Undergraduate / Click. Clack. Click. Common app essay (worried about weak ending) [4]

Hello, everyone!
I am worried that my common app essay has a weak ending and it is quite long... it is almost 650 words.
I don't have time to change the entire essay, but I will work on some parts tonight....

Here is the question for the essay:
Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

"The winner of this scholarship award is *** " Click. Clack. Click. Slowly I walked up to the stage to receive my award and I took a deep breath. I could not see the audience because of the bright lights; my mind went blank. A solemn air filled the stuffy auditorium and I was stunned for a few moments. Then suddenly I remembered a priceless lesson that a young girl had taught me. Instead of offering a clichéd "thank-you" speech, I decided to share a life-changing experience with the hope that my story would have a positive impact on the audience.

Just after I moved to the U.S., I lost my way in Center City Philadelphia. All the streets and stores looked similar. Trying to find a subway station, I ran around the blocks, but I was afraid that I would not be able to find it in unfamiliar surroundings.

"Yo, girl, what's up?" Some teenagers with aggressive expressions approached me as I was searching for someone to help me. Terrified that they would hurt me, I stood still, trying my best to appear nonchalant. I started to panic as a girl stepped closer and closer to me. I wanted to run away but felt paralyzed and my stiff legs would not move. So there I was, standing awkwardly and waiting for her next move.

"It ain't your own hair, yours?" At first I could not understand what the girl meant. She reached out to touch my hair and while I should have been afraid, it quickly became apparent that she was just curious about my long and straight hair. Then, she took off her baseball cap and rubbed her short dreadlocks and said that she hated her hair. She also said that she had never spoken to an Asian girl. I told her that I had never spoken to an African-American girl and that I hated my straight flat hair as well! Oddly enough, at that moment, I felt a connection with this stranger.

I told her that I was lost, and as she walked me to a subway station, we started to talk about how different our lives were, about clothes, music, families, even our schools. Contrary to my initial impression, *** was a cheerful teenage girl just like me. I even felt a sense of closeness when we found common ground: she and I both live with a single mom and a younger brother.

"School ain't gonna help me; I don't even need it. I wanna get a job, that's all. We're so darn poor." Her only hope, she said, was to earn money so that her alcoholic mother would not fight with her boyfriend over financial issues. When I told her that I loved to play the violin for children, *** simply replied, "We don't even have a music class at school."

When the subway came, our conversation ended. However, I realized that even though I also was from a low-income family, I was fortunate enough to attend a good school in a suburb. Therefore, I had more opportunities than students like *** who attended poor, inner-city schools. The disparities in our circumstances were shocking. I looked introspectively at my own position, situated between well-off students at my high school and those elsewhere who were not only poor but had fewer opportunities than I. I felt grateful for the learning opportunities I had experienced.

Moreover, this chance meeting with *** made me empathize with individuals whose socioeconomic status limits their access to educational opportunities. It inspired me to make a difference in the lives of students who have been deprived of a quality education. I ended my speech with a promise to use the opportunity given to me by the scholarship to be an advocate for marginalized children. Recounting this story during the acceptance speech confirmed my dream.

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weak ending... right?
Any suggestions??

Undergraduate / Why Penn? I can pursue my dream of integrating science and international relations! [3]

Let me know if anything sounds so cliched or if the essay sounds boring...
Thanks!!

Strolling down Locust walk until my mother's class at Penn is over, I am mesmerized by the vivaciousness and cultural dynamics of the campus. Sitting at a study table in the Van Pelt library, I imagine myself as a Penn student, voraciously reading my case-study notes from West Philadelphia Blankenburg Elementary School project for a midterm in my favorite class, Health in Urban Communities.

Children are my life-long passion. Working with them gives me pure happiness. I feel most content when I can help those who are in situations similar to my own several years ago. Through my undergraduate education at Penn, where I can apply my education into service, I aim to use scientific and social perspectives to find solutions to the numerous causes and cycles of poverty in urban areas and then adapt policies to improve the situations worldwide.

