College is HARD, yet you have to live with it. It’s that thing that your parents have kept on telling you about since the time you started school. Some dread it while others wait patiently for it to come by. In my opinion college ready traits would be maturity, creativity, being unique, overachieving, and having confidence. In class, we read and analyzed three college admissions essays from the Codex textbook. Christina Mendoza, James Gregory, and Hugh Gallagher all used the format of the college admission essay to either distinguish themselves as applicants or to parody the way other applicants ‘sell themselves” in writing, while reading college essays people usually look for specific traits such as maturity, creativity, and confidence.
    Once college ready trait I was able to find in both Christina Mendoza and James Gregory’s college essay was maturity. For instance you can see this in Christina Mendoza’s essay, “I Couldn’t Imagine Wanting to Dye my Hair Blond”, when it states, “feeling sorry for his cultural ignorance, I smiled and replied, ‘yeah I bet you do,’” (page 13).  This shows maturity, because when the man insulted Mendoza he replied with a respectful manner and moved on. In addition, James Gregory was able to show maturity in his essay, “Chunky Peanut Butter”, when he states, “I have unselfishly stepped aside on the basket ball court to let the whole teams shine,” (page 15). This shows how Gregory’s essay shows maturity instead of selfishly taking all the spotlight, James stood back and didn’t let himself take all the credit for the success. This shows how Mendoza and Gregory were able to show maturity within their essays, which is a very valuable college ready trait, both students’ posses.
    The second trait colleges usually look for in essays would be creativity. For example, Christina Mendoza showed creativity when she states, “The blond girls are unique in their own way, but diversity makes the world go round” (pages 13). This shows creativity because the analogy of stigma to have blond hair in European neighborhoods, Mendoza portrayed herself, and that was creative. In addition, James Gregory shows creativity when he states, “you taste all my chunks, all the little quirks that set me apart from the rest” (page 14). This shows creativity because James is using an extended metaphor that he is chunky peanut butter to portray him to the college admission boards, which is both creative and risky. Finally, Hugh Gallagher shows creativity in his essay “Essay 3A”, when he states, “I have played Hamlet, I have preformed open heart surgery, I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to college” (page 17). This shows creativity because Gallagher took an extremely creative approach by making his college admissions essay a parody. The only problem is the fact that Gallagher is joking so you cant takes his examples seriously, but he is creative. This shows how all three students show creativity in their college essays.
The last trait colleges usually look for in the admission essays would be confidence. For example, Gallagher was able to show confidence in his essay when he stated, “I woo women with my sensuous and god like trombone playing” (page 16). Clearly, Gallagher is confident in his abilities to play the trombone and the effect his playing has on other people, especially women.  Mendoza, on the other hand, portrays confidence when she stated how when she look back to her past, she couldn’t even consider wanting to dye her hair blond so she can feel better about herself, because all the blond girls are unique in their own way but the difference between everyone is what actually makes the world a better place (page 13). This illustrates, confidence because she doesn’t want to change herself for others, making her confident because she is happy with whom she is. In addition to this, Gregory is able to portray confidence in his essay when he states how he feels that without him, all the people or the community around him will not succeed (page 14).  This shows Gregory portraying confidence because he believes that without his support his community is basically doomed, which shows that James is very confident in his abilities to help others succeed. This shows how all the students showed confidence in their college admissions essays.
   As you can see Christina Mendoza, James Gregory, and Hugh Gallagher were all able to portray all, if not two out of the three, most common college ready traits colleges usually look for which are: maturity, confidence, and creativity. Do