Undergraduate / 'the chance to receive neither one punch now' Why do i want to go to Carnegie Mellon? [3]

Please submit a one-page, single-spaced essay that explains why you have chosen Carnegie Mellon and your particular major(s), department(s) or program(s). This essay should include the reasons why you've chosen the major(s), any goals or relevant work plans and any other information you would like us to know. If you are applying to more than one college or program, please mention each college or program you are applying to. Because our admission committees review applicants by college and programs, your essay can impact our final decision. Please do not exceed one page for this essay

Having older brothers made me conscious of careful decision making at an extremely young age. At the sweet age of eight years-old, my oldest brother would hold up his fist to me and say, "You can take one punch now or two punches at any time I choose in the future." Needless to say, factor analysis became a strangely natural part of my life. For the college process, as with my early childhood threats, I found that to understand the full extent of every decision both the long and short term consequences must be carefully examined. After much consideration and pensive pondering, I have come to the conclusion that both for now and for the future Carnegie Mellon is the best school for me.

In terms of my four years at Carnegie Mellon, the reason I want to attend would be for the interdisciplinary linguistics major. After stumbling across Benjamin Warf's theory of linguistic relativity in AP Psychology, I have been completely captivated by the intangible yet overwhelmingly influential power that languages have over the human mentality. To me, this concept couldn't ever physically approach a condition I could call "boring". It is not just a plain-old vanilla subject. It is multifaceted. It is linguistics and cognitive science with a splash of sociology, a hint of psychology, a sprinkle of anthropology, and just a dash of philosophy. It is a study of the human condition. The depth of this subject absolutely blows my mind and I almost find it hard to conceive how any person could ever say that they studied this subject objectivity, because you absolutely can't! And yet the complexity and innate inconceivability of this subject only enraptures me more.

This major being at Carnegie Mellon only makes it more ideal, as CM is a major research institute. The Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition being a department of research I would particularly like to be involved in.

Carnegie Mellon also has the facilities to fully allow me to explore any subject I choose. College is my chance to allow my young interested mind to run off in any of a thousand different directions. Yes, I want to study linguistics but at Carnegie Mellon I have opportunities to take top-rated classes in nearly every subject. Perhaps I want to dabble in graphic design or economics or business, computer science, prose, painting or music. At Carnegie Mellon, I can.

But the present aside, an education at Carnegie Mellon will continue to reverberate its positive influence throughout my life. A degree from Carnegie Mellon means something. Although, it is important to note that its intrinsic value stems from the quality of the education I've received and not just because it is a fancy name that looks nice on a diploma. While at Carnegie Mellon I would, thanks to the proximity to Pittsburg, have the opportunity to get an internship and begin building up my resume while at the same time giving me actual working experience which I've pays off in this thing my parents seem to call the "real world."

I also find the close-knit alumni network extremely reassuring. After many years, their experiences at Carnegie Mellon bring them back. I love that alumni are involved with the university and, granted I become one, as a Carnegie Mellon alum I would surely remain involved.

Carnegie Mellon is a school that suits me. It understands my convergent system of thinking. It is in the right location. It is the right size. It has the right facilities. It is a school that will benefit me now as I expand my mind through my college years but it is also a school that will continue to benefit me for the rest of my life. The quality education I'll receive and the real life work experience I will gain will stay with me after I graduate. It is a school that offers me the wonderful chance I seemingly lacked in my childhood, the chance to receive neither one punch now, nor two punches later

Any feedback? Good? Bad? Too specific? Not specific enough? Was there any part that stood out to you?

also grammar nazis feel free tear it apart.

Undergraduate / 'lived in thin wooden walls on a mountain' - common app essay [2]

This summer, I lived in a condition that would have made Henry David Thoreau very proud. I lived in thin wooden walls on a mountain far from prying eyes and slept under a haze-free night sky. My needs were met and that was pretty much it. Everything that I had, I cherished dearly because, frankly, I didn't have the luxury of owning enough stuff to have preferences either way.

I loved everything I had but I must say that I loved my boots especially. With treated, hardened, brown leather, they were an essential cog in the machine of my simple life. The heels ripped and tore at the ground exactly the way I wanted them to. The ridged tunnel of the boot wrapped up my milky calves and rocked them warm as I trudged through cold mud and thorns and darkness. While I spent my day running and laughing and screaming, they followed me and took my beating. I woke up the morning after a night spent swimming in a lake so black it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the water began to find my boots caked in thick, dry, crumbling dirt and my calves immaculate, spared the punishment I imagine mother nature gave to us in return for the full advantage we took of her untouched beauty. I spent the next day using my sweater/towel to make sure the boots were actually still there under all the mud and once I was sure they were and that they were intact I breathed easy. What would I have done without them? They came back the way most things do from endless nights of battle, scarred, but these, I think, are the best kind of scars. They are scars from living. They are scars from use. They are proof that at some point I lived voraciously and I never want them healed.

