Undergraduate / Common App Essay: Issue which affects you (My competitors) [3]

any critique and advice is welcome.

please let me know if this reveals enough about myself and shows character or is too bland.

One night, I was on the phone talking to one of my friends from India. We had been the best friends before I moved to the U.S. We were in all of the same classes, and both did well in school and sports. After a while of exchanging pleasantries, the topic of education entered our discussion. I described to him how I had just finished my eleventh grade year. I let him know of the difficulty of the classes, and how I had struggled to maintain good grades in them, the classes being the hardest ones I had taken yet. Upon hearing this, his only response was that he had taken all of those classes in his ninth grade year and had excelled in all of them. I was appalled.

After the initial shock of hearing this statement, I did not wallow in a sea of self-degradation, but was rather apathetic to the situation. This education gap between the US and other countries, such as China and India, did not bother me that much. I thought that it was not important anymore since I was already in the twelfth grade and could not do much about it now. Although I was a bit disappointed and taken aback, I was rather unconcerned and did not know why this issue was significant.

I decided that it would only benefit me to do some more research on this topic. I looked up plenty of statistics, articles, and other such things to gain more knowledge on this issue. Upon finishing many hours of research, my outlook completely changed. I realized how vast the differences were between the U.S. and other parts of the world on both the view and focus on education, and on the content and level of learning. My original apathy completely vanished and was replaced instead by worry and concern, for the situation. I now realized that this pertained to every student who has gone to a public school, not just the people yet to go to school. I did not see previously that I was a product of that education system, and that now as I started in college and later in the working world, I would already be two steps behind my competitors from India and China in this new global workplace.

I could not believe that this had been allowed to happen and decided to try and do something to help myself advance in this competitive world. Upon this discovery of the issue, I started to work much harder in school and to excel there, but I also began studying as much as I could outside of school. Attempting to learn what I could, ahead of our school curriculum and things we may not have even learnt in school. This issue is of great importance to me because it relates to my number one priority right now: education. Learning of this problem has led me to become a more focused, and determined individual, confident on doing all possible to bridge the gap of education present in the world.

Undergraduate / "John's influence" - comment on my essay. Is the topic too generic? [4]

Prompt: Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.

Here was the dilemma. On our way to the wedding, the motorcycle decided to both run over a nail, and lose its battery power. We were stuck in the middle of a busy road, in all our formal wear with a broken down motorcycle and nothing to do. I instantly began to freak out and started worrying about all the things which had gone wrong. How would we get to the wedding? Was it too far to walk? Would are clothes get dirty? What woud our friend think of us if we did not make it to the wedding? While I was sitting there nearly hyperventilating, John was calm, figuring out all that we needed to do. He concluded that getting to the wedding was of premier importance and so he called up a friend and asked for a ride there. Next, he reasoned that if the motorcycle was tireless and without power then no one would be able to steal it, so it would be alright to leave it somewhere. So, we pushed the bike to parking lot, locked it up, and waited for our friend to come pick us up and take us to the wedding. John has always shown this kind of behavior and demeanor. Logic and reasoning have become the two key qualities I employ to run my life, and the main reason for this type of behavior is from the influence of my cousin John.

John's influence is of great importance to me because it has led to my interest in engineering. The way John was able to handle every situation with poise and understanding made me admire him. He showed me that in most situations, there is almost always one clear and obvious solution. This thought process has become the way I try and live my life, and the reason for my immense respect for him. Engineering appealed to me the most because it was the only discipline which makes any sense to me. If I can figure out how things work and why they do in the manners which they do, I could use these facts to develop the answer to all questions on this particular topic or be able to build and create a solution. There would be no need for any speculation, guessing, or subjective solutions; there would be just a right and a wrong answer. John always had the innate ability to analyze each situation and reason out the solution. The countless times he presented me with the correct answer to a question, or the right way to handle a situation demonstrated his adept method for problem-solving. This demonstration always appealed to me and made me want to be the same way.

John's influence has left a lasting impact on my life. His methods of approaching situations with composure and a surety in his beliefs made him seem almost omniscient; making it seem like nothing could phase him. This trait really appealed to me and convinced me to attempt to adopt his coherent, rational thought-process and way of thinking, so that I could analyze issues with the same aplomb as him.