YALE YOUNG AFRICANS essay - how my goals developed over time

"1. We would like to know more about you and the context in which you have grown up, developed your goals, and earned your academic achievements. Please describe the factors that have most influenced you and your hopes and dreams. How have they shaped you? (500 words max.)"

STEM changed my attitude for study

I am an Egyptian student who was born in Giza. I lived peacefully with my family since I was young and my loving parents have taught me a lot of things and their main hope was to have a clever, respectable son. As I am the elder one among my two brothers I have taken the most care.

The first hope I have put when I was young that I want to be the best. I have always been the first among my friends in all the exams and tests. I have always wanted to be better than any other person. Maybe the main reason is that I wanted my parents to be proud of me.

Until grade eight I hadn't had any other hope in my life I only wanted to get high grades and have a lot of academic achievements. In eighth grade I have realized that life isn't only about academic achievements, I also needed to have friends to talk to and go out with, so I have started to work on this goal and I have succeeded being sociable especially after working in a jewelry shop which helped me communicating with many people.

In the ninth grade I have started the year badly and didn't want to study but a teacher of mine talked to me and told me that what I was doing is wrong and I can't prefer having friends upon my studies and academic life. She convinced me to study hard especially this year after knowing about STEM school. STEM is a scholarship given by the USAID to the young leaders. This was my new hope that I wanted to enter this school. It required me to get 98%+, I studied hard and had a challenge with a friend of mine. Finally, I have got 100% which was a surprise for all my friends and family.

I have entered the school test with 3500 students who wanted to enter the school. Some have taken many courses in order to know the type of the questions but I didn't because I didn't know. The entrance exam consisted from 4 parts math, science, Arabic, and IQ. I have informed that I was accepted and this have totally changed my life. After entering the school I have developed many other dreams and hopes which I am working right now to achieve.

The main dreams I have now is entering biomedical school in USA or Germany. So I am preparing to enter the SAT exam in October. Also, I am studying German in order to take the FIT test.

The main factors affected me is my family at first, my teachers who helped me along my academic and encouraged me, my friends especially that one who encouraged me to enter STEM, and also the extracurricular activities I have participated in.

Mostafa, you need to heighten the representation of certain elements in your essay in order to create a more interesting background for yourself in relation to our development as a person. Be more biographical in your approach. Focus on better presenting the information about the early years of your life. For example, in the opening paragraph, you need to represent your parents and the community that you grew up in. These are the two factors that have a direct relation to the kind of person that you grew up to be. Spend at least a full paragraph introducing your parents to the reader and how you were raised. Explain what you mean by "As I am the elder one among my two brothers I have taken the most care." This sentence needs to be clarified for content.

Do not indicate that you were a problem child at a certain point. I am referring to your focus on making friends and being sociable instead of giving equal attention to your studies. Reformat that part of the essay in relation to the development of your interest in STEM subjects. It is never a good idea to show a negative side of your personality to the reviewer, even if that was just a phase that you eventually overcame. Finally, develop the last 2 parts of your essay. Those are under developed discussions that need to be expanded upon in order to be helpful parts of the presentation. If you can't improve those, then remove those from the essay instead.