Undergraduate / "Quantum Physics and Relativity" Brown Science Supplement [6]

1) Try two sentences instead of just one at the beginning: "My interest in science came from my exposure to it from a very young age. I loved reading children's science books such as "Young Scientist" and was a great fan of the Discovery Channel." I would delete the second sentence and go straight into the third: "In my freshman year of [college/high school], I picked up a popular science book on quantum physics at a second-hand book sale and found a topic that I was truly fascinated by. That fascination has continued for the past [insert number of years], and I would like to [insert career].

2) "As a result, I was able to teach myself physics. Without this opportunity, I would not have known about [insert topics here]." For the [insert word here...summer school?Internship?], I would use instead: "Over the course of the summer, I learned about [insert advanced topic here] and got a good idea of what studying physics at a university would require. I enjoyed studying relativity and began teaching myself general relativity when the summer was over." Delete the part about liking university-style teaching; it sounds tacked on and almost pleading.

3) "I am most proud of mastering the basics of quantum mechanics." Don't say you don't understand something unless you can also prove you've worked hard to understand it.

"I am also proud of mastering basic quantum because I taught myself with no help except for Feynman's videotaped lectures." Put in Feynman's entire name and title, as well as where he teaches/works (I'm not familiar with the name because I'm terrible at physics, so I'm not entirely sure how well-known he is). "Being able to teach myself basic quantum, a tough topic, has increased my confidence in my ability to help myself learn complicated concepts."

4) Get rid of the acronyms. Type it all out. There's no guarantee the people reading your essay will know what IGCSE or HL mean. Also, while it's great you've chosen "antibubbles" to be your Extended Essay topic, it is not a course you have taken. They know you chose antibubbles as your essay topic because they've read your essay.

I really hope this helps, and I hope you get in. Kudos for picking physics as your intended major.

Undergraduate / "Mountain Vista Governor's School" significant experience and its impact on you: MVGS [5]

Is this any better?
It's seven o'clock in the morning when my dad stops driving. He drops me off right at the door to the trailer and helps me take down the 4x4x5.7-ft triangular wooden monstrosity sitting in the bed of the pick-up truck. He hops back into the cab and heads home while I lift it and set it on my shoulders to carry it to the testing field.

My Physics C: Mechanics class at the local community college had been given a deceptively simple-sounding project: Build an accurate catapult, trebuchet, slingshot, or other water-balloon-launching device. There was only one variable we could change, and my "group" (which was ostensibly myself and two others from my high school but basically consisted of me) had chosen to change the distance we pulled the elastics back, which was riskier than it sounded. We had no guarantee they would stretch the same from day to day.

We have a far more pressing problem than the elastics standing in our way of success: Not one of us knows how to tie a water balloon. We end up going to our physics teacher, who is (understandably) surprised and upset.

That is just one day of many at Mountain Vista Governor's School, a local magnet school that holds class at Lord Fairfax Community College. Mountain Vista takes students from four counties and the City of Winchester. We meet from 7:30 to 10:50 in the morning and take college-level math, science, humanities, and research courses. That comes out to 1,260 hours per year we are not sitting in a seat and staring at a teacher try to teach that an adverb is not the same thing as an adjective. That is 1,260 hours per day we build towers out of plastic straws that are somehow able to hold a tennis ball, marble runs (which I ended up using my catapult base for), and timekeeping devices and electric cars accurate to within one-tenth of a second. Those 1,260 hours are spent learning philosophy, physics, calculus, writing APA dissertations, and working on an eighteen-month research project that we enter into a competition at the end of senior year. Those 1,260 hours are spent learning instead of trying not to fall asleep while a teacher drones on about misconceptions of Marie Antoinette during what is supposedly biology class. Instead of fill-in-the-blank worksheets, we get assignments about math concepts that stretch our understanding of essays to the limit, write wedding vows according to Hobbesian philosophy, , and break codes through clues in buildings of Washington, DC, and spent time on a ropes course to see conservation of momentum and other physics concepts as they apply to the real world in an imperfect system.

Mountain Vista has changed me as a person and as a student. As a person, I am more comfortable with myself than I ever was at my base school. As a student, I have better study skills, a good work ethic, and am capable of managing my time wisely. If I had never applied to become one of the six students in my grade and school system who goes to Mountain Vista, I would never have learned how to study, ask for help,write an A-worthy essay in forty-five minutes, or deal with the effects of sleep deprivation.

Undergraduate / Daria Morgendorffer, a smart, snarky, sensitive teenage girl - Person of Influence [4]

The vocab comes across as contrived. Be honest: How often do you use words like "transient", "cathartic", "snarky", "exemplification", and "bespectacled" in your everyday vocab? Though it's great to dress up an essay a little, words like that scream "THESAURUS" - or, even worse, "cheater". Maybe you use those words in everyday conversation, but they just seem to be ten-dollar words in the middle of five-dollar ones and they really stand out.

You also have some grammar issues. Try reading your essay out loud to catch phrases and sentences that don't make sense or seem too long. Often, what you mean and what you come across as are two totally different things. A good rule is to keep commas, semicolons, and other punctuation marks to a minimum. For example, one of your sentences had six commas ("With Daria, there was a sense of acknowledgment in regards to school as a whole, that what you did in it, wouldn't necessarily define who you were when you left, something that most parents, including mine, didn't agree with"). Try cutting it to two or just shortening it: "Daria acknowledged that what you did while in school did not define who you were when you left. Most parents, including mine, did not agree with that.

Avoid contractions.

Undergraduate / "Quantum Physics and Relativity" Brown Science Supplement [6]

Maybe put something in there about how long it took, how many resources you had to find, etc.

Undergraduate / "Mountain Vista Governor's School" significant experience and its impact on you: MVGS [5]

It wasn't a rubber band I used, it was two of the giant elastic things at Home Depot that change their elasticity depending on the temperature.

As for the last one - yick. Part of it got deleted.