gahh college essay hell
alright, I need people's help... I am unfortunately down to the wire on college apps, and I need to get my common app essay finished... right now, I have a completed draft, but it's a) on the long side (not sure i can do much about that), and b) not yet edited to sound good (that is, i'm going to go back in after one more round of editing and start putting in richer verbs, more vivid language, etc.).. but first, I want to get some advice from friends, both on the language and content... pleeeease if you have some time today (it really has to be today), read this over and either comment me back or send me an email at melozine@gmail.com...
THANKS,
=^-^=
My first encounter with heartbreak occurred on Christmas morning, days short of my fourth birthday, with the devastating discovery that I could not fly. Among the gifts left by Santa that year, I had found what was to be my favorite childhood possession-a brilliant blue cape lined in scarlet, with the words “Super Katie” appliquéd in gold across the back. Heart pounding, I raced upstairs, fastened the cape around my neck, and climbed out onto the lattice roof that overhung our driveway. As I braced myself for my first experience with flight, I was suddenly yanked back inside and found myself face to face with my watchful older brother, who explained that, even with my magic cape, I couldn’t actually fly. A rather painful tumble down the front staircase confirmed his assertion. I was tethered to the earth.
Despite my Christmas failure, my determination to take flight infused much of my childhood; it became the subject of each year’s birthday wish, each night’s vivid fantasies, and countless projects. With undaunted optimism, I continued to experiment, never considering that perhaps my reach had indeed exceeded my grasp. Again and again, I tried to clear the backyard pool, only to pull my sopping, fully clothed frame from the water with each failure, pour the water from my sneakers, and begin again. On windy days, I employed pillowcase parachutes-or, in a moment of particular ambition, a cardboard box with carefully-constructed wings-in fearless dives from the poolhouse roof.
Although I never truly accepted the bounds of gravity, I gradually came to acknowledge that the secret of flight might elude my four-year-old capacities. In the meantime, I found other ways to soar. I churned out pictures by the hundreds, mounted them on easels, and sold them to passersby. I wrote stories and poems, collected vocabulary words, and delighted in discovering new homonyms. With insatiable curiosity, I learned about negative numbers from digging holes at the beach, and to add and subtract in different bases using bundles of Popsicle sticks. The adults in my life took turns venturing guesses at my destiny-an actress, for my uninhibited performances; a painter, for my bold watercolors; a lawyer, for my eloquence and logic. Yet no suggestion could approach the scope or depth of my ambitions. At the age of four, I held within me the potential to be every bit the person I now aspire to be.
As a young child, my parents and teachers would encourage my imaginings, telling me that my world was limitless, that I could be anything, do anything I wanted- even learn to fly. Yet as I began the transition from child to teenager, I found less and less support for my personal fantasies. To my teachers, my habit of daydreaming became “not paying attention,” and the trail of drawings that I always left in my path became proof that I was “not making efficient use of my time.” Having never before encountered the notion of deadlines, I discounted them whenever they might interfere with the quality of my work. In my mind, this quality was well worth the extra time; I was not about to let anyone place a wall around my creativity. Yet with each passing year, my stubborn self-assurance was looked on less favorably.
In the seventh grade, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. The diagnosis devastated me, shattering thirteen years of self-definition. I felt violated by the therapist; she had trespassed in my mind, the one place that was truly my own, and she had ravaged it, shredded my most basic understandings and bound me in a Handicap. In that moment, my wings were clipped, and my once boundless world became marked by my own limitations. Grudgingly, I agreed to take medication, hoping that drugs would eliminate the problem and return me to my former self. Yet the Ritalin did little more than keep me awake, and the combined effect of my disorder, unsupportive teachers, and my steadily decreasing confidence took a huge toll on my performance. By the time I entered high school, teachers, school administrators, and even some of my friends no longer thought of me as the girl who could do anything.
In the ninth grade, I discovered that quality of work no longer trumped quantity, and with my A papers now earning Cs or even zeros for their tardiness, my academic record crumbled. Baffled and frustrated, my teachers heaped on the criticism, and my well-meaning parents cancelled all my extracurricular activities to allow me more time for school work. In the year that followed, my desk became my prison and my solace. Working around the clock in self-enforced isolation, I accomplished little, and began a self-destructive spiral.
