Admission Essay, Draft 1---DONE!
Sooo....finally finished my admission essay/personal statement for UW.....it was hard. Not just one question more of explaining a ton of things....problem now is that they want 2-3 pages double spaced and I have freaking 4.5 pages single spaced....sooooo....Anyone wanna read through it for me and help me cut it down in half? :-) Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeeeeee......
University of Washington Transfer Application: Personal Statement for MARY L. RIPP
For the last five years, everything that I have done has been in hopes of helping me to achieve my future goals. All I want to do is help people. I want to better other people’s lives and really make a difference in the world. After traveling to various third world countries in high school, I knew that whatever I ended up doing in my future, it had to be something that involved the international community. While I am proud to be an American, through my travels in the world I have seen how others live and it has lead me to change the way I lead my own life and how I look at everything around me. On my last trip to Belize I decided what I wanted to study International Development. Once I had made this decision I started looking at colleges all around the world that had International Development programs, as a result, I found the little known American University in Washington, DC. The more I read and researched the university, the more I liked it and my senior year I applied early decision. Much to my delight, I was accepted.
By the time the fall of my freshman year rolled around, I knew I was ready to start my new life in Washington, DC, over three-thousand miles away from my home in Seattle. Fearless, like most other 18 year olds, I registered in the hardest classes I could get into, despite being a freshman. When I was invited to join the universities pilot program for their University College: Cross Cultural Communications class, I was ecstatic. It was described to us a program that was similar to the University Honors program, with added elements. We had an added seminar each week with our professor; we had guest speakers, and were given access to the top scholars in various fields based off our course. We also frequently went on trips around the DC area, meeting various politicians and staff members of congress. In addition the added class time, the people in each class-approximately 20 students-lived together on the same floor in the various dorms on campus.
Over the course of my freshman year, through the various classes I took, I began to hone my interests in. As part of my major, I was required to choose an area of the world to study. After much thought and research I decided that I wanted to focus on East Asia: China, Korea and Japan in particular. The more classes I took in this area, the more interest I developed in China. My senior year of high school I spent two weeks in Beijing and fell in love with it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to focus my studies on just China. I was interested in learning as much as I could about the government, history, culture, language and people of this country. It was during the spring of my freshman year that I decided I wanted to attempt to design my own major focusing on Chinese Language and China. Much to my dismay, I soon discovered that a program for Asian Studies, let alone China Studies, was virtually non-existent at AU, and in order to obtain a degree I would have to enroll in classes at Georgetown University and George Washington University to gain enough credit.
In addition to my interest in China, I developed a keen interest in Human Rights issues throughout the world, in particular China’s treatment of North Korean Defectors. As a result of my interest in this, I joined various clubs based around human rights issues. Along with Amnesty International, I was one of the first people to join the LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) chapter at AU. It was here that I met various human rights activists and politicians that support LiNKs goals and was able to attend the North Korea Freedom Rally at the Capital Building and meet some very well known defectors, including a 5 year old girl named Han-Mi. Despite our efforts, the club did not really take off at AU, in my opinion, due to a lack of diversity in the student population. If I am admitted to the University of Washington, one of the things that I plan on doing in the fall of 2008 is starting a chapter of LiNK at UW. I feel that unlike AU, UW is a school where LiNK would spark more interest and attract more members.
In addition to my academic studies, I was working at a local Starbucks. Due to the cost of attendance at American I was working 40 hours a week, in addition to my 17 credit course load. Even working full time, I was barely able to make ends meet. Then, two weeks before the end of my first semester I was informed by the financial aid office that a $10,000 grant I had been awarded was being pulled due to my sisters’ enrollment at the University of London, a school that despite being accredited, was not considered a university because it was overseas, thus excluded me from qualifying for the grant. As a result, I was forced to take out additional, high interest private loans to continue my studies. At the time, this felt like the right thing to do because I was so set on staying at AU, no matter the cost. Unfortunately, the stress of working so many hours for two years, in addition to stress caused by financial restraints, my grades suffered.
