Tips for the Princeton Supplement to the 2013-14 Common App

I’ve always enjoyed working with students who are applying to Princeton.   As a group, they have interesting and engaged minds.   Extracurricularly, their accomplishments are varied and distinctive.   The Princeton application tries to elicit specifics about those facets of each applicant through its supplement.   In the age of streamlined â€Å"easy apps† and electronic application review that makes applicants seem more similar than different, Princeton is one of the colleges that seek to learn more about the person behind the papers. The section entitled â€Å"A Few Details† has been a part of the Princeton application for years, and applicants can truly address the categories in just a few words.   Complete sentences and lots of explanation aren’t necessary or even encouraged. As a Princeton applicant, you are no doubt intelligent, passionate, and accomplished.   Be that same intelligent, passionate, accomplished teenager in this section.   Your answers to these details need not all be highbrow, super-intellectual, SAT-word answers.   Resist the urge to be someone you are not in this section. Recently, there has been a lot of press about how a high school student should spend his or her summers to enhance college applications.   Princeton asks you to specifically detail your recent summer activities.   Whether you travelled extensively, studied intensely, or worked a full-time job, you learned something.   Think about those life lessons as you list your summer activities.   There may also be material for your longer writing sample lurking in those months of summer vacation. As a longer writing sample, Princeton offers four choices for candidates to write one essay of about 500 words. 1. Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way. With this topic, it is easy to tell the reader a lot about the person who has influenced you, yet miss the opportunity to explain how that person’s influence has impacted you.   A strong essay does both, with an emphasis on the latter. If you considered answering the Common Application prompt about a place where you are content, this one takes the same sort of balance as the CA prompt. 2. Tell us how you would address the questions raised by the quotation below, or reflect upon an experience you have had that  was relevant to these questions. How can we unlearn the practices of inequality? In other words, how do we increase our capacities not just to act without racism but to actively promote racial equality? Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies, and Faculty Associate, Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University. This is a great question to answer if you have actively engaged with issues of racial equality over the past four years. Perhaps, youve written research papers on the topic, or debated it. Maybe you have worked on political campaigns or been involved in social justice work. If you have felt the sting of racial inequality in your own life how do you suggest fixing the problem? 3. Using the statement below as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. â€Å"Princeton in the Nation’s Service† was the title of a speech given by Woodrow Wilson on the 150th anniversary of the University. It became the unofficial Princeton motto and was expanded for the University’s 250th anniversary to â€Å"Princeton in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.† Woodrow Wilson, Princeton Class of 1879, served on the faculty and was Princeton’s president from 1902–1910. 4. â€Å"Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.† Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, chair of the Council of the Humanities and director of the Program in Humanistic Studies, Princeton University. 5. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay. The final three topics all address one point: â€Å"Tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world.†Ã‚   Each of these questions is asking you, the applicant, to tell a story. Pick an experience, large or small, that impacted you, and share it with the admissions committee.   As you tell your story, ensure that you address its impact on you.   Your options in this question allow you to address this in any number of ways, from the most macro, global event, to a smaller, more personal moment.   Don’t be afraid to think, draw connections, and demonstrate maturity through your essay. Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Spiritual Reading The Great Divorce - Free Essay Example

What do you think of when youre imagining our inevitable end in heaven or hell? The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, probably challenges some contemporary ideas of the subject. The book touches upon the ideas of what it might be like in the afterlife. Whilst wrapped up in the imagination of C.S. Lewis you experience the journey of traveling from hell to heaven, and you learn what it takes to become permanent in heaven. The book starts out describing the surroundings of the nameless character whos experiences you will follow for the remainder of the novel. Hes wandering these strange desolate streets with sparse signs of life; until he gets to the bus stop where there is a gleaming golden bus with people crowded around it causing a commotion. Then the story proceeds with the bus ride. People board the bus, and then it takes off into flight. The character describes looking out the window into a endless dreary town with only a few lights from houses scattered in the expanse. The sky is dusk. He meets several people in the bus that explain some things about the odd place, and how most people stay there because theyre not hoping for the dawn. As the bus carries further into the sky they reach a void. There is nothing, but then all of a sudden things start to get brighter and brighter until off in the distance he sees a cliff. As they reach the cliff things are so bright, theyre almost blinding. The character describes looking out the window again and describes the grass and the clear swift-moving river and how the bus is approaching the treetops. The bus lands and the passengers let out. After getting out of the bus he describes the confusion he has because everyone appears ghostly. No one is able to alter this seemingly intangible environment. He tests his limitations by trying to pick a small daisy, but it is cemented to the earth. He succeeds in picking up a leaf but says it was the heaviest thing hed ever encountered. He soon realized that he too was a ghostly manifestation. Then he sees these glowing people approaching the group of ghosts. The footsteps of the people echoed as they drew closer, they were wearing robes or nothing at all. When they were met, some of the people had known the ghosts, and they were paired off. The people were guides to the ghosts and were meant to help them understand the meaning of loving God and becoming solid within heaven. The character doesnt find his teacher right away, and he wanders off as the ground weighs heavily on his feet as walks. He eventually meets a Scottish man who is his spiritual guide. The story continues with several encounters of the character observing the other ghosts interact with their people. He watches one man successfully become materialized into the world, overcoming his one blunder, the lust which appeared as a small red lizard on his shoulder whispering into his ear. Until he granted a person permission to kill the lizard, he was bound as a ghost. He also witnesses another man fade away as he confronts an old wife whom he couldnt agree with. The wife was this beautiful person with animals and other people around her, everything in life that she touched and loved and left an indelible mark on. There was a common theme of these encounters. All the ghosts had to overcome some sort of thing that was holding them hostage in their life, either forgiveness or realization would free them. The character never really had to make this decision. Then suddenly everything changes, he is looking upon this silver table where the people are like chessmen, puppets. The puppets actions represented the wills of their giant masters. And the table is time. The people standing by are the immortal souls. Frightened he asks the teacher if the truth was revealed to him, then the Scottish man tells him that this is just a dream. And to not tell anyone unless he explicitly says it was only a dream. Then he wakes up, and thats where the book ends. This was quite an intriguing book to read. There was a constant bombardment of imagery, and at times it was difficult to follow the plot. You start off thinking that the main character is dead, and the plot will follow some of his experiences in the afterlife, but all the imagery gave the novel such a hazy feeling. In my opinion, because the character remained nameless, it allows the reader to be able to immerse themselves into the dreamy context of the novel. This book forces you to contemplate where your unforeseeable future after death may be. Personally, I dont contemplate the afterlife as much as someone would if they were dedicated to a religion. I choose to believe that when we die, there is nothing waiting for us. Our consciousness just ceases to exist. Our bodily matter will decompose, and our energy will cycle back into the ecosystem. Im definitely not exempt from fearing the impending doom of death, I just try to accept it. If our consciousness was to transfer to another plane of existence, I feel like we definitely wouldnt have any recollection of our previous life or lives. Whos to say that our current state of consciousness hasnt been elevated from a previous form already? And from stating that question, I would have to say that reading The Great Divorce has not helped me spiritually at all. Although spiritually the book didnt offer me much insight, I would highly recommend the novel to anyone who I think could understand some of the abstract concepts that C.S. Lewis brings up. I enjoyed the book for what it was, and for what it represented. In the eyes of the beholder, this book could be a fantastic gateway to exploring the prompts for spiritual contemplation.