College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010
Michele Cash
The applicants
At her high school, Michele was president of the Interact Club and the Latin Club. She played tennis and ran cross-country, was an attorney on the mock trial team for three years, and organized school-wide blood and canned-food drives. She attended the California State Science Fair twice and won first place her junior year. She worked as a research assistant at NASA Ames Research Center the following summer.
Stats
SAT: 1450 (690 Critical Reading, 760 Math)
SAT Subject Test(s): 670 U.S. History, 710 Math Level 1, 750 Math Level 2, 720 Physics
ACT: 29
High School GPA: 4.00
High School: Abraham Lincoln High School, San Jose, CA
Hometown: San Jose, CA
Gender: Female
Race: Caucasian
Applied To
Harvard College
Harvey Mudd College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
University of California—Berkeley
University of California—Davis
University of California—San Diego
University of Rochester
Essay
Michelle used the following essay in each of her applications, with the exception of her Stanford application. The essay prompt was approximately:
Tell us something about yourself.
I came home from summer camp to find another foster child in our home. Noel had returned to his parents and Christian had replaced him. He was a quiet, shy, four-year-old who never made a sound. His past rendered him scared of adults, and when he spoke, it was barely an audible whisper. When I first met him, Christian did not faze me as anything other than another foster kid, with whom we would be sharing our home and love until a more permanent home could be assigned by the court. My parents were emergency foster parents and I had seen foster children come and go, some stayed only two days, others lived with us for several months. In the end, they all left.
At first Christian’s presence did not impact me. With my busy schedule it was easy to let the cowering child who wanted to be left alone go unnoticed. But Christian’s sad face and puppy dog eyes sang to me. Before long I found myself reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to him every night before tucking him into the little miniature bed in my brother’s room. The dark held monsters which scared Christian. Every night I made sure that the soft yellow nightlight beside his bed was casting its friendly glow on the walls, protecting him from the monsters concealed in the dark. I did not want Christian to wake up scared and frightened; he was so fragile and sweet I could not stand to see him upset.
Weeks passed and Christian found comfort in my active and compassionate family, slowly he shed his shell of fear and insecurity and transformed into an assertive four-year-old demanding attention. Christian willingly tried new activities. There were many common childhood experiences Christian never had. I taught him how to hold a crayon and color imaginative pictures, how to throw a softball and kick a soccer ball. We sat together on the family room floor and built Lego towers. We explored the mysterious corners of the backyard, creating secret magical lands for us to play in. I enjoyed Christian’s inquisitive mind and loved watching his reactions to the surrounding world.
Christian fit perfectly into the makeup of our family. He even continued the pattern set by our ages: 16, 13, 10, 7, 4; obviously he was meant to be part of our family. In every way Christian became my little brother. I protected him from harm and held him in my arms if he was ever hurt or upset.
In August of that summer my family went on a trip to Washington where we hiked up a steep trail toward the glaciers on Mount Rainer. Even Christian and my youngest sister, Gayle, made it most of the way up without whining to be carried; but before we reached the desired glacier, more than half our party decided they would rather rest than continue up the steep ascending path. Christian anxiously sought to play in the glistening snow, but he was too tired to climb any higher. I wanted him to encounter the cold softness of snow, so my brother, Stephen, and I plodded up the steep slope on a mission to bring back snow for Christian. Hiking up the mountain was not as difficult as coming down. The icy snow burnt my hands and soaked my heavy sweatshirt. I didn’t mind the stinging numbness in my fingers; the pain dissipated upon seeing Christian laugh as he built three-inch snowmen and participated in our miniscule snowball fight. The genuine happiness Christian displayed that day playing with snow made my trek to the glacier one of my most meaningful achievements.
Christian stayed with my family through Halloween and Christmas and into February of the next year. Once school started I no longer had countless hours to imagine marvelous kingdoms and explore hidden worlds with Christian, but I still managed to read to him and tuck him in bed on a regular basis. One cold Friday in February I came home from school to find a Polaroid picture of Christian on my desk with the caption, “To Michele” written in his shaky writing. The authorities had taken Christian away and I had not even had the opportunity to say good-bye. The loss of Christian devastated me. He fit so logically, so perfectly into our family; he made it balanced and whole. Christian’s deep inquisitive mind and genuine shyness reminded me of myself at his age. I wanted Christian to have all the opportunities life held open for him, but circumstances snatched him away from me.
When people find out that my parents are foster parents they often ask how we can take care of foster kids, don’t we get attached to them? I only have one answer for their question: I have loved them all, and have cared for them all, but some have left an aching hole in my heart.
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