Gaurav P. Patel - The applicants

College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Gaurav P. Patel
The applicants

Gaurav graduated summa cum laude as salutatorian of his high school and received several local and national awards, including the Atlanta Journal Cup Award, American Academy of Achievement Honor Student (the top 400 seniors in the nation are chosen annually), Marietta’s Teen of the Year, Young Leader of Tomorrow, Furman Scholar, the Outstanding Junior Award, and several academic awards in school. Many of his achievements focused on the French language; he was selected to attend the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, received the Oxbridge Academics French Scholarship to attend the Academie de Paris, received the American Association of Teachers of French Travel Award, and placed first in the state and fifth in the nation on the National French Exam.

Stats

SAT: 1500 (760 Critical Reading, 740 Math)

SAT Subject Test(s): 740 Math Level 2, 750 Chemistry, 740 French with Listening

High School GPA: 4.40 weighted

High School: The Walker School, Marietta, GA

Hometown: Smyrna, GA

Gender: Male

Race: Asian American

Applied To

Dartmouth College

Harvard College

Princeton University

University of Pennsylvania

Yale University

Essay 1

Gaurav used the following essay in his applications to Dartmouth, Penn, and Princeton.

First experiences can be defining. Cite a first experience that you have had and explain its impact on you.

Here I was in Hemingway’s “moveable feast,” yet unfortunately I was without a feast of my liking in Paris during OxBridge Academic’s L’Académie de Paris on the program’s French Language Scholarship and the National French Honor Society’s Travel Award. In the world’s culinary capital, I, a true francophile who cannot get enough of the French culture, could not find anything to eat. Surely, the croque monsieur or even les escargots tempted the taste buds of the over one-hundred other participants in the program; but my taste buds seemed to cringe at the sight, god forbid the smells, of such foods. However, I somehow survived on les sandwich and by my fascination of France and what else she had to offer.

My classes Littérature française and Medicine at L’Académie unmasked the educational merits that often lie hidden behind façades for the ’traditional’ visitors of Paris. Classes began at 9:00 a.m. after a French breakfast and ended at 12:00 p.m., when students traversed the Parisian streets to grab a sandwich and enjoy lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens or in the gardens of the Rodin Museum. Minor classes began at 2:00 p.m., but the city became a teacher’s aide, a type of three-dimensional video. Studying literature and fashioning my own poems in a café where Hemingway used to frequent or creating my own literary “salon” at la Mosquée became reality during class. The beauty and the scintillation of the French language came to life even more so for me. I never ceased to be enthralled, for I was finally immersed in the culture, the language, and the tradition of my academic passion in life: French.

The whole city transformed into a massive university; there was always something to learn outside of classes. Attempting to speak French with a native or ordering lunch in French became a unique type of erudition. While studying abroad, I not only received a stable background with lively teachers in my classes, I also began to experience French life—I was a Parisian for one full month (or at least I tried to be).

In Paris, I never had a dull moment. Whether it was a walk to the Eiffel Tower or a short journey to the nearby Versailles or a candle-light stroll in and around Vauxle-Vicomte, I never tired. Having a cappuccino with my newfound friends at a café as we watched others briskly walking by on the Champs-Elysées or travelling on the Métro became adventures. The French culture offers a city and a country where the joy of life is present all around.

Nevertheless, I had to leave my utopia. On my last stroll around Paris and in the Luxembourg Gardens on the morning of my departure, I came to realize that I had had an extraordinary experience that many will never savor. Learning French amongst les français was a dream that I had finally fulfilled, and it is a something that I crave yet again—without the food if possible.

Essay 2

Gaurav used the following essay in his applications to Harvard and Yale.

For Harvard he responded to the Common Application question: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, or risk that you have taken and its impact on you.


Yale provides a blank page and asks applicants to write about themselves.

Every taste of life brings some new knowledge to each person, and thus, experiences are the way we grow, the way we live, and the way we survive in an all too changing world. Each and every unique bite of life fills the human body with suffering, achievement, or satisfaction. Personally, I feel that experiences which content the soul are the most worthwhile. Of my many personal adventures in life, I feel that my experience tutoring a young eighth grader in my sophomore year of high school has given me the feeling of greatest satisfaction.

This young man was of Middle-Eastern origin and was having trouble organizing his thoughts in English; he lacked the motivation necessary to succeed in his class and was, therefore, about to fail. He became overly frustrated and discouraged with himself. His English teacher, my teacher in eighth grade, felt that this student did not believe in himself because English was his second language; his teacher thought that because of my patience, maturity, and agility in working with others I could truly help him. His teacher, moreover, knew that I have the ability to interact in language, for I speak English, French, and Gujarati. And so I began tutoring him. I spent about three hours a week working with his vocabulary and his thought processes in English; I discovered that he had amazing, sophisticated ideas and concepts, but the reason he consistently failed exams and essays was that he could not express his thoughts coherently in English. Nevertheless, after about two months, he not only began to show some improvements, he also gained confidence and enhanced his self-esteem. Furthermore, I feel that he actually started to grasp a larger concept of the English language and its often complicated structure.

Helping others has been a way of life taught to me by my parents ever since I was young. By example, my parents taught me that giving to charity, speaking with one who may be distressed, reading to a youngster, or talking to an aged person enhance the value of the soul, and each awakens a sense of euphoria. Tutoring Parham has truly been one of the greatest experiences in my life, for not only did I aid this intelligent young man in receiving better grades, I feel that I taught him something that he will always remember. Speaking and writing correctly and effectively in English is a necessity in not only the United States and England but in the entire world; furthermore, I feel that I brought out a new confidence in himself. I realize that this experience may seem somewhat minute to those of others—I could have written about my other awards, but this tutoring taught me something about myself. Helping Parham to learn and to grow buttressed the already strong moral values planted by my parents, and it made a difference in the life of another—the main objective.

See this page to find out where this student got in.