How do you improve the life of others? MIT essay

... Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (250 word limit)

mathematical Olympiad enthusiasm

"Can you explain it again professor?" I feel weird when the kids call me like that when I'm still a teenager, but I love what it means to be their professor and help them on their academic development. Throughout my career as a Math Olympian, I've never had to pay a single cent to any of my professors. They get involved just for the love of the project and infected me with the same enthusiasm to follow their steps. Now I also encourage the kids in my community to participate in the mathematical Olympiad.

I feel the necessity to share what I learned and help my students to success on the Math Olympiad. I teach them every weekend, and more than just a class, I like to create a work environment where all get benefited with the others ideas to solve a math problem. I don't only guide them through the path to solve a math problem; I also guide them in the process to do what it takes to stand out on the contests. I share my experiences and motivate them to work harder.

Throughout the classes, I have created a strong bond with my students and now I see them as my children. I don't only want them to be great mathematicians; I want to see them become better persons. When they receive their medals on the competitions, I feel pride and happiness seeing the smile on their faces. I couldn't have a better reward than that.(249 words)

I'm a big grammar editor because i feel weird editing on personal content, but here's my $.02

"i feel weird when kids call me that since I'm hardly older than they are/ them, but I love that my title is what makes me their guide in their academic development" or something like that.

"infected me with the same enthusiasm to help those younger than me/ others/ younger students/ prospective Math Olympians"
steps is a little vague. I'd specify WHAT steps

"Now, I have the opportunity to encourage kids in my community to..."

"It is necessary to share what I've learned in order to help my students..."

"I like to not just teach a class, but create a constructive/ positive working environment where all students work together to solve a problem."

"I don't just guide them..., I show them techniques/ skills to stand out in contests."
"By sharing my experiences and motivating them to work harder, I guide them to their successes."

cross "see them as my children". maybe, "kindled a strong bond and view them as the next math olympian generation" or "feel connected to them on a personal level" but not my children.

"better people" and comma, not semicolon.

cross happiness. pride conveys that.

"There is no better reward than seeing/ witnessing the success of my students"

Antonio, the anecdote that you are sharing tends to be more concentrated on your self satisfaction that comes from helping the others in your community to become exactly like you. You are proud of the influence that you have on them because you are creating clones of yourself. The essay is not asking you about how you gain self satisfaction from the community work that you do. Instead, it is asking you to discuss how the community is improved by your presence or the activities that you perform within the circle. Therefore, you need a more community inclusive activity that is not related to your expertise in Math. It has to be something that helps others discover something good about themselves, achieve something that they could not before you came into their lives, or something that helped the community because you made sure to help them.

Try to not focus so much on Math in all your essays. Diversify your topics so that the reviewer will not get Math saturated in your essays. Do you have any other social activity that does not relate to Math but still has you participating in a social development exercise? It doesn't even have to be focused on the community. As the prompt dictates, you can even discuss how some things or a specific thing that you do within your family has helped to improve the family dynamic for all the members of your family. Maybe that would be something that you could develop more easily?

@Holt
Thank you for your critic, the other essays I have posted here that are related to math are from other applications, in fact in my Mit application this is the only that talks about math besides the essay about my major choice, this is my only community service and it means a lot to me, I will try to focus on what you said and cut out my satisfaction ofthe essay, as a math olympian a had to travel to another city because there wasn't trainings in my city, so i decided to start this math trainings ib my city, perhaps that can say more my contribution to the community? I will restructure my essay beggining with that and post it here, I'd love if you review that too.

""Can you explain it again professor?" I feel weird when the kids call me that since I'm hardly older than they are, but I love what my title means in their academic development. Throughout my career as a Math Olympian, I always had to travel two hours to ...

Antonio, the Olympiad is not really an acceptable community service. That is because it does not do anything to develop the community in terms of bettering the lives of the people living there. However, since this is the only community service that you have done, you should just try to slant the essay in such a manner that your service seems like something that benefits the community. For example, you can say something about the students in the school in your community not doing well in math. Say that in the regional tests, your community ranks among the lowest when it comes to Math learning. Now, you can indicate that you know the importance of Math in terms of creating a better future for oneself because college courses require a student to know at least the math basics if they are to succeed in their chosen degree. That is why you took it upon yourself to train the students in Math. In order to prepare them for a better future, you decided that they should join olympiads in order to help them keep abreast of their math lessons and offer them real world application and practice for the math theories you taught them. In the end, beyond the olympiad, the students gained a better ranking in the regional tests, so you are confident that you have helped them to at least secure a chance of performing well in college, specially if they enter math specific courses. Do you think you can revise the essay to sound similar to what I have indicated here?

@Holt
Thank you, I will try to do it, in the last essay I tried to say that the contribution I made is get involved more people on math and help them to develop their abilities, I really believe that is a good contribution since many kids on my city are now very good at math and I think it is clear that with that they became better in math. However, I will try to add a sentence of something like " beyond the results my city have now on the math olympiad, my students had told me they became better on their math class and are interested on taking studying courses more related to science" I have one teacher recommendstion that says my contributions in the school helping low-grade students to get better in class (he sent me the recomendattion letter). So I wanted to focus more on the other part. I really think that was a made contribution because develop a talent you haven't had the resoures to do it means a great contribution to that person. I hope ant suggestion to transmit betyer that part on my essay.

Here is now my essay, i hope this shows now more my contributions to the community and math development of my students. [...]

I guess this is as good as it gets for your essay Antonio. Since you do not have any real community service to speak of, the spin that you placed on the response in this essay will have to suffice. It is not as strong as it can be in support of the prompt but it is better than not having any sort of response to the essay. There is a semblance of how you helped to improve the academic life of these children so, while that is not as earth shattering or a truly contributing factor to the improvement of their lives, one can say that you at the very least, helped to improve their academic life. Inspiring them to possibly dream beyond the boundaries of your community through the help of Math. Go ahead and submit this essay. The reviewer might be able to see the special circumstances of your community contribution in the same way that I did.

@Holt
Thank you very much! I already submitted this essay with my application to MIT, you helped me a lot in my MIT essays, I really appreciate your contributions.