<p>love the thread title!
speaking to "grammar" (your english teacher was right - grammar is fine - these are style issues)
First of all in the last 3 sentences of the first paragraph you use "Have" - perfect tense - for your senior year, whereas in the last paragraph you use "Had" - pluperfect tense which I think is more appropriate. (also, i feel the 1st paragraph digression on victory was a little unnecessary)
"we were able to pull ourselves out of the chaos that was sophomore year. We went into the competition with a new attitude: We were there to have fun. What a difference this attitude made on the year!" - You used the word 'year' twice here - awkward repetition
"Outshined" is incorrect except in context of music; "Outshone" is the correct form
I totally love your enthusiasm though! You seem passionate in a carefree way. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, I don't think you need to cover each year of h.s....it's just too much to go in decent depth about as many people have noted. my suggestions: start with a prologue like "since freshman year I'd made floats for student council but we lost blah blah". think about what was the moment you finally felt ready to defeat fate and make a good float? attitude change? drive home the idea that it wasn't all the new president's work! go in depth, show your writing expertise! And include the victory chant as a condensed epilogue like "In senior year we won". We know you wanted to win and orating at us about it makes you seem like a sore loser rather than cheerful and enthusiastic! </p>
<p>About the additional essay - i am a harry potter fan myself. I would however never put that on my Harvard application simply because it is not relevant. What does it say except that you are entranced by good writing, something many don't even consider a virtue but a character flaw? I liked the connections to other literature but sorry to say Philip Pullman is basically the same deal and you can read The Republic and get out of it nothing at all (I read it in freshman year and in retrospect the big lesson there never read bad translations of classical greek! :rolleyes: however I am currently rereading it, after doing some nietzche, and understanding a LOT more). It's not apparent that you got any real intellectual stimulation, any sparks of your own philosophy out of these books (though I'm sure you did). So elaborate on those points as others have said! or just don't submit, no stress. </p>
<p>And for the record a more literal translation: "A sleeping dragon is never to be tickled". You know, they're not saying you can't do it. :)</p>