Undergraduate / 'My siter's success' - Commonapp essay: Having a twin. [7]

Prompt: 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.

Deadline is coming up really soon, so can someone please scan my essay and give me some advice??

People stare at us and whisper among themselves every time I go somewhere with Amber. But I don't blame them, really. Because we are identical twins, and that means we are "rare" and "interesting". I often hear comments like "I wish I had a twin!" or "If only I had twin babies!" However, I can tell you with certainty, having your own clone is not just fun.

The worst thing about being a twin is that the entire world compares you to your twin in almost every aspect. The comparing starts the second you get taken out of your mother's stomach and set besides the identical baby who is five minutes older than you. The differences used to be small and insignificant. Amber was always a little taller than me. She ran a little faster, smiled a little more and always scored a few points higher then me in tests. But after the High School Entrance Exam, our differences were suddenly thrust under a magnifying glass. I didn't perform as well as expected and scored lower than my sister. As a result, Amber entered the famed experimental high school that we were both aiming for, while I entered high school near home. Since then, relatives and other people had looked at me with eyes that asked "why aren't you as good as your sister?" My envy towards Amber and disappointment in myself nearly drowned me, but she gave me comfort and encouragement. She helped me get back on my feet and regain the lost confidence in myself. She assured me that I could be just as good as her if I tried hard enough. I believed her. Holding on to that belief, I have worked extra hard in both academic and extracurricular areas during my years in high school to earn the respect and applause of those who once said I wasn't as excellent as my twin. I even began hoping that one day I could hear my mother tell my twin to "be more like your sister" as she used to tell me.

As I chased after my sister's success all this time, changes in my life and myself took place before I knew it. I found out that I could do so much better in my studies if I really put my heart into it; I could develop better learning skills and improve my efficiency. I learned to cope with being without Amber in a sea of classmates, to come out of the bubble she and I created and try out new things. I didn't even knew how much I'd changed until one day a friend whom I haven't seen since graduating from junior high exclaimed: "I didn't remember you were so outgoing!" I had thought I'd never get over being unable to be admitted into my dream high just because I scored a few points less, but after some time, I realized that it was no use crying over spilled milk. The important thing was to never give up on yourself.

I gradually came to realize that I wasn't only trying to catch up with my twin; I was breaking through the fetters I had put on myself. I learned that I didn't have to be the girl who always had to look up to her sister and follow her everywhere. I no longer looked down on myself just because I didn't go to the best school in the city. I stopped telling myself "I can't". By pushing myself to do things I thought I would never do, I have walked out of my twin's shadow. Time flies and now I face the challenge of applying to university. I stand once again shoulder to shoulder with my twin to compete and compare. But this time, I'm not afraid.

Undergraduate / I DAYDREAM A LOT; my Common app [6]

Prompt: 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.

I need someone to help look through my essay and give me some advice. Harsh criticism is welcome!

I daydream a lot-when I take a break from hours of hard work, before I fall asleep every night, after witnessing or experiencing something inspiring-it can occur whenever I'm not occupied. It has become some kind of strange habit before I noticed I liked to do it. I can't control what I daydream about (if I could, then it wouldn't be daydreaming, would it?); it just happens. When I daydream, I silently slip into another dimension of the world, where anything can happen and no one can know. You may think this is just an act of no importance at all except for evading the reality-nothing to take notice of. But to me, it is exactly the contrary.

"Come on! Let's take a break! We've been working on this for a whole day already!" My partner pushed himself away from the desk and moaned. Resolutely, I shook my head because I remembered one of my most frequent daydreams-my future.

One of the most frequent things I daydream about is the future. 1 year later, an excited freshman of my dream university, eager to try out everything new... 5 years later, a graduate filled with cherished memories of university life, eager for the life ahead... 10 years later, a civil engineer enthusiastically designing and constructing beautiful pieces of work... 15 years later, a mom with a wonderful family trying her best to balance life and work...As I daydream, I come to understand how extremely hard I must work, if all my visions were to come true. This pushes me to focus on my goal and put all my effort in developing my overall abilities.

Unlike other people's occasional daydream, in mine, I'm not always myself and things are not always good. I may be the girl in the news who lost her parents on her graduation day. I may be the old lady sitting in front of the dingy nursery home. I may be the homeless child starving on the streets. In these daydreams, I get so involved in the grief, the fear and the desire of these people that tears spring into my eyes. As real as my daydream seem, it isn't reality, after all. For every portion of pain I feel, they must have gone through pain ten times tougher. Whenever I think of this and how much better my life was than theirs, I feel the urgency to go out there and do something to help them. This is why I joined the school's Red Cross Society, volunteering frequently in orphanages, nursing homes and other places where people yearn for some help and hope.

I daydream about a lot more just the two aspects above, some simply nonsense, some strangely inspiring, but it doesn't matter. What matters is I don't let my daydreams go unnoticed. They enable me to experience things people don't normally do and teach me things no one else can. In my daydreams, I create my own image of the future, one that deserves a good deal of effort and determination. In my daydreams, I see the world through others' eyes and learn to imagine how disadvantaged people feel. But it doesn't stop there. I transform my daydreams into action. With the picture of my future in mind, I never allow myself to give up or stop trying; it is my motivation. After grieving over the pain of others, I strive to do all I can to help them out. I believe I am getting closer and closer to my dream and during my volunteering jobs people have really benefited from my efforts and felt a little better.