I am well aware of the cliché and melodrama that characterize adolescent anecdotes of feeling “misunderstood,” and yet that struggle so profoundly shaped my adolescence that I must endeavor to relate it. I had spent my early childhood soaking in praise from all directions, believing that I was capable of anything. The struggle to retain this self-confidence now tore me apart. Internalizing the criticism that surged around me, I began to believe that perhaps I truly was an irresponsible “screw-up.” Even more devastating, I found myself supporting these characterizations, using them as a shield, a barrier, to hide from my own insecurities. The more that others defined me as a “screw-up,” the easier I found it to give in to this identity, to embrace it and laugh at my own hopelessness. As brilliant, motivated failure, I baffled teachers and parents alike-better to remain an anomaly, I felt, than to fit into the conventional pattern of inferiority that was ADD. Thus, I cavalierly acknowledged my abnormality, my need for “meds” to stay awake and aware. Yet once again, I had donned a cape that would not allow me to fly, for my self-deprecation was only half-hearted. Secretly, I still held myself to such high standards that it became easier to continue spinning my wheels, and blame my ADD, than to face the possibility that I might fail to meet my own expectations.
The final months of my sophomore year are a haze. As if my own despair were not enough, I watched as wave after wave of misery washed over my family, climaxing in my father’s disappearance and my mother’s attempted suicide. Ironically, this tragedy set in motion a personal renewal. Finally able to stop blaming myself, I registered to attend boarding school in Maine, where I hoped to escape my family’s anguish and make a fresh academic start. Admittedly, my fantasies of finding success at a new school were not immediately realized. Despite improved ADD medication and antidepressants, I still encountered struggles with deadlines and self-confidence, and again found myself forging a reputation for unreliability among both peers and teachers. Yet, thanks to the school’s supportive atmosphere and the incredible support of my mother and my new ADD coach, I found myself making the first few steps toward positive change.
The decision to hire an ADD coach came in the spring of my junior year, after neuropsychological testing revealed the true extent to which my ADD and depression were limiting my academic success. Although it was already too late for me to significantly alter my junior grades, my coach, Laurie, began leading me through a series of exercises to improve my focus and increase my work speed. Yet the greatest lesson Laurie taught me was not academic, but psychological. Having always believed that ADD was a problem to be overcome, I was now instructed to embrace my learning difference as just that.
As Laurie allowed me to see, ADD isn’t a disorder at all, but a chemical difference in the brain that produces some of the most creative, intelligent, and successful people in the world. Many of history’s true geniuses, those men and women who defied convention and took the world by storm, had ADD, and many of them performed poorly in their youth, before learning to harness their gift. With this insight, my inner struggle-my worry that I had lost touch with my evident childhood gifts-quieted. As I now saw, my remarkable childhood was not the result of Kat before ADD, but Kat thriving in her ADD and using that gift to its fullest. While ADD presents me with some difficult challenges, it also contributes to the personal characteristics I treasure most: intelligence, creativity, flexibility, intuitiveness, tenacity, and the ability to think outside, inside, over, behind, and around the box. Ultimately, it is only through these qualities that I can achieve greatness. As I once predicted, time did reveal to me the secret to flight: it is found not in magic capes or pillowcase parachutes, but in my own multifaceted, magical mind.
As school began this fall, I felt the old familiar lift, the excitement over new classes and new possibilities. Yet unlike years past, my excitement continued past the first round of assignments. To be sure, I still struggled to maintain a consistent focus and to complete assignments as rapidly as my classmates. As a result, my first-trimester English grade was in no way reflective of my performance in that class. I understand that the remainder of this year will be a constant effort to apply Laurie’s lessons to my schoolwork, and I am eager to continue this process. Yet finally, I have faith that despite-nay, because of-my ADD, I am truly capable of flying.