Shortly after I left for school, my father who I have always been incredibly close to went missing for over a week. His cell phone was shut off, none of our family or friends had heard from him in months and no one knew where he was living. Soon after I was able to get in touch with him, I returned home for a week. Although my parents had been physically separated since my junior year of high school, his unexplained disappearance took its toll on my mother. For nearly two decades she suffered from manic depression and as a result of his disappearance was put in the hospital by police on a suicide watch. My second day I was at home, the suspicions of family and friends were confirmed and I discovered that my father had been using Methamphetamine for quite some time. I also discovered that in addition to his drug addiction, he was addicted to gambling and had managed to accrue nearly $50,000 in debts. My mother, who crippled by her depression and increasing failing health was unable to handle the stress of the situation. During my week long stay at home I was put in charge of finding a lawyer to file a legal separation for her and my father to protect her from his debt. The stress of the whole situation on me was almost more then I could take, but I had no choice but to handle it and get things as situated as I could before returning to school. After much persuasion, I was able to convince my father to agree to go to rehab.
We decided that on my second to last day home I would drive him to his brothers’ house in Woodland, WA, where my uncle and aunt would see to it that he got into rehab. At the end of the day, he did not show up and as a last resort I gave him an ultimatum: either go to rehab and get the help he obviously needed or I was going to end my relationship with him. He chose the latter and I would not speak to him or see him for nearly a year. It was during this time that I began to develop depression, insomnia and panic attacks.
I never had a very good relationship with my mother and my father was always the one I could turn to. With him gone, I was almost lost and felt that I had no where to turn. Along with my sister, I was First Generation College bound in both my mother and fathers families. My mother, born at the start of the Korean War only completed the seventh grade. As the oldest daughter, she stopped going to school and began working to help support her family. My father, after completeling high school joined the Army. During his 20 year career he was injured while stationed in Korea and suffered from long term nerve damage in his legs and numerous back problems which required surgeries. As a result of his injuries he has not been able to work since 1995 and was declared 100% disabled and unemployable by both the Army and Department of Veterans Affairs. As a result of his physical ailments, he too began to get depressed and tried to find relief in any place he could.
Growing up, my parents ran a dry cleaner to support our family. Starting when I was 5 years old I helped them in any way I could, which at that time was sweeping the parking lot. By the time I was in middle school I was running our Laundromat-dry cleaners by myself on Saturdays and Sundays. In high school I was heavily involved in extra curricular activities. I was both class president and president of Computers for the World, a club that worked .with local Rotary clubs to install computers labs in schools in third world countries. In addition to these commitments, I was on the varsity tennis team all four years and worked for the City of Seattle as in intern, refurbishing computers to be donated to the Seattle School District. Along with working there, I continued to work at my parents’ dry cleaner. In high school, I was able to handle all these commitments and take AP classes because I had the support of my family. While at school 3,000 miles away, I lacked this support system and as a result was failing.
During winter break of my sophomore year, I finally admitted to my mother and sister how depressed I had been feeling for the past year and a half and the problems that I was having handling all the stress of school, work and family problems. They both agreed that it would be a good idea for me to come home and see a psychiatrist. In February of 2007 I met with my current psychiatrist. She diagnosed me with severe depression, insomnia and a panic disorder. I started taking anti-depressants and sleep aids and hoped that I would be able to return to school to finish out my semester.
Unfortunately, the depression had already taken its toll on me. By the time I saw her I was sleeping an average of 3 hours a night and would have a panic attack at any stressful situation. The thought of returning to school, something that once excited me like nothing else, now caused me to have panic attacks. I ended up staying home the rest of the semester, resting and trying to get myself back in order mentally. Recently, at the urging of my psychiatrist, I began to attempt to rebuild my relationship with my father, if for nothing else then my own sanity. It was not until mid-summer that I felt confident that I was ready to return to school and get my life back together.
