Hey guys, here is the GW supplement:
George Washington University encourages students to extend learning beyond the traditional classroom by taking advantage of hands-on learning through service, research, internships, and studying abroad. Describe an experience that transformed the way you view the world and how this perspective prepares you for GW.
Please respond to the following essay question in 250 words or fewer.
So how are you guys approaching this? Are you mainly talking about an experience and briefly relating it back to GW or is this supplement a subtle Why GWU? essay that forces you to talk briefly about an experience? Or are you guys finding the ‘perfect’ balance between experience and GWU? I just don’t know what to do or what’s ‘wrong’, I guess. Any input in appreciated.
@jellyjam123 Well you don’t want to try too hard to curry the favor of the admissions committee but at the same time you definitely want to blow them away with a genuinely authentic experience- a sort of beautiful coming of story that demonstrates how something nonacademic has matured you and influenced your perception of the world. How has this experience helped you create a nexus between academia and the world outside of it?
I have always been taken by billiards and my love for the game has taught me much about the orthodoxies of academia. My love for billiards was borne out of an intense competitive nature and inherent talent. The pursuit of excellent pool has in some ways taken me more than the thrill of victory and it is perhaps because of this desire that I have come to approach the game with a very scholarly nature. The art of pocketing a ball diligently has always been metaphoric of my studies. It wasn’t enough to serendipitously arrive at the answer in class or in my studies…I had to know how and why, the reason behind every stroke and subtle movement. But beyond my own myopic passion, one of the greatest joys of billiards has been inspiring others and disseminating unto them my vast knowledge of the game.
My self-discipline and scholarly nature towards billiards has naturally endowed me with a realistic but ambitious mindset that I believe is critical to my success at George Washington. If it isn’t a humble understanding of the countless hours necessary for excellent billiards it is perhaps my ability to draw connections between various concepts taught and different types of people that truly endow me with incredible acumen and personality needed to succeed at George Washington. The traditions of billiards, the mannerisms, the plethora of pedagogy has always been for me a beautiful metaphor of academia. It is this deep appreciation and a priori wisdom that I feel naturally will predispose me to success at George Washington.
But ehhh that one might have been too redundant. There’s the notorious criticism in academia that you want to avoid redundancy- basically just making the same point over and over by essentially rewriting variations of the same sentence. There’s another more unorthodox belief that says that’s actually not bad if you understand that you’re doing it- after all sometimes repetition is for emphasis.