Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal Statement: Topic of your choice.
The heat was overwhelming. Sweat trickled down my forehead in steady, eye-stinging beads. I bent over to grab another bundle of rice seedlings, and suddenly the world went out in a white hot flash. Strong arms caught me before I hit the mud. I dimly recognized my aunt's sunburned face, caught between a worried frown and a sympathetic smile. 'Sun stroke,' she whispered, 'to the shade with you.' Surging with undisguised relief, I half-crawled, half-stumbled into the refuge beneath a tree, and plucked off the conical straw hat that had failed to shield me from the assault of the July sun. I must have been quite a sight to behold to the knowing eye: a city girl sitting on the edge of a paddy field in northern Vietnam, up to the knees in drying mud, suffering from sunstroke on the first day of the planting season. Leaning against the cool surface of the tree bark, I tried in vain to avoid thinking about the reasons that had brought me there in the first place. My experiment with manual labor was supposed to keep at bay the reality that I was, in a sense, running away. It didn't work. I found my mind being inexorably drawn back to my cool, mud-free house in Hanoi. In Hanoi, reminded my frustratingly one-track brain, there were also SATs, the advent of the final year of high school, and, looming darkly on the horizon, the US college application process. At this thought, the ringing in my head was replaced by sharp stabs of guilt as I searched myself for the source of my weakness. For years, I had painstakingly sketched out my post-school education plan with unceasing enthusiasm, but now when it came to the actual plunge, why did college intimidate me so? I had always considered myself flexible, open to changes, and reasonably sure of myself whenever there were challenges to overcome. I had not been, for instance, paralyzed by the language and culture barriers that faced me when, at twelve years old, I had suddenly been whisked away to New York City. When English finally became a part of me, it was exhilarating but not surprising. Then before I knew it, I was back in my native Vietnam, and floundering for breath in the stifling, exam-frenzied classroom of the country's best-known 'and most competitive- public high school. Somehow, I had found a way to cope with that as well. Big changes -cultural and otherwise - were not, therefore, a wholly new territory. Why then? Possibly, it was because college would be like nothing I had faced. Even in New York, I had had my family by my side. Plus, high school was an environment whose challenges I knew well. In college, I would no longer be slogging through the same rote exams in pursuit of trivial grades. I would, for the first time in my life, be studying for myself, in preparation for what would come next - real life. I would not be able to blame the challenges I would undoubtedly confront in the future on circumstances beyond my control, for studying abroad had been entirely my choice. There was the crux of my problem: fear of taking risks. Applying to college had given me the first whiff of life as an adult, and I could not be certain I was entirely ready for that leap. I was rudely shaken out of contemplation by the shrill trilling of cicadas in my ears, and the dull thuds of heavy hooves. Caught off-guard, I gazed in horror at the grinning face of my cousin, who perched atop a huge water buffalo, his family's cud-chewing tractor. The animal bellowed loudly at the same time my cousin spoke: 'Want a ride?' The first time I had been offered a buffalo ride, I had been four, and visiting this place, my father's ancestral home, for the first time. Unlike my country-born father, I had been out of my depth and had refused with tears. Maybe this time - Maybe not. I declined the offer quickly while the animal shook its fearsome horns in my direction, and seethed at my cousin's patronizing chuckle as his mammoth steed lumbered away. Picking at the flakes of mud on my calf, I pondered the different life circumstances that had bound me to books and modern appliances, and ordained my cousin the King of the Water Buffalo. Yet come September this country-savvy boy was going to attend the National Economics University in Hanoi. His parents were breaking their backs in the fields some ten paces to my left, and he was going to college in a city he hardly knew. My father had done the same, leaving the land his forbearers had tilled for a dozen generations, and gone to university. He had taken a risk, and had changed his life for the better. As I looked around at the fields of red earth slowly growing green, I realized that my father and cousin were not the only ones changing. On the horizon, factories were springing up in former paddy fields. Tractors would soon be replacing the frightening water buffalo as the farmer's best friend. Vietnam was awakening after years of sleep under the conservative rule of its communist government, and was now realizing that the world had nearly left her behind. My country now sped to catch up, and was making good progress. A new wave was rising, a change that began within every Vietnamese, and it hinted of a bright future. I wanted to be part of that wave. If my cousin could leave his family and the life he had always known to pursue an education, then so could I. Somewhere beyond the borders of my country, there was a college waiting for me, promising a new start, knowledge, and most of all, change. My anxiety lingered, but was not so pungent and debilitating as before; I was finally beginning to see a way through. College, much like riding a buffalo, was an unknown, and the only way to dispel the doubt was to meet it headfirst. I would embark upon this new journey equipped with all the understanding and experience that had helped me in earlier adventures, as well as a wish for more. Tomorrow, I thought, I am going back to Hanoi. My Hanoi, ancient and elegant, bred a race of deep and quietly graceful people with a conservative streak. But even we Hanoians are willing to change in order to bring our country up-to-speed with the world. Sitting on the dyke beside my aunt's paddy field, I felt eager to confront the challenges that lay before me. There was, however, one thing I had to do first. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my cousin untying his buffalo, finishing for the day. He barely noticed me approaching, and jumped at my next words: 'So, how about that ride?'
