<p>Do the circumstances of your birth define you as a person? Do they reveal anything about the kind of friend, student, and person you would be at Harvard? Is the way in which you told your grandfather’s/parents’ story unique and characteristic of you and only you? Not the story itself, but the tone of the essay, the verbs and similes you used, the paragraph breaks?</p>
<p>Your parents’ story is interesting, but so can be Jersey Shore. The question is, does your personality shine through in your essay? Again, not the <em>story</em>, but the point of view from which it is told?</p>
<p>You better hope it does. I certainly don’t think the events my mother witnessed during her pregnancy had much bearing on the person I grew into.</p>
<p>Yes. I believe it does. I’ve gone over this thing 7 times with various teachers, friends, and CC members. I am confident that it reflects my personality; I’ve got a pretty good twist lined up at the end.</p>
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<p>Sorry, I was typing quickly. Let me reword that. I remember sitting in the living room with my grandma in an apartment in Beijing in the summer of 2007. My grandma was talking about how all those years ago, she said to my mom: “if you get shot, crawl into the bathroom and wait for help to arrive. You’ll probably survive.” I clarified it in the essay.</p>
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<p>Indeed. What is the point of your post? Elaborate. </p>
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<p>Elaborate. If you’re talking about Mother’s day, here’s a website proving that Mother’s day was indeed on May 9th 1993. If you’re talking about Harvard admissions officers going on CC and looking up this thread, then that’s another matter entirely ;)</p>
<p>I’ve given it some thought. Even if Harvard admissions officers do read this thread, the information I provided in my essay is still technically correct.</p>
<p>In my essay, I said that my grandpa “spoke with both Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe.”</p>
<p>My grandpa did have isolated encounters with Smith. The two did exchange greetings. The exchanging of greetings technically involves the movement of the mouth to communicate information to the other person, which is considered speech. So my grandpa did technically speak to Smith.</p>
<p>“Indeed. What is the point of your post? Elaborate.”</p>
<p>That you had already posted you were born in 1993, so you could not be 25.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think the circumstances of a child’s conception and birth CAN effect parenting, which in turn can effect how a child turns out. I recently saw a child whose father died when his mother was pregnant with him. The stated reason given for the therapy referral was “he misses his father”. He is now 13 years old. Hmmmm…</p>