Undergraduate / UPenn Supplement: The Dreaded Page 217/300 [6]

Hiya! This essay is part of my application for UPenn. At the moment, I'm vacillating between this and a brief glimpse into my fictional future as a UPenn graduate.

OPTIONAL (Truly) <-- Yeah, right.

4. You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217.

Chapter 8: Regular Joe Blues
Having decided to write the "optional" essay for the University of Pennsylvania-is anything truly optional in this situation?-I took my throne that was the cushioned dining chair in front of my computer.

I've always dreaded the kind of essay that asks you to "express" yourself. Express, in the enigmatic tongue of college application-ese, is about synonymous to "sing virtues about" or "exalt". The problem? I wasn't like one of those "superstudent by day, superhero by night" types! I would be the same person regardless of whether the sun was up, down, or being a supermassive black hole's midnight snack.

To put it in less florid prose, I didn't see anything worth mentioning in myself.

Then doubt reared its ugly head. Was it this way for every applicant? Certainly, there were the few that had actually done something worthwhile in their short lives, but what about the rest of us? Was I in the face of the same brick wall as thousands before me?

But then it struck me. Or, painfully extending the brick wall metaphor from a paragraph ago, I struck it. If the league of super-villains that is the admissions office actually wants someone unique, then why not demonstrate my originality with a meta-essay? Write an essay about writing my essay!

It's original!

It's avant-garde!

It's the easy way out!

It's stupid!

Who writes an essay about how they wrote an essay in lieu of something actually worthwhile?

Having exhausted the option of self-reference, I went back to brainstorming in hopes of writing something that would impress rather than stupefy.

Undergraduate / Stanford Supplementary Essay #2-Sudoku The Roommate Message [6]

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.

I love Sudoku. Every time I pick up a newspaper or a magazine, you can be sure that the only reason I have for doing so is to spelunk for its treasure-the Sudoku puzzle hidden within. To some, the game may only be a confusing amalgam of numbers that can't go here or there. To me, every puzzle, every number, every single one of the 81 squares is an adventure.

Some people recoil from Sudoku because of its difficulty. I, on the other hand, am drawn closer to it for the same reason. Whenever I attempt to solve a Sudoku puzzle, my first priority is always the certain solutions. Only after having scoured every component of the puzzle will I begin to take risks and make guesses for uncertain number positions. If I am fortunate and wary, I will never need to resort to such a course of action. If otherwise, I will spend hours or even days testing whether or not number X will work in location Y, often forgoing food and sleep due to mistakes made through this process.

Personal qualities aside, Sudoku is, at its base, only a recreational activity for me, but it is one I take very seriously. I greatly relish the feeling of triumph that results from making sure that every region, every horizontal, and every vertical is in order, sometimes to the point of excess, so don't be surprised if you walk into the dorm one day and find half-finished Sudoku puzzles scrawled on the walls.

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood Sudoku maniac

I'm sorry in advance for presenting this so late.