My transfer essay.

<p>This will be one of my essays for transfer into Yale (the only school I am applying for transfer.) Names have been changed to maintain anonymity.
Any comments/grammatical checks would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>There are limitations to what grades, scores and recommendations can tell us about a candidate. Write a personal essay on a topic of your choice that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better.</p>

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<p>Let me be brutally honest; I am probably not ‘Yale material.’ In high school I studied hard not because I was passionate about learning, but because I craved the praise from family and friends. I was in myriad orchestral groups not because I was enthusiastic about playing the violin, but because it was one of the conditions of my music scholarship. I engaged in volunteer work not because I wanted to help the community, but because every student was expected to. I floated through high school, getting a few academic and musical awards here and there, generally being known as the ‘smart kid.’ My friends told me that they envied me because I would have so many options and opportunities upon graduation with my ENTER (A ranking score derived from state-administered examinations that is assigned to each graduating student in Australia to determine entrance into various courses at different universities) – that I could get into any course I wanted. I envied, and still envy, those friends who know exactly what they want to do in their lives: Toby – one of my oldest friends – who, despite getting too low of an ENTER to get into law, is studying hard in his first year to transfer into law from an arts degree; Bob, who is completing an Actuarial Studies degree to combine his two passions – mathematics and economics; Dennis who, despite the recent loss of his father, is moving far away from home to Canberra to pursue his dreams of becoming a diplomat. Of course, some of my friends have been like me, unsure of what their dreams are, and they’ve invariably chosen the ‘safe’ courses (such as Commerce or Arts) hoping that a vocational road will be unveiled in the coming years.</p>

<p>What about me? A person with a half-filled glass would say that I have many interests. A person with a half-empty glass would say that I have no interests. The only time I have been academically stimulated was during a brief moment in the middle of my junior year, after watching the documentary of Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe” – a brief explanation of modern strings theory in laymen’s terms. There was something infinitely romantic about devoting a lifetime to get a glimpse of, as Einstein put it, “how God created this world.” I want to say that this encounter started my passion for physics, but alas, I convinced myself then that it was far too late in my high school career to venture into this area, for which I had next-to-none experience (in some sense, this was a valid excuse because I needed to have done physics in my junior year to continue with it in the senior year). </p>

<p>I entered college just as I had graduated high school – no idea of my future and with parental pressure to go into business. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to engage in a Liberal Arts education in the U.S. (unlike in Australia where you commit to a degree when you decide on a university), and in my first semester I took a course called “Einstein’s Universe,” hoping that it would rekindle my previous interest in theoretical physics. After a semester of relativity and quantum mechanics, a “rekindle” would be an understatement. Yet I was not really satisfied, because this course was mainly conceptual and not mathematical, and thus it felt somehow ‘fake.’ I talked to the professor about this and he said that I would need solid background in physics before going into the mathematical aspects of these topics – and he was right; I borrowed some books he recommended from the library but could barely understand them without the necessary background. What was more unfortunate for me was that Physics 101 was only available in the fall semester (as it was an year-long course), and thus I could not start in spring. </p>

<p>So where does that leave me? Am I now certain of my future? Can I now confidently say, “I am going to become a theoretical physicist”? Maybe. When I mention the possibility of majoring in physics to my parents, they reply, “We are not paying for your ridiculously expensive education in America so you can become some scientist who won’t make a good salary.” And knowing how much my parents have sacrificed, and sacrifice daily, to keep me here, I know that their wishes – demands – for me to major in more lucrative fields aren’t unreasonable or unfair. But I know one thing is certain. I will take Physics 101 next fall semester. Maybe I will end up becoming a businessman, who knows. But I am not going to become a person who questions in ten years, “What if…?”</p>