JMU Personal Statement: You may use your personal statement to highlight special interests, talents, goals or unique experiences (500-word maximum).
In High School, I learned to trade in my creativity for discipline, my imagination for structure, and my curiosity for obedience. It seemed I had made a deal with the devil because my newly adopted traits didn't hold up their end of the deal. But it was also in High School that I realized it was because I was insane.
Or so Albert Einstein tells me.
Einstein defines insanity as doing something over and over again and expecting different results. I did the same thing every time: tried my best to listen in class, knocked out the homework quickly without much regard, and reviewed my notes with little attention and discipline for a test I knew I wasn't ready for. The truth is, I always knew I was naturally smart; I could do the bare minimum and strive past my classmates time after time. I expected to get good grades and do well in school without putting in the same effort as my peers, and honestly most of the time the results could not have been more pleasing.
But being ahead got the best of me.
I was stuck at the end of a road while everyone else was turning onto my street. I brainlessly expected to get A's doing the same thing I did to get B's. Each time, thinking it would be different. Therefore it wasn't until the end of junior year that I foolishly realized my classmates had caught up to me. It wasn't until then that I realized I had made a mistake that could seriously affect my future. And it wasn't until then that I took my life into my own hands and decided to make a change.
I am no longer insane.
Now, I am doing the best I have ever done in my high school career. I am involved in countless clubs, do my job as a citizen taking part in community service, and even guide others in a mentoring program at my school. And in turn, I look to JMU to challenge me. And as the only school that offers the major I am passionate for, Intelligence Analysis, I know JMU would most perfectly provide me with the tools to achieve a career, not just a job. To push myself, not request only the bare minimum. I yearn to make new friends, take chances, experience the unthinkable, and excel in my courses-all while wearing purple and gold, of course.
Excellently written Nassima. A word of caution though, you should not start any sentence with "And", that is a hard and unchangeable English grammar rule, you could place a comma after the last word though and change the capital letter to a small letter A thus making it simply a continued thought of the previous sentence. The essay has a very good effect of portraying the kind of maturity that you developed over your years and high school and heightens the fact that you will definitely strive better to do better as a college student. I believe that this essay works quite well for your application and really applies to the prompt as you allowed yourself to be seen in a light that could not have been covered by the other common app essays. You used this free topic essay quite to your advantage :-)
