College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Andrew Collins
The applicants

Andrew’s two most important extracurricular pursuits were his work as editor of The Exonian, a weekly school newspaper, and piano composition, for which he was selected to give a major public recital at the end of his senior year. He was a two-year letterman in track, twice served as the sports director of WPEA campus radio, and founded an adjunct student government committee his junior year, which was a forum for student interaction with Student Council representatives. In his junior year, Andrew won the Sherman W. Hoar award for excellence in American history and the Turner Exonian Award for writing and reporting for the newspaper.

Stats

SAT: 1540 (800 Critical Reading, 740 Math)

SAT Subject Test(s): 790 Literature, 720 Math Level 2, 650 Chemistry, 620 Physics, 690 French

High School GPA: 3.42

High School: Philips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH

Hometown: Little Rock, AR

Gender: Male

Race: Caucasian

Applied To

Duke University

Georgetown University

Harvard College

Princeton University

Stanford University

University of California—Berkeley

University of Virginia

Vanderbilt University

Essay

Andrew used the following essay in his applications to Harvard, Vanderbilt, and Duke.

Common Application: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, or risk that you have taken and its impact on you.

“You’ll have a great time. These elderly folks, they’re so appreciative when students take the time to perform for them—and they love the music.”

Over half of the audience had fallen asleep. Drowsiness had enveloped the remaining residents, who looked bleary-eyed and disoriented in their wheelchairs. One man succumbed to a grotesque yawn, and the sight of his spit-soaked, mangled gums caused me to wince. I had volunteered to play piano at Riverwoods Nursing Home along with some of my classmates, and was next in line to perform. Thinking that this audience would cheerfully applaud anything, I had elected to perform one of my original compositions. The song wasn’t perfect, but I figured that an audience full of kindly old grandmothers would offer unqualified praise and perhaps a cookie or two, not criticism. Instead, dozens of eyes were staring right at me through sagging frames of flesh. I sat upright in the hard plastic chair, muscles taut, in a state of total discomfort. Someone in the audience passed gas.

When it was my turn to play, I walked over to the piano and addressed the crowd, as is customary. I said the name of my piece, and then I was interrupted—“Talk louder, boy!”—by a fierce gentleman in the front row. I apologized and tried again, but my efforts were met with jeers from the audience.

“He’s just whispering!” one woman shouted with glee. Her friend nodded and whooped in approval, between coughs. No more slumber for these folks—the scene had turned rowdy, and I was stuck in the middle!

Desperate and rattled, I felt I had no choice but to shout at my maximum volume. “MY NAME IS ANDREW COLLINS,” I bellowed, “AND I WILL BE PLAYING ’HIGHER GROUND!’ ” The audience then launched into an in-depth discussion about the origin of my name. One woman said that “Andrew” means “strong” in Hebrew, while another made the absurd claim that it means “falcon” in English. Not waiting to hear how this argument would conclude, I sat down at the piano and tried to play over their cacophonous debate.

It was even worse during the actual performance of the piece. People who heard the song in private usually complimented me heartily, and they encouraged me to play my original music in a performance setting. This crowd, however, was not impressed with the “fancy rock-and-roll” style of my composition. One woman said, loudly enough for me to hear, “I wish he’d play ’Danny Boy.’ ” Others drifted in and out of sleep as I continued my performance.

At one point, a skinny, pale man in the back of the room punched at the air and yelled, “Shut up!” He engaged in a brief skirmish with a member the nursing home staff, who escorted him out of the room. Finally, I finished my song and walked back to my seat, mentally and physically exhausted.

“Tough crowd,” I whispered to one of my fellow performers. The rec room was in total disarray; some people were yelling and many were demanding to be wheeled back to their living quarters. It was hot and the nursing home staff seemed unable to maintain order in the frenetic atmosphere. Sweat was dripping down my face. The next week, and for many weeks afterward, I came back to play at Riverwoods.

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