<p>Essay 1
Jamie F. Metzl
College: Brown University
I do not have a father on the alumni board of Brown. I dont even have an uncle there. All right, I was not elected to the presidency of some huge, national corporation. I cant tell you of Olympic trial in the javelin throw. I do, however, have a seven-inch-tall plastic Godzilla.
Godzilla hasnt always been with me though; he was born and raised in the wilds of a Taiwanese rain forest. When he was only a small monster, his mother sent him for a dental appointment in Taipei. Godzilla, whose family was inbred (for obvious reasons), suffered from dyslexia. On his way, he passed by a large factory which had sign reading LETTAM. Little did he know that this was his familys most feared spot. He was instantly grabbed, priced, and boxed for shipment. (Once his brother, who also had dyslexia, had wandered onto a ship headed for SOIDUTS LASREVINU, but thats a completely different story.)
Godzilla was sent to the United States, where he was imprisoned in a shiny glass case for three years. Then came his emancipation; I bought him… I took himto his new home: my shelf. There he now proudly stands between books of Thoreau and Emerson, and Kermit the Frog.
Godzilla is not the tough exterior he portrays. The true Godzilla lies within. Through my interaction with this paragon of monsterness, I have come to understand his meaning. Godzilla was born in the wild, yet he was pulled away by the forces of society. He has never, and will never abandon, his natural view of the world. His truth is only what is true to himself, not to any toy company or movie studio, or anything else for that matter. He believes imposed truth to be a monstrosity.
Godzilla has been given a pretty bad rap by the press, but Ill be the first to admit that hes really a sensitive monster. This is because he has huge eyes which allow him to really look around. He wants to use this vision to understand as much of the world around him as possible, so that he can be honest with himself and not only be influenced by the immediate.
I have given Godzilla a new home, but even with this foundation, he is an eternal dreamer. He dreams of the ideal, of true beauty. Once, when I woke up, Godzilla had done a strange thing. He had ripped a page out of one of my books of Thoreau. It read:
If you have built castles
In the air, your work need
Not be lost, that is where they
Should be. Now put the
Foundations under them.<br>
Godzilla wants to be free to explore and strive for his dreams. To do this, he needs to be free from all but his own restrictions. He wants to use this freedom as a means of exploring himself, not only as a dreamer, but as a monster.
And so as I curl up in bed each night. I look over at Godzilla who speaks to me of myself. He speaks of truth. He speaks of understanding, of dreams, and of freedom. He also speaks of being a plastic-covered monster in the middle of the Midwest.</p>
<p>Comments about essay from admission officers at Brown University:
- thoroughly entertaining expresses freedom, joie de vivre, and creative expertise, which are qualities valuable to a college community
- makes the writer stand out from the crowd juxtaposition of Godzilla and Thoreau is arresting some of the sentiments about truth, beauty, and freedom are a bit top-lofty, but such ideals are part of the dreams of youth and the final sentence is quite simply a lovely change of pace.</p>
<p>Essay 2
Joseph Libson
College: Princeton University
My Life
Chapter One: I become a truant
The best thing that I ever did for myself was skip nine days of school in a row in the eighth grade. Actually the benedictions did not arise so much from the truancy as from the apprehension. This does not mean that I had been an axe murderer for the previous sections of my life, but rather than an unusual circumstance led to a great improvement in almost every aspect of my life.<br>
I was getting mediocre grades (i.e., Bs and Cs) at a mediocre school. I was not taking drugs or doing anything particularly nasty, but I was being incredibly lazy. This sudden burst of lethargy that led to the nine-day truancy overcame the activation barrier that had prevented my parents from taking retaliatory measures in response to all of the smaller things that I had done Their response was draconian; first they separated me and my brother (we are exponentially more troublesome when together). In addition to deciding to send me to another school and to separate me and my brother, my parents also decided that the punishment should extend into the summer since the deed had been done late in Aril and the schools punishment of nine Saturday detentions and disciplinary probation seemed insufficient. This planting season sentence consisted of my taking summer courses. Thus, it came to pass that I took Algebra II before ninth grade.
When I arrived at Walnut Hills, which is the best academic public school in the city, I knew no one. This temporary exile resulted in a great discovery. Since I had no one to talk to during class, I decided that I would listen to see if the teacher was saying anything interesting. Lo and behold, knowledge flowed into and through me as excellent grades flowed out. At the tender age of thirteen, I had discovered that if I listened, I would understand. I had four straight-A quarters at Walnut Hills and transferred to St. Xavier, an even finer institution. I was closer to home and besides that my parents had heard that it was tough, no-nonsense school (good for discipline problems). As an additional plus, due to variances between the curricula of Walnut Hills and St. Xavier, I was able to become two years advanced in mathematics. Thus I was taking BC Calculus during my junior year at St. Xavier. My innovative listening theory still held at St. Xavier although more effort had to be put in to get the same grades simply because St. Xavier was a more difficult school.
Skipping nine days of school made me a better person, there is no doubt about it. Not only did my academics improve, but my devotion to athletics was enhanced to that of a religious fanatic and my sense of morals was even improved. I changed from a selfish rather unfriendly and sarcastic person into a more giving and open (but still sarcastic) individual. But, I was lucky. I got caught.</p>
<p>Comments from Princeton admissions officer:
The truant manages to show the reader, in very few words, just how much perspective he has on his past experiences. It is very unadolescent of him to see his getting caught as a catalyst for his own intellectual and personal growth. This essay has a strong personal voice and sincerity.</p>