<p>And the deadline for the ED signature sheet with said essay is the same as everything else, correct?</p>
<p>Also, I've written my "optional" essay below. Can you let me know if you feel that I am making strong points with my paper? I've ran it past my parents, my private counselor and my high school counselor, and they all like it;I just feel like I want more opinions, I guess.</p>
<p>Thank you!!</p>
<p>The physical environment in which I grew up was always changing, but the love and support of my parents remained steadfast and stable. The three stages of my upbringing are set against three distinctive backgroundsall on completely different ends of the country. From my birth until the age of ten, I lived in suburban San Francisco. When people ask where I grew up, I am hesitant to reply, Northern California, because I dont feel that one particular place shaped who I am. I remember much about Northern California: my elementary school teachers, my friends, and my old house. However, I subscribe to the school of thought that characterizes people by hardships that they had to overcome. I didnt suffer any hardships while I was in California. My grades were always very good, I had plenty of friends, and I had parents who loved and cared about me deeply.
Although I dont remember exactly when the news came, I do remember it being very abrupt and unexpected. While vacationing in Hawaii the previous year, my mother, a pediatrician, had attended several medical lectures. I didnt think anything of it at the time, being too preoccupied with the ocean and the sunny weather. However, I was surprised when my mother told me was that she was dissatisfied with her current practice and that she was considering a job in Hawaii. To this day, I dont remember my initial reactions, whether I thought about how much I would miss my friends or how cool it would be to swim in the ocean every day. What I do remember is how hard it was to say goodbye to my grandfather, my dog and cat, and our housekeeper, Carmen, who had lived with us since I was two and had become a second mother to me.
My family and I moved to Hawaii on New Years Day, 1997, beginning a far different experience than Id had in San Francisco. My parents, wary of the reputation of the Hawaiian public schools, enrolled me in a Catholic School. Although I made plenty of friends at my new school, my grades started to decline. I had been used to getting As in all of my classes. Suddenly, I was getting Bs, Cs and Ds. I was forgetting to do assignments on time. I stopped paying attention and taking notes in class. Sixth grade became seventh grade, and seventh grade became eighth grade. Spurts of improvement were sporadic and short-lived. My teachers all said the same thing, Daniel is very smart, but needs to do the homework and turn in his assignments on time. Whether I was forgetful, bored, or simply rebelling against the rigid Catholic school homework philosophy, I am not sure; but a change was necessary. </p>
<p>My parents believed I was not performing well because I wasnt being challenged. They enrolled me at Seabury Hall, a prep school, for my first year of high school. Not having attended Seabury for grades 6 through 8 combined with my weak grades from my previous school placed me at the bottom of the academic ladder. Although I was a new student, I felt that I was too smart for these introductory level classes. Instead of acing these classes, I resented them, sulked about them and subsequently fell behind in them. My attitude toward school, and life in general, reached an alarming level of both apathy and self-loathing. It became apparent that something needed to be changed.
After September 11th, my parents felt a strong desire to move back to Long Island, where a good portion of their relatives lived. Although I was desperate for a change of setting, I knew that starting the New York State curriculum would put me once again in the introductory classes that I disliked so much. My parents made me realize, however, that if I were to move to New York, I would have the blessing of a second chance, something that very few people get. Although I was in a rut, I was not about to blow my opportunity for academic redemption.
I am very lucky to attend a high school that isnt too large, has excellent teachers in every subject area, offers an immense number of AP classes, numerous extracurricular clubs and provides a guidance department that helped me feel at home from my first day. My guidance counselor told me that the fact that I was in lower level classes would not be held against me, as it was not my fault that I missed the New York State curriculum in middle school. I knew that if I worked hard for the rest of freshman year, I would be able to take more advanced classes in my sophomore, junior and senior years. That became my goal, to prove to not only my parents and my peers, but to myself, that I should be taking the toughest classes with the smartest kids.
Starting with my first day of school, that is exactly what happened. My grades came back up to my capabilities, and soon I was in the higher level classes that I loved, participating in engaging discussions with teachers and other students. Now I take advantage of every educational opportunity rather than wonder what could have been.</p>