Writing Sample 6 ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ Blazing a Trail to Glory Propelled forward by my surging leg muscles, sweat gushing down my face, the harsh reality of this 3-mile cross-country race has begun to invade my body. My eyes remain intensely focused straight ahead: Grinding away at the dirt along the racecourse, I see three girls from a different team about 100 yards ahead of me. My team needs a contribution from me, I realize, and I make the decision to pass all three of them. Through a cloud of dust I can finally see the distant white line proclaiming the finish. My mind propels my legs to their maximum ability. In these last few seconds of exertion, the months of hard work are paying off. Soaring through the finish, I have achieved flight. Running is a pure sport, requiring only a pair of shoes and a brain ready to conquer pain. It is a sport that calls for commitment and mental toughness. Through testing myself, I increase my resilience and grow stronger. I unleash the power of my mind, and I run. Some people are born with great running ability, and others, like myself, are born with the desire to excel at every challenge. I've become the best runner I can through hard work and dedication. Challenging myself with new goals every day, I run against the forces of gravity and inertia. I love the thrill of competetion -- the euphoric feeling I get when mind overcomes pain. As a four- year member of my high school cross-country team, I have experienced just about every physical infirmity that comes from running. I have dealt with shin splints, runner's knee, broken toes, and pulled calf mussels. My orthopedic surgeon took one look at my legs and admitted that I'm "not built to be a runner." Yet, I chose to continue running because of its daily challenges and rewards. I've learned from this sport that by focusing single-mindedly on achieving a goal, I can make any obstacle trivial. I still hear my coach's voice in my head: "If you sacrifice yourself, good things will happen." As much as a cross-country race requires individual strength physically and mentally, it also requires a team effort to succeed. Like sisters in a family, the girls I run with understand and respect one another. We remind each other to work harder, eat right, and to accomplish the most we can. Each girl has individual qualities that together produce one spirited body. I provide the determination and inspiration for my team. I set an example for rookie runners, showing them that success comes only from hard work and a positive attitude. Through my dedication to running, I have become more dedicated in school. Many of my accomplishments can somehow be traced back to running: The endurance from running helped me survive my six-hour black belt test in Shaolin Kenpo Karate. My ability to utilize biofeedback made it easier for me to prepare and relax for my piano recitals. And the endorphins kicking in after my daily practice keep my spirits lifted throughout the day. My determination and commitment to achieving goals has prepared me for my next challenge: college. I intend to apply my abilities to my individual studies, as well as to the enrichment of the University community as a whole. Success in life will come from the same dedication to be the best I can be.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖWriting Sample 7ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ One of the greatest challenge I've had to overcome was moving from Iran to the United States. Iran was in deep political turmoil, as it is today. After long thought and discussion, my parents decided that we should move to America, where my sister and I would have better opportunities for success in life. My dad had moved to America to establish residency for us, and now we were to move there too. It was late May when we went to Turkey to apply for a Visa. We took a 20-hour bus trip from Urmia, Iran to Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul was considerably different from Urmia, the city that I had been raised in. To begin with, it was an enormous city compared to the small town that had always been my home. My mom had an enormous load on her shoulders in taking care of me and my four-year-old sister. It was very awkward for all of us to be in a new country, and we felt alone and vulnerable. When we arrived in Turkey, we didn't know anyone and had to stay in a hotel. Early the next morning we got up and headed to the embassy to apply for a US Visa. Everyone there told us that we were definitely going to be rejected. To our amazement, however, we were approved. With our last few dollars we booked a flight, and the next morning we were headed to America. We got on a plane and were on our way to America. We arrived in Los Angeles at 6：00 P.M.. Then my dad arrived. He took us to his house and we slept, all of us exhausted from the long trip. My parents now had to decide what to do so that we could live in America and be financially stable. We decided to move to Illinois so that my mom could get her PhD. This is where I endured my biggest challenge, one that overshadowed all the other things I'd struggled through. We moved to Champaign, Illinois. My parents registered me for first grade, even though I hadn't even completed kindergarten. Only later did I learn that this decision was to my benefit. I spoke no English and I had no friends in America. It was very hard for me to cope with this, but I managed to do so. My first day in first grade was probably the hardest day of my entire elementary school career. It was agonizing to