Dear College Prep Students,
This week post the first paragraph of your college essay. I hope it will give other students a notion of the range of topics everyone is working on. This is due by the end of Sunday, Oct. 14. Thanks. --Mr. S
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In a world of political, religious, and racial clashes, it is essential that the younger generations of the world are exposed to different cultures to help them accept diversity and work toward a united world. Bridging the cultural divide begins first with personal understanding and then with reaching out to understand others. American Moroccan International Exchange (AMIE) is a non-profit organization that I have been working with for the past three years. We enjoy hosting Moroccan girls in our homes for two week visits and, in return, the American girls spend two weeks in Morocco. Our goals are to introduce American culture and technologies to young Moroccan women, as well as learn about what life in Northern Africa may be like. Through this experience, I have learned what I seem to have always been unaware of; although lifestyles, religion, and rituals may be different, we as young girls have so much in common with one another despite the fact that we come from different parts of the world.
Each day I stand face to face with it. Each day is a challenge for me. The resistance is the influence all around me. I've spent most of my life living in Woodinville, WA. This is place where it is absolutely imperative for me to fight against the discrimination in order to keep my morals. I was raised in a home that excepts everyone, for everything. Racism is foreign to me. I don't understand it, and none of it makes any sense. Being gay is not a crime to me nor is it in the eyes of my church. Others might speak or act differently...
I thought my parents had taught me everything I needed to know, but why hadn’t they taught me the universal art of shaving legs? This question arose to me my first day of changing for physical education in the girls locker room. It didn’t take me long to notice that there was something different between myself and the other girls. It wasn’t my wardrobe, personality or personal hygiene; it was that my legs seemed to be the only legs in the entire room that still sported leg hair. While the other girls daintily pranced around flaunting their smooth, tanned and goddess like legs, I changed quicker than all of them put together, trying to hide my rugged, mountaineer legs. It wasn’t a monumental problem, no one noticed but me, yet it still stuck in the back of my mind while I sat scrunched in a ball on the bus ride home. Why was I the only one with hair shooting out of not just my head? Why hadn’t my mother or older sister taught me how to shave my legs? Wasn’t that their duty to pass on to me as I was the youngest girl in the house?
My eyes darted across the wooden surface, scanning the possibilities and weighing the pros and cons of each, a puzzle to be solved. “You gonna move, sonny?” came an amused voice. I zeroed in on the best move and reached out to execute it, my arm an extension of my mind. Its funny how doing something as simple as playing a senior citizen in a game of chess will help break the ice between almost 60 years of experience and separation and bring people together.
Everyone has one life to live. I plan on living my "one and wiold precious life" to the fullest. My main goal is not to change the world. If I happen to than that would be wonderful, but if not than I am fine with that as well. In college people are still growing up and finding what the world is all about;thats what I olan on doing. With my life I plan on traveling, and learning, and loving every minute of my life. When I am 92 years old, sitting in my big Lay-Z-Boy, and am able to smile and be genually happy just reflecting on my experiences in life, then I will know that I have lived my life to the fullest.
While leading my family's older generation to flee to Thai Borders and run away from the reign of the Khmer Rouge, my oldest uncle is a reflection of how his experiences and courages has replenished mine. During the Khmer Rouge my uncle was only 6 years old and at that age he felt obligated to be the "man" of the family, in which he had to take care of his two older sisters and a younger brother, all of whom were under the age of twelve. He led the family through dense jungles, shadowed them like trees, and made sure every noise was they heard was not the frightening though of lingering death. For four young children trying to survive, food was hard to manage. One way they did get food was from bodies of dead soldiers that lay decomposing from just recently fired shots or maybe even days. These soldiers usually had a meager supply of food that they carried in their bags, but when times were hard even a couple grains of rice was enriching. My oldest uncle was usually the one to put his self in the worst situations, but it was always to benefit his siblings. If there were dead soldiers in an open field he would run out to them and scramble looking for scraps of food with the likelihood of being seen, captured or even shot.
I have a relatively normal family and live a relatively ordinary life. I live in Woodinville, Washington with my parents and two younger sisters. The more interesting side of my story is that I also have another sister who is the same age as me but she lives 4,997 miles away. We are not twins and we live completely different lives. She lives in an apartment with her mother, younger brother and older sister. Her name is Lélia Pancarte and she lives in Marseille, France.
On one of the most nerve-racking, and intense days of my life, I found myself waking up to the chirping of my alarm clock, as I rushed to get in the shower. I slowly dressed myself, ate my Mom’s typical “test day” breakfast of blueberry muffins, and headed out to a local high school, where the fate of my future lie. In the cold, musty old rooms, I was to take my SAT. As I nervously sat waiting for the proctor to hand out the tests, I fidgeted with my pencils and I slowly but surely surveyed the room, a specific quotation by former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt written on the wall of the classroom struck me, “The barrier between success is not something which exists in the real world: it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.”
