Applying to ONE College

[Sahaqiel 1232]

This is less of a rant and more general serious discussion, but I'm supposed to write a 300 word essay to explain anything they should keep in mind when reading my transcripts, and I certainly can't tell them everything that's on my mind, because it's everything. I'm sorry to provide you with this wall of text and my life story, but here goes.

 

I'm applying to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is a relatively selective engineering university (my counselors call it a "reach" school) where a bunch of cool stuff is learned and made. I hear they invented semiconductors there, which replaced the glass vacuum tubes and are the reason computers don't take up whole rooms anymore. They have something like a 67% acceptance rate, which is like, good, but it's still not much more than half? idk. I'm nervous. It's ideal to have a 3.0 to 3.2 GPA. Last semester, with all my courses, I had something like a 2.725, and this semester it was knocked down to 2.6 because of my F in Physics. If it were an A, I would already be a smidge above 3.0.

 

A lot of stuff kind of lead to me screwing up my academia and making this application tough for me, so I guess this is where the life story portion starts.

 

Early Childhood:

My mom has always supported me, telling me I'm smart and handsome and stuff, so I've always tried to meet and surpass those expectations. When I was a toddler, I would read signs from fast food joints and grocery stores, just from context, and I'd read the childrens' books that they provided me, long before I even started school. My mom taught me cursive in first grade. My mom's not a strict Asian parent. She's a charismatic supportive mom kind of gal. I can't tell if it's because she worked hard at fitting in with American people, rather than the other Filipino moms I see that make their kids play education games and piano and stuff. She thinks those kinds of Filipino moms are stuck up. Anyway.

 

Elementary School:

Back in kindergarten through fourth grade, I was one of those "smart kids". I had the best grades in the class most of the time, and in kindergarten, I was only rivaled by another kid in the class who didn't have much interest in being my friend (I was also pretty friendly). The only mess-ups I made back then were mixing up addition and subtraction occasionally. I distinctly remember one day, our teacher told us we could pick any partner we want for helping with problems. Every single kid got up from their desks and went straight to mine, except for two. The other smart kid and a black girl I don't remember much of. It was weird because they didn't have any interest in making partners, but they were the only ones. So every kid with an interest in making partners decided to partner with me. I felt kind of bad for them and wanted to partner with one of them, but I couldn't get past the other kids. The teacher had to break them up.

 

I was always trying to figure stuff out and expand my borders for creativity and knowledge. I'll keep this to school stuff, but I also liked to explore the neighborhood with my best friend at the time and play video games. I liked to make up stories and roleplay with my friends. I read the tough books in kindergarten and first grade. I was surprised they let me read the anatomy books, so I knew about penises and vaginas pretty early on. Since grades were as easy as turning in [the painfully easy] homework, I liked to focus on other ways to prove I was learning, so I read the biggest books in the library in third grade. Namely, the Harry Potter books. I tried reading their encyclopedia on aquatic life, but that was kind of boring, even though it had a higher page count. I won the only Young Author Award out of the third grade class at our school, and I was well-known by my peers to have, according to the STAR program, a 10.4 reading level.

 

Our school had a music program for fourth graders. I wanted to play trombone at first, but decided on trumpet because it seemed easier. But that got a bit messed up because my dad decided to move to Florida. The people there were a lot more biased towards being outdoors rather than having a balance between that and video games, so it was tough making as many friends and people who did play video games played the uninteresting ones. The school didn't have a music program at all, wasn't much fun, and for the math section I was behind because of the move. I couldn't figure out how to do long division. I tried to get my dad to help me but he got mad and yelled "What are you, stupid?" at me because I couldn't understand how he was teaching it. The support of my mom was really far away from me back in Illinois. On a more positive note, I got to see the Columbia space shuttle launch from the class window some kilometers away. It was cool. No one would believe me when I told them that the trail it made wasn't smoke, but water vapor made by burning the rocket fuel. Too bad the shuttle exploded and killed the crew upon reentry.

 

I also got my first taste of racism from this kid Chris, (surprising, because I was seriously like the only different looking kid in early elementary school) who would pull at his eyes and say "ching chong" at me during recess. Crying, I got fed up and called him a "crap head". We had a joint teacher system, so I had two teachers. One of them sat me down and listened to my story, and she rolled her eyes and told me not to call people crap heads. That teacher didn't like me much. The other kid made up some story about a school play he messed up a line in, resulting in "ching chong". Somehow, he went unpunished. There were a lot of Filipino people in Florida, and they were the dominant minority, so I can imagine that the teacher was a little racist. This combination of factors made me slack off a lot. I just didn't see the point anymore. I couldn't prove anything to anyone, so I just played video games, woefully without cable television to keep me company. We moved back to Illinois four months after arriving in Florida, because my dad didn't like his co-workers.

