This is a really really really really rough draft of what I want to do for prompt 1. Thanks in advance!
accepted to the music team
The sun was beating its scorching rays on one hot August day. Thankfully, I was inside in the comfort of my own home with the air conditioner set at a pleasant 70 degrees. I had just finished working on Fugue in D Minor, and figured that I should stop before the guaranteed insanity ensued. Like most days, when I finished piano practice, I would eat some lunch, drink some water, and check my computer to see if my favorite web comic, Homestuck, had updated. Unsurprisingly, my thirst for plot development was left unquenched, so I decided to visit a fan-made forum. Scrolling through a few threads, I found one that piqued my interest: "Homestuck Fan Music Team Recruitment." Glancing through the qualifications, I quickly discovered that I met the requirements, and after writing a small essay, all I had to do was send in a work that demonstrated my musical composition ability. To fulfill this, I sent a live piano medley of a video game soundtrack that I had recently arranged, and three days later, to my utmost surprise, I received a letter from one of the team managers notifying me that I had been accepted. Before I could even respond, I immediately clicked on the link to join the server and was greeted with absolute chaos.
I honestly did not know what to expect when I joined the team. When I entered the server, I faced lines of text rapidly accelerating down my screen, mostly from confused applicants who had also been accepted. Completely overwhelmed, I moved to a quieter introduction area of the server and began talking with a few members there. After the formal "Hi! My name is ___" and "Oh nice to meet you!", I began to realize that people from everywhere around the world were on the team. When I finished introducing myself and describing my background, a girl from Saudi Arabia began to discuss hers. As she was describing her culture and lifestyle, I couldn't help but sit back in awe. "My one dream in life is to visit America," she explained. "Yes! We do have arranged marriage, but it isn't that bad I promise!" Hearing these two statements humbled me deeply. Coming from a small religious high school of about fifty people, befriending someone with an incredibly different culture than mine was quite jarring. As the discussion concluded, we all had many questions for her, none of which had easy answers.
Culture shock aside, the music team challenged me personally and pushed me to my creative and practical limits. Working on each main volume, musical collaboration, and side project gave me a deep appreciation for hard work. The team had a wide variety of talent; some people were the next Beethoven, and others didn't even know what a note was. However, it's safe to say that everyone contributed an equally hard, and sometimes incredibly frustrating, amount of work. Although the work was sometimes arduous, the gratification of releasing an album and watching people react to my music live is a feeling like no other. During composition, great anxiety would develop and endlessly churn, growing deeper and deeper until the song was released. However, as frightening as it was, working on a project with nearly seventy others developed an inexplicable sense of camaraderie and connection. The work was tough, but the personal growth that I experienced from it was invaluable.
Looking back, it's funny to think that my interest in a "silly web comic" ended up shaping the next two years of my life. The work was difficult, but I can confidently say that it was entirely worthwhile. Exposure to other cultures and being pushed to my limits made me a different person. And while revealing my work to the public made me nervous, it ultimately gave me an experience that, without, I would not be the same.I love the topic of the essay! It is extremely unique. One thing I would suggest, however, is to decide whether the aspect of culture shock/learning about other cultures was more valuable to you, or the teamwork aspect. Although both points reveal something about your character, it is best to focus on only one thing and develop that idea as much as you can. The topic/subject matter is great, and overall, I think if you just focus on either teamwork or cultural appreciation, you can really make it into an essay that really shows admissions officers who you are!
Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Michael, the focus of the prompt is the talent that you have for composing music and working with a team based on that. This is a single focus essay that requires you to completely discuss the amount of effort, time, and any privileges that came with this undertaking. You should not be dividing the attention of the reviewer by suddenly focusing on the girl from Saudi Arabia. That removed the focus from your own story, turning her into a focal point of the essay when she should only be a mere mention, among the other team members from other nations. The teamwork should be discussed as a group effort without any particular focus as you did in this essay. Keep the focus on your experience, what you learned, how that helped you evolve as a person, and what talents or skills that you did not have before were discovered during the 2 years you spent with the team. That would help to truly respond to the "talent" portion of the essay prompt. You have a pretty good draft here. It should not be difficult for you to revise it. There is room for improvement and additional information. You just need to remove the unnecessary portion that removed the focus from your quest for self improvement in your essay. You can make a reflective statement about the person, but you cannot offer a whole paragraph of discussion about the person.
@Holt
Thank you for the input! I had an earlier draft that just focused on the progression of my compositional ability and the personal growth that resulted from it and when I asked my English teacher to review it, she told me it needed another "main point." Let me see if I can find that draft come tomorrow. Again, thank you for responding, though.