Spending most of my life in a city where rich, pasty, white people dominate, and where seeing someone of another race at the local Safeway is a shock to some, I knew when traveling to Brazil I might feel out of place myself. Luckily for me, I have been raised by a loving family who are nothing like those few who discriminate at the grocery store. For the past few years my family has hosted a few volleyball players from the Minas Tenis Clube in Bel Horizonte, Brazil. These girls travel with 4 teams who compete in a tournament every May at the University of Washington, and it was my turn to go live with them. When I arrived I thought that being the only blonde haired girl in the country would be the worst of my problems; boy was I wrong.
There were eight of them standing in front of me, eyes darting, hands grabbing and feet dancing. Behind me I felt the conscious and steady eyes of 16 parents, laser beams aimed at the back of my neck, surely critiquing every aspect of the practice I had planned. We stood there facing each other; it was me versus eight gangly, chubby and dimpled seven year old boys high on sugar. The group of us stood there with something in common. We were about to embark on a season of soccer none of us had yet to experience, they were the team and I was their coach.
I quickly turn myself into an enthusiastic fool, if only to grab their attention for an instant.
It was a moment of pure exhilaration, but I wonder if the audience could see my knees shaking. I never thought that a simple dance routine practiced for weeks could become so complex that I could barely remember the first step. The ocean of faces staring back at me contributed to this life changing experience. I felt disoriented on the raised platform called the stage, but I discovered so much about myself in that short four minutes. Not only did my self confidence soar when I laced up those black, slipper-like shoes, but I became aware of my culture and proud to continue the tradition of Irish Dancing in my family.
A. I would enjoy having a career involving in Business. I love the formality of the business world and the feeling of power and importance. I also adore to solving math problems and equations. With this I’m considering being an accountant. I am planning on taking a few accounting courses, to figure out whether I really enjoy it. From that point I’ll decide whether to stay with the major of accounting or switch to a major in finances. I also plan to always have a minor or a back up plan of defiantly being in the business world.
There are certain people that thrive on attention, who will do anything to fit in and feel accepted, I used to be one of these people. For a time I completely abandoned most of my values, and became focused on becoming just like everyone else so that people would like me. At this point I had very little integrity and cared more about what would make me look good rather than what was good for the community. My life was built upon a fake image that I was constantly struggling to uphold. My greatest fear was allowing people to see who I truly was, so I tried to hide my differences. Part of fitting in was making it appear as if I had the perfect life. I was friends with the “right people”, I wore the “right clothes”, I had good grades, and I was a varsity athlete, on the outside it appeared as if I had everything together.
It isn't a college essay, it's an essay for a scholarship, so I hope you can still get something out of it.... Probably not though, since the prompt is completely different.
No matter where I go, what I do, I’m always influenced by what I hear. The quiet ambience behind an intense cinematic moment, The loud thunder of an orchestra playing a Tchaikovsky symphony. The blaring wail of a guitar in a heavy metal band. Any music I hear affects me. It’s been there for me my whole life. Times when I was sad and needed something to cheer me up; times when I was happy and wanted to shout my feelings through singing my favorite songs towards the heavens. Music is something I’ve grown up with, and grown accustomed to hearing around me, even when it’s just in my own head.
my first paragraph is:
Throughout my life I have been through some hard times and some great times.However, for me the one experience that has changed my life hasn't necessarily been one incident but more of a journey over the last few years of my High School life. I'm talking about my career in high school sports. I'm on both the football and basketball team for Woodinville High School.
Jacob Zoet
This is for a scholarship essay I'm writing. The essay is to be submitted online with no breaks so the below is pretty long but if I had to break it down into parts, this would be my intro.
I have taken many high school classes that have influenced me during the last four years of my education. My freshman year classes taught me that it’s not going to do much good to skip taking notes so you can encourage the kid next to you to try one more time to get a pencil stuck in the ceiling, and more importantly, that it’s not all that hilarious anymore anyway. My sophomore year taught me that you will have plenty of opportunities to sleep, but only one shot at acing the colossal unit exam, so staying up until three in the morning to go over those flashcards a few more times is always the best choice. My junior year taught me that those junior high counselors weren’t just trying to intimidate us when they said it was time to choose our future career at age twelve – time awaits no one and it goes by unbelievably fast. Before you know it you find yourself wondering when you’re going to experience your first case of senioritis. Senior year classes are all about what you want, whether your schedule is a walk in the park or extremely demanding and stressful. It was in my senior year of high school that I took a class which influenced me so greatly it made me decide to pursue a career different than the one I had been focused on since seventh grade.