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
On what do you place the highest value? About what are you passionate? How will you know when you've been 'successful'?
I am a child of the land, a daughter of family farmers. While money is never
abundant, the farm culture cultivates riches that money cannot buy: a sense of
community, a close bond with the land, a pride in honest work, a deeply rooted
sense of doing what is 'good' and 'right.' It also has instilled in me a desire
to learn. My childhood summers were filled with watching tiny plant sprouts pop
through the sun-baked earth in the garden, running around barefoot, and catching
lightning bugs at dusk. I would cup a tiny winged creature in my hands and peer
in between my fingers to see if it was still lighting up. 'Why, Mom? Why does
he glow?' I demanded to know. Although her answers were never very
satisfactory,
I have never stopped asking 'why.'
I believe that it is this insatiable love for learning that has propelled me
successfully through life. I have never given up asking why because I know the
great power knowledge holds. My life-long goal is to never stop learning.
Learning is as essential to me as breathing, and I honestly believe that the day
I stop learning will be the day that I die.
Because I am motivated to learn and work hard, I am a successful person. I am
not incredibly brilliant; I cannot solve long division in my head. However, I
am
driven to be the very best I can be. I try to become a better person and learn
more every day.
My willingness to work hard has changed my life. During the summer of 2002, I
traveled to Ithaca, New York, to participate in the Telluride Association Summer
Program (TASP). After enduring a lengthy application process and a grueling
interview, I was thrilled to be selected to attend this rigorous scholarship
program. At TASP, I was exposed to people with diverse ideas and backgrounds.
TASP introduced me to what true learning is - not merely accepting words as
truth
but analyzing them myself. It renewed my desire to constantly ask 'why,' and
that is why I am applying to Smith College. I feel that Smith will provide me
with an incredible environment that is very conducive to learning and living,
both inside and outside the classroom.
My passions are deep and varied. While I have always fared well in academic
classes, my true love is for creative expression. I am very involved in music
and art at my school, as well as drama and competitive speech. I have played
the
French horn since I was in fifth grade. Although the horn is a difficult
instrument to learn, I have stuck with it because I love it. Recently, I was
selected to participate in the All-State Band, an honor bestowed to the top one
percent of musicians in the state. To me, music and art are ways to communicate
expressions deeper than words. There are few feelings comparable to realizing
the possibilities when facing a blank sheet of paper and box of oil pastels.
While academic subjects have taught me important logic skills and educated me
about core subjects, these artistic endeavors have taught me to breathe with my
soul.
I am very passionate about music, art, and living life to the fullest, but more
importantly, I am passionate about people. I am determined to change the world
-
and if not that, then to at least change someone's world. This is why I have
been a volunteer leader for a troop of Girl Scouts for the past six years. I
have followed them from first grade to sixth, and the impact of this group on my
life has been tremendous. There are few things more satisfying than one of
these
small children coming up to give a hug in the grocery store, or, while on a
nature walk, feeling a little hand slip into my own. I would like to think that
in the past six years, I have made a difference in these girls lives. I know
that they have made a difference in mine. Additionally, I have tutored
elementary students, given music lessons, taught Vacation Bible School at my
church, and volunteered at a local nursing home. I also serve in a number of
leadership positions, including drum major for our marching band, president of
the senior class, four-year president of my 4-H club, and president of National
Honor Society. One of my strongest personal assets is my ability to unite
people
under a common goal: I am not one to sit around complaining about a problem if
I
can solve it.
