Rating: 
Summary: Not useful in any way
Review: This book is just essays from beginning to end, with 4 pages of writing 'tips'. These tips are the kind of things your teachers have been telling you since 3rd grade, and they aren't any more helpful this time around. (with about a paragraph each on "show, don't tell", "proofread", and "don't be afraid to ask for help"). I'd be surprised if any one person who bought this book actually benefited from these tips.The rest of the book is essays with a few paragraphs critique on each. These essays are so good that there is no way 99.9% of high schoolers can even come close to this kind of writing. I got an 800 on the SAT II Writing and 780 on the SAT Verbal and there's no way I could write like that. The critiques are very specific to the essay so you wouldn't learn anything from them. The only way you'd benefit from this book is if you're applying to a Harvard-level college and want to see how good your essays should be. (Then again, it is difficult to objectively compare your essay to others). Otherwise, you're just wasting your money so you can become envious of these kids. I thought 'Essays That Will Get You into College' was better, but don't buy that one either because most of it is online.
Rating: 
Summary: The Critique of 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays
Review: This book of compiled essays, composed by Harvard Students, has educated me that vocabulary power isn¡¦t the key element in essay writing. Using simple language portraying complex issues/ethics is the key to good essay writing. This book has aided me greatly in my essay composition. It also has assisted my cousin to write a Top Essay. And now he has been accepted in The Harvard English Department. As a fourteen year old, I enjoyed this book infinitely and I would recommend this book to anyone, who wishes to learn how to write essays with unique style. Dennis Huang ^^
Rating:
Summary: The Critique of 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays
Review: This book of compiled essays, composed by Harvard Students, has educated me that vocabulary power isn¡¦t the key element in essay writing. Using simple language portraying complex issues/ethics is the key to good essay writing. This book has aided me greatly in my essay composition. It also has assisted my cousin to write a Top Essay. And now he has been accepted in The Harvard English Department. As a fourteen year old, I enjoyed this book infinitely and I would recommend this book to anyone, who wishes to learn how to write essays with unique style. Dennis Huang ^^
Rating: 
Summary: You'd do better to go back and re-read Barthelme.
Review: While the one about the guy running over the monkey with the truck is pretty good, the other stories in this collection display a lack of comprehension of even the rudiments of plot and character. The one about the moneky, though...
Rating: 
Summary: Inspires a zero stars option
Review: Yet again, I have to take my hat off to the Harvard Crimson for once again taking their self-promoting, self-congratulating, faux-introspective, greedy little selves and making some money off it. I'm not sure if the Crimson is still techincally a newspaper, and I'm not sure if the Crimson Editors are still technically people, but I am very certain, having not read this book but having gone to Harvard (boo-ya!), that people who go to Harvard tend to be jackasses and the people who work for the Crimson are even worse. The best contribution to the future academic success of America's youth that this group could muster would be if they just shot themselves in the face, which would not help in any clear way but would be a general improvement to the lot of the human race. Be warned: these people want to be our leaders some day. Go Lampy.
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