In pointing out the purposes of, changes in, variations on, and humor in the themes in these essays, I've neglected to focus on one of the most important factors -- good writing. A well-written story, grammatically correct and well-punctuated so there are no annoying distractions, is a gem. Just look at these!
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I was born a radical. In the 1970s to have been a female of mixed race living in a one-parent home in the south you had two choices: either think less of yourself because you are not the standard or challenge it. I chose to accept my difference and question why people thought less of me for my color and for my diverse family background. In high school I became a political junkie and grassroots organization lover. I believed in freeing South Africa, ridding the world of nuclear weapons, spray-painting baby seals, and anything Noam Chomski and Ralph Nader championed. My senior year my school's newspaper did a profile of me ending with the statement, "is the world ready for this woman?" All of these things made me feel as if I were involved, cutting edge, and educated about what was really happening in our society and government -- radical.
In the fall of 1988 my sister, a senior at Amherst College, felt I should apply to Amherst. To her it was simple: if she could do it then I could do it. For me it seemed perhaps too radical. I remember how nervous I was just reading the brochure because applying to college was the most important thing I had to do and I was doing it on my own. When I finally faced the task I had only a few days to complete the application. I made many mistakes but I felt I must apply in order to get accepted. Looking back it comes as no surprise that the school swiftly rejected me. However in the spring of 1989 Amherst contacted me again. The admissions officer told me if I applied and completed successfully a one-year college preparatory postgraduate program at Northfield Mount Hermon they would be interested in my reapplying.
I applied to the program, and was told that they had a spot for me but no scholarship. For me no money meant I had been rejected again. But by some twist of fate on the first day of orientation of the program I switched luck with a girl from Ecuador who had been granted one of the few scholarships. Her family decided it was too far from home. I got a call the day before classes started asking me if I would come now that they had a scholarship and could I be there before the end of the following day. Without hesitation I agreed. I completed my year at Northfield Mount Hermon and was accepted at Amherst.
In my first semester of college I took a course that was a postmodern interpretation of the AIDS epidemic. An ex-trauma worker, Act-UP member, Lesbian radical who had briefed the UN on the crisis, taught it. The class, the teacher, the reading assignment were all new and shocking. My concepts of truth and facts were rejected and reality was altered. It had never occurred to me before that I had been thinking inside the box. Up until then I had thought I was a radical and different but the class made me realize that I may be different but that didn't make me a radical. I was energized and I was hooked. I joined the department.
My new perspective made me realize the radical in me wanted to pursue a career in law. People I admired like Thurgood Marshall presented the law as a means to change life as I knew it. But I was unable to trust that I could accomplish this goal without first testing myself. I approached it tangentially, by becoming a legal assistant to see up close and personal what the world of practicing law was like. After three years as a paralegal, I still see law at its best as the tool to redefine your opportunities. I now also know that in its everyday form it is a stimulating exercise of the mind because it entails unraveling problems and overcoming obstacles. My time as a plebe has served as my confirmation that I am capable of achieving this goal. Hopefully the achievement will be organic, continuous and evolutionary - perhaps even radical.
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Unlike other samples in this section, the first essay and the second have nothing to do with each other. They are both samples of well-written essays. While the young woman above was "radical," the next applicant lived with her family history on a daily basis.
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As a little girl, I was dropped off at my great-grandmother's house every afternoon; she would keep my sister and me until my mother got home from work. After a snack, I would run out to play. I would stand on the rock in my great-grandmother's front yard certain I could see the whole world from my perch. The rock took me away from my little corner of the world, a corner consisting of a dirt road, lots of animals, and the house from which some members of my family were freed from slavery.
Atop my perch I could see the future, but I was also acutely aware of the past. Walking in the house was like stepping back in time. My great-grandmother had electricity but she refused the indoor plumbing and the modern conveniences that so many of us take for granted. No central heat and air-conditioning here, just a coal burning stove for the winter and some fans and high ceilings to make a southern summer bearable. I would do my homework and imagine how my great-grandmother had done the same thing with even fewer modern comforts than I was enjoying at the moment.
The women in my family, my great-grandmothers, grandmothers, aunts, and, of course, my mother, have always been inspirations for me. For three generations (with the single exception of my maternal great-grandmother, who had only a fourth grade education), all the women in my family have graduated from college and many have gone on to do graduate work and all have become either teachers or social workers. In my life I may have successes but I will never have to work as hard or struggle as much as my parents or grandparents did to achieve as much. Any time I would complain about how hard school was my relatives would just laugh. My great-grandmother would recall riding to school in the horse and buggy. My own mother grew up with Bull Connor in full control of Birmingham, Alabama, under the watchful eye of Governor George Wallace. My teenage trials just did not compare.