At the end of July, a few weeks before I was supposed to return to DC I was painting my moms house and had an accident. While painting the house, the ladder I was using began to tip out from under me. In a split second decision, I decided to push myself off because had I stayed on the ladder I would have landed on a metal fence with the 40 pound ladder on top of me. However, I was not prepared for the landing, with my feet 8 feet off the ground. As a result of the fall, I fractured and shattered over 10 bones in both of my feet and was informed that two surgeries would be required to repair the damage. I have now been in a wheel chair for four months, unable to put weight on either foot and I will not be able to until mid-December; and then will be facing months of grueling physical therapy before I will really be able to walk again. It has been during the many months of lying in bed, unable to do little more then read, surf the net and watch TV, that I have been doing a lot of thinking about my life and my goals.
During this time I realized, that although American is an incredible school, it just is not for me. It is something that I feel I have known since I first arrived in DC but did not want to admit to myself. Although I have met some incredible people and formed innumerable memories, I feel that DC is not, at this time, the place for me. Although my goals have not changed, I feel that if I stay in DC I will not be able to reach them. As a result of my lack of financial aid and support from American I have already had to take out almost $40,000 in private and federal loans for only two years of school. My ultimate goals are to get a Masters in Human Rights and get a law degree in either Human Rights or International Law. At the rate I am going, financially, there would be no way I could achieve this while paying over $20,000 a year for my undergraduate degree. Further more, after graduation, I hope to work for a non-profit such as Amnesty International, or ideally, go on to work at the Hague with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees: career goals that most likely would not allow me to pay off my student loans. The realization that I would no longer be able to attend American was devastating for me, but I had to make a responsible decision to help ensure my future.
After a lot of research and talking to various people I realized that the University of Washington would be a much better fit for me in many aspects. Academically, for China Studies and Chinese, as well as Human Rights, the programs are much more developed and established then American’s. I would be able to learn so much more at UW then I would at American. Additionally, for my own physical and mental health UW would be a much better fit. By staying in Seattle I would be able to continue to see my psychiatrist, orthopedic surgeons and physical therapist. I would also be able to continue to help my mother, whose health is increasingly deteriorating due to heart problems. My father also, who I have began to rebuild my relationship with, was recently diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing surgery, chemo and radiation therapy in the coming months and needs my support. Although I still have not forgiven him for his past actions and the impact they have had on my life, I would not be able to forgive myself if something happened to him and things were left they are.
On top of the academic and personal reasons for wanting to go to UW, financially, it is much more feasible and responsible for me. With the lower tuition I will not need to work and will be able to fully immerse myself in my studies and get the grades that I know can and need to attain my future goals. I will also not be stressed with the prospect of graduating with $80,000 in loans with only a bachelor’s degree to show for it. I would be able attend both graduate and law school with much less stress about my financial future. In preparation for my hopeful acceptance to UW, I am planning on enrolling in two courses for the Winter 2008 quarter; with plans of easing myself back into life as a student and begin fulfilling some of the course requirements for my major.
After making the decision to apply to the University of Washington, I realized that I finally felt happy, relaxed and at peace, three things I have not felt in a long time. While I know I have a lot of hard work ahead of me to achieve my goals and substantially raise my GPA, I feel that comprehensively, UW is the best fit for me. It meets all my needs and more and if admitted I hope to be able to make a lasting impression on the university and contribute positively to the student body. I once again feel that fearlessness that I have lost over the past two and a half years. I feel that after everything I have been through I can take just about anything that life throws at me, in my academic, professional and personal lives.
Although the beginning of my college experience has been anything but ideal, I have learned a lot from it and it has made me even stronger then I was before. I learned that sometimes I need to take a step back and reassess the situation and make hard decisions that are required in life. I also learned, that while independence is a very important factor in developing who we are, sometimes we still need to return to our roots and rely on others to keep us focused and help us when needed. Although I am only 20 years old, I feel that I have already learned many of life’s lessons and as a result am better equipped to deal with life and all the hurdles it will undoubtedly throw my way. I feel that now, I am equipped with everything that I need to live up to my potential. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to be able to proudly call my self and University of Washington Husky very soon.