At Penn, I can pursue my dream of integrating science and international relations, which will enhance my future ability to improve the lives of underserved youth throughout the world. I plan to double major in Health and Societies and International Relations with a minor in Urban Education, interdisciplinary majors that are perfectly aligned with my interests and passion.

With the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) funding, I hope to conduct a research on the educational and health conditions of children living in low socioeconomic environments in South Philadelphia. I will hopefully be able to publish the results of my research in CUREJ- College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal. Moreover, I wish to have an opportunity to conduct another research project with Dr. Jaya Aysola in The Perelman School of Medicine regarding health care disparities in urban areas with a special focus on Philadelphia.

As a passionate student in the Global Heath concentration track, I plan to earn an internship position at the American Public Health Association in the summer of 2015. Additionally, the partnership between Penn and the University of Botswana and Penn's Guatemala Health Initiative will enable me to have a firsthand experience in adapting policies worldwide to help children at risk.

Penn also offers a variety of opportunities to continue my passion of working with children. In my junior year, I created a school organization that supports children at a residential school outside of Philadelphia to help socially marginalized children, especially those who have suffered emotional traumas. Initially, communicating with the emotionally traumatized children was especially difficult because they had shut their emotional doors to society and their surroundings. In an attempt to connect with the children, I utilized something that had helped me overcome my own emotional pains: music. I gathered a group of musicians from my high school and we performed together with the children at the school. As an undergraduate at Penn, I hope to be a part of The Supply Education Group and Disney A Cappella. Every weekend, I will volunteer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and teach children through the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project.

The multidisciplinary academic programs and extracurricular opportunities at Penn will provide me with pre-professional training, necessary for fulfilling my dreams. Penn will allow me to broaden my global perspective and will motivate me to become a multilingual individual. Following and leading the path guided by Penn of applying education into service to the world, I aspire to be an advocate for children at risk around the world, who will find hidden vulnerabilities that affect poor, sick, and traumatized children and then work to overcome those challenges.

Undergraduate / Aspirations Vs Stereotyped Beliefs; Amherst [5]

Here is my essay for Amherst...Please read over it and let me know what you think! I'm worried it may sound so cliched. Thanks in advance!!

As an Asian female from a disadvantaged background, I often find myself struggling between my individuality and the stereotyped beliefs of East Asian culture and Western culture. I have realized that societal views of Asian females place a glass ceiling on how women, especially Asian Americans, should behave. Society, friends, teachers, and neighbors expect me to be a compliant, quiet, and non-opinionated girl who has a perfect grade. Even my own family members reinforce the existing stereotypes; my conservative parents or grandparents advise me to stay home and become an obedient housewife. Although I am far from meeting that expectation or rather that stereotyped belief, I am surprised and frustrated by my subconscious effort to fit the mold set by society or to legitimize my mistakes based on those stereotypes.

Despite society's expectations and my own subconscious endeavors to fit into that stereotyped mold, I hope to pursue my life-long dream of becoming an international health expert. I believe I will be able to rise above societal definitions with a consistent effort to fight against the danger of prejudices that still exist in the 21st Century. Although it may be a long fight as the socially constructed perceptions are not limited to a tangible realm, I am confident in my ability to make a difference, especially for children whose dreams are undermined by societal definition. Children are our future. If children can grow up without the fetters of stereotyped beliefs, then in a couple decades, our society will no longer be subjected to or subject individuals to self-fulfilling prophecies that often marginalize children's dream.

Undergraduate / Dream of 15-year-old girl; Common App [3]

Hello, I am a senior in high school and I am in process of writing college essay... but it is really the hardest thing I have ever done in my life! I just got an essay revision from my mom's friend-college instructor-and he did not like it since it is too disoriented and metaphorical. Would you agree with that? Well, this is my rough draft,...so there can be a lot of errors and mistakes.