 

By that time I was kind of a troublemaker. I would blatantly act up a lot to get attention because I was afraid of how I was treated in Florida, but it was a lot easier to get friends and respect here. As long as I've been in Illinois, I can say that it's generally open-minded. I was once again the kid with the highest reading level in the school in fourth grade. I think it was 11.2. I won't recount too much of this, but long story short, I eventually had to take after-school tutoring for algebra. I kept forgetting to circle my answers and dumb stuff like that, or I just wouldn't pay attention during class. My grades weren't the best. I think I also took an extracurricular Spanish course or something. I had my friends, and that's what I was mostly concerned with. There was a band class, too, so that was good.

 

Jr. High/Middle School:

Then middle school. Band was fun. I competed trying to get to the first-chair parts, but I didn't practice outside the class because of laziness. I still got pretty close. I actively studied chemistry and sciences just as much as I'd studied in early elementary school. I memorized the periodic table in sixth grade, and I'd proudly blaze through tests in science class. In the summer, every morning around 10, I'd go to my friend Jacob's house and we'd hang out or go to the pool with our summer passes. There was a candy shop across the street, and they had great, cheap stuff. I digress. But you can see where I would get kind of indulgent and start to get distracted.

 

Seventh grade came, and I would hang out with friends at the library constantly to play Runescape, or if we were too lazy to go there on our bikes, I'd put up with dial-up. Unfortunately, I'd pretty much given up school. I remember arranging M&Ms on my binder's grade sheet with all the Fs in Algebra, and just knowing I'd reached that point. It was a good time for me socially, except putting up with my stepmom. Eventually I moved in with my mom because of how annoying and awful my stepmom was. I once again moved away from a seemingly perfect lifestyle to find it hard to fit in again. It wasn't too too hard, but it was just jarring and I felt like giving up. The pool of people to befriend was literally the smallest school in the district, so we just had to learn to get along. In terms of academics, I did well when I paid attention, and tried just hard enough to stay with the higher level of algebra. The school didn't have two separate classes, just one class with two separate books. I didn't want to settle for the boring blue book, and worked for the orange-and-blue one. I still studied sciences independently. I liked learning how the world worked, and all the weird stuff it did. I read every individual book on the periodic elements that the library had to offer, and did an essay on phenylalanine for the math teacher just because I could.

 

So eventually I reached high school.

 

High School:

Because of my habit of living on the edge back in high school and my first semester of college, I've always been walking a thin line and dodging a lot of bullets. Hopefully I can get out of the battlefield. But pretty much, I was always preoccupied with personal projects in high school, or just screwing around on Hnet or something. I don't remember much out of my freshman and sophomore years, because I was going through somewhat of an identity crisis that I'd rather not revisit. My grades were bad; mostly Cs, with Ds and Bs being occasional but with about the same frequency. I got As in the classes that were purely participation-- mostly band stuff. I don't think anyone ever got anything lower than a B in those classes. I never did homework, which was my main fault. I did alright in tests and stuff.

 

In my first semester of high school, I took regular Algebra because I thought it wouldn't require much work. Lucky for me, the teacher tested us to see how competent we were on the first day and I blew through the test before anyone else. I got kicked into honors algebra. Honors algebra was taught by an entertaining teacher, but I was knocked down into regular the next semester, or rather I fell back into it due to lack of effort. When I took Computer Programming, a class I literally only learned one new thing in (encryption) I was still lazy, and got a C. Despite my poor performance in school I still got a 29 on my ACT, even though I had to stop to use the restroom in the middle of the math portion and wasn't able to look at more than three graphs in the science section as a result. I was content in failing, but I always knew I had the option to succeed, and I took comfort in that. I was more focused on just learning a bunch of stuff, whether or not it coincided with classes.

 

So my final year of high school, I took a ridiculous range of classes. Psychology/Sociology, Creative Writing/Some Other English Course, Welding, Culinary, Jazz Band (guitar), Instrumental Music (trumpet/occasional guitar), Trig/Precalc, Marching Band and Concert Band (couldn't get into Orchestral). I also partook in sewing club, art club, and was the secretary to our school's gay/straight alliance. Due to the stresses of losing my stepbrother in a drive-by, constant conflict with kaffles, and having some of my best friends graduated and gone (even though I could still contact them here), everything felt like it was falling apart, and I quickly sunk back into a rut. I never got too good at any of the subjects. I was always scattering my energies and not trying hard enough. I started out the best welder in the class with the steadiest hand, but everyone quickly outstripped me by the second semester. Creative Writing was fun but it only lasted one semester. My designated "fun class" by the end was pretty much only Sociology at the end of it, because we got a substitute for our teacher who was on maternity leave, and he was a cool guy, but I still didn't make the grade.

