[Certain]

Nigma: I thought you overrhymed a bit in the first verse. Some of your wording in the first stanza was a bit flawed (using "do it" twice in such proximity, "eats me as it ate you two," "my coming date of birth," etc.), and that threw off the emotion of the piece. The second stanza was much stronger, full of great emotion without sacrificing flow, even as it sacrificed rhyming. Your imposed line limit left your characters seeming thinner than would have been ideal, and the stanzas didn't really connect on a written level, even though they made sense together in terms of content. The break between the two and the stylistic change really made it seem like disconnected verses. I also understood where you were going with the application of the topic but didn't feel those lines were drawn as well as they could have been. I think you bit off a little too much for a 30-line verse (which sucks now that you realize you could have gone longer). A better approach would have been to cut the first stanza entirely and deepen the second.

Red glare: I feel it's worth noting that while I think it was a dirty move to write so long after agreeing to a line limit and also to post two hours late in order to write so long, I'm not going to hold it against you in the context of this vote. This league doesn't have a line limit, and Nigma chose not to disqualify you for being late. But that shit is fucked up. Anyway, the verse was mostly great. It took me about three seconds to figure out your flow, but once I did, I actually liked it. It's sporatic but creative in a way that rhyme schemes usually aren't. I got a little tired of rhyming off the same word so often, which I'm not as big a stickler about as some. I know in many cases it was for effect, but even those instances were overdone. The ending was funny in the smirk kind of way. This whole story basically like a long-winded setup to a joke about someone so stupid he copied a test even on the name line. But there also was some good commentary on the pressure to succeed for poor kids. One random critique: I don't know why you decided to go abroad for this. Almost every reference to college life was distinctly American. The language in the quotes was English. Why bother with the Spain stuff? I thought the tie-in to the topic actually was pretty strong. You showed a lot of range in your form and writing with this thanks to natural diction and an interesting rhyme scheme and a sense of humor. I look forward to reading more. But if you had done this to me, I would have disqualified you.

Vote: Red glare