If you had the opportunity to spend one day in New York City with a famous New Yorker, who would it be and what would you do? (Your New Yorker can be anyone -past or present, fictional or nonfictional - who is commonly associated with New York City; they do not necessarily have to have been born and raised in New York.)
The queen bee from the Upper East Side on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf, and I would start our day together by grabbing breakfast and sitting on the steps of the MET, taking in all of the sounds, smells and people passing by. All afternoon, we would go shopping in Greenwich Village. We would have dinner at her favorite restaurant, Butter, where I would ask her all about going to school at NYU. Our day would conclude after Blair introduced me to everyone on her floor and we fell asleep in her dorm.
Write a haiku, limerick, or short (eight lines or less) poem that best represents you.
Where am I?
Skyscrapers tower over me,
Chewed gum and neglected pennies accompany my feet on the sidewalk.
I am an explorer on this journey of life.
Where am I?
My curiosity is my partner,
As I explore this big city.
I am home.
In the year 2050, a movie is being made of your life. Please tell us the name of your movie and briefly summarize the story line.
"49" takes you inside the campaign trail leading up to the historic 2048 election, when (my name) was elected the first female president of the United States. How did Sarah persevere through the bigotry, sexism, and even the threats made against her family to become the 49th President? She believed in herself and believed in the American people to come together for common good, and in doing so, she made history. One woman, one dream, one historic election.
Please tell us what led you to select your anticipated academic program and/or NYU school/college, and what interests you most about your intended discipline.
Hearing Obama's gripping keynote speech at the DNC in 2004 when I was only 13 inspired me and sparked my passion for politics. Studying politics at NYU will allow me to obtain an incomparable education by taking unique courses such as "Games, Strategy, Politics" and becoming an intern for NY politicians or nonprofit organizations like Empower. Although politics can be daunting, I appreciate that a politician holds the power to foster a better tomorrow; this is exactly what I aspire to do.
Seeing as how these prompts seem to just scream "Be creative!" I think you should take some more liberties with them. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad responses, it justs seems that if NYU asked prompts like "Write a poem that best represents you" or "Explain the story of your life", they'd want some unusual, quirky answers.
I'm not sure if I can really comment too much on the first prompt seeing as how I don't know who the person is, but I don't think I get much of a sense of who you are. Shopping, dinner, and talking about school...that could be anybody. That could be me. I think the point of this prompt was for you to let the adcomm know who you are through the person you are describing. For example, I plan to study creative writing, possibly dramatic and screenwriting. So I used Charlie Kaufman. This is the response I used...
The day would begin around 7:30 in the evening with Charlie Kaufman - the screenwriter, not the character based on himself. Upon meeting with him, I wouldn't be able to resist making a joke about Donald, his fictional twin in his movie "Adaptation". We'd then grab some dinner at 2nd Avenue Deli before going to a coffee place all night for what I call a "doughnut draw", which involves continuous writing or sketching while buying each other doughnuts and coffee - provided the place has doughnuts.
For the second response - again, creativity seems to be the message. I'm sure you've studied poetry and literature in your English classes. How often when you read a story or a poem does the author explicitly state what they are trying to say? You have to read in between the lines, analyze, theorize etc., In doing so, you probably get a better sense of who the author is, what the the author is like, than if he/she said it outright in the work. Authors who tend to say exactly what they are trying to...usually aren't good writers. This is the poem I used. Oddly enough, I decided to do a haiku though I never liked them much....I was running low on time lol.
Light pitter patter
Ink, blood, soul dance on a page.
Rain, a marbles game.
Those are some big goals there! And it's great that you have them...but at the same time it sounds like something anyone would write. It wouldn't stay in my memory for too long; everybody's mothers told them they would be president some day. And again, sounds like your being too blunt. Bigotry, sexism, threats to the family....Personally, it doesn't sound like a movie I would want to watch because movies don't state everything that's going to happen. They hint at it, maybe state something cryptic, but they leave you wondering what's going to happen, what could possibly happen, etc., This isn't the one I ended up using because it was a bit too long, but I used the same exact idea, just cut down on the sentences and words to make it fit.
Down-and-out aspiring writer Andrew Ho has found that he can rewrite his memories. Despite having met with critical success from his peers in his writer's group, he feels alone and is constantly plagued by insecurities, writer's block and a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. While struggling to write his next manuscript, he stumbles upon an old, blank journal behind his desk and begins writing into it a fictional autobiography of his life the way he's always wanted to live it. He is stunned to discover that he is altering actual memories and begins to lose a sense of himself as he wanders through his changing memories, reliving life multiple ways. "Mnemosyne" is a story of a young man growing up, maturing and coming to terms with himself as he rediscovers his passion to become a writer and understand the person he really is.
