A college essay that I like

     Written by Deanna E. Barkett

     When I was younger, I used to silently pray that I was nothing but like my father. He was so serious. His brow was always knit. My grandmother could not remember a time when my father had done anything wrong. He was too perfect. I felt timid and self-conscious around him.
     My father was always offering advice by which he swore. Although they may have been ancient proverbs or old adages, they were always "Daddy originals" to me.
     "When you're prepared, you'll never be scared," he would tell me when I was up late studying for an evil chemistry test.
     "Haste makes waste," was his rejoinder when I would bring home a math exam littered with careless mistakes.
     "When you lose an hour in the morning, you search for it the rest of the day," is the Chinese proverb I learned on more than one Saturday morning of a weekend filled with homework.
     "Live by foresight, learn from hindsight," he would say when I was younger and only old enough to relate "fore" and "hind" to the legs of a horse These saying interminably buzzed in my ear at times when, as I got older, I wanted to scream: "I know, Dad! You've only been telling me these things since I was two years old!"
     I never elevated my father to sage status. I always recognized that he wanted me to do my best, but his advice lacked a loving tone. Indeed, at times his became a voice of nagging monotony.
     As I have grown older, however, I have realized that Dad-in his own way-has these many years been trying to guide me. The denouement of my fathers' motivational speeches occurred this summer. I was away at summer school for two months in Massachusetts. It was the longest separation I have had from my parents.
     Communication with my family consisted of more e-mails messages than telephone conversations. My father corresponded with me more than anyone else. He always returned my e-mails promptly and tried in hi sown silly way ("love ya!" which is not at all like my father) to make me laugh. So much so, I was reminded of another of his sayings, "When you lose your sense of humor, you lose your mind."
     Near the end of summer school, Mom told me that Dad had printed all of my e-mails and was planning to take them to the family reunion. "You have pleased him so much, Dee. He is so proud of you and loves you so much," she told me. I had an epiphany: In my messages, Dad was reading about preparation and patience, time management and foresight. I made him laugh a lot too. Then I remembered another of his sayings, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." And I cried.

     The reason that I chose this essay is because I like the narrative style of this essay. Using short paragraphs, the author made this essay easily readable, which will definitely help the admission officer who must be overwhelmed by thousands of other essays to read. Also, the author successfully combined enough amount of humor into the essay to make it fun and still kept enough tension to make the reader focused. With all these things  combined and with, not unique, but still effective and moving story, this essays makes you feel like meeting the writer.

Impression on the 3rd chapter of Outliers

     To the question about my intellect, I will answer that I am not smart enough to change the world but smart enough to do what I want to do, and I am content about it. 
     Christopher Langan, the major figure discussed in this chapter, is a person with extremely high IQ. His IQ is far beyond the level of simply smart. He is 'the' genius. His intellectual ability is amazing in normal view. He can learn difficult concepts without spending much time and solve extremely difficult logic questions, which normal people can't even try to solve, by just a few seconds of thinking. You must doubt your memory that you just never heard his name before in any kind of academic journals, because you unconsciously have in your mind that geniuses are able to succeed in scholastic achievement. Truth is that, unlike your belief, Langan didn't succeed in any field of natural or social science, engineering, or humanities. Wasn't he smart enough? Yes, he is smart. The problem was that what mattered to his success was not his intelligence. 
     Do you know Yu Geun Song? He is a 16 years old prodigy who has a great talent in physics and engineering. He is a famous figure in Korea because from his early age he was shown in TV as Korea's new genius who might change Korean future and, if possible, the future of the world. Skipping general Korean curriculum, he was admitted to an university and is pursuing his career. Many Korean Parents envy his intelligence and want their children to have it because they believed that such great intellect can actually guarantee their children's success.  
     To those who envy the genius, I want to give a question that is worthy of thinking. "Who, do you think, is the most successful person in the world?" There might be many answer choices to this question, but only few would answer that some of the geniuses like those mentioned above. The answers might be Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Oprah Winfrey, not Christopher Langan. Why does this happen? Why can't extremely high intellect guarantee success? Because IQ is not what decides one's success. Say you run in U.S president election. Which ability would you like to have: high IQ or nice oration skill? The answer seems so evident; you will choose a nice oration skill. But why? Because you know that high IQ will not be of help to you in election. This grand simple example tells us a valuable lesson: IQ is just a number. If you are not to figure out the complicated truth of nature, you don't need 150+ IQ. 
      So, then, what do you need instead of high IQ. I would say it's confidence. If you feel confident about yourself and have enough power to pursue your own personal goal and preference, you can actually succeed in whatever field you work in, because not your IQ, but your other talent will lead you to the top position in that field. Be satisfied with your IQ, then your life will be much happier than that of  geniuses.