At the age of four, I held the potential to be every bit the person I now aspire to be. I was bright, charming, and creative, but most importantly, I had faith that I could do anything-even fly. Fourteen years later, I have rediscovered my wings. As I look into the future, I am filled again with the hope, confidence, and ambition of my childhood. I now look forward to college as a place that will guide and encourage me (perhaps with a few watery landings) as I flout the bounds of conformity and mediocrity and reach toward uncharted air.
THANKS,
=^-^=
My first encounter with heartbreak occurred on Christmas morning, days short of my fourth birthday, with the devastating discovery that I could not fly. Among the gifts left by Santa that year, I had found what was to be my favorite childhood possession-a brilliant blue cape lined in scarlet, with the words “Super Katie” appliquéd in gold across the back. Heart pounding, I raced upstairs, fastened the cape around my neck, and climbed out onto the lattice roof that overhung our driveway. As I braced myself for my first experience with flight, I was suddenly yanked back inside and found myself face to face with my watchful older brother, who explained that, even with my magic cape, I couldn’t actually fly. A rather painful tumble down the front staircase confirmed his assertion. I was tethered to the earth.
Despite my Christmas failure, my determination to take flight infused much of my childhood; it became the subject of each year’s birthday wish, each night’s vivid fantasies, and countless projects. With undaunted optimism, I continued to experiment, never considering that perhaps my reach had indeed exceeded my grasp. Again and again, I tried to clear the backyard pool, only to pull my sopping, fully clothed frame from the water with each failure, pour the water from my sneakers, and begin again. On windy days, I employed pillowcase parachutes-or, in a moment of particular ambition, a cardboard box with carefully-constructed wings-in fearless dives from the poolhouse roof.
Although I never truly accepted the bounds of gravity, I gradually came to acknowledge that the secret of flight might elude my four-year-old capacities. In the meantime, I found other ways to soar. I churned out pictures by the hundreds, mounted them on easels, and sold them to passersby. I wrote stories and poems, collected vocabulary words, and delighted in discovering new homonyms. With insatiable curiosity, I learned about negative numbers from digging holes at the beach, and to add and subtract in different bases using bundles of Popsicle sticks. The adults in my life took turns venturing guesses at my destiny-an actress, for my uninhibited performances; a painter, for my bold watercolors; a lawyer, for my eloquence and logic. Yet no suggestion could approach the scope or depth of my ambitions. At the age of four, I held within me the potential to be every bit the person I now aspire to be.
As a young child, my parents and teachers would encourage my imaginings, telling me that my world was limitless, that I could be anything, do anything I wanted- even learn to fly. Yet as I began the transition from child to teenager, I found less and less support for my personal fantasies. To my teachers, my habit of daydreaming became “not paying attention,” and the trail of drawings that I always left in my path became proof that I was “not making efficient use of my time.” Having never before encountered the notion of deadlines, I discounted them whenever they might interfere with the quality of my work. In my mind, this quality was well worth the extra time; I was not about to let anyone place a wall around my creativity. Yet with each passing year, my stubborn self-assurance was looked on less favorably.
In the seventh grade, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. The diagnosis devastated me, shattering thirteen years of self-definition. I felt violated by the therapist; she had trespassed in my mind, the one place that was truly my own, and she had ravaged it, shredded my most basic understandings and bound me in a Handicap. In that moment, my wings were clipped, and my once boundless world became marked by my own limitations. Grudgingly, I agreed to take medication, hoping that drugs would eliminate the problem and return me to my former self. Yet the Ritalin did little more than keep me awake, and the combined effect of my disorder, unsupportive teachers, and my steadily decreasing confidence took a huge toll on my performance. By the time I entered high school, teachers, school administrators, and even some of my friends no longer thought of me as the girl who could do anything.
In the ninth grade, I discovered that quality of work no longer trumped quantity, and with my A papers now earning Cs or even zeros for their tardiness, my academic record crumbled. Baffled and frustrated, my teachers heaped on the criticism, and my well-meaning parents cancelled all my extracurricular activities to allow me more time for school work. In the year that followed, my desk became my prison and my solace. Working around the clock in self-enforced isolation, I accomplished little, and began a self-destructive spiral.
