Essay On College Admissions

In tenth grade, I moved four hours away from my friends and family to attend a public, residential high school for the arts: the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities (SCGSAH). The school, open to South Carolina students upon audition, offers intense arts study with strong academic classes. Each teacher is passionate about the subjects and students they teach, and every student is devoted to their studies because they truly want to be at school. Despite the intense demands from my academic and arts teachers, I was excited by the level of commitment from both students and faculty and the liberal arts approach to education. When searching for colleges, I chose schools that would continue this liberal arts focus while still

My mom signed me up for the community library when I just turned 6 years old. Even if I did not know how to properly read at the time, I had to go there every afternoon to keep myself busy as an only child. Being opened to books at such an early clearly has had a major impact on my life and personality. From the local tales of my beloved Senegalese society to the deep and sophisticated French literature, I have traveled through cultures and generations. Whether it is Emile Zola’s collection of novels or Albert Camus’s philosophical texts, these books raised me and taught me about life, love, and resilience. As times went by, reading was no more a regular pastime but a detrimental part of my existence. The lessons and morality I gained from each story always pushed me to challenge the status quo, to be curious, to be adventurous but most importantly to be a problem solver.

Driving to Starbucks in Arvada and the weather was calm, cool and collective. It became the most interesting, graceful and intense summer that year. It was summer of 2012 and I sat across my bible study leader surrounded by coffee at Starbucks as she told me to grip the coffee cup. She used it as an analogy as accepting Christ in my life. As I took the coffee cup and accepted Christ as my savior, my life has forever changed and the blessings have been flowing into my life that only GOD can give. I have chosen Colorado Christian University as my choice of college to finish out my bachelor’s degree because I have a strong ambition to chase after a relationship with Jesus. I want to use my spiritual gifts I have been given to spread the love of Jesus

"We are all here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future" (Robin Sharma). I have come across this quote several times and each time, it has been inspirational. Moving to the United States from Iraq at the age of eight is one of the challenges for which I am most grateful. Growing up as a child in a country with poor living standards, poor education, and poor medical care made living conditions difficult for my family and I on a day-to-day basis. Coming here and being able to see how wide-ranged and expansive the pharmaceutical field was tremendously encouraging.

An argument of this nature is described by Jeffrey Penn, a reporter for the New York Academy of Sciences, who states, “Despite some limitations and the intense criticism by opponents of standardized testing, colleges and universities can reliably use admissions tests to screen applicants”. He continues this argument by arguing that tests like the SAT are good predictors of how well a student will do in college. Though there may be correlation between the two, test scores are no nearly the only factor in college admission or success. There are a vast number of college courses in existence and success in many of them have nothing to do with how high a student scores on the SAT. On top of that, these tests are not always accurate for a number of reasons. Diane Andrews, an individual chosen to represent the organization FairTest, points out that, “An individual's score may vary from day to day due to testing conditions or the test-taker's mental or emotional state”. A strong student who works hard in school could be dealing with something personally or just have a small fluke and have their test score cause colleges to turn them away. So much emphasis should not be placed on standardized tests such as

Over the past several decades, a growing number of colleges have begun a test-optional policy, in which applicants can choose whether or not to submit standardized tests as part of their application. And over several years of these policies, little difference has been found in the quality of students in each class: as Hiss found in a study which compiled data from 33 different test-optional schools, little difference exists between testing and test-optional students (2014). Across over 100,000 students, test-optional students had an average cumulative GPA lower than testing students by just .05 points, and a .6% lower graduation rate. Additionally, they again found that HSGPAs were again a close indicator of success in college. In a more extreme variation of the test-optional policy, Tufts University began implementing a more holistic approach that aims to predict not only academic success, but also a student’s impact on campus in non-academic factors. As DiMaria found, this approach, which uses open-ended questions to assess students’ strength in analytical, practical, creative, and wisdom-based skills, gave admissions officers a much better rate of predicting students’ success at the

If someone asked me where I am going to be in ten years, this would be my answer. I will have a great, high-paying job, and beautiful wife and family, and a nice sports car parked in front of my lovely house. When I look into the future, I see myself being successful and happy. Even though I always pictured myself this way, I never worried too much about how I would get there. I feel the Suffolk University can lay the groundwork for making these dreams into reality.

