Here is my prompt for Stanford's supplement. The first essay is about my real estate, the second is about an underlying trait, and the last is about why I want to go to Stanford.
Thanks so much for the feedback and corrections.
Our students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.
Exceptional. Prosperous. That is what I strive to be. I've faced many conflicts, complications, and clashes throughout my life, but the most intellectually stimulating was the real estate project that was developed in the summer of '08 with a former friend of mine. Together, this friend, who aspires to enter construction, and I initiated a 3 page comprehensive business plan, dealing with the beginnings, expansion, and financial aspects of our real estate bubble. This business deals with using investment money to buy, remodel, and redistribute houses in the greater metro-Milwaukee area. Every other day, my business partner and I would have meetings and conduct work on the business, compiling inexpensive and foreclosed houses into the list of prospective houses we would visit and negotiate with realtors. The real estate market was not blind to my eyes. With careful analysis, I watched the trends of the sale of many cities, to make sure there was a profitable expected return. We worked on acquiring the necessary tools and repairs needed for these projects. Before we planned the purchase of our first house and first project, we had dealt with a dozen realtors. Just a week from having both our fathers sign a ten-year contract to invest the money to purchase our first house with a 0.5% annual return, my partner withdrew from the idea and enrolled in the air academy. With that, my intellectual ability was challenged to bring this business into reality. I took over my family's previous settlement, and slowly initiated projects to increase its marketing value until one day I can sell this property for a returned profit. Compared to everything else I have faced, the starting of this business is truly intellectually challenging.
What would you like your future roommate and us to help get to know you better?
What distinguishes between me and the thousands of Stanford colleagues every year? Determination: It is the trait that unifies my actions, the highlight of my abilities. Determination to strive for what the miniscule can accomplish, where the bounds can extend, when the prosperity can be attained, that is intellectually engaging.
It has bound me to a computer science and mathematics expertise, to tackle Putnam and ACM problems until I can solve them. It has pushed me to tackle internal, economical, and foreign complications of the world. But most importantly, it has brought me to my most recent entrepreneurial project: real estate.
As a fellow roommate, I am focused on the academics of computer science, programming languages, and mathematical theories, which will take much of my time, since learning and striving to use the knowledge I accumulate is the main focus of Stanford. However, my determination in achieving success, beyond college, is an important and main focus of my free time. Innovations, business ventures, and programming come into my mind frequently and I have spent weeks and months to bring this idea into reality.
Above all, being at college, it is not always about my egotistic plans and zealous study, but about fitting into the society at Stanford and making lasting friendships. Even in high school, athletics and sporting events are common activities I indulge in. Being a volleyball player, I hope to play for club volleyball here at Stanford, as well as attend games of various Division I sports teams here. Since Stanford also has a vast array of clubs and fraternities, I will actively participate in many activities in here and hope to acquire leadership in some extracurricular activities here as well with determination.
Tell us what makes Stanford a good place for you.
Stanford is the beacon of my oasis, the haven of my higher learning, the key to emancipate the full extent of my knowledge, the place where no Brookfield East Spartan has stepped on before and the college of my family's dreams. It was through the black and white TV that my father opened his eyes to the engineering prowess of Stanford. It is not just for my family, nor for my school, in which years have passed that no one has gone to Stanford, but for me as well. I was born with a mathematics ingenuity that was accelerated beyond others in my grade and the ability to code and interpret computer programs, and through this I have tackled various programming challenges of the ACM and mathematical proofs of the Putnam exam. Likewise, my mind has always focused on the ability to achieve the best success, and that is to form a business of my strengths. Being one of the best business schools and the alma mater of Google and Yahoo founders, Stanford is where my strengths in computer science and mathematics combine with my yearn for entrepreneurship for the greatest marginal product: success. No such schools even compare in excellence to my three foci. Without attending the Gates Computer Science building or the Sloan Hall, the extent of my abilities is limited elsewhere. Stanford is the place that I shall begin the implementation of a new revolutionary robotics concept and continue the real estate business I have already started. The place where my father only saw from the black and white TV nearly forty years ago.
I think it detracts from your point when you say former friend. Maybe just say "with a friend of mine..."
...a former friend of mine.
It will be good if you use paragraphs to separate your ideas. You should have one paragraph about the ideal of being prosperous and exceptional, and then another paragraph to tell about the business exploit you undertook with your friend and your fathers.
The beginning of the 2nd essay seems a little pompous, and the beginning of the 3rd essay seems a little too general. However, you certainly write well! Maybe you can give more definition instead of just referring to "determination."
In the third essay, you can apply that principle, "Show, don't tell." That is, instead of just telling us that it is the beacon of your oasis, you can talk about specific professors with whom you'd like to study. Also, I don't understand what you mean in the sentence that starts, "It is not just for my family..."
These have lots of potential. You present yourself as that driven kind of personality -- someone who is focused on wealth and ready to do very well for yourself.
