Hi, I'm applying to some elite schools like Stanford and Johns Hopkins, as well as Harvard and Princeton, and would be grateful if you would critique my Common App personal statement. Don't hold back!!! I want all the input I can get!! Thanks in advance!!
PROMPT: Option 1 - Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
Beep - beep - beep - beep, the sound I have grown to despise welcomes me into my day. I habitually hit the snooze button, check the time, and recover. It's five thirty in the morning and I must get moving. After completing my morning routine, including eating breakfast, it is now six thirty in the morning. With no time to waste, I need to get on the rode. I casually walk outside to my vehicle, where I finally receive some relief. Though I have a long, lonely forty-five minute drive to school, I have plenty of time to think.
It was during my junior year of high school that I changed. No longer would I be driving a short five minutes, but now a long and lonely forty-five minutes to and from school. To compensate for these longer drives, I would need something to do. Quickly adapting to the situation, I simply begin to think. Of course I would think before this year, but certainly never to this extent. After beginning that routine my junior year, I haven't had the same mind since.
I have noticed my level of thinking develop. My mind seems to be maturing. It has developed a hunger for ideas. I think about problems or situations occurring nationally or internationally. I have found that my main desire is to help others. Fixing bad circumstances and making the world better is my top priority in life. Because of this strong desire, subjects like America's future and the care for underprivileged children in Eastern Europe and Africa are frequent topics on my mind. Though I think about serious topics, I also have plenty of fun thoughts. I can recall some of my "remarkable" resolutions, like some of my world changing inventions or even the time I had an idea to "cure" cancer. Before my junior year, none of those subjects had really ever crossed my mind. Thanks to this drive, I've developed a truly cognitive mind.
Thinking has truly opened my mind. I now try to think differently, rather than conventionally. I think about multiple views rather than one. My friends know me as a friendly and simple type of guy. They know I work hard in school, participate in the things I love, and live life. However, many will never know my analytical thinking. They will probably never hear my philosophical ideas or silly inventions. This is ok, though, because my analytical thinking is a personal experience. It is an experience that has changed the way I see others, see the world, and see life.
Because of the extra time I have driving to school, I have developed a passion. My passion is to help others. My passion is to change the world, rather than leaving it as I found it. Most importantly, my passion is to be a role model for others. This is the impact my forty-five minute drive has had on me. Who knew what a little thinking could do?
