Undergraduate College Application Essay Sample 6

I used to be a pretty deep guy.I watched foreign films, read Nietzsche, and stayed up all night “contemplating jazz”.I was Jack Kerouac living in a fire hut on top of Desolation Peak.I was Gary Snyder seeking enlightenment in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand.I was Ken Kesey, Jimi Hendrix, and Timothy Leary all rolled up on one gigantic mess of pseudo-intellectual, adolescent, fancy boarding school beat poet wannabe.I was a moron.

I blew off my schoolwork not because I was lazy, but because I thought that schoolwork was shallow, too insignificant for me, the vivacious intellectual, the dharma bum, the Zen lunatic wanderer.How could my teachers expect me to do their homework, when life around me was all so futile, so meaningless?I was sure that I was a tortured soul destined to lead a life full of angst and pain.

That was last fall, more than a year ago now.In February of last year, I left my hipster friends and their coffeehouse conversations behind, to move back to the suburbs of Philadelphia and my conservative, unhip public high school.Suburban Philadelphia is not the easiest place in the world to be sixties cool and stylish.There aren’t many smoke-filled coffeehouses or hippie wanderers.It’s clean here, upper middle class-you know, the Ford Explorer, Saturday evening Mass, country club for dinner scene.I came back to Philadelphia because it isn’t all that “hip,” because there is nothing “profound” to do.I came home to get myself together.It was time to grow up.

I’m not as cool as I used to be.I never do anything very exciting or off the wall, at least not by my old standards.My friends from boarding school have for the most part become nothing more than distant memories.They’re all off in New York City or Mexico pretending to work on their spirituality, but really just partying their lives away.I stay home a lot.I’m at the library a couple of nights a week.I read, I write letters, I do some painting.

Last weekend, I watchedThe Color Purple with my mom, collected some weather data for a chemistry project, and had a tea party with my little sister.I’ve been spending time with the people I met in my high school production of Arsenic and Old Lace, too.I feel balanced; I feel like myself.I no longer want to tend bar in Tangiers or meditate in Sri Lanka . . . all right, maybe I do, but not right now.For so long, I wanted to be other people, to be a cultural icon, a legend in my own time.But in reality, I’m nothing like Keith Richards.Honestly, I’m a little scared of sex and drugs.I worry about pimples, whether my parents are still happily married, where I’m going to be next year.

I came home, I grew up, I got my life back together.I’m still trying to find a balance, but I no longer feel like a reckless child.I was sure that I could get away from myself by just pretending that I was someone else.But right now, I’m not looking to be “on the road”.I’m pretty happy being right where I am.

Things to Notice about This Essay

1.The story this writer tells seems sincere.It explains things from his transcript:a change of schools, improving grades.

2.The essay expects the reader to know all the references here to people (Gary Snyder, Keith Richards) and literature (On the Road, Dharma Bums, the line from poet Allen Ginsberg about “contemplating jazz”).The writer has a real depth of knowledge, which is good, but in some of these references, he may be expectingtoo little but in some of these references, he may be expecting a little too much from the reader. . . who won’t be 17.

3.The essay has a clear focus (“It was time to grow up”), extensive use of specifics and descriptive details, and a strong sense of a writer who has thought about his life experiences.

4.The essay doesn’t follow a traditional organization pattern and there are a few liberties with word choice and spelling (“wannabe”).A bit of a “risk”, this essay does match a writer who himself has taken chances.He tells his story with grace and conviction