 

Anyway, because our education system is a bit silly, and because our high school requires the least amount of credits out of any high school in our area, I graduated. I think high school didn't really stress how important it was in relation to college, but that's probably just an excuse, and I should have paid better attention to my resources. I enjoyed high school, I really did. I regret not doing better, but that's in the past. The problem is when my past catches up with me. Before graduation, I wasted 50 dollars of pheo/T1g's mother's money that she gave me to apply to the University of Illinois, because she'd been impressed with my personal projects and didn't want me to settle on a lackluster school. They--very understandably--turned me down, with my GPA of like what, 1.7?, even though I got one of their [very impressive and attractive] packets for my 29 ACT score.

 

College:

I had to go to Southwestern Illinois College. (SWIC) For my first semester of college, I tested straight into Calculus I, which is apparently a big deal. I got a perfect score in my English portion, but taking English 101 is mandatory, so I had to take that. I also took Computer Science I and American Popular Music. I wanted to do well in this semester but I fell back into my habits. I didn't study, I went home directly after class, or in between classes to nap etc. Because of how late I was to pick classes, I managed to get this horrible schedule:

 

Analytic Geometry and Calculus I: MTWTF; 8:00-8:50am

Computer Science I: MTW-F; 9:00-9:50am

English & Rhetoric I: -T-T-; 7:00-9:50pm

American Popular Music: --W--; 7:00-9:50pm

 

So a class that goes until 10pm three days a week bordered by an 8am CALCULUS course, of all things. I kept falling asleep in there, missing important stuff, and experiencing the existential dread that tends to come with Calculus tests for students like me. They were a whole new obstacle, those tests. It felt like an anchor was harpooned into my chest and was dragging me into hell every time I was handed one of them. I got cold sweat and blinding rage at myself for not studying harder, but never did anything about it. I left for home thinking I'd study and just did internet stuff or napped. I got back to school late. The way our college works, if you miss more days than you attend in a week, you're dropped with a W for Withdrawn. F is more incriminating, because you can pretty much get a W for anything. So, since I kept pushing my luck, I arrived late to English 101 and American Popular Music too many times and was dropped from both of them. I concentrated on Comp Sci, knowing that Calc I was a sinking ship. All of this was when I was hosting All Wizards and One Robot Werewolf. I started programming mFufni's Adventure, my last-ditch attempt at at least getting a good grade in the one class I could get one in, Comp Sci, which caused me to completely halt AWaOR. I failed Calculus, obviously, but I got a B in Comp Sci, which was still unacceptable because I, again, knew everything the class had to offer.

 

After that horrible experience, I was mad. I was just so angry with myself. Just enraged. This was the first time school was more of an important challenge than an inconvenience or social hub to me. It was like a boss battle I kept dying on, only it affected the outcome of the game and wasted my time. I put in a preemptive strike by signing up for all the classes I failed and more, with better scheduling as American Popular Music was my only night class. Comp Sci II, Fundamentals of Public Speaking (Speech), then the other three classes I failed. At the beginning of that semester, Comp Sci II had been mysteriously dropped. Frightened, I went to the office, and it turned out I needed to have passed Calc I in order to progress to Comp Sci II, so I talked to the teacher after the class I was supposed to be attending and had him talk to the head of the math department in order to try to get her to sign a waiver saying I can get into Comp Sci II without having passed Calculus. He told her about my time in his class, that I was the best programmer he's had in years, so I managed to get waived in. The head of the math department was pretty cool about it. They both considered just making Calculus something to take concurrently with Comp Sci II, and later, that requirement changed explicitly because of me. Later, I told a person this story, who just so happens to have benefited from it, and he thanked me for it. I felt like I was cutting down the opponent I made for myself and made waves along the way.

 

The internet at school bans you for doing things it detects as unsavory. I rarely use Bittorrent, let alone keep it open when I'm done using it, but luckily, I had it open right after I'd been unbanned for playing Team Fortress 2, which the school detects as peer-to-peer. I was again banned, and this was, and still is, good. I started going to the library (and napping there when necessary), getting work done without the Internet in my life. Since the school covers up your previous scores with any you retake, my previous grade pattern, WWFB was updated to CCBBBA; Calc I, Comp Sci II, English I, Comp Sci I, Public Speaking, and American Popular Music, respectively. Calc I was still hard, and I almost failed again. I just didn't have enough time for Comp Sci II. Due to the heavy work load, I eventually cooled down and was a bit tired of school at the end of the semester. I could have gotten an A in Speech just by redoing a speech, but I stupidly decided not to because of how exasperated I was. I decided I would never do something like that again after I realized how important GPA was. Again, something I wish was emphasized more in high school.

 

Now we get to the most recent semester. Back in first semester, I made good friends with a guy named Tony, and in late second semester, I got him to come to the library with me to study. This semester, we regularly went to the library from the end of our classes to when it closed at 9:30pm, and we'd study buddied and hung out at school as we did so. Though his presence has been fun, I’m kind of glad he’s graduating this semester, because now I can concentrate even harder on my work. I had only four classes this semester, though I was kind of aiming for five, because I wanted to put as much effort as I could into impressing U of I. Introduction to Logic, English & Rhetoric II, Enginering Physics: Mechanics, and Analytic Geometry/Calculus II, supposedly the hardest Calculus course out of the three. I understood that U of I wanted math and science, but I figured Physics would be easy and underestimated it. I should have taken Chemistry.

