Undergraduate / "taylor ham" - Common App [4]

So I wrote about pork roll for my Common App essay. I love food. I tried to bring out my personality in this. Is it bad that I don't have much about my academic history or other experiences in this? Is it too vague? I'm applying to NYU, BU, Northeastern, Princeton, and a few other schools with this. My SAT scores are not very good so I've heard that when that happens it's the essay that counts. Feedback please?

It's called Taylor Ham, otherwise known as Pork Roll, otherwise known as New Jersey's Filet Mignon! Thousands of buyers a day are privileged enough to buy such a sandwich known as the Pork Roll and Cheese: a few delicious circular-shaped slices of this tasty meat treat, a warm, melty slice of American cheese, sometimes loaded on with an egg, and then topped off with a spectacular seasoning of salt, pepper, and, my personal favorite, ketchup. All of this is contained inside a hard roll, or as we Dunellenites like to eat it, a delightful egg bagel from the best bagel shop in our entire one-square-mile town, Dunellen Bagel. But why does only New Jersey get to enjoy this sapid sandwich? The world may never know. Maybe it will come to a rocket scientist's mind, thirty-three years from now.

Every Sunday morning, I wake up at eight. I go for a run and explore through my town and nearby towns. I go sightseeing, as if I haven't seen the place a thousand times before, and I try to pick out things I've never noticed, little details that are often overlooked. Then I go home. I shower, of course, and by this time, all I can think about is a savory breakfast sandwich and a thirst-quenching Arizona Iced Tea. After all, I spent a long morning sightseeing, and by 8:45, I'm more than exhausted. I throw on my favorite pair of Vans and I head out the back door, grabbing my worn out banana skateboard that leans against the brick house. I often forget my iPod, which I bring everywhere, so I run back in to get it. I skate and jam to music all six blocks to Dunellen Bagel. I bid Coach Reed and the "usual crowd" a good morning, I wait in the long line, I order and retrieve, and I leave. Sometimes, I'll sit outside on the tables with a few of my good friends. I also like to bring it back to my house and sit on the Bagel Bench next to my pond. Yes, it's called the Bagel Bench, and I'm sure you can guess what it's for. I watch the Koi fish swim all around as I eat. They splash because they are expecting food, for they felt the vibration of the ground and my footsteps as I walked by just a moment ago. I remember how my brother named all of the fish "Morton" when he was young and my mother asked what each fish should be called. I wonder where the heck this five-year-old heard the name "Morton," because I never have in my life.

One day, I was sitting on the Bagel Bench in my back yard and I started wondering again why no one else in the country besides New Jerseyans get to appreciate the scrumptious sandwich. Is it because it's a heart attack on a roll? No, America has plenty of those; that wouldn't stop anyone. Is everyone else allergic to pork roll? No, that's quite silly. It's because New Jersey is a special place- no, not because it's the diner capital, not because half its schools can't pass a budget- but because we're simply a wonderful little state, bordering the wonderful New York City, and filled with a lot of interesting young people, myself proudly being one of them. Hey, maybe thirty-three years from now, that rocket scientist will be me.

Writing Feedback / 'brothers who are already enrolled at NYU' - Why NYU? [4]

Prompt: Why NYU?
feedback?

My parents have been bringing me into the city at least once a month since I was old enough to walk. I've gone beyond seeing New York as a tourist attraction and have delved into seeing the place from a much different perspective, almost as if I've already lived there. I can easily find my way around the city- I am a Subway and Path train master- and I even know all of the best eateries such as the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, and Mamouns and Two Bros' Pizza on St. Mark's Place. What I truly love about the city is the character- let me rephrase that- the many characters. It's so much different than the suburbs where I come from. Here, I could walk down the street and be judged for what I'm wearing, what I'm listening to, what I believe, or what my goals and aspirations are. But when I'm in the city, I feel like the sky is the limit; I can live how I want to live and I can be as quirky as I want to be. No one is judgmental, but instead, a person's unique qualities and abilities are what can be appreciated most. The city allows for NYU to be the birth place of opportunity, with countless resources right at its fingertips. Also, because NYU's campus is right in Manhattan, it provides for students to be able to really be a part of the "real world" before they graduate from college. Having two brothers who are already enrolled at NYU and having so much knowledge of the school already, one would think it would be easier to name the the things that I don't like about the school, but in fact it is quite the opposite.

Undergraduate / 'I stand my ground and dig deep' - Common App Essay [3]

"I will never falter. I'll stand my ground." The song, the mantra, the reverberates through my head as I run. I won't give up. One more hill ïjust up this hill and I'm done. I'm halfway up the hill, I'm halfway up. (do some math, calculate how long your stride is, do any approximate calculation about how many steps or how many seconds until you'll be done with the race). I see my mom at the top of the hill. Fifteen steps until I reach her. She yells to me, "Come on Beck! Charge this hill! Keep this pace! You'll break twenty-one minutes if you keep this up!"

...What does she mean keep this up? The race is almost over, I should start my finishing kick now. Wait. It CAN'T be. Twenty minutes...that's a 5K time. Coach Todd told me this was a girl's 2 mile.

It all sinks in. There's 1.1 miles left of this race. I can't believe this is happening. My legs, so heavy, are becoming the trees I'm running through; their roots want to keep me firm to the ground, to slow my pace and keep me from breaking through the forest to the finish line that awaits me. I pick my legs up higher, kick them faster to keep the roots from taking a hold in the cold ground. Unrelenting tears stream down my red windswept face.

I tell myself:Think about everything you've done, all that you've worked for this season. Every time you got up to run before school because you couldn't make it to cross country practice after school because of play rehearsal, student council,math league or juggling club. Every time you stayed late after practice to do core work when everyone else went home to take a hot shower and warm up. Every time you sat in lunch and scribbled notes about splits and times and course maps and how many seconds it would take to have a new personal record. All of that helps you now. You've done all you can, now just run. Don't think. Don't calculate. Just run.

I dig deep. I focus on the girl ahead of me. She's even more tired than I am; she doesn't want this as badly as I do. I push the pain out of my head, the negativity out of my head, and I run. If I can do this, if I can finish this race without giving in, without slowing down, without getting passed, I can do anything.

This is my second attempt at the Common App essay. Please, please give feedback. I feel like there's a lot of my personality that's not brought out in this...but maybe I can keep this and bring out my personality more in some of my supplements?

Thank you!

Undergraduate / 'No such thing as the Postal Service' - NYU Supplement- What intrigues you? [9]

Prompt: What intrigues you?
Okay, be honest. Is this dumb? Everyone seems to be writing about a song, a city, or a book, and I wanted mine to be different. Also, this is 717 characters when the max is 1500. Is it too short?

Right now you are holding a piece of paper, a document composed of wood and other fibrous substances, lightly saturated with dye-based ink and pigments- 100% tangible. In less than three days, this flat cluster of atoms you are holding could be in the palm of another being, sitting at his office in Seattle, Washington, nearly three thousand miles away...for a cost of just 44 cents. Have you ever criticized the price of postage stamps? Well imagine this: there is no such thing as the US Postal Service, no such thing as mail. Go ahead; try hand delivering that letter. Yes, it will still make its journey to that same Seattle office, but don't be surprised if it costs you thousands of dollars to get it there.