What is success? Am I a successful person? While Webster's Dictionary defines
success as 'a favorable termination of a venture,' I believe that true success
will not be a finite feeling. I will be truly successful when I can put forth
my
best effort in everything I do and come out on top. I realize that my best
effort will not always be good enough, but in most cases, it will. I will be
successful when I crawl into bed at night thoroughly exhausted but satisfied
that
I have had the courage to give all that I could, regardless of the outcome.
For me, success is only truly sweet if there is a certain risk of failure
involved. I have auditioned for the All-State band every year of my high school
career, and this is the first year I have been selected. The key to success is
to keep going after others have given up. It took three failures to come up
with
one success, but I am very proud of that success. Most things that are
worthwhile
do not come easily. I enjoy the little successes, but never give up attaining
the larger ones. As one of my favorite teachers used to repeat over and over
during 7 a.m. marching band practices when the temperature was dipping below 32
degrees and all we wanted to do was go back to bed, 'When you stop getting
better, you stop being good.' My goal is to never stop getting better. I am
excited about the opportunities Scripps offers to its students and the
interdisciplinary focus of Scripps because I feel it truly reflects my
interests.
I look to college not seeking merely an academic experience, but one that
prepares me for real life.
I cannot think of any better words to describe what I seek to gain from my
college experience than those of Ellen Browning Scripps: 'and the ability to
live
confidently, courageously, and hopefully.'
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
What was your biggest challenge in life and what did you learn from it?
A Day in the Life 'Go to the door! All right, are you ready to jump?' 'Sir, yes, SIR!' 'Speak up! Are you sure?' Psychologists say that of all heights, people most fear falling from 11.3 meters above the ground - about the height of a four-story building. The Korean army exploits this fact in its 11.3-meter tall Mak training towers, reasoning that if a soldier can conquer his or her fear of jumping from that height, he or she can jump from any. That my own memories of the Mak tower persist so intensely stands in stark contrast to my recollections of the other trials of life in the 701 Regiment of the Special Assault Commando Unit. Despite its foreboding moniker, the 701 Regiment was less a training ground for elite special forces than it was an army-operated camp for over-stimulated adolescent boys. This is not to say 'military life' was devoid of challenges - indeed, survival in the 701 Regiment involved precisely the kind of tribulations I as a twelve-year-old boy was ill prepared to contend with. The food was tasteless and underdone, and access to television and junk food was strictly prohibited. The instructors kept us under constant surveillance, filling our days with drills and exercises. Today, I feel gratitude for the discipline the instructors labored to instill in us, and a bemused nostalgia for the twelve-year-old boy whose most profound grief arose from losing two Saturdays' worth of soccer with his friends. But the emotions stirred by these recollections remain dulled, muted by the hazy expanse of time. Not so with the Mak tower. Early the morning of our second day, we assembled at the base of the tall mountain overlooking the camp, our first exercise of the day. The ascent was steep and our only relief was the cooling breeze blowing down from the summit. Twenty minutes into the hike, we came to a rocky plateau dug into the side of the mountain where the instructors ordered us to halt. There, we saw a half-dozen soldiers poised on top of a tall wooden tower. A cry rang out from the tower, and without a moment's deliberation, the men leapt from their perches, restrained from certain death by only four impossibly-thin ropes attached to a cable. I was terrified. Our instructors turned to their silent regiment. 'No one has to do it. If you don't want to do it, you can leave.' Several of my fellows immediately fell out of the group and headed back to camp. My fear, bolstered by reason, urged me to go with them, but a peculiar resolve compelled me to stay. Even now, I struggle to account for this alien resolve that carried me up the four flights of wooden stairs and steadied my hands as I fastened the safety gear around me. I do not think it was bravery, for I was very much afraid, and had I perceived a choice in the matter, I may not have been able to do it. Rather, I think it was a sense of purpose that guided me. Five years have passed since the afternoon I stood atop the Mak tower, but to this day I can feel the echoes of the adrenaline that coursed through my veins as I stepped to the edge of the precipice, and the mere recall of the ground 11.3 meters and some unfathomable distance below still shoots an icy jangliness through my shoulders and into the back of my skull. The wind blew fiercely as I