Undergraduate / "every time I walk into the open space" - UC prompt #2 [2]

I would love any advice anyone could give me on my essay.
Thanks

Prompt: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

Whether it be a long hike to work off the numerous calories we had eaten on Thanksgiving or just an early morning walk to start the day, a sense of calm washes over me every time I walk into the open space. The bridge which crosses over the creek and is covered by a canopy of tree branches provides some peace away from my crazy family.

However, today my friends and I were heading up to the hills with a slightly different purpose in mind. Three different colors of paint now covered my bridge in graffiti. As a result of the graffiti, a small piece of the bridges beauty and tranquility disappeared. So, today my friends awoke at the insane hour of 7:30 am to help me bring the bridge back to its former beauty.

After yawning loudly, I slowly pulled myself out of bed at 6:30 in the morning to prepare for my friends arrival. I clumsily, walked into the kitchen and began searching for the ingredients necessary to make scones. After making the scones, I chopped up fruit and got out some clean plates. Then I scrambled around the house gathering the tools my dad, tool expert of the family, had told me were necessary to rid a bridge of graffiti. With my backpack by the door and the scones out of the oven, all I had to do was wait for my friends.

Eventually, my friends began to trickle into my house and eat the scones as we waited for everyone to arrive. Once we were all ready to go, I led them out my house and up the street to the trail head. After a ten minute walk we were at the bridge. Five minutes later, the work began. With sand paper in our hands and face masks covering our mouths, we got down on our knees and started to scrub away all the red, black and white paint covering the bridge. Three hours later, after we sang at least ten different songs and laughed dozens of times, the bridge was finally graffiti free.

During this experience several people walked across the bridge and thanked us for cleaning up the graffiti. It was comforting to think that I was not the only person who cared in my community. Not only did I help to clean my bridge but I helped clean a bridge that belonged to many other people as well.

Undergraduate / "Tryouts" - essay prompt 1 [2]

Would this work for essay prompt 1 because i feel like i wrote about to specific of an experience?

Thanks!

Prompt: Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Tryouts were about to start, so my best friend and I began to pass the ball back and forth. I was both excited and nervous for the tryouts to begin, but as soon as they started I felt exhilarated and ready to play. When the first day of tryouts finished my friend and I walked off the field laughing and talking about school.

The next day, I walked onto the field ready to start warming up with my friend, but as soon as I joined her warm-up group, she became distant and cold. Immediately, I knew something was wrong. During the water break, she came over and apologized for her behavior, so I asked her what was wrong. Nervously, she confessed that her father, who was in the stands watching the tryouts, had told her earlier in the day not to practice or warm-up with me because I was in a lower division of soccer than her. According to her father, any association with me during tryouts reduced her chances of making it onto a team. Obviously, my best friend was torn between her father and me, so I told her everything was fine and went to play with another group of people. However, that night tears began to stream down my face as soon as I stepped inside our mini-van to go home.

However, on Saturday, I proved my friend's father wrong because the results were posted and I was on the team. My division made no difference to the coaches and my skill landed me a spot on the team.

A couple of weeks later, my team had a conditioning practice in order to get into shape. As soon as we all put on our tennis shoes the coach told as that we would be running a field ladder or in other words 3 miles. We all lined up on the track and as soon as our coach yelled start we began to run. I started out in the middle of the pack but each lap we ran I slowly began to pass many of my teammates. Once we were two-thirds of the way done a few people dropped out completely and sat down on the grass. By this time I was around one or two laps ahead of many of the people and only had a couple more laps to go.

Finally, I was on my final lap and I could see my coach standing next to my friend's father at the finish line. Seeing his face brought back all the anger and sadness I had felt a couple weeks earlier, but this time instead of crying, I ran faster. As I crossed the finish line and passed him, I felt great because I had succeeded in out running my entire team. Just because I had been in a lower division did not make me lesser to rest of the team.

The look on my friend's father's face afterwards proved that I had shown a class does not define me as a person. I will always aspire to accomplish my goals and not let people like him keep me from reaching my dreams.