<p>This is just a first draft. I know there are a lot of things wrong with it (please tell me). It's supposed to be about the first question on the Common App. All the blanks are supposed to filled in with the program name (I just don't want to show it). </p>
<p>BTW, the first question on the Common App is: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.</p>
<pre><code> In the third week of June 2009, I came home from the last day of sophomore year. In the third week of June 2009, I had my first real sleepover at a friends house. In the third week of June 2009, I found out I was accepted into the ________________.
Undoubtedly this week in June 2009 was a fun week, but it was the coming weeks that really allowed me to see what I really wanted. Now, I know that is a vague statement, but I hope to clarify it somewhere in the rest of this essay. For most people who read this week, their first reaction should be regarding the fact that I had my first real sleepover after the end of tenth grade. Generally, children have many sleepovers and play dates and get-togethers; however parents like mine made this a very difficult prospect to imagine. I was rarely allowed out of my cage, so to speak, because I was to focus on studying hard and getting into a good college to make my mom and dad proud. And thus, I established my niche in my own home, parting with it only when allowed. The expected outcome of this isolation should have been a bright student who is on top of everything she does, right?
Although some may deny it, I dont think this was the result. In fact, before entering high school, I was undeniably more introverted and shy when it came to talking to new peopleof course people are rarely so when it comes to people they already knowand joining new activities. I was still bound by the cage I was put in during my earlier years. I think the result was, in fact, a small, awkward child who couldve been so much more successful and knowledgeable had she been open to more opportunities. I had always wished to go out with my friends all throughout middle school in hopes of becoming more socially adept; however it was not until my sophomore year that I realized I had readily passed up opportunities which could have been beneficial to my overall career goal in medicine. And so, I applied to the ____________.
In the weeks I spent researching with the ____________, I came to realize fully on all that I had been missing out on. I got so much satisfaction from performing real science that I truly grasped that a lot of what I was doing before at home was only the tip of the iceberg. Books are only guides; experiences are the true teachers. I could list all of the things the _______________ has given me: practice with using pipettes, growing bacteria, doing minipreps, performing restriction digests and PCR, running gel electrophoreses, researching using the NCBI database, and giving presentations about the entire process, a chance publish [insert organism] genomic sequence on the NCBI database, and so much more. But I dont think that was the true achievement here. Dont get me wrong, I loved every minute of what I did, and appreciate everything dearly; however I think for the first time in my life, using the forever clichéd metaphor, I stretched my wings and soared out of my cage.
It felt good to taste the nectar of the nearby tree of opportunity. It felt good to reach heights of science that was yet undiscovered for me. Of course, I will never forget my cage, or my owners who put me there; my parents are still my parents and I will always return to them. But I was a freer bird with the power to go places and do things I had never done before. In the third week of June 2009, I began my life as someone with more potential than I had ever had before.
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