Undergraduate / 'Parliamentary debate' - Bowdoin: Intellectual Engagement [2]

Should developed countries accept more immigrants from underdeveloped countries? The Speaker called the house to order, and the Prime Minister stood to deliver his speech. The language used was right out of the English Parliament; however, the room was decorated with colorful posters and the audience (including me) was made up of 16-18 year olds sitting either on kindergarten-sized chairs or cross-legged on the rugs. It was the final round of Parliamentary debate at the IISPC, an international high school debating tournament, and the room was packed full.

During that round of Parliamentary debate, I saw a type of intellectual engagement that I rarely see at school. Most kids that age would rather stick their hand in a hot stove than listen to a debate on immigration, but the students in this room were enthralled. Everyone at internationals had a passion for speech and debate; therefore, they approached it as something fun and engaging.

Intellectual engagement is at its best when it's fueled by passion. However, not every class can be something that I love as much as debate. Although effortless enthusiasm makes intellectual engagement easier-I remember all of the arguments from that debate without even trying-it's just as important to engage with material that you're not as interested in by asking questions or participating in discussions. Intellectual engagement can't be passive; it's a two way street. You can't just expect the material to engage you; you have to make an effort to engage in the material. And, when you do so, it's easy to become fascinated with everything.

Let me know what you think! Any suggestions are helpful.

Undergraduate / tufts supplement: consider the world within [2]

Supplement for the Tufts application! I appreciate any comments, especially on content!

Like Frieda from Charlie Brown, I have naturally curly hair. However, while Frieda is extremely proud of her naturally curly hair, mine is often the bane of my existence. It's wild and crazy, defies gravity, and refuses to behave if there's even the slightest bit of humidity. All through sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, I took a straightener to my hair every morning, flattening and flattening until I saw smoke. I wanted a perfect waterfall of hair to come cascading past my shoulders, shiny and reflective. However, my hair just wouldn't cooperate. No matter how hard I tried and how much heat I applied, I only got split ends and untamable frizz. Straight hair wasn't me; being agreeable and falling into line wasn't me. Around the same time I embraced and began to refine my argumentative and feisty personality, I embraced and grew to love my curls. It's big and crazy; it's free and loose. I love that it's different, and I especially love the extra sleep I get not waking up early every morning to straighten it. For the past two years, my flat iron has been hibernating in a drawer. I've found my inner Frieda, and wear my naturally curly hair proudly.

Undergraduate / "lightning bolt" feeling - Hamilton Supplement Essay-Why Us? [2]

This is my supplement essay for Hamilton College. I feel like it's kind of an unconventional essay...what are your thoughts? Thanks!

I'm a fairly organized person. I keep my binders for school neat, clean out my computer a few times a year, and like things to be fairly uniform and uncluttered. When I started looking at colleges, that same mentality held true. Walking around campus's, the ones that held my attention were those with matching buildings and definite structure.

The first time I set foot on Hamilton's campus, that's not what I saw. I saw mismatched building and a laid back, seemingly disordered setup. It was nothing like the others schools that I thought I liked; it didn't fit my "formula" for a college. Nevertheless, as a walked around, I abandoned my organized mentality. I knew I was on a campus where the students were challenged academically, were intellectually engaged, and worked hard to succeed. However, I didn't get a stressed out feeling from anyone on Hamilton's campus as I had from some of the more structured and uniform campuses. I loved how relaxed everything felt.

I'll admit, I didn't have that immediate "lightning bolt" feeling that you're supposed to get when you love a school. Hamilton snuck up on me, until the point where I looked around and saw that Hamilton College was exactly what I had been looking for, even though I hadn't known it at the time.

Writing Feedback / Bowdoin: Comment on intellectual engagement, connection to place, or the common good [3]

I wrote about intellectual engagement. This is a first draft, so give me comments/feedback please!

By November of sophomore Biology, I couldn't open my mouth to ask a question without some sort of groan coming from a few members of my class. I wasn't asking questions because I didn't understand the material; I wanted to know more than what the teacher was telling us. That kind of curiosity was supposed to be a good thing, something to be valued-not something that my peers wanted to suppress.

It's a struggle to remain intellectually engaged when that intellectual engagement is sometimes ridiculed or laughed at. It's not that the other members of my class didn't want to learn or didn't care; they just didn't want to learn more than they had to for a test, and in their eyes, I was creating more work for them. I, on the other hand, wasn't thinking about the test. I wanted to know, just for the sake of knowing.

