Common App essay-- Background Story
Up until that point, I thought I had lived it all. Attending the NASA convention was a dream few could hope to achieve. As my phone rang in the wee hours of the morning, I lazily reached to answer it, recognizing my mother's mobile number back home. Probably just calling to tell me what she made for dinner, I thought. The next few seconds turned my life on its head. Her sobs echoed around my room through the phone. As my voiced choked, I felt the tears trickle down my face. Surely this had to be a trick of some sort. But as my mother's sobs were replaced by my father's shaken but ever resilient voice, the moment began to sink in. My brother had been shot. He had tried to resist a mugging attempt. I tried to imagine the scene, but my mind kept conjuring up images that depicted the worst.
The following hours I remained lost in a cacophony of thoughts. Why were we put through this ordeal? Would life ever be the same? I struggled to imagine what the future would be like. Here I was, in the land of opportunity, accomplishing everything I had set out to achieve and more, so sure that life was within my hands. But all that seemed so futile and minuscule at that moment. No sense of achievement could match the grief that had set in. I realized what I was feeling were raw emotions, aroused by something that had been overshadowed by years of ambition. Reflecting on the past few years, I recalled all those moments of being overwhelmed by professional life, each pushing me further away from any other thought. Everything my individualism has suppressed seemed to be flowing out, filling me with regret. As the tears dried up, I thought about life and what it truly meant. The socially imbedded path of ambition and success seemed to be the only meaning of life I had ever known, and never before had it seemed as hollow and superficial as it did at that point. Surely there had to be more to life, there had to be other ways to seek contentment and other objectives to strive for. The thought of my brother had brought out a side of me that began to critically analyze all my "success". Despite all the fame and sense of accomplishment it brought, I realized that I had remained in blissful ignorance of my surroundings.
My country, the place to which I owed everything, was plagued by a milieu of issues. Thousands lived through terrible ordeals on a daily basis; news of people being shot had become a daily ritual. And yet, I remained immersed in my own until it was shattered by this event. I may feel angry and confused as to why this happened to my brother, but I began to question whether these emotions were justified. I wondered about those who lose their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters to senseless violence every day. All these thoughts put into context my own suffering. There is more to life than climbing the social ladder, than achieving things that get me the applause of my friends and family, than casting away an eye from situations that seem distant, but may approach at any instant. Life is about acknowledging the privileges bestowed upon us, recognizing our duty to think as humans before anything else, and understanding that at any point, the tables can be turned.
As the phone rang again a few hours later, I picked it up fearing the worst but hoping for the best. Reassuringly, my father told me that my brother was stable and that he was arranging for the first flight back to Lahore. As my father handed the phone to my brother, the first words that came out of his mouth were,
"Ali bhai, I didn't let them take away the locket you gave me for my birthday."
As I wiped the tears from my face, I could sense the warmth emanating from the locket I was wearing.
This is my common app essay. It's my first draft so any ideas to improve it?? Hmm are there any grammatical error's?
This is the topic:- Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Mubasil, when we talk of a central identity story, it has to be an event or life changing occurrence that happened to you directly. Why does it have to happen to you directly? The main reason is that you are supposed to show the way that a certain event has influenced your point of view, attitude, or perception about certain topics that relate directly to the person you are or who you became. That is something that has not come across clearly in this essay because this is an event that concentrates more on the events that happened to your brother and the family reaction to the events. Talking about the country you come from and the problems that plague it would have been more effective if you had tried to relate it somehow to the person you have become. That story, the central story important to your development as a person, is what the narrative lacks.
The essay also suffers from too much wordiness. It is important to tell your story directly, without beating around the bush too much. Get your main theme or central story up there in the first paragraph. Give the reader an immediate idea of what you expect in your succeeding paragraphs. The central identity story is not the time to use creative writing rules in your essay. The more creative and flowery your words are, the greater the chance that you will lose the admissions officer's attention. Specially when the response you are giving tended to deviate greatly from the prompt.
Try to revise the essay in such a way that you present the same story, but concentrating almost solely on its effects on your and how it has helped you become a better person in life, or helped you to develop a different perspective about certain things which are central to your development as a person and thus, central to your story as a person.
