Undergraduate / "My high school experience was different" - UC Undergraduate Prompt #2 [2]

Prompt #2 (all applicants)

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?

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My high school experience has been much different from what most people have experienced. I began my freshman year in which I was not motivated to do much work and rather expected the year to be easy because I had done well in middle school. Instead, my low expectations had led me to further lack of motivation and my freshman year ended with poor grades.

Having been turned down by my first year of high school, I was reluctant to do much during my sophomore year. Regardless, I chose to move up a rank in academic level and take advanced placement classes. I began to think about where my lack of motivation came from in an attempt to do better in school and as the advanced placement classes which I was taking got gradually harder, I began to notice myself gradually putting more effort into my works. Although I was not able to do very well by the end of the year, I was inspired that I had improved and decided to move up another rank in academic level for my junior year.

Junior year was perhaps the biggest challenge that I have faced against in my life and the most important experience during high school. After filling my schedule with advancement classes, I knew that I would have to work nearly all day to just finish all the homework and prepare for upcoming tests. I also decided to begin my extracurricular activities such as volunteering, academic related teams, sports and start preparing for standardized tests. Having been overwhelmed by excess amount of work, the year seemed much more like an impossible puzzle piece, but much to my surprise, I enjoyed trying to solve it. During the weekdays, I'd be at school in the morning, sport team meeting after school and doing schoolwork by the night. During the weekend, it was mostly volunteering, preparing for any academic related work and a bit of social life. Although my life seemed like getting nowhere, I knew that I had put a lot of effort because in Science Olympiad, I came in 4th place for my event and 3rd in the KMC math competition. In my track & field team, the amount of distance that I jumped gradually improved throughout the season which totaled to nearly five feet. One thing which I was very proud of is that I ended the year with a satisfaction in both grades and myself. I was satisfied that I was able to solve the impossible puzzle and find where my motivations came from.

Throughout my high school years, I was faced against challenges which gradually got harder and each time, I had shown an improvement. By the end of junior year, I was satisfied to say that my motivation came from difficult challenges which I faced against. My source of motivation have also shown me that I am a person who awaits challenges and is willing to take on those challenges regardless of how difficult they may be. My high school experience was different from what move people have experienced. It was more of an adventure to discover what motivates me rather than keeping a constant high grade, and I was proud of all the different experiences that I was able to go through.

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I know there's quite a lot of flaws/grammatical errors in it so I just wanted to see different views on it like is the essay going in a correct directions in terms of answering prompt, maybe other errors and etc. Thanks