 

Physics is one of those important 5-credit classes, but there is only one teacher for physics at SWIC, the community college I go to, and she's a bad one. She's more of a conductor, rather than a teacher, and you're tasked with learning the music on your own. You're supposed to read the book, then take a quiz the next day over each chapter, with the only real teaching being a brief overview she gives you before each Monday/Wednesday quiz. I've heard that SIUE, a college nearby, encourages students not to take physics here. I wish I knew that sooner. In the end, I turned in a blank final for physics and told the teacher I'd have to see her next semester. She has consistently bad scores on RateMyProfessor.com, with an average rating of about two stars. I once again bailed out of a sinking ship, but this time it was the reverse from my first semester. I passed three out of four classes with grades at or above a B, and got an F in Physics. As much as I'd like to just blame the teacher, I'm not that kind of guy. I should have put more effort into the class.

 

Now the big thing that everyone hears me talking about: Calculus. It's pretty straightforward. I had an awful, difficult, challenging time in getting a grade above C in Calculus. I finally bought a TI-89 calculator, which I got for about 80 dollars used, with my birthday money. I was aiming for an A the whole time, from the start, working my heart out. I took notes, recorded the lectures, put far more than two hours a day into studying it, did all the assignments, understood the material, and I still did horribly on quizzes, which were the majority of our workload. I don't think I've worked harder on anything, which sucks because I know I could have worked harder. My friends often asked me for help, and I knew more than enough to help them out, but when that quiz was put in front of me, I'd freak out, blank out, and leave the classroom with rage in my heart. A weaker me would have given up after the first few failed quizzes, but I wasn't him anymore.

 

Still, I freaked out. On one test that I felt I did objectively terrible on, we had to do five out of eight problems, and then do the last three at home over the weekend. I panicked so hard I used the wrong formulae, picked the hard problems to do in class, and took easy problems home. It was awful. I was so mad, that I didn't pay attention to English class directly after, and just redid the whole test in the same amount of time allotted in English class, just to prove I could. When I showed it to the teacher later, it turns out that on the retake directly after, I got every problem right. Every single one. I messed up a couple simple things (which I knew about but didn't correct because I mean I wouldn't get credit for it anyway) but there it was. It was so frustrating, but I somehow ended up getting an 82 on the test I thought I did objectively bad on. The teacher probably gave me the grade. He says that he has no problem giving out a bad grade if it’s deserved, but it probably works the other way around too.

 

My test average was about 80 the last time I checked, with my quiz average being 44. I struggled to stay above a C, let alone a B. Because our grades are factored by our quiz average, our test average, and our final grade, I once was put below failing by a test, even though the grade I got on it was higher in score than my total grade. We have things called Math Chats, which are presentation/seminars done by people working in the maths and sciences industries. We go to them for extra credit, but they're interesting in general too. The first one wasn't that great, done by a chemist whose math load was just basic algebra. The next one was a mathematician who dealt in theoretical physics studying black holes and gravity waves. She's done TED talks before, so it was cool hearing about her job. The last one was done by none other than our Calculus teacher, about grades, of all things.

 

He told us what grades are good for, and what they aren't good for. He's got a Philosophy degree, which kind of showed during his presentation. He informed us first of different ways grades are calculated. Because our grades are factored by our quiz average, our test average, and our final grade, I once was put below failing by a test, even though the grade I got on it was higher in score than my total grade, because the grade I got was lower than my test average, which lowered my test average and my overall grade. I won't call it stupid or anything, it's just how things go. He told me before his presentation that he inserted a segment based on my experience in his class with this phenomenon, and I was there to relive the experience. It could have been anyone, really, but I was the unlucky guy. After all the grades and stuff, he told us about what grades mean.

 

Even though grades are how we're categorized in the education system, he reassured us: grades are not a gauge of who we are as people. They're just letters on pieces of paper, and we're not horrible people if we can't get a good grade, and grades don't represent how much we've learned in the class. Especially in the case of a class in which the only grades are quizzes and tests, they're just snapshots of our mental state at a precise and small window of time, that can be affected by a huge range of variables, such as unavoidable circumstances, or things that might be on our mind that kind of push the necessary knowledge out. The whole "walking out of the classroom and suddenly knowing how to do everything" issue. He told us the grading system is very flawed, but it's all we've got.

 

The worst thing we can do, then, he said, is to actively try to get those grades. He said the easiest way to get a C in a Calculus class is to try for an A. When students would come to ask how to improve their grades, he would tell them to focus on learning first, and the grades will come to them. That's what I'd been doing the whole time, so it was kind of late for me by that point. I left with a new perspective and tried to follow it. I focused more on understanding concepts than I did just mindlessly plowing through every problem I could. When it came down to it, I needed to get an 89 on the final exam to get a B in the class. Our school doesn't use +/-, so it'd just be a solid B. When my teacher told me that, he didn't sound very assured when he said that getting the grade was possible. He'd helped me out and knew how much I was working in the class, and still I sensed discouragement in his voice.

