Undergraduate / 'girl's varsity tennis team' - Common app short answer: extracurriculars [5]

Simply intending to enjoy the last year of high school, I joined the girl's varsity tennis team with zero experience. Admittedly, the two-month practice was too short to equip me with the ability to perform the skillful volleys, lobs or slices; however, it did teach me the most essential lesson both in tennis and life-simplification. "Just get the ball back," the coach repeated over and over again. By focusing only on returns and serves rather than the game as a whole, I managed to earn every possible point from my opponent. Similar to life, targeting a certain problem or situation instead of a dozen helps me to omit the superfluous details and have a clearer overview. Hence, with the reduced complexity, the odds for success are hugely increased.

Undergraduate / 'I'm proud of my city, Jinan, in China' - national concern, Common app essay [4]

Prompt:Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

"How dare they build the subways! How dare they hate springs! How dare they blame springs for all that!" I could not believe what I had just read on the newspaper.

Where I come from, Jinan, the capital of Shandong province of China, has been referred as the city of springs for hundreds of years because of its numerous artesian springs. Water nurtures us, supports us, prospers us, from as small as the mineral drinking water to as huge as the 8% GDP from tourism;but, it seems to hinder the city from further development as well.

In order to protect the special geology which forms the magnificent springs, the government had kept pushing back the construction plan of subways for years. Unfortunately, as the city expands, the public transportation system can no longer be compatible with the booming requirements. Under the pressure from both the citizens and the intercity rivalries, in 2010, the city government finally passed the proposition of subway construction with a $1billion investment. Looking forward to embrace a brighter future, I cheered for this decision like others; however, having seen old towns, train station,streets lost in the national trend of modernization started only twenty years ago, I was more worried about the loss of the springs, the city spirit and the only thing we can leave for our children.

This concern is indeed important to me as the intense fear have urged me to join the spring protection association, with which I spent the whole summer with on looking through documents, communicating with related government departments and visiting every spring near the subway line. During the research, I delightfully learned that with sophisticated technology, running on different layers, subway would not influence the springs; however, the more researches we conducted, the more I realized how judgmental I was at the beginning. Studying the results from surveys, I figured out that people surely loved the springs but it was due to the poor understanding of the significance of springs that made people decide to sacrifice the springs.

Aiming to clarify the mistaken thoughts, after the research, we passed out flyers and explained the contribution of springs to the citizens in the central park. Listening to reasons of the complains again taught me that alleging before doing corresponding investigation to dig out the multiple reasons hiding behind the most obvious one could not only be unfair but also hurt those were judged.

This is the city I am proud of and this is the city I am deeply in love with. With the existing scenery of "flowing streams by every house and willow trees by every door" portrayed in the novel, I am glad that my hometown will not become another victim of modernization; nonetheless, we still need to focus on the education of conservation of traditions. There is a long way to go.

Any advices are appreciated ïź Thanks!