Undergraduate / Common App - Topic of Your Own Choice (How I Face Challenges) [3]

I am a well-groomed, casually-dressed man whose body mimics the movement of those around him, but whose mind is days ahead, studying, pondering, planning, concentrating. I am a quiet, seemingly innocuous, man who does not lurk in the shadows - waiting for my next victim to inevitably step into those detrimental shadows - but remains in the sunlight. I am a glasses-wearing, curly-haired man who squints at the same sunlight - squinting not only to filter the sunlight, but also to see what is yet to come - the destruction of my victims. I am a serial killer.

I study my victims very closely. Every facet and every detail of their lives stays under the lens of my glasses. My eyes, watery and red from reading, are fixated on the pages on which their lives unfold. Flipping each page, intent on understanding everything my victims have within them, I study every minute detail, pondering what each detail will reveal to me about this world.

My victims are difficult to recall. Their numerous details are challenging to retain; however, I am up to the challenge. In fact, this challenge fuels me, makes me want to feel the enlightenment when their destruction is complete. This challenge enables me to push through the ache of my brain as I concentrate on the details and the hurt in my hands as I annotate every aspect of their lives.

Information is key; retrieval of this information requires social interaction. My victims are also studied by others; therefore, I always have a plethora of prospective informants. Retrieving information from these informants pleases me. The constant interaction with them introduces me to many people, people with interests similar and dissimilar to my own, people with whom I can engage in both intelligent and comical debates, people who become my friends.

Studying is good but relaxation is better. The friends I make not only help me retrieve information and achieve the destruction of my victims, but they also draw me out of the manic studying I get sucked into once I start. They let me experience the enjoyment in life that studying rids. This enjoyment is uplifting and removes the ache from my brain and the ache of my hands. However, challenges, when incomplete, seem to draw me back and I resume my studies, aiming and hoping for my victims' ultimate destruction.

The final moment, the final test, the ultimate destruction. All my studying culminates into a final moment. All my victims line up, one after the other, awaiting their fate while I approach them one at a time. My first victim Science, my second - Math, third - English, fourth - Government, fifth - Religion; and sixth - Technology.

The tests come back and my challenge has been completed - my current victims, destroyed. A's on all of them. My serial killing passion has been quelled, momentarily. Friends and enjoyment take over my life, temporarily. Now, another victim appears and again brings out the serial killer in me. The challenges these new victims bring seem insurmountable; however, this challenge fuels me to surmount this insurmountable victim - College.

Undergraduate / 'Papua New Guinean-born Filipino-Nigerian' - U of M Short Answer - Diversity [10]

Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan.

Papua New Guinean-born Filipino-Nigerian that's me. A person with two cultures (Nigerian and Filipino) in one. However - being born and having lived in Papua New Guinea my entire life, with the exception of brief vacations to the Philippines and Nigeria ï the Papua New Guinean culture is a part of me and I consider myself a third Papua New Guinea, a third Filipino, and a third Nigerian. These different cultures within me make it difficult for me to understand how even very minor segregation can occur and also enable me to end minor segregation.

The year was 2007 and I was in my freshman year back in Papua New Guinea. My class was filled with Filipinos and Papua New Guineans and groups were formed depending on the language you primarily spoke ï the Filipinos, Tagalog, and the Papua New Guineans, Pidgin. These groups annoyed me not only because I had friends in both groups but because I could not understand why these groups had formed: to some extent, I can speak both Pidgin and Tagalog and I am not forming groups within myself!

Therefore, I had to join these groups together. Bringing my friends from each group together, differences were laid down and friendships were formed, cultures were exchanged. Now, every student in my previous class in Papua New Guinea are friends with each other and most can speak, to some extent, both Pidgin and Tagalog.

This bringing together of cultures is who I am, partly because I am three cultures in one but mostly because I hate seeing and experiencing separations between people due to cultural differences. Therefore, I would not only add diversity to the University of Michigan through my appreciation and willingness to befriend people from different cultures but also reduce diversity, in a sense, by bringing people of different cultures together and enabling an exchange of cultures to occur.

Undergraduate / "we are both geniuses" - U of M Essay (3rd option) [5]

[C] Tell us about a book you have read that you found especially challenging, stimulating, or provocative. Explain why it made an impact on you. Approximately 500 words

You may be older than me, wiser than me, and more intellectual than me but we have one thing in common: we are both geniuses. Geniuses not in the intellectual, studious sense, but geniuses in the fact that we are able to act without thinking. You may be asking yourself: "Who would correlate being a genius with not being cautious?" You can blame that correlation on my reading of the AP Biology book: Biology by Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece.

The first day I received the massive college-level text book, I let out a deep and heavy sigh and thought to myself, "This is going to be very boring and tiresome to read..." I walked lethargically back to my desk, cradling the book with both my arms, and dropped it on the desk - the desk almost toppled over due to the sheer force the book made on its surface. The introductory day of the class took its regular course: syllabus, safety contract, words of inspiration (or warning, depending on the mindset of the student) that encouraged the class that the difficulty of the class is not high but content is high - obviously. Why the teacher had to assign the reading of the introductory chapter on the first day of school, I'm still flabbergasted, but I am thankful!

"I might as well start reading this gigantic book." I said to myself once I arrived home from school. Opening the book was like opening my eyes and brain to a new world hidden by my eyes' perception of only the surface and my brain's inability to search for things beneath what my eyes perceive. The great deal of organization that the body possesses and the genius shown in the body's ability to perform very complex processes is amazing.

Reading the book also brought many questions to mind. I began to question almost everything around me: from the ease of digestion of certain foods to the composition and breakdown of certain macromolecules. These questions arose because the processes seemed too complex for actions that occurred naturally. In addition, I was amazed by how my mind could not easily make sense of these processes while my body just performs these processes with ease and without the use of much brain power.

Furthermore, through personal research, I discovered that not everything about the body is known explicitly by our minds; however, the fact that our body knows how to perform these unknown actions is amazing.

Organization in energy usage, organization in energy storage, organization in motion, organization in organ systems, organization in organs, organization in tissue, organization in cells, organization in molecules, organization in atoms. If there is a genius in the world it must be the body because who can coordinate the many processes that occur within these organizations into one working and living system? the body. Who can perform actions that our minds do not explicitly know? the body. The body is very amazing!

Any criticisms would be very much appreciated.

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