<p>I would almost rather them find it genuinely funny than be accepted. Both is good, I guess.</p>
<p>Although you did take a different approach and make your essay quite creative, I’m not too sure how they’ll respond to three applicants sending the exact same “essay.” Doing so stunted everyone’s creativity and made everyone seem sort of similar…imagine what would happen if I sent the exact same essay as my other school applicants and said that it was a group essay…the essay is where you individualize, not group yourself. </p>
<p>Anyway, best of luck!</p>
<p>I said I’d tour Google’s headquarters.</p>
<p>Hehehe, group essay. I should do the time warp and write a group essay with my friends and send it to JHU with that video.<br>
Lets do the time warp again.</p>
<p>Here’s my essay that got me into JHU. It’s exactly as I submitted (typos included).</p>
<pre><code>On the side of my bed sat a bucket filled with change. I had been adding to the bucket since my early childhood, and now it was brimming to the edges. Nickels and dimes had spilled over onto the floor. As I picked it up, I felt the five pounds of coins strain my arm. Today, I was ready to redeem my life-long collection of spare change. I spilled the hundreds coins onto the carpet.
I stirred through the pile of coins and asked myself what meaning each had. How many lives was each coin tangent to? Each and every coin had a story that was begging to be told.
The collection had splattered around the floor, but one coin in particular caught my eye. I picked up an Indian head penny dated 1903. I flashed back to my youth when my Dad had given me an Indian head penny from his own collection. I never let go of it for days fearing I would loose it. I put the coin under my pillow every night and took it to school every day just to make sure I knew where it was. Eventually, my attention wore thin and I lost it. I was crushed when I found the hole in my empty pocket. Was this the coin from all those years ago? Knowing the coins sentimental value, I set it aside.
I returned to the pile. A 1992 nickel now caught my eye. I remembered a long ago trip to the barbershop. I must have been four years old. In my youthful innocence I proclaimed that the biggest coin was always worth the most. Mr. Sammy, the wonderful barber, played with my idea. He held out a dime and a nickel and asked me to choose the most valuable coin. If I was right I could keep it. I, of course, chose the nickel. Not wanting to embarrass me, he concurred and gave me the nickel anyway. I took the lesson to heart and remained blissfully ignorant of the true value of a nickel until I was a few years older. I put the nickel next to the penny.
I began sifting through the coins again. I found a 1997 dime. I stared at the portrait of Franklin Roosevelt. I recalled my Grandpas stories of how awful the depression was. He told me how much trouble he had finding work amidst the economic crisis. He spoke of the president as if speaking of an old friend. I remembered how in fourth grade I wrote a report on Roosevelt’s presidency. I based the report on my Grandpas memories. It was the first multi-page paper that I ever wrote. I added the dime to the growing pile.
I fingered through the half-dozen quarters. I pulled out a New Hampshire state quarter and stared at the Old Man in the Mountain. I harkened back to a trip I took to New Hampshire in elementary school. My family stopped to look at the Old Man in the Mountain. I remember excitedly staring at the face in the cliff. I was awestruck by the natural colossus. I was saddened several years ago when the Old Man fell from the cliff. I set this coin aside as well. My pile now added up to forty-one cents.
I took the remaining coins to the store and put them into the coin counting machine. I had about eight dollars left after the counting fee. I walked around the store until I found what I was looking for, a tiny silk coin bag.
When I got home I deposited the forty-one cents I had set aside into the silk bag. I placed it next to my bed in the coin buckets old spot. Those forty-one cents represented my adventure through the memories of my childhood. Who would have known that four old coins could have held such memories?