 

I studied really, really hard. Not only was the class difficult, but the final was cumulative, rather than just being over the last two weeks of whatever we went over (which would have been disastrous, because it was really tough stuff) I went to sleep early and woke up and looked myself in the mirror the morning of the exam. I repeated out loud that I was not going to freak out. I was going to walk in there, unperturbed, and claim the A I needed on the exam. So I went to school about the same time at 10am, sat down, and did work until the time of the test, which was around 2pm. Eventually, my classmates arrived to join me in studying. We moved tables out of one of the study areas into the adjacent hallway, because the study area didn't have an outlet I could charge my laptop at. So everyone gathered around me and we formed a two-table study area, half blocking part of the hallway. There weren't many people on campus anyway.

 

After viewing and reviewing, we finally walked in there and received our test. It was structured in a way that you only had to do 12/20 of the problems. Each chapter had problems out of each section, and we could pick each problem, as long as we did the assigned number (for instance, we had to do like six problems out of Chapter 7, out of which there were eight problems). So I got to work. Because I understood pretty much everything on the final, I picked the ones that looked hard. The teacher doesn't give us trick questions, but he evens the playing field. If there's a concept that's fairly easy, he'll make a difficult problem out of it. If there's a hard concept, he'll nerf the problems a bit. It worked pretty well, and I felt like I was on fire. I burned through the test hard enough to feel like I definitely would get an A. Two of the problems were a bit botched, but with partial credit I'd probably make the 89. We had about two hours to do the test, so I made sure I finished each problem under ten minutes, or else I'd move on and come back to it later.

 

We were pushing time. On the surface, I was done. I'd filled out twelve problems adequately enough, despite getting the square root of a negative number for an area-related problem, which is many, many kinds of wrong, but you know, I had the structure right. I decided to push it a bit further, since there were other stragglers. There were two minutes left, and I looked through for a problem I could do that I could complete better than the two problems I couldn't complete correctly. The teacher told us that he'd push on the time limit a bit too, and informed us he'd give us stragglers the ten minute break period in between this final and the next. So I burned brighter, and did two problems in seven minutes, using the remaining three to triple check my other answers. If I didn't spend money on the TI-89, my grade would be a lot worse due to stupid mistakes.

 

The teacher deducts points for things like not using equal signs for new lines, or using equal signs for things that don't equal the original equation, even if they're used to solve it. Or like, forgetting integral signs. He may give partial credit, but he also deducts for slipups. I read through my math and caught every little tiny mistake I wouldn't have corrected otherwise. So that was it. I crossed out the two botched problems and had the two replacement problems on a new piece of paper. That was it. The test I've never been more confident in getting a 100% on. My calculator said I got everything right. I eliminated and identified all the stupid mistakes. It was an amazing feeling. Like my hands and my brain finally acted out what I was capable of the whole time. I didn't even use the Arc Length function I had to check if I got an arc length right until I remembered I had it later. I punched in the integral into the ArcLen() function in the hallway as I was leaving and got the same answer I put on the test, long after I'd left the classroom. That was the only problem I was unsure of, because I forgot I had the function. That was the final nail in the ladder. I'd climbed to a B for my overall Calc grade. So good. My teacher still hasn't e-mailed me back to tell me what I got on the final exam. All I know is that I either got an 89 or some kind of A. Good enough for me, I guess, but I would appreciate an exact number.

 

Then there's the really short story of Introduction to Logic and English class. English was interesting, because it turns out 102 is just an ethnography course where you study a subculture and write a report over them. I picked professional game developers, because I want to learn more about them. I got to talk to a bunch of devs, including a senior programmer type who'd worked on GTA IV. I got an A in that class. Logic was super easy, but I was four points away from a possible A, which I only learned about after I took the final. This all made me learn that I need to balance my efforts and focus more on what's important, other than work. I need to ask more questions and make sure my bases are covered.

 

So my grade tally as of now is: FCCBBBBBAA. Phys-Mech, Comp Sci II, Calc I, Calc II, Comp Sci I, Speech, Logic, English I, English II, and American Popular Music, respectively. My GPA amounts to 2.625. Again, with the F covered up with an A, it'd be 3.025 already. With a B, 2.925, and if I get all As next semester, it'll be a 3.2. I need to get an A in at least Chemistry and Bs in the other classes to get above 3.0, but I have room for a Summer course before seeing if I'm approved for U of I.

