MATH - an amazing experience. Talk about an extracurricular activity

MATH - an amazing experience

I was wondering which of the two essays works better, the prompt is elaborate on an extracurricular activity or job experience that was meaningful to me. It's for several colleges applications using the commonapp and the words limit is 150

Solve math problems, travel around Mexico and the world, make friends from other cultures who share my same interests, learn from successful mathematicians and encourage the learning of this science on kids, the Mathematical Olympiad has everything I love. I started this activity very young and have grown with it, gaining both knowledge and maturity. My first travel alone to a competition in other state was at the short age of 12, I can't imagine how worried my parents were. Most of my preparation for these competitions was studying at home but five times per year, there was a 10 days concentration in some city of the country, we studied math intensively every day and we still had energy to go out on nights and explore the city. In every trip I could forget everything and just focus on math, my friends and have fun. I'm really gonna miss it.

It's not just about memorizing thousands of theorems at home to solve the math problems of the contest. For me, it's enjoying amazing experiences while studying what I most love. The Mathematical Olympiad is my second home, where my family is my peers and professors distributed around the country. I'm always eagerly waiting for meeting with them in the national trainings that take place in different cities. When the time arrives, we study the whole day receiving guidance from the professor who is usually a former Olympian that always joins us on the games during breaks. At nights, we still have energy to go to explore the city. Finally, some students are selected for the international competitions and I have the pleasure to travel with my bests friends around the world. These experiences have helped me to gain maturity and a deep knowledge on math. I'm really gonna miss it.

Hello!

First, good luck on your essays!

Personally, I prefer your 2nd essay - it flows better and seems less of just a list of accomplishments.

Little notes on your second essay: In your first and second essay, you refer to "it's", which you should specify is the Mathematical Olympiad earlier than in your third sentence. "Bests friends" is incorrect, it should be "best friends". I also don't think you should end your essay on "I'm really gonna miss it", for two reasons. First, it should be "going to" instead of the short form. Second, you might want to say something about looking forward to doing a similar activity at university, since if it was a meaningful activity to you, you wouldn't want to quit after high school.

Hope that helps!

:)

Personally, I like the second version better. Your in depth description of each scene paints a better narrative of your experience. Your first one is good as well, but I think some of your sentences are unnecessary, especially when you only have 150 words. For example, I'd take out:

"My first travel alone to a competition in other state was at the short age of 12, I can't imagine how worried my parents were." and "Most of my preparation for these competitions was studying at home" and use the word count to describe more in depth about what you enjoyed from your travels.

For both of the essays, there are a few glitches in grammar. For example, for the second essay, it sounds kind of awkward to say "I'm always eagerly waiting for meeting with them", maybe "to meet them" ? There are also a few instances where your sentence was too long, making it a bit too convoluted. Maybe break it into two!

Thank you both!! I will focus on the second essay and correct the grammar errors you pointed.