College Admissions Essay: I Will Determine My Future

Growing up, school was not a major factor in my life. I come from a hard-working, middle-class military family. My mother, a Filipino immigrant, was a homemaker. My father was a 21-year United States Marine veteran. They were my first impression of what I thought my future would be. Being the youngest of four children, I was expected to fall in line behind my siblings when it came to education. I was never pushed to excel in my studies, so I did just enough to get by. As I watched friends escape the grasp of a military town and ascend to their respective colleges, I was left wondering what was next for me. I attended my local community college for a brief period of time. I treated college no different than high school. I

From a very early age, I always assumed it was a part of my future to pursue an education. The American educational system engraves the importance of school at a very young age. Elementary school children are motivated through rewards when they try their hardest to reach their goals. Students are exposed to statistics and facts outlining the consequences of not getting a college degree as soon as they reach middle school. High school counselors and staff make it their priority to ensure that students apply to college. Students are conditioned to believe that education is the building block to a successful future. My cultural upbringing did not support my choice to pursue an education, however, I refused to conform to my family’s behavioral expectations because certain norms must be challenged due to progressive time periods and conflicting values.

Nine years ago, I never could have imagined I’d be writing this essay. I was a senior in high school, and, like the rest of my classmates, I was apprehensive about the future. Unlike my classmates, I felt like I had missed the proverbial “you need to get your life together” message. I watched my classmates apply to colleges, their majors already decided and their future careers mapped out. While I was an above average student, I felt I lacked the decisiveness my classmates seemed to have. I did not feel passionate about a career or even a field of study. I felt defective. This was compounded by the financial strain I knew attending college would have on my family. It seemed wasteful to try to “find my passion” at school while squandering

My moms raised me with a strong set of morals, including “hard work pays off.” Sometimes this can be discouraging when you work hard, but it doesn’t pay off as you’d like it to. I’ve always gotten the grades I strive for without much struggle. However, once high school started, everything changed. I’d work for weeks on a scholarship essay, and I wouldn’t even place. I’d work for months to get something published and then read other people’s names in the congratulations announcement. I’d constantly wonder: Who’s at the top of the class? Who’s going to win the end of year awards? When you consistently get the grades that I do, people just expect those grades. No one congratulates you on your hard work anymore, and you don’t always get recognized. Despite the lack of recognition, I still take pride in my grades, and continue to work hard. Getting great grades is something I know I can do, even when it’s difficult to do. The difficulty makes it even more satisfying when I see the hard work pay off, and I get the grade I wanted. I’ve encountered

Education is the main goal of college. I had always considered myself a person dedicated to the pursuit of more knowledge and a better education. My mother, being a teacher, had instilled these values in me. When I was in elementary, I tested into a gifted center and from there I tested into selective enrollment college prep. The obvious next step seemed to be college. Looking the scholarship given to me, it just didn’t seem to add up. I had scored a 32 on the ACT but my scholarship was barely covering half of my expenses. But I knew if a just gave up, the meant giving up on everything that I believe in. By pursing college I was able to be challenged, pursue subjects which interested me and discover new pathways that I was interested such as African American studies. Without taking that chance, I may have never received that knowledge.

Throughout my life, I have worked hard to do well in school and get good grades. I am proud with what I have achieved, but I am still driven to try and do better. As of right now, I have a cumulative GPA of 3.98. I try to get decent grades not only to please my parents and teachers but to please myself and the colleges I plan on applying to next school year.

