College Admissions Essay: My Junior Year Of My Life

Throughout playing tennis for Creekside Middle School, I have faced lots of success. I played varsity all three years there, and during my sixth grade year, helped my team win the annual county tournament between middle schools. Though I was successful for many of my matches, I did met with failure at times. One of these times would be in my seventh grade year, when my doubles partner and I had lost in the final round of the tournament. This defeat would be one of the reasons that led the Creekside tennis team placing outside of the top three at the county tournament.

Freshman year of college. It was the year that held my emotions in a turbulent roller coaster ride; on this ride however, there were no seatbelts. Growing up, life was a constant smooth run and I rarely ever had to deal with unbearable situations. I enjoyed writing and teaching. Naturally, I was working towards becoming a high school English teacher, just like Ms. Mirmozaffari, my favorite person throughout my high school career. I was accepted and chose to go to the University of Maryland, College Park as an English Literature and Secondary Education major, partially affected by the fact that it was Ms. M’s undergraduate school. Life seemed predictable and it allowed me to feel in peace knowing what my life was headed to. My plan seemed flawless and until this time, life was literally a sailing ship on a calm sea. However, such effortless life style came to an end unannounced and the next few years was the most strenuous time of my life, yet the most precious and the valuable experience of my life.

Going into highschool, I was constantly asked by family, friends, and teachers the dreaded question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While other fifteen year olds at the time seemed to know exactly what their dream occupation was, I had no clue. I went to school, studied, got good grades, but no specific class stood out to me as a favorite. This continued until I took my first chemistry class in my freshman year and my blurry idea of my future started to come into focus.

Throughout my years of participating in high school basketball, I have overcome many challenges. My freshmen year, basketball started in a way I never expected. Continuing on, I understood the real meaning of hard work, and what it takes. Lessons I learned in basketball will carry on throughout my life, helping me to become a successful adult.

My life and journey towards Cornell has been one characterized by struggle. Throughout my childhood, I was raised in two families which highly valued critical thinking and education. As such, I was always expected to ask “Why?” “Why?” was the question that could bring me an education. “Why?” could help me learn more about my surroundings and how I could improve them. I also asked that question when my mother and birth father divorced. I questioned why my father left and why my mom and I moved. What I realize now is that, without my parents divorcing, I could not have received the opportunities afforded to me.

The same aggression to improve that I put into rising in ranks academically, I also put into my new sport of choice; Tennis. I have been determined to improve as a player and have thrown myself at any opportunity to do so. This drive has helped me transition from the bottom of varsity to the top-ranked male player and team captain both junior and senior years.

As a young minority male with two African-born parents who received zero education, acceptations were high at a young age. When I was five years old I attended PS 156 elementary school. The school had poor academic grades and eventually shut down after receiving a F. I always managed to maintain mostly As and was consistently top of my classes. I loved school and hated to see it end. When I was in fourth grade I maintained a high grade even though it was sort of a middle school atmosphere. My teacher recommended me to attend KIPP Academy Middle School due to my proficiency in public school. KIPP challenged my work ethic and showed me that oneself needs more than brute intelligence to be successful. I struggled when I first arrived because I

I started attending Fork Union Military Academy in the sixth grade and have stayed throughout my entire high school career. To me, this in itself is a large accomplishment and is something I am very proud of. Every cadet goes through many ups and downs, I know in my seven years I have seen more than my fair share of trouble, but like my father always said, it 's not how you fall, but how you pick yourself back up. I made sure to do everything I could to show those around me, and to prove to myself, that I could pick myself up and accomplish anything.

A day I will never forget was the day that I graduated high school. All the emotions were overwhelming and hard to handle sometimes. It was hard to accept that one of the biggest chapters in my life was about to be over and I was about to start an even bigger one. Just the thought of not knowing what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life made the last little bit of my senior year, very stressful. I then found out that not knowing and being undecided was perfectly okay and I was ready to begin my freshman year at Saint Petersburg College.

The transition from Primary school to Post-Primary school is a difficult time for anyone involved. It is one of the most drastic changes that students will ever encounter in the educational career. The transition is typically filled with anticipation and anxiety about homework, teachers, peers, academic rigor, school rules, getting lost, and many more factors. For the typical student, it is a whirlwind of emotion and anxiety. For students with special needs, these worries become even more prominent for the pupils and their parents. Not only do they have to worry about the stressors that typical students face, but they also have fears about accessing support and resources in order for them to succeed. In order for students to feel comfortable

Most of us find it difficult to figure out what is our talent. My talent is playing tennis. Once I joined the famous sport called tennis, it shape me to be more responsible, extremely active, and furthermore have respect win or lose.

Believe it or not, sometimes a gracious action can bring a huge influence on a person. When I read the introduction that instructor Heller wrote, there is a sentence she wrote: “Sometimes the most influential moments in our lives are smaller moments, events that we may not recognize as influential until years after the experience.” For some reason, I related to it strongly. My story is about my high school experience. Also, I will share some significant moments in my life, and how these smaller moments changed my personality.

My educational journey has been an experience I will remember. I have attended school in three different countries, Antigua, St. Thomas, and New York. A diverse educational experience has allowed me to interact with many different cultures and confront many of the different topics we discussed in class. At that time however, I was not fully aware of the implications of certain situation but after many readings I can now fully understand many of the experiences I encountered in my journey. All the information I have learned in this class however will bring all my experience together where I can make much more sense of it than I could when I was younger.

Throughout high school , I struggled with academic work . It wouldn't be that I didn't want to do the work ; it was just that it became more difficult for me to remember what I learned and put it to use . But for sports it was a different story , I could remember every single play and execute what I learned with ease . But that was high school now I'm in college and everything is ten times harder . Sometimes I wish the class room were as simple as me being on the field knowing what to do . I tried college without sports and just relying on my knowledge to help me transfer to another school . But it didn't work out too well , my first year of college was brutal ; school just didn't feel like the correct path for me . It was the spring semester

On my first day at my high school, I had thought living in a boarding facility would be rosy like I had been told by my friends at other boarding schools in the country. I realized, the very next day, that I was wrong. Louisville was not like my friend’s school. We had to wake up as early as five a.m., make our beds, go all the way outside to join the long queue to get bathing water, bathe, clean our sleeping areas and be ready for the next activity, morning chores, all in less than 30