Posted on 04/02/2014 9:37:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, high school senior Kwasi Enin found out he had been accepted to every college he applied to — including all eight Ivy League schools.
How did Enin pull off this impressive feat? The Long Island student scored a 2250 on his SAT, had taken 11 AP courses, and was in the top 2% of his graduating class, but that doesn't necessarily show him fully as an applicant. The answer could be in his college application essay, which The New York Post published today.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
He is a Democrat voter for life.
Which is, in education, about as close as you can get to the free market customization clients (i.e. students) really want.
What a great story of personal liberty and self-defined happiness. How does it turn out? Does he become a doctor or is the work still in progress?
I was thinking of maturation process, as in grown to young man status by the measure of his character. In that regard, little barry bastard Soetoro will always be a boy.
Same here. I've got a daughter attending a "low-prestige" state school who can write rings around this.
Her twin sister was not the strongest of writers, but after several writing-intensive courses in her first year of college, she's much better, and again, would produce a higher quality product than this essay.
They've both got my nice high cheekbones.....I could kick myself for not realizing in time how helpful it might have been to their futures to simply check a different box.
Since he took so many AP courses he may only attend for 3 years to get a degree. Knew someone who went to USC and was able to do it in 3 years because of all the AP courses he took in high school.
I was also confused because he appears to be writing about how the course "Music in Our Lives", which he almost didn't take, sparked him to take a musical journey that enriched his life. A nice little story. However at the end, he talks about his wise decision to NOT take the "Music in Our Lives" course.
If I could go back 30 years, I'd have changed my name to something like Hzdak Zhou.
That said, I do wish the kid well. Sounds like he's going to make something of himself.
I’ll decompose the essay and then comment on the acceptances:
The essay is attractive in part because it is not perfect. It’s reasoning is jumbled in places and the flow is jumpy. It’s a bit of a puzzle to unravel. The essay talks of life as a journey and, yet, it itself is a journey. You don’t know where you’re going as you start reading it, and you have to get to the end to find out.
As to the acceptances, yes, everything lines up, academic potential, giftedness, inquisitiveness, and diversity. With regard to achievement, I can see indications of it (AP courses and involvement in school plays). So, I think that is there as well.
“My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”
OK, I can see that. So how about this compromise?: eliminate the corporate income tax, end the nonprofit sector’s tax preferences and let the market decide.
I am underwhelmed, too. In fact, mine was better.
Looks like it could be Obamas’s Kenya born son.
He did what a good college admissions essay does. He explained his talent and passion in a way that the colleges could see how he would contribute to their programs and bring them positive recognition. He tied his experiences with music to his goals. He convinced him that once he starts on a path, he follows through. The essay doesn't sound like his dad's secretary or an admissions coach wrote that essay.
Rule #1 of an admissions essay: The college doesn't want to know or care how they'll be good for you. They want to know how the student will be good for them.
Is that Hedley Lamarr? :)
Great story! Well done.
It is a game unfortunately isn’t it.
I really do think that in this case, race was a factor as well. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, with those academics. Just that the elite schools don’t just take academics, they also look for something else, and I’m guessing they have minority goals they want to meet.
I can’t say this is particularly well written or compelling. In fact, I know it isn’t.
Off the bat, I would give a demerit for the essay for simply not containing itself to one page. A second page for 1-1/2 more lines of text? As kids these days say, “Really?”
When I was in college, I figured out the “essay formula.” Whatever the subject was, you stated that the subject showed how “man’s inhumanity to man transcends the class struggle.” Surround it with some other gibberish and cut and paste cake recipes if you want. The “magic words” were everything and guaranteed at least a B+ as the prof swooned over another student that “gets it.”
Meanwhile I was enjoying some beers with friends at Nick’s or the Bluebird and laughing about it.
This essay is about the same thing. It’s gibberish that sounds profound. Hey, all that matters is whether or not it works.
He may have or he may have had the foresight to allow a competent editor to read and correct his essay.
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