Not afraid teen - what you are proud of. UBC Personal Profile Question - Admission Essay

Personal Profile essay

I am a 16 year old teenager who is never afraid to fail but someone who is afraid not to try. My parents and friends would describe me as a motivated, passionate and hardworking individual who will leave no stone unturned in order to accomplish the standards I have set for myself. In order to exemplify what I have said in my first sentence, I would like to share my experiences in the Physics Olympiad which is held in our country. It is an annual event in order to select the best candidates to represent their country in the International round of Physics Olympiad. Firstly, I participated in this competition in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. I had hard luck in my first two tries in this competition. However, I never lost hope and pushed myself to have a better preparation so that I can shine in the competition. It was my failures which galvanized me to work harder and enhance my knowledge of Physics. Finally, in the year 2020, I participated again in the divisional round and I was selected as a divisional winner which allowed me to progress to the national round of the competition. I firmly believe that it was my passion for physics and my attitude towards my initial failures which allowed me to be recognized as one of the top competitors of this competition. Therefore, I am glad to assert that this is an accomplishment which I am proud of.

Could anyone please give me a feedback? Thank you

If you are not afraid to fail, then you are not afraid to try. So indicating the word "but" in the first sentence creates a conflict in the discussion. Remove the term "but" and replace it "and" so that the sentence makes more sense and avoids the confusing presentation. You should remove the third sentence as it is just a word filler presentation. It does not help move the essay forward and removes the focus of the discussion from what should be a smoothly written response essay. You did well merging the way people see you with the accomplishment you are most proud of. That certainly helps to make your response stronger and more on point with the given discussion. If you correct the portions I indicated, then the essay should be stronger and more useful to your application.

This essay was straightforward and easy to understand what you were describing. I feel like the "firstly" and "finally" that you used makes your essay seem more of a list of your accomplishments instead of consecutive events. You also described yourself as hardworking in the beginning and you alluded to that when you described your attitude towards failure, however, you didn't mention it at the end when you described aspects of yourself that allowed you to be recognized. In the middle of your response, you attribute your failure in 2018 and 2019 to bad luck which can be interpreted as deflecting your failure to something else. It's a bit vague when your essay, later on, has clear reasons for your success. It would seem like you accepted and learned from your failure more if you describe this "bad luck" you mentioned with a tangible reason (ie. it had questions you didn't study or you were in a bad mood, etc).

@Holt
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