<p>My god no!
You’re not a menopausal woman doing a one-woman-play about her life’s disappointments. That will get you rejected. </p>
<p>You’re applying to academic institutions, show them you’re a scholar. Think with a clear head. Write them a peak into your mind, how you think, write about how you have some good qualities that you know about. Write introspectively and in your own voice. I don’t know where you get the idea that gloomy essays are good. Either introspective or enthusiastic. Watch the tone more carefully.</p>
<p>To get recruited, contact the coach of your sport really early in the application process.
Like say, if the application beging in Sept-Oct, e-mail the coaches of these universities during these months. They’ll ask for your stats, ranks, tournaments won (if any), videos etc.</p>
<p>If found suitable, the coach will forward this info to the adcoms (I think) and tell you if you’re in or not (yes recruits get to know early if they’re in). Remember, the recruit spots at Ivies + Stanford are competitive and fill early so its advisable not to start late. And there is a certain academic benchmark (somewhat lowered for athletes) which I’m sure would be no problem for you.</p>
<p>Also, many a times the coach contacts you AFTER you submit your application. Like in the Harvard application if you enlist squash as a sport you intend to play at the intercollegiate level and you submit your application, within seconds you get a auto-generated reply from the respective coach which enlists all the necessary information you need to provide.</p>
<p>EDIT: Do more research since I may not be entirely correct and have a very faint idea about how this process works. All this information is available on the college websites. I know this coz 2 of my friends were themselves squash recruits (Princeton and Trinity, I think).</p>
<p>HarvardKidBuu: Totally up to you. Remember that getting in to either of them EA will not be easy, even with your stats. The biggest difference that I’ve been able to observe is Stanford outright rejects more people during REA round while Yale defers the bulk of qualified applicants to RD.</p>
<p>You might want to tip it in favor of Yale SCEA because you need aid.</p>
<p>People from India have been recruited over the years to play for the ivies…
Current # 2 (intercollegiate squash) there is an Indian and an acquaintance. </p>
<p>Worth shot if you’re a India # 1-10.
More importantly, his chances improve because he is strong academically. This is not usual for an athlete. (Even for Harvard).</p>
Honestly, that’s risky. It sounds to me as though you’re stuffing far too many things in one essay, and such an essay runs the risk of sounding unfocused, whiny, depressing, or simply being too long. It’s very hard to pull off a Story-of-my-life essay successfully; I would suggest trying to focus on one particular experience or moment that was particularly profound and write about how it’s affected you, or what it reveals about you, or whatever.
Who says essays have to be gloomy and serious? On the contrary, if you can tell something about yourself AND make the adcom laugh that’s completely a point in your favor! My Yale supplement was a ridiculous risk, but it was about a very unique experience I had and I felt I had to deal with it in a humorous way since the circumstance itself was so crazy. Everyone I’ve shown it to liked it a lot, so hopefully the Adcoms won’t be completely disgusted. Of course, this doesn’t mean your essay HAS to be humorous. Forced humor is infinitely worse than no humor at all.</p>
<p>Basically, be completely honest in your essay. If you’re a serious person, write seriously. If you’re a funny person, add a few bits of humor. When you set out to write your essay, your ultimate aim isn’t to please an unknown AdCom. Obviously you don’t want to write anything blatantly offensive, but pleasing them should be the least of your priorities. You’ll never get around to anything then. What your essay should do is convey something about yourself that either exemplifies a trait exhibited elsewhere in your application or add something that is otherwise absent from your transcript. There’s a reason why Admissions officers stress voice so much; your essay is, essentially, an impression of you as a person, and it is the arguably the best possible way to get an impression of you (and in most cases, the only impression AdComs get of you from you) beyond numbers, aside from a face to face meeting of course. So once you decide your topic, your sentiments should flow naturally. Write as honestly as possible about yourself, and at the same time demonstrate that you are a mature, responsible student who is capable of attending one of the finest institutions in the world. When you finish your essay, someone who knows you well should be able to read it and say ‘That’s you’ without blinking an eye.
I can only advise you about the essay, as it’s easily the part of the application that interested me the most. I’ll leave it to the others to advise you on the more objective bits. Btw, if you ever need help on your essay, you can PM me if you like, and I’ll try and help you as much as I can.
Good luck!</p>
<p>@rsaxena: Thanks a ton for the advice. Appreciated. @compscifan:
I guess I’ll leave it to August-Sep to decide whether or not I want to be recruited.</p>
<p>@Debarghya:
Yale SCEA it is then.</p>
<p>@guitarclassical:
I meant to say that most exemplary essays I read are usually incredibly boring and repetitive. Either they’re about internships or incredibly amazing stuff they’ve done or how they rock or how they’re such strong individuals or how life taught them something a moral science book could have. I found very few of these remotely interesting. You can tell they’ve stuffed it with fancy words and that their style of writing is usually fake. And you don’t really feel like reading how Einstein Jr. assembled the robot which could do blah blah blah.</p>
<p>From that perspective, I thought my story was unique if I could portray in more mature life and not make it sound like a Nicholas Sparks novel.</p>
<p>Colleges get like 30,000 different applicants rambling about how brave they were or how strong they’;ve become mentally… I think I have a good story to build on that others might not have. I’m possibly missing something here, but what other intriguing things could you possibly write about in your essay?
I’ve seen people with a 1700-1800 in sat who’ve churned out essays which portray them as the next Stephen Hawking, when I know they couldn’t even tell whether stars were gases or solids. They wrote essays on hi-fi theories and how Relativity affected their lives. Would colleges buy ***** like that?</p>
<p>Write what you like. Don’t ask other people’s opinion on the internet if you already have such strong views on the subject.
In my opinion you’re not thinking with a clear head, and are not aware of the people who will be reading your essay, nor do you give them enough credit for doing their jobs well.
Exemplary essays are exemplary essays for a reason. Don’t just skim the surface and be judgmental, try to appreciate the quality of thought in them. Think about how you will incorporate that into your essays. Introspect first, write later.</p>
<p>You’re stats are superhuman, I think you have a solid chance at the schools you want to go to. You’ll definitely get into atleast one of them.<br>
The thing is, the subjective part of the the evaluation process is certainly what sets you apart, which ultimately leads to your admittance. Having perfect scores doesn’t prove that you are a decent human being, or if you are actually a ‘fit’ for the institution you apply to.</p>
<p>An AP on US Government?
They do not expect this of international students and rarely do intl’s take one (on this specific subject). What is the point of taking an AP on this?</p>