3 Steps To Writing A Winning College Essay » The College Solutionthe College Solution

3 Steps To Writing A Winning College Essay » The College Solutionthe College Solution I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities. Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changedâ€"I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. My fear turned into action as I made some of the bravest decisions of my life. Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone â€" most certainly â€" has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Surprised by my knowledge, he offered his lab to me for a simpler project if I was interested, but ultimately admitted that the scope of the goal was much too ambitious. I didn’t run for a student council position because I thought the competition was too fierce. I didn’t join robotics because I felt the learning curve was too high. Meanwhile, Isaac dauntlessly wrestled with earthworms twice his size. Even when he was sick, he continued to swim and climb, all despite the infection. Natalie always brought some new toy with her to lessonsâ€"toys which I would sternly take away from her and place under the table until she finished her work. At the tutoring center where I work, a strict emphasis on discipline leaves no room for paper crowns or rubber chickens. Tears streamed down my face and my mind was paralyzed with fear. Sirens blared, but the silent panic in my own head was deafening. As a fourteen-year-old from a single mother household, without a driver’s license, and seven hours from home, I was distraught over the prospect of losing the only parent I had. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musicianâ€"fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformationâ€"he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. I’d long thought Max had it so easy â€" all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate â€" he had felt plenty of his own. We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain. Showers alleviate even the stomachache from a guacamole-induced lack of self-control. I emailed a couple more labs with less deliberation and more conviction, but was told that my ambitions to study TTX was a project best-suited for a postdoc, not a high schooler. Despite the results, I wasn’t discouraged; I was proud of myself for stretching my limits. The professors’ answers didn’t indicate failure, but rather motivated me to try again in the future. I brought the subject up again, this time mentioning the specific subfield of cryo-electron microscopy. As the lesson progressed, Natalie became more fitful; she refused to release her feathered friend, and kept addressing the bird for help with difficult problems. Determined to tame this wryly, wiggling student, I stood my ground, set on converting this disobedient child to my calm, measured ways of study. Armed with a red pen, I slowly walked across the room to a small, isolated table with pink stools. Swinging her legs, my young student beamed and giggled at me, slamming her pencil bag on the table and bending over to pick up one of her toys. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story. We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified.