1/6/ · This is a college essay submitted by a student who now attends Northwestern University. This student is a Quest Scholar at Northwestern. The student was awarded with a full-ride scholarship. As you read this Quest Scholarship college essay example, think about your own personal experiences and what you could write about if you are eligible for the scholarship. You can learn more about the Missing: biographical QuestBridge Influence Essay A sea of smiling and eager faces awaited before me as I stood on the stage, waiting for the final word - eruption. I grinned as I imagined myself sitting on my dad's lap in the living room of our one bedroom apartment as a video of volcanoes played from a rented library cassette Questbridge biographical essay sample Welcome to this website! The site is a collection of successful essays on questbridge's word calls, biographical essay and common app essays. All the essays were written by the incoming college freshman most of whom were College Prep Scholars and/or National College Race Finalists. Everything is organized by prompt and you can find essays listed by
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Please let me know if you thought the metaphor I used was original. Since this is a biographical essay, obviously the topic of narrating my life won't be too unique.
I just want to know if the first line and the way I wrote the essay piques your interest, and any revisions and advice is appreciated! The limit is words and right now I'm at Here's one special skill you won't see on my resume: I can hear my memories in the form of music. It began on December 16th,the day my questbridge biographical essay and I, with approximately fifteen English words between us, questbridge biographical essay, boarded a plane in Beijing to Tampa, Florida, where my mother had immigrated to a year prior.
The first piece in this musical photo album was a melody used for three songs: Twinkle Twinkle, the alphabet song, and Baa Baa Black Sheep--the extent of my English skills. In January, I was thrown without ado into the second half of second grade. No one looked or spoke like me.
I clutched my three songs closer, put my head down in books, and didn't look back up until I had won my class's vocabulary contest three months later. Like all children of immigrants, I grew up before my time. I learned the language of landlords and car salesmen and tax forms before turning ten. During this, I struggled with my ethnicity in an overwhelmingly questbridge biographical essay school.
Rallying against stereotypes, I painstakingly memorized "Fifty Nifty United States" and sang it in my choppy accent questbridge biographical essay music class. I was still an outsider, but hey, it wasn't a complete waste--to this day I can still recite all fifty states in twenty seconds. The summer after fifth grade, we moved to a suburb near Detroit for my parents' jobs, when the turbulence of adolescence began. I did not handle relocation well, questbridge biographical essay.
While I had friends in school, I dropped most of the extracurriculars that I had flourished in because my parents had no time to drive me. Feelings of inadequacy compared to my peers and insecurity about what we couldn't afford began and would continue for years to come, and my family life began its slow decline.
My father, questbridge biographical essay followed my mother here to support her endeavor of becoming a doctor, felt trapped and unproductive. He longed to be doing surgery in China; instead he was doing mind-numbing lab work in a country where he didn't belong.
Meanwhile, I was sullen, impatient, and stopped talking to my family in favor of my computer. Three years later, he left for a new surgeon position in China.
Said he had to make questbridge biographical essay of his life, said a man's calling will always be in his career. I didn't think this would affect me; after all, it was only "temporary". He still hasn't come back, and I had never been more wrong.
A rocky transition into high school, my family seemingly falling apart, and one of the worst winters in decades questbridge biographical essay in seasonal affective disorder. I was frustrated and angry with myself, stubbornly denied that I was unwell, thought I had no right to feel this way. It wasn't until my mother heard me sobbing late one night that she found out I had been like this for months.
The music, if I had to describe it, would not be a melancholic ballad. It would not be poignant, nor tragically poetic. Those words imply beauty in darkness, and for me, there was no beauty. Slowly, however, the soundtrack of my life was revived. It started small, just a timid, single-string violin melody at first.
Then, a piano would key a few bars of harmony, adding depth. Then the drums kicked in, picking up the pace, questbridge biographical essay, and finally, to announce my triumphant return, cymbal crash! Well, not so questbridge biographical essay a crash as a haphazard clang, and not so much triumphant as a shaky hobble.
But I was back, and I didn't intend to go away again anytime soon. My mom achieved her goal, miraculously landed a residency position in Buffalo, New York. We moved again. This time I was grateful to leave bad times behind. Junior year was approaching, questbridge biographical essay, and I was going to work harder than ever to compensate for the two years I'd already lost. There was still lingering bitterness: Why did I have to get sick? Why didn't I have this clarity of mind earlier?
If I had been a better daughter, questbridge biographical essay, would my family be whole? Those thoughts have no power over me now. I've learned throughout my life and especially in my recovery that I can't change how the music of the past sounds, questbridge biographical essay. I'm still learning, because my newfound success is meaningless if I do not evolve and aim for constant improvement.
I can't hear the music of this time right now, questbridge biographical essay I know it will be there. It's never fully formed in the moment, much like how it's impossible to determine what the future will be.
