PLEASE HELP! XD
I've just completed a rough rought draftfor Common App Essay topic #1, which is...
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
I'd very much appreciate a hard, critical look at my essay and any constructive advice on how I could make my essay better, make it more concise, or even whether my essay fits this topic!
Thank you so much for your time!!!
The day I joined my school newspaper staff, an editor handed me my first story assignment and coolly told me to prepare to interview a widow of our Sunny Hills High School's former cross country coach. One year had passed since her husband was killed in a car accident, but a story idea had just come up when it was discovered that the mysterious $4,000 check that had appeared in the cross country team's mail a few months ago had been donated by this very lady I was to talk to, Ms. Pat Walker. While I did have some curiosity to find out more about the story, I was seized with dread as I dialed her phone number, knowing that her husband's death had something to do with the donation. What if she bursts into tears talking about her husband? The worry plagued my mind going into the interview.
Although Ms. Walker never did cry in the end, in retrospect I feel that the interview was all the more memorable because she did not cry. Ms. Walker told me of many things during our phone interview. She told me about her "unusual request" to the judge to allow the defendant's court fee to be donated to our cross country team in her husband's honor-which is where the $4,000 came from. But above all, she told me of her husband's great passion for running. "My husband, he was a runner all his life. In his entire life, he ran marathons and long distance, and was very, very devoted." She proudly recounted how her husband, Mr. Wayne Walker, coached the Sunny Hills cross country team for 10 years, guiding the team to three league titles. Though he retired as a coach in 1999, he still returned every year to help with the school's cross country invitational events. "Through lifelong donations to Sunny Hills cross country, I hope to keep alive Coach Wayne Walker's memory," she said. "He inspired and motivated all runners with his passion for running and his belief that all runners needed to test the limits of their endurance and to believe they could always cross that finish line." Her words carried so much conviction in her husband's beliefs, and I felt that at least in spirit, Mr. Walker was still alive with her.
Thoughts and emotions I developed from the one-week interview may be rather subtle, but I'm certain I would not have gained its manifold lessons anywhere else. Emerging out of a naïve sense of pity for the widow, I came to experience a new spectrum of feeling of respect and admiration for her endurance through a very tragic event. While confronting the cold wall of fate with a certain level of acceptance, Ms. Walker went on to apply a greater determination to make a difference in the lives around her through an act of giving, which I see as an ultimate triumph of human spirit over life's unexpected challenges. While Ms. Walker's willpower touched me for sure, however, the person that captivated my heart the most was Mr. Walker himself, whose passion absolutely transcended death and stunned me with its "ripple effects". That his wife has made it her life-long work to donate time and money to runners in his remembrance, that the school has renamed two invitationals in tribute to his career, and that a group of young runners continue to be inspired to follow his same passion through the wife's life-long support... All these people that have been moved by one man's eternal dedication meant to me the most meaningful culmination of pouring one's soul into one passion in life.
"Enthusiasm moves the world," James Balfour once wrote. Certainly Mr. Walker's enthusiasm moved several worlds around him, including my own. Only now, I envision when that time should come in my own life. With what passion and what burning zeal would I someday impact the lives around me? What defining fervor will the world remember me for after I have left this earth? What will I care about and love so much so that, at least in that field of study, work, or interest, I will strive for the best and will be happy to devote my entire life serving the world? I take it as my noble duty and my life-long goal to seek answers to these questions.
I've just completed a rough rought draftfor Common App Essay topic #1, which is...
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
I'd very much appreciate a hard, critical look at my essay and any constructive advice on how I could make my essay better, make it more concise, or even whether my essay fits this topic!
Thank you so much for your time!!!
The day I joined my school newspaper staff, an editor handed me my first story assignment and coolly told me to prepare to interview a widow of our Sunny Hills High School's former cross country coach. One year had passed since her husband was killed in a car accident, but a story idea had just come up when it was discovered that the mysterious $4,000 check that had appeared in the cross country team's mail a few months ago had been donated by this very lady I was to talk to, Ms. Pat Walker. While I did have some curiosity to find out more about the story, I was seized with dread as I dialed her phone number, knowing that her husband's death had something to do with the donation. What if she bursts into tears talking about her husband? The worry plagued my mind going into the interview.
Although Ms. Walker never did cry in the end, in retrospect I feel that the interview was all the more memorable because she did not cry. Ms. Walker told me of many things during our phone interview. She told me about her "unusual request" to the judge to allow the defendant's court fee to be donated to our cross country team in her husband's honor-which is where the $4,000 came from. But above all, she told me of her husband's great passion for running. "My husband, he was a runner all his life. In his entire life, he ran marathons and long distance, and was very, very devoted." She proudly recounted how her husband, Mr. Wayne Walker, coached the Sunny Hills cross country team for 10 years, guiding the team to three league titles. Though he retired as a coach in 1999, he still returned every year to help with the school's cross country invitational events. "Through lifelong donations to Sunny Hills cross country, I hope to keep alive Coach Wayne Walker's memory," she said. "He inspired and motivated all runners with his passion for running and his belief that all runners needed to test the limits of their endurance and to believe they could always cross that finish line." Her words carried so much conviction in her husband's beliefs, and I felt that at least in spirit, Mr. Walker was still alive with her.
Thoughts and emotions I developed from the one-week interview may be rather subtle, but I'm certain I would not have gained its manifold lessons anywhere else. Emerging out of a naïve sense of pity for the widow, I came to experience a new spectrum of feeling of respect and admiration for her endurance through a very tragic event. While confronting the cold wall of fate with a certain level of acceptance, Ms. Walker went on to apply a greater determination to make a difference in the lives around her through an act of giving, which I see as an ultimate triumph of human spirit over life's unexpected challenges. While Ms. Walker's willpower touched me for sure, however, the person that captivated my heart the most was Mr. Walker himself, whose passion absolutely transcended death and stunned me with its "ripple effects". That his wife has made it her life-long work to donate time and money to runners in his remembrance, that the school has renamed two invitationals in tribute to his career, and that a group of young runners continue to be inspired to follow his same passion through the wife's life-long support... All these people that have been moved by one man's eternal dedication meant to me the most meaningful culmination of pouring one's soul into one passion in life.
"Enthusiasm moves the world," James Balfour once wrote. Certainly Mr. Walker's enthusiasm moved several worlds around him, including my own. Only now, I envision when that time should come in my own life. With what passion and what burning zeal would I someday impact the lives around me? What defining fervor will the world remember me for after I have left this earth? What will I care about and love so much so that, at least in that field of study, work, or interest, I will strive for the best and will be happy to devote my entire life serving the world? I take it as my noble duty and my life-long goal to seek answers to these questions.