I'd say the last one's pretty good because that's the only one where you get to state exactly what you want to do. I suppose I might as well put mine up too.
NYU first came to my attention when I discovered that my close friend and Creative Writing teacher, Jeremy Lum, had attended NYU. He studied film and dramatic writing, and while I do have deep interests in film and theater, I plan to study English and Creative Writing through Gallatin. Having been a part of a writer's group with Jeremy and other writers, I am most looking forward to being able to share my works with others at NYU who also endeavor in the craft of writing.
I don't know how much credibility I have, but I did get accepted to NYU (got my acceptance a few days ago!) Best of luck to you and I hope I helped, even if just a little.
One last thing though....isn't it kinda late to be sending in an application?
The queen bee from the Upper East Side on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf, and I would start
This is a good example of how a misplaced comma can change the meaning of a sentence. When I first read this, I thought you were answering the question by saying "The queen bee from the Upper East Side on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf." ... and I thought it was a run on sentence. I think you should do it this way with parentheses:
Blair Waldorf (the queen bee, from the Upper East Side, on the television program
Gossip Girl) and I would start...
Or you could use a set of dashes:
Blair Waldorf -- the queen bee, from the Upper East Side, on the television program
Gossip Girl -- and I would start...
Awesome poem. How about
neglected discarded pennies
Hearing President Obama's gripping... ----- you know, this is terrible for me to say, but some readers might be very passionate Republicans who feel strongly enough to discriminate against you because of your views. (I am not saying anything bad about Republicans; I would give you this same warning if you said something in favor of McCain.) What if you just said "Seeing the Presidential debates" instead of "Hearing Obama's gripping..."
This is just an idea. Maybe it is a bad one, because you should be true to what you believe in. However, I wanted to mention it, because you have been so nice to other members here... I would hate for you to run into any bad luck because of this! :-)
Actually I think I have to disagree about the line with pennies. If you keep the poem, that line, I think is the strongest. The only comment I have on that line might be to cut "chewed gum". But neglected pennies is a great image.
New York is notorious treatment of the poor, the homeless, the underpriveleged etc. Neglected pennies brings on that image of poverty being neglected amidst insane wealth which also makes up New York. Seeing as how Sarah looks to be a politician, poverty and homelessness would be an issue that she would want to touch upon and "neglected pennies" is fantastic.
Thanks everyone for your detailed responses!
DiodotusX- congratulations on your acceptance to NYU! I am applying as a transfer, so my application is due on April 1st. The TV show Gossip Girl is my guilty pleasure, so I picked one of the most amusing, craziest characters from the show- Blair Waldorf. Blair also happens to attend NYU, and I'm sure that someone on the admissions committee is aware of that. I'm pretty sure that they actually do some filming at NYU for the show. Choosing Blair certainly does not match my intended major, but it really does reflect who I am. I love exploring NYC and enjoying the shopping and restuarants there. Perhaps I will change it to someone like Hillary Clinton. This was my first draft, and I went with Blair because I felt it was the most honest. I will also admit that I am a TERRIBLE poet. I like writing, but have always been terrified of poetry. The one I came up with just kind of came out and I stuck with it because I didn't think I could come up with anything better. I know that being a President is a huge goal, but with my major being poli sci, I felt it was the best faux movie I could come up with. Thanks for posting your responses to NYU's supplement, I certainly will look over them and try to fix mine up a bit! Thanks again for everything.
EF_Kevin- Thanks for the grammar help, I knew that the first sentence didn't flow correctly. Thank you for mentioning the Obama part. I have had the same concern before but proceeded to keep the reference in most of my applications so far simply because the speech truly did inspire me. If Barack Obama never went into politics, I doubt I would be so passionate or interested in it. NYU gives a "liberal" vibe, yet I'm sure some people on the admissions committee will be Republicans. I would certainly hope that wouldn't be the reason I am not admitted to NYU, but it is very possible that people would use it as a bias. I will consider taking it out, but I just think it's a very important part of my interest.
THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH!
I have had the same concern before but proceeded to keep the reference in most of my applications so far simply because the speech truly did inspire me.
Well that is excellent. I felt guilty discouraging you from expressing yourself about feeling inspired. But anyway, it is good for us to include stuff like that in our discussion of the essay. good luck with it!!! :)
Andrew, I guess you are right. Neglected pennies has a cool staccato kind of sound, and it is good imagery. I don't know what my problem was the other day. I guess I thought "discarded" was more accurate than neglected, but anything discarded is indeed neglected. Honestly, I actually do think neglected pennies is better, now that you made me reconsider it.