I am using this essay for more than one prompt so please let me know if it answers both of them. Also please tell me what you think, give grammatical suggestions, word choice suggestions, etc. Thank you! :)
Prompt 1:Please use this space to share additional information about your personal background and experiences, your family dynamics, and/or your educational history that would assist us in evaluating you as a potential candidate for admission. Please feel free to describe any obstacles or challenges you have faced.
Prompt 2:We would like to learn more about you. In 250-500 words, please tell us something about yourself that your application does not currently convey. The personal statement you submit must consist of your own original work.
What My Application Doesn't Show
There is so much about me that is hidden by the series of academic questions in this application. For one, you can't see the hours of excruciating abdominal pains or the hours of searching for shapes in my bathroom floor tiles. You can't see the numerous doctors' visits; each one filled with lime green walls and yelling children. You also can't see the apprehensiveness of my mother each time the doctors failed to give a diagnoses or the hours I slaved away on homework without a teacher to help me. Basically, what I am saying is, you cannot see the whole picture of who I am. I am not looking for pity or sympathy, but for a mere understanding of just a fraction of my life.
So, let's rewind back to the beginning of my junior year. About a month into my junior year in high school, I was home-bounded. I was sent home to tackle AP and honors courses on my own, while also riding an emotional roller-coaster of medical what-ifs. What-if it was cancer or some other mysterious disease? What-if I could never go back to school? Or what-if I was destined to a life confined inside the bright lime green walls of the children's hospital that is until I became too old for their services and was sent to some dreary adult hospital. All the what-ifs began to turn my entire life upside down.
Still, the hours of sitting on the couch like a prednisone induced zombie and all the hours of drinking blue Gatorade to clean out for my three scopes was nowhere near as difficult as the academic challenges being thrown at me. I mean, junior year is truly the most stressful year for any high school student; at least in Georgia, that is. Between graduation testing and taking SATs, a student can drown in the amounts of information attempting to be shoved down their throats. For me, this was the source for only a mere portion of my stress.
While, other students had teachers, at the ready, to answer any question they had, as simple as they might be, I was left with me, myself, and I. Now, do not think that I am leading you on because I did have a tutor. However, the tutor could not be there when I was in the hospital or all day Monday through Friday like other teachers. I must admit the tutor was phenomenal when it came to AP history considering he took my AP teachers exams for fun. Still, my course load was heavy and my tutor could not do or know it all especially in our two day a week and three hour time limit.
Therefore, I had to find other means of learning. Whether it is asking doctors and nurses for help with my Honors Anatomy and Physiology class or it is practicing Spanish with my pediatrician. I found other ways of getting the work done one way or another. This does not mean there weren't hours of frustration spent on reading Hemingway and Thoreau stories with complete and utter confusion for my honors American Literature course, but that I found help outside of the box. Yes, that same hypothetical box that every English teacher continuously lectures to their students about. In fact, for Math 3 I watched YouTube videos to teach me those pesky conic sections. Yes, YouTube!
So basically, with all this rambling about this helter-skelter of a junior year I am just trying to give you a piece of me and what I have been through. I want you to see that despite the odds I made it through and am applying as an undergraduate student to your college or university today. I am attempting to shed light on my strength and even my weaknesses, per se. I am hoping you will take into account that my scattered grades and almost lousy test scores do not express my true aptitude and talents. Overall, I hope you can see my drive and perseverance, as well as, my resourcefulness and determination instead of the average GPA and test scores. I want you to understand that I am much more than that and that I truly belong at your school.
Prompt 1:Please use this space to share additional information about your personal background and experiences, your family dynamics, and/or your educational history that would assist us in evaluating you as a potential candidate for admission. Please feel free to describe any obstacles or challenges you have faced.
Prompt 2:We would like to learn more about you. In 250-500 words, please tell us something about yourself that your application does not currently convey. The personal statement you submit must consist of your own original work.
What My Application Doesn't Show
There is so much about me that is hidden by the series of academic questions in this application. For one, you can't see the hours of excruciating abdominal pains or the hours of searching for shapes in my bathroom floor tiles. You can't see the numerous doctors' visits; each one filled with lime green walls and yelling children. You also can't see the apprehensiveness of my mother each time the doctors failed to give a diagnoses or the hours I slaved away on homework without a teacher to help me. Basically, what I am saying is, you cannot see the whole picture of who I am. I am not looking for pity or sympathy, but for a mere understanding of just a fraction of my life.
So, let's rewind back to the beginning of my junior year. About a month into my junior year in high school, I was home-bounded. I was sent home to tackle AP and honors courses on my own, while also riding an emotional roller-coaster of medical what-ifs. What-if it was cancer or some other mysterious disease? What-if I could never go back to school? Or what-if I was destined to a life confined inside the bright lime green walls of the children's hospital that is until I became too old for their services and was sent to some dreary adult hospital. All the what-ifs began to turn my entire life upside down.
Still, the hours of sitting on the couch like a prednisone induced zombie and all the hours of drinking blue Gatorade to clean out for my three scopes was nowhere near as difficult as the academic challenges being thrown at me. I mean, junior year is truly the most stressful year for any high school student; at least in Georgia, that is. Between graduation testing and taking SATs, a student can drown in the amounts of information attempting to be shoved down their throats. For me, this was the source for only a mere portion of my stress.
While, other students had teachers, at the ready, to answer any question they had, as simple as they might be, I was left with me, myself, and I. Now, do not think that I am leading you on because I did have a tutor. However, the tutor could not be there when I was in the hospital or all day Monday through Friday like other teachers. I must admit the tutor was phenomenal when it came to AP history considering he took my AP teachers exams for fun. Still, my course load was heavy and my tutor could not do or know it all especially in our two day a week and three hour time limit.
Therefore, I had to find other means of learning. Whether it is asking doctors and nurses for help with my Honors Anatomy and Physiology class or it is practicing Spanish with my pediatrician. I found other ways of getting the work done one way or another. This does not mean there weren't hours of frustration spent on reading Hemingway and Thoreau stories with complete and utter confusion for my honors American Literature course, but that I found help outside of the box. Yes, that same hypothetical box that every English teacher continuously lectures to their students about. In fact, for Math 3 I watched YouTube videos to teach me those pesky conic sections. Yes, YouTube!
So basically, with all this rambling about this helter-skelter of a junior year I am just trying to give you a piece of me and what I have been through. I want you to see that despite the odds I made it through and am applying as an undergraduate student to your college or university today. I am attempting to shed light on my strength and even my weaknesses, per se. I am hoping you will take into account that my scattered grades and almost lousy test scores do not express my true aptitude and talents. Overall, I hope you can see my drive and perseverance, as well as, my resourcefulness and determination instead of the average GPA and test scores. I want you to understand that I am much more than that and that I truly belong at your school.
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