Undergraduate / "School literary magazine" - Extracurricular short answer [4]

Blazers at my school have a negative connotation; most simply endure the unsightly blue garments with a moan and a groan. But for me "The Blazer" meant the school's lit mag, and one of the best parts of my high school experience. When I submitted my first piece in grade 9 I was so shy that I published it under a pseudonym, Hope U. Lovett. By the first term of grade 10 I had submitted 3 pieces, all published under my name. My active participation and enthusiasm earned me a spot as The Blazer's only junior editor, and in grade 12 I was promoted to senior editor. I've grown a lot through the Blazer, not only as a writer but as a team leader. I have learned when to praise and when to critique, when to get involved and when to step away, all in order to get the best out of every writer and ensure that they are truly proud of their final product. Making sure everyone is satisfied is definitely challenging, but only when other writers are happy with their work can I be happy with mine.

Undergraduate / "I'VE BEEN CHASED BY ISRAELI SECURITY GUARDS" - HELP with common app [9]

I know all the neighbourhood firemen. I've been chased by security guards in an Israeli airport. I can sing a stirring rendition of The Farmer in the Dell, I know how to activate the siren from the front seat of an ambulance, and I can sign American Sign Language. I know my way around the Ottawa children's hospital like a pro, and I know every word of just about every Barney movie ever made. These may seem like really random experiences but there is in one common factor in each of them, and his name is Danny.

Danny is my little brother. He was born three years after me, and somehow I still remember being in the hospital waiting to see him for the first time. It wasn't long before we were back at the hospital though, when at 18 months Danny had his first seizure.

Danny was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a very rare form of severe epilepsy which causes developmental delays. My parents didn't understand what it meant, and because of the rarity of the condition, the doctors didn't really know what it meant either. It was something that we were going to have to discover for ourselves and it was only over the years that we learned what it meant. And what it meant was that while Danny could speak he would always have difficulty doing so, while he could walk and run, it wasn't without a cute little waddle in his step, while he would eventually be able to write his name, he wouldn't be able to read. It also meant that Danny would have seizures, and lots of them, each of which would threaten his life. Most importantly though it meant that our lives would always be out of the ordinary, to say the very least.

We call him Danny Shevuvani - in Hebrew it means Danny the terror. Otherwise known as Danny 'el monstruo', but you can probably guess what that one means. It's funny how such a little devil can look like such an angel. And he absolutely looks like an angel, with his curly blond hair, chubby cheeks and big blue eyes; he could be a cherub. But if you look into his eyes you can see the troublemaker - they gleam with energy and mischief. And when he gets that look in his eye, you know something's about to go down. If you're near a public pay phone he's going to dart up and disconnect the call of whoever's talking, and then dart away just as fast, as you throw quarters at the shocked stranger standing at the booth and run away after him, yelling out an apology. If you're in a heavily guarded Israeli airport he is going to slip under the security partition and take off running with a frantic mother and sister following, only to be found taking peoples' luggage off of the luggage carousel. If you leave a library book by the pool (my school's copy of Harry Potter 5), a cell-phone by the bathtub (my dad's Nokia), a car with the keys still in the ignition (my Mom's Toyota)...

There's no question that Danny's quirks have enriched mine and my family's lives. He is the funniest, most audacious, and most affectionate person in my life, and everyone who knows him adores him. That's not to say though that everything with Danny is smooth sailing. The constant care for someone who is developmentally delayed is exhausting and extremely stressful. It takes both of my parents, me and our nanny to keep Danny occupied, healthy and safe, and we all still function under varying states of exhaustion.

It hurts my heart to see Danny have to suffer through the amount of medication he needs to take each day, the hospital visits, the consultations with the behaviour specialist, the constant switching of schools as administrators attempt to quantify his cognitive abilities. It hurt like hell when for a while he couldn't remember my name, or even now when he asks if I'm his friend and I have to explain that no, I'm more than that, I'm his sister, because he doesn't quite understand the distinction between family and friends. There is a moment of about three seconds, every time he has a seizure and his lips start to turn blue, when in a moment of pure terror I think my implorations to "breathe Danny, breathe" won't work and I will lose him. But, inevitably, after a few seconds he takes a rasping breath and my heart starts beating again.

There is no limit to the influence Danny has had on me. I've always been a little more serious than my friends and a lot more independent, a result of spending hours with my nose buried in books while my parents took care of my brother. I care deeply about people, often putting their interests before my own, and am fiercely protective of the people I love. Wanting to give back to the special needs community that has helped Danny so much, I got involved with different organizations that help kids with disabilities, from dance companies, to summer camps, to playing with my friend Gaby for a couple of hours every Sunday. My experiences have encouraged me to branch out into other areas of community service and even earned me a provincial award that I wasn't at all expecting. I decided that I wanted to encourage other teens to volunteer and so joined the Ontario Youth Volunteer Challenge committee in Ottawa. The next year I was asked to be Ottawa's Youth Representative on the provincial board, and am now helping to oversee a province-wide campaign with the government, aimed at helping students to get out and volunteer. I've had so many positive experiences volunteering that I've decided that I would like to engage in some form of social activism as a career, although I'm not yet sure what cause I will devote myself to and how.

