Common Application Essay Admitted to Ivy League Schools Sarah ONeill

Sarah ONeill 

The Lift: A Swimmer’s Ode 

Hovering below the surface of the water, stacked on top of each other like canned sardines, our bodies were compactly coiled springs, ready to burst at any moment. Then, she exploded through the surface like translucent glass - her legs, once tucked tightly into a little ball kicked into a high vertical with a flat split like a butterfly breaking through its cocoon. It was our opening stack lift for a duet at the Junior Olympics for Synchronized Swimming. 

Even before joining the swim team, I was intrigued by synchronized swimming. To me, it’s like “poetry in motion”, where two people merged to produce perfectly powerful moves so in sync that their bodies became one, creating beautifully flowing arcs with strands of water lightly streaming from their elbows. My idea of it versus the reality of my first attempts at this sport was anything but this. 

I actually spent most of my summer reeking of chlorine and my hair turning to straw due to how much time I spent under the thick heat of the sun practicing the lift for this competition. Even worse, at first, my partner just flopped around like a marlin on a fishhook, her body slapping the water violently. After every smack, I was surprised we even kept going, but she never complained about the basketball-sized welts covering her body, and I figured out ways to soften her falls. After a few days of flopping, we moved on to tediously piecing together the different moves that we knew, painstakingly analyzing which ballet legs, cranes, and cannons would flow together and fit with the electric violin.

In and down. 

Up and out. 

Hold it. 

Pause, and reflect. 

Consulting, commiserating, and calm, with each slip we tried again. For weeks, we ran through the same, trying different variations, until all the moves in the two and a half minutes could seamlessly transition from one to the other.

We practiced for three hours, three times a week, with a four-hour bonus on Sundays. But I fell in love with the sport, and the extreme dedication it takes to excel at it, and began to love my teammates, who became my family. Yes, I dreaded sliding into the Antarctic waters of the Myrin pool, but combatted any discomfort by leaning on my teammates as we huddled together like emperor penguins and tried our best to stay focused on our coaches’ advice; even jumping back into swimming laps to get warm. We had a meet every month in which I had to peel myself up at four am, twist my hair tightly into a bun (enough to rip all your hair out of your head if someone tugged at it), and poured scalp-burning gelatin and boiling water onto the bun to keep it in place to prevent it from falling out in the pool. 

While these experiences seem unpleasant, I adore synchronized swimming. Turns out, too, that waking up early for practice instilled in me an internal motivator to start my day sooner and to accomplish more. Today, I love being up to see the breathtaking sunrise – it makes me feel accomplished. Furthermore, I joined rowing, and waking up at 5:00 am on a cold Saturday morning was a cinch! Perhaps synchronized swimming has not always been “poetry in motion”, but it has become something much more. Lifts, grueling practices, and exhausting meets have changed my mindset: to do everything with positivity. I appreciate “the process”, and I’m not satisfied until I give all my honest effort. 

It takes courage to plunge into the water after a failure, to set up for the lift with a fear of flopping, but I know how to drown these fears because I have found resiliency in synchronized swimming that has shaped in me a strength I never knew I had and friendships that have lasted long after the lift. 

Sarah ONeill Supreme Editing