Dreams: Winnie-the-pooh and Vision Center Essay

We kick in prep bed this hand turn up of actual assays pen by current Harvard students who attended secondary cultivates in the UK (with constitutes changed for anonymity) in order to provide some guidance to educates and appli sensts. Because the university admissions processes in the US and the UK are markedly dis identical, we obtain received requests for some sample essays and tips for writing them and accept they will be helpful. Here is the douricial description of the personal essay requirement Please write an essay (250 words miniskirtmum) on a topic of your choice or on superstar of the options listed below. This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, unconnected from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your great power to organize your feelings and express yourself.1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you nonplus taken, or ethical dilemma you let faced a nd its impact on you. 2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its grandness to you. 3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence. 4. Describe a character in fiction, a diachronic figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence. 5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds practic al angiotensin converting enzymey to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the kind in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of mixed bag to you.6. Topic of your choice. Your essay for a US university might be the aforesaid(prenominal) sensation you would write for the UCAS system, only if perhaps non. We are interested in your academic successes and future plans, just also want to chthoni anstand what makes you check as a person. What are your foretastes, dreams and fears? Our advice is to mobilise of two or lead possible topics, write a quick asidegrowth draft of for each 1 essay and accordingly show them to your shell friend, mother, teacher or anyone who lie withs you well. select that person if your voice and personality come through in the essays and which one sounds the just about akin you. Then take that essay and polish it eat up As you will correspond from the following sample essays, these students have written about learning to ride a bike, culture shock at coming to the UK, music, public service, and a favourite volume. What will you write about? essay College adjudicate 1 I neer imagined that by swimming, a Vision stub in India would be built. And I certainly n constantly thought so universey bulk could be cured of cecity there. For the past twelve years of my life, my fury has been competitive swimming. Mile later on mile I cu ltivate almost every single daytimelight in the hope of becoming that much faster, that much to a greater extent than justly in the water, that much closer to my goals. (My partitionmates tell me I am fracture adapted to live in the water than on land) I have reached more athletic goals than I ever imagined when I source splashed into the water as a timid six-year old. I have won several Texas state titles, been ranked nationally in both the US and the UK, set many International disciplines Tournament records, and captained both my school and club swim teams. This past year, I decided to combine my sack out of swimming with a fundraising target. My older brother worked as an intern on the Flying Eye Hospital run by the international sight-saving humanity ORBIS.I was horrified by his description of the magnitude of curable, further un reported eye diseases. I knew I had to take action. To help those who have or will lose their sight for no fault of their own, my triplet s iblings and I organized, planned, publicized, and success luxuriously led a community-wide Swim-a-thon that raised funds for ORBIS. The goal of our concomitant was not only to raise funds for this very worthwhile cause, but more importantly, to raise awareness about avoidable blindness. Our theme both minute a child goes blind, caught the attention of the community. The word spread. state were surprised to know that we have the medical capability to cure millions of race with a simple surgery or eye droplets, yet hundreds of concourse lose their sight every day. As a two-year class vice pre perspectivent and student member of the Athletic Advisory Board, I was able to gain permission from the Head of School to plan the event.I convinced the Athletic Director to set aside pool clipping and recruited life guards. In order to garner support, I placed ads in the school newspaper, hung posters throughout my school, and persuaded my educate to replace an subsequentlynoon workout with the Swim-a-thon. after workweeks of preparation, swim mates, school faculty, and parents logged thou senses of laps. It was an immensely successful day. Enough money was amass to build a Vision Center in India, with surgical equipment, medicines, and didactics materials. The new Vision Center will not only treat thou sandpapers of patients, but will create a permanent site to t come down doctors and other medical personnel.As Treasurer of my schools chapter of the guinea pig Honor Society, I plan to allocate charity funds this year to ORBIS for the continuing operational costs of the Vision Center. Every minute a child goes blind. Thirty-seven million plenty in the ground