Undergraduate / I've never actually stepped onto the Notre Dame campus and experienced the aura personally [13]

This essay is fine, but I think there are some discrepancies here and there.

But, for the sake of simplicity, I choose Notre Dame because it's the only school that I can't forget.
It's the only school you can't forget? I would avoid using generic reasons like these as much as possible. From what I can tell to the best of my knowledge, you've given your reason why you've chosen Notre Dame, and they're really good reasons! You've answered the prompt, saying:

marvel at the Haiti Program's infallible determination to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis and bring a better world for millions
you've given specific reasons here and there in your prompt, while telling a story that also gives specific reasons.

Very good draft, it just needs some slight tweaking. Also, while you're still up, I'd like for you to take a quick glance at my essay and critique me. Thanks!

Undergraduate / How can my problem solving nature contribute to Rice? Rice University Personal Perspective Prompt [5]

ahhh, I thought so. The due date is on January 1st, and my brother has already killed my first draft. Man, what am I going to do? I just used up my hard drive story (which is a lot more compelling than this one), and I didn't want to be redundant.

EDIT: wait, I used that story for Stanford (whoops). That story can still get me going through these times of difficulty...

Undergraduate / How can my problem solving nature contribute to Rice? Rice University Personal Perspective Prompt [5]

ok, so I remembered that I haven't used the hard drive story for Rice yet, and my brother is a writing maestro, so it is REALLY good! However, I am nine words away from the word limit, and I need to make sure that I've answered the prompt. Here's the third draft.

The Committee on Admission is interested in getting to know each candidate as well as possible through the application process. The following essay question is designed to demonstrate your writing skills and facilitate our full appreciation of your unique perspective.

The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (500 word limit)

My computer crashed as soon as I booted it up. A wave of panic washed over me. What happened? Why did it send me into a recovery mode screen? It seems like this problem won't be going away for quite a while. This dreaded recovery screen haunted me, as I rebooted to no avail. The laptop was essentially bricked for now.

For one long, grueling month, I had to do things without the computer for things like typing essays and doing research. Thankfully, I had a modern HTC EVO phone to perform these tasks. I must have downloaded what seemed like a mountain of apps in an attempt to try to type essays with the phone, but I reluctantly realized that was a very impractical method: I needed that computer to function again.

I thought to myself that it had to be some software or hardware problem. Every night, I'd run the Windows 7 diagnostic tool CD while I fiddled with my phone. However, it took hours just to get results, so in the morning I'd be reading these magic 8 ball results that gave frustrating, cryptic answers, giving me information about all the possible areas that hinted to these "bad sectors." I had to search the scan results until I could get to the answers that I wanted, leading me to the "bad HDD" message, after several days had passed.

Now, the hard drive wasn't completely ruined, but the damage was bad enough to slow everything down to a snail's pace, which made sense considering that I could hear that constant clicking that repeated itself over and over again, as I stared blankly into the screen. Click. Click. Click. The computer stalled and trudged forward, one click at a time. I could have gotten a new hard drive at this point, but I wanted to use every resource that I had at my disposal. I remembered that my dad kept my old computer, which gave me the idea to perform the vital operation to this patient! I retrieved the computer, and began surgery. The screwdrivers were my scalpels, as I took out the screws that held the hard drives in place. I transplanted the old hard drive into this modern machine. But, the computer, with the old, yet fully functioning hard drive, didn't quite work yet. Was my torment to be permanent? No, I remembered to install the drivers into this hard drive so that it could fully function. My dilemma had finally ended, and I could do my work again. I still have the failed hard drive to this day, as a symbol of my success.

Because of situations like this, I've always had a drive to solve my own problems. Situations like these are the reason I want to fix things when something goes wrong, or build on personal projects. This is the perspective I want to bring to Rice: my will to build things and solve problems.