University of Washington Transfer Application: Personal Statement for MARY L. RIPP
For the last five years, everything that I have done has been in hopes of helping me to achieve my future goals. All I want to do is help people. I want to better other people’s lives and really make a difference in the world. After traveling to various third world countries in high school, I knew that whatever I ended up doing in my future, it had to be something that involved the international community. While I am proud to be an American, through my travels in the world I have seen how others live and it has lead me to change the way I lead my own life and how I look at everything around me. On my last trip to Belize I decided what I wanted to study International Development. Once I had made this decision I started looking at colleges all around the world that had International Development programs, as a result, I found the little known American University in Washington, DC. The more I read and researched the university, the more I liked it and my senior year I applied early decision. Much to my delight, I was accepted.
By the time the fall of my freshman year rolled around, I knew I was ready to start my new life in Washington, DC, over three-thousand miles away from my home in Seattle. Fearless, like most other 18 year olds, I registered in the hardest classes I could get into, despite being a freshman. When I was invited to join the universities pilot program for their University College: Cross Cultural Communications class, I was ecstatic. It was described to us a program that was similar to the University Honors program, with added elements. We had an added seminar each week with our professor; we had guest speakers, and were given access to the top scholars in various fields based off our course. We also frequently went on trips around the DC area, meeting various politicians and staff members of congress. In addition the added class time, the people in each class-approximately 20 students-lived together on the same floor in the various dorms on campus.
Over the course of my freshman year, through the various classes I took, I began to hone my interests in. As part of my major, I was required to choose an area of the world to study. After much thought and research I decided that I wanted to focus on East Asia: China, Korea and Japan in particular. The more classes I took in this area, the more interest I developed in China. My senior year of high school I spent two weeks in Beijing and fell in love with it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to focus my studies on just China. I was interested in learning as much as I could about the government, history, culture, language and people of this country. It was during the spring of my freshman year that I decided I wanted to attempt to design my own major focusing on Chinese Language and China. Much to my dismay, I soon discovered that a program for Asian Studies, let alone China Studies, was virtually non-existent at AU, and in order to obtain a degree I would have to enroll in classes at Georgetown University and George Washington University to gain enough credit.
In addition to my interest in China, I developed a keen interest in Human Rights issues throughout the world, in particular China’s treatment of North Korean Defectors. As a result of my interest in this, I joined various clubs based around human rights issues. Along with Amnesty International, I was one of the first people to join the LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) chapter at AU. It was here that I met various human rights activists and politicians that support LiNKs goals and was able to attend the North Korea Freedom Rally at the Capital Building and meet some very well known defectors, including a 5 year old girl named Han-Mi. Despite our efforts, the club did not really take off at AU, in my opinion, due to a lack of diversity in the student population. If I am admitted to the University of Washington, one of the things that I plan on doing in the fall of 2008 is starting a chapter of LiNK at UW. I feel that unlike AU, UW is a school where LiNK would spark more interest and attract more members.
In addition to my academic studies, I was working at a local Starbucks. Due to the cost of attendance at American I was working 40 hours a week, in addition to my 17 credit course load. Even working full time, I was barely able to make ends meet. Then, two weeks before the end of my first semester I was informed by the financial aid office that a $10,000 grant I had been awarded was being pulled due to my sisters’ enrollment at the University of London, a school that despite being accredited, was not considered a university because it was overseas, thus excluded me from qualifying for the grant. As a result, I was forced to take out additional, high interest private loans to continue my studies. At the time, this felt like the right thing to do because I was so set on staying at AU, no matter the cost. Unfortunately, the stress of working so many hours for two years, in addition to stress caused by financial restraints, my grades suffered.
