My weaknesses got me accepted.

rupee2
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:44:16 +0000

Well, I’ve already been accepted. I just want to know what you guys think of my common app essay.

My AP US history teacher passed out a two page article. It was spring of my junior year. As the students in front of me passed back my copy, he asked the class to “quickly skim over the first column.” Panic overtook my brain. I could not quickly skim the first column. I could not even skim the first paragraph. Skimming anything was an impossibility for me. My eyes simply could not run over words and collect them into one smooth summarization. They would stick on certain words and I would have to go over the entire sentence again to glean the meaning. Taking a shaky breath, I dove into the article, hoping to read it quickly enough and to engage in discussion. Then my eyes caught on the word “taxation.” This caused my gaze to fall to the line beneath as a result of this loss of concentration. As the frustration built I began the sentence again. Halfway through, my teacher stimulated discussion. “Manufacturing” was the culprit for my lack of concentration this time. Plowing through, I finished about a minute behind everyone else and began to contribute to the conversation.

The class ended, and a fifty page chapter of the textbook was assigned to be read for a comprehension quiz the next day. I resigned myself to at least three hours of concentrated reading. No matter how much I focused, my eyes would wander around the page. One moment I would be reading a paragraph about Thomas Jefferson, the next my eyes would skip to Alexander Hamilton. I couldn’t channel it. I just had to start the sentence over, or sometimes the paragraph or even the page. The material was not difficult; it was only that I could not focus on it. It was acutely frustrating. Add to this that my classmates could read and understand the chapter in half the amount of time it took for me to read it! However, I nearly always aced the tests and ended the school year with the highest grade in the class.

I knew I was on the same level as my classmates. I comprehended the lectures, and I did the homework. But when it came to reading, my brain locked. I love to read, but it took me a large amount of time to decipher any text. Headaches were common when I studied. It got to a point where I would take two Tylenol before even beginning my homework. It was not all that unusual to spend six plus hours per night on my homework.

This past summer I visited a local eye doctor. It was part of the perfunctory tests I had to take through the Department of Defense to deem me fit to be an ROTC candidate. He did the required tests, but when I made an odd response to a reading test, his curiosity compelled him to conduct a few “extra” tests. He concluded that I had an eye condition, probably present at birth, called esophoria: essentially, when I read I see double. To rectify this problem my brain turned one eye off, allowing the other eye to discern information. However, when one eye got tired, the other eye would take over. That was when I would lose my place in a text.

The eye doctor was shocked to learn that I was one of the top students in my class with this eye condition. Those he had previously diagnosed with the same condition had an aversion to reading in general, and were also struggling through special education classes. I was not only excelling in higher level classes, but I enjoyed reading as a pastime. He made some calculations regarding my eyes, and I chose the frames.

A week later I received my reading glasses. I eagerly tested them on a book I was reading at the time. I read through an entire page, even an entire chapter without my eyes wandering. There was no need to go back and re-read a section. I already comprehended it.

Now, in the fall of my senior year of high school, it takes me a third of the time it used to take for me to study and get my homework done. I comprehend the material in texts better and I generally score higher on my tests. I didn’t let my frustrations push me to quit. I’m determined to do even better now that nothing is holding me back. My glasses have enabled me to see my world with increased clarity, but it was the time I spent without them that helped me develop the stamina and discipline that has made me a successful student, against the odds.