readied myself, drowning out the barking of the drill instructor, pressing me back into the security of the tower's bulwarks. A ripple of indecision rolled through me and then in an instant, was gone, carried away in the slipstream. With my eyes wide and fixed on the horizon, I pushed off. The beginnings of change for me occurred that afternoon on the mountain. Though my friends watching from below would later insist that I passed only through open air, moments after I leapt, I felt myself crossing a threshold. Hurtling toward the earth, strapped into a confining safety vest, I tasted a kind of freedom previously unknown to me, the freedom of a world unbounded by ones fears. The process of disentangling myself from them has been gradual. Five years later, I am still all too often distanced from life by a wall of my anxieties. But the freedom I came to know just a little that afternoon provided me a glimpse of the riches that lie behind it.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal Statement. The statement is your opportunity to tell us about yourself; it may address your intellectual interests, significant accomplishments, or obstacles overcome, personal or professional goals, educational achievements, or any way in which your perspective, viewpoints, or experiences will add to the richness of the educational environment of the School of Law.
Six years ago, as a freshman in high school living in Sweden, I had the opportunity to travel to Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of a program aimed at democratic reconstruction through student exchange. By accident I found myself traveling alone by bus and train in the recently war-torn country, and I believe that it was there that my commitment to the legal profession was cemented. For someone who had grown up chatting about war and politics at the dinner table, this was a shocking confrontation with a comfortable abstraction. My grandparents had lived through the Partition of India, the bloodiest migration the world ever saw. While they were fortunate to escape its horrors unscathed, they could vividly recount the lawlessness that raged during those days, and how utterly powerless the common man was in the face of the bandits who ruled at their whim. But nothing had prepared me for the sheer despair in the eyes of my fellow passengers on that bus. It was as if everything of value had been taken from them, and more importantly, that there was nothing worth living for. The breakdown of law during war was what had led them to this awful predicament. Yet, I also realized that peace, while necessary, was by no means a sufficient condition for hope. As a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, I had heard stories of religious persecution all my life, and what always struck me as the most disturbing element of these accounts was how the authorities in my native country Pakistan had used law and its human arms, the courts and the police, as instruments to further oppress my community. The realization that the law was being used to sanitize unjust murder and incarceration filled me with a quiet rage. But I also found solace in the fact that at least these men, evil as their actions were, had decided to operate within the confines of the legal system instead of resorting to force openly. Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, I was once told by a professor. College has been a transforming experience in my life, as one would expect. Two great forces guide my intellectual life now that I approach graduation. On the one hand, I have spent four years immersed in political philosophy, having been given the enormous privilege of a Great Books education at a state university. Yet these years have also been a period when I have rediscovered the place of faith in my life, and it has acquired a new dimension, one that has allowed me to integrate my identity as a Muslim into that of the student-scholar. I am writing two ndergraduate theses this coming spring: the first is an attempt to investigate the system of religious justice in the Ottoman Empire, whereas the other will use Alexis de Tocqueville's ideas about religion and democracy as a departure point to understand the current debate about the appropriate place of religion in public life in the Islamic world. Justice is central to my understanding of faith. Muslims live their lives in a web of laws, all aimed at bettering the believers' lives. In an important sense, my interest in the legal vocation is a jihad, a term that means something rather different in my life from its common understanding. For my struggle is one that is entirely peaceful, a jihad of the pen instead of the sword. If laws are silent during war, then surely laws are the way human beings settle their differences in peace. Even hypocrisy, then, is a sign that virtue now has a lifeline. After I leave law school, I hope that I can contribute to the great struggle to bring justice and freedom to the Muslim world through legal and institutional reform. For I am convinced that liberty is essential in order to bring about justice, and I want to serve my fellow man by working to attain