Zoey completed her application last night! The song was the last thing she got done and, after much procrastinating, she pulled off a pretty great piece of work! On top of it all, she figured out how to do some cool stuff on iMovie. I am very proud of her - everything that she wrote, performed and edited - and the way that she let us be involved in the process and took our advice. All Bill has to do is get all of our financial information sent in, Zoey has another SAT subject test to take and then we sit on our hands and wait until 12/15/10 for the letter...
COMMON APPLICATION ESSAY
The hardest part of the college application process is being asked to write about myself. I am a people person and I would much rather list the merits of my friends than talk about myself. But I can tell you about what I will bring to the diversity of the college community that I will be joining next year. A teacher of mine who has known me for my entire high school tenure recently referred to me as a rainbow penguin, meaning that I love going with the flow and being part of a group but also that I am always an individual and never lose my identity, and I think this fits me perfectly. While I have always been good at socializing with a wide range of people, this talent became a necessity for me seven years ago when I became a scholarship student at a private school thirty miles away from my home. Since then, I have lived in two different worlds, my school and home worlds. These worlds are socially, culturally and economically diverse, and while learning to live in both worlds comfortably and simultaneously has been a challenge at times, the experience and knowledge I have gained from living in two different worlds has made me a more tolerant and open-minded person.I never realized how small the bubble of my home world was until I was forced to expand it to include La Jolla Country Day School. I went from a ten-minute bike ride from home to school to a one hour bus ride each way, leaving me very little free time at home during the week. While I value the time to get extra schoolwork done or just listen to music and talk to friends on the bus, it is a bit awkward and more than a bit restrictive being the only senior student riding the bus this year. This is only one of the many ways that my life is different from my peers. Besides living in a different city than all my friends, making spontaneous get-togethers tough, it has been hard to adjust to the idea that I don’t lead the same kind of life they do. My family doesn’t travel to Europe or even out of the state on holidays; we don’t have a big house; we can’t afford for me to have my own car; and I am the only one of my friends who has had a part-time job for the last two years. It is hard sometimes not to have a common base of experiences to share with my school friends, but it has been as hard if not harder, to make a life for myself in my hometown with whatever free time I can find. I have maintained a few friendships here and made a few new ones over the years through municipal sports and a local theater group. I even helped a theatre friend start her own troupe! Over the years I have learned not to look outward and see what I don’t have, but to look inward and appreciate what I do have.
What I do have is a passion for singing and a love of being part of a group. Looking back, I can see that the bridge that helped me to straddle my home life and my school life, the common theme that connects the two, is music and sharing it with others. I am never ashamed to sing along with my iPod or burst out into song, no matter where I am or who is around me, a condition I jokingly refer to as "singing Tourette's." Regardless of what has happened over the course of a school day, when I step into the music room the real world falls away leaving only the joy of singing with my classmates and friends. Music is truly the universal language, capable of transmitting ideas, emotions, and cultural oddities solely through the combination of rhythm and pitch, and I am honored to be able to communicate in this unique language. At school, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in annual school musicals as well as the Madrigals, a vocal group that is active in competitions and performances around the community. My voice has taken me to the Southern California Vocal Association’s Honor Choir, where I had the chance to spend a weekend singing with students from schools all over Southern California, to Spain, where I and the rest of the Madrigals sang in a 14th century cathedral in Avila. I have also had the opportunity to participate in musicals in my hometown with groups of performers of all ages and backgrounds in performances over the summers, enriching my experience of school musicals with only freshman through senior students.
I know that I am naturally inclined to reach out and connect with others and reach across cultural, economic and social lines, and I have found that music is the language that speaks the loudest for me when I am doing this. In addition to breaking out of my little bubble seven years ago when I transferred schools, I feel like my love and enthusiasm for music will allow me to cross even more bridges and make connections with my peers when I am in college.
Tufts Supplements
Which aspects of Tufts’ curriculum or undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short: “Why Tufts?”
- After touring more than 30 college campuses in the past year, I belong at only one. My experiences in talking to admissions officers and past and current students have only strengthened my desire to attend Tufts. The minute I set foot on campus, I knew Tufts was a place where I would get the most out of the college experience and become the person I want to be. Tufts’ campus in Talloires, the Dual-Degree program with the New England Conservatory, the experimental college and the ILVS major caught my interest instantly and held it.
There is a Quaker saying: “Let your life speak.” Describe the environment in which you were raised – your family, home, neighborhood, or community – and how it influenced the person you are today.
- I live in a house that could double as a library. Because my family didn’t have a television until I was seven, I grew up reading. My mother, a literature major and children’s book aficionado, has worked for a bookstore for almost as long I have been alive and started a blog a few years ago where she reviews kid’s books. Our bookshelves (of which there is at least one in every room of our house except the bathroom) are overflowing. Some of my earliest and best memories are of bedtimes when my parents would take turns reading aloud to me. I was four when the first Harry Potter book was released, and I remember how exciting it was trying to sound out words on my own but having my mother there for help when my fledgling literacy wasn’t enough. Attending the midnight release parties for the last four Harry Potter books became a tradition, and being in a huge group of people whose common bond is a book is wonderful! For the last three years, I have been a member of Little, Brown, & Company’s Hip Scouts, a group of devoted teens who review soon-to-be-published books, and have discovered many of my favorite authors through this program. Books are the foundation of my life, linking me not only to my mom but a worldwide community. If I am alone, I know I can turn to a book to find a new set of friends waiting inside the pages.
For some, it’s politics or sports or reading. For others, it may be researching solar power fuel cells or arranging hip-hop mashups. What makes you tick?
People make me tick! I love being part of a group, whether it’s social, academic, musical or work-oriented, whether I am a leader or a follower. While some children dread going away to summer camp and refuse to leave without a friend in tow, I have always embraced the opportunity to travel and make new friends. At school, I have developed a very tight group of friends, and it is hard for me to go a day without seeing them. Group projects in school are without a doubt my favorites, as I love the amazing synthesis of different opinions and ideas. I am a capable leader in group situations, proven by my positions as editor-in-chief of my school’s newspaper, the Palette, and co-editor-in-chief of our yearbook, both of which I have been a part of for the last four years. However, I am equally comfortable taking orders and not being in control, as in my school choir. I can sing a lovely solo, but when I collaborate with the other members of my choir, suddenly the piece is transformed. Instead of a single melody, we create a complex harmony, a blending of voices that create magic together. I believe that together we do our best work. This coming together of individuals to create something bigger than ourselves is food for my soul.
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