 

I planned next semester to have Calc III, Phys 205 (Electricity/Thermodynamics), and Chemistry 105 (General Chemistry I). Then it turned out I couldn't take Chemistry 105 because I did not have the prerequisite of having taken Chemistry 101, but U of I wanted me to have it, and didn't care about Chem 101. I looked in the course book and it said I could alternatively have taken a Chemistry course in high school in order to get into 105, so I went to the counselor to look at my high school transcripts. If you read my earlier thing on high school, you can imagine why I was treading thin ice. I had a C in one semester of high school chem... and a D in the other. Which, the counselors decided, didn't count as a year of high school chem. So I said alright, I can take Chem 101 this semester and then Chem 105 in the summer. 101 will be easier, and it's still a 5 credit course, so it'll do well for my GPA, right? I looked it up, and it turns out every single Chem 101 class directly conflicted with my other classes. I couldn't take Chem 101 this semester. To make the best use out of my time, it had to be 105. Once again, I had to go to the head of the math department.

 

She asked how I was doing after I mentioned she'd waived me into Comp Sci II, and I said that I was having trouble getting into another class, so she was kind of suspicious in my situation, but after I explained, she was pretty understanding and talked to the Chemistry teacher, mentioning me as the kid that she waived into a class I didn't have the prerequisites before, as well as that I was kind of late to the "trying hard at school" party, but that I'm there now (she didn't word it like that, no).

 

So yeah. Now my workload has been cut down to three classes: Calc III, Phys I, and Chem I. The problem is that the only Physics-Mechanics class available this semester is not only a night class, but only meets twice a week on Monday and Wednesday. I guess fine for me, since I stay at school until it closes anyway, but my schedule once again has a 7-9:50 class bordered by an 8am five-day-a-week class.

 

Analytic Geometry and Calculus III: MTWTF; 8:00-8:50am

Engineering Physics--Mechanics: M-W--; 7:00-9:20pm

General Chemistry I: M-W-F; 1:00-1:50pm

General Chemistry I lab: -T-T-; 12:00-1:40pm

 

I hear Chem 105 is super easy, but that's not enough for me now. I have to learn the material evenly in each course and master the material. I don't want to say I'm aiming for all As, but that's what I'm doing. My new record would be: CCBBBBBAAAAA. This is astonishing to me, that I have gone from a flighty high school kid who had a nearly all-C record to a guy who has more Bs than Cs and almost just as many As as Bs. I'm only going to get better at this, and I want to get into U of I so much. But I have to condense all these feelings, memories, lessons, and experiences down to 300 words. This is all I've mustered, and I tried to compress as much information as possible into it.

 

Unfortunately, I was a poor student since middle school, always disappointing my teachers’ expectations. In high school, for instance, I was kicked out of regular algebra into honors, but was dropped back into regular math in subsequent years, and only got lackluster grades. I was always preoccupied with independently learning, whether or not it was school-related.

 

Things like prop making, 3D imaging, C++, amongst others. I studied Japanese during French class when I could ignore my guilt. In Computer Programming my junior year of high school, I felt I already knew everything so I was fine with spending time on other projects. I still showed some promise; I scored 29 on my ACT even though I had to use the restroom in the middle of it, and I tested into Calculus I in college.

 

My bad habits really didn't hit me until my first semester at SWIC, when I fell on my face: I was dropped out of two classes and I failed Calculus. 3/4ths of the classes I took amounted to nothing, and that inspired a lot of angry motivation. I managed to pour all my efforts into Computer Science I at the last second, but I had to retake the other classes the next semester.

 

I still wasn't prepared for how difficult Calculus was, and didn’t have much time for Computer Science II, (which I had to be waived into due to Calculus) so I got Cs in both, but corrected my past mistakes. In my Fall 2012 semester, I took two courses that required severe commitment; Physics-Mechanics and Calculus II. In the end, physics took the fall for my other classes. I managed to work hard and get a B in Calculus II, but my GPA still isn’t there yet. The counselor says I’m a late bloomer.

 

I talked with kaffles and we agreed that this focuses too much on the negative aspects and not how I've been improving. I'm going to change it up before shipping it out and I'd like you guys to help me out to reach a consensus. I can't send them any letters of recommendation or any portfolio stuff--like the game I've been programming for the past couple years on and off, and I'm applying for computer science. They don't allow it.

 

I guess I wrote most of this to kind of enumerate the simplification of my education-related life and to give myself suggestions on what to strike out or add. I'm almost glad I got a straight F in Physics. For a student with mostly above-C grades, (especially in something like Calc II) you would think something's up if I got an F, right? That conflicts with my previous grades a lot, so I hope they use their imaginations a little in why I couldn't pass Physics. In my favor, of course. Every day since I failed my first semester, it's felt like a mission to the moon. I can't screw up, not at this stage of the game. I don't want to waste any more time at this school or keep my friends waiting.