Anyway, I would greatly appreciate your feedback on my approach/ grammar errors/ etc.! Thanks!
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Common Application Essay Choice 1: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

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Dream of 15-year-old girl

I am a phoenix: well, more accurately, I was born twice, once on September 29th, 1995 and once on August 30th, 2011. Like a phoenix, (not as magnificently like an unique bird from a Greek Mythology), I was able to rise from the ashes. Any birth in itself is breathtaking; however, its beauty mainly comes from the pain experienced by a mother and a child.

Both cases, I was separated from my mom: first, naturally and second, voluntarily. Both births went through a tough and painful process, but I learned a worthwhile lesson that taught me to live a life with sense of purpose.

September 29th, 1995. 05:00:03 A.M.
The sun is about to rise above the horizon. Heavy air fills the five-square-feet delivery room in the midst of the desperate cry of mother and a child. Twenty-four hours have past since the mom used all her might to pull out a five-pound baby. The curious baby barely opens her wrinkly eyes out from the womb to explore the outside world. The mom and the baby are both exhausted and the doctor and the nurses are ready to give up and start a caesarean operation to rescue the baby. On that last minute, the baby yells and she is finally outside. The baby, myself, had to be kept in an incubator since I was too weakly and vulnerable.

Coming out of my mother's womb, I received the gift of love and warmth. However, I did not appreciate it, or at least, I did not know how to appreciate it and pass it onto other people. It took almost 16 years to learn the lesson but in such a painful and enlightening way. After my second birth, I learned to share the gift of love and warmth with other people, instead of keeping it to myself.

August 29th, 2011. 8:29 P.M. Spiritual journey to learn a lesson.
I could see my reflection through the bulletproof glass of the police car. I felt as if I am a criminal or a beast- too dangerous and too unworthy of living- locked up in the cage. The policeman asks for my personal information and the reason I ran away from my home. "My mom spanked me several times for lying" However, I did not describe what had happened in details.

That night, my mom was sent to jail for child abuse without a fair trial and my brother and I were sent to foster home, several cornfields and rivers away from the apartment. We could not attend the school for almost a week and nobody explained to us what was happening to our family.

Amid of all the chaos, I was excited for one thing in the United States; learning for the sake of learning, unlike Korea, where you are punished to get a good grade and the sake of learning is crushed by obsession over test scores. I wanted to learn about Renaissance in 15th century Europe and discuss about Machiavelli- 'did he have to be a cruel leader to be an effective leader? Or was that a mere excuse for the sake of trouble-free ruling?' I yearned to dissect the frog and learn what is the main difference between human beings and frogs that makes human beings worthier living creatures and frogs as creatures that is put on a dissect table. I soon realized I was thirsty for knowledge, for outside connection, and communication in a foreign land.

After trials that lasted for weeks, everything went back to "normalcy." From time to time, it was distressing to hold the burden of embarrassment and guilt, however, thanks to the support from the social workers and counselors, I was able to understand the purpose of "re-birth": This time, instead from my mom's womb, I departed from my "comfort-zone" and learned to appreciate what I have.

People learn from their mistakes. As a strong believer of learning through real experience and failure, I wanted to help the children and teenagers who are going through emotionally hard times just like I did as a 15-year-old girl. Several children foster/ trauma recovery institutions rejected my proposal in helping the children; but I never gave up and could not give up. My conviction that I have to take care of these children was so straightforward and unstoppable. Thus, Martin Luther School(school for kids with emotional traumas) finally allowed me to have a chance to interact with the children in the center. If I have given up, I would never have had a chance to evolve into a complete form of a phoenix.

The 15-year-old H does not exist here in this world anymore, but her dream vividly remains with my soul. I hear the voice whispering in my ear: " Don't be afraid and be the change. Fly out to the world. Tell the children to dream, hope, and love. Be their supporter!"

I was able to dream, hope, achieve and all the children can do even better than I did. Sometimes, the process can painful, but I will be there, as their mom, mentor, and a soul mate. My heart starts to beat again and today is sparkles a little more, thanks to the children with hopes and dreams.