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Successful NYU Applicant

Funny/creative: Showering

Comments from the Admissions Committee

IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

My Achievements by a successful NYU Applicant

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets. I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hand gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned my fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradies Lost, Moby-Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish and entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four-course meals using only a Mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

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Funny/creative: Showering by an applicant to Yale

Within his poem, “ Sailing to Byzantium” , William Butler Yeats speaks of escaping from the natural world to a land of paradise. Indeed, we all have a place we go to in times of need, whether it be for consolation, comfort, or thought. Aristotle had his Lyceum, Caesar his Forum, Buddha his Bo tree. And I, (name), I have my shower.

It is here, under the shiny brass and cheap plastic, under the delightful stream of golden ambrosia, that I, (name), frisbee player and philosopher extraordinaire, have planned my life’ s accomplishments. For, like the Oracle of Apollo, the showerhead tells no lies. Within my shower, soap and water are united as one. They are Yin and Yang, the shower is the Tao, and more.

In four years of high school, the shower has never failed me yet. With its bright lighting and adjacent mirror, I am forced to literally look myself in the eye. It is in the shower, under a calming spray of water, that I realize when I have been at fault. For unlike the world outside, the shower forces me to confront myself. And in doing so, I have made some of the most important decisions in my life.

It was in the shower, two years and three months ago, when I realized for the first time that eating as much as my 320 pound speech coach had given me love handles. A moment later, realization became panic. But the shower is more than a place of revelation; it is a place of contemplation as well. The cooling influence of the water soon calmed me, and I thought of joining cross-country. And in the months to follow, it would be the stark shape of my excess blubber which would haunt and propel me to greater efforts until I earned my Varsity Letter that very first year.

Cross-country is not the only form of athletics to have its roots in my shower. Four years of summer studies at Duke University had taught me to love Ultimate Frisbee. One summer, when I had grown too old to return, it was the shower which provided my solution. Standing under the showerhead, it suddenly dawned on me that I should found my own Ultimate Frisbee Club at school. Thanks to a shower, the Ultimate Frisbee Club of [school] has become one of 22 schools in California to play the sport.

And yet, the shower is much more than merely a place of instantaneous revelation, it is also a proving ground for old ideas and practices. Unknown to the rest of Monte Vista Speech and Debate, it is the shower which is my very essence. In four years of debating, my coaches have grown accustomed to getting calls late at night about a new argument for the team. I have my old coach to thank for my initial success in extemporaneous speech. However, after his departure, I have realized that giving practice speeches to myself in front of that all-revealing mirror is at as least large a reason for my continued success. To look my coach in the eye and try to get away with skewed analysis on “ The Effect Privatization of Ecuador’ s Industries will have on its Economy” is one matter. But, to try to lie to myself in that mirror is yet another.

My shower is my morality. Not only can I not get away with excess flab on my waist, but I cannot hide from my self either. The bright lights and the mirror reveal more than the physical body. Looking into my own eyes, into my own soul, I see what a careful observer would see. All my good traits and my flaws appear, a synthesis of light and dark, molding itself into the grey of reality. To lie to that person, would be to deny all that I am. And thus, the shower has become the purest reflection of me. Were I to have enclosed a picture of myself, it would not have had more meaning.

Perhaps, one day, many years from now, a weary young seeker will venture through a thick tangle of vegetation to be welcomed by the roar of a shimmering cataract. Within the shadows formed by the play of sunlight on a cascade of water, will be an old man, bent with age, sitting with feet crossed; the light in his eyes undimmed with the passage of time. And the old man will speak of his own voyage to Byzantium.

Comments from the Admissions Committee on the above essay:

This is a good example of making an essay creative and memorable with an unusual topic choice. Our panel appreciated the humor and tongue-in-cheek approach this writer took. The major drawback mentioned was that this essay is “ a perfect example of a FAILURE TO PROOFREAD! There are misspellings, run-on sentences, and comma errors throughout the text. These are careless mistakes which are easily avoidable, and consequently they diminish the strength of the essay.” Another officer felt that the last paragraph was confusing and took itself too seriously, which “ diminishes the effect of the essay.”

A well-written essay. The writer has a unique spin on inner reflection. It was an enjoyable essay to read because it really gave you a sense of how this young person thinks and has evolved. It also illustrated how everyone is different when it comes to the process of inner reflection. A refreshing outlook.

The shower metaphor is a delightful and offbeat approach to the rather serious topics of personal growth and improvement. The author obviously is capable of being honest with herself and living up to challenges. I think this person would be a lot of fun to spend four years of college with.

I like this opening: it’ s a very self-conscious “ mountain-out-of-a-molehill” approach.

Nice contrast between the Forum, the Lyceum, and the shower!

Interesting essay. I like the concept of the shower as a place of revelation, both philosophical and physical. The student has dropped many hints about what’ s important to her— athletics, debate, persistence, honesty— and she has done so in a very unusual way.

I like the way she brings things full circle by ending with a reference to Byzantium; it is a subtle nod to [her] opening sentence, but it provides effective closure.

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