College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010
Elizabeth Jeffers Orr
The applicants
Along with participating in the International Baccalaureate program in high school, Elizabeth was also a cheerleader, lacrosse player, and member of student council and National Honor Society. She spent the summer before her senior year living with a family of eight in Costa Rica and helped rebuild their town’s community center while also teaching English classes. Throughout high school she volunteered for a Denver-based organization that put on the annual televised holiday parade in downtown Denver.
Stats
SAT: 1330 (680 Critical Reading, 650 Math)
ACT: 29
ACT Writing: 11
High School GPA: 4.2
High School: Littleton High School, Littleton, CO
Hometown: Denver, CO
Gender: Female
Race: Caucasian
Applied To
Bates College
Colby College
Kalamazoo College
Kenyon College
Lewis & Clark College
Macalester College
Oberlin College
University of Denver
University of Puget Sound
Essay
Elizabeth submitted the following essay to the schools listed above.
Topic of your choice
Beaches are meant to be rocky and gray. The ocean is meant to be deep blue and frigidly cold. You have to jump in because getting in step by step is intolerable. Everyone else’s white sand and turquoise blue fantasies mean nothing to me. I know only the whitecaps and fog, along with the trees and cliffs, that surround the beach of my memories. Every recollection I have, of any summer, involves Skillings, my family’s summer home on the coast of Maine. The wooden walls of that one-hundred year old house contain remnants of not only my childhood, but also the echoes of three generations of my family, who all vacationed there.
It is easy to forget that I am part of this extended family. I am at least ten years younger then the rest of my generation; all of my cousins already have kids, some of them approaching middle age. I live in Denver, approximately fifteen states away from any other family member. Out of the myriad of genetic possibilities, I inherited my mother’s hair, skin, and eye colors, making me a dark-skinned brunette, a rarity in this family of pale, blue-eyed red heads. Age, location, and appearance all loosen the obvious ties to my family.
Sometimes I question what we have in common, but there is a connection. My dad and uncles used to swim in this ocean when they spent their childhood summers at Skillings. Their names are carved into the sixty-year-old furniture. Here I share toys and books with my cousins, who have already moved on to adulthood, and with my father, who doesn’t remember leaving them behind. They slept in the room I sleep in now, just as my cousin Becky did before me. She left a pair of sandals here seven years ago. I borrow them sometimes, just as I borrow the raincoat my aunt Louise used to wear. Everyone who comes to stay at Skillings leaves something behind; Becky’s shoes, Louise’s coat, my dad’s copy of Just So Stories. I can picture some future niece or nephew of mine wearing the same goggles I’ve worn, diving head first into tidal pools to stare at the same starfish with which I’ve been transfixed.
At the end of every vacation, as our car pulls out of the driveway, I get my last glimpse of the deep blue water, and I cry. Only at Skillings do I feel like part of my extended family. Although most of them are older and far away, I know that, just as I do, they revisit their history here. Skillings encases the memories and belongings of my family, pieces of our lives, saving them for later, for others. Unlike me, the older members of my family no longer cry when they leave, but I know they did once. Maybe some day, once I’m older, I will stop, too. Until then, I will leave the remains of tears behind to mingle with those of my family, who all are at home amongst the rocks and fog.
See this page to find out where this student got in.