about one's background is underprivileged/is diversity contribution
-dropping lingo for effect - "babusia"
-exaggerated emotionality "It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself"...which is basically the fanciest way possible of saying "I moved to a new country and felt lonely".
-Gimmicky tie of beginning and ending image.  And not that strong of an opening image.  "I was insecure when I was six, so please let me go to Harvard.  I won't mess up this time!"

Boil it all down and you get:

-I like languages
-I'm sorry I didn't try to learn more from my grandma
-I want to study Latin at Harvard (hmmm...why not Slavic linguistics?)

While it supports that the writer can turn in flowery prose, it doesn't read like a genius wrote it or someone with a really novel worldview.  I would imagine that a lot of kids from really good schools can write like this without AI.  The problem is always  coming up with the supporting ideas...arranging enough interesting tidbits into an appealing word salad that's convincing enough in a 5 minute readthrough.

Some of the ideas are awkwardly expressed...How does a machine unspool its parts?  Usually machines don't disassemble themselves...And I wouldn't use "hard" as the adjective for "questions about syntax and scansion".  That area is particularly badly constructed.  "I want to go to Harvard to study Latin so I can ask hard questions about life" seems like an inartful line of reasoning. Also a kid correcting parents' grammar is kind of low EQ and not cute to every reader. (And supposedly top schools want people with high EQ.)

If this were 100% human work, I might find the candidate qualified for the writing department or the drama department.  Latin really would raise the question of why the candidate wasn't planning to study something Slavic so they could reintegrate their fractured selves.  But yeah, they read a dusty textbook from 1994 and wow, life mission unlocked!

There's probably lots of T10 essays like this so AO's just vibe check the theme and keep moving.  If I were an AO, I might even be suspecting an Econ major in Latin Major clothing.

Also for the record, I have some Eastern European heritage and language majors in my family.  So I'm not hating on the poster's life tidbits that they put into the AI hopper. Just pointing out what's behind the beautiful curtain.[/quote]

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