I am well aware of the cliché and melodrama that characterize adolescent anecdotes of feeling “misunderstood,” and yet that struggle so profoundly shaped my adolescence that I must endeavor to relate it. I had spent my early childhood soaking in praise from all directions, believing that I was capable of anything. The struggle to retain this self-confidence now tore me apart. Internalizing the criticism that surged around me, I began to believe that perhaps I truly was an irresponsible “screw-up.” Even more devastating, I found myself supporting these characterizations, using them as a shield, a barrier, to hide from my own insecurities. The more that others defined me as a “screw-up,” the easier I found it to give in to this identity, to embrace it and laugh at my own hopelessness. As brilliant, motivated failure, I baffled teachers and parents alike-better to remain an anomaly, I felt, than to fit into the conventional pattern of inferiority that was ADD. Thus, I cavalierly acknowledged my abnormality, my need for “meds” to stay awake and aware. Yet once again, I had donned a cape that would not allow me to fly, for my self-deprecation was only half-hearted. Secretly, I still held myself to such high standards that it became easier to continue spinning my wheels, and blame my ADD, than to face the possibility that I might fail to meet my own expectations.
The final months of my sophomore year are a haze. As if my own despair were not enough, I watched as wave after wave of misery washed over my family, climaxing in my father’s disappearance and my mother’s attempted suicide. Ironically, this tragedy set in motion a personal renewal. Finally able to stop blaming myself, I registered to attend boarding school in Maine, where I hoped to escape my family’s anguish and make a fresh academic start. Admittedly, my fantasies of finding success at a new school were not immediately realized. Despite improved ADD medication and antidepressants, I still encountered struggles with deadlines and self-confidence, and again found myself forging a reputation for unreliability among both peers and teachers. Yet, thanks to the school’s supportive atmosphere and the incredible support of my mother and my new ADD coach, I found myself making the first few steps toward positive change.
The decision to hire an ADD coach came in the spring of my junior year, after neuropsychological testing revealed the true extent to which my ADD and depression were limiting my academic success. Although it was already too late for me to significantly alter my junior grades, my coach, Laurie, began leading me through a series of exercises to improve my focus and increase my work speed. Yet the greatest lesson Laurie taught me was not academic, but psychological. Having always believed that ADD was a problem to be overcome, I was now instructed to embrace my learning difference as just that.
As Laurie allowed me to see, ADD isn’t a disorder at all, but a chemical difference in the brain that produces some of the most creative, intelligent, and successful people in the world. Many of history’s true geniuses, those men and women who defied convention and took the world by storm, had ADD, and many of them performed poorly in their youth, before learning to harness their gift. With this insight, my inner struggle-my worry that I had lost touch with my evident childhood gifts-quieted. As I now saw, my remarkable childhood was not the result of Kat before ADD, but Kat thriving in her ADD and using that gift to its fullest. While ADD presents me with some difficult challenges, it also contributes to the personal characteristics I treasure most: intelligence, creativity, flexibility, intuitiveness, tenacity, and the ability to think outside, inside, over, behind, and around the box. Ultimately, it is only through these qualities that I can achieve greatness. As I once predicted, time did reveal to me the secret to flight: it is found not in magic capes or pillowcase parachutes, but in my own multifaceted, magical mind.
As school began this fall, I felt the old familiar lift, the excitement over new classes and new possibilities. Yet unlike years past, my excitement continued past the first round of assignments. To be sure, I still struggled to maintain a consistent focus and to complete assignments as rapidly as my classmates. As a result, my first-trimester English grade was in no way reflective of my performance in that class. I understand that the remainder of this year will be a constant effort to apply Laurie’s lessons to my schoolwork, and I am eager to continue this process. Yet finally, I have faith that despite-nay, because of-my ADD, I am truly capable of flying.
At the age of four, I held the potential to be every bit the person I now aspire to be. I was bright, charming, and creative, but most importantly, I had faith that I could do anything-even fly. Fourteen years later, I have rediscovered my wings. As I look into the future, I am filled again with the hope, confidence, and ambition of my childhood. I now look forward to college as a place that will guide and encourage me (perhaps with a few watery landings) as I flout the bounds of conformity and mediocrity and reach toward uncharted air.