Exposed to counting. How the quest for a shooting star shaped my life.

Common app personal statement! criticize anything.

I was born in Rwanda,a sub Saharan country. I realized that most of the essays from my friends focused on struggles from sub Saharan countries, like poverty and self pity driven essays. I tried to write an essay that would be unique.

English is not my native language;I will appreciate your help.

The prompt:
Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

How the quest for a shooting star shaped my life.

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I was exposed to counting at the age of 5. At school, we would count stones or toys for practice but when I was home at night, I looked at the stars and tried to count them. I was told that it was an impossible task, but I knew that it was no trouble trying. In my counting, I would go up to 10 stars and start to lose focus. Did I count this one earlier? The task was never accomplished. One day I heard of shooting stars at a local radio. In our language, due to its brief appearance, a shooting star may be translated to something like "That which is seen by one person." A burning meteor in the atmosphere; I had never seen one, yet. The local radio ignited my curiosity, and I set my quest to seeing a shooting star.

When I first started stargazing, I thought it would not take a long time to see the first shooting star. I would come from school, do my homework and start looking for a fast moving bright object in the starry sky. After five years, stargazing was no longer a search for a shooting star, but a period reserved for thinking the big questions; the time to examine my life. I was unlucky to wait for so long, but the waiting was fun and I did enjoy staying out late lost in deep thoughts, discovering myself. I did not research on the availability of shooting stars in my location, I did not bother. And YES, I did not know what Google was back then. My quest grew blurry and confusing; I was not sure if I took those 10 or 15 minutes of my precious time waiting for a shooting star, thus, I started to question the reason I was doing that. It was one night, 12 years later that my hard work paid off; I saw my very first shooting star. The historic event was so brief that I thought it was just a daydream; my heart started racing, and I was filled with joy. I did not know what I should do. The obsession that it was a daydream haunted me later on; I was confused about reality and dreams. Fortunately, this confusion broadened my curiosity on subject related to philosophy of existence that I inspected thoroughly.

The experience for waiting and realizing the dream had a remarkable impact in my life; it has shaped my perspective on how this complex world works. When I look back to everything that ever happened to me, I always find ways to relate it to the shooting star quest. For instance, in high school I had a desire of getting ranked in the top 20% or so in my class; the urge to seeing a shooting star. I would find myself in the trimester struggling to balance my class performance and the extracurricular activities; being an Editor in Chief in our high school's media club, the students had hope in us. I would sacrifice my grades in favor of the media club's success. My grades sank, just like the time I was not sure about my quest. My senior year was the time I flashed back and desired another shooting star in my life; the desire was not being in the top 20% in the class but to strive to get the famous 73 in Rwanda National Exams. 73 is the perfect score, you get that score and you are in the 99th percentile in the National Exams' ranking. Setting for that journey was like trying to count the stars, I knew it was close to impossible. Knowing the feeling I had about the shooting star was my sole motivation, I started hitting the books, challenging my knowledge and consulting teachers. It was after three months that the results were out, and I realized that I had, indeed seen my second shooting star.

// I would also like to know if it is OK to use the words Shooting Star referring to a meteor//

@aHappyGuy
I love how you compared finding a shooting star and counting stars with your academic goals! There's some common grammatical errors: semicolons are for joining two complete sentences into one sentence, so make sure both sides of the semicolon are complete thoughts that could stand alone as one sentence. There's a bit of redundancy that will allow you to shorten your word count if you remove it.

... or toys for practice, but when I was home at night, I tried counting stars instead .
In my counting, I would go up to 10 stars and start to lose focus. "Did I count this one already?" The task was never accomplished. One day I heard of shooting stars on the radio . In my language, due to its brief appearance, a shooting star may be translated to something like "t hat which is seen by one person" due to their brief appearance . A burning meteor in the atmosphere, I had never seen one before . My curiosity was ignited , and I set off on my quest to seeing a shooting star.

When I first started stargazing, I didn't think it would take long to see the first shooting star. I would come home from school, do my homework, and start looking for a fast moving, bright object in the starry sky.

... stargazing was no longer stars , but a period reserved for thinking about the big questions--a time to reflect upon my life.
..., but the waiting was fun and I did enjoy staying out late lost in deep thoughts, discovering myself.(what do you mean by waiting?)
I did not bother to research on the availability of shooting stars in my location, I did not bother;And YES, I did not know ...

