Columbia Essay 2: practice taught you more than theory. 大家能聊聊思路么

Absolutely right, which is why a good essay will balance telling what you did (the practice) and why you did it (the theory).

And also absolutely right, which is why not everyone gets an interview or gets into CBS. It's so much easier to say, 'his GMAT of 770 is better than mine, which is 700', but not so easy to say, 'his essays were better than mine'. In my opinion the essays are so much more important, and so much harder to get right, and I'm not sure how many people on CD realise this. Even Yifan, who got an interview, has a different view from myself, who has never applied. Most people turn to alumni (for instance Yifan, in three years) for help with essays, and they tell you how they would have written an essay. So everyone follows Yifan's framework, which is very good too, and easier to understand to boot, and I become the only one using this 正-反-合 framework. Maybe because of that I get in, and not everyone else. Again, following the past successes of everyone else, is exactly what ensures that you end up failing to get in.

But really, after a while it becomes so ridiculously complicated trying to follow what others do, or what you think others will do, or what you think others will think you will do... and so on. Again, it's a complex world. I tend to prefer to write an essay based on my own views. So 正-反-合 it is.

Without practice, you will never know which theory is appropriate. Without theory, you will not be able to learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and practice will be wasteful and never-ending.

The two sentences above, of course, are also a theory of how to approach theory and practice.