Hey everyone. So, I need to start writing entrance essays and I've been looking into what most schools want. I have found a lot of essays that tell you all sorts of things about what you shouldn't say in a personal statement. So, to get all that out of my system I just wrote a personal statement that combines most of the mistakes people make when they write a personal statement essay. I've decided to share it here:
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I’m really glad that the personal statement essay length restriction is two pages because if it was any longer I’d have to start repeating myself to fill the space. You see, I’m a pretty boring person, and I can’t really think of anything I could put in this essay that will let you know that I’m special. I know my mom thinks I’m special, and that some people who tested me when I was a kid and then put me in a room with all the students that drool and eat paste told me I was special, but other than them I don’t think I’ve made many great impressions.
However, I really want to go to your school so I’m going to try to share a bit about my life. Hopefully I’ll be able to make my life sound interesting; I figure if I can do that, you should really consider me for your creative writing program....because if this essay interests you, then I somehow took one of the most unremarkable lives ever lived and made it sound interesting, that is the real gift of a talented writer: to be able to take the simple and unremarkable and turn it on its head and show the world something completely new. But, I realize you don’t want to hear any of my opinions on writing just yet, I promise I won’t have any more of those until I’ve received a PhD and I’m allowed to have them.
Anyway, I better get started…
I was born on June 4th 1982. I didn’t talk until I was two. My parents thought that maybe I had a hearing problem. Turned out I could hear just fine, I just didn’t have anything to say. But all that changed when my family went to Pakistan. When we got there I decided that I needed to express some things, namely: “Where in the world have you taken me?” So, I went from mute to speaking in full sentences in a matter of weeks. I haven’t shut up since. I’m pretty sure that if my parents had the choice they’d go back to the fear of having a mute child if it came with my silence. I’m sort of the verbal equivalent of Pandora’s Box.
I grew up unremarkably. The first few years of my life were mostly spent being nice to others, sharing, and building with blocks. I spent hours every day trying to create new things. I would just sit and stare at the blocks and try to envision all the possibilities contained in their matching shapes. Years later I’d have similar feelings as I’d think about words as I stared at a blank page, but I’m getting ahead of myself (that right there is what I like to call “foreshadowing”).
Anyway, years passed. I played sports. I did stupid things. I fell a lot. I accepted a lot of dumb dares.
I spent my summers wasting away my time playing hockey, running through sprinklers, and getting sunburned. I was good at just about everything I did, mostly because I was extremely competitive.
As a student I wasn’t all that great at first. I remember in the first grade I would watch all the other kids color within the lines and write their names legibly, and I’d be so frustrated with all of that that I’d just look at the window and watch the cups get pushed by the wind, and then I’d watch the janitors pick up said cups (people threw a lot of cups on the ground at my school).
Eventually I decided that I wanted to be a good student so I decided to stop staring out the window and pay attention. I started focusing like crazy. I had a friend who sat next to me who was the best colorer in the class. His name was Romeo. The kid was a six year old prodigy. Looking back I think he must have been near-sighted because as he colored he would hold his face about 3 inches from the page...but he got results. I made him my role-model and I started copying him (only his mannerisms mind you, I didn’t perfect plagiarism until the second grade).
So, I started holding my face a few inches above the paper the way he did, I started holding my pencil the same way he did. I noticed that he pushed really hard so that the led would make really dark cuts into the page and I did that too.
I took following his lead very seriously. One day I noticed that one side effect of his near sightedness was that he would accidentally brush the led around with his shirt. This created a sort of cool grey halo effect around each letter. I decided I needed to have a similar effect (but I didn’t want to ruin my shirt like he did) so I would use a kleenex and push the led around after I finished each sentence. After a while I took my emulation so far that I tried to copy his really weird pigeon-toed walk (I didn’t know that being pigeon-toed was a bad thing).
Well, as you can see, even at an early age I picked an amazing mentor, and hopefully I’ll find one as equally skilled at your fine school.
Eventually my hard work paid off. I became student of the month and I was given a little badge with my schools logo on it and a coupon for a free mini pizza at Pizza Hut. That weekend I enjoyed the spoils of my success and ate a free pizza courtesy of Pizza Hut. The pizza was so pathetically small that if it was the culinary equivalent of a midget with thyroid problems, but I’d earned it so it tasted wonderful
In Jr. High I focused most of my efforts on figuring out how to be cool. In High school I figured out how to be cool. Somewhere in that search I decided that my personality’s greatest export was sarcasm. I worked on that quite a bit.
I spent most of my days reading. I would usually go through a book every day or two. It was then that I decided I wanted to be a writer.
I was really afraid when I had this realization because, although I liked writing, I also liked food, and I knew that I would struggle to have both as a writer. But, I figured that if I worked hard, went to a good school (ahem), and paid my dues I could find a way to be successful and do what I love.
After graduation I got a job working as a pharmacy tech. It was in this job that I met enough crazy people to draw characters from for the rest of my life.
When I got tired of dealing drugs I went on a mission for two years. I worked over 80 hours a week, every week. I made a lot of friends and I annoyed a lot of people. It was on my mission that I realized that I have a personality often described as “grating.” I wasn’t even on my mission for a week when someone came up to me and said “You think you’re funny, but you’re really not.” As he walked away I watched him leave. I compared him to the people I had laughing and I realized that I was doing something right.
After the mission I went to college and I rocked it. I am very smart. I graduated with academic honors and nearly every professor I had wanted to work with me on some project or another. I had a wonderful time, but eventually they told me I had to graduate. So I did and now I’m at the next step. I guess you lucky folks on the admissions board get to determine the contents of the next chapter.
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Anyway, I wrote that in about 30 minutes or so. It's what I can't turn in, but if there was a college admissions committee that would enjoy reading that I'd really like to go there.
