Caroline Lucy Morgan - The applicants

College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Caroline Lucy Morgan
The applicants

Caroline held a number of leadership positions, including: Student Government President, Key Club President, Mock Trial Team Captain, and Varsity Tennis Captain. She was also Class Secretary her junior and senior years.

Stats

SAT: 1420 (700 Critical Reading, 720 Math)

High School GPA: 4.12 weighted

High School: Decatur High School, Decatur, GA

Hometown: Decatur, GA

Gender: Female

Race: Caucasian

Applied To

Davidson College (early decision)

Essay

Write on a topic of your choice.

“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through which we have gained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Romans 5: 1-6

For seven months I have clung to this scripture, hoping that these verses, which accurately depict the nature of my faith, will sustain me during this time that questions it. Last spring, I anticipated my significant worries to be prom and AP tests. Yet seven months ago they did not take precedence in my life. As a scared sixteen year old, I stood in awe of life while in fear of death, specifically my friend Sarah’s death, which was so irrational and threatened my faith.

My life is better because Sarah Woolf was in it. She acted as an example and a guide: when she dressed up as a table for Halloween, I costumed myself as her chair; when she could have won our three day Monopoly game, she gave me the Boardwalk as a present; when I craved the Indigo Girls, we would cruise in the Woolfinator II, her ’92 Honda Accord, and sing to passing cars. Words are inadequate to say how amazing she was, and how deeply she enriched my life. Now I have to believe there is a loving and caring God.

What is not explainable, comprehensible, nor rational is that this person whom God loved, and whom we all loved, could suffer from a disease as agonizing as bone cancer. Though her pain was unjustifiable, I must now come to terms with the faith I so desperately need but do not quite understand.

First, I remember that faith has held me this far, and I must establish that faith will be the guiding light in my future.

Second, I must look at Sarah’s life as a gift of God’s incessant grace. Rather than being distraught over God’s place in this inexplicable situation, I must understand that the last word is not death but the grace of God.

Finally, I must not be consumed by my own grief but use what I have learned from Sarah to move forward through it. Rare maturity emerged as Sarah responded to her cancer: she maintained straight A’s in her full load of AP courses, despite a demanding and grueling chemotherapy regimen; she asked to be cremated so that the funds saved could be donated to the Humane Society; the Monday before she passed away, Sarah beckoned her friends to her side to placate our agony while, with dignity and poise, Sarah embraced her own. As Sarah modeled, what distinguishes people from one another is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.

Today I have seventeen years behind me, and I know, by the amount of grief I have observed and experienced, that through Sarah’s death, life is affirmed. I know, by how much I mourn the loss of one, an amazing one, that life is good, and people are good, and above all that God, who is present during sorrow and suffering, is, in fact, good.

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