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07-19-2007, 05:38 PM
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#16 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 137
| I like Roger Dooley's angle- the extended metaphor. Just don't overdo it. | 
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07-19-2007, 07:50 PM
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#17 | | New Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 9
| You could incorporate your love for the sport of wrestling throughout your explanation of your interest in an academic discipline. It is great that your sport provided a virtual springboard to your future goals and aspirations. Perhaps during competition - wrestling with your opponent while on the mats, visions of what your future holds outside the sport was a constant sidetrack. Were you ever injured wrestling? If so, you might have thought how a career on the mats was risky as you moved towards your 20's, and that you wanted to rely on your brain exclusively.
I think you want to show how you loved the sport - the necessary practices, maintaining your weight, the rush you got from competition. It's okay to want to move forward as long as you acknowledge the positives received along the way. You don't want to avoid mention of the catalyst that brought you to the place you're at today. If you avoid mention of wrestling, yet it's obvious to a admin that a good amount of your personal time during HS was spent preparing and competing for wrestling matches, they might think you're trying to shove your former passions under the carpet, which seems to be far from the truth. | |
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07-19-2007, 09:03 PM
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#18 | | Administrator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 5,036
| "The Big Game" is how you participated in, or helped your team to win, an important sporting event. Trite and overworked. | |
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07-19-2007, 09:57 PM
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#19 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 126
| My daughter wrote about wrestling, not for her "big" essay, but for the shortie - "your most meaningful activity", and it certainly didn't hurt her application. She had an unusual take on it because it wasn't the sport she's best at. Think about what is unique about your experience of wrestling, and what about it made you care so much. For her, it was developing the endurance and skill to go all 3 rounds without being pinned or teched (she was the smallest team member and wrestled varsity as a freshman in the 103 lb category, and she only wrestled against boys, so you can appreciate that it was a big deal for her only to lose by 3 points).
I really got a kick out of reading her applications, by the way. I was so glad she shared them with me. | |
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07-19-2007, 11:09 PM
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#20 | | New Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 20
| as a totally unathletic person, i'd love to see how you manage your life, both as a crazy lover of an academic subject and a wrestler. do you see anything common in these two roles? do you bring what you learned in wrestling into your academics and vice versa? have you ever faced a situation where you have to choose just one (well, for example, you're thinking of focusing on just academics in college, and i wonder why)? are there defining moments when both academics and sports come to your mind? | |
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07-20-2007, 12:28 AM
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#21 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 30
| Great advice. I think I have a pretty unique angle at this semi common topic. MarinMom, congrats to your daughter for wrestling. It takes a lot of pride and confidence for a girl to wrestle in a dominantly boy arena. So I will definately write about wrestling and how it ties into my specific academic passion and my future goals that associate with my passion. I'll use some physical imagery also, to really stand out and not look like a dumb jock. Two questions- what kind of overall mood should the essay portray and how do I further seperate myself from the "jock essay"? | |
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07-20-2007, 07:13 PM
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#22 | | Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 529
| The thread summary basically says it all: tie the two together. Also, try using this as a platform for what you want to accomplish for the future. | |
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07-21-2007, 12:27 PM
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#23 | | Member
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 727
| Chances are you'll need to write more than one essay anyway. S. decided to use his sport as topic for one of the short ones. It made no mention of any event, record, championship, etc. They're going to get that information from your application anyhow. He kept it pretty personal, but "light"-- sort of what the sport meant to him. Wrestling is a pretty intense sport, and could make for a really interesting essay topic.
He found the Harry Bauld book helpful, because it made him realize that admissions people read TONS of essays, and the ones that give them a personal, human impression of an applicant are going to be a lot more interesting to read than the ones that are just a rehash of accomplishments.
Good luck! | |
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07-21-2007, 06:40 PM
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#24 | | Member
Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: new mexico
Posts: 600
| DD participated in 2 sports while in high school. For one of her essays she compared selecting a college to selecting an athletic shoe : size, color (diversity), price (affordability), style (area of interest) and overall fit. | |
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07-22-2007, 08:54 AM
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#25 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,254
| Well for me, I will be mentioning one game(not the whole essay but that one game was an epiphany in my life. I don't really care how many times they have seen it, because it truly did change who I am today. It was just a normal game, no Championship game or anything. | |
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07-22-2007, 09:42 AM
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#26 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 1,277
| I think that essay readers are looking for "emotional intelligence" and positive energy in your essays. Do your best to not have any sentence that does not say something about your current world. You have three minutes to show your hometown, home school and yourself as a member of your past world.
How you inhabit your current world and the community values you bring with you to College X is what they are looking for. So let them know who you are and what your upbringing brings to the table.
If your essay about an athletic commitment demonstrates relationships to others, communitiy, sacrifice for a greater good, and most of all wit and joy in living, then you have three minutes to demonstrate that you are someone who is in fact going to be one of the reasons your class "gels" and pulls together. It doesn't really matter if this is for the college newspaper or club sports or varsity sports or volunteer enterprises. Adcoms are building a class. Be as lucid as possible in your essay about where you come from and what you are looking for at College X to take you to the next chapter of life. | |
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07-23-2007, 05:27 PM
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#27 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: New Jersey
Posts: 1,800
| I don't think it matters that much what your topic is, but how you write your essay. If your wrestling essay turns into a typical "jock" essay, that's not human at all, and if your academic essay makes you sound like someone who doesn't get out much, that's not good either.
Personally, regardless of what you choose to talk about, make sure you get the same important points across -- that is, passion. Don't worry too much about the stereotypes surrounding a particular type of essay, b/c if you're truly passionate about something, you'll be able to make it different.
Just for the record, I wrote about a sport and how it helped me overcome obstacles in my life, and I'm going to Princeton. It's all in the presentation. Good luck  | |
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07-23-2007, 10:31 PM
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#28 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Arch your golden spine s'il te plait
Posts: 1,615
| Lol...the plural of thesis is theses....just had to say it | |
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07-26-2007, 03:41 PM
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#29 | | Junior Member
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 60
| Simple Answer
There is a very simple answer to this query. College is about academics. End of discussion. The essay should discuss two things, You (the applicant) and your intellectual curiosities that shed light on your personality. Very simple. That is what admissions committees want. | |
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07-31-2007, 06:35 PM
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#30 | | Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 696
| college is about academics, getting in is about winning a beauty contest. Write about wrestling | |
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