Undergraduate / I created an imaginary friend named Oliver - Undergraduate College Essay [3]

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 created an imaginary friend named Oliver. I often played "Miss Susie Had a Baby" with the wall as my partner. Desperate, to share a secret, I'd whisper it to my pillow. I captured my friends in closets just to play board games with them because after playing Monopoly 15 times with my mother, it got kind of boring. Living my life with solely adults and some peers sprinkled along the way has reciprocated every facet of my life. In first grade, one of my friends introduced me to someone new and exceptional in her life. I begged and pleaded my mother for a counterpart just like hers. She had someone who was the most parallel to her that our society could ever attain with modern science. Someone she could confide wholly in without rejection or humiliation. She had a sibling.

As a child, I got all of the attention and all the possible resources my parents could give me. I was able to go to as many dance classes as I wanted, as they wouldn't interfere with any other agenda. I could get my favorite breakfast cereals in the grocery store and I wouldn't have to compromise. Christmas morning was like waking up to a toy store wrapped in comics. Of course my parents loved having only one child due to the fact that they always knew who broke it, scratched it, or lost it. I created so many innovative games with my just my cat and an old board game like "spin the cat". Needless to say my cat was not too happy with me. But most of all, as an only child I learned how to be alone. I matured rapidly beside my peers, listening to my parents' conversation on the stock market crash. I developed my case on the sub prime mortgage crisis at eight years old.

In my endless amounts of Captain Crunch came much bigger responsibilities. In fourth grade my teacher went around asking if anyone had an idea of what they wanted to become when they were older. I slowly raised my hand and in my shy voice declared, "A doctor". At nine years old that's the only profession that I could think of that would enchant everyone. My teachers and my family showered me with approbation for even mentioning the word "doctor". Yet this only appeased some of the pressure. And as I got older the encumbrance became more tangible.

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Identity has by far been my biggest struggle as an only child. When I was a freshman in high school looking back on my verdict earlier in life, physician was unequivocally the only path. But even trying my absolute hardest, I still didn't quite measure up to my peers who were contemplating a similar career path. I've always had this career path focused on other people. I decreed being a physician as what I wanted because that's the only profession that I felt would fill the void of those expectations. Being so consumed in living up to everyone else's idea of me, I never truly developed as a child. From the beginning I felt like an adult.

In my family, I'm the oldest, the youngest, the middle child, and the favorite. Living my whole life with adults has matured me in a way that only I can visualize. I've revolved my entire life around other people and their expectations of me. Yet this is how I learned determination, courage and persistence. Being an only child is a thread in every phase of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.