Shortly after I left for school, my father who I have always been incredibly close to went missing for over a week. His cell phone was shut off, none of our family or friends had heard from him in months and no one knew where he was living. Soon after I was able to get in touch with him, I returned home for a week. Although my parents had been physically separated since my junior year of high school, his unexplained disappearance took its toll on my mother. For nearly two decades she suffered from manic depression and as a result of his disappearance was put in the hospital by police on a suicide watch. My second day I was at home, the suspicions of family and friends were confirmed and I discovered that my father had been using Methamphetamine for quite some time. I also discovered that in addition to his drug addiction, he was addicted to gambling and had managed to accrue nearly $50,000 in debts. My mother, who crippled by her depression and increasing failing health was unable to handle the stress of the situation. During my week long stay at home I was put in charge of finding a lawyer to file a legal separation for her and my father to protect her from his debt. The stress of the whole situation on me was almost more then I could take, but I had no choice but to handle it and get things as situated as I could before returning to school. After much persuasion, I was able to convince my father to agree to go to rehab.
We decided that on my second to last day home I would drive him to his brothers’ house in Woodland, WA, where my uncle and aunt would see to it that he got into rehab. At the end of the day, he did not show up and as a last resort I gave him an ultimatum: either go to rehab and get the help he obviously needed or I was going to end my relationship with him. He chose the latter and I would not speak to him or see him for nearly a year. It was during this time that I began to develop depression, insomnia and panic attacks.
I never had a very good relationship with my mother and my father was always the one I could turn to. With him gone, I was almost lost and felt that I had no where to turn. Along with my sister, I was First Generation College bound in both my mother and fathers families. My mother, born at the start of the Korean War only completed the seventh grade. As the oldest daughter, she stopped going to school and began working to help support her family. My father, after completeling high school joined the Army. During his 20 year career he was injured while stationed in Korea and suffered from long term nerve damage in his legs and numerous back problems which required surgeries. As a result of his injuries he has not been able to work since 1995 and was declared 100% disabled and unemployable by both the Army and Department of Veterans Affairs. As a result of his physical ailments, he too began to get depressed and tried to find relief in any place he could.
Growing up, my parents ran a dry cleaner to support our family. Starting when I was 5 years old I helped them in any way I could, which at that time was sweeping the parking lot. By the time I was in middle school I was running our Laundromat-dry cleaners by myself on Saturdays and Sundays. In high school I was heavily involved in extra curricular activities. I was both class president and president of Computers for the World, a club that worked .with local Rotary clubs to install computers labs in schools in third world countries. In addition to these commitments, I was on the varsity tennis team all four years and worked for the City of Seattle as in intern, refurbishing computers to be donated to the Seattle School District. Along with working there, I continued to work at my parents’ dry cleaner. In high school, I was able to handle all these commitments and take AP classes because I had the support of my family. While at school 3,000 miles away, I lacked this support system and as a result was failing.
During winter break of my sophomore year, I finally admitted to my mother and sister how depressed I had been feeling for the past year and a half and the problems that I was having handling all the stress of school, work and family problems. They both agreed that it would be a good idea for me to come home and see a psychiatrist. In February of 2007 I met with my current psychiatrist. She diagnosed me with severe depression, insomnia and a panic disorder. I started taking anti-depressants and sleep aids and hoped that I would be able to return to school to finish out my semester.
Unfortunately, the depression had already taken its toll on me. By the time I saw her I was sleeping an average of 3 hours a night and would have a panic attack at any stressful situation. The thought of returning to school, something that once excited me like nothing else, now caused me to have panic attacks. I ended up staying home the rest of the semester, resting and trying to get myself back in order mentally. Recently, at the urging of my psychiatrist, I began to attempt to rebuild my relationship with my father, if for nothing else then my own sanity. It was not until mid-summer that I felt confident that I was ready to return to school and get my life back together.
