College application essays that worked

College application essays that worked

Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked,” as nominated by our admissions committee. In each of these essays, students were able to share stories from their everyday lives to reveal something about their character, values, and life that aligned with the culture and values at Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked” from the Class of , as nominated by our admissions committee. These entries are distinct and unique to the individual writer; however, each of them assisted the admissions reader in learning more about the student beyond the transcripts and lists of activities provided in their applications  · The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked

Essays That Worked | Undergraduate Admissions | Johns Hopkins University

They offer a glimpse into the diverse backgrounds and experiences, as well as the writing talents, so many of our students bring to College Hill. There is nothing more irrepressibly badass than the old women of southern Greece. They have never seen a dentist. They can clean their own teeth, thank you very much, all two of them. They are familiar with loss. The black attire signifies the status of a widow, of a stoic; mourning is only displayed through the color of clothing, never through emotion.

The women are like the olive trees, which reside in soil so dry that it crunches under your feet as you walk. Somehow, they manage to grow anyway; persistence and stubborn endurance are all they know.

The trees can grow through rock, live without rain. When I was 5 or 6, I thought that my Yaya was the most beautiful woman in the world, with her wiry white hair fresh out of curlers and laugh lines showing around her eyes like a map of all of her times spent smiling. As I got older, I realized that there are more worry lines than laugh lines. Deep trenches of lineaments cross her forehead, revealing the hardships of a childhood spent in poverty.

The most recent are the lines chiseled around her thin mouth, as if out of marble. They are from pursing her lips in an attempt to suppress the pain after my Papou was taken by the same merciless hands that took her daughter away, but this time, those hands looked like cancer. The black clothes are suffocating; they invite the sun to beat down with more cruelty than before. The lines are unforgiving, the trenches have been dug, the stalemate between the want of joy around the eyes and the stubborn endurance of suffering around the silent lips wages on.

No matter how helpless the olive trees look, rain will come. Yaya has a secret drawer of floral nightgowns that she only wears when the day has ended and the sun can no longer punish her misfortune. I like to think that the other widows also have secret stashes of light, brightly colored clothing. The olive trees flourish and yield fruit despite the oppression of the sun. There can be beauty in spite of loss.

I kept a firm grip on the rainbow trout as I removed the lure from its lip. Then, my heart racing with excitement, I lowered the fish to the water and watched it flash away. College application essays that worked remained hooked. The creek is spectacular as it cascades down the foot drop of Ithaca Falls. Only feet further, however, it runs past a decrepit gun factory and underneath a graffitied bridge before flowing adjacent to my high school and out to Cayuga Lake, college application essays that worked.

Aside from the falls, the creek is largely overlooked. Nearly all of the high school students I know who college application essays that worked that bridge daily do so with no thought of the creek below. Unlike my friends, I had noticed people fly fishing in Fall Creek.

Mesmerized by their graceful casts, I pestered Gil into teaching me. From that first thrilling encounter with a trout, I knew I needed to catch more.

I had a new string of questions. I wanted to understand trout behavior, how to find them, and what they ate. There was research to do. I devoted myself to fly fishing. I asked questions. to fish before school. I spent days not catching anything. Yet, I persisted.

I sought teachers. I continued to fish with Gil, and at his invitation joined the local Trout College application essays that worked Chapter, college application essays that worked.

I enrolled in a fly-tying class. Thanks to my mentors, I can identify and create almost every type of Northeastern mayfly, caddisfly, and stonefly. The more I learned, the more protective I felt of the creek and its inhabitants, college application essays that worked.

My knowledge of mayflies and experience fishing in many New York streams led me to notice the lack of Blue-Winged Olive Mayflies in Fall Creek.

I figured out why while discussing water quality in my AP Biology class; lead from the gun factory had contaminated the creek and ruined the mayfly habitat. Now, I participate in stream clean-up days, have documented the impact of invasive species on trout and other native fish, and have chosen to continue to explore the effects of pollutants on waterways in my AP Environmental Science class.

Last year, on a frigid October college application essays that worked, I started a conversation with the man fishing next to me. Banks, I later learned, is a contemporary artist who nearly died struggling with a heroin addiction. When we meet on the creek these days we talk about casting techniques, aquatic insects, and fishing ethics.

We also talk about the healing power of fly fishing. Initially, my goal was to catch trout. What I landed was a passion. on a frosted-over Friday in September, and my dad and I are running late as we wind down our steep hill to school. My dad ducks down and peeks out the sliver of visibility at the bottom of the windshield.

I sit on my hands to keep them warm as sherbet skies rise behind the Cascades. We click into tune on a word, then I wince as my pitch slips to dissonance until I slide back in.

Marriages end in divorce, BFFs drift apart. Back in early May, I was in AP Biology when I got a text from my stepmom. He was missing. I felt college application essays that worked pang in my chest.

I called him. No answer. I called again. Still no answer, college application essays that worked. I called again and again and again. I heard the same voicemail. I could no longer contain my tears. My friend noticed. My phone fell onto my desk. My friend held me as I cried. I pictured graduating without my dad there. I saw someone else walking me down the aisle. I saw my kids with no grandpa. A dark, enveloping fear overtook me. I shook. That night, my dad was due to fly home.

And he did: most of him anyway. He eventually sat down and looked at me. My ears rang. My mind went blank. All I could hear was the same toxic phrase in my head, over and over, as I stared at a freckle on the wall. After that night, dad immediately resumed working his AA program, but I found myself stuck to work out my emotions alone. The behavior of others is unpredictable, college application essays that worked.

I found I could apply my acceptance of his relapse to different experiences in my life, whether teenage gossip or catastrophe. My dad plucks the strings of the stand-up bass as I beat the drums on the dashboard. I need only transcribe the key. Throughout my childhood, I felt the need to be in control — a need which came to an abrupt halt in June of I laid down on the balcony of a hotel in the middle of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, staring down the long, straight street that led to the pier.

My fresh shirt had long collapsed against my damp chest as the sun ascended into the sky. A crescendo of voices from the street market far below snapped me out of my daze and reminded me of how different this place was from my home. Under the Puerto Rican sun, I stood up from the balcony, using my arm to raise myself off the sizzling tile. I strained my ears in an attempt to make out the rapid Spanish coming from the streets below.

As my chest swelled with feelings of curiosity and excitement, I decided it was time to explore. I dribbled my soccer ball between the street vendors and their stalls, each one yelling to convince me to buy something as I performed a body feint or a step over with the soccer ball, weaving myself away as if they were defenders blocking my path to the goal, college application essays that worked.

My previous need for control had come from growing up with strict parents, coaches, and expectations from my school and community. Learning in an environment without lenience for error or interpretation meant I fought for control wherever I could get it. This manifested itself in the form of overthinking every move and pass in soccer games, restricting the creativity of my play, college application essays that worked, and hurting the team.

After years of fighting myself and others for control, I realized it was my struggle for control that was restricting me in the first place.

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 · The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked 26 Outstanding College Essay Examples | College Essay Guy Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked” from the Class of , as nominated by our admissions committee. These entries are distinct and unique to the individual writer; however, each of them assisted the admissions reader in learning more about the student beyond the transcripts and lists of activities provided in their applications