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By unlocking the
door to (name) past, one sees his thoughts and actions when they first
took hold of his persona. This essay serves as a key to that door and to
my current personality.
The first beloved
books in my life were the Sesame Street Encyclopedia volumes. At three,
I wasn't old enough to read them, but I always wanted to have them read
to me. In fact, I memorized the ten volume set so when my parents would
skip some pages I would ask them to read what they skipped. After
learning to read on my own, my favorite book became the anatomy volume
in the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia. Courtesy of a supermarket book offer,
I was the only kindergartner who knew about fertilized egg cells. As I
grew older, I continued to read largely because reading taught me so
much outside of what we learned in school.
Since
kindergarten, my extensive reading also originated my various interests,
especially in science. Living within walking distance of the library, I
went there every day, enabling me to dabble in a different subject
during each visit. By the fourth grade, I had read all the chemistry
books containing fewer than 200 pages, by the fifth grade I was reading
about Einstein's Theory of Relativity. During that time period, I became
so interested in astronomy through Odyssey Magazine that I sold holiday
cards door-to-door in order to buy a telescope.
Reading also
helped me in school. A little ingenuity didn't hurt, either. For
example, as part of my third grade reading grade, I needed to do some
independent reading. Every sixty pages in a book counted for one star of
credit and in order to get an "A," I needed fifteen stars. I was greedy
and saw this as an opportunity to shine far above the rest of my
classmates. Instead of reading many short books, I devoured 300-page
sagas by Laura Ingalls Wilder. When everyone else got eighteen stars,
the little banana with my name on it had 45. This inner drive and
competition still motivates my work today, but unfortunately, no one
gives out stars anymore.
Despite this
desire to do my best, I was quite normal, except for a slight
perfectionist's twist to everything. I too owned a cabbage patch doll,
but it was taken away because I cared for it excessively. On one
Halloween, I dressed up as Dracula just like a dozen other kids, but I
wanted my hair to look so realistic that it took a week to wash out all
the gel I used. Finally, much like any other child, I fantasized about
adventures, but I took fantasizing one step further. I recorded my
make-believe adventures on tape so they could be critiqued afterward.
One of the few
things I was not a perfectionist at was my writing. Due to a lack of
self-confidence, I would plan papers well in advance but put them off
until the very last minute. This habit continues today, accounting for
the transition-lacking stream-of-consciousness style found in almost all
my writing. I just hope it appeals to Cornell admissions officers.
Comments
This writer
undoubtedly made an impression as a child with his voracious reading
skills. He is unfortunately a little too aware of this throughout the
essay. His attempt to make himself appear driven and ambitious ends up
coming across as a bit over the top, and one wonders how such an extreme
perfectionist will be able to take the pressures of college life. He
could have also done without the bashing of his writing skills in the
last paragraph. This display of insecurity undercuts the overconfident
tone of the rest of the piece, making the reader suspect that it might
have been more bravado and a desire to impress than his true voice. The
last paragraph reads like a disclaimer. This is not a good essay. A
little editing would have saved this applicant a rejection letter.
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