Read my essay?

tomsojka
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:40:14 +0000

The school I attend has a paper shortage. There aren’t always enough textbooks for everyone. It is the typical urban high school that would by no means be considered a “top school.” In fact, a recent study conducted by John Hopkins University called William E. Tolman High School a “dropout factory.” When I visit my friends who go to school on Providence’s East Side at expensive and well-to-do institutions , their parents nearly drop their teacups and crumpets when they find out where I go to school.
“You go where?” they ask in an upper-crust accent, stretching their vowels for far too long. *When I confirm that I indeed attend school in “the 'Bucket”, not even botox can keep their lips from turning downward into a frown.
People always talk about how excited they will be when high school is over, but I will miss a certain English teacher’s rants about how the Math Department broke the Xerox machine. I’ll miss continuing class discussions about Emerson and Thoreau at lunch, like true “nerds.” I’ll miss the cynicism of a certain math teacher, who always played “the world’s smallest violin” for all of her student’s problems. Most of all, I’ll miss being with the people I have become so close with throughout high school. They, much like Tolman, have their ups and their downs, but, ultimately, I love them.
I entered high school shy, soft-spoken, without much confidence- basically a pushover, an unrecognizable face among hundreds. Three years later, I am bold, outgoing, and have made my mark on the school, just as it has made its mark upon me. I know that most students applying to college have survived public school, but I have not just survived–I have flourished. When the Director of the Drama Club left after my freshman year, the whole club fell apart. I went out into the community and found a local actor willing to help, who, like myself, was willing to dedicate his time and energy to helping others and making a difference. Since then, the club has staged four very successful productions in collaboration with a neighborhood theater, including an original student adaptation of The Little Prince. In addition to having been in all the shows, I have taken on the marketing and business side of the operation, designing posters and programs and handling ticket sales. When I wanted to join the non-existent school newspaper, I made a connection with a teacher who also wanted a newspaper, and now, more than a year later, we finally have a student publication, of which I am editor. I have taken every opportunity presented to me in an effort to better myself, better my school and peers, and ultimately, better the world. I am proud to be a Tolman student who is hardworking, bright, and capable of overcoming adversity. Neither of my parents are college graduates, so I’m certainly no legacy. But I will incontrovertibly leave a legacy if I attend Brown University.