When I was applying to college both of my parents were amazed at the number of choices I had when deciding where to apply. When they were eighteen they picked from among the historically black colleges, as their friends did. My mother chose Bennett College in North Carolina and my father chose Morehouse College in Atlanta. The world attempted to limit where they could go and what they could do, but it could not limit the possibility my parents saw in the world for themselves and their children. My family taught me that education was the key to opening up the world and its possibilities. They knew the world was more than that corner and their minds were free to explore it.
Despite growing up on a dirt road down the street from the house where members of my father's family were freed from slavery, or perhaps because of it, I was taught to see the possibility in the world. My family nurtured me and encouraged me to explore and do the things they had been able to explore only with their minds' eyes. It was with my family's encouragement that I was able to literally explore the world, studying in Vienna for a semester during college and traveling throughout Europe.
My grandparents and parents remind me of the ways the world has changed and the ways that it has remained the same. My father is still the only black dentist in our town. Just last year I made an appointment for a man who said he was in tremendous pain from a toothache. Before he got off the phone the man asked if the dentist was black. I told him yes and the appointment was promptly canceled. There were no racial epithets bandied about, but I guess the thought of enduring another couple of days of pain was easier to bear than a black man pulling his tooth. Those are the days when the slave quarters feel uncomfortably close in time, as well as in location.
Even now I go to the rock to remember where I came from and to see where I am going. I intend to explore all the possibilities and complexities the world has to offer, ever mindful that the opportunity that I have been given was denied my parents only a generation ago and still seems tenuous at times.
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The young man below simply wanted to show how well-rounded he was, and how college had changed him.
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I didn't plan to do anything special when I first came to the University. All I wanted to do was go to class, join a few activities, and make a few friends. It took less than five minutes to how impossible this simple goal might be, when my roommate informed me that his parents were worried that he was living with an African-American. However, he assured me that he was "down with the brown" and listened to rap music all of the time. I knew then that we were both in for an education that had nothing to do with books.
Over the year I became good friends with my roommate and we both learned lessons from each other. I taught him that understanding African-Americans has nothing to do with understanding mainstream perceptions portrayed by the media. He taught me lessons about rural poverty in Appalachia and the reality of growing up without an understanding of different cultures or religions. Mid-way through my freshman year I learned that my roommate is gay. Instead of disowning him like his parents did, I supported him through an incredibly difficult time. By coming out of the closet and realizing the difficulties faced by minorities, he gained insight into what I have dealt with all of my life. Three years later we still live together and laugh about the first time we met.
The first activity I joined was the marching band. I played trumpet for 10 years, and it was a passionate love affair. I stuck with the band for two years, but couldn't stand the uncultured crowd-pleasing shows we were forced to do every week. I wanted Mozart; the crowd wanted Ricky Martin, and the crowd always won. I still have a set of friends from my music days. We share horror stories and talk of past trips and practices. I miss music, but I've moved on and don't need that creative outlet anymore. I also fenced for two years. I tried out for the team (it was a club sport) because I'd never done anything like that before and wanted to try something new. Isn't that what life is all about? The people were great, so I stuck with it until those monsters, The Daily and my school work, began to consume too much of my time for me continue.
My only aspiration when I joined The Daily was to write the comedic crime journal, in order to use my new job as a pickup line at parties. Finding the positive, creative outlet of journalism was a gift. The newspaper let me write about the campus community. As a reporter, I wrote about stories dealing with the campus administration, government, and local economy. Minority accomplishment programs and cultural awareness issues were generally glazed over by the paper at best, at worst they were completely ignored. When I became government editor, I worked to integrate the minority perspective into a newspaper that was completely devoid of it. When Presidential elections came around, I wrote features on the issues facing everyone, and didn't ignore the perspective of minority students, staff, and faculty. I also discovered that the university's non-discrimination statement did not cover homosexuals. The connection with my roommate taught me that this issue needed to be brought up for campus discussion.
My mission as editor has been to promote ingenuity and change for the better. I assigned, wrote, and edited stories about the Palestinian and Jewish communities in the city and their collective reaction to the conflict going on the other side of the world. I also brought light to other minority groups on campus like Hispanic and Indian-Americans. The university has no scholarship or recruitment program for these minorities, and I have worked to assign stories that addressed this issue. These efforts were not in vain. Currently the university is examining the possibility of adding homosexuals to the non-discrimination clause and discussing our goals for diversity, and there are thriving Jewish and Muslim student groups that hold open round-table discussions.
My focus hasn't always been welcome at the U because if its strong connection with tradition and order. I may not be invited to student leader breakfasts or private meetings, but I know that things are going to change; they just move slower in the South. Life isn't about revolution; it's the evolution we all make that matters, and I can say that I helped the U evolve. When my brief time at college is over, I hope to have changed a few minds, raised a few eyebrows, and somewhere between gained an education.
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I hope you've enjoyed these three stories as much as I did. Of course, I have the added benefit of knowing who they are, what law schools they went to, and what they're doing now. But even without that inside knowledge, I know that you can see why admissiosn officers were quick to offer these applicants a seat and a scholarship.