Undergraduate / Still I Rise: An Autobiography 217 - UPenn Optional Essay [8]

By no means am I finished, I'm not even quite sure what direction I want to go in. I'm thinking how I met with my father in hopes of learning more about myself but I realized were not that much alike at all - maybe I'm more a product of how I was raised.. and through in some good stuff about myself.. Idk yet. ANY feedback at this point would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

You have just finished writing you 300 page autobiography, write p. 217

Still I Rise: An Autobiography 217

I was just about to lie down when the phone rang. There was a strong temptation to simply let the answering machine pick it up, but then I contemplated the possible importance of the phone call and begrudgingly got up to answer. I put the receiver to my ear. The last voice I expected to hear sounded on the other end of the line. "Elizabeth? How are you?" The thick Ghanaian accent that emphasized the "e" sounds in my name, was familiar and yet remote. It was a voice I had not heard in over ten years: the voice of my father.

"Fine." I choked out.
In a calm voice, he explained that he was in town taking care of some business and he wanted to see me. I could feel my heart pumping inside my chest.

"I talked to your mother." He said. "She'll be home shortly to pick you up."
I didn't know how to reply. As he said goodbye, I stood there and listened silently until there was nothing but a dial tone.

I started mechanically taking off my pajamas and putting on my jeans. I had to get ready to meet my father. A man who left when I was six years old, without so little as a postcard to compensate his absence.

When he left I was too young to fully understand the gravity of what had happened. Because he wasn't a fundamental part of my life to begin with, after a few years, it was almost as if he had never even been there. Soon, the words father, dad, and daddy became completely foreign to me. My mom asked me once if I missed not having a father, and I simply replied "You can't really miss something you never had."

Although it was never my intention, I knew these words hurt her. Over the years she had tried her without cease to play the roles of both mother and father. She always managed to muster up more than enough noise at award ceremonies, recitals, even student council election speeches, to make me feel like I had a whole army fathers rooting me on.

Thus I could convince myself to believe that I wasn't really missing out. But in reality, I did feel like something was missing. More substantially I felt like a part of me was missing, this whole other half that I never got a chance to know.

Thus as I fixed my hair and reapplied my makeup that evening, no feelings of anger or bitterness precipitated in me, but rather I became enthralled with curiosity.

By the time I was finished getting ready, my mother arrived. We drove to our designated meeting ground, The International House of Pancakes. My father was seated at a table in the middle of the non-smoking section. He stood to great us. He looked different from what I remembered: much shorter and less severe. The initial greeting was filled with awkwardness.

But as we sat and spoke much of the awkwardness began to melt away. What remained was a picture of a stranger. Although I searched the depths of his eyes to relate to him to find something that he had given me, what I found was a man nothing like me.

I was disappointed at first, even confused. I had wanted so much to see something in him that I could identify with, but I hadn't. As I sat there listening to him speak. My mom made a ridiculous joke. We both cracked up laughing, but my father just stared at us, as if we had began speaking another language.

It was at that moment that I realized how futile my original efforts were. I did not need to search any farther for my identity than what was right in front of me: my mom.

Undergraduate / Common Application Essay - Topic of your choice - Dreams Deferred [40]

I've read and reread and added to and taken off from this essay so many times, its getting kind of hard for me judge it. If you were an admissions officer, would I be someone you would want at your school? Is my topic unique or cliche? How's the legnth, grammer, sentence variation, overall flow?

ANY suggestions or feedback would be great!
Thank you!!!

Dreams Deferred

My first kiss was terrible. It was so bad that afterwards I stuffed my face with chocolate and wallowed in self pity. However, looking back, I realize that maybe it was not the kiss that was so bad, but the fact that it was so utterly and overwhelmingly not what I had hoped it to be. I waited seventeen years for the perfect moment, with the perfect person, to have my perfect first kiss. What I got was a few bumps on the head, followed by an extremely awkward exchange of saliva.

I had to admit that it was somewhat my fault. By romanticizing the event so much, I set myself up for disappointment. I realized this had happened before. I am a dreamer, which unfortunately is a dangerous occupation. Like my first kiss, many instances in my life involve me setting up incredible notions about what I want to happen, only to be a little less than crushed when things do not work out. This was the case my junior year of high school.

That year, I qualified for the National Forensics League Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama. I immediately began to daydream about my future success as the national champion in dramatic interpretation. I read that Oprah Winfrey came in second in the nation in dramatic interpretation when she was in high school. Naturally, I imagined I would become national champion, or at least place in the top six, email Oprah my story, and then she would invite me on her show. During my guest appearance I would perform my piece and that performance would possibly launch a short acting career. So potent was my dream, that whenever my eight hour daily practice sessions became laborious, I simply imagined myself walking across that center stage to the Oprah theme song, smiled, and then continued working a new with fervor. I walked into that tournament inundated with hopes; thus, when I didn't make it past the first cut of the preliminary round, my disappointment was insurmountable.

It was at this moment that I began to question why I dream so big, why I set these outlandish goals only to be thwarted when reality does not quite meet my expectations. I thought maybe I could have braced myself, deciding to be satisfied if I just cleared once out the sixteen cuts. For that matter, in regards to my first kiss, I could have decided to be happy if any guy would simply bestow his favor upon me. Yet, my goals incited so much emotional investment in me that it seemed, at that point, impossible to recover. I considered the idea that maybe pessimism was a necessary evil.

However, that thought did not bring me any sort of comfort. The idea of setting my sights low so that I never missed mark was so utterly and absolutely not me. I love to daydream. It is what drives me and challenges me to do my best. I had to come to terms with the fact that even though I did not succeed in the manner in which I originally set out to, that did not erase all of the hard work I put into my performance. It truly could not erase all the things that I achieved because I saw myself doing them. That year I did not become national champion in dramatic interpretation, but my performance inspired various organizations to sponsor me to study molecular medicine and drama at the Cambridge Tradition. My 'outlandish' goals pushed me take first place in the district tournament and become the state champion in dramatic interpretation. Although I briefly considered that the bigger my dream, the harder I will fall, I now realize that the bigger my dream, the farther I will reach.

In a dream I can see potential, beyond what I am to what I know I can be. I guess that is why I love to dream. I may never win the Nobel Prize for the discovery of a cure for lupus (although I plan to), or star in an award winning film (although I hope to). I am aware that life will not always work out the way I plan, but I will still dream big, work relentlessly to fulfill my dreams, and appreciate the ones that do come true.

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!!!

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 / 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.