I simply try to compose a score that will add substance to my collection. This is my song to write, and I'll make it a good one. Questbridge biographical essay, your writing is very good, but to me this doesn't seem like "a special skill". And if I didn't read your title, which I didn't the first time I read your post, I would have a hard time telling exactly what your special skill was based only on your essay. To me it questbridge biographical essay like you are somewhat ignoring the specifics of the prompt so you can write an essay about the story of your life.
It seems like if they wanted that, they would have just asked "Write words about your life so far". As for your opening, I think it got my interest, but I couldn't quite figure out what "it" was, and I never really got an answer from reading your essay. Sorry if I am overly harsh, as I said, I enjoy your writing, you obviously have a lot of talent.
Thank you for reading and leaving a comment! I probably should have added the prompt in my post oops The prompt was actually to "narrative your questbridge biographical essay We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes.
Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow? I just used the "special skill" thing as a hook, questbridge biographical essay, the prompt wasn't actually to write about a special skill haha. The bolded first line I don't know how that happened is misleading too, my bad. Thanks for the feedback on how vague "it began on Dec.
Oh, I see, sorry for my misunderstanding! I will give it another read and make some comments tomorrow - thanks! Hi, Reading your essay again, it is very poignant. I definitely like the metaphor, it is a good way of making your essay much more than the questbridge biographical essay "story of my life".
I guess I would like to know more about how you actually recovered from your depression I also suffer from S. Maybe moving to a new location was the impetus, but to me it is not that clear. Let me emphasize again that you are a fantastic writer! I am sure you will be successful wherever you end up after high school! Hi Xiaoyu, I feel that the essay is really well-written, but I also feel that the essay doesn't fully answer the prompt at hand.
Not only this, but I also feel that your essay focuses far too much of your word count on the past, while your conclusion is relatively weak.
Note that the essay, as with many personal essays, should try to have a lot of substance relating to your present and future shaped to grow as the reader will want to know who you are as of today and who you want to be, not necessarily who you were, questbridge biographical essay.
I'd suggest trying to condense your backstory and really focus more of the essay on how you have grown from this experience and how it inspired you.
From your essay alone, I can't really garner how you've improved or how you're trying to improve. Have you been participating in the extracurriculars that you haven't be able to before? Or does the way you can relate memories to music inspire you to perhaps become a musician or conductor? Also, questbridge biographical essay, to the note of your hook: I feel like the premise of your hook does not stand well throughout your entire essay.
Particularly, I enjoyed hearing the specific songs that you related to your childhood, but then you relate the music in more vague terms, questbridge biographical essay, such as "melancholic ballad". Personally, I would like to see you questbridge biographical essay these perhaps to songs you have listened to and can relate to, questbridge biographical essay.
Like how many people can refer to teenage angst with bands like Blink or My Chemical Romance or things like that, questbridge biographical essay, I think it would improve your essay if you honed in on that specificity.
Maybe you could relate your SAD to Vivaldi's four seasons, questbridge biographical essay, or maybe Chopin's Nocturne might be that melancholic song. I think you really need to develop your essay with this kind of premise if you really want to use the idea of music as memories. Otherwise, the conceit falls a little flat on itself and doesn't hold any real weight towards your essay other than "fluff".
Again, to reiterate - try to focus the essay more on the latter half of the prompt specifically how questbridge biographical essay you grown from this, aspirations, etc.
as well as rethinking how you want to use your primary concept of relating music and memories. I think you have a very strong foundation, but you need to do a little more work to really show who you are as a person to the questbridge biographical essay. Hope this helps! Because I missed the window to edit: I want to emphasize the idea of reading your essay from the perspective of someone who has no idea who you are.
The things that I can gather from your essay are that you are an immigrant, had a troubled adolescence, possibly have improved from that state, and can hear memories in the form of music.
However, questbridge biographical essay, I don't have the slightest clue of what you enjoy doing, what you might be involved in, or what you want to do in the future? Do you enjoy participating in community service efforts? Or maybe questbridge biographical essay enjoy dancing or singing? Looking back, questbridge biographical essay, I almost think you tried to focus too questbridge biographical essay on this conceit of hearing questbridge biographical essay as music as being unique.
While it's true the idea of writing about your own life isn't very unique, everyone's life experiences are different which makes hearing your story in itself unique.
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1/6/ · This is a college essay submitted by a student who now attends Northwestern University. This student is a Quest Scholar at Northwestern. The student was awarded with a full-ride scholarship. As you read this Quest Scholarship college essay example, think about your own personal experiences and what you could write about if you are eligible for the scholarship. You can learn more about the Missing: biographical 24/9/ · "Good Girl" and the "Gentle Child"; Questbridge Biographical Essay [7] ~ - Scholarship "Coming into a new culture and my love of math" QuestBridge Biographical Essay [3] ~ - Scholarship "How I quit avoiding my family's issue" - Questbridge Biographical essay [3] ~ QuestBridge Influence Essay A sea of smiling and eager faces awaited before me as I stood on the stage, waiting for the final word - eruption. I grinned as I imagined myself sitting on my dad's lap in the living room of our one bedroom apartment as a video of volcanoes played from a rented library cassette
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