<p>So here’s my essay:</p>
<p>As a young child, I always fantasized about starting my own business. I decided that the name of my fashion brand should sound Italian and start with an ‘L’ (to be most elegant and therefore most successful), pondered that advertisements of my fancy gadgets must be colorful, and figured that a cherry-flavored ice cream could sell 5 dollars more than a vanilla-flavored one. I was not a greedy little money worshipper; to my juvenile mind, running a business was like painting on a blank canvas—whatever the product, it was my creation. Often I would cheerily share such daydreams with my parents, who would half-jokingly and half-amazedly say I was born with a business mind.</p>
<p>After entering secondary school, I assumed the role of self-appointed investment advisor to my parents. One time, I tried to persuade them to be satisfied with moderate gains and sell their shares before their prices fell without forewarning, when too many sellers chased after too few buyers. To my surprise and pleasure, my parents did take my advice, and later reported with wonder that they were lucky to have done so since share prices actually fell soon afterward. I remember chuckling with giddy satisfaction.</p>
<p>For a long time, I thought I was sure I wanted to become a businesswoman. However, a process of personal growth, spurred a series of events and experiences, has led me to change my mind and find my true aspirations. </p>
<p>As I entered the last two years of high school, international news magazines like The Economist and Time became my favorite companions. Gradually, childish reveries of setting up my own business were overtaken by concern with such issues as widening wealth gap in emerging economies (which have joined the ranks of “middle-income countries” although large sections of their populations remain as poor as ever) and the lack of coordination in economic development produced by microfinance.</p>
<p>In Year 12, I got my first real glimpse at the face of poverty when I went on a service project trip to a rural village in Laos. As I entered one of the shoddy single-storey school houses, I was struck with shock to see 60 secondary school pupils cramped in a classroom about the size of my bedroom, sharing desks and chairs fit for primary children. I was even more shocked to learn that most of them were 14 to 16 years old when their pre-teen bodies made them look 12 at most. Although at that moment I could only help with digging holes and pouring cement, I decided that I could do much more in the future to help improve the conditions of the vast number of poor people on the planet.</p>
<p>The 2008 outbreak of the subprime mortgage catastrophe and today’s ongoing sovereign debt crises, which leaders in the developed world are struggling to resolve, have also led me to believe that decisive reforms are needed to remove the twin-evils of profligacy and credit abuse and contain the dangers of unfettered finance capitalism. Every now and then, bits and pieces of ideas about how to renovate the global financial system spring up in my mind. Certainly, those ideas are only rudimentary; however, with fertilization and cultivation, even the smallest seeds can grow to fruition.</p>
<p>Instead of indulging in fantasies about starting a business, I now aspire to dedicate myself to international development and to helping create a stable and healthy global economy. I now aspire to dedicate myself to international development and to helping create a stable and healthy global economy. I like to look at “Executive Focus” in The Economist, and feel excited with passion to see job advertisements of such organizations as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. I’m determined to use my college experience to prepare myself for my mission, and take further steps to turn my aspirations into reality. </p>
<p>This was the prompt:</p>
<p>ESSAY OPTION 1.
“What does Play-Doh™ have to do with Plato?” – The 2011 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt List</p>
<p>Every May, the University of Chicago hosts the world’s largest scavenger hunt. As part of this year’s hunt, students raced to find the shortest path between two seemingly unrelated things by traveling through Wikipedia articles.</p>
<p>Wikipedia is so pass</p>