Undergraduate / JHU - describe choices in major - Neuroscience/Autism Research [2]

Prompt: Johns Hopkins offers 50 majors across the schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering. On this application, we ask you to identify one or two that you might

like to pursue here. Why did you choose the way you did? If you are undecided, why didn't you choose? 250 words maximum. (This is 249)

"I want to be an astronaut." Kevin said. "You?"
"Not sure." I admitted. My cousins and I were in the upper years of elementary school, and due to the frequency at which we were asked about it, it was about time for us to decide on what we wanted to be when we grew up.

"Science." I finally concluded. "I like science."
"There you have it!" Kevin remarked. "You can find the cure for cancer."
"No," said Lucas, turning to his brother Michael. Michael had been diagnosed with severe autism two years earlier. The disorder had stripped him of all ability to communicate, but, though he was young, his victories over his condition's limitations served as a great inspiration. "She can find the cure for autism!"

That simple conversation remains, eight years later, the backbone of my goals for the future. Today, I still aspire to major in neuroscience and to go into research in autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, an ambition that would be surely fulfilled with the great opportunities that Johns Hopkins would present. I want to explore my infinite curiosity for the fascinating living machine that is the brain, but even more than that, I want to do the best I can to give a voice to the voicelessly profound boy who somehow has taught me more than anyone else I've yet encountered. I know I'm a better person because of Michael's influence. To unlock the mysteries of autism would impact the world in ways unimaginable.

Undergraduate / 'Progressive Equestrian Therapeutic Services' - UVA - favorite place to get lost [6]

Edits/suggestions for both would be much appreciated!

UVA supplement: "Describe your favorite place to get lost." 250 limit - this is 297 (how much over should I be okay with submitting?)
Sitting alone at a dark stoplight following rehearsal, I begin to tap my foot to the pulsing beats. Soon, my head follows, bobbing left and right, and before I can think to stop myself, I'm belting the lyrics to a World Gym sign. "WHAT IS LOVE?" I ask it, in what could only loosely be called singing. "BABY, DON'T HURT ME." The light turns green. I briefly consider halting my jam session but decide against it, continuing unashamedly. Here, with no one but strangers as my witness, there's no pressure to be the person I strive to be, no need to live up to expectations. I can do whatever I please, a rare and welcome simplicity. The moment is electric, humming with possibility, and I'm blissfully lost in it.

It was a long and stressful journey, arriving at this point. I endured the dull Driver's Ed class with its painfully cheesy 80's videos, tolerated the incompetent instructor and his omnipresent Doritoes, withstood my paranoid mother and her white-knuckled fingers all in hopes that it would be worth it. And it was. For on that victorious day when I passed my driver's test, I first experienced the sweetness of possibility. Granted, I was only driving to the library, but it was the taste of the freedom, the potential of the moment, that became so remarkably addictive. I could listen to rap without my mother's glares. Argue with myself and not worry about being right or wrong. Sing without worrying about pitch. In my little white sedan, I found an escape from the pressures to do things a certain way, and found the joy in doing them my way. Whether ingenious or ridiculous, the ideas were dizzyingly infinite, and I had only just started on the road to discovery.

Common App Activities Statement
I grew up in a horse family, but I was never a horse person. But when I joined the summer program at Progressive Equestrian Therapeutic Services (PETS), I became one. Every week the summer after my junior year, I made the long voyage to the PETS facility, where I volunteered with other "horse people" to help give riding lessons to children with physical and mental disabilities. Terms like" two-point" and "snaffle bit" so casually thrown around my house gained meaning as I learned the basics of riding along with the students. My mother's weekend exhaustion made sense as I too spent hours cleaning stalls in the summer heat, discovering it was possible to sweat from one's eyelids. But most importantly, I learned to understand what my mother and sister always found in riding as I saw the joy radiating from the students' glowing faces. At PETS, they thrived, escaping the challenges of their disabilities as they progressed in a new arena, and I was ecstatic to be a part of their journeys.