Stuart Peter Dekker - The applicants

College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Stuart Peter Dekker
The applicants

In high school, Stuart was an avid golfer, a student pilot, and Board President of his high school band. He also owned his own landscaping and handyman company that operated during the summer.

Stats

ACT: 33

High School GPA: 4.33 weighted

High School: Downers Grove North High School, Downers Grove, IL

Hometown: Downers Grove, IL

Gender: Male

Race: Caucasian

Applied To

College of William and Mary

Georgetown University

New York University

Tulane University

University of Illinois

Essay

Stuart sent the following essay to each school to which he applied. The prompt below is from Georgetown’s application.

The admissions committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either autobiographical or creative, which you feel best describes you.

It was a cold, gray day in January not all that many years ago, when my father and I woke early and made the one hour drive to Palwaukee Airport, just a few miles north of O’Hare. It was the day of my first flight lesson, and I was painfully excited. I met Tom, my flight instructor outside of the Service Aviation hangar, and was immediately struck by the beauty of the shiny aluminum aircraft. We walked towards the smallest plane, which was parked on a small plot of grass, a Cessna 150.

The Cessna was a tiny single engine aircraft, and it was so light that Tom was easily able to pull the plane off the grass and onto the taxi-way by hand. He showed me how to do a pre-flight inspection, and then climbed into the co-pilot’s seat. It was at that moment that the full realization that I would actually be flying the aircraft and not just a passenger in it struck me. I began to feel nervous for the first time since my father scheduled this lesson for my birthday, and my hands began to sweat despite the sub-freezing temperature.

I climbed into the pilot’s seat and again was struck by how miniature the plane was. My left shoulder was against the door, and my right was snugly against Tom’s. Behind our two seats was a luggage compartment no larger than that of a compact car’s, and even my five foot two inch frame felt cramped with a lack of leg room. We put on our radio headset, and Tom informed me that he would take care of contacting ground and flight control so I could concentrate solely on flying. I pushed the primer into the stop several times, as instructed, and turned the key. The roar of the engine was deafening despite our insulated headsets, and the vibration that it caused on the flight yoke was painful on my wet, freezing hands.

I listened to Tom’s instructions, and we slowly taxied to the runway, steering with the two rudder pedals on the floor. We reached the end of the runway, and I heard over the radio that we were cleared for take off. I slowly turned the plane onto the long slender runway, and pushed the throttle to its stop. The engine roar grew almost unbearably loud and the plane accelerated quickly down the runway. I gripped the yoke as if my life depended on my not letting go, and when the speedometer read sixty knots, I slowly pulled it back towards my abdomen. I felt the front tire lift off the ground, and slowly rise so that I could no longer see the ground. I thought for a moment that we were up, but then suddenly I felt the rear tires bounce on the runway, and lift off the pavement.

The feeling was like nothing that I had ever experienced, and I wondered how a small plane could feel so different from the large jetliners that I had often flown on before. I had always felt safe and secure during takeoffs in those monstrous flying cylinders, but this small Cessna, no larger than a refrigerator, did not pass along that feeling of safety and comfort. I began to sweat profusely, and my stomach felt as if I was riding a roller coaster despite the relative smoothness of the flight.

We climbed to three thousand feet, and glided over the beautiful city of Chicago. I was beginning to get used to the feeling the plane created, and I was comfortable with the controls. Suddenly, Tom announced that we would be making a touch and go landing at Meigs Field, an airport located on a small peninsula just north of the city. The plane began to bounce through heavy turbulence, and when we were less than 100 feet above the frozen waters of Lake Michigan I realized that I was going to be sick. I glanced at Tom, and was about to announce my impending illness, when I lost it, vomiting all over my ill-fated flight instructor. He immediately took control of the plane, and flew us back to Palwaukee Airport.

When we landed I was excruciatingly humiliated, and I began to wonder if a hobby of flight was really best for me. I contemplated my choices, and weighed my love of flight with my ironically violent motion sickness, and decided my motion sickness would have to be overcome. I have since flown over eight hours in the Cessna, and several hours in engineless gliders. I intend on receiving my private pilot’s license within the next several years, and hope that flight will always be one of my strongest passions.

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