College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010
Caroline Habbert
The applicants
Caroline held many leadership positions in high school, including Student Senate President. She was on the yearbook staff and the varsity softball team for four years, and head both operations her senior year as editor and captain, respectively. She was also involved in the Ohio Math League, the Service Club, and her school’s Cum Laude and French Honor Societies. Outside of school, she taught and attended religious school for four years, volunteered at a nursing home weekly, and spent her summers bicycling. The summer before her senior year, Caroline cycled across the United States.
Stats
SAT: 1510 (770 Critical Reading, 740 Math)
SAT Subject Test(s): 750 Math Level 2, 750 Biology
ACT: 34
High School GPA: 3.98
High School: Seven Hills Upper School, Cincinnati, OH
Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
Gender: Female
Race: Caucasian
Applied To
Brown University
Stanford University
University of Michigan
Washington University in St. Louis
Yale University
Please note: Caroline did not disclose information about other applications.
Essay
Caroline used the following essay in her application to Brown, and modified it for her other applications. There was no formal essay question.
This summer I pushed myself to the limit time and time again. Many times when I thought that I could not go any further, I had to rely on all of my inner strength to pull myself through. This summer I spent eight weeks on a bicycle that carried not only me, but all of my worldly possessions for those eight weeks, from Seattle, Washington to Sea Bright, New Jersey. I moved my legs around in constant circles for seven or eight hours a day, every day, all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And at the end of each day, when I was more tired than I could possibly imagine, I set up my tent, rolled out my sleeping bag, and slept until a “mornin’ folks” forced its way into my consciousness and told me that it was time to begin the process anew. We encountered crosswinds so strong that we exerted more effort trying to move in a straight line than trying to move forward; swarms of mosquitoes so thick that standing still for more than ten seconds and maintaining enough blood to function were mutually exclusive; huge trucks heading towards us while passing cars on their side of the road, forcing us to abandon the little strip of shoulder we occupied; and, of course, uphill roads than seemed to take forever to crest at the top of the mountain. Despite all of the setbacks and adverse conditions, I made it across the country under my own power. I will probably never again experience anything so amazing as the feeling I had when we first saw water in New Jersey. Getting there had required me to utilize both emotional and physical elements of myself that had never before been tested. I had never before sat on a bicycle seat for 55 days in a row, nor had I ever faced something I wasn’t confident I could do. But I did do it. I called upon all of the tenacity, persistence, and strength that I have, and I made it.
This is not the first physical challenge I have conquered; my photo albums display mementoes from three other long-distance bike trips. Nor is this the first emotional challenge I have faced. Every week, in fact, I am tested in new ways as a volunteer at a nursing home. During my six years there I have worked with countless residents, but one woman has been a constant. Each time I go, I make it a point to stop by Sarah’s room to spend some time alone with her. The first I met her, Sarah was the feisty old lady playing Bingo who explained to me that some of the other women occasionally had a hard time finding the right square. Unfortunately, her spunk did not last much longer. Already 90 when I met her, her health began a slow decline soon after I met her. Most upsetting to me was the fact that her mental facilities were slowly deteriorating. When I first began visiting her, she would challenge my presence on any day other than Sunday. Then, as the days started to blend together, she would realize that it was Sunday when I arrived. Finally, she quit commenting on the days at all. She lost the sparkle that crept into her voice when she talked about her daughter, she stopped telling me about the additions to her photo gallery, and she didn’t seem to care about what was going on outside of her room. But she still had enough spirit left to smile every week when I stopped by and ask how I’d been, to listen to me talk about school and my family, the weather and how nice she looked. Until this Sunday, when she didn’t recognize me. After I had watched her sleep for a minute, I rubbed her arm and said her name. She slowly opened her eyes and lifted her head off her chest. I waited for the smile and the “Caroline.” They didn’t come. She closed her eyes and lowered her head again, leaving me squatting by her chair …
Watching this transformation has given me my first lesson in the realities of life. Although I am invincible now, I won’t always be. Aging is a fatal disease everyone gets if she lives long enough. The nurse I talked to said that she could “go at any time.” Time: it is such a relative thing. When I was on my bike this summer, the hour that it took to go twelve miles sometimes seemed like it would never end. The two months that I was gone seemed to last forever. But I can still remember the day that I met Sarah six years ago as vividly as if it were yesterday. And it doesn’t seem fair that Sarah’s life, long in terms of human time but short in relation to the world, will soon be a memory too.
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