</code></pre>
<p>miles, omg i just LOVE your vid. was gonna pm you to share the love but since u don have pm, congrats! the vid was AWESOME.</p>
<p>Hey Miles, im just wondering did u get in?</p>
<p>I got in. I wrote about goin to the park with family and eating lunch while getting to know them better.</p>
<p>Here is the essay that got me in at JHU ED
The $10 Adventure to The Past</p>
<pre><code>Upon leaving the Johns Hopkins University campus I began the tedious journey back home. The bustling and picturesque streets of Baltimore were exciting as well as foreign to me. Thus, I found myself lost and none the wiser as Map Quest had steered me counterclockwise around the campus, down some dead ends, and then amazingly, gazing eagerly at the Blacks in Wax Museum. The museum contrasted sharply with the poverty-stricken, drug-filled corner it stood on, yet I found it ironically perfect. Most of the people, outside the museum were black and their eyes cast a sad, desperate look my way. My heart plummeted downward as I gazed at them, but I knew they might find hope, direction, and courage by visiting the Museum that I then stood before. Inside the museum, I smiled upon Nerfertiti and read about the intelligence of the legendary African people. I became empowered and I felt as if I were invincible, and that I could realize anything I dreamed. I ventured down into the middle passage and instantaneously my pride became crushed, as the cries of the slaves insisted that I remember. Upon departure, I had learned more about my heritage than I had ever been taught in school.
I strove in vain to absorb each exhibit and every crevice of the museum, that I might spontaneously reproduce it with accurate vividness for my siblings. Thus, if I could plan a journey equipped with ten dollars, I would educate my baby siblings, Nathan and Aliyah of the history of their race. In essence, I would create in them the same empowerment and courage that the Blacks in Wax Museum had instilled in me. For it is with knowledge of the past that one will have the strength and courage to continue lifes journey.
With oversized appetites, knapsacks containing our provisions, and a homemade view book, we would begin our journey by catching the bus at a bus stop within the proximity of our home. The ten dollars afforded us would have already been invested in a Hampton Roads transit ten rides ticket book. Traveling on route 357 we would journey to the Historic Old Towne Portsmouth.
At 7:15 a.m. we would board the bus and begin flipping through the view book. It would begin with the history of the African queens and kings, continue with slavery, the civil rights movement, and famous blacks in Portsmouth. The view book would also contain past pictures of the places we would visit.
Beginning on Crawford Street we would watch the black and white photos transform into present day three-dimensional figures. By comparing these prospectives we would be able to fathom Portsmouth gradually morphing. Portsmouth went from having 10,000 Caucasians and
</code></pre>
<p>1600 slaves to 400 freed blacks in the 1840s. It was a city in 1852.
On the corner of King and Crawford Street, we would venture on by foot to 3500 King Street. Once there Mrs. Pauline Scott would lovingly welcome us and offer some of her baked perfections. At 9:00 a.m., she would narrate her story to a time before our birth. She would describe an education at the first high school for blacks, Israel Charles Norcom High. Mrs. Scott would tell us of a segregated world and her determination to succeed.
After our visit with Mrs. Scott, we would board the bus again. Around 10:45 a.m. the bus would pass the Medal of Honor Monument, off Crawford parkway and on the corner of High and Water Street. I would tell them about Sergeant Charles Veal, a recipient of the Medal of Honor, and African American native of Portsmouth who seized the nations colors from a dying soldier at the Battle of New Market Heights in 1864.<br>
At 11:15 a.m. we would tour Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1857. Within the church we would see a secret passageway of the Underground Railroad and touch the benches built by the slaves and freed blacks.
Afterwards we would have a picnic in the park of Israel Charles Norcom High. I would open the view book to the last page and to a clip of the 1965 graduates of Norcom High. Nathan and Aliyah would then discover Mrs. Pauline Scott within its pages.
At 2:30 p.m. we would board the bus for the third time. Route 357 would lead us to our final destination, home. There would be one ticket left, from our ten dollar, ten rides ticket book. Our minds would drift steadily to the present, yet our last ticket would be predestined for the future.</p>
<p>Amazing job makeing the $10 essay into a story about your URM status.</p>
<p>I made it a game based on Machiavelli’s concept of fortune…how half of life is based on luck and the other half is based on control.</p>
<p>Didn’t get in, but didn’t really put an effort into getting in…made it my “fun” application. Off to the University of Michigan next year! Best of luck to you Hopkins people!</p>
<p>i did a photoessay…it’s kind of embarassing, i showed that i’d spend the 10 bucks on chocolate bars ($1/each) and then photographed myself doing 10 things, each scene with a candy bar…haha kind of lame =( it took hours because i went all around the city, but it got me in!</p>