At the end of July, a few weeks before I was supposed to return to DC I was painting my moms house and had an accident. While painting the house, the ladder I was using began to tip out from under me. In a split second decision, I decided to push myself off because had I stayed on the ladder I would have landed on a metal fence with the 40 pound ladder on top of me. However, I was not prepared for the landing, with my feet 8 feet off the ground. As a result of the fall, I fractured and shattered over 10 bones in both of my feet and was informed that two surgeries would be required to repair the damage. I have now been in a wheel chair for four months, unable to put weight on either foot and I will not be able to until mid-December; and then will be facing months of grueling physical therapy before I will really be able to walk again. It has been during the many months of lying in bed, unable to do little more then read, surf the net and watch TV, that I have been doing a lot of thinking about my life and my goals.
During this time I realized, that although American is an incredible school, it just is not for me. It is something that I feel I have known since I first arrived in DC but did not want to admit to myself. Although I have met some incredible people and formed innumerable memories, I feel that DC is not, at this time, the place for me. Although my goals have not changed, I feel that if I stay in DC I will not be able to reach them. As a result of my lack of financial aid and support from American I have already had to take out almost $40,000 in private and federal loans for only two years of school. My ultimate goals are to get a Masters in Human Rights and get a law degree in either Human Rights or International Law. At the rate I am going, financially, there would be no way I could achieve this while paying over $20,000 a year for my undergraduate degree. Further more, after graduation, I hope to work for a non-profit such as Amnesty International, or ideally, go on to work at the Hague with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees: career goals that most likely would not allow me to pay off my student loans. The realization that I would no longer be able to attend American was devastating for me, but I had to make a responsible decision to help ensure my future.
After a lot of research and talking to various people I realized that the University of Washington would be a much better fit for me in many aspects. Academically, for China Studies and Chinese, as well as Human Rights, the programs are much more developed and established then American’s. I would be able to learn so much more at UW then I would at American. Additionally, for my own physical and mental health UW would be a much better fit. By staying in Seattle I would be able to continue to see my psychiatrist, orthopedic surgeons and physical therapist. I would also be able to continue to help my mother, whose health is increasingly deteriorating due to heart problems. My father also, who I have began to rebuild my relationship with, was recently diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing surgery, chemo and radiation therapy in the coming months and needs my support. Although I still have not forgiven him for his past actions and the impact they have had on my life, I would not be able to forgive myself if something happened to him and things were left they are.
On top of the academic and personal reasons for wanting to go to UW, financially, it is much more feasible and responsible for me. With the lower tuition I will not need to work and will be able to fully immerse myself in my studies and get the grades that I know can and need to attain my future goals. I will also not be stressed with the prospect of graduating with $80,000 in loans with only a bachelor’s degree to show for it. I would be able attend both graduate and law school with much less stress about my financial future. In preparation for my hopeful acceptance to UW, I am planning on enrolling in two courses for the Winter 2008 quarter; with plans of easing myself back into life as a student and begin fulfilling some of the course requirements for my major.
After making the decision to apply to the University of Washington, I realized that I finally felt happy, relaxed and at peace, three things I have not felt in a long time. While I know I have a lot of hard work ahead of me to achieve my goals and substantially raise my GPA, I feel that comprehensively, UW is the best fit for me. It meets all my needs and more and if admitted I hope to be able to make a lasting impression on the university and contribute positively to the student body. I once again feel that fearlessness that I have lost over the past two and a half years. I feel that after everything I have been through I can take just about anything that life throws at me, in my academic, professional and personal lives.
Although the beginning of my college experience has been anything but ideal, I have learned a lot from it and it has made me even stronger then I was before. I learned that sometimes I need to take a step back and reassess the situation and make hard decisions that are required in life. I also learned, that while independence is a very important factor in developing who we are, sometimes we still need to return to our roots and rely on others to keep us focused and help us when needed. Although I am only 20 years old, I feel that I have already learned many of life’s lessons and as a result am better equipped to deal with life and all the hurdles it will undoubtedly throw my way. I feel that now, I am equipped with everything that I need to live up to my potential. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to be able to proudly call my self and University of Washington Husky very soon.