Hometown: Plano, Texas, USA

High School: Public school, 1,390 students in graduating class

Ethnicity: Asian

Gender: Female

GPA: 4.6 out of 5.0

SAT: Reading 750, Math 800, Writing 760

ACT: n/a

SAT Subject Tests Taken: U.S. History, Mathematics Level 2, Literature, World History

Extracurriculars: Texas Junior State of America Speaker of the House, copresident of the Junior World Affairs Council, columnist for the Dallas Morning News, Public Forum Debate Captain of the Plano West Speech and Debate team, and student liaison to the Plano Independent School District Board of Trustees

Awards: National Merit Finalist, Academic WorldQuest Champion, International Public Policy Forum semifinalist, Texas Forensic Association Public Forum Debate quarterfinalist, TEDxPlano Speaker

Major: Government and Economics

Free sample college statement

Eleventh grade. This is a combat zone.

The American Studies classroom is adorned with shiny gold stars, glimmering like military medallions. They are a powerful reminder of the war cause—the preservation of the American meritocracy, threatened by the authoritarian oppressor on the other side of the pentagonal room. The stars are intended to reward students who put forth effort in class, but I know that Coach Jones, as a skilled expert in proxy wars, hands my nemesis Kierra two rows of the stickers just to spite me.

The edgy situation is reminiscent of preschool, when my Chinese class archrival received two fistfuls of green tea candy for reading the text twelve times, instead of the assigned ten. Deeply enticed by the prospect of a sugar high, I nested myself in the closet and pored over the reading more than 100 times. Thirteen years later, the difference is in the sincerity: jokingly attempting to tussle, Kierra and I are betrayed by our stern faces and collapse into a fit of laughter. The false seriousness of the ordeal adds well-needed levity to our classroom setting.

I am a Russian nesting doll, holding the essence of my former selves—one era in each shell. For one of my early assignments, I channeled the spirit of my kindergarten self—who zealously slayed foreign heads of states in the school play as a U.S. diplomat—and taught my classmates a segment of the American Revolution. Choosing to take an interactive approach, I stood at the front of the classroom as George Washington, commanding my “troops” at Valley Forge to teeter on one foot, simulating fatigue. If you sit down, you’re dead, I warned. As they grew tired, I instructed them to sit down in chunks. One group down due to starvation. Another for disease. Another for deserting. For a long-term assignment, I revived my expressive eighth grade self—who penned every soul-stirring emotion, academic question, or bus-ride philosophy into angst-ridden ballads with ABAB rhyme schemes—and found a creative outlet. Originally intended for approximately 20 assigned writing prompts, my American Studies blog took on a life of its own. Students I had never met sympathized with my college anxieties, laughed along with my struggle to craft my own identity on Twitter, and listened to me recount my experiences— ridiculous conversations relating every Bob Dylan song to bimetallism, dinner at an old Chinese restaurant, hysterical all-nighters in Boston with the debate team. In American Studies, the train of my youth barreled down on me with a Doppler effect, growing higher in pitch with a euphoric squeal. My most redeeming characteristics—inquisitiveness, creativity, candor—while sometimes lost in the whir of high school, resurged all at once.

This is only possible in a place where I can spontaneously walk laps in the middle of a Great Depression lecture, create unicorn short films relevant to the Roaring Twenties, and analyze Kanye West’s latest album as part of class curriculum. During one of my favorite activities, my American Studies classmates and I moved to the verdant lawn of our high school campus and pretended to be transcendentalists, reveling in the silence of our environment. I opened my moleskin journal and let my intuition guide me—painting abstract figures in light washes of color, smearing the patterns with my fingers, dribbling vivid watercolors onto the lined page. American Studies is a class that melds elementary art class with 19th century movements, simplicity with profundity. It is a place that feels like home. Here, the treasured center of my Russian nesting doll carries the essence of my youth outward and simultaneously draws the wisdom and underlying maturity of exterior shells inward to my existing self. My youthful optimism is tempered only by my perspective.

I am at my age, below it, and above it, all at once.

REVIEW

From the first line, Catherine grabs the reader’s attention: two short and punctuated sentences that help to draw the reader in. From there, Catherine successfully weaves her story with insight into her character at various points throughout her life, in addition to providing some perspective on the way that she views her education.

Catherine also makes effective use of two extended metaphors throughout this piece—the comparison of eleventh grade to a “combat zone” and the comparison of herself to a Russian nesting doll. These both work well, but working with multiple metaphors simultaneously in such a short piece does run the risk of becoming convoluted. Catherine might have also benefited by getting to the point of the prompt earlier: while the initial exposition is interesting and insightful, it takes a little while before the reader really gets a sense of her personality.

From 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays, 5th Edition edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2017 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.