It would be easy for me to bottle up my curiosity and slide by learning only what I needed to pass the class. It would have spared me the irritated looks and the teasing. I'll admit, I tried it a couple of times. However, the slight relief that came on the part of my peers was far outweighed by the tedium I felt myself sinking into each class period. To me, true intellectual engagement comes at a time when there's resistance to it; pushing back against resistance leads to a more powerful result when you finally do break through.

Undergraduate / "Old Farms Road" - williams - you're looking out a window at an environment [4]

This is about 50 words over the 300 words suggested. I'm having trouble cutting it down...please help!

I know every curve of Old Farms Road. The narrow spots, the short bridges that span the creeks and, above all, the exact moment the car will burst out of the trees into the glare of sunlight and continue down the straightaway towards Fisher Meadows. After driving through dense trees, the sight of open fields is an abrupt change. Soccer nets dot the wide expanse of grass, and I can see river in the distance. However, instead of fixating on these larger objects, my eyes are drawn to places that others would consider insignificant. The spot on the grass at the bottom of a slope where I received my first trophy. The goal in front of which I caused two penalty kicks in one game. And, finally, the pavilion under which my nine-year-old self started to discover that life and people could be unfair and unjust. I sat under that pavilion while waiting for my first travel soccer tryouts to begin. I was full of nervous energy and excitement; I played my best, and then all I could do was wait. Deep down, I expected to make the team. However, when the letter arrived, it didn't hold the news I expected. I was shocked, my old coaches were shocked, and my parents were shocked. I was ready to never play soccer again, but they wanted to know why I had been cut. And, a few days later, we found out. The coach of the team, as on all the teams, was the father of one of the players. His daughter happened to play the same position as I did, and therefore, I couldn't make the team. I easily could have quit then and there. However, I soon discovered that my passion and love for soccer far outweighed any frustration and disappointment, and I didn't have to be on the A-team to play. So, when I drive by Fisher Meadows now, I look out the window and see my team. Not the A-team I expected to be on, but the B-team that turned out to have been the best teams soccer could have given me.

Undergraduate / "My eighth grade history teacher" - common app on a person who has influenced me [3]

This is my common application essay. I placed it under the category of an influential person in my life. My college advisor told me to try adding some more comments about how that teacher has influenced me; however, I don't know if i can do that without making it too long. Thoughts?

My eighth grade history teacher did his best to ignore every word that came out of my mouth. Looking back, I have come to understand how difficult that must have been for him-quite a few words came out of my mouth each day in his class. My strong opinions dominated, and I was prone to blurting out every one that crossed through my head. My eighth grade mind was blown over by the brilliance of my ideas, but Mr. Cramphin was not so easily impressed. Every such utterance was met with either a frown, or no acknowledgement at all.

Gradually, I came to realize that what I thought of as making a statement, Mr. Cramphin saw as yelling out and disrupting class. I schemed and planned, and came up with a brilliant way to get my ideas recognized: I would raise my hand, and wait to be called on. Then, he would have to listen to me, right? Sadly, my plan was not as successful as I had originally hoped.

I remember sitting at my desk in the front row with my hand up in the air for what seemed like hours, and having him call on the girl sitting in the row behind me. I would sigh (loudly and obnoxiously) so that he would know how frustrated I was, and I would get a look-eyebrows raised, eyes looking over the top of his glasses-before he went on with the class.

I didn't understand it. My grades were good, he liked my writing, all of my other teachers liked to hear what I had to say-why not him? For a while, I thought he hated me. And, for a kid who wanted nothing more than to be liked by her teachers, that was a pretty scary thought. At some point during the year, though, we had a little chat about my classroom behavior, and he explained to me why I wasn't being listened to.

"I know you know the answer, and I know you have good ideas," he said, "so I don't need to hear them every day. I want other kids to get a chance to talk."

I was a bright kid, so this made sense to me. However, that didn't mean I had to like it. I wanted to talk, I wanted to share, and I didn't care all that much what other people had to say (unless it was something I could argue with). A year or so later, though, I realized the importance of what he had said. Mr. Cramphin taught my class a lot of important life lessons, as well as a lot of history. However, the most valuable thing he taught me wasn't something that he taught in class. In eighth grade, Mr. Cramphin taught me that I wasn't the only one who had anything to say. I wasn't the only one whose ideas mattered. I had done enough talking for ten kids my size; now, it was time for me to learn to listen.