Undergraduate / Stanford Supplement Essay: Personal Narrative on career decision [2]

This essay is for my Stanford app. It's a personal narrative on my career choice and how/why I arrived at my decision
Most people would describe me as a very driven individual, so it's not surprising
that go-kart racing, the passion of the last eight years of my life, exemplifies the way I
live my life. On the track I'm 100% focused on running a good, clean race, passing as
many competitors as I can, and becoming a better driver. Though I may not always win, I
always learn something about driving or even about myself. In the classroom the same
mental drive has always been present, and now, after taking leadership roles in Civics
Club, I'm realizing the intrinsic rewards of community service. These areas of my life -
racing, academics, and community service - have molded me into who I am today and
allowed me to recognize a future in medicine, more specifically surgery.
After attending a few local karting events when I was ten, my father and I took up
the sport, which has been the root of my growth and development as a person. Karting, a
very developed and technical form of motorsport, serves as one of the primary stepping
stones of professional racing. Dedicating hours of my time both on and off the track, I
learned not only how to develop myself as a driver but as a mechanic and engineer. In the
span of my career I have earned over fifty national podium finishes and won multiple
national events, including the 2007 Grand National Champion race. My efforts in karting
have led me to compete against professional IRL, NASCAR, and Formula One drivers as
well as some of the top teams from around the world. In order to compete with best of the
best, I had to be disciplined, physically and mentally, both on and off the track.
Whether it's on the race track or in the classroom, I thrive on challenge. The
classes I find most interesting are taught by teachers with high academic standards who
challenge me to think outside the box. Before my junior year of high school, the only
academic challenge that I faced was the boredom and frustration with classes that failed
to push me to better myself academically. But AP Physics, taken both my junior and
senior years, has definitely satisfied my desire for a challenge as well as given me a
glimpse of the exciting academic studies that wait at the university level. Without a doubt
the most intellectually engaging scholarly experience I have ever had has been my time
studying physics under Sean Bird. Mr. Bird, who spends his summers working for NASA
and travelling around the country assisting Texas Instruments in the development of their
CAS software, was the first teacher to push me above and beyond my limits in the
academic realm. From my first day of AP Physics, I was expected to know more, do
more, and comprehend more in forty five minutes of class than any other teacher had
asked of me in a year's worth of lessons. His truly brilliant mind and rigorous teaching
methods, coupled with the already demanding course work of AP Physics, forced me to
totally change how I approached learning. Almost singlehandedly, it prepared me for the
rigorous environment I will inevitably face while conducting research at the university
level, but more importantly it sparked an interest in research I had never truly
experienced before in the academic realm.
Racing go-karts and earning good grades have definitely been great experiences,
but being the Vice President and President of the Covenant Christian High School Civics
Club has opened my eyes to the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits of helping others. A few
weeks ago, I led the organization in hosting our school's first walk-a-thon that benefited a
local free healthcare clinic for the uninsured. Through this event, we raised nearly $4000
for the clinic. More importantly, the event allowed the community to become more
informed about an issue in their own backyard. Currently I am organizing a benefit
concert to raise money for an organization called Thirst Project, which supplies clean
water to developing countries, as well as organizing a toy drive for local families in need.
Leading events such as these has been a fantastic growth opportunity, allowing me, a
high school student, to do more for my community than I ever would have believed
possible.
At seventeen years old, I realize that I have been blessed to experience so much in
a short time. Although I love go-kart racing, an internship at OrthoIndy in Indianapolis
opened my eyes to the field of medicine and the challenge of being a surgeon. My
experiences on the track, in the classroom, and in the community were integral in shaping
me into the person I am today and without them I truly believe my future would remain
unclear. I also believe that these experiences have, in a way, prepared me for the medical
field. As a go-kart racer, I developed the mental and physical discipline required both on
and off the track and an appreciation of the challenge of racing, not just the win. As a
student, I developed a love of learning and a desire to apply my education to real world
experiences. As a Civics Club leader, I developed an awareness of how much I, or any
individual, can impact a community. I'm working hard to finish my high school years
strong, confident that I will succeed as a decision maker, problem solver, and thinker
whose contributions in the field of medicine will truly benefited others.

Undergraduate / Obsession with time - Stanford Roomate short essay response [5]

Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. What would you want your future roommate to know about you? Tell us something about you that will help your future roommate -- and us -- know you better.

One unique thing about me is how much I value time. As someone who has spent the past nine years in the motorsports world as a kart racer I have learned to see the value in even the tiniest fraction of a second. The importance that even a thousandth of a second can have was unimaginable to me until I began racing and saw that often it was the difference between winning and losing. At a race track engineers, mechanics, and drivers will spend hours analyzing the setup of the race car, determined to find a fraction of a second in their lap times that no other team has. As my career in racing progressed I became obsessed with gaining every ounce of time I could on the competition and by doing so I began to see the value of analyzing the details. As I strived to perfect the minute details of my driving style and chassis setup I began to see success. This unique obsession has carried over into every aspect of my daily life. I now see that every moment offers a new opportunity. This can sometimes become problematic as I find just relaxing extremely difficult. School, work, extracurricular activities, and spending time with friends are essential to me and always come before taking time out of my day to just relax. Although many of my friends believe that I need to spend less time "doing", it has been this very "problem" that has lead to what I feel are my greatest successes in both school and community service projects. My obsession with time has led me to be a very driven and focused person, something that I would definitely want my roommate to know and understand.

Any comments would be beneficial!

Undergraduate / "my time studying physics" - Stanford short essay- intellectual vitality [3]

Here is the first short essay prompt for Stanford's supplement and my response. Just did my first run through and wanted to get some feedback. Be as brutally honest as possible :). After 4 years at a college prep school im used to it!

I have always strayed away from the typical format in my writing and it has often brought me success. Obviously for my full length common app essay I will stick to a more basic format but with only 1800 characters to answer with I just jumped in. I see these short essays more as informal responses as they are really just trying to get to know you?

Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.

Without a doubt the most intellectually engaging experience I have ever had has been my time studying physics under Sean Bird. Mr. Bird, who spends his summers working for NASA and travelling around the country assisting Texas Instruments in the development of their CAS software, was the first teacher to push me above and beyond my limits in the academic realm. From my first day of AP Physics I was expected to know more, do more, and comprehend more in forty five minutes of class than any other teacher had asked of me in a years worth of lessons. His truly brilliant mind and rigorous teaching methods, coupled with the already demanding course work of AP Physics, forced me to totally change how I approached learning. His daily free response questions were the first to challenge me to actually apply my knowledge. Such application was essential for true comprehension and mastery of the class. My favorite project, focused on applied mechanics, was to develop and design a mousetrap spring powered vehicle to go a minimum of 60 meters. This challenge I truly devoted myself to, spending countless hours developing the perfect design and allocating the proper materials. When contest time came and my vehicle went the length of the gym, over 150 meters, before being stopped by the wall, Mr. Bird smiled, picked it up, and told me to tweak my design until it could go down and back to the other end again. That moment best characterizes my time in Physics. No matter how much I succeded I was always pushed to be better. My time in his classroom enhanced my problem solving skills beyond measure, and forced me to be more creative and ingenious in the classroom. In essence it singlehandedly prepared me for the rigorous coursework that I will inevitably face at a university such as Stanford.

tear it up!