Diverse Academic Intersts, Responsibility, my Culture; HMC President's Scholar-SOP

So the only prompt they give is, "Submit a statement of purpose indicating why you are a deserving recipient of the award. (One page, single spaced)" That is literally all that it says on the application so I wasn't sure about where to go with this so all constructive criticism is not only helpful but also encouraged, Thank you!!!

Ever since I was a kid, I've had big dreams for myself. Being rich & successful, making my friends & family proud, really changing the world, stuff like that. And until recently, it's always been just that, a dream. But now I have the opportunity to use my diverse academic interests, my sense of leadership, and my culture's traditions & values to turn my dream into a reality. You say that this scholarship program is made for someone who is intellectually curious, exceptionally responsible, and that will help Harvey Mudd's diversity efforts, and I say that I might be the kind of person you're looking for.

First of all, my intellectual curiosity can be defined through my diverse academic interests. You see, my academic interests are diverse because I like to make connections between unrelated subjects and learn more about them. For example, in the 10th grade I did a report on the contributions of the French philosopher René Descartes to modern-day Calculus in my World History class; in the 11th grade I wrote an essay for the final in my AP Language and Composition class on the impact of Genetic Engineering on contemporary society. What I am trying to say is that my academic interests represent my intellectual curiosity by accentuating the areas I enjoy learning about, the areas that awaken my passion for learning. Furthermore, it is this passion for learning that has driven me to pursue a higher education, not because my family wants me to, not because my friends think I should, but because I want to go to college to continue doing what I love, to keep on learning.

Secondly, my sense of responsibility can be explained through the sense of leadership that I have developed through my experiences with the Boy Scouts of America. In fact, in the four years I have been involved I have managed to obtain the position of my troop's highest ranked scout and leader as a Life-ranked Scout and current Senior Patrol Leader, SPL for short. One of the main values that I have learned through my experiences as an SPL is the importance of having an exceptional sense of responsibility because of how much work it takes. For instance, over the summer was our annual, week-long, summer camp where it was my responsibility to go to daily meetings where we, the Senior Patrol Leaders of each troop, were informed of our troop's daily activities, where to report and the schedule for our troop for the day. On top of that I was expected to manage my troop's assigned campsite for the week, assign jobs to keep our camp neat for inspections, and to keep up with my own merit badge assignments. By the end of the week however, we had held two of the daily awards for having the cleanest campsite, had completed over 50 merit badges among 8 scouts, and had won the camp's "Reverse Archery" competition. That was my first outing as SPL and I felt quite proud of my troop for being the cooperative people they were and helping make it such a successful experience. Through this experience I was able to utilize my exceptional sense of responsibility with my leadership position to prove to my fellow scouts and to our adult leaders that I am capable of being a successful, trustworthy, and responsible leader.

Finally, my culture's traditions and values that have defined the type of person I am can be interpreted through my personal qualities. To describe myself in a sentence, I am a shy, friendly, nerdy, fun-loving, hard-working, bisexual, Salvadorian guy who enjoys talking to others and exploring the outdoors, but let's focus on the friendly, hard-working Salvadorian part for now. You see a big part of my family's Salvadorian culture is the belief that only through hard work can our true goals be realized. What this means is that my Salvadorian culture has shaped my work ethic through my desire to succeed. However, another major part of culture affects my philosophy on others and how they should be treated. You see my family believes strictly being friendly and inviting to everyone and at times this is where it takes a lot of self-control and devotion. For example, in the 6th grade my "bully turned best friend" confessed that he was never really my friend. I guess part of me just wanted to believe that things had changed and forget the past but when it all turned out to be a lie, you have no idea how idiotic and hateful I felt. But I still held on to my beliefs and dealt with it. He never changed, so why should I, I reasoned. And this led to a renewed conviction and how my personal qualities of hard-work and friendliness helped shape the person I am today.

Through this statement I have been trying to say that my qualifications for this scholarship are my the diversity of my academic interests, my experiences as a leader with the Boy Scouts of America, and my personal qualities defined by Salvadorian culture in order to convince you that I am deserving of this scholarship. Now, I would just like to conclude by thanking you so much for taking the time to consider me for this amazing opportunity.

first off, most narcissistic and selfish introduction i have ever seen. Really?



Wait. What? How is being bisexual not important to diversity? We live in a heterosexual world that relentlessly sells sex. I really think you should develop this more rather than seeming to sweep it under the rug. It shows that you have the potential to show understanding towards diverse post-modern academia that most people would brush off as weird or foreign. Any great idea seems weird at first. I mean hey, look at the guy who discovered milk haha. Not only did he have the courage to check out some cow utters and try what came out, but he had the balls to tell other people about it!

Being rich and successful, making my friends and family proud and changing the world into a more meaningful one had been some of those big dreams.


However, they all stopped at the dream status until very recent.


You make a statement to indicate us that you've had your dream realized. However, it is not descriptive enough. :)