... blurry and confusing; I was not sure (...) for a shooting star, thus, I started to question the reason why I took those 10 (...) for a shooting star . (accurate use of semicolon here.)It was one night, 12 years later,that my hard work paid off;...

The historic event was so brief ...
I did not know what I should do. The thought that it may have been a daydream haunted me ...
... my curiosity on the philosophy of existence, which I inspected thoroughly. (maybe you're using too many semicolons here. it's almost back to back. you can break some of these sentences apart and eliminate some of the semicolons.)

My experience for waiting for a shooting star and seeing one for the first time had a remarkable impact on my life; ...
For instance, in high school I desired ranking in the top 20% or so of my classmuch like my desire to see a shooting star. I would find myself in the trimester struggling to balance (...) extracurricular activities. being an Editor in Chief in my high school's media club, the students had hope in me .

Eventually, my grades sank,...
During my senior year, I flashed back and desired another shooting star in my life; it was no longer to be in the top 20% in the class, but to strive to get the legendary 73 in Rwanda National Exams. 73 is the perfect score; you get that score ...

Knowing the feeling I had (...) my sole motivation, so I started hitting the books, ...
Three months later, the results were out, and I realized that I had, indeed, seen my second shooting star.

Again, just cut down on the use of semicolons, they don't need to be in every sentence but, if used correctly, they do show advanced grammar. Overall I really love this essay.

@bosuegbu
Your review is far more than what I expected. You really helped me out.
about this....


I was trying to say "While I was sitting outside stargazing(in search of the shooting star)"
I don't know if "the waiting" is the clear way to write it down.

Thank you again for pointing out the semicolon issue.

@aHappyGuy
No problem!

Okay so maybe you could change that sentence like this:
It was unfortunate that I had to wait for so long, but I enjoyed the time I spent staying out late lost in deep thoughts and discovering myself.

Good luck!

okay, thank you for the rephrased sentence.


I don't understand this part from your review.
:)

@aHappyGuy
Oh I think I did that wrong, I meant to strike out "flashed back and", not just "back and".
Also in this sentence: " After five years, stargazing was no longer stars..." I meant to say "stargazing was no longer about stars"

@bosuegbu
Thanks for everything. I can't thank you enough.

Karekezi, I hope you will not be too mad at me for running counter in opinion to Breonna. It is my opinion that this personal statement that you wrote does not qualify as a personal introduction to the reviewer, which is what a personal statement is all about. Rather, this is more of a Prompt 1 topic. Prompt 1 indicates its instructions as follows:

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

If you review your essay from the eye of an admissions officer / reviewer, what you will see is that the essay that you wrote applies mostly to the aforementioned prompt because it describes how your early interest in a particular subject matter developed. Hence, it is more of a background story that helps to complete the presentation of your academic interests.

A personal statement normally introduces you to the reviewer by presenting most basic information about yourself. Information such as where you are from, stories about yourself that portrays your other skills in relation to the major that you have selected, and a familiarity with the school.

The major part of the personal statement should successfully represent the reasons why you opted to apply for admission to this particular university. These discussions can be in the form of academic familiarity with the university as well as your expected social development as indicated by your desire to become part of significant organizations in the university.

Let us be clear that this is only my point of view and I am in no way demanding that you change your essay if you do not wish to do that. The final content of your essay should reflect information that you are comfortable sharing with the reviewer. In this instance, I do not feel that the prompt you chose, as a personal statement, applies to the essay that you wrote. I hope you will consider my suggestions for the betterment of your essay.

@Holt
Thank You, for your opinion on my essay.
I would like to know if I may use this essay on the "other information" text box. In the CommonApp, they leave a place to put a long essay about anything that was not reflected in he application. Will this essay fit in? or is it too broad?

I wrote about the shooting star personal experience because I was trying to explain to the reviewer/admission officer why I had poor grades before my senior year. If this essay doesn't fit, I would like to get an opinion on a better way to convey that message.

I am writing a new essay about the personal statement, explaining why I chose the university and the major.

Hoping to be excused for the late reply,

Hi Karekezi. Don't worry about the late reply. I didn't forget about your essay because I had the thread to refer to in order to refresh my memory. In response to your question, you can most certainly use this essay in the open topic common app prompt. You know it as "other information". This essay clearly has a purpose because you wanted to explain about your bad grades. Which is something that could affect the consideration of your admission so make sure that you do use this essay in that box. It can help better your chances at admission. No, the essay is not too broad and it will fit the box because the box is meant to accommodate "other" topic essays. I hope to read your new essay soon.