I brought them home with me after the summer as they were still intact, which is honestly pretty impressive on their part, but the life they live now is different.

They are no longer necessary to me the way they used to be. The rough soles attack the yellowed linoleum I spend my day pacing. Locked in a cement cage, they wait patiently while the scars of my summer blend in among a sea of accessories that cost to look derelict. The meaning blurs and gets lost along a life of purposeless high fashion. The leather creaks and aches from a lack of exercise but there is nothing I can do. I remember that this is real life and summer is, after all, only a temporary condition.

They sit in the back of my closet. The sealed leather and thick wooden heals now obsolete. As I settle into my normal life I almost don't notice the purpose slipping. I don't notice the walls. I don't notice I'm tame. But then I slip my boots on-and in a glorious moment I can still confidently say almost.

Ok, this is really just a first draft of an essay that i had to write for school but i kind of like it and i think it gives a really great example of my writing style. im just not too sure about the essay topic, like, what does this essay really say about me? What i mostly want my schools to get out of my common app essay is about how i think. i want it to give off the impression that im actually a significant intellectual. I was thinking about maybe tieing more of Walden into it?

i dont know, what do you think?

Writing Feedback / 'Afraid of murders all my life' - Essay about my fear [3]

I have been afraid of murders all my life. I have no idea why. Not a clue. It is completely and utterly beyond me why every night when I turn out the lights and make my usual panic stricken lunge through the unfathomable darkness for my bed, there is some tiny voice all the way in the way back of my head that's saying, "You know? Right now, you could be killed. Now... Or now. That's not to say that anyone is trying to kill you. Just that, if they were, they'd probably do it right now... " So far, the only way I've ever found to appease this voice and soothe it into somnolence is to dive into the sea of comforters on top of my bed and to seize the sheets as though my life depends on it, which in my paranoid mesonoxian state-of-mind, it does, and roll back and forth until I've formed a chrysalis-like cocoon where, deep underneath layers of cotton and down, I can convince myself an axe murderer could simply never penetrate.

This fear has become a bit of a fixation for me. I've read about Ted Bundy and John Wayne Garcy. I've watched midnight History channel documentaries about Elizabeth Bathory and then later found myself staring at the ceiling at 3 in the morning, regretting it. It's like a bad habit that I can't get rid of, like biting your nails. I know it's bad for me and that I shouldn't indulge it, but somehow, unconsciously, I always come back to it. I'll space out during class and realize that instead of learning about the last hundred years of American foreign policy, I've been subconsciously planning a convoluted trap for potential murders, which includes a spring board, roller skates, baking soda and vinegar, a bottle rocket, duct tape, an alarm clock, and a Barbie doll from an era that was much less concerned about little girl's self esteem with endowments any girl would pay for.

Logically, I blame my fear on Darwinism. See, thousands and thousands of years ago, when my ancestors saw that food was getting scarce and noticed that crazy look in their fellow cave people's eyes, their sympathetic nervous systems reacted instinctively and they fled. And so, they survived to have similarly paranoid children, who also survived and had children and so on and so forth.

Which bring us to me, a twenty first century girl through and through. I have my iPod and my laptop. I shower safely in my bathroom in broiling hot water with chemical ridden shampoo. I buy my highly processed food at a 24-hour Stop 'n Shop and the closest I've ever been to being prey is playing dodgeball in gym class. On a day to day basis, I would say that I have very little use for my survival instincts. And yet, here I am, at three in the morning, writing this essay. Because I can't sleep. Because of the murderers.

Fear is a very interesting emotion. There is hardly anything more deeply rooted in our physiology and so, as an innate and integral part of us, it is extremely hard to overcome. I know my fear of murderers is irrational, and since looking up the statistical probability of my actually being murdered I am really truly acutely aware of just how irrational it is. Even so, that doesn't make it go away. The fear of my impending doom is so deeply entwined with my basic will to live that any attempt to cut off one threatens to damage the other, leaving me paralyzed. So I accept my fear. And I live on knowing that I can't suppress this. It is not a problem I make go away simply with persistence and an unyielding attitude, as many have before it. So I walk along side my fear. I bring it with me. And though I'm sure I have many sleepless nights to look forward to, I will still be up in the morning, with a strong cup of coffee in hand, looking forward to the rest of the day.

I really like this essay because honestly, its me, completely and truthfully. Convoluted, creative, and a little quirky.
So, what do you think? Is it too much?