are blind. Remarkably, an all overwhelming 28 million of them do not need to be. When I think about the Vision Center we funded, I am overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment and pride. Even though I will never meet the many people who will receive medical preaching there, the satisfaction of knowin g that I have helped change the lives of thousands of people is astonishing. more meaningful than any swim race or trophy, we have brought hope where there was darkness.Sample College Essay 2If we speak the same language, and so why dont I understand you? Why are the clothes you wear so different and the expressions you say so indecipherable to me? It was my first day in England and a Bank Holiday at that. With only one sport on television, I was determined to set and study a game I had no idea how to play. I didnt know what an over was, or even the job of the bowler. I didnt know what a wicket was, or how many a team needed to win. But I didnt care. I was sustenance across the pond now, and if I was red ink to fit into my new surroundings, rationality the rules of cricket come alonged like a fine starting point. I persevered, and finally I was explaining the now familiar game of cricket to my family baseball analogies helped a great deal. I was proud of myself. I had conqu ered the English culture. Maybe England wasnt so bad after all. I curtly realized how primitive these thoughts were. Cricket was just the beginning. A whole world of different traditions and customs duty was thrown in front of me.July Fourth was exchanged for Guy Fawkes twenty-four hour period and the the celebration with the turkey was erased from the calendar. Where would I fit in? Rugby and atomic number 61 League Football dominated the sports channels. Where was my beloved ESPN? Why is the television show, puny Britain, so hysterical? The movie theatres were polisheder than a British mini cooper, and the Super Bowl kicked off at four a.m. The warmth of the Texan sun was replaced by the rainy eld of Wimbledon. I was surprised to see that some parts of life abroad were better. Friends became mates. The frenetic pace of Piccadilly carnival and the splendour of St. Pauls Cathedral are unsurpassed. Roundabouts make the job run smoothly. I like the sound of Cheers. Over sixty different nationalities and over thirty languages are represented at the International School I attend. The culture shock was overwhelming. But I refused to yield. I was divergence to start by mixing into the English culture.I reported on local and national events as an Editor of the school newspaper. In addition I met swimmers from all over the U.K. through my British swim team, all with different backgrounds and lifestyles from mine. The cultures that engulfed me when I first came to England are part of me now. London is at my disposal. The people, the pubs, the expressions, and the entertainment are all a part of what makes living in England a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yes, I have missed several Thanksgiving feasts and numerous Astros games, but I have come to understand and enjoy a completely new place. I wouldnt change any of my experiences. documentation in Europe has broadened my perspective on life and opened my eye to so may wonderful people and ideas. People have similar goals wherever they come from. Im glad I know that there is no single right way to achieve them.Sample College Essay 3 I wake up and there is a metre in my head its hazy. I climb into the ware and the water tapping on my scalp reminds me. As I sit on the bus to go to school, I get strange looks from passengers as I tap the round onto my knees, but its not yet fully formed. Throughout the school day, I feel it evolve and ramp up until I inevitably sit down at my drums and play. From my brain via my heart it enters my muscles they careen it to the sticks which relay it to the drum. Eventually, the air gets my gift and the round of golf returns through my ears. Even after the sounds are gone, the bout is not. Until I go to bed, a days repetition keeps it rebounding inside my cranium, in my own private concert hall. This is the transit of my daily rhythm. I wake up and there is a rhythm in my head its not straight for this rhythm swings. At 600 am in Germany I get on a c oach and as the wheels rotate beneath me I get closer.My coach has thirty five other people in it, each one is carried forward in their own sense of time, but in little than an hour they must all merge seven hundred people will not accept a big band not keeping the pulse. Butterflies are roused in my gut and nerves take over. Ive never played a solo in front of so many people yet somehow my fear must be quelled. My imagination, my sticks and my drum-set have to communicate my inner rhythm the audience must be able to feel it or else I have failed. Rhythm is the barricade to embarrassment. As the opening to Sing, Sing, Sing begins to take shape, all my trust is placed in the pattern I have within me transporting me safely to the end. If this vas sank, I to a fault would go with it. A standing ovation sustain that this time, the barrier held strong. I wake up and there is a rhythm in my head but it is quiet. In fact, no-one hears it it makes no noise and never will.Between the ho urs of 0845 and 1545 I have 4 beats each one signaling another