<p>Hey everybody.</p>
<p>I think that the essays of a transfer applicant are going to be looked at much more closely than that of a freshman -- you really need to give them a compelling reason to transfer. </p>
<p>So, I thought I'd start an essay thread. I'll post up my essay that I just sent out to Harvard, hopefully some of you can give me some feedback on it. I'm going to be sending these out to other school, also. So it wont be too late to make any changes. </p>
<p>Also, what are you guys going to be writing about? </p>
<p>Here it is:</p>
<p>"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."</p>
<pre><code> Teddy Roosevelt
</code></pre>
<p>I survived missiles launched at me and exploding within 10 yards as I discussed the intricate tribal politics of Kunar, a volatile border province of Afghanistan, with an official from the State Department; I laughed and recorded calmly for NPR through an ambush in which gunmen shot at me with Kalashnikovs and RPGs (they had caught us on our way back from a remote area in the sometimes but not always, an important distinction in this region hostile Pech valley); I smuggled myself through the porous borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, retracing Al Qaedas footsteps over mountain passes above 10,000 feet; I roughed it out in 130 degree heat while suffering from dysentery to trek through the hills and valleys of Tora Bora (the cave complex from which the US attempted to flush out remaining members of Al Qaeda, including Bin Laden), so that I could investigate for myself why the Arabs had so much popular support while the Americans struggled to win hearts and minds. All of this I managed to experience before my 20th birthday, on my, as I like to jokingly refer to them, summer vacations.</p>
<p>I took my first vacation in Afghanistan after graduating from high school in 2002, several weeks before the actual school year ended. The reason was that I wanted to make it to the Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, that was suppose to elect a new leader for war-ravaged Afghanistan. After going over it with school officials, I took my finals early, skipped out on prom and asked my principal to mail me the diploma. The ending of my high school career was unceremonial, a fitting end to period of my life that was also uninspiring. My mind was somewhere else on Afghanistan, a place that my family had given so much to but now seemed to be without hope. </p>
<p>But all of that changed with September 11th. Afghanistan seemed to have hope again, my father was reinvigorated and I finally had something in my life to work for, a purpose which I had lacked previously. When a reporter from the New York Times, who also happened to be a producer on This American Life, offered me a tape recorder to take on my trip, I saw my opportunity and ran with it. Three years later, I have made two acclaimed hour-long documentaries for This American Life. I received several broadcasting awards, like an Overseas Press Club citation, and I was profiled in national newspapers like The New York Times. I co-authored an article for The New York Times Magazine, and at the age of 19, signed with Bloomsbury to co-author a book for the Fall 2005 season, a travel memoir based on my experiences in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>A particular experience that captures what I wanted to achieve during my time in Afghanistan is a visit I made this summer to a remote village. The village, Shulton, had unlucky geography: it was in a remote valley right along the border with Pakistan, in mountainous and volatile Kunar province. This was a security concern for UN election officials, and they refused to go up there. The villagers were being left out Afghanistans historical introduction to democracy and they were not happy about it. </p>
<p>I had done a lot of background reading on the subject of democratization; it was, to say the least, an important topic of discussion for Afghanistan. I had studied arguments that proposed that all men and women yearn to be free, that democracy is not something you earn, but something that everyone deserved. There were, however, more cautious ideas. That, to use Fareed Zakarias term, the inner stuffing of democracies the rule of law, strong institutions, a certain level of economic development were just as important, if not more, in creating stable democratic governments. I had listened to both sides of the argument, but I wanted to form opinions of my own, based on my own experiences and knowledge. Concluding that it was an acceptable amount of risk in comparison to what I would get out of it, I went up to the village to talk to the tribesmen and get their views on democracy and elections.</p>
<p>After driving so slowly that the speedometer would not even move past 0 along a narrow and bumpy road against the side of a mountain, we finally reached the village. Once there, I was surprised and taken aback by the tribesmen and their articulate answers. They had not read Fareed Zakaria, nor had they been tracking President Bushs foreign policy speeches, but they had first-hand experience with war, chaos, bad government, occupations and tyranny. They gave me insights that no book or article or seminar could have given me. They showed me the problems with democracy in such a fragmented society, by launching into complaints about their rival tribe cheating with the registration. They showed me the problems with establishing the rule of law; this nation is so destroyed that it is helpless when it comes to foreign interference. They also seemed to express genuine optimism about the election, believing that it would bring peace and that a government that had the support of the majority was necessary. I came back down from the village on a road on the other side of the valley, of course, because of the dangers of someone planting a mine with the feeling that I had learned something.</p>
<p>Learn. To put it simply, that is why I want to attend Harvard University. I have had to live through certain circumstances -- for instance, one semester, two assassination attempts on my father combined with a death in the family forced me to take 4 weeks off and go back to Afghanistan. This aspect of my life will show on my college record. But I hope that you can see that I am a young man who entered the arena.</p>