Undergraduate / "I'm the definition of oxymoron" - stanford supplement essay (roommate) [11]

hey guys :)
I was wondering if you could read my essay and give me back some feedback.

The prompt is: Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. What would you want your future roommate to know about you? Tell us something that will help your future roommate-and us - know you better.

I'm the definition of oxymoron in Oxford's dictionary.
My parents have instilled morals in my personality from a young age and I've grown up strictly abiding by them. However, I'm guilty of stealing. The lens through which I view the world through fused into from the viewing fields of Thoreau, Picasso, Mozart and other scholars. These stolen parts offer me a bridge to the past, present and future.

I'm somewhat of a jumping bean, always active. I make things happen instead of witnessing them get done. At the same time, I'm passive when I'm coaching tennis, tutoring math or making a puzzle with preschoolers. I allow learners through my guiding hand to discover on their own.

I've been labeled an infectious disease. My lucid enthusiasm to succeed and ardent desire to unveil the world in which I inhabit plagues others with those qualities. However, I'm also research for a remedy to alleviate societal ills. Through my leadership, I amalgamate efforts for a common cause such as raising awareness of cancer.

My life is planned out in my calendar and I have a schedule for everything. My tops are folded in my drawer by their color and my pants pocket showing. In other words, I'm an organized freak. Yet, I think in an unorganized fashion. I've learned that I can't accommodate a schedule to the way I think because thinking is an extensive reflection of experiences, art pieces and scholarly journals I encounter.

These contradicting qualities have carved me into the person I represent today. They have fueled my thirst for knowledge and desire to matter. I never seek recognition from others but from my inner self to change the world even on the smallest scale.

Undergraduate / The world, "ambitious and relentless" -common app essay (topic of my own choice) [2]

In this essay, I talk about the world I come from and how it has shaped me into who I am today. Any suggestions/criticism is greatly welcomed.

Undergoing Family Adversities

I will never forget the cold December day when I came home to find my mother frantically packing our belongings. My father, who had emigrated from Armenia to America three years earlier, had made the long-awaited call to inform my mother that our family would soon reunite in America. Yet, I did not know whether this was good or bad news. Of course, I wanted to see my father, but at the age of nine, moving, especially to a foreign country, was a frightening idea.

My father's call marked the emergence of tributaries that have combined to make me the person I am today. These tributaries do not merely consist of rivers but are a collection of different bodies of water.

In United States, life fell short of the impeccable world that my parents had promised it to be. I became trapped in a swamp- forcing me to only see the glumness in life. My father became so burdened with putting food on our table and keeping a roof over our heads that I barely saw him. My mother's health confined her to the bed, spilling her housekeeping chores onto my plate. The dictionary, that now has yellow faded pages, came to be my best friend as I translated countless documents for my parents into Armenian. It became my duty to ensure my younger sister correctly completed her assignments, did her chores and was well-behaved, when I was merely a year older than her. The rejection felt from society was swimming in an ocean with open wounds as the salt accentuated the adversity of being an immigrant. Going to school was walking into a lake-first, repelled by the tiny rocks poking the soles of my feet, but then feeling a rush of relaxation and a sense of accomplishment once I had walked over them.

But my parents claimed that I was the fortunate one. How? As a fourth grader, I couldn't understand. I felt like both, a mother and a child-I was learning in school, exploring the world, discovering life and teaching it to my sister concurrently, when I was expecting to be taught. At times, I could not help but wonder why I was not one of those children roller-skating outside my window. I, too, wanted to feel the breeze rushing against my curls.

Today, I am a free flowing river-ambitious and relentless. The rocks situated throughout my course have no power to hinder the flow of my river. I now see how I was the "fortunate" one as I have been able to use my experience as an advantage to motivate and encourage myself to lead a better lifestyle. Coming from overdue bills, coming from a "different" world, coming from a lost childhood, I have come to recognize that determination and perseverance are the driving forces of my river. I have been guided by the principle that an education is a life jacket that can never be strapped off of an individual. From waterfalls, to traps by quicksand, to the ocean water on my wounds, I have been directed from the different tributaries to the formation of my whitewater river. I aspire to one day be able to use my experience to encourage others undergoing similar adversity to drift toward their own rivers.

Undergraduate / Unlimited learning - stanford supplement essay (why stanford?) [5]

Please give my suggestions on how I can improve my essay. :)

To some, the color cardinal is simply a hue that represents Stanford University. But to me, it is much more than that. It is a symbol that vessels a myriad of hues. These hues are derived from the entire color spectrum, representing the diverse people, ideas, traditions and culture present at the university. These multifarious constituents merge into one upon the entrance to the campus. The hue that most stands out is cardinal because of the palpable and ardent passions of Stanford's students to not only pursue their interests in their career choices but to extensively explore the world of which they are denizens of.

At Stanford, learning is not limited to inside the walls of a classroom or the Meyer library. It is a breathing life form that is an entity as students converse on the verdant landscape of the campus, debate as while biking to their dorm rooms and discourse current controversial issues in Socratic seminars. The atmosphere of the university itself fosters a mutual desire within the student body to unravel the mysteries of life.

There are dozens of other universities where I can study the cognitive and physical biological growth of children, explore the intricacy of mathematics and perhaps research the cognitive abilities of humans. Why Stanford? Because I will expand my strengths and improve my weakness, because that is where "the wind of freedom blows" and most importantly, because like a bird I will be free and unrestrained to be swayed by the winds of my curiosity.

This is where I will be able to quench my desire to explore the past, present and future. This is why I want to be a constituent of the color spectrum that classifies Stanford.

Undergraduate / Stanford's students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality [2]

Can you guys please help me with this essay? Any suggestions to improve it?

Stanford's students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.

Curiosity is a gateway for greater curiosities; the more we know, the more we strive to find out. Thus, it is infectious to the human mind. It is an infection that paves the route to where individuals stumble upon their passions. For, curiosity is the reason why humans are the most advanced species on Earth. Most of the people that we recognize and remember today are those who quenched their thirst for answers for the questions created by their random bouts of curiosity.

Is curiosity a natural desire to find answers or is it a selfish need? Is it genetically predisposed, controlled by some unknown hormone or is it built into our temperament? Perhaps, it is the need to know where we come from or predict what is to come and rid any uncertainty. In a quest to find answers to my questions, I conducted a detailed experiment with three different age groups. With friends and family as volunteers, I first observed infants playing with the same set of toys and after thirty minutes, I added a new toy. The new toy captured the attention of the whole group. The same procedure was done with children, aging from seven to eleven, except word puzzles were used. Most sustained their unyielding efforts to solve the puzzle, while a few gave up curious about the new puzzle. For the adults, I asked each to research, within a one week frame, a topic which they had long held interest in. Only a quarter returned with answers. Upon scrutiny of my experiment, I came to the conclusion that the strength of curiosity decays with age. However, that does not explain why scientists like Einstein and mathematicians like Archimedes made their discoveries and contributions as adults.

This mystery has infected me with an enormous curiosity to explore the intricate concept of curiosity and my thirst will not be quenched until I find my answers.