sit among a roomful of strangers speaking a strange language for six hours. As the days went on, I sought to listen to the students and try to learn something. I realized that I wasn't going to go back to Iran, so I had no choice but to face my challenge and resolve it. And sure enough, I did overcome this obstacle: I soon learned English and found some friends. This was an incredibly difficult challenge for me to be faced with as a 7 year old boy. It took perseverance, patience, and discipline for me to accomplish my goal. I will use this as an example in my future years in college. Going to college is like moving to a new place; like my move from Iran, I will again find myself in an unfamiliar environment with new people. With the experience I've gained from the challenges I have faced, though, I have no doubt that I'll be able to overcome this one, too.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖWriting Sample 8ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖIs breaking the law appropriate under any circumstances? Explain. ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖOn Tuesday, September 16,1997, kidnappers captured my father and held him for ransom. At 2：00 PM, I arrived home from school to find my mother anxious. My father had not arrived from the farm, and she knew my father would never have left us worrying about him unless he was in trouble. While we were starting to fear the worst, my mother asked me to look for him on the farm. When I arrived at the farm, I asked a worker if he had seen my dad. The worker answered that he had not seen my dad and that like me he was beginning to worry. In Colombia, when people are missing, you don't assume they were in a car accident or that they had a heart attack in a field somewhere, you assume they were kidnapped. Fearing my father might be killed, nobody in my home slept that night. All we could do was hope and pray that by some miracle, my dad would come walking through the door and everyone would breath a sigh of relief.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖUnfortunately, for the next four days, we heard nothing from my father. With each passing hour, the situation looked increasingly worse. On Sunday my mom and my smaller sister went to church while I stayed home with my older sister. My sister and I were in the living room, discussing the last words that we had heard from our dad, when the phone suddenly rang. My sister and I exchanged nervous glances. When my sister answered, she didn't say a word; she just listened attentively, hung up, and stared at me blankly. "It was about dad,"she said. A guerilla group called FARC had abducted him, and to get him back, we would have to pay a substantial amount of money. Moreover, if we informed the authorities, they would kill my father. Now Colombian law is explicit on this subject: "Any case of forceful desaparition or kidnapping must be denounced immediately to the authorities . . . [and] under no circumstance should money be paid to obtain the freedom of an individual from criminal action . . ."My family had a clear choice; we could obey the law and have our father murdered, or we could ignore it and hope to get our father back. We had no choice.I quickly recognized my family's and my right to civil disobedience. Sure, the law exists for a reason. By paying kidnappers, we would encourage further kidnapping of other fathers, but my father is a human being, and no one can say one man's life is worth less than the lives of ten men, even governments have no right to allow people to die. We had all the tools that could be used to free my father; we had the resources and the money, but the law prevented us using them. What would you do if you could save your father's life simply by paying some money? In our case we followed our principles and defined our priorities. For my family and me, my dad's life was a priority and life itself was the principle. We had no choice but to break the law, and break the law we did. However, we never violated our own moral rules or conceptions of justice; instead, we affirmed them by working to free the man we loved at any cost in material possessions. We did not place the law above the life of my father. Each person who consciously chooses to disobey the law can only do so legitimately if his/her own moral convictions directly conflict with the law. It was clear that we could not live with ourselves if we let our father die at the hands of kidnappers. It would not be just for us to allow our father to suffer out of fear and respect for the law; if we had been abducted, our father would have worked for our freedom; we could do no less for him. By acting under the consent of our conscience we in fact were obeying a law that supersedes state law. This higher law is based on our respect for life. Therefore, in essence, we did not break the law, we followed a higher law, ignoring laws of less authority. While in general, the laws of the state should be followed and do not conflict with important moral laws, when they do conflict, the laws of the state must be completely disregarded, as in the case of the slavery laws and the Jim Crow laws. The punishment of the state should not be feared, as punishment would be unjust in such a situation. We practiced an act of civil disobedience far greater than Thoreau's and on par with Antigone's and Robert McAfee Brown's. Laws are meant to defend people and help preserve order in society. The Colombian law intended to do exactly this, but could not possibly be obeyed. Laws must not conflict with the morals of a majority