Hi guys! Since I randomly decided to apply to 12 schools after getting my rejection, I am trying to be as efficient as possible and not write multiple essays for each school. Since both Yale and UChic have free prompts, I decided to write just one for each. So here it is. I also included the prompts - I would really love to know if my essay is appropriate for both. Thank you!
(Also, please critcize generally as well - i.e. grammar, structure, meaning..etc)
:)
U-Chicago
Essay Option 5. In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk and have fun.
YALE
You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, with its list of activities, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. While we leave the topic of your second essay entirely up to you, try telling us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application. Please limit yourself to fewer than 500 words.
It was only the second day of summer and the first day of my long-craved research internship when I found myself sitting in the Yale emergency room with an exposed knee, cursing the narcissistic summer sun and the crowded sidewalk and the aesthetically distracting jewelry the woman in front of me wore and the oncoming New Haven traffic and the scientifically illogical height to which the pavement is raised. Since growing up, this was my first fall.
In high school, I have succeeded in holding the reputation "Super Asian" among my fairly homogeneous peers in Fairfield County, which makes me proud of not only my accomplishments but also my ethnicity. Need someone to cover a shift for the Perch Burst? Looking for a flautist to play for the orchestra in the Candlelight concert? Seeking mental support after the AP Bio test last period? Done. Done. Done. The Super Asian will come your way and save the day. Although I am gratified in knowing that many people identify me as their 911, I am even more appreciative of their understanding for the effort I put behind my academic work and the compassion I place in my relationship with others despite that these things might only loom under the surface of superficial triumphs. In academic life, others have seen me standing at ease with practiced resilience against typhoons of bad weeks and lost student government elections, refusing to let myself to fall. However, I have a secret: I used fall, and I used to fall a lot.
One advantage of moving from one continent to another is that my past no longer defines me unless I purposefully introduce it into my new life. I never had the heart to mention the reasons for the layered display of scars on my knees. But here is the truth: I was not born able to sit and read through Faulkner and understand, to the best of my meager ability as a non-native English speaker, his wild prose. Nor is it an innate ability to learn Bach's Polonaise on flute and perform it the next day to an audience. However, I am gifted with a talent for falling since birth. Before I learned how to walk, I fell even by rolling off the bed. After I learned how to walk and run, I fell ever more. I cannot recall one childhood memory that does not involve some form of falling, a consequence of either reckless play or self-exploration. Falling allowed me to measure my capabilities and expand my potential by experimentation. In other words, Super Asian's super power is not the ability to ace math tests, but the desire to fall.
As I let myself sink deeper into my education, I no longer remembered to give myself the freedom to fall. It was not until that sunlit day and that awkwardly angled sidewalk when I rediscovered the delicate grace and momentary weightlessness of a human body as it gives into the pull of gravity. That day, I walked out of the ER without band-aids and packets of antibiotic cream. I walked out with a brand new scar, a throbbing reminder of how I used to fall.
(Also, please critcize generally as well - i.e. grammar, structure, meaning..etc)
:)
U-Chicago
Essay Option 5. In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk and have fun.
YALE
You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, with its list of activities, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. While we leave the topic of your second essay entirely up to you, try telling us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application. Please limit yourself to fewer than 500 words.
It was only the second day of summer and the first day of my long-craved research internship when I found myself sitting in the Yale emergency room with an exposed knee, cursing the narcissistic summer sun and the crowded sidewalk and the aesthetically distracting jewelry the woman in front of me wore and the oncoming New Haven traffic and the scientifically illogical height to which the pavement is raised. Since growing up, this was my first fall.
In high school, I have succeeded in holding the reputation "Super Asian" among my fairly homogeneous peers in Fairfield County, which makes me proud of not only my accomplishments but also my ethnicity. Need someone to cover a shift for the Perch Burst? Looking for a flautist to play for the orchestra in the Candlelight concert? Seeking mental support after the AP Bio test last period? Done. Done. Done. The Super Asian will come your way and save the day. Although I am gratified in knowing that many people identify me as their 911, I am even more appreciative of their understanding for the effort I put behind my academic work and the compassion I place in my relationship with others despite that these things might only loom under the surface of superficial triumphs. In academic life, others have seen me standing at ease with practiced resilience against typhoons of bad weeks and lost student government elections, refusing to let myself to fall. However, I have a secret: I used fall, and I used to fall a lot.
One advantage of moving from one continent to another is that my past no longer defines me unless I purposefully introduce it into my new life. I never had the heart to mention the reasons for the layered display of scars on my knees. But here is the truth: I was not born able to sit and read through Faulkner and understand, to the best of my meager ability as a non-native English speaker, his wild prose. Nor is it an innate ability to learn Bach's Polonaise on flute and perform it the next day to an audience. However, I am gifted with a talent for falling since birth. Before I learned how to walk, I fell even by rolling off the bed. After I learned how to walk and run, I fell ever more. I cannot recall one childhood memory that does not involve some form of falling, a consequence of either reckless play or self-exploration. Falling allowed me to measure my capabilities and expand my potential by experimentation. In other words, Super Asian's super power is not the ability to ace math tests, but the desire to fall.
As I let myself sink deeper into my education, I no longer remembered to give myself the freedom to fall. It was not until that sunlit day and that awkwardly angled sidewalk when I rediscovered the delicate grace and momentary weightlessness of a human body as it gives into the pull of gravity. That day, I walked out of the ER without band-aids and packets of antibiotic cream. I walked out with a brand new scar, a throbbing reminder of how I used to fall.
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