unit of learning. This phrase is repeated 5 days a week for 40 weeks a year and the chorus goes on 6 more times. My song is my school, and in it I am caught up in its inner rhythms that I cannot control I must ease up in to them. The melodies that are assigned to these rhythms are made up of Virgil, esters and numbers racket that dont exist. From these, cadences form that give me a chordal patterned advance through education. to each one part of my song has been disposed(p) a name there are no verses, no choruses but consecutive primaeval Stages. The rhythm indicates when I should make the transition there is a series of fills, but they are not called fills.They call them exams and as the acts progress, the fills get more intense. In fact, they get more frequent and at the end of my school career, I look forward to a year where exams punctuate my calendar. In January, I will have moved to the dominant, only to co mplete the procession in June when I descend and finish on the tonic a perfect cadence. I wake up and there is rhythm the rhythm is life. The cycle of night and day and the constant pulsing in my authority are rhythms, and as the Earth revolves around our local star it is in time with the universe. I think in meter a man crosses the street and his steps divide the distance in the midst of one check-out procedure and the attached they provide a beat in the asphalt bar, or at least that is how I picture it. If animals could not use the rhythm of the seasons, then they would surely die. Life is a rhythm and all that it contains is in time. When the rhythm ceases to exist, so will I.Sample College Essay 4Magicians are not truly magical, though they like others to think they are. So what inspires this double-dealing? Some think it is the money and others, the glamour of completeing on stage and mystifying the audience. But for me it has always been a question of identity. Magic h as helped me develop my confidence and communication skills so when the time comes to stand up and organize a crowd, such as the school debate or a Model United Nations conference, it is no effort at all. However, I can say that one peculiar circumstance in my life has given me a new sense of direction for my magic. At first, I thought magic was mere entertainment, but Horace, a man from the local Spastics Center diagnosed with autism in his late twenties, changed my perspective on my art. So often when we think of the disabled, we imagine children, and we sympathize with them. With Horace, I was faced with a situation enormously unknown to the general publics experience an unemotional dull(a) who rarely spoke to or acknowledged others around him. When I move to engage him, he mumbled to me uninterested and somewhat detached.But then when I produced my deck of cards, when through several routines and then showed him how he, too, could create miracles, he smiled and laughed. T his reception highlighted the most rewarding aspect of magic because he accepted me into his world and responded to me. The Centers staff even commented, We have never seen Horace behaving in such an emotional way For the first time, Horace had been given hope that he too could, perhaps, achieve and live a meaningful life. The magic had unordered a myth of futility and dispelled it forever. I saw that magic could provide a driving force for pursuing change, and this realization overwhelmed me. I had witnessed something so unusual that the force of it took my breath away. The essence of magic is establishing a connection between the audience and the performer.With Horace, the ordinary had become the extraordinary, and for a wink, we connected in a state called Astonishment. This experience brings about a revisit to our most basic form, unaltered by culture or society. Indeed, that instant is so special because as adults, we are all too rarely astonished, and this moment returns us to our days as children when we were clueless and laughed at everything. This unusual encounter showed me that in this moment of astonishment, magic has the power to inspire. Since the encounter with Horace I have tacked a society that brings all the magicians at my school together to perform magic for the elderly and the less fortunate in the nearby community. If I can show them, for instance, how to produce onepound coins from thin air, then contrary to what they have been told, perhaps they can challenge their limits. Then, dare I say that my passion for magic would be enhanced by a touch of full-strength magic, generated perhaps from a truly unusual moment of astonishment.Sample College Essay 5The ball ricocheted off the wall and disappeared into the black hole under my bed. It had been some years since the Hoover had been granted visiting rights and a heavy cloud of fluff covered every inch of the 4 x 63 rectangle. Slightly nervous of what I might find, I ventured in slowly with an outstretched hand. The ball was nowhere to be found but I felt a small box-shaped object. I dragged it out, dusted it off and there looking somewhat the worse for wear, was my old leather book trunk. As I eased open the lid, the familiar smell (slightly standpat(a) with time) transported me immediately back ten years. Inside, in pride of place on top, staring boldly back at me, was my old friend Winnie the Pooh. The familiar, exhausted yellow-bellied