When I was younger, there were definitely times when I wished that I was a little less serious, more like a regular kid than a young adult. But now I recognize that the conscientiousness Danny has given me makes me unique - not every teenager watches Gossip Girl and the news, subscribes to Vogue and The New Yorker, or hangs out with friends on Saturday and volunteers on Sunday. So although some angry Israeli security guards, a disgruntled school librarian and more than a few interrupted strangers might not have been thrilled with Danny's quirks, I thank my lucky stars that he's my brother, or rather that I got to be his sister.

Undergraduate / "Rebel Nerd" - What makes you unique [4]

Thanks for reading my essay! My biggest concern is whether to use this as my common app essay, or an essay about my brother that I posted in a previous thread. I wrote this as a supplement, but am considering using it as my main one. Let me know what you think!

Beyond your impressive academic credentials and extracurricular accomplishments, what else makes you unique and colourful? We know that nobody fits neatly into 500 words or less, but you can provide us with some suggestion of the type of person you are. Anything goes! Inspire us, impress us or just make us laugh. Think of this optional opportunity as show and tell by proxy and with an attitude.

I used to have a reputation as the cool girl: I had my nose pierced, I lived in my leather jacket and I wore stylish black jeans. Inevitably though, the truth came out: I'm a nerd.

It took me a long time to come out of the closet, so to speak. As a kid I was both a voracious reader and a social butterfly who danced competitively. My dance studio was in the same building as the neighbourhood library. You can see where the problem started. After class I would tell my friends I was leaving, then surreptitiously sneak into the library, and delve into a new tome of fantasy fiction. And so began my double life.

I thought that loving learning was like social suicide; if people knew how much I loved to go to class I would have no friends. So on the first day at my new middle school I made sure to bring a trendy purse to hold my books instead of a nerdy knapsack. When as an icebreaker we were asked what we liked to do in our free time, instead of saying homework I said going to concerts.

As I grew into a young adult, I became a rebel. Perhaps it was because as a kid I was forced to grow up quickly and uniform rules seemed petty to me, or maybe I just liked fashion too much for the no-accessories rule to keep me from wearing my cute new earrings. But rebel I did, and garnered a reputation as a "rebel babe", in the words of my grade 8 English teacher. But rebel babes aren't supposed to be excited about school. I was the kid who spent detentions discussing Shakespeare with the teacher on duty. My perceived self was battling intensely with my inner self, and I was in serious danger of developing multiple personality disorder.

Ironically, it was an essay on Twelfth Night that allowed me to come to terms with my double identity. Our teacher handed our essays back, and my friend reached out and grabbed mine out of my hands. "Typical. A 99%," she said with a laugh, "Oh Alex, you're such a nerd." I looked at her, dumbfounded. "What..." I stammered, "you know?" The relief was exquisite; I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Now I exert no effort in denying my nerdiness. I participate actively in class, I'm not afraid to use big words when I speak - I even read in plain sight! And yet I still wear black jeans, have the same friends, and stand up for what I believe in, because although I had been hiding certain aspects of my personality, those were all very real parts of me as well. In short, I learned that I could be completely comfortable with myself. And I still have a really cute book bag, I just don't hide the copy of Shakespeare's Collected Works sticking out of it. (Don't know whether I should add the word anymore to the end of my last sentence...?)

Undergraduate / ARGENTINA - CMC Leadership Essay [6]

Choose someone, fictional or nonfictional, historical or contemporary, whom you consider to be a leader. Suppose you are this person's primary advisor. How would you advise this person and why?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm also wondering whether I should add another sentence at the end

Once every four years I bleed blue and white. It is my birthright, accorded to me by my Argentinean upbringing. For four weeks during the World Cup my life is dominated by La Seleccion, the Argentinian national soccer team, and I watch with deep affection as Lionel Messi, the tiny Argentine dynamo, lights up the pitch with his dazzling footwork and mazy dribbles.

At only 23 years old, Messi has already won nearly every individual award there is to be won. It's not his silverware though that inspires me, or the reason why my walls are plastered with pictures of him in action. My respect for his talent is outclassed by my respect for his humility and grace.

And yet I'm not quite sure that humility and grace are enough to be an effective leader.
In this year's tournament, in a group match against Greece, Messi wore the Argentina captain's armband for the first time. For the first time, la Pulga (a.k.a the Flea) got to show whether he had the chops to lead Argentina to World Cup gold glory.

In short, the answer was no. I won't go into the tactical details because I'm still a little traumatized by our side's devastating loss to Germany in the quarter-finals. Suffice to say that the team got carried away by their early success and so neglected to make improvements to their weaknesses. Therefore, the advice I would give to Messi is one of my personal mottos, and one that I use in my capacity as the leader of our school's Cappies program: success is never final, failure is never fatal, and courage always counts.

As Cappies critics we go to see plays performed by students at high schools around the city and review them. For each performance, one review is selected to be published in the newspaper. While Messi's responsibility as captain is to help his teammates win games, as Lead Critic it is my responsibility to help my team get their articles published.

If one of our critics' reviews is chosen we celebrate their achievement, but I remind them that success is never final; I still go over their review with them and we make improvements to their writing style. For those whose articles were not published I remind them that failure is never fatal; we go over their reviews as well to develop their skills before they write their next one. And of course, courage always counts; in the same way I would suggest to Messi that he take more risks on the pitch as an example to his teammates, I encourage my teammates to take chances with their writing, and have fun with their work.