 

So that's it. This is it. Here I go again. I'm applying to U of I with a better track record than I had before, and I get the chance to justify myself. I probably won't be able to send it in until tomorrow, but I have until March 1st, and I can append my transcript if I do better and replace past grades in any semesters before the one I'm applying for (which is Fall 2013). Deep breaths. Here we go. I won't get any kind of response until some time next year. This application is the Voyager traveling through space taking pictures of planets and it won't be awhile until I get a signal back with the important stuff. Let's hope the picture turns out pretty. Otherwise I'm going to keep taking classes at SWIC until I get my Associates and try again next year.

[Linkprow 42]

As of middle school I was a poor student. I became more preoccupied with independent learning rather than the material taught in school. Things like prop making, 3D imaging, C++, and Japanese amongst others. In Computer Programming my junior year of high school, I felt I already knew everything so I was fine with spending time on other projects. I still showed some promise; I scored 29 on my ACT even though I had to use the restroom in the middle of it, and I tested into Calculus I in college.

 

The effects of my bad habits really didn't hit me until my first semester at SWIC, when I fell on my face: I was dropped out of two classes and I failed Calculus. 3/4ths of the classes I took amounted to nothing, and that inspired a lot of angry motivation. I managed to pour all my efforts into Computer Science I at the last second, but I had to retake the other classes the next semester.

 

I wasn't prepared for how difficult Calculus was, and didn’t have much time for Computer Science II, so I got Cs in both, but corrected my past mistakes. A major reason for my failures was that when I did work hard, I wasn’t doing it smartly. I also struggled with panic during tests and quizzes. I tackled these issues in my Fall 2012 semester, I took two courses that required severe commitment; Physics-Mechanics and Calculus II. In the end, physics took the fall for my other classes. I managed to work hard and apply myself to get a B in Calculus II. I only plan to get better from here; I recognize my problems and have the willpower to do what’s necessary to fix them. The counselor says I’m a late bloomer.

 

 

I tried to make it more positive but idk 

[Sahaqiel 1232]

The original intent of this was more to just feel like you all know what I've been through and are more with me than just wishing me luck.

 

Like, I was on the good path for awhile but I kept getting thrown into jarring experiences and didn't know how to handle them. I kept seeing and hearing proof that I was smart enough to get through my problems relating to school, but haven't started working on proving it to other people. So now I have to convince some fairly selective people who take thousands of applicants that I'm not that guy anymore. Not the kid who lazes around all the time.

 

At the same time, I'm kind of grateful I went through those things. I learned about myself and what I want, what I like, what to believe, and how to act around other people. I may have slacked off at school, but I felt like I was working hard to shape my personality and build foundations for skills I'd like to have later. I've been really stressed out lately because all I've been doing is studying and working on stuff. But it hurts my ability to jump into the working world where I can make things that won't just be seen by my immediate peers.

 

Thanks again for reading these like ten pages of just stuff about me.

[Michael 290]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14yj3h/i_work_in_a_college_admissions_office_ama/

Maybe you can pick up some tips from this? There is a newer one by the same guy but didn't receive the same amount if attention.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Thanks a lot, guys. Tappy, that thread is super helpful, but it doesn't really make me more comfortable. The school the guy works at sounds a lot like UIUC.

 

Here is one possible revision to my negative-sounding excuse essay: I talked to kaffles and she told me I should focus more on how I've improved and how much I'm improving.

 

               I feel it’s necessary to mention that I got a 29 on my ACT, but I actually had to stop to use the restroom in the middle of the math portion, so I didn’t have enough time to look at more than three graphs in the science part. I was also kicked into honors Algebra my freshman year. I’ve always shown potential that until recently, I hadn’t even started to fulfill.

 

               I was a poor student in high school. I was always focused on studying and exploring miscellany unrelated to my classes, which showed in my records.  It really hit me hard when I went to college.  Suffering the defeat of my first semester put me into overdrive.  I have since been working to correct my mistakes and my habits. I’ve been on a steady incline, and I feel like I can only get better at relearning how to be a student.

 

               In my second semester at SWIC, I had to recover all my lost time from the previous one. I went to the head of the math department at our school to get waived into Computer Science II, because I failed Calculus and couldn’t progress. They changed the Calculus prerequisite for that class because of me.  I’ve always enjoyed programming, inside and outside of school, but I had to haul five classes then, which included a Calculus course.  Unfortunately, that resulted in my Cs in both classes.

 

               This semester, I was unprepared for how committed I had to be for Physics. I focused on Calculus II almost exclusively, and didn’t realize until later on that Physics was a sinking ship. So I sacrificed it, and have to do that class over, but now I’m prepared. I learned how I should balance my efforts, and what I should focus on.

 

This is the first draft of my 300 word "why do you want to be at UIUC" essay:

 

               For a long time now, I’ve been discouraged from exploring the facets of education that I find most practical and interesting. In high school, I learned programming languages during Math, or I studied Japanese on the bus home from marching band competitions; during French class, when I could ignore the guilt. When I got the (very impressive, thank you) packet from UIUC, I was enamored with everything I’d heard about it ever since.

