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.
Your first sentence is very run-on...i kept thinking it would end...but you always had another and...and...and... it was just too much. it sounds good...but i would change the last sentence to "I walked out with a brand new scar, a throbbing reminder of how I loved to fall.' I would play up your hunger for improvement and your strive for excellence and how that was the cause of your falling...how it was something you wanted and loved to do because you wanted to achieve greatness and be the best...not something you hated to do, something that was a fault.
anyway to answer your first question, i do think you can use it for both...but my question is...do you want to? is this something that the admissions team cannot get out of your perfect grades, test scores, etc? this is your moment to show creativity and your true self, and yet you bombard the admissions with thoughts of super asian and how you only appear perfect because you were imperfect for so long...i would get more creative...
however it is very well written and i enjoyed your prose.
GOOD LUCK!
Thank you for the feedback!
I think my purpose for Yale was to curve my ego, which kind of suits the Yale psyche in my opinion. For Chicago, I think I was just trying to be original and not wanting to write another essay haha
Anyone else? :)
sorry to harp on this... but if the purpose for Yale was to curve your ego...i do not think you succeeded...i actually think that you only made yourself sound greater and emphasized and actually reinforced your ego...just something to think about.
Hmmm. Alright. Is it okay for UChic though?
like i said previously... you can but do you really want to? ini the prompt they state that they want you to use this opportunity to show your creativity and be adventurous...so i say take a risk and show your best qualities in a unique and quirky way that is very UChic. but i tend to read wayyy to much into things so it may be fine!
I disagree with dizzydaydreams. I really enjoyed your essay - two of the things I dislike most in writing are pretentiousness and egoism, and neither of those were present. I do agree that the first sentence was quite hard to read - I understand what you were trying to do, but I think you just did too much. I don't have any other critiques other than: "...of their understanding for the effort I put..." should that be 'of'?
What are you going to write as the prompt for UChi?
Hmm... I see some few grammar errors. The essay theme is okay... I don't know why u mentioned your first part bc I don't know if it correlates much with the one in the middle.
And the middle part is a little boring... Repeating whats mentioned on the application probably.
Can you find something that is really unique about you?
Joonghoon5 - Welllll it would have made a lot more sense to switch this with my Common App essay but it is too late for that haha. My Common App essay focuses on something very unique about me. Here Yale asks "tell us something we don't know", and I thought I would focus on something totally random and small. I kind of just had fun writing, and this was the product.
I thought it was creative and very well done. You are a very good writer, and you should use it for yale. I think that it's somethign that they will like.
