Undergraduate / Question: Why we have to write personal essays? [2]

I really don't understand why we have to write personal essays? It seems almost inadequate to me. They're telling us that it's important to find out what kind of student they're excepting, how is this supposed to aid admissions in accepting anyone? Personally I find it to be a competition of who can be the best story teller, the best fabricator, the best liar. Anyone can sit here behind a computer or behind a pencil and write up an entire story about their lives, fact or fiction, to make them sound like the ideal candidate to get into their dream school. This personal statement was created to be personal, how can anything be more impersonal than text? Personal means person to person, it means actually seeing and understanding someone, not just reading words they write down and blindly trusting what they say stands true.

Undergraduate / Runners in my school - Prompt 2 [2]

A gunshot, stampede, and the race is off, it was a matter of time until I reached the finish of the race I take first for runners representing my school, and shatter my own personal best time. I believe I have the most powerful, bone crushing personal traits of all. A natural drive to self improve yourself, to test your physical and mental bounds, to put your qualities to the test and challenge yourself and your surroundings. To be your best and to be the best, it's the result of the combination of competition, motivation, and endurance.

I wear these strengths on my sleeve's, honing them in on academics as well as extracurricular activities. Being a top runner at my school in both sprinting and cross country has pushed me on towards a feeling of self being and self success. The idea that there is always room for improvement is a core drive in almost anything I do. No one wants to be out done in what they are trying to accomplish, and that's exactly what I believe, if I put in more input than the competition, I'll have more positive output. If there is a human flaw that my time in high school has taught me to be the most depressing state of mind, that state is apathy. Nothing could less productive and more weary, and that is an all around fault in society, us as a species are supposed to feel and supposed to be driven. Everything a human does is based off of a certain amount of motivation, and my key plan is to keep that amount at it's maximum.

To keep motivated is to find a subject to focus your motvation into and keep driven towards it. My transformation in my life occurred when I discovered this. It wasn't until senior year when I found my passion to be running, and I would never let someone easily attempt to surpass me as a sprinter again. Enduring hours of practice, and not letting pain get the best of me, I have seen immense improvement in just running, but in school work. Once I found a core focus of motivation, the rest of my life's ambitions were easy to follow. Staying motivated in one subject kept me to endure through another.

If you are going to stay motivated, you will endure, and if you are going to endure, you will be competitive, and when you want to be competitive and keep your role as top dog, you will be motivated.