Undergraduate /
'My mom says I'm an overachiever.'; Georgetown supplement [2]
As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.
I am approximately 536,112,000 seconds old-excluding leap years. And in those 536,112,000 seconds I've never been able to figure out exactly who I am.
My mom says I'm an overachiever. She says my perfectionist tendencies cause me to stress too much over the little things and not focus enough on the important things in life. She thinks I'm crazy for getting three hours of sleep a night, she thinks I'm crazy for spending so much time on schoolwork, soccer and volunteering. She thinks I'm crazy for trying to get our school to break a world record by participating in a music video to raise money for Children's Hospital. But she doesn't understand-that's who I am.
My dad says I'm a worrier. He says I need to relax and stop overworking myself. He doesn't understand that volunteering makes me happy. He doesn't realize that helping other people relinquishes some of the stresses of school and soccer, that tutoring Brandi at Whiz Kids makes me forget about my poor ACT score, the "B" I received on the calculus test, the goal I let in during the game against Mason High School. He doesn't understand that helping others helps me.
My friends say I'm perfect. They see my good grades, my involvement in extracurriculars and my athletic abilities and automatically assume that I'm flawless. They see my cheery and positive demeanor and think that I'm always happy. But they only see the superficial me. They don't see how I got to where I am today-the sleepless nights I spent worrying about school, the days I locked myself in my room and studied for hours on end trying to improve my math standardized test scores, the hours I spent rehabbing my knee to recover from two torn ACL's and anterior compartment syndrome. They don't see what happens behind the scenes. They see the smiles, the laughs, but they don't see the tears, the pain that exist within.
I say I'm esoteric. I'm nothing and everything at the same time. I put so much pressure on myself because I fear disappointment. I want to please people, I want to make them happy and if that means that I wear a mask to cover up my true feelings, then I'll do it. I don't know exactly who I am-that's just me.
But that's why Georgetown suits me. The students and professors are focused on research-they want to make discoveries, find cures, help others. I want to be involved in their revelations, I want to have an impact on others no matter what I decide to do.
And maybe, in the next 126,227,704 seconds that I'll spend at college, I'll also discover exactly who I am.