Undergraduate /
'my relationship with tennis' - Common App Additional Info Essay [3]
This is an intensely personal essay, and it deals with me struggling with my chronic and severe asthma as a child. Tennis helped me through it.
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I feel that several circumstances have to be explained briefly to give a better picture of myself.
Even though academics is my primary concern on school days, I also have other significant pursuits outside of school.
I play tennis extensively. However, my relationship with tennis is unlike most of my peers because of the chronic and severe asthma I was born with. Most people view tennis as a fun and leisurely sport, but to me, it was a grueling challenge that I could not put down. I was disappointed on the courts every day. My opponents would take advantage of my asthma to run me around the court, exhausting my energy and eventually constricting my airway until I could no longer compete, and unwillingly collapse in defeat. Every time I played tennis competitively with my family, it hurts me that I couldn't play a full match without scrambling for my inhaler. This condition sickened me, and I vowed in elementary that I would not succumb to asthma, and that I would play tennis until I conquered my asthma. It was a difficult road.
I never took official tennis lessons, because I played it with a purpose other than winning matches. I wanted to win against myself, to win against my physical limitations. I played tennis every time with the knowledge that my asthma would eventually get better, and that knowledge drove me, no matter how tired I was, no matter how much my brain was gasping for air, to push myself to exhaustion every day. My hard work paid off. I eventually began to see improvements. The first time that I was able to run a mile under ten minutes, I fell onto the ground wheezing, and wept for my achievements. It was the first sign that I could lead a normal life with asthma, that I could live without the fear of an asthma attack triggered at every corner. I had overcome the worst symptoms of the disease and desensitized myself to physical pain. I could hope to play with my peers normally for the first time.
It was exhilarating.
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I need a grammatical check and feedback, but I also have a question.
I felt like I could end the essay right here, but I also had an urge to extend the essay to discuss how I fought asthma further in high school until it was almost non-existent, and maybe bring in my 1000+ hours of Extracurricular tennis outside of school during my years of high school.
Do you guys have advice on whether I should just end the essay right here or extend it further to provide more information? Its a toss-up between a small and powerful essay and a long but informative essay. Thanks!
