Sample Common Application Essay Admitted to Ivy League Schools

 Sarah ONeill 

My life isn’t a flat canvas.

Using cotton for clouds, felt for rugs, and foil for mirrors…where my only limitation is my imagination, my life is more like a bunch of shoebox dioramas. As the artist spreading out all the materials, working from the back to the front, placing smaller objects in front of larger ones, sometimes my cutouts don’t stand up straight or there’s not enough excitement to fill the small spaces or things come unglued, but no one ever said living life in 3D would always be easy.

I like pulling out my shoebox that holds wooden black chairs for a court room scene. Un-shelving it, I can remember how my hand shivered during my first opening statement in-front of a panel of mock trial judges. But little by little, I came to feel myself fitting into the court room vibe, carefully controlling each question and conversing with my witness as if placing pieces on a chess board and using my words as weapons to conjure emotion in my audience. Today, as the captain of our team, I feel very confident stepping up to plead the case.

In another box, there’s Alice in the Wonderland, with a red queen commanding the poker-card soldiers and the Cheshire cat smiling on a tree branch. This was the award ceremony at our Alice Challenge event. When I first learned Alice, a programming language. I was amazed by its ability to use simple block codes to create a fancy movie scene and incredible computer graphic games. I knew then it would be the perfect tool to get kids involved in coding competitions, so I reached out to Carnegie Mellon, where the competition was, and with my teammates at school, we hosted our very own version of it in New Jersey. Together we set up training sessions for beginner students, wrote our own grading rules, and executed award ceremonies. The fascinating projects these kids created motivated me to continue to share myself with the wider community.

Moving onto a much more intimate box with a matchbox car sitting on a construction paper roadway is the memory my first college visit trip with my mom in the US. Just me and her. Due to an unexpected train delay from Philadelphia to New York, we had to drive during the twilight hours just to get there. My mom was worried because she didn’t know her way around and didn’t quite understand English navigation, making it nearly impossible for her to lead us through the dark. I felt that it was my time to stand by her side and shed some light for us to see. I became her personal GPS by translating all the commands on Google Maps, helping her read the road signs. I also sang her calming songs to ease her nervousness. We finally arrived at midnight, tired but excited. I hugged my mom to celebrate like hugging a friend. It was the first time since my father’s death that I felt so close to her. We are now more than just mom and daughter; we are best friends and so much more.

My diorama making continues as the small scenes have taken me back to some interesting places in my life like a break-dancing class at Princeton which taught me the confidence of trusting myself and supporting my body with my own two hands to river kayaking that connected me with the free-flowing beauty of nature. All these experiences are colorful pieces that make up the shoe boxes of who I am. I take them out every now and then if I need to and look at them. And after I make a new one and everything’s glued in place, I set it on my closet shelf like an oenophile in her wine cellar, where my memories ferment and grow more valuable with time.

Sarah ONeill