Prompt: List and describe three unique factors that have most shaped who you are (any obstacles you have faced or passions you have developed are especially relevant).
Orson Scott Card
Reading has always been my passion. From The Pied Piper, a picture-filled book given to me as a child, to A Tale of Two Cities, a thick classic I recently bought, I have enjoyed several passages of literature. In my 7th grade, I found a dusty little novel, Ender's Game, displayed in the book-racks of my English teacher. As soon as I finished reading it, I fell in love with Orson Scott Card's work. I own 15 of his novels and a short story collection; his views have greatly influenced my political and global opinions.
Well, this is one of my "factors." I thought it might be a little weak and instead focus on my parent's socioeconomic situation [we're pretty poor] or my mother's ectopic pregnancy [though it was a bit early in my childhood]
In my opinion I would not count literature as a weak response. I think you did a really good job, I would start off with your parent's socioeconomic situation and then move into the literature part of it. But it's just a suggestion.
Go deep into the meaning of one of his books, and convey it in a single sentence... take inspiration from him. This is a great approach. Strike out the sentences about how you own 15 books, and instead write some meaningful truth from within the theme of one of them. Tell how Card's work relates to your intended course of study... is there a connection?? Take inspiration from that brilliant work!
What are the other factors?? I am dying to know!!
Other Factors:
Go - A Board Game
Go is a board game that was invented in China thousands of years ago, and I have found it to be a fascinating and beautiful game. I discovered Go during the 9th grade from a comic book, and my love and participation in activities related to it have risen ever since. I even attended a few official tournaments in my area and met an assortment of Go players, a rare breed: only 20,000 in America. To assist the spread of Go, I have created a website dedicated to the game. It contains a flash project that teaches Go.
Sharing a Home
From Covina to Glendale, there have been six places I have called home. Ever since that first house in Covina, I have shared my dwelling with strangers. Some of them may not have been strangers to my parents, but even my parents were only associated with them through relatives or friends. Often these strangers were not fond sharing, and early in life I felt boundaries within my own home. Most people don't encounter the concept that not everything inside your home is yours; however, living with this concept has taught me to recognize and respect the boundaries of others.
Well, these are the two. The Go will probably be edited to show some sort of way Go has changed me personally.
From Covina to Glendale, there have been six places I have called home.
Hey, this is impressive! I'll check out your website because i want to learn to play Go. It is impressive that you started a website... also, your sentence structure is impressive. I can just clean up a little here and there:
...and I have found it to be a fascinating and beautiful experience .
or...
...and I have found it to be a fascinating and beautiful competition .
Hey thanks! The go project's not finished yet, but it should help you start out. I started to study sentence structure because my English teacher told me I needed to vary my sentence length.
These all seem like strong factors to me. And literature is definitely a good one -- nothing shapes a person quite the way being an avid reader does. Reading opens the mind, teaches critical though, and cultivates the imagination, points you might want to mention when you are discussing it.
Well, here's my edit of the Go part:
Go is a board game that was invented in China, and I have found it to be a fascinating and beautiful experience. I discovered Go during the 9th grade from a comic book, and my love and participation in activities related to it have risen ever since. I even attended a few official tournaments in my area and met an assortment of Go players, a rare breed: only 20,000 in America. To further its popularity, I have created a website dedicated to Go. A complex art, Go has taught me to discern the minute details in the big picture.
I'll try to accommodate a few of those points Sean. Unfortunately, a 100-word limit has inhibited my desire to explain the factors in greater detail.
Edit of Orson Scott Card:
Reading has always been my passion. From The Pied Piper, a picture-filled book given to me as a child, to A Tale of Two Cities, a thick classic I recently began, I have enjoyed several passages of literature. In 7th grade, I found a dusty little novel, Ender's Game displayed in the book-racks of my English teacher. It began my love affair with Orson Scott Card's work: a source of provocative thought or a relaxing evening. Many of my political opinions, such as disapproval for the UN's policies and support for uninhibited scientific progress, have stemmed from reading his novels.
I was also thinking of maybe this is a factor:
Christianity
I have had no great epiphany or any other compelling thing to pull me into the system of beliefs called Christianity. But like many Christians, an involved parent is more than enough. I have two: a religious zealot and a lukewarm critic. Both have vocalized their opinions to me several times, and I have found that neither is right nor wrong. Each view has a drop of truth in it and a bottle of biased interpretation. My mother, devout and undeterred, defends her faith while my father ridicules its flaws. Their incessant arguments have caused me to scrutinize equivocal debates.
Apparently I can't edit my post so:
Each view has a drop of truth in it and a bottle of biased interpretation
to
Each view has a drop of truth mixed in a bottle of biased interpretation
Nice!! That last change in the new post is good, too. I like everything about this, because you seem so thoughtful and well-rounded.
BTW I found a place in my heart for Christianity when I read C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity and DeMello's The Way to Love (DeMello's is more important).
In your opinion, which of the three prompts I should submit? I can only submit three.
If I had to order them from strongest to weakest, I'd go with Reading, Go, Home, and Christianity. The Christianity one is stronger than the Home one, but the Home one is a safer choice for this sort of application.
For instance, in your new one, you say one of your parents is "a religious zealot . . . [who is] devout and undeterred, [and] defends her faith." This implies that you think that anyone who is devout and who defends their faith is a religious zealot, which is likely to offend a great many moderate religious people. There is a decent chance that the admissions reviewer will be such a person, so . . .
I might just try to tone the Christianity response down instead of settling. The application includes a portion on household information in the past five years and I had to include the people I lived with, which as my response states included strangers. So there is already information the Home part while Christianity is a fresh addition to my background.
Since you said "for instance," I'll assume that there are more problems with the Christianity response?
I changed "religious zealot" to "religious follower" and "lukewarm critic" to "lukewarm cynic"
Again, I cannot edit any more, I guess there is some sort of limit but:
my father ridicules its flaws
my father challenges its apparent flaws
It dulls the criticism of my father while not assuming that my mother's faith has flaws, but what seems to be so in the opinion of my father.
That will help. The idea is to stay fairly neutral yourself, to avoid seeming overly religious or overly critical of religion, because you don't know what stance the admissions person who reads it will have. It should be okay with changes you have described, though, and really, it is stronger than the Home response.