these intertwined goals. I believe that an internal struggle is necessary to bring about genuine reform, but I also see nothing relative about the value of freedom and justice. As an American, I feel both privileged and proud to live in the greatest country in the world, and I am convinced that it is our edifice of ordered liberty that holds the secret to this success. Studying the law is essential to understanding the constitutional regime that has sustained America, and as we look around the world, the fundamental questions the American Republic has grappled with throughout its history carry great resonance. I bring both a sense of clarity as well as great personal struggle with difficult questions with me. Three years of competitive debate has allowed me to develop the skills necessary to argue well, and to understand that there are multiple sides to virtually every difficult question human beings face. Yet I have not lost faith in our ability to search for and find truth. While I bear no illusions that law school will bring me closer to this truth, I think it is essential to my personal and intellectual quest to study the law. For what I have realized after thinking about those people on that bus and the treatment of Ahmadis in Pakistan is that in our world the law stands at the very center of human life. Whenever I tell any members of my religious community that I am pursuing a career in the law, they always tell me: "Good, we need lawyers". It is because they understand that without lawyers on their side, they have no chance to end the injustice that is being done to their community. And I am firmly convinced that we can envision laws that establish justice, and every step we take in that direction is a victory won. I want to be part of that process, and I am dedicated to the work involved in getting there. If there were a way that I could restore a glimmer of hope to the passengers on that bus, I would take the opportunity. In the final analysis, that is why I want to study the law.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
"Major" essay: personal statement.
I'm quite irritated with all the colleges I'm applying to. Though their applications are thorough and their essay questions thought-provoking, not a single one has asked me to make a list of the books I've read in the last year. My childhood friend Cindy described this question to me from one of her applications last fall, and I practically swooned with delight. This was it! This was the question! After years of pursuing various intellectual disciplines in the early hours of the morning, huddled in bed with a book and a pen, I was finally going to get to tell someone about it! Granted, two people already knew about it; my parents have been footing the bill for my outrageous literary appetite since I was small. But my mom has long since tired of hearing about Margaret Atwood's tone in Lady Oracle, and, as she puts it, 'got over' the insistent feminism of The Women's Room by 1975. My dad, a history buff to the bone, will happily lend me Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow, but rolls his eyes at the raucous comedy of A Confederacy of Dunces. My parents are already pretty educated. They've seen a lot of this before. But years of weather, death, bureaucracy, and taxes have softened mom and dad's analytical teeth. The uncompromising thesis has become too extreme: Sylvia Plath's journals too depressing, Alan Ginsberg's collected interviews too weird. If it isn't already apparent, this is not the case for me. One of my favorite childhood volumes contains the following rhyme: 'Books to the ceiling, books to the sky; my piles of books are miles high. How I love them, how I need them; I'll have a long beard by the time I read them!' Though I will most likely never grow a beard, this is a strikingly apt description of my bedroom. I own more books than the average monkey eats bananas. They make very nice end tables once I've read them. I'm obsessed with American literature in all its forms, from James Baldwin to Nathaniel Hawthorne to John Irving to Jane Smiley. I love contemplating the rich and tangled An armchair sociologist, I love reading books about foster care in New York City even though my friends tune me out when I try to share the passage of Jonathan Kozol that's haunting me. Christian mysticism is one of my newest discoveries, and I've been devouring Madeline L'Engle, John Shelby Spong, and Georges Bernanos' The Diary of A Country Priest. I also enjoy feminist literature and sociology. So, there. I've satistified my itch to share my jumbled reading tastes with some poor, unsuspecting admissions counselor. I've explained why, when asked for 'possible academic interests', I attempt to cram five or six disciplines into a tiny application blank. I'm ready to leave the world of ink and paper for the world of living, breathing people and ideas. I can't wait to take courses on all the things I've been reading about for years. My guess is, however, that no amount of education or life experience will ever stifle my habit of 1 am epiphanies with Charles Simic or rainy afternoons with Charles Dickens.
