<p>Yeah, I’m taking on the challenge. I’m going to be a junior this sept. and I’ve become obsessive with preparing a good enough repertoire to present to Penn. </p>
<p>I go to this school in Manhattan for the performing arts. It’s called Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and it specializes in dance, drama, vocal, instrumental, etc. So I major in instrumental music and it’s a big thing in my high school career. My diploma will be stamped with the Instrumental Music Studio (given that i completed all the requirements, which i will…psh)</p>
<p>And that school was not easy to get into. In NYC there is a group of elite public high schools, the Ivies of NY, if you will. They are called specialized high schools and i attend one of em.</p>
<p>I’m going to write that essay that Penn is assigning to applicants, about the random page of their autobio. I’m thinking about writing about how i prepared for the audtion to get into that high school of mine. It should allow Penn to get an idea of how dedicated i am in preparing the perfect application, right? And also they may tie in that perhaps i did the same preparation with Penn’s app?</p>
<p>oh my god! the fame high school! hey, you should chill. You’re gonna be a Junior next year? please, do yourself a favor and forget about your college essays for another 12 months. Seriously. work on getting your scores next year, and then write the essays.</p>
<p>heh but they haven’t changed the question for like…years. It would be totally random. But i have an OCD problem (lolz) and I can’t stop thinking about the essays. I’m not writing them NOW just making an outline to build up enough info so i can write the best essay i possibly can. With grades, i guess there’s no problem. I live in another borough and to get to manhattan takes like an hour so while i’m on the train with those weird old men smiling at me, i can like fill in little by little, but i just would like to know if writing about my app preparation to audition for Fame would show em i am worthy. That’s all.</p>
<p>Okay, you attend a school that specializes in the performing arts. Most of the students who attend, laguardia, stuyvesant, bronx science, bklyn tech, hunter, townsend harris, down to the zone high school all commute to school on the nyc subway/bus/ferry, etc. Riding the subway makes you outstanding how? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You do know that beginning this year Penn is accepting the common app?</p>
<p>So writing your essays now using Penn’s application may be a waste of your time because most likely they will shift totally to the common app and just have supplements for its different schools.</p>
<p>Others have said it best. You are a rising junior. Chill, try to take the most rigerous courses your school offers and do well. Start taking the SATs/ ACT’s SAT IIs and do well.</p>
<p>“Riding the subway makes you outstanding how?”</p>
<p>I think she means she’ll write her essay while commuting. It’s good to look preoccupied with creepy old guys staring at you. However, I do agree with you, a but premature.</p>
<p>Yes, I do mean that i will write it while commuting. I suggest, in the nicest way possible, that you read carefully. No, but Penn gets bookish people all the time. Can you name another high school in this nation that gives a consevatory-style education in the arts as well as academics? You can read this: </p>
<p>Also no one from my school applies. Most of them want to go to conservatories and such. My point is, that’s what makes me unique. Penn knows I read. Penn doesn’t know i play intruments and act under conservatory-level education (which i probably will not pursue in college anyway).</p>
<p>Penn will still accept their regular application, not only the Common App. one friend said, “This can’t be right, PSU already gets 92,000 apps. This would make things even more unwieldy.”</p>
<p>i meant that as a comparison, but maybe my friend mixed it up. I know the difference between it, but i took it as comparing Penn to PSU. whoops. Well in any case, Penn would still accept the regular application right? They are not limited to the Common App, no way! That sounds too …far-fetched.</p>
<p>the specialized high school system processes thousands of kids a year, so don’t be surprised if you don’t stick out. The performing arts part is interesting, but what are you planning to study?</p>
<p>Also, they care about you (as cliche as that sounds), not the effort you put in your app. Chill out, get good grades, and come back a year later.</p>
<p>just curious - but with this essay, is your autobiography up till now or till the time you feel ur life should end in the future?
does that make sense? like, is the 300 pgs abt 17 yrs of life or 95? so would u write about 10th grd on pg217 (for ex) or abt ur grandchildren when u were in ur 60s?</p>
<p>If by the age of 17 you have lived a life worthy of a 300 page autobiography, go ahead and write page 217 of your life to date. Otherwise, it is more interesting, creative and individualistic to write 217/300 of your whole life. Writing about your aspirations, dreams, challenges, failures, etc…in a way that is not excessively boa****l, foolish, maudlin or tedious is a real challenge.</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily think it’s more interesting or individualistic to write about the future… more creative, sure, since you actually have to create the situation, but there is nothing wrong with doing it on your life so far.</p>
<p>Do what feels right and what is more you… when I wrote mine I didn’t think twice about writing it on my life up to this point… thinking up the future just isn’t me. I ultimately wrote about working at my first job for the essay. It was something rather simple to write about, but yet I felt as though I could really give the adcom a look into my life by talking about it. So yeah… just do what you think feels right. Afterall, the committee uses these essays to get to know YOU, so don’t try to do something you aren’t comfortable with.</p>
<p>I’m not saying simple is better, I’m saying to be yourself. For me, that was choosing to simply put into words an experience I lived through, not make some crazy future up for myself. Also, being “me” was talking about working at my first job… a simple subject, because I felt like I learned a lot from the experience and it meant a lot to me in terms of overall growth and maturation. </p>
<p>If being yourself means expressing your creativity by thinking up what you’d like your life to be like in the future or discussing a crazy experience you had when you were 9, by all means go for it. I just don’t agree with anitaw that you have to have lived an action-packed life worthy of a 300 page autobiography by this point to write about a true experience that you’ve already lived through.</p>