Short ass PS - any input?

[londongirl]

No, it's not to satisfy my personal curiosity!! there are hundreds of people on this board and I'm not nosy enough to ponder people's personal lives.
But in the context of this essay, I think it sounds wrong to put 'she' the whole way through. I figured out who she was on my own (see above) but I think it wouldn't hurt to say who she is at the beg, so he can use she after. This way people's attention can be focused on the emotion in this piece. It sounds contrived to me, like a literary device and I think it's fundamentally unsatisfying. It needs resolving.
That's all. I think it's an incredible experience, a great choice of topic.. all those things.

[robbief]

I wasn't accusing you of being nosy.  I was just trying to get you to defend your reasoning.  I guess I could've just said, "WHy do you think so..."

Anyways, I guess it's just a fundamental difference of opinion.  I think a name will take focus away, you think too much focus is taken away without a name.  We'll never agree.  The choice is your's mkagan. 

[nonobvious]

I agree with londongirl.  The vagueness could work if this were a creative writing piece which aimed either to make the reader guess "her" identity or to make some sort of stylistic point.
LS writing needs to be a bit more concrete. I understand what robbief says about concentrating on the transformative effect of the experience, but i think many (though apparently not all) of the readers are going to be distracted from the main thrust by waiting for the revelation of who "she" is... it sort of gives it a misplaced focus, in this context.

leaving too much ambiguity makes it well, ambiguous as to whether the omission was part of the aim of the piece, or whether the person was simply a bad writer.

i do think though that mkagan's idea of just dropping one stronger hint, just a step away from obvious, instead of coming right out and saying "she = my girlfriend," could work. that would make it clearer that the vagueness is an intentional sylistic choice rather than just careless negligence.

[Cool Hand Luke]

DO NOT SAY WHO "HER" IS.  That's the strongest aspect of this.

I agree with this. That is the best part.

Maybe some rewrite with an eye toward prose, but he identity should stay unknown, I think.

My only concern is whether the Yale prompt asks for anything like a narrative. It doesn't seem to, although it might be acceptable because they ask for *any* subject (and presumably, style). I'm curious about this myself, but if the sort of thing they'd be receptive to, I think it's pretty good.

In either case, you don't need to reveil her identity. The Yale prompt is expressly not a personal statement, so conveying details of your life is not required.

[SNUGGLE]

Not to be helpful, but they are asking for an essay, not a story.  You've given them a story and an artsy one at that.

[Maryanne007]

i think not knowing who she is, is what keeps you engaged.  however, i was a little confused in the end because I didnt know who she was... which made me reread the whole thing.. i dont know if that would be bad or not...

good luck tho, very creative! 

[jacy85]

Why is everyone going on an on about how this isn't supposed to be a creative writing piece?  What's wrong with creative?  Yale asked for 250 words on whatever you want.  They didn't say "write 250 words on a topic of your choice, as long as it's not a creative writing piece."

I thought the essay was great.  If there's anything I would add, is maybe a sentence or two more about how you grew, instead of the incredibly vague generalities of "I became stronger, yadda, yadda, yadda"  Not too much, but just something to focus in on a bit.  But otherwise, fantastic job with the 250 words.  It's revealing, and gripping, in that there's a lot of information not explicitly provided.  And I don't think you have to reveal who "she" is.  If you choose to, that's fine, but I feel that it works without that info.