Undergraduate / How to approach Amherst Supplement on Science [10]

In addition to the essay you are asked to write as part of the Common Application, Amherst requires a second essay (250-500 words). We do not offer interviews as part of the application process at Amherst. However, your essays provide you with an opportunity to speak to us. Please keep this in mind when responding to one of the following quotations. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the text from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

''The world as revealed by science is far more beautiful, and far more interesting, than we had any right to expect. Science is valuable because of the view of the universe that it gives.''

George Greenstein, Professor of Astronomy, Amherst College

Would it be apporpriate to talk about medicine. Why I love it, not the practice but the research and advancement of it, explaining that the reason it beautiful/intresting is because of the way it touches people. Then go into what inspired me to go into medicine.

Undergraduate / Howard Supplement - Topic of your Choice- My Aunt Barbara [5]

This is just a rough draft. Any feedback (especially on grammer) would be greatly appreciated.
THANKS!

PROMPT: Write a 500 word essay on a topic of your choice.

I rememember that day clearly. I stood and watched as the last breath left my aunt's body. She had spent the past hour begging for God to come and take her, and after the last relative arrived at my grandmother's house that morning, she finally left us. I just stood there. I couldn't cry. I knew I should cry, I wanted to, but the tears wouldn't come. I simply stared helplessly, watching as my grandmother bent over and closed my aunt's eyelids over her empty brown eyes. My aunt died two days before Christmas at the age of forty-seven.

She was truly an extradinary person in the most ordinary of lights. The type of person who wasn't particularly impressive for any level of external skill, but whose beauty radiated from the inside, and whose smile was so potently contagious it could start an epidemic. Her years of constant affection and unwavering attention on my part, had earned the position of my favorite aunt, Aunt Barbara.

I guess she had been sick all along, but it wasn't until I was about five years that I became aware of it. The lupus had become active, forcing her to quite her job and begin rigorous dialysis treatments. I used to make her cards. I can recall walking into the hospital bearing a colourful homemade "get well soon" card, and then an hour later walking out shoning a proud smile for Aunt's gracious reception.

However, as the years went on and the hospital visits became more and more frequent, I began to realize that my aunt wasn't going to 'get well soon.' Thus at the age of seven I decided that when I grew up I would discover a cure for lupus. I dreamed that the first person I would use it on would be my Aunt Barbara, so she wouldn't have to be sick anymore. I had it all planned out, I was even going to name it after her.

I was eleven the day I watched my aunt die. I still don't understand why I couldn't cry at first. The tears only came as I sat on the couch with my sister and realized that my cure, my dream, would never touch my aunt's life. I broke down in tears. I proceeded to bury my dream with my aunt; her death had essentially stripped it of its purpose.

It was difficult at first, now when an adult or peer asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I no longer had an answer for them, just a vague sense of emptiness. That was until the next year when my eight year old cousin, my aunt's grandaughter, died from lupus. Once again I was forced to watch this disease tear apart my family.

It was then that I realized lupus not only robbed my aunt my aunt from living a full and happy life, from seeing her children's children grow up, today it is robbing an estimated two million Americans of those same opportunities. I realized that my dream was bigger than its original purpose. Although what my aunt lost can never be regained, I have resolved that I will do whatever it takes to help another victim of this devastating disease, another child's favorite aunt.

Undergraduate / " Tutoring afforded me the compassion"; Extracurricular Activity - Peer Tutoring [2]

Is this a good approach? Or should I talk more about what I did?

In the space provided below, please elaborate on one of your activities (extracurricular, personal activities, or work experience)(150 words or fewer).

I heard a bustle of laughter from a group next to me. "What's so funny?" I asked with an anticipatory smile. They showed me a paper left by another student. Every word in the paper was mispelled and grammer usage was virtually nonexistent. The smile quikly disappeared from my face. Tutoring afforded me the compassion that was so evidently missing in my peers.

As a freshman, I can remember trying to teach a senior the concept of negative numbers. At first I was appalled that a senior couldn't grasp something I learned in sixth grade. But as time progressed, I began to understand. Kids like Jeff, whose illiterate parents never taught him to read, gave me a deeper lesson about life and compassion then I could have ever given them.

Thus, as I looked at that paper I didn't want to laugh at all. If anything I could have cried.

Peer-tutoring has probably had the biggest effect on me, but it was kind of heard to convey that in 150 words. I'm also really invovled in my school so there are plenty of things I could write about, if you think I should toss this. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank You!!!