<p>Common App: First day working at summer school for autistic children.
Long Answer: Why I want to be a nurse (and how Penn can help me achieve my dreams).
Short Answer: Raising turtles.</p>
<p>blargh, looking back, I think my Why Penn essay was very stereotypical.</p>
<p>common app long - how i was scared of the socail consequences of being the captain of the cheerleading squad and joining debate
SHORT -about the peer counseling/anti-suicide group i started in honor of my brother who drowned</p>
<p>SUPPLEMENT -LONG- how i think i know what i want to do but penns flexibility to allow me to know for sure, and how i want to change science using weird things - ie cheer and violin
SHORT - kind of funny but just a collection of random quirky things about me</p>
<p>hoiboy - raising turtles thats kinda really cool</p>
<p>y’all have some interesting essay topics
i feel like mine were super mediocre…and here comes the morbidity again</p>
<p>Common App long: my journey from sucking at every imaginable sport to making varsity and being captain</p>
<p>short: all the cool stuff I did as a hospital volunteer </p>
<p>Penn long: volunteer at hospital/research in new nanoscience center/awesome professors and great community</p>
<p>short: my optional essay makes me unique…I didn’t do it O.O</p>
<p>Common App Long - Related falling while ice skating as a 5 year old to playing the first note wrong in a piano competition. Theme was getting back up each time I fall. I was told the structure of this essay was very creative.</p>
<p>Common App Short - How swimming consumes my life…didn’t put too much effort into this one.</p>
<p>Penn long - Student enthusiasm, diversity, emphasis on practicality and application, awesome clubs, “one university” philosophy</p>
<p>Penn short - Why I didn’t study for the SAT. Again, I was told the structure and the way I wrote it was very creative.</p>
<p>Common App: My experience in China and how I’ve become more outgoing and a better language learner because of it
Long: So much stuff. Diversity, great programs, great majors, research opportunities, and how I would become a part of the student body
Short: So bad. Like… really bad. It was about my background and how I’m very hardworking. I honestly should have just left it out, as it was optional.</p>
<p>How many people didn’t do the optional?</p>
<p>Common App Long: Three flags over my head. It’s a metaphor of saying my life under three countries. </p>
<p>Short: My experience being a prefect. (<—LAME) </p>
<p>Why Penn: Basketball game. Philly is great.</p>
<p>Optional. My interest in heraldry. I wrote it like I interviewed myself.</p>
<p>Common App Long: being low income, first gen, having a single mother, and still being successful. Totally creative, and somehow involved math. Definitely my best essay.
Short: Being involved in Red Cross.</p>
<p>Why Penn: focused on penn’s traditions and how I would fit in there.
Optional: about being a perfectionist</p>
<p>Long Answer CApp: Talked about my mom’s influence on me… how she overcame impossible odds to start her own business.</p>
<p>Short Answer CApp: Talked about cross country</p>
<p>Why Penn: Wharton’s hands on approach to teaching, opportunities in phili, and penn relays etc.</p>
<p>Optional: My improvement over high school and how it has driven me</p>
<p>Common app long: a really interesting, rather satirical essay about how I smile as a coping method. It sounds really strange, but I genuinely loved it, and thought it epitomized me.
Short: Being a student member on the Board of Education, and how it made me feel like my voice was important to children around my school system.</p>
<p>Why Penn: My adoration of the history and how I wanted to be incorporated into that history.
Optional: An allegory about my obsession with being perfect. (Hmm… similar to you, miss accordingtome)</p>
<p>Common App LONG: talked about my experience being a muslim american woman and how that has given me courage and confidence, as well as how i want to be a successful muslim woman since there are so many stereotypes that they are just oppressed etc. I want to break that stereotype by hopefully becoming a successful scientist :] </p>
<p>SHORT: my summer internship at a cancer research center, and how i loved it so much that i continue to work there after school, often until 8 pm. (My scientist wrote me a recommendation as well)</p>
<p>PENN LONG: ohh i talked about Penn Masala and how the first time i watched them perform i was so awestruck because these guys were so creative as well as super-smart, which is what i love about penn. And i talked about how penn has really given me alot, so its time i give back to them (i live in the UCity area). Plus how the interdisciplinary program fits me perfectly since i have a broad range of interests.</p>
<p>SHORT: i talked about my roots. like where i was born, first gen, low income. But i did not write it so bluntly. i wrote it in a metaphoric way, almost describing myself as a plant, and just as a plant would die without any roots, i would not be who i am today without my roots.</p>
<p>these topics are so original. i’m so not getting in. COOL!</p>
<p>CommonApp Long: talked about growing up in a small, rural community and how it shaped me as a person. also, about being an aide for the migrant ed. program here and teaching kids english.</p>
<p>Short: starting my own club on campus which now has 40+ members. </p>
<p>Penn long: how I would fit in to the school of nursing and give back to the community</p>
<p>short: how I define myself. it was actually kind of poetic, now that I think about it.</p>
<p>lol mandy we really do have a lot in common…i wrote about being in a little town in kansas…and about starting a club lol</p>
<p>hey! i guess i’ll join the conversation now.
but really, it took me all of 20 minutes to read the past 10 pages =D</p>
<p>common: talked about a dance party in haiti (i went there to help build a primary school), and how i managed to bring the real me out</p>
<p>short: about my involvement in buildOn and how it changed me</p>
<p>penn long: talked about my love for biology and how penn has so many things i can do to explore biology, outside activities i’ve done in high school and continue to do, and the awesomeness of philly =)</p>
<p>penn short: didn’t do it… maybe i should have…</p>
<p>Went to Haiti to build a school?</p>
<p>gg no re.</p>
<p>Common App Long: My birthday/birth/background and origins of my name. </p>
<p>CA Short: How I aid childhood education by being paid to play with kids (think positively, not perversely, please). </p>
<p>Penn Long: Put myself literally on campus and described how I would live my life there. (Def. not the best, but the best I could come up with in 2-ish months, so…). </p>
<p>Penn Short: Spoke about what I valued (as succinctly as possible, since it was 150 words max).</p>
<p>wow…6 hours later and theres already 11 more pages! so much love for penn 
oh and by the way @sweetcookie do you live in the philly area? i was reading your post on the stinkytofu and duck in chinatown haha. gotta love that area. im kind of jealous that im not going to be part of this wonderful grade at penn next year (: 2 more years for mee ! #sostressedout</p>