The aspects of brotherly love are not what most think of when they hear the word love. The love between brothers, (at least in my experiences) consists of horse play, wet willies, swirlies, wrestling and of course some good socks in the shoulder. When I was younger it was my three older brothers and me at home during the day when my parents were at work. We had our fun but mostly the entertainment came at the cost of my brother matt and me. Matt and I were the two youngest, only 16 months apart, and Dan and Brian were much older than us. So, they could boss us around when our parents were out. Mom and Dad had the illusion that Dan and Brian were babysitting but we knew otherwise. For instance, one day Dan and Brian decided it would be fun to use a blanket as a rope and lower Matt and me from the upstairs to the downstairs, while avoiding the use of the stairs. (Real safe huh?) Or the time when Brian decided that Matt and I should have a boxing match in the front yard with the kiddy gloves that we found in the garage. The match ended with both of us crying and Brian laughing himself to tears. There weren’t any broken bones or anything, and if no one was seriously injured then it was O.K. as long as mom didn’t find out. Even though Brian and Dan put us through plenty, we still had fun. When things where not so enjoyable I learned some great tricks that I still have today.
My big reason for choosing SPU is the christian aspect of the school. I have gone to church my whole lfe and try to attend church events, but I have had bad timing with sports happening at the same time. Also I am a shy guy and have trouble sometimes interacting at church. By attending SPU I would already be around potential church people.
At the age of seven, my parents decided it was time for me to learn about my culture as an Indian. The signed me up for the Indian camp, Camp Bharat, and told me to “return with some friends”, whatever that meant. I distinctly remember my first day as a camper, stiffly and nervously walking onto the bus with the rest of my group. Some kids were carrying overstuffed brown bags filled with various snacks that their obsessive mothers had packed for them for the enduring and oh so treacherous ride to Whidbey Island. Others were chatting loudly with all their friends; they were of course the returning campers, excited for another fulfilling year at camp. I decided to take my own seat away from the eaters, talkers and future-obsessive mothers, reclusive in every way. Surprisingly, that week had made different plans for me, where I would find out that despite our differences, culture defines and unites us. In my case, it would lead to life-long friendships and years of active involvement in the Indian community around me.
I couldn't. My legs wouldn't react to the commands coming from my brain. My ankles felt stiff. My knees were swollen. Suddenly, my world came crashing down and I was only fifteen.
As the plane climbed further into the clouds; I watched the Boston skyline disappear leaving with it evidence of the last sixteen years of my life. Despite my excitement to discover the West Coast, my stomach fluttered with nerves as the plane rose higher and higher. My new bracelet sparkled in the sunlight, reminding me that a few days ago I had celebrated my sixteenth birthday with friends and family. Now I had boarded a flight to an unfamiliar destination, the place where I would spend the remainder of my high school years.
This is from the six questions for applying to OSU and WSU. This is my answer to question 1.
1. Throughout the last few years of my life I have been considered one of the leaders on my basketball team. This year I was voted as one of the two senior captains that we have on our team. My coach has always looked to me to help rally the team and knows that I can keep them together when he cannot. In the off season, training is not required. Coach does his best to open the gym and weight room but it is up to me to get the team to get in and use it. Although we are far from perfect, we make progress in the right direction. I am also involved in ASB at my school. I am one of thirty five kids helping to make choices that our student body wants to see get done. This is a huge responsibility and comes with making many important decisions that affect many people’s lives.
Throughout my years in high school, I was able to obtain several experiences where I was required to lead my peers. By playing volleyball for my school for 3 years it has taught me to lead, on and off the court. I was faced with several challenges where I was needed to step up and get the team back on track. I have grown as a person, and been taught to use confidence in everything that I do. Team leadership has shown me I am capable of leading other people by showing them my voice, and our success is proof of it. I take the experiences of the team with me everywhere, using confidence to resolve issues I am faced with.
Time stood still as my brother choked on a small piece of peanut lodged in his throat. Each tense episode, and they come more frequently now, terrifies me and I know it affects my parents the same way. Stacked breaths, coughing, suction, must all be repeated over and over again until the airway is clear. It’s like some bazarre exercise where the athletes are competing to hold onto life. Jesse, my brother, was born with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a genetic disorder that progressively weakens your muscles until eventually they shut down. The first thing people notice is that he’s in a power wheelchair, but if they get beyond that, they learn that he relies on assisted breathing every minute of every day, and although he can still move his fingers, his arms and legs don’t work and he can’t hold up his head. There are many significant influences in my life: sports, church, my parents, my friends, but Jesse has always had a powerful impact.
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