Undergraduate / Encouraged to test a spectrum of activities - including dance, softball, basketball, choir, and art. [3]

The prompt reads:
"Considering your lifetime goals, discuss how your current and future academic and extra-curricular activities might help you achieve your goals"

Here's what I wrote:

I can't specifically write this for one school because it's going to three schools. Still, I did not take some of the things out like "extra curricular activities". I've run this by three admissions officers now, and it's not a problem. I did however, rearrange the entire essay and tried to add a little extra detail. There is a part in parenthesis that talk about my parents and more than likely, you'll try and advise me to take it out, but I was told to keep it. And i'm still not sure how i'm supposed to change the last sentence. I'm worried about some possible sentence structures and run-ons in this too, so if you notice one, let me know. So this is the new essay.

In high school my extracurricular activities were based mostly on clubs and organizations. As I got older, I realized that these clubs were more important than the activities that I previously participated in because they exposed me to a more mature environment. Student council, key club, and interact club taught me the importance of connecting with the community and putting forth the effort to help programs that rely on volunteers. Awareness event such as adoption awareness, impacted me in a positive way that made me want to educate and connect more people with their community. This inspired my current goal of a career in public relations and marketing for a sports team. My ultimate goal is to work in this field for a professional football team, where as a community liaison, I can make game day memorable and exciting by connecting the team to their community and loyal fans. My love for football, specifically, comes from my parents who raised me to watch every college football game (my mom, the Aggie) as well as every professional game (my dad, the Seahawks fan). My desire to incorporate the community aspect and public relations was shaped by the clubs and organizations that I participated in high school.

Since my parents are the kind of people who believe in exploring various options to discover new passions, they encouraged me to try everything while I was growing up. The spectrum of activities included dance, softball, basketball, choir, and cooking, though the only one I actually pursued into and through high school was choir. Choir has most helped me by pushing me outside of my comfort zone when I was afraid to take risks in my vocal range. Because of the courage that choir gave me, I know I will be more prepared to explore and overcome difficult obstacles that might be brought forth in my career. Every activity has helped to form my character in some kind of way as well. For example, in dance, I learned how to simultaneously cooperate with others in a team environment all the while keeping some originality and personality in my routines. At times I may have struggled to remember the order of the routine, but I know it helped me to develop memorization techniques that will allow me to thrive in future public presentations that I will inevitably have to give in the marketing field. I was also exposed to the team building aspect in softball and basketball, where I was forced to cover my own position, while again, working with the players forming skills of unity and cooperation. These skills will be beneficial when I get the opportunity to work alongside others to create meet and greet opportunities for deserving fans and players.

Most of the activities I did growing up we're done outside of my every day learning environment like in Little Leagues, dance companies, and specialty classes. I participated in a summer cooking school that taught me how to follow specific instructions, while expressing myself in unique ways at the same time. I was also put into karate at the age of six and worked up to an advance red belt (three away from a black belt) before my family moved to North Carolina and I was forced to leave my rank. Karate taught me at a young age, the art of defense and self-reliance. Through repetition and discipline, the strict environment taught me various learning and memorization techniques, as well as how to respond respectfully to my superiors. During my junior year, I got a job and was able to learn the value of a dollar as well as customer interaction through hands on experience. This is a very beneficial starting point to my future career as someone who will be forced to work with many types of individuals, good and bad. These learned techniques have followed me throughout my whole life and will continue to appear as I develop as an adult in the workforce.

Without the opportunity to participate in these clubs, I imagine that I wouldn't have discovered the path that I now wish to travel. In the future, to help get me to my eventual outcome, I plan to participate in other community outreach events that support the promotion and awareness of a cause. I will also try to obtain an internship with a local sports team, so that while I am learning the educational side of my career choice, I am also gaining experience in the field. Marketing and public relations degrees will be beneficial in helping to increase my chances in my desired goal and my future employer will see that I have been properly trained and educated in a specific field by a credible school.

Undergraduate / Throughout life, everyone is forced to encounter obstacles that may seem impossible to overcome [4]

The prompt is as follows:
Describe a circumstance, obstacle, or conflict in your life, and the skills and resources you used to resolve it. Did it change you? If so, how?

and here is what I wrote:

"Morgan, you're honestly so lucky" Bailey said to me as she was packing to visit her dad's house. She and our other cousin, Austin, had both been products of divorced parents; I saw them every summer, when I visited Washington. Since they are my best friends, they always made sure to tell me how lucky I was to be a product of a happy family where my parents almost never argued. The entirety of my family expected that it would eternally remain this way with no real scares of divorce or separation.

When I was nearly fifteen, the atmosphere in my household rapidly started to deteriorate. One minute my parents were a happy couple and the next, I was living in fear that I would soon be forced to decide which parent I wanted to live with. My parents started verbally tearing each other apart and fighting endlessly over pathetic and meaningless details. They fought over money since our financial situation at the time was complicated due to the company my dad worked for shutting down. They fought over how much time my dad was spending on his computer rather than with the family. They even fought about how they were constantly fighting. They tried not to argue in front of me, but at times they just couldn't control themselves.

"I just wish you would pay more attention to what's going on around you." My mother began. "You're not emotionally here anymore because you're always on your computer".

"Just because I'm working, Andrea, doesn't mean that I am emotionally absent" my dad's voice rose. This argument particularly annoyed me due to the fact that I had been watching America's Got Talent, until they rudely interrupted.

"God, you just pick. That's all you do. You try and start these fights with me and I'm so tired of it. You're just trying to make me out to be the bad guy". My dad's voice went up a notch. I cranked the volume on the TV hoping that they would get my message. They didn't. I turned off the TV in defeat and locked myself in my bedroom for the rest of the night with my dog in attempt to escape their childish demeanor.

At times, my relationship with each of them individually, fluctuated between positive and negative. My mom and I would be sharing a laugh about celebrity gossip and then the conversation would take a misguided turn to her throwing low blows at my dad: a simple "well you're father is clueless, he needs to take responsibility for his part in this relationship." When this happened, I would emotionally shut down because I hated more than anything that this poisonous atmosphere had become my reality. I never wanted to be involved in their crumbling relationship because I feared that I would go down with it. The idea that this would be my life until I graduated repulsed me. I had no way to escape.

Then one morning, my mother came into my room and announced with a quivering lip and tears streaming down her face, that she would be house hunting for a place of her own. When my dad realized that she was serious about ending their 18 year marriage, he proposed a verbal contract to renew the happiness and well-being of the family and of their marriage.

The atmosphere started to gradually improve as we tried to bring the family back together again. We started to eat every meal together and say a blessing each time we ate. We also had a family game night on Fridays to help us unwind from the stress of work and school. This, in my opinion, was a huge contribution in repairing our relationship because it allowed us to open up to each other and laugh together without worrying about an argument breaking out. Playing games helped to form patience and communication skills that play a major role in our family to this day where we are able to thoroughly process our thoughts before they are verbally expressed.

This experience taught me that if you stop telling the people you love them how much you appreciate them, the relationship can come unglued very quickly and that it's a very difficult and timely process to gather the pieces and put them together again. Even though it took a freighting, emotional experience like this, my family and I grew so much stronger than before. As an only child, I have relied on my parents to be the ones to teach me how to be a proper, educated, young woman. Even more crucially, they taught me how to tell left from right, right from wrong, and how important it is to never give up on love.