of the people; laws should reflect their morals, for people's personal laws are much more important than state laws. So long as people are willing to die for causes and for their family, the government should not legislate laws that conflict with the morals of the people. To do so and enforce them, would be unjust on the part of the government. Thankfully, we successfully negotiated the return of my father, who rejoined his family on April 29,1998,over seven months after his initial abduction. I remember thinking everything I went through was worth it, as I now see through the benefit of hindsight and suffering, that my experience all owed me to confront issues that define my personality, issues no less important than my right to civil disobedience and the right to ignore unjust laws. Similarly, this experience gave me a new love of life and a greater appreciation of its fragility and beauty. Now, I am a woman strong in her convictions, a woman who confronted state law out of moral fortitude and familial love.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖWriting Sample 9ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ Small-minded administrators and authority figures like to speak in cliches. All my life I heard the same trite line: "You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep." The black sheep of the honors program, I hung out with the so-called "losers". During my freshman year, not a day went by when a teacher or family member did not deride my closest friends and warn me that by hanging out with "bad seeds" I would fall into a downward spiral, never graduate college, and have a miserable life. They thought that they had me figured out. One day, while my ninth grade math teacher, Mr. Pedersen, was reviewing some math concepts with me, my friend Mariam ran by the classroom, stuck her head in the doorway, called out: "Hi Yassee!" and then ran away. Mr. Pedersen looked at me coldly and said with a scowl: "How can you call yourself an Honors student? A real honors student doesn't associate with people like that! "I wanted to ask him how he could call himself a teacher; after all, a real teacher is supposed to want to help everyone. Instead, I sat silent, stunned by his ignorance and cruelty. He wanted me to drop my childhood friends simply because they didn't place the same importance on schoolwork that I do. If he had thought before speaking, he would have realized that people like him, rather than people like my friends, are better able to turn good students into poor ones by discouraging them with ridiculous comments. I would never slight Mariam, one of my closest friends in freshman year. She was also a below average, non-college bound student.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ Many of the adults in my life, especially my parents and teachers, would look at those closest to me: Mariam, Alisa, Zena, Lianne, and Marvin, and ask how I could call these "low-life losers" my friends. But such questions show a lack of understanding of the nature of friendship. Friendship is unconditional and uncritical, based only on mutual respect and the ability to enjoy each other's company. These authority figures never saw the way one of us could do something outrageous, and the rest of us would joke about it for days. We could have fun doing absolutely nothing at all - because the company we provided each other with was enough. Rather than discussing operas or the weather, we enjoyed just hanging around each other without any one of us trying to outsmart the others. Still, I realize that these adults had a point to be concerned about the direction my friends were heading; I also was concerned for them, but I wasn't about to leave them. Many times I would advise my friends that some activity may be dangerous or to think things through before doing something, but I would never claim to hold the moral high ground and to condescend to them. When Marvin would begin rolling joints, when Alisa would tell me she skipped school because of a hangover, or when Mariam would tell me that her new boyfriend was in a street gang, I expressed my discomfort with their actions. However, I never blackmailed them with the threat of taking my friendship away. Contrary to the commercials on television, you can have friends who use drugs. In fact, probably everyone does without realizing it. In my junior year, AP U.S. History class, the teacher, Mr. Jacobsen, addressed the class saying: "I bet none of you have ever seen a drug deal!" With a look of absolute certainty and an odd smile on his face he scanned the room. "I've seen a drug deal before." I answered. Everyone in the room turned to look at me, either gasping or in disbelief. I realized that maybe my experiences thus far were atypical of most of my honor student friends. Despite our varying experiences, I still maintained many friends who were excellent students. Yogita, Nitin, Hans, Vishal, Saurabh, Anuj, Nick, and I have had almost every class together since eighth grade. Nitin and I both love to shop and eat. What is different about shopping with Nitin, however, is that we argue about the necessity of a high sales tax or discuss the effectiveness of the acting welfare system. Yogita and I always go to the library together and "pull all nighters" at her house. While I do enjoy accomplishing my academic goals and working with this highly motivated group of friends, I also enjoy "the losers" who to me seem much more sincere and loyal. In retrospect, I wouldn't change my ninth grade experience, because I learned many of life's important lessons