Diversity is a beautiful thing. Imagine how boring the world would be if it were homogenous

Diversity is a beautiful thing. Imagine how boring the world would be if it were homogenous. Diversity, or the lack of it, was always on my mind when it came to the sports my school offered. There were only three sports offered at my school: basketball, soccer, and volleyball. I really enjoyed sports yet none of these seemed to be the right fit for me. Like many others, I thought that the possibilities were limited.

Last year, I noticed a trophy that looked remarkably different from the rest in one of the gym teacher's office. On the top of the trophy, there was a man running instead of someone playing basketball, soccer, or volleyball. I asked him about it. He explained that the school used to offer cross-country and track & field but a budget cut in the nineties stopped it indefinitely. He then mentioned something that really struck me. He said, "We haven't had these sports for twenty years. I want to start them again but I don't think anyone would join and I don't want to waste my time." No more than a minute later, I wrote down my information and signed up. Both, cross-country and track & field, were reborn. A week later, we had about 15 members for both clubs.

It was on the field where I grew love for the sports and I instantly knew why. I realized I was my biggest competitor and my biggest supporter. When something does not go my way or if I do not win, there is no teammate or competitor to blame. If I win, it isn't because of someone else's talent or skill. The result depends solely on myself, no matter what the outcome, and I love that. Due to this, these sports catalyzed my sense of discipline and ambition. Almost everyday, I would run as long and as hard as I could. Some days were better than others but stopping was not an option. If I stopped running, on the field or altogether, I would lose my sense of discipline and impede my ambition to improve myself both on and off the field. Ultimately, stopping means losing against myself. When, and if, that day comes, as my biggest supporter, I have the obligation to pick myself up, brush myself off, and keep on running. Both, cross-country and track & field, taught me that I have to keep on moving forward.

This is the answer to Vandy's supplement question. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Your body and ending parts are good and meaningful, but I do not think the first part connects with the following parts. At the very first moment in your opening part you talk about the 'diversity' and then you talk about the club you have founded and finally you argue the advantages of the two added sports which are cross-country and track & field. But afterall, the prompt of the essay is 'Elaborate on one of your Extracurriculars', so I think you are just going around and you should focus on the sole prompt.

@ vangiespen: can you help me with my two revised essays. Thank you in advance.

Andrew, the first thing that I asked myself when I started to read this essay was "What question is he trying to answer?" While you tell us that this is the answer to a Vanderbilt application prompt, we have no idea what that question is so we cannot really review the essay based upon the question provided. Would you mind letting us in on the application prompt?

In the meantime, I can make a few comments about the content of the essay. You started off by talking about diversity and how it is a beautiful thing. I think you were trying to relate it to sports at your school but then somewhere along the way, the essay got lost and started talking about how the sport of cross country running impacted you as a person. Which of the two topics does the prompt require you to discuss? Or are you supposed to discuss both matters in one essay? I hope you can clarify that point for us so that we can provide you with more concrete reviews and comments about your essay :-)

I'm sorry, I thought I wrote the title. It is, "Please elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities."

So diversity has nothing to do with the essay prompt. Yet it came across as the most important topic to be discussed in the essay. I suggest that you eliminate that reference at the beginning because the way you presented it makes one believe that it is the central theme that will be presented to the reader. Try to reword it in such a way that the attention will instead transfer and focus upon the extra curricular activity that you helped revive. Perhaps mentioning that you were visiting the coach's office for some reason, or you were just interested in trying out for a team sport will work. The rest of the essay works just fine and aligns with the requirements of the prompt. So we need to just get the introduction aligned as well and then we can work on any existing grammatical problems :-)

Thanks! I changed the first paragraph. Y'all are right. The first paragraph seems out of place.

School sports have always intrigued me. Throughout my freshmen and sophomore years, I always wanted to join a school sport. Yet, none of the sports my school offered seemed to be the right fit for me. Sadly, they only offered three sports: basketball, volleyball, and soccer. Fortunately, starting my junior year, I had the opportunity to change this. I took it.

Andrew, just a few more comments and suggestions for you regarding the new opening statement you created for the revision.


-Watch out for those tricky plural forms. You are speaking of yourself as a first year high school student and you are alone. That makes you a freshman (singular form) and not freshmen (plural form).


- Since the next paragraph in the essay will explain how you learned about the cross country team, you don't need to indicate that "I took it." most specially because that is a hanging sentence. Took what? Why did you take it? Omit it from this sentence and allow the last sentence of this statement and the first sentence of the next paragraph to connect to each other instead in order to create a better and smoother flow of thought for your essay :-)

Will do. Thanks Louisa for your feedback. I really appreciate it.