"Light is unable to shine without darkness." - Common App Short Answer

In the space provided below, please elaborate on one of your activities (extracurricular, personal activities, or work experience)(150 words or fewer).

"Light is unable to shine without darkness."

During a mission trip to downtown Chicago last year, Darryl, a homeless but joyful man, shared this insight with me. I had been looking forward to revisiting the inner city again with my church, but the departure of our youth pastor dashed my hopes.

However, the need to serve and evangelize in the community still remained. Despite the sudden absence of leadership, I gathered a team of thirty high-schoolers, college students, and adults to feed the homeless this summer. Fifty Subway sandwiches hushed growling stomachs, bridged differences in age and race, and blessed conversations.

While closing in prayer, I realized the truth of Darryl's adage. Instead of waiting in the dark for another leader, I learned to take the initiative and to shine a light, where it was needed the most, with a simple yet sincere offering: a sandwich. (146 words)

At times, I feel like I provide more narration than reflection on how this experience allowed me to grow as a person. What do you guys think?

Also, I am applying to Penn (Wharton, where leadership is very important!), Rice, Northwestern, WashU, UChicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Cornell.

i really like it ! :)
i agree with the lots of narration part.. but it does all come together to show how you grew as a person.
maybe u can cut out a sentence in the narration in order to provide for an addtional concluding sentence.. This, however, is not so critical.

well done

Your essay is very strong grammatically. Although I'm not an expert, I think adding specific details to the essay describing your experience would help a lot.


Do you mean something like evoke or start? What do you mean when sandwiches bless a conversation? Just wondering :) I found this part a little confusing.


I don't know... to me, I think this could sound more urgent with some rewording... like simply adding the word "compelling" before "need" could give the effect... This is just a minor suggestion though...


Some might get caught up here. I think you can clear the small confusion up by changing the earlier sentence: "but the departure of our youth pastor and leader dashed my hopes"

... Actually scratch that x.x Never mind what I said here... now that I think of it, a pastor should be a leader :)


I think you've done a pretty nice job balancing both. Since the prompt asks you to elaborate on an activity, undoubtedly, you will need some sort of narration. However, one thing I am not clear about is how the quote relates to what you do. To me the quote "Light is unable to shine without darkness." means, in simplified terms, that life is not easy. I think you should better tie that meaning in to your essay, or perhaps choose a more fitting term...

But this is only an opinion. Wait for the more experience contr/moderators to advise you on this :)