How To Write The Perfect College Admission Essay

How To Write The Perfect College Admission Essay I loved Junie B’s adventurous spirit and offbeat humor. And most of all, I loved that she was a loud-mouth like me. Like Junie B, I knew what I wanted and I was always ready to ask for it. The series had all the traditional morals of childhood (be kind to your friends, tell the truth, etc.), but it also taught me that sometimes speaking up is better than sitting down, a lesson I still remember today. I began to appreciate the nuances of a person’s writing style, how diction, syntax, sentence length, and dialogue could play together like chemicals and making a book simmer, bubble, foam, or explode. And an appreciation for the finer point of writing has widened the genres I readâ€"from fantasy to classics, autobiographies to mysteries, nonfiction to adventure and beyond. I still read voraciously, but now I read deeply as well. In middle school my two favorite book series were Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I’ll admit, I was a strange child, and my parents called me spaced cadet because I spent so much time staring off into the air, unknown stories forming behind my eyes. Luna was weird, probably even a little weirder than me. She thought wrackspurts caused distracted thoughts and read the tabloid magazine of the Harry Potter word,The Quibbler. What I found so appealing about her character was how unapologetic she was about her oddities. When the other students at Hogwarts made fun of her and called her names she responded with kindness, because she knew in her heart she was brave and smart, and didn’t seek anyone else’s approval. Waldorf school’s use a block system for teaching lessons that are roughly three weeks long. There are no textbooks, for each main lesson a student makes a main lesson book containing all original work. There is a substantial amount of time devoted to the arts and physical movement as well. All the classes are taught seminar-style and the most any classroom has is 25 kids. My experience with Lolita informed my entire way of thinking. It taught me that there is no ending to a conversation, and no meaning without conversation. Martin Amis described this experience best, in his introduction to and essay on Lolita, “Clearly, these are not a scholar’s notes, and they move towards no edifice of understanding or completion. And I am running out of clean white space.” This is what I wish to be, I do not want to pretend to that kind of edifice, but rather be met every day by surprise. It is that surprise that I can see in the community at St. John’s. This prompts me to wonder if the universe is beautiful or not. Perhaps it is in functionality and mechanics, but many parts of the universe are uninhabitable and violent. I simply slowed down and tried to hear the words in my head. I once condemned poetry as a pretentious and boring, but I realized I was reading poetry completely wrong. You have to slow down to appreciate how the words sounds, how they flow into each other and then slowly drift away. I even began to write poetry, after years of telling myself that I was destined to write prose and prose only for the rest of my life. I have truly thrived in this kind of mindful learning environment, and think it would be imprudent to pursue an education that may be heavy in testing and memorization. A book will occupy my thoughts and conversation for a period of time but Lolita awakened a violent response- this is what I have to do, for the rest of my life. I have to analyze great literature and live in its questioning. What we know about the destiny of the universe is quite bleak as well. Most of our endeavors in this world can be tied back to a philosophical question, but perhaps this is an ideal life. However, in my experience this is the truth, and I would like to continue my own and very human tradition of questioning. St. John’s fosters a life of the mind temperament that I think could last a lifetime. The curriculum at St. John’s is actually not that different from the curriculum at my school as I attend a Waldorf school. I began attending the Waldorf school when I was in 7th grade. From this education, I have not only strengthened immensely as a thinker and student, but as a person as well. I know the value of community and how to be a good friend. I drew on her strength often during the rough and awkward moments of middle school. At a recent student retreat, everyone in my class was asked to draw a timeline of our lives. There are a lot of ways I could break up my life timeline, from states I lived in to schools I’ve attended, but I could also break it up by my favorite book . In first grade, my mother bought me the first five Junie B. Jones books, and I was hooked. My parents couldn’t figure out why I had suddenly become afraid of the dark until they realized that I was only asking they keep the closet light on so I could stay up all night and read.