basicb
Jan 1, 2015
Undergraduate / Princeton Supplement: Liberation from the Social Machine [8]
Thank you for your help! Also, your notre dame thread, which one?
Thank you for your help! Also, your notre dame thread, which one?
basicb
Jan 1, 2015
Undergraduate / Princeton Supplement: Liberation from the Social Machine [8]
Thanks a lot! I tried editing while maintaining the same style, but I was only able to make the following changes. Is it still rough to read?
Thanks a lot! I tried editing while maintaining the same style, but I was only able to make the following changes. Is it still rough to read?
basicb
Jan 1, 2015
Undergraduate / Princeton Supplement: Liberation from the Social Machine [8]
Does anyone else have the difficulty to reread?
Also, does anyone find the flow between my description of her suffering and my own intervention to be ragged?
Does anyone else have the difficulty to reread?
Also, does anyone find the flow between my description of her suffering and my own intervention to be ragged?
basicb
Jan 1, 2015
Undergraduate / Can't choose essay; 3 supplement prompts are asking me to evaluate on an extra curricular activity [5]
The writing is slightly weak across all three, but I most definitely like the third the most. To improve, I would recommend:
1) "I mean I've done since I was 6" --> "having done it since the age of 6" (i think you can replace 'age of 6' with childhood, though that's your call)
2) second use of "facial expressions" --> "responses"
Ultimately, I like the third the most, but I'd work on fixing some of the fluidity/redundancy.
The writing is slightly weak across all three, but I most definitely like the third the most. To improve, I would recommend:
1) "I mean I've done since I was 6" --> "having done it since the age of 6" (i think you can replace 'age of 6' with childhood, though that's your call)
2) second use of "facial expressions" --> "responses"
Ultimately, I like the third the most, but I'd work on fixing some of the fluidity/redundancy.
basicb
Jan 1, 2015
Undergraduate / Princeton Supplement: Liberation from the Social Machine [8]
Could you guys tell me if this adequetely answers the question and, well, if it's pton material?
[PROMPT]
Using one of the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event, or experience that helped you define one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. Please do not repeat, in full or in part, the essay you wrote for the Common Application.
[QUESTION]
5. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay.
[ESSAY]
"The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Tyrants, bloodthirsty and vice-driven, they ensued their relentless assault, battering their victim with savage furor, untempered by her pitiful cries for release.
"Why?" "You can't!" "We need you." "You're too talented." Like hail, the compliments came - and like acid, each seared deeper and deeper into her flesh, siphoning the little motivation she had left. Society's expectations, manifest as the incessant beleaguering of her friends and family, left no respite, no rest in the midst of its overbearing fortissimo.
And so, there my best friend stood, a shell of the livelihood she once embodied, no longer emanating her once jovial aura. A fellow musician and leader, she had once striven with an ambition I could have only hoped to mimic, and yet, after our years of effort - of copresidency in our literary magazine, of directing the concert and show choirs, of being fellow section leaders, of laboring over regions choir pieces - she had decrescendoed into nothingness.
In place of her triumphant descant, all that remained was a whimper. A sforzando, she had come all at once, commanding her surroundings - and instantly, in fear of disappointing her supporters, she disappeared. Leadership, solos, ensembles - amidst a chorus of criticisms, she faded from it all.
But the criticism did not cease there. Those she trusted - her "friends" - could not look beyond their convoluted perception of what should be. Possessed by the notion that they were encouraging her to do better, to grow, it was they who set her on this self-deprecating path from the start - it was they who, in their crude idealism, committed her to ensemble after ensemble, compelled her to work towards unattainable perfection, urged her to strive higher and higher.
It was they who brought her to that resounding fortissimo, that peak of ambition.
And it was they who left her there to decrescendo.
Afflicted with clinical anxiety and bereft of her makeshift support system, she dwindled deeper and deeper into her depression - and so, fueled by my knowledge of psychology and healthcare experience, I intervened.
