College Admissions Essay: Everything Matters In High School

When watching a movie about high schoolers, there are usually many different groups of students who all conform to one social group only. Take the movie High School Musical for example. There is specifically one scene devoted to a song about fitting in with the “status quo”. There are stereotypical groups such as jocks, nerds, theater geeks, skater kids, and the popular kids in this movie and in other movies like it. Each of these groups can be broken down and explained more in depth.

Growing up I was never the kid who talked too much or got in trouble in the classroom for doing so. In my 18 years of living I have never been considered very talkative or vocal. My father would always tell me that talking too much could land you in a big heap of trouble so I refused to do so. He had a phrase, “One thing guaranteed for a person that talks too much is swollen lips”. Hearing that as a child was kind of funny to me, but as I have gotten older I now realize what he was interpreting. I have seen a lot of people get into altercations for running their mouth’s too much and swollen lips is usually the ending result. Although I don’t talk much, I believe I can hold a pretty decent conversation with someone I have things in common with. I use to avoid talking to strangers, but being put in different settings with nothing but strangers has helped me with that to a

Many high school students identify themselves as either the nerd, the jock, or the rebel, while some students did not embrace their label, I did. I accepted my label as the so called “jock” for one main reason, leadership. Being the captain of the football team as well as the baseball team put a target on my head as someone to follow, look up to, and guide others in times of hardships and adversity.

I remember the rattling and squeaking of the bunk beds as we jumped around laughing. My room was basic except the bunk beds that I found fun in many different ways from jumping off the top into pillows to pretending the floor was lava with my siblings, those memories will never leave my mind. With my brother, David Gaipo Junior, being ten years older than me it was hard to connect at times, but I could look up to him and learn without him even knowing. One difference was that, my brother and I had different mothers with that obstacle I only saw him every weekend if I felt lucky.

Every public school lunch room is filled with many tables, every day these tables are the perfect place for a student to find where they “belong”. Like Beverly Daniel Tatum states in “Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”, part of the social groups forming in high schools goes to thank adolescents. Tatum writes, “As children enter adolescence, they begin to explore the question of identity, asking ‘Who am I?’ ‘Who can I be?’”(375). At this point in their life everyone begins to see their own interests and hobbies that makes them a little different than others. Because students are starting to realize their differences, in modern day high schools there are many social groups that students can identify with and feel the most comfortable being themselves.

In the famous movie, “The Breakfast Club, we see how five teenagers, each members of different high school cliques, who spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all more than their respective stereotypes. High school cliques determine who, what and where they belong. Most of the high schools have "cliques"; which are groups of students with similar interests that hang out together. When looking at what really goes on in the average high school, and how friendships are formed, it is amazing. When observing the jock, nerd and the popular kids, one must wonder where they fit in.

The media portrays high schools being full of identity stereotypes, whether it is in movies, TV shows, or sometimes music. Each school has the group of star athletes, the kids bound for broadway, and the kids who could become the next Einstein. Every show or movie has the same supporting character who each belonged to different cliques.

Growing up, I defied pigeonholing. I was one of two accelerated students in my grade, a two-to-three sport athlete who started as a sophomore in soccer and basketball, a stagehand for the theater club, part of student council and class president, a member of the math team, and that’s just to start. I hung out with the nerds, the jocks, the theater geeks, but the group I enjoyed my time the most with were kids who my teachers labeled as “troubled.” I defied pigeonholing, but as they say, “You are judged by the company you keep.” But what I came to realize was that, unlike everyone else in high school, these so-called “troubled” kids were usually labeled because of their families’ troubles- not their own.

If you were to walk into a high school lunchroom, what is the first thing you would see? Groups, cliques, friend circles, and separations. Tables split up in detached formations, almost completely unaware of the other surrounding pupils nearby. The most common groups in high school are the populars and the outcasts; the kids who have endless friends, engage in team sports, and meet the ideal teenage standards, against the ones who are quiet, solitary, and unconventional. The ones that are outcasts fall into the second description. They don’t line up with society's norms, therefore they tend to be looked upon as bizarre and atypical. Outsiders are too often misjudged and misunderstood by their peers because they have a different

Throughout my life I have always been called a bright person, a reader, and an Einstein. When I was younger, I read many picture books such as Dr. Seuss and Dragon Tales and tried reading them to my younger siblings but they wouldn't cooperate. I was extremely fascinated about history and loved to play around if I was in that time period. For example, I pretended to be President Washington marching along the kitchen and even though my family didn't know much about him as they were from Colombia, they said I would make an amazing president one day. In elementary school I worked ahead of the other children and was made fun of for that but I didn’t care. Before middle I took a test that put me in an advanced math class so I can work at a much faster pass.Trust me, it was not as bad as I thought it would be so in my three years I worked hard and helped others understand the concepts of what we are learning in

Imagine me -- a hotshot 14 year old, destined for the Ivy leagues, captain of the JV wrestling squad (weighing in at an impressive 5'3", 115 pounds), and an overall smart alec strolling into high school as if it owed me something. Failure was not a part of my claimed impressive and nothing could stop me from being top of my class (spoiler if you haven't looked at the rest of my application: I'm not).

In high school, students dream of getting a scholarship to go to the school of their choice. I truly feel that I deserve the scholarship because I have worked my hardest and done my absolute best to dedicate myself to my education. I've been through a lot personally within my family that has affected me immensely, but despite it all I was able to retreat to my strong mindset of putting my education first, even if that means before my problems.

What you see is not always what it is. We learn to perceive what we're looking at, and we get used to how things are supposed to be. I was always fascinated by the illusion pictures that at first glance is strikingly simple to guess what it is, if you give more attention to detail you see another picture in it. What inspired me the most and made me a curious person was how missing one detail can change the whole outlook of the picture – just as missing one aspect from patient’s evaluation can lead to a wrong diagnosis. This taught me the importance of thoroughness in doing anything in my life. My meticulous nature has been an incredible driving force behind who I am

Across the generations of my family, I see a trend towards both a higher education and a higher salary as generations are born. The oldest generation I was able to find information on was just two poor uneducated farmers. The next generation was a majority of farmers and other low salary jobs. They also had a majority of grade school educations. But on my Mother’s side some of my relatives began to get high school educations. With this education they became a store owner, tool and die maker, and a railroad engineer. All representing that a higher education can lead to a more successful life. The third generation of my family tree was a majority of average working class individuals who the majority of had a high school education at best. The

Throughout all of my years of High School, there have been no excuses or reasons why I shouldn’t be at the top of my class. While there has been plenty of things that could have contributed to this none of them are acceptable. Whether it be my mother dropping me off for my last day of middle school and me getting home later that day to find out that she had been sent to jail. Or my dad never being in my life and my constant reaching out to him and feeling the disappointment and sadness every time as he said that he would come see me when he actually never did. Or worst of them all my mother being killed less than a year after being released from prison.