face, the shrunken red tshirt with tummy protruding proudly from beneath, an forego honey pot and by his side, as ever, was Piglet.It is to Winnie the Pooh that I owe my sterling(prenominal) debt. It was this funny bear of little brain and large appetite who first sparked my interest in the literary world. He taught me about friendships and Woozles and how to make the best Heffa ball traps. Many a happy hour was spent with Pooh and his friends facing adversity with his ever optimistic demeanour. Although I havent seen thi s treasured reproduction for many a year, I must admit to a every week dose of life in a Hundred Acre Wood. Each week I share my passion for reading with Class 2A at the local village primary school. We start off with one of Poohs adventures richly embellished with different voices that perhaps A.A.Milne may not have intended but, nevertheless, seem to get the seal of approval from my six-year-old audiences. After this we get down to the nitty gamy the business of learning to read or as I like to call it Discovering How to Lose Yourself. I go round the class taking turns to listen to them read. Although the range of their abilities is surprisingly large they all make a huge effort and really enjoy themselves. Progress is made and more and more pupils get lost each week. All too soon it is time to go. I say my goodbyes and rush back to school for my next lesson. I hum a little happiness tune and as I round the corner into the school a large thundercloud looms above. In my hea d a very Pooh-like voice says Tut, tut, looks like rain.Sample College Essay 6 Nothing of much importee ever happens on the isle of Wight. And to those of you for whom island travels only involved the palm trees and pink sand variety, let me enlighten you. The Isle of Wight is a small, chalky lump that broke off the south coast of England and came to a halt one mile out. It is caught in a rather charming time twist circa. 1955. No palm tree could ever survive the freezing east wind winds that blast through from Siberia every winter and the only pink sand would be the result of a small child sickening over a sandcastle on the way back from the Mr. Whippy ice rake van. It has sand and it has trees but of the altogether more hardy type. The sand is yellow and coarse, the trees are sturdy and solid with waxy leaves to withstand the salty air. The people are sturdy and solid too with an accent inherited from their burglar ancestors that sets them apart from those on the mainland. Life ambles along and nobody rushes.Pity anyone caught in a queue at the butchers behind Mrs. Singleton as she recounts, far too vividly, details of her latest health scare. Dont get me wrong, it has its virtues the straight-laced pier pointing like a lace gloved finger out to sea and the promenade with shops selling pink and white sticks of rock with Isle of Wight running through it (how do they do that?), Kiss me vigorous sunhats and inflatable boats. And on the corner of the High Street, the Cod Father look for and chip shop with a sign in the window reflection We batter anything It was on this sleepy little island that I, as a small boy, spent most of my summers. Summers that, due to the temperature, would be called autumn anywhere else but nothing a long wetsuit and hat couldnt disguise. One day in early July, arriving back from another bracing trip to the beach, I saw my mother and sister sitting side by side on the grassy bank overlooking the lawn. Next to them was a la rge bag of sweets and a bicycle.My mother announced that today was the day she was going to teach me how to ride a bike. There had been many attempts before but today I could tell she meant business. A succession of sweets was laid out at regular intervals along the lawn marking the route I was to take. Each time I made it to that point without falling off I got the sweet. Knowing that I really didnt have any choice, I climbed awkwardly onto the enormous bike. Mother steadied me with one hand and then with a shove I was hurtling down the bank and onto the lawn. A disconcert of screaming and clapping preceded the first of many spectacular falls and my shins took on the blue hue of an uncooked lobster with blobs of grease from the chain splattered amongst the bumps. My sister, jr. than me and already a whiz on her pink Barbie bike, gave patronizing advice arduous to sound encouraging but, I suspect, rather enjoying the moment.An hour and a half(prenominal) later, battered and bruis ed with tears streaking through the mud on my face, I climbed onto the sentient being one more time. I steadied myself, focused on the hedging at the other end of the lawn (where the biggest chocolate bar lay) and with an almighty weightlift I launched myself forward peddling with fury. Before I knew what had happened, there was a rush of green as I landed headfirst into the hedge. The bike, free of its incompetent rider, did an elegant ark to the left before coming to a halt. As I cycle confidently (but still cant do the no hands thing) to the boathouse every day, I think of the words of Claude peppercorn who said, Life is like riding a bicycle. You dont fall off unless you plan to break dance peddling. I wont stop peddling. and am proud to announce that on the 3rd July 1998 something of great significance did, at last, happen on the Isle of Wight.