Fast forward 10 years, and I see myself sitting around a table with people from nay countries and endeavoring to reach a resolution. Although this career in international is important, I hope to balance my life between my career and other meaningful life experiences like developing deep companionships, travel, culture and giving back to the community. Because preparing for a meaningful life will result in preparing for a more focused and successful career. I enjoy being able to challenge new circumstances and therefore, it is my hope that my undergraduate education will offer me the opportunity to enhance my academic knowledge and qualifications and a variety of experiences both with the confines of the university and outside of the university.

In the article “Letter from the Editor-in-Chief: Are Grades a Necessary Evil?”(No.2, 2013) the author Russell L. Herman emphasizes our attention to the question about necessity of grades as an indicator of the true efforts among students. Russell L. Herman compares the different thoughts of teachers about this statement: some instructors against the grade system because they think that students should come to class in the purpose to learn something, not to have higher grades. Other instructors identify grades as an indicator of educational level. Furthermore, the author support the idea that grades show real “efforts, practice, and improvement” of students, however, Russell L. Herman calls to understanding that grades is not indicator

Growing up with scientist parents, I followed them around the world as they pursued their education and careers in scientific research. I was born in Shanghai, moved to Japan at the age of two and settled down in Seattle when I was seven. Having experienced these three different countries, I have seen the differences in ideologies and culture. These different perspectives have been all been crucial in my development of my own identity. I believe that these experiences in my early childhood have really enriched my passion and interests.

Media portrays success as measured by having heaping amounts of money or owning the newest gadgets and never faltering on the road to success, but author William Zinsser points out that failure isn’t always a bad thing. Through failure, especially in young adults, people grow and discover their interests. Zinsser even claims that “‘Success can be dangerous—you feel you know it all. I’ve learned a great deal from my failures’” (515). Parents also put ridiculous tension on children, even as young as preschool, to get into Ivy League academies and maintain 4.0 GPA’s. As adults continue to overlook students’ morals and personal interests, good grades have gained a higher value than other important aspects of life. Research compiled by Richard Weissbourd exhibits that “more than one-third of the forty juniors surveyed identified ‘getting into a good college’ as more important than ‘being a good person,’ and nearly one-half of students said that it was more important to their parents that they get into a good college than that they be good people” (24). In order to revive the ability to fail without being looked down upon and restore the balance of education, everyone needs to stop comparing themselves to one another and trying to measure success based on others’

Chemistry has been a surreal struggle for myself. Trying to puzzle in thousands of equations while trying to remember difficult elements from the periodic table to remembering Boyle’s law and Charles law. Chemistry however has taught me that if you want to be successful you are going to have to work for it. Although, I would study often I still seemed to struggle on tests and quizzes. I never understood why I just couldn’t get a grip on this complicated but basic class. Chemistry really expanded my range of thinking and often times challenged me to grow outside of my thinking box. I recall sitting in Chemistry with my head feeling as if it were a twisted pretzel from all of the equations and conversions that are class was working on. Wondering

The SAT’s prove to be a harmful to a student’s future, especially when they start looking for jobs. The SAT’s do not teach the skills needed to function on the job, and hinder the creativity needed on the job. The SAT’s also divide people into “high-scored” and “low-scored”, which excludes people from certain jobs, even though they might have the qualifications for that job. Both these reasons cause a student to not receive the job they may deserve. But there are ways to reverse this epidemic. Colleges may implement a different admissions process; one that judges a student on more than their academic power.

Grades have served to dehumanize students. Instead of being seen as full, complete beings they are reduce to A students, C students, and students failing the class. This judgment is not only made by their teachers but by society as a whole. Parents often set standards for what their kids grades need to be and punish them if they don’t reach the mark. Friends and classmates compare the results of tests and report cards, making learning into a competition where some are “better” than others. Additionally, and perhaps the most disturbingly, for some students, grades become a reflection of their own worth.

Every freshman in college has one thing in common no matter what their future plans are; they all took a standardized test. Almost 2 million seniors graduating in 2015 nationally participated in the ACT, or American Collegiate Test, which was around 59% of the graduating class (Roell). The problem with these kinds of tests, is that when applying for college, if one doesn’t have a test score above a fixed benchmark, it is likely their application won’t even be considered. Students are known by numbers not by name. It's not right to compare everyone based on one factor of their application, and the tests are given under unfair circumstances. Standardized test scores don't determine whether one is going to be successful or not. Universities are putting too much emphasis on ACT or SAT scores.