Hi, I don't really feel comfortable sharing this essay with anyone I know personally so I've decided-perhaps a bit illogically-to share it with everyone else. While glaring grammatical error would be nice to screen out, I'm looking more for a third-party perspective. If you were a member of the selection committee, what kind of person would you see behind these words? What characteristics are notable about this applicant and what are perhaps some flaws that stand out? Whether the essay effectively remains on topic is also something I'd like to hear about. On a side note, the essay is a single, ominously huge paragraph because were it not, I would be over the essay length limit. For the sake of presenting it as it will truly be presented to the committee, here is my block essay, preceded by the essay prompt.
To help the reviewers get to know you, describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you. Use your own words and limit your response to the space provided.
In the summer preceding my junior year, I went on a hiking trip with a friend named Steven, who I had known since fifth grade but from whom I had grown distant until recently. This was, considering the long break in our friendship, an intimate way to reestablish our acquaintance. So we drew out our path through the desert, packed everything we could carry for the two day trek, and began our journey. The desert several miles beyond the city limits of Las Vegas is profoundly isolated. We walked with something akin to the reverence one shows when walking through a great and ancient cathedral. Much of our walk was taken in silence. What words need be spoken when the ways one walks and watches the horizon and looks at one's own feet while eating sing of the soul so precisely? When darkness silently overtook the valley, we found a high, flat place to encamp. The night was long and cold despite the onerous heat of the day. The morning came and we silently arose, leaving no sign of our existence. Our ascent that morning to the ridge of the plateau-whose highest crest was our destination-was a draining battle against increasingly tremendous gravity. Our final goal in sight after covering dozens of miles, we cried out in joy. But a haze of horseflies prevented us from even nearing the pinnacle. It is here that we reached the bottom of our water supply. I stored my final, half-empty water bottle as we truly contemplated where we were for the first time-how stupid we were. With virtually no water and at least 20 miles between us and the nearest serviceable road, we had little choice but to begin our perilous way down. However, we soon became lost and wandered for hours. It was here, after more bleak hours of wandering had passed, that I was asked the eternal question: "Is there any water left?" As I opened my bag and contemptuously glared at the now useless clothing within, I spotted my lonely, half-empty bottle. There it lay, gazing penetratingly at me. Water. "Yeah, here's some." I reached in and pulled it out, handing the bottle to him as I would have anywhere else-as if dreaming. The ensuing time we spent out there was hell. Fear welled up with each step and each thought of water. I painfully sprained my ankle. I struggled to swallow two painkillers and thought for the first time not about water, but about the water-the water that once filled my last, half-empty bottle. It was gone. Maybe the last water I'd see... And now, more than a year later, I still think about that day and those moments and the decisions that were made. I think about the water. But most of all, I think about the question. And I ask myself to the darkest depths of me whether what I did was really what I meant. What I would have said if I knew I might die. Steven and I are now best friends. He's more like a brother to me. But is it real? Yesterday, I mentioned to my government teacher that I was lactose intolerant. Steven, sitting next to me, laughed and said, "But you drank chocolate milk on that- that hike." I, confused for a moment, suddenly remembered too. We laughed the laugh of people who recall the name of a memory but refuse to look at its face to return its stare. I have a class this year called Big Questions, a course that deals with the vexing, seemingly unanswerable questions of theology and life. I often speak up in class discussions, providing my views on issues ranging from the morality of lying in order to prevent murder to the justice of an eternal hell. I do all of this with ease, wowing my teacher and my peers. They must wonder how I could be so self-aware as to have already answered all of these questions so soundly for myself. They must think I'm a "genius." But they don't know that beneath the smile and the illusion of confidence is sometimes-is often-agony. Agony because I know what hell is like. Agony because I've subjected myself to ongoing and withering self-examination of character since that day. Agony because beneath the aloof, smiling surface is usually a boy, thirsty and alone, dying in the desert, asking himself, "Well, is there any water?"
To help the reviewers get to know you, describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you. Use your own words and limit your response to the space provided.
In the summer preceding my junior year, I went on a hiking trip with a friend named Steven, who I had known since fifth grade but from whom I had grown distant until recently. This was, considering the long break in our friendship, an intimate way to reestablish our acquaintance. So we drew out our path through the desert, packed everything we could carry for the two day trek, and began our journey. The desert several miles beyond the city limits of Las Vegas is profoundly isolated. We walked with something akin to the reverence one shows when walking through a great and ancient cathedral. Much of our walk was taken in silence. What words need be spoken when the ways one walks and watches the horizon and looks at one's own feet while eating sing of the soul so precisely? When darkness silently overtook the valley, we found a high, flat place to encamp. The night was long and cold despite the onerous heat of the day. The morning came and we silently arose, leaving no sign of our existence. Our ascent that morning to the ridge of the plateau-whose highest crest was our destination-was a draining battle against increasingly tremendous gravity. Our final goal in sight after covering dozens of miles, we cried out in joy. But a haze of horseflies prevented us from even nearing the pinnacle. It is here that we reached the bottom of our water supply. I stored my final, half-empty water bottle as we truly contemplated where we were for the first time-how stupid we were. With virtually no water and at least 20 miles between us and the nearest serviceable road, we had little choice but to begin our perilous way down. However, we soon became lost and wandered for hours. It was here, after more bleak hours of wandering had passed, that I was asked the eternal question: "Is there any water left?" As I opened my bag and contemptuously glared at the now useless clothing within, I spotted my lonely, half-empty bottle. There it lay, gazing penetratingly at me. Water. "Yeah, here's some." I reached in and pulled it out, handing the bottle to him as I would have anywhere else-as if dreaming. The ensuing time we spent out there was hell. Fear welled up with each step and each thought of water. I painfully sprained my ankle. I struggled to swallow two painkillers and thought for the first time not about water, but about the water-the water that once filled my last, half-empty bottle. It was gone. Maybe the last water I'd see... And now, more than a year later, I still think about that day and those moments and the decisions that were made. I think about the water. But most of all, I think about the question. And I ask myself to the darkest depths of me whether what I did was really what I meant. What I would have said if I knew I might die. Steven and I are now best friends. He's more like a brother to me. But is it real? Yesterday, I mentioned to my government teacher that I was lactose intolerant. Steven, sitting next to me, laughed and said, "But you drank chocolate milk on that- that hike." I, confused for a moment, suddenly remembered too. We laughed the laugh of people who recall the name of a memory but refuse to look at its face to return its stare. I have a class this year called Big Questions, a course that deals with the vexing, seemingly unanswerable questions of theology and life. I often speak up in class discussions, providing my views on issues ranging from the morality of lying in order to prevent murder to the justice of an eternal hell. I do all of this with ease, wowing my teacher and my peers. They must wonder how I could be so self-aware as to have already answered all of these questions so soundly for myself. They must think I'm a "genius." But they don't know that beneath the smile and the illusion of confidence is sometimes-is often-agony. Agony because I know what hell is like. Agony because I've subjected myself to ongoing and withering self-examination of character since that day. Agony because beneath the aloof, smiling surface is usually a boy, thirsty and alone, dying in the desert, asking himself, "Well, is there any water?"