Ok, I’ve been having some trouble doing this essay because the wording is a bit confusing and vague. Here is the prompt:
How would your five-year-old self see you today? Considering your past experiences and your future ambitions, who do you feel you are becoming now? In what ways are those two images congruent, or divergent?
(350-500 words)
In what way do they want us to evaluate ourselves? I can’t think of one aspect of me that my five year old self would care enough to think about. Can someone rephrase the question so I can understand a bit better?
I actually really enjoyed writing this essay. Basically, they want to see how you’ve grown. Since you’re considering the honors program at OSU, which is already a good school, I would assume that you’re an academically developed student. Think about your ambitions as a five year old, if they were nothing more than to go outside and color with chalk, make that into something humorous, show how it reflects your inner creativity. Maybe you have a flashbulb memory from kindergarten that you could open with. Don’t dwell so much on what your five-year-old self was like, no admissions counselor is going to penalize you for having no long-term ambitions when you were still learning how to write your own name. Instead, focus on how you’ve grown over the years and use five-year-old you as a personality anchor and a unique perspective.
This was actually one of my favorite (but hardest) essays to write, for sure. I basically wrote about the dreams I had when I was a 5-year old, like being a millionaire, living in a mansion, saving the world, etc, and compared to my dreams now (obviously more realistic)
Use your essay to show the admissions officers how you’ve grown- physically, emotionally, mentally- and show an experience you’ve had and how it changed or didn’t change your goals/dreams/aspirations or whatever.
Have fun!