Undergraduate / I hated ballet- Common App Essay [5]

I hated ballet; everything from the scratchy dance costumes to my fellow dancers cracking under the pressure and crying on stage so after giving the sport my best effort I decided to hang up my tutu and retire. For the next six years, I went to gymnastics class once a week where I excelled at the beam and despaired of ever accomplishing anything on the bars. I loved the sport and enjoyed every aspect of it, even bars. Before I knew it, many of my friends had started gymnastics as well. Some even got on teams and competed including my best friend. I didnt want to be left behind so I did my absolute best to improve and dedicated myself to advancing to the advanced class so that we'd share classes but no matter what I did it never happened.

Over the course of a year I developed habits that resulted in me training constantly. I learned stretches I could do while I was laying in bed to improve my splits; I would work on conditioning while doing my homework on the floor of my bedroom; and I would dedicate hours a day to practicing handstands, cartwheels, and round offs in the playroom either on the floor or on a practice beam. Gymnastics took over my life and I was convinced that if I could hold my handstand a little longer, or do so many more push ups without stopping that I would be able to pass the gym's test and advance. Every time I took that test, I would get a few more checkboxes under beam, floor, and vault, but I was never able to get even one check under bars and that was my weakness. I took that test as often as I was allowed and eventually my coach approached me and said that it was okay if I could not do bars and that I was not the first girl who could not nor would I be the last.

Some girls just can not develop the upper arm strength to compete on bars and no matter how good someone is on the other events if one cannot compete on bars they will never be able to compete. I quit gymnastics right after that conversation because she was right. Sometimes you just can not win and no matter how hard you try you can not be the best in everything. Through no fault of my own, I was unable to be a successful gymnast, and that was okay. It did not matter that my friends were competing and that I was not because I was doing things that they were not. Just because we were not attached at the hip did not make me a bad friend, it just meant that we were different people with different strengths, and I believe that this lesson could not have come at a better time. I was ten years old and just discovering that I was my own person and this experience hastened that discovery and led to me becoming an independent young woman who is capable of making her own decisions and able to go in my own direction.

Undergraduate / "Stop ladies pray!" - The importance of music throughout my life Yale Admissions essay [3]

Prompt: In this essay, please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more. You may write about anything-from personal experiences or interests to intellectual pursuits.

Some of my earliest memories are of my family gathering in my grandfather's living room with guitars, mandolins, banjos, and fiddles. By the end of the night the entire house would be filled with songs and laughter as the kids made up lyrics to whatever the 'band' decided to play and the aunts and uncles laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Music has always been an important part of my life from my early childhood memories of family gatherings to learning to play the violin.

It was at a Christmas gathering when I was twelve that I first picked up a violin. My cousin Sydney was showing the entire family her repertoire of Christmas songs when my Uncle Alex decided that all the cousins should try to play her violin. After holding her violin and having Sydney show me how to play a few notes I taught myself how to play "Jingle Bell Rock" by the end of the night. It did not take much begging before I had weekly lessons of my own, and before I knew it I was learning more than two note songs; I was learning scales, small classical pieces and Irish jigs.

The music that I have listened to at various times throughout my childhood has had a profound impact on the person that I've grown up to be. I grew up listening to the music my parents love. I would sing Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani with my friends on the school bus and then come home and listen to Elton John and Led Zeppelin. I even earned some confused looks while kidding around with friends about the dress code and showing ankles, I burst into Gilbert & Sullivan with "Stop, ladies pray!" from The Pirates of Penzance. This aspect of my life set me apart from my friends in elementary school, but by the time everyone had I-pods I had become the kid whose playlist everyone wanted to borrow.