As I consoled her, as I empathized for her retreat from grandeur, her missed potential meant nothing to me - all that mattered, in those crucial moments, was providing sanctuary. And so, sentiment after sentiment, funny video after video, anime soundtrack after soundtrack, I revived her.
Crescendo poco a poco, she blossomed. Unconventionally she ascended, not by taking on new roles but by relinquishing old ones. Liberated beyond the darkness of society's standards, she found herself transcendent, no longer prone to the vile encouragement of those around her.
And, in that moment of catharsis, of apotheosis, I reveled vicariously. I found myself relinquishing claim from the old elitist goals I used to cherish, from the Milgram automaton archetype. Where I once valued competitive triumph, I now sought purposeful self-satisfaction. Developing relationships, finding pleasure in my artistic passions, seeking to develop my understanding of the mind and provide outreach for those with mental illness - these aspirations burgeoned, untainted by avarice.
The meaningless social machine - the basin that implanted Machivallian creed, the darkness that disseminated sin - no longer shackled me.
I was free.
Could you guys tell me if this adequetely answers the question and, well, if it's pton material?
[PROMPT]
Using one of the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event, or experience that helped you define one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. Please do not repeat, in full or in part, the essay you wrote for the Common Application.
[QUESTION]
5. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay.
[ESSAY]
"The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Tyrants, bloodthirsty and vice-driven, they ensued their relentless assault, battering their victim with savage furor, untempered by her pitiful cries for release.
"Why?" "You can't!" "We need you." "You're too talented." Like hail, the compliments came - and like acid, each seared deeper and deeper into her flesh, siphoning the little motivation she had left. Society's expectations, manifest as the incessant beleaguering of her friends and family, left no respite, no rest in the midst of its overbearing fortissimo.
And so, there my best friend stood, a shell of the livelihood she once embodied, no longer emanating her once jovial aura. A fellow musician and leader, she had once striven with an ambition I could have only hoped to mimic, and yet, after our years of effort - of copresidency in our literary magazine, of directing the concert and show choirs, of being fellow section leaders, of laboring over regions choir pieces - she had decrescendoed into nothingness.
In place of her triumphant descant, all that remained was a whimper. A sforzando, she had come all at once, commanding her surroundings - and instantly, in fear of disappointing her supporters, she disappeared. Leadership, solos, ensembles - amidst a chorus of criticisms, she faded from it all.
But the criticism did not cease there. Those she trusted - her "friends" - could not look beyond their convoluted perception of what should be. Possessed by the notion that they were encouraging her to do better, to grow, it was they who set her on this self-deprecating path from the start - it was they who, in their crude idealism, committed her to ensemble after ensemble, compelled her to work towards unattainable perfection, urged her to strive higher and higher.
It was they who brought her to that resounding fortissimo, that peak of ambition.
And it was they who left her there to decrescendo.
Afflicted with clinical anxiety and bereft of her makeshift support system, she dwindled deeper and deeper into her depression - and so, fueled by my knowledge of psychology and healthcare experience, I intervened.
As I consoled her, as I empathized for her retreat from grandeur, her missed potential meant nothing to me - all that mattered, in those crucial moments, was providing sanctuary. And so, sentiment after sentiment, funny video after video, anime soundtrack after soundtrack, I revived her.
Crescendo poco a poco, she blossomed. Unconventionally she ascended, not by taking on new roles but by relinquishing old ones. Liberated beyond the darkness of society's standards, she found herself transcendent, no longer prone to the vile encouragement of those around her.
And, in that moment of catharsis, of apotheosis, I reveled vicariously. I found myself relinquishing claim from the old elitist goals I used to cherish, from the Milgram automaton archetype. Where I once valued competitive triumph, I now sought purposeful self-satisfaction. Developing relationships, finding pleasure in my artistic passions, seeking to develop my understanding of the mind and provide outreach for those with mental illness - these aspirations burgeoned, untainted by avarice.
The meaningless social machine - the basin that implanted Machivallian creed, the darkness that disseminated sin - no longer shackled me.
I was free.
