Prompt: We are interested in learning more about the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your successes. Please describe how the most influential factors and challenges in your life have shaped you into the person you are today.
This is a rough draft. My English isn't that good, so if possible I would like to know what can I improve on in terms of sentence structures, how to making the essay more smooth to read, better word choices, etc.
My response to the prompt:
I don't like summer. I don't like the heat that I have to go through as a California resident, feeling my sweat dripping down under my t-shirt. It was the same California heat that reminded me of the time when I picked up an unexpected call from my dad.
"Our house had burned down," he said.
Fortunately, neither my dad nor my younger brother have received any serious injuries. When I returned from school, the firefighters had already extinguished the fire. We walked into my former home to collect what was left of our possessions, and the smell of ammonia made everything unfamiliar.
The cause of the fire is, unironically, rather simple: the kitchen fire was left on, and no one was able to turn it off. But it's this simple situation that brought us to a completely different realm: being homeless and having nowhere to go while being burdened by a hefty compensation fee that we owed to our landlord. An experience that we never thought of.
We moved to a local inn for the week after that. The room was quite big for one person to live in, but the room magically shrunk once my dad, my brother, and I all moved in and started sharing the furniture. The restroom was tiny and tight, and there weren't a lot of flat surfaces to place my paper or Chromebook; I learned this after spending nights doing my homework in the restroom while using the toilet as a desk after my dad and brother had fallen asleep in the dark.
What can be worse than your parents not being able to speak English fluently and the whole family having to depend on the little savings that your parents earn as an Uber Eats driver? Maybe having the police visit the inn you are living in because you were crying during classes? Or there's no available rental when you are essentially homeless? Well, there certainly is something worse than all of these: your parents cried while yelling at you, "We don't have money anymore; we are broke; we are homeless!"
It would not be true if I said I never complained about this situation in my mind. So many times I shouted within myself, blaming my dad for not working hard enough and earning enough money or looking for a more secure job that pays more, for letting all this happen, for all my cries when I was relying on the restroom light and doing my homework on the toilet lid. I held my dissatisfaction to myself for a while, until I found a box of over-the-counter antidepressants in the trash can of our new home, a few weeks after we moved in.
I have had a very strained relationship with my dad since a very young age, but for once in my life, I never felt so sorry for him.
In addition, I felt unsettled. I cannot accept the daunting fact that my family is so vulnerable, such that one accident could have led us to homelessness, to my dad's depression, to me having a mental breakdown in front of my counselor-essentially, to a painful page that none of my family wants to talk about again. I simply cannot stand such instability and vulnerability. I need to do better; this is for my family as a first-generation college student, as well as for myself. My future will be in my grasp.
I started to take my academics seriously: taking challenging APs and honor classes. Rather than sleepwalking aimlessly on campus, I found myself walking steadily toward all of my classes-the places where I could secure my future while having an actual desk to do work on. Sleep deprivation is not necessarily a good thing, but it is worth it after seeing my grades remain well above the 90% mark line.
That's not enough.
I push myself to be one of the best in Academic Decathlon. After a year of cramming and countless nights of practicing my AI art speech in front of my phone camera, I was placed in 2nd place in the whole county and scored among the top 2 on my Decathlon team during state competition. From all the competitions that I participated in, I have won countless medals that hurt my neck when I put all of them on.
That's not enough.
I exploit all the opportunities that my school offers. Earning a $300 grant from Girls Who Code and securing an internship at Cal State LA. I'm earning money myself.
That's far less than enough.
I will continue to strive for the best and hold on to any opportunity that I can use to make myself go farther and farther on my path.
Holt Educational Consultant - / 15168 This is a compelling story to share for your application consideration. While it is insightful, I feel like the story should start prior to the fire burning down the house. That way the reviewer will have a chance to see how your family dynamic changed and what your previous relationship was with your parents and siblings. However, it would have been nice to read about how you helped your family recover from this unfortunate incident. It just seems like you are nothing but just angry at your parents because of the situation. You did not contribute anything to help solve the situation. It would be great if you showed that the experience helped you mature as an individual somehow.