from my friends and the ignorance of teachers and administrators. It's sad to say, but in many of my friends' dangerous actions, I saw what I never wanted to become. In the future, I'd like to continue helping adolescents, in addition to my studies. I have been fortunate thus far in being able to reach out to them through programs like C.H.A.N.G.E. For my efforts, I have been recognized and was honored to receive the 1998 Operation Pride Youth Award for my dedication to helping other kids live a substance free lifestyle. My familiarity with teenagers from all walks of life greatly enhances my ability to both identify with and influence others. I will be a successful adult in the future because I am willing to work with everyone and to give everyone a chance. Hopefully, I will also have the chance to change other kids' lives for the better.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖWriting Sample 10ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖSuccessful USA Today Scholarship ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖA person is educated if they constantly strive to attain knowledge while simultaneously recognizing that they know very little about the nature of the universe. As a result, I am educated now, yet if I ever were to lose my desire to doggedly pursue knowledge and understanding, I would immediately be uneducated, despite the number of years of research and study that I have done during my life. Thus, to be truly educated, I must die devoted to understanding. Vital to determining when a person is educated is understanding the nature of education. First of all, education is the pursuit of knowledge, not a goal that can be reached after a set number of years of doctoral study. Consequently, a person, no matter how much they know, can never stop learning because they have already attained "education." Instead, people are educated when they wholeheartedly devote their lives to understanding what they do not comprehend. As a result, I, a person with a strong will to understand, am more educated than a professor who dislikes his subject matter or a scientist who invents new technology, patents it, and then quits his job so that he/she can live off the patent's profits. For example, in physics, my area of future studies, many men and women died always searching for more understanding. These people, like Einstein, Curie, and Bohr, are truly educated since they dedicated themselves to the pursuit of knowledge till death. Physics also has its share of people who nearly ended their education to experience a windfall of profits from minor discoveries. Ernest Rutherford, for instance, nearly dedicated his early life to making money from advancing radio technology. However, luckily for civilization, another scientist, Nobel Laureate J.J. Thomson, told Rutherford that he cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. Rutherford immediately left the business of making money and within fifteen years earned a Nobel Prize and discovered the structure of the atom. He died committed to learning and understanding. Studying and advancing understanding till death is the unmistakable mark of an educated man. Clearly, education is a constant pursuit, and the educated person devotes his entire life to this quest for knowledge. Thus, I know that I am educated as long as I never give up attempting to understand the universe. However, inseparable from this definition of an educated person, is the realization that no people, at least during my lifetime, can claim that they possess all knowledge and that their knowledge is irrefutable. Instead, educated people recognize how little they know when they gaze up at the night's stars, when they stare at the ocean, or even when they look at other people and animals. This complete uncertainty born out of not knowing how atoms could ever form mountains and life and of not understanding how the universe was born must lead the educated person to redouble his/her efforts to understand as much as possible. Moreover, this uncertainty must make the educated person have a mind open to new ideas and explanations. People like Einstein, for example, had to overcome the once accepted notions that distance, time, and speed are absolutes. Einstein, a model of an educated man, proved to society that its closed-minded explanations of the universe were wrong and that time, length, and speed are relativistic. Similarly, Galileo, a man committed to understanding, was excommunicated for his heretical belief that the earth revolved around the sun. Thus, the educated person is committed to the pursuit of knowledge, has a mind open to new theory, and never subordinates the truth to an authority's dictate.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖPersonally, I know I am educated as long as I remain tenaciously determined to understanding the world and to maintaining an open mind. Of course, this goal of remaining educated will lead me to Harvard next year and to a doctorate in physics in another university. However, these are just signs of an educated person. To be truly educated, I must be committed to learning my entire life and to making new discoveries in science, whether or not they contradict accepted theory. Education cannot be measured by the number of degrees a person has earned. Instead, education is a mind set that must last one's entire life. If, at the moment of my death, I am still dedicated to grasping misunderstood concepts, I can say that I am truly educated, as Einstein, Rutherford, and Galileo were before me.
ñ1O½×8ìÿúbbs.eduglobal.com5(ßÇáÝ&defÖ
