Here's my draft of one of University of Virginia's supplement essays. I know I'll probably take flak about the introduction paragraph being unnecessary, so tell me what you think and I might cut it out. I also think I might have spent too much time describing the work of science instead of explaining how it surprised me, but I figured that the reader may not know what the work was, so an explanation was in order. I'd appreciate your opinions!
Prompt: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way? (In half a page or roughly 250 words).
---
Insuperable problems have a knack for birthing avant-garde solutions. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and a difficult necessity sometimes calls for a paradigm-shifting solution.
Take "folding diseases," for instance. These include well-known ailments like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, and half of known cancers in the world. The problems are attributed to improper folding of the astronomically complex amino-acid chains in our cells, folding so complex that no single computer could possibly simulate it. Stanford University's Pande lab realized not even the hundreds of computers on the campus combined could do it. What could? Millions of computers put together across the world.
Folding@home was born from this simple yet outlandish realization. Millions of people who suffer from debilitating diseases like Alzheimer's can be helped by millions of computer-owners worldwide. Each individual computer uses its spare idle time to process a piece of the puzzle and send it back. With the knowledge of proper and improper protein folding, over 40 published journal articles have been written directly from Folding@home's data.
When discovered Folding@home, I was startled by its implications. Folding@home's monumental findings represent an age in science and medicine of voluntary assistance from millions of people. The newest, most challenging puzzles humanity has ever faced now necessitate cooperative and multidisciplinary efforts: Huge corporations like Google and Intel, academic institutions like UVA's own Shirt lab, and dozens of skilled biologists, chemists, and programmers were key in just getting Folding@home working. The sheer technological computing power that the entire world cumulatively owns reminds us that everyone can do small things, like a computer's free time, to make the world better.
know I'll probably take flak about the introduction paragraph being unnecessary, so tell me what you think and I might cut it out.
It's a bit show-offy, but readers expect that in an admission essay. I like the use of avant-garde, but "insuperable" means incapable of being solved, which seems to contradict the possibility of finding a solution, however avant it may be. You could counter the contradiction by adding "seemingly" before insuperable.
I like the topic of the essay, although perhaps that's because I am charmed by the folding project too. Still, I think this is a strong contender.