 

                I feel restless when I’m doing things that don’t involve some kind of productivity. I like solving puzzles and finding out new ways to do things. Even when I play video games, I’m always looking to exploit glitches in order to entertain myself and understand more about the game world. At the same time, when I have control over a project that I program the rules for, it’s exciting and fresh. I like to create cool, new things, and find the mechanics underneath them so I can make them even better.

 

                The more I hear about UIUC, the more I feel like it’s the ideal college for me; that there, I could do all those things. Its offered courses, foreign exchange programs, selection of clubs, extracurricular activities, and especially its emphasis on computer science really draw me in. It’s a selective school, but it still feels friendly and warm to me. It’s even got an Allen dorm. I’m not narcissistic, but hey, there’s a dorm with my name on it.

 

                I want to learn more and more about computer science. I want to take on challenges that aren’t found at many other schools, and come up with results I can proudly show to other people. I want to get out into the world as soon as possible, and I definitely think UIUC would help me get there.

 

If it sounds too casual, just keep in mind that they claim these essays are so they get to know me better. My passions and how I view education and stuff. Tell me what you think.

[Chimetals 344]

i think you stand a fair chance, i mean, when i talked to the councilor at UIUC before applying, they told me that i wouldnt get in because of my lack of foreign language classes. one essay later, and it was all ok.

[Necropolis 763]

The essay is good. I think complimenting their packets may have been a tad unnecessary, but otherwise its solid.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Well, they say the essay is like their "one chance to get to know what you're like" and stuff, so I tried to put some personality into it.

 

Probably going to revise the thing about the ACT too. I don't have enough words to put it into perspective. Like, that morning I was pumped and was like okay, we're going to start this day off right so I'm mentally active enough to take this test. So I rode my bike seven miles to school, on the way picking up a bunch of Vitamin Water. I was told by a teacher not to drink soda becuse it's a dieuretic and it'll make you want to urinate something awful. But I was dumb. I drank a bottle of regular water, two Vitamin Waters for focus and calming effects, and a Coca-Cola for the caffeine. Soooo. idk why I was so dumb, I felt like it wouldn't be that long. But then came the excruciating physical pain. I wanted to bear through it, but that was just not an option. It felt like there was a water balloon that was about to burst. It was horrible.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

               Unfortunately, I was a poor student in high school. I was always focused on studying and exploring miscellany unrelated to my classes, which showed in my records.  It really hit me hard when I went to college.  Suffering the defeat of my first semester put me into overdrive.  I have since been working to correct my mistakes and my habits. I’ve been on a steady incline, and I feel like I can only get better at relearning how to be a student. I’ve always shown potential in school that until recently, I hadn’t even started to act on.

 

               For my second semester at SWIC, I had to recover all the lost time from my previous one, where I’d been dropped from my two night classes due to absence and didn’t study enough to pass Calculus. I went to the head of the math department at our school to get waived into Computer Science II, because without having passed Calculus, I couldn’t progress. Due to my abilities, the waiver was signed, and later, the prerequisite for that class changed because of me.

 

               I’ve always enjoyed programming, inside and outside of school, but I had to haul five classes then, which included a Calculus course.  Unfortunately, that resulted in my Cs in both classes. To compensate the next semester, I studied harder than ever, regularly staying in the library with a study buddy until closing at 9:30pm.

 

               This semester, I was unprepared for how committed I had to be for Physics. I focused on Calculus II almost exclusively, and realized too late that Physics was a sinking ship. So I sacrificed it, and have to retake the class, but now I’m prepared. I learned how I should balance my efforts in classes from my past mistakes, and what I should focus on.

 

               For a long time now, I’ve been discouraged from exploring the facets of education that I find most practical and interesting. In high school, I studied programming languages during Math, or I studied and wrote Japanese while on the bus home from marching band competitions; even during French class, when I could ignore the guilt. When I got the packet from UIUC, I was enamored with everything I’d heard about it ever since.

 

                I feel restless when I’m doing things that don’t involve some kind of productivity. I like solving puzzles and finding out new ways to do things. Even when I play video games, I’m always looking to exploit glitches in order to entertain myself and understand more about the game world. At the same time, when I have control over a project that I program the rules for, it’s exciting and fresh. I like to create cool, new things, and find the mechanics underneath them so I can make them even better.

 

                The more I hear about UIUC, the more I feel like it’s the ideal college for me; that there, I could do all those things. Its offered courses, foreign exchange program, selection of clubs, extracurricular activities, and especially its emphasis on computer science really draw me in. It’s a selective school, but it still feels friendly and warm to me. It’s even got an Allen dorm. I’m not narcissistic, but hey, there’s a dorm with my name on it.

 

                I want to learn more about and do more with computer science. I want to face challenges that aren’t found at many other schools, and come up with results I can proudly show other people. I want to get out into the world as soon as possible, and I definitely think UIUC would help me get there.

 

Final draft? (Y/N):