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How my twin influenced me - personal statement



sogoldman 6 / 21  
Dec 23, 2012   #1
While unpacking my suitcase in an empty college dorm, I realized I was missing something. I had remembered my blue A-line skirt and pink polka-dot pajamas, but I had left at home something bigger, something more valuable: my twin. This would be the longest my brother and I had ever been apart, and though I constantly claimed to hate him, I felt incomplete without him.

During my first week at COSMOS (California State Summer School for Math and Science), I thought a lot about this momentous separation. During icebreakers, my "fun fact" was invariably that I had a devilish twin brother, and I talked to my new friends every day about how happy I was to escape him. However, while I gloated over my unfamiliar independence, I was actually establishing myself as Henry's twin instead of as Sophie Goldman - myself.

This all changed when I was forced to socialize on my own, without any preordained icebreakers. Sitting at the back of a stuffy school bus filled with fifty screeching math-whizzes, I was compelled to start conversations with the strangers around me. Twisting around on the sticky leather seats, I began cracking jokes and telling riddles, embarrassing myself shamelessly. I stopped relying on my twinness to entertain people and began telling my own stories. In fact, I stopped talking about my twin altogether. Instead, I made puns, solved riddles, and ran excitedly to class. Essentially, I behaved like my brother: loud, social, uninhibited. Rather than observing politely and nodding where appropriate, checking my adventurous urges, I shrieked ecstatically at stories and climbed trees, always out of breath from laughing.

By channeling my brother's bold and shameless confidence, I realized just how deeply I cared about my twin - and just how deeply he had shaped me my entire life. He had helped me pull out baby teeth, eagerly offering various primitive or violent ideas and more than once trying to stick his little hands in my mouth; he had consoled me when I lost my Barbies, remorseful that he had cut their hair or ripped their heads off; and he had taught me to enjoy myself, demonstrating on a regular basis multiple techniques for avoiding work. I did not hate him, as I had continually claimed, but loved him.

Throughout high school, I had been known as the annoyingly nerdy girl who studied hours into the night and broke down when given a B. He was always the loud, funny, disrespectful one - the risk-taker - while I was invariably the quiet, studious, polite sister. When separated from my twin, I finally expressed my quirkiness and sense of humor. At COSMOS, I learned to take risks, to be bizarre, and to have fun. By the time I returned home, I appreciated and cherished my twin more than ever, despite his teenage-boy temperament. I had learned to combine who I was as an individual with who I was as a twin, and I had discovered my own voice.

nairbear68 6 / 29  
Dec 23, 2012   #2
i could not tell what the main focus of your essay was: your twinness, your experience at comso, or yourself?
plus, you last sentence says you had discovered your own voice but all I got was that you channeled your brother's obnoxiousness at that summer school.

my advice is that you choose one topic and make it clear what it is that you want to say about yourself.
as a personal statement, this essay is too weak and unfocused. it's well-written, but you need to rethink it.
(my comments may have been a bit harsh, but most people on EF seem to be asking for harsh comments, so I hope you don't mind!)

please take a look at my essay for upenn if you have time!
mzontario 9 / 43  
Dec 26, 2012   #3
I like this! But like the person above me said, focus.
cofls12 2 / 6  
Dec 28, 2012   #4
I agree, your essay is a little all over the place. You might want to focus more on a couple specific events rather than bits and pieces of many events.

I do like the overall idea, however, especially how you showed the importance and significance of your twin brother. You might want to bring out yourself a little more, though, cause right now it seems that your brother is still your newly found "voice". He overshadows you, almost.

"By channeling my brother's bold and shameless confidence"
Especially this phrase.

Other than that, I enjoyed it (the baby teeth part was really amusing)
Best of luck!
jaegoogle 4 / 8  
Dec 28, 2012   #5
I agree with the comments above mine. I suggest putting more weight on revealing yourself (the influence from your little brother should explain who you are--not him). Besides that, I think it's a cute, well-written essay. Good luck!
pqahpikachu 3 / 6  
Dec 29, 2012   #6
this essay is really cute but i agree with the comments above: it's a little bit all over the place.
btw, i literally lolzed on that baby teeth part :D
Kitsumi 4 / 97  
Jan 2, 2013   #7
During my first week at COSMOS... During icebreakers... - Try to vary your vocabulary a bit. Don't use "during" in consecutive sentences. This applies to a lesser extent on the word, "icebreaker".

Other than that though, good essay!


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