Undergraduate / MIT: "frightening competence" - my ability to plan and to control my life - personal attributes [6]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay: after month of editing it still looks slightly vague, especially at the beginning. Help me, and I will help you if you want to improve your essays.

I was thinking about the essay near week, and, on graduation, looking on my classmates who talked about their future, I abruptly understood what I can write about. It is, how my friend said about me, "frightening competence". My ability to plan and, as far as possible, to control my life according to my purpose eventually made me what I am. Of course, "time and chance happeneth to them all", but it is my understanding what should be done, and what should not, and intuitive sense of proper time to do proper things that is the reason for most of my successes. I have flaws and did mistakes that led to new mistakes and so on. Nevertheless, I always followed decisions I made without regards, and it helped me greatly. For example, I was only third by my points among 10th grade participants of the Ukrainian chemistry olympiad two years ago, and there were plenty of well-trained 11th grade participants. That is why doubts and uncertainty were haunting me during examinations to form a team for the international olympiad. But I found inner strength not to yield to these feelings, and, when the team was established, I was a part of it.

Undergraduate / "Meissner effect" - My world view was mostly shaped by my school - MIT [9]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay; it still looks clumsy. Any criticism is warmly welcomed.

"Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?".

Please, check the new one, especially beginning.

I live in a world where I must fight to feel alive. Word "fight" does not mean anything brute, but I cannot find better definition for the liquid fire that runs in my veins when I solve problems on the Olympiads. If life is not measured in years, but by the deeds of men, then I can sincerely say that truly alive I was for several dozen times - and I have no regrets about it. On the Olympiads I have met smart and kind people with whom I would be glad to live and work side by side, and dedicated, selfless scientists and teachers, whose advices I followed not only in studying. Moments of Olympian life burn in my memory like supernova stars: I deciphered nasty NMR spectra, taught fellow Olympians how to do right push-ups to grow muscle mass, and founded tradition to spend "gold" prize on pizza and pineapples for all the team. I learned from every person I met on the Olympiads, and, if someone thinks that the only thing I could learn this way was Chemistry, he makes big mistake. People of Olympiad taught me that self-made man is, above all, the man of work. Moreover, despite thrilling spirit of competition, moral principles of our community can be expressed the best way in Duglass's words: "All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor". In sum, Olympiads taught me how to love Chemistry, life and the world I live in.

Undergraduate / "just do not panic, go and take what you deserved" - MIT: most significant challenge you've faced. [6]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay: after editing it still looks slightly vague, especially at the beginning. Help me, and I will help you if you want to improve your essays.

"I am absolutely confident that you are able to win gold medals, just do not panic. Go and take what you deserved" - These were the last words my mentor said to my team before we left to face our most formidable challenge yet, the 46th International Chemistry Olympiad. Even though I have already participated in the previous year's event, I have to admit that I had never been so worried. Success or failure, the opportunity to achieve my dream or the necessity to yield it to someone more successful - everything depended on the decisions I had to make then and there. But one thing in particular gave me hope. Before our phones were taken away from us, I had checked my emails and saw something I had never seen before - it was a list of letters from the people who had helped me with my preparations. I understood at that moment that I was not completely on my own; there were people who believed in me, and to yield would mean betraying them all. I could not let this to happen, and I did not. I learned there not just that the weak give up and the strong persevere; I had learned that before, or else I would never have won gold at all. I learned that perseverance does more than separate success from failure, it can create a way to victory where none before was possible. I have to remember this, because there will be greater challenges in my life.

Undergraduate / 'My interests include organic chemistry and biochemistry' - Which department or program at MIT? [5]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay: after editing it still misses something important. Help me, and I will help you if you want to improve your essays.

My interests include organic chemistry and biochemistry, and I have already worked as an assistant at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, spending a whole year synthesizing new heterocycles and doing total syntheses. I enjoyed this wonderful work very much, and so I would like to work in this field for the UROP. Even though my research was hard work and didn't allow me much time for sleep, I never had regrets about it. Therefore, I would choose the Department of Chemistry, since organic synthesis is the most exhilarating and multifaceted branch of science I have ever studied.

Undergraduate / MIT: 'Every evening I put on my running clothes and go to nearby forest to run few kilometers' [7]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay: after editing it still looks too much like cliché. Help me, and I will help you if you want to improve your essays.

Every evening, having got tired with studying, I put on my running clothes and go to nearby forest to run few kilometres. My training happens like clockwork, usual, but significant part of my life, which helps me to relax and refresh my mind. When I cannot solve some problem, solution often comes to me on the run, when I forget about everything and just enjoy my training. Moreover, I run not only for fun; like ice hockey, which I played before, running is exercise of will. It helped me to prove myself truthfulness of good saying: "no pain, no gain" and prepare to face challenges that I have met in my life.

Undergraduate / 'As any self-made man, I am man of work, and my entire world is built on it'; MIT essay [2]

Hello everyone. Please, help me to improve this essay: after editing I still feel redundancy and some lack of fluency.

As any self-made man, I am man of work, and my entire world is built on it. At school and institute I spend my time solving math problems, studying physics, creating total syntheses and working at the lab. Like a Ptolemaic universe, this part of my world consists of many spheres: sport, family, friends, math, chemistry and scientific work. I have my own music to enhance my mind (though I like old classic) - when my "spheres" are in harmony, they produce it by themselves. It is the world which I created with my own hands, like mechanic of old days. I love to solve problems from Chemistry Olympiads at school and teach next generation of passionate young chemists how to create chemical monsters like taxol from simple building blocks. After few hours of such work syntheses just come to my head, every step clearly defined and every molecule more meaningful than hundreds of words. All I have to do is to write them down on the board and bring them to life in my lab.

Nevertheless, there is another part of my world, which I created only for myself. When I am fed up with syntheses and even sport, I read. I read everything that I find interesting and meaningful, from works of ancient saints to science fiction. It allows my mind to flow and absorb new ideas and concepts. I often forget that there is more about the world than chemistry and sport, and this part of me helps me to keep my humanity intact and remember about people around me, my dreams and purpose of my life.