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WOFT Essay Critiques needed.


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First, get as many people as possible to review it. I had 4-5 different people read mine, mostly CPTs and 1LTs when I was a SPC. It sort of helped homogenize my essay abit, rather then being "all in" on one aspect of why I want to be an aviator, having all the different opinions on how I should write ensured that I had an essay that would appeal to a lot of people.

 

As far as the essay goes, get rid of that name header and "IERW Attendance Reason", they know why your writing the essay. The first paragraph needs to be completely rewritten. You have a really great reason of why you want to be a pilot, but it seems to me like you were trying to use to many fancy words to explain it. It really doesn't need to be more than 4-6 sentences in total. Plus, I would start the essay with something to the effect of "Sitting on the rooftop of my house". The readers don't need to be filled on Hurricane Katrina, everyone knows when and where it hit, and how devastating it was.

 

I'd also loose all that highschool stuff and all the things "you did". I think what made my essay stand out was rather than write about what I've done, I wrote about what I'm going to do as an aviator in the Army.

 

The only thing I wrote about that was in the past was how I was an platoon RTO and in charge of radio comms when I basically had to manage 3 nets once; the PLT, Company and BN net, because the other RTOs sucked. I used this to show how I can think under pressure and don't shy away from responsibility.I'll see if I can dig up my essay for you to look at....

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You lost me at the first sentence. For you this story may be awesome, but these officers have seen it all. Always avoid colloquialisms. I would recommend going to your local community college and have the tutors help you out. Avoid using big words to make your essay stand out, if you do use them, use them well. Keep fighting, it shows how bad you want it. Pax.

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Joseph,

In the nicest way I can say it, I would assign negative points to your application if any of what or how your wrote your essay made into the final format. There are so many resources available, there's no excuse for a poorly written essay.

The content of your essay doesn't tell me as much as the technical aspect does. You might not be a gifted writer, it happens, but I'd reasonably expect that your essay at the very least be technically written correctly. Attention to detail, it's cliché', but reading something like this in an application without knowing you personally, as a board member I'd assume you didn't care enough to do the research, take a writing class, or even modify an existing essay to put forth your best product. It also tells me that as you progress through the ranks, you won't capably represent the Warrant Officer Corps because you can't communicate clearly through memos or emails.

Search the forum, use Google, and perfect what you want the board to see. Otherwise, all you've done is validate the very first deliberate screening we use to filter out those who aren't capable of being Warrant officers. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, and may take several weeks of research and revision. The process was designed that way.

If this sounds like a rant, its because it is. The essays I've reviewed lately are horrible, and getting worse. I have no doubt there have been some great folks out there that were denied the chance to be helicopter pilots because they couldn't express yourself via the written word.

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