<p>Guys, I am an international student who just transfered to an American public high school in CA from China this semester. Can you guys help me with my personal statements for UCs. Maybe there are some gramma errors in it because my English is not that good…
But anyways, thank you!!! </p>
<p>THE FIRST ONE:
An old Chinese saying goes:" One can have infinite power when he or she has an explicit ambition." My story happens to reflect that aphorism.
One year ago, I was an ordinary Chinese high school student living in an ordinary family. However, my mother, who is an elementary school English teacher, believed the only way become fully proficient in English is to live in the country which regards English as its official language, the United States. Coincidently, my high school had a summer camp program in California right after my sophomore year, and I signed up without hesitation. Everything changed as of that summer. Initially, I believed I only needed to focus on practicing my English. However, when I had classes and spoke to the students and teachers in America, I was deeply attracted to the vivid class atmosphere and creativity. I still remember the physics teacher who asked us to measure the length of the table with our shoes, which shocked me greatly. As I visited some colleges during this summer, I found campuses in America were gigantic, yet cozy at the same times, which were precisely the ones I had dreamed of since I was a child. From then on, I was determined to get admitted into an American college.
Realizing only the top students across the world could study in American colleges, I decided to become one. In order to fulfill my dream, I compressed my two-year courses into one year. Finally, after spending most of my free time studying and working much harder than before, my effort paid off. My school rank rose from 10% to the number one of our grade. In addition, I became the first student who finished high school courses in two years and got straight A’s in our school’s history. Instead of spending a year doing nothing except for preparing for the standardized test to get a perfect score, like many students who wanted to study in America, I decided to “love” America first. How can people not love the country where they are about to spend years in? Therefore, I applied for an international education program. With the recommendation from my high school, and my excellent performance, I became one of the only three Chinese students who got accepted into American high schools at that time.
Everything is quite different in America. As an international student, I have a distinct cultural background, and that is a major problem. Although I do not have any problem with language, it can still be difficult to communicate with my classmates as they do with their peers. To overcome this difficulty, I am doing my best to read American books, watch American movies, learn to play American sports and join various clubs as most American students do. Eventually, I hope to fully get incorporated into American cultural life.
In retrospect, I find what I have accomplished are miracles. No one could imagine I would be in America two years ago, including myself. Without the explicit ambition to get admitted into an American college, I would not have reached this height. I strongly believe that with this ambition, I can finally fulfill my dream!</p>
<p>THE SECOND ONE:
Twenty five hundred years ago, Confucius said that patience had always been the way to success, and I do believe that patience is significant for a successful leader. Badminton is such a sport that requires such a trait as patience. I had been well trained for badminton for 6 years when an opportunity for growth appeared. Due to my excellent performance, my coach gave me a chance to help him teach a group of young children badminton during the summer of 2009. Since that summer I look forward to this experience every year.
As an inexperienced beginning coach, I was responsible for a group of children who were still in kindergarten. At first, I tried to act as an adult and always kept a straight face with them, because I thought it could make them obedient. However, things went poorly. Since they were too young, they did not care about what the guy standing in front of them was doing. When I blew my whistle and asked them to line up, they totally ignored me and kept doing their own things. Losing control was a terrible thing for a coach, especially for me, an impatient rookie coach. Because of my immaturity and impatience, I went straight to one of the children, who ignored me, and forced him to line up. Scared by my rude manner, the boy began crying. The crying was contagious, once the rest of the kids heard the boy’s crying, they started crying as well. The stadium was full of the noise with children crying and was in chaos. I was completely shocked and had no idea what to do. Only after a long hour, the gym finally became peaceful. It was my first day of being a coach and it was wholly a tragedy. Instead of giving in and closing my coaching career due to that one day, I read a large number of books, articles, and videos about what children that age thought about, what they cared about and, more importantly, how to treat young children in a proper way.
After a one-week-long research, I returned to the place where I failed and tried to stand up where I had fallen short. This time, knowing the children cared about toys and candies, I decided to offer incentives. If a child did well in training, he or she would receive a small gift. And it worked. The children began to pay attention to my instruction and everything was back on track. With my vivid interpretation of each action and my reward strategy, the children learned quickly. At the end of that summer, we had an inter-club badminton competition. Amazingly, our team won the fourth place out of twenty, and I was titled as “Best Effective Coach” by the championship committee.
This invaluable experience greatly encouraged me to carry on with my successful coaching season. Since that summer, I have kept coaching young children badminton for three years now and have already coached more than two hundred and fifty children. Coaching badminton has already become a part of my after-school life. More importantly, it taught me to be patient. With patience, I became more mature, and even in unbearable surroundings, I can still stay calm and peaceful.</p>
<p>THE THIRD ONE:
“The Gold Award winner of the International Teenagers Science and Technology Practice Contest (ITSTPC) 2011 is Guangzhou Foreign Language School Science team! Congratulations!” When the committee called our name, all four members of our team jumped for joy.
It was one year ago, I signed up for the ITSTPC 2011 along with my classmates. The topic of ITSTPC 2011 was earthquake shelter. Each team needed to design and assemble an earthquake shelter which can be used as a temporary “escape shelter” during earthquakes. It was my first time attending such a big competition. However, instead of being in shock and doing nothing, we turned our energy into motivated power. We divided our work quickly, and I was responsible for the base of our shelter. The base is the most essential part of the shelter, because everything else was set up based on the base. Realizing the importance of my job, I soon got down to business. First, I need to decide which shape the base should be. In order to maximize the shelter’s utility, I did a large amount of calculation over and over again based on the experimental data. Eventually, I finalized the shape which can increase the volume and stabilize the shelter. Secondly, I needed to find a material for the base. It was an intricate task, because different material had different characteristics. Every material had its pros and cons depending on which aspect you were about to focus on. Since the structure needed to be flexible during the earthquake, I decided to concentrate on the material’s ability of suspension. I read various books and articles about material science, chemistry and physics. Finally, I got two materials that had superb ability of suspension, which were rubber and lead. Instead of choosing one of them, I “mixed” them together innovatively. I cut the lead into small cylinders and used rubber to surround it. I made couples of this lead-rubber combination and assembled them at the corners of my base. When my partners all finished their jobs, we assembled our shelter and sent it to the ITSTPC committee. Watching the shelters of the other teams, I found that ours was basically the ugliest one. However, an amazing thing happened. The committee put all the shelters on a machine, which can simulate an earthquake, and operated it. As the shaking became more violent, some of the shelters fell down and some even collapsed, but ours remained standing. When our last opponent’s shelter fell down, we could not hold our excitement. We hugged each other enthusiastically and shouted out loudly. The committee dismantled our shelter and they found that it was the tiny lead-rubber combinations that made the significant contribution. The combinations greatly counteract the energy of vibration by their distortion. After the award ceremony, the ITSTPC Committee highly commended me for my innovation.
It was my first time winning such a big competition, and I will never forget it. Besides, I learned the importance of teamwork from this competition. It’s impossible to finish such a project of this magnitude without working in cooperation. What’s more, I found my personal value in this contest. The experience makes me feel much more confident, and I know there is no gain if there is no pain. All my achievement is based on my diligence. I will regard it as my motto in the rest of my life.</p>
<p>(I think I need to cancel some sentences in each eassay because of the word limitation)</p>