[Certain]

MKG: This was bland. You operated in cliché way too much. Character development is all about authentic-feeling details. For instance, instead of a 4.0, why not a 3.8? That seems so much more specific. But mostly the way you built this story, you tried to cram in all this back story by telling rather than showing. What if you'd have used the image of, say, college applications used as coffee coasters? This just felt really, really direct and bland, over the top and inauthentic because of the generic writing.

Frank: You really went all in on the rhyming here, and it apparently has cost you through three votes. Well, I liked this verse quite a bit. You had a great take on the topic, and created a sense of urgency that was helped along by the rhymes. There was a lot of filler, rhymes thrown in just to rhyme more. But that's a key dynamic to what makes your writing unique. The handful of word misuses were sloppy, though; "unanimously" was the worst offender. But I think you created the scene really well, and the movement of the verse was strong. There was some phrasing that stood out: "early morning 4 alarm potrait of catastrophe," "like the moth drawn to the torch of humanity," "gorgeous and ghastly she died dormant, I had to leave." But then there was some tortured phrasing. You probably need to tighten up and polish your word choice more if you advance, but here I thought you had a more interesting and unique verse pretty easily.

Vote: Frank