Undergraduate / 'Relationships with my enemies' - U Chicago Supp [5]

Prompt: Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis (either real or imagined)

My enemy and I have a relationship not even the most brilliant could begin to fathom. Frankly, the biggest reason for that would have to be that the only enemies I dare to make are the ones I design in my mind. At least that is what I tell myself. Perhaps I do have an enemy somewhere. One that is everything I am not, or better yet, someone who is just like me. I can already imagine that our similarities would repulse the faint hearted and force us apart like two positive ends on a magnet trying to make contact. In a utopia we could be the perfect alliance in conflict, but this prompt doesn't question the relationship with my enemy in a utopia, so I shall proceed to describe our relationship in none other than the callous setting humanity has decided to name Earth.

She is flamboyant, and for the sake of the argument, I will presume she is indeed a she simply because I doubt the masculine capability to be anywhere near as cynical as I can be. She is dark; her mind is an eternal abyss filled with the most quizzical facts and bad pun jokes. Her ability to seduce the least aesthetic people with her play on words shall be considered legendary among her peers and unchallenged. She is the queen among commoners everywhere she goes, and she is just downright annoying. I hate her. I look down on her theatrics, her awful jokes, and her insensitivity towards the false inferior roles she has created for everyone around her. She and I may share the cunning, the wits, the charm, and the abnormal amount mistrust towards all things considered black and white, but in a world that is a blurred shade of grey I cannot stop but think our relationship is one of mutual loathing and reluctant admiration in constant competition.

We are competitors in everything I do. In every game, in every race, in every academic showcase she is right there beside me. She is the one who points out my flaws and vulnerabilities with an accusing finger and a poisonous tongue. "She's going to fail," she leers, and for a split second, I stop and think, "Maybe she's right." What if the things she says about me are true? What if I'm not smart enough, skilled enough, or strong enough to endure and eventually triumph in the challenges I choose? With her cruel worlds crippling me, I see her get ahead while I stare at her advancing figure. And as I start to recede into the millions belonging to the ordinary, I stop. I stop because in the end, she is just imaginary. My self-doubt is my ultimate enemy; it is the only thing that can stop me. It is the only thing that can tell me "no" in a world where my "yes" is more valuable than anything.

Undergraduate / Central American immigrants and American Dream - Columbia Supp. 2 [7]

There are three basic layers to my being. On the outermost layer I am the daughter of two Central American immigrants aspiring towards their American Dream. Beneath that, I am an athlete who contributes towards the improvement of her community. However, at my core I am nothing if not a reader. For as long as I can remember, I have always had the tendency to read whatever was in front of me. Whether the contents are as mundane and trivial like cartoons on a cereal box or as constructive as my father's Sunday issue of the La Opinion, I read because of its potential knowledge. My insatiable thirst for reading has overwhelmed my libraries in the past, but I believe that Columbia University's Library System will be the first to overwhelm me.

The thought of being only minutes away from the university's access to over nine million books is enough to make me weak in the knees. The university's reputation for also being a champion of diversity has made me realize that its access to international knowledge must also be phenomenal. These factors combined are enough to engage my attention in ways I had never thought possible. Its appeal ensures that a day spent on-campus and mingling with my fellow peers will promise a day of lucrative learning. If I were to ever be accepted into your extraordinary center of learning.

Undergraduate / 'Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro' - Columbia Book Supp [8]

(the prompt is to discuss what you found meaningful about a book you read)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro was meaningful, because of its ability to move me in a way books typically fail to do. I have always been particularly unsympathetic towards the plights of fictional characters, because of my inability to show empathy towards their problems. However, as I attempted to traverse through the novel's potent ethical questions about the concept of mortality with my typical aloofness, I could not help but find myself identifying with the protagonist, Kathy H, and her thoughts about "completion".

Kathy H is a clone created for the sole purpose of providing her organs in the event that her original human counterpart needs them to prolong her life. Consequentially, clones like Kathy H reach their untimely completion-a euphemism used for death. Although the idea may seem like a blessing, I could not help but be repulsed by the thought that a society so concerned with mortality like our own could one day make this dystopian nightmare a reality. Everyone at one point has contemplated the morbid details of our mortality, and the fear that consumes us when we do is understandable.

However, if fate were to cruelly design my existence as it did to Kathy H, I would willfully resign to its plan like she did. I would not seek a way to evade death like her friends Tommy and Ruth, because in the end everything must come to a "completion". The identification I made with her as I reached the book's conclusion is ultimately what made this so meaningful to me.