Growing up, I’d always been expected to do well in school. Which isn’t out of the ordinary, every parent wants their child to be successful and have a beneficial career. So, since good grades were what my parents expected that’s what I got. All throughout elementary, I strived to do my absolute best in every subject. At my sixth grade graduation I was awarded the Presidential Award for Academic Achievement, in my junior high years I did well as well. My eighth-grade year I achieved my goal of obtaining a 4.0 G.p.a. The first year of high school was nerve-racking but I still managed to keep my grades up. However, Sophomore year was definitely a bump in the road for me. In all my ten years of being in school (including head start and kindergarten)

After barely graduating in the spring of 2017 from Lopez Early College High School, I went straight to my parent’s house not knowing exactly what I was going to do with my life. I knew I had ruined my life after not paying attention to my teachers and counselors about applying to colleges. They said I was a wonderful and intelligent student with a tremendous capacity of succeeding in life. Although everybody thought that about me, I never did. I was constantly under pressure thinking that I had to work in order to support my family economically, so our house was saved. I was also worried about whether my parents were getting divorced after every insignificant argument they had. I had to be an excellent example for my two younger siblings; but even though I tried my best, I never was.

I knew college was going to change me in many ways. Yet, after my family and I restructured our collective and individual emotional reactivity over the three years that I was away at school, I believed my work in that department was done. I thought transiting into college was difficult, however, I found myself once again unprepared for the aftershock that rocked my family once I return from school. I left college a strong, independent, mature, and differentiated person, or at least I kind of did.

In elementary school, I was never the smartest kid in my class. I wasn’t the dumbest either, but I certainly didn’t fit into the category of ‘gifted’. I envied the kids who could skip studying for the weekly spelling tests and breezed through their math tests as if they were nothing. For the most part, I was always just in the middle of the pack. When I got to high school and heard all of the talk of prepping for college, I knew I had to step up to the challenge. I began to put all of my time and effort into maintaining good grades throughout freshman, sophomore, and junior year. As a person who never stood out for academics, it was incredibly rewarding when I earned grades that rivaled those of the kids who were naturally intelligent.

I entered high school, and I made it a personal promise and goal to absolutely succeed and push my limits. So far, I have succeeded with this goal. From the beginning of my freshman year, I made sure I took the maximum amount of classes, and I finished each course with an A. I took advantage of an internship program at my school, where I shadowed one of the science teachers at my school. Throughout my Sophomore year, I continued this. I finished each course with an A, except for Biology, for which I finished it with a B. I am now in my senior year, and I continue to be successful with all of my classes.

My desire in life has always been to create a better life for myself, as well as, to improve myself as much as possible, and in any way possible. As a result, I have achieved many milestones in both my personal, academic, and professional life. I attribute many of my accomplishments to my principles, which I developed early in life. In addition, I strive for growth, as well as, to be productive in both my career and personal life.

As much as I consider myself a person who relishes in the present and finds the best in everything I encounter, I constantly find myself thinking about the future. My mind is always busy throughout the day; I am always planning out my homework schedule for the night, wondering what my mom will make for dinner, and daydreaming about the future and what it may hold for me. I am a naturally positive person, and because I subconsciously spend so much time thinking about the future, both short term and long term, I am always optimistic about the possibilities. I like to keep an open mind to all of these possibilities, and I consistently look for the best reality possible. By looking at my future and remaining optimistic about it, I am able to set goals for myself in order to help myself achieve what I need and want to achieve.

For many, after graduating high school the next big step is college. I never asked myself why or if I even wanted to. Yet, since I was not yet ready to join the work force, and didn’t want to disappoint my parents, I simply followed the path that I was supposed to take. For a while I had no direction, but through the loss of my high school English teacher and my dream of making my family proud, I discovered that college was the place I wanted and needed to be.

Upon entering high school, I made a goal to myself: I wanted to become a better version of myself, realizing my own strengths and weaknesses and, ultimately, preparing to be a part of a completely different atmosphere beyond high school and even college. From the beginning, I knew I was going to find a way to improve academically, as a member of Kingsway’s STEM Academy and Superintendent’s List throughout my high school career. However, I would never think that I, as an eighth grader, would ultimately rise above my classmates, eventually being third in my class freshman year and still enjoying the rigor of taking as many AP and Honors classes as I possibly could fit in my schedule. By being recognized and awarded for my achievements, I finally realized that being this type of student, one that strives to do the best and remains self-motivated no matter what difficulties are faced, gives me a purpose as student and overall enjoyment.