We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes.
Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations.
How have these factors helped you to grow?800 limit
Clowns, airplanes, the dark, medicine, insects in general, and of course an angry mother. These are well justified fears of our years as children. And although my list of fears was similar to kid next to me, there was always one thing I had that no one else seemed to have, moving.
Moving had been a huge part of my life. Moving to me had always been the scary circus clown or an angry mother yelling at you to get your homework done. I had always been jealous of those who said, "I've lived here my whole life." With an incredulous voice, my response would always be, "That kind of luxury exists," because with each move, I felt myself becoming more and more of a recluse. It was not meeting new people that frightened me so much but rather the bullying that would come with it.
My first major move was in the summer going into the second grade. I am a Korean-American and the majority of places that my family had moved to were to places where the only Asian people in a hundred mile radius were my family. Needless to say, the schools very rarely had Asian kids and most of the time I was the first to be. I distinctly remember walking into the classroom on the first day of school and seeing my future classmates fixate their eyes onto me. Imagine a deer walking into a lion's den and that was how I felt. Walking out to recess, I was greeted with snickering and chuckling as my classmates called me "Chinese" and asked why my eyes were not normal. In the second grade, I was so ignorant that I did not even know I was Asian. I did not see myself differently and the color of skin was so inconsequential that I did not even consider it when I met someone new. It never occurred to me that my eyes were a different shape. It was during the second grade that my proclivity for being a recluse truly manifested. And of course, it was time to move.
This next move was the most heart wrenching yet most significant move. Going into school on the first day of sixth grade, I knew what to expect. "Ching chang chong" would be chanted into my face while people would ask me if I could see out of my eyes while simultaneously pulling the sides of their own eyes to mimic my "chink eyes" as they would phrase it. My expectations were paid in full as the first two weeks of school went like this and it was during these times that I would default to my recluse habit of simply not talking. Although this move was the most distraught for me, it was this move that brought out the best in me. My father informed me that we were not going to move until I graduated from high school. This was rather unexpected because I had expected to move by the ninth grade. But because my father informed me that we were not going to be moving anymore, I knew I had to change.
Going into middle school, I was nothing more than a gaunt, self-conscious, 5 foot little boy. I had no way to express myself because I had spent my life this far hiding myself from everyone. I knew I needed friends but I did not know how to make any. So I joined many school clubs and sports in the hopes to gain new friends. All the while, I tried to stop being so anxious and scared of new opportunities. I simply wanted to enjoy school and myself without restrictions from fear of bullying. And although my situation was better, I felt as if I were being ignored, as if I were a transparent piece of plastic and people could see right through me and I grew complacent, but I was not satisfied. I wanted to pervade into people's lives and become so consequential that people would have to recognize me. So, I became the president of National Junior Honors Society. I was awarded student of the year in just one short year. I am now a leader on my high school's varsity soccer team and an instructor at my Tang Soo Do studio. I worked so hard to be someone I would be proud of and now I stand here with my head held high and proud of who I am and who I have become.
I used to resent all the moves we made, but I learned many things from them. I learned the value of friendship and that hard work will not go unnoticed. I am thankful for the moves because through them I became bolder and more confident; I have found myself.
This is for Questbridge. I took an old essay and modified it since it was the same prompt. Please read this and critique this please!! Point out what I can change, either to improve the overall essay or a simple grammar mistake..
Hello, I'm Irfan Ardian. I'm Indonesian.
Btw, your essay is interesting for me. you tell your story respectively. i'll try give some corrections.
How have these factors helped you to grow? 800 limit
here u have to make it plural becomes 800 limits
This next move was the most heart wrenching yet most significant move
most in the superlative category, so u need adding the
This next move was the most heart wrenching yet the most significant move
But because my father informed me that we were not going to be moving anymore, I knew I had to change.
here your writing is rather not suitable for writing academic, so we can alter it
Therefore, my father informed me that we were not going to be moving anymore, I knew I had to change.
as i know for writing we have to avoid usage FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) in the first sentence.
I knew I needed friends but I did not know how to make any.
you need comma before "but"
I knew I needed friends, but I did not know how to make any.
So , I became the president of National Junior Honors Society
sometimes we need article ,,
Furthermore, I became the president of the National Junior Honors Society
thanks
- AndA lthough my list of fears was similar
- ...to a kid next to me,
- ...the bullying that would comecame with it.
- My first major move was in the summer going in to the second grade.
- ...move until I graduated from high school.
Overall, your essay is written well, and hey, this people that bully or make fun of people, they never go far.
Believe it or not, I'm talking from experience, people who laugh not because of something funny but because of bullying or making fun of other people, they are what they were several years ago, they never go far, maybe a stones throw but never far than you can go.
Lesson learned, be positive and be happy with what you have and dream big, work hard!!!
Hi Abraham, this essay most certainly presents your academic and personal life on open book terms. It was really interesting to read all about the bullying you had to overcome, the effects of constantly moving on your self-esteem, and how you eventually overcame the bullying. Now, here is the thing, the essay in my opinion, should not concentrate so much on the negative aspects of your life. You need to balance the negative (bullying, moving) with the positive ( academic success, increase in your sense of self-worth, etc.) in order to better balance the essay.
More than half of the essay presented the effects of the moving and bullying upon you. You need to concentrate more of the essay upon presenting how these events, as they happened, helped you to learn new things about yourself and how you used that knowledge to help survive the situation. Try to talk more about how you overcame the situations as you relate them. Don't leave that information for the end of the essay. At this point, the positive portions seem to be a mere after thought since you did not really provide the same amount of space to discussing how these events helped shaped your aspirations and personal life. Since you have 800 words allowed in this essay, you can actually use 400 words for each discussion.
That said, you should be conscious of the fact that just because you have an 800 word limit, that does not mean that you need to use all of the word count in your essay. Rather, you should try to relate your response within 500-700 words. The shorter the essay, the better the chance that the reviewer will actually read your essay to the very end. You can accomplish this by concentrating on the more important topic of the two. My vote is to discuss the bullying rather than the moving. While both moving and bullying have become common topics for essays, bullying always proves to present more information about the personal development of a person. That is why I am recommending that you revise the essay to make it more specific and allow you to better portray your character on paper for the reader.
Overall though, I agree with what the other posters said, the essay is good. However, revising it will allow you to better present your response in accordance with the prompt.
Thank you guys for all your suggestions! It was really helpful. I'm in the process of revising my essay. It was good to hear about my essay from a different perspective so once again, thanks for your inputs. If anyone else has any more suggestions then please comment!
Overall, Well, as I go through your essay, your essay is written very good.
