[reading back over my college application essays from last winter, I realized they tell my story pretty well, and thought I'd stick them on Snatchlings just for kicks. this is the first one.]
Explain in detail why you wish to attend St. John's College; please evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your formal education to date.
First of all, allow me to say thank you for recognizing the pressures inherent to academics and the filling out of applications, and for putting prospective students at ease in saying that perfection is not expected. I find that attitude refreshing, humanizing, and further confirming that St. John’s is uniquely intentional in fostering an atmosphere truly conducive to personal growth and enrichment.
Speaking of unique, I myself would undoubtedly fall into that category. I took “the road less traveled,” and it certainly has made all the difference. In my outlook on life, experiences, relationships, values; most of who I am today, actually. I am thirty-one years old, and have not yet been to college. I have worked for a Georgia State Representative and for a Member of Congress, advised and developed programs for mayors and city leaders on innovative community initiatives, compiled and designed an 80-page book that has been translated into six languages and has sold 85,000 copies worldwide, mentored juvenile delinquents and tutored inner city kids, and helped start a thriving church in the District of Columbia. All without a college degree.
However, I had no idea where my road would take me, and certainly never envisioned the above. I was simply acting on faith and the information I had at the time. Upon graduating from high school, I had been accepted to five good colleges with partial scholarships from each. Nevertheless college tuition would have been a financial strain on my family, since my dad had lost his job the year before, and at that same time my family was becoming involved with a nonprofit organization, which college-aged students were dropping out of college to attend. So I decided to put off college and join this nonprofit program for a year. During that time I was more happy, free, and fulfilled than perhaps ever before. Thus I chose to stay in that program for what turned into eight adventurous, growth-inspiring years.
Several times have I applied to various colleges, and several times have I been accepted only to be suddenly rerouted by the hand of Providence into some unforeseen adventure. In honoring God and His timing for my life, I believe He has honored me by providing enriching relationships and opportunities I would not have had by “following the herd” to college or high-paying jobs, simply because the “herd” was doing it.
However. However. I loved academics in high school, and my Latin teacher was appalled that I wasn’t going to college. Although I received an outstanding high school education, there is so much I want to know about the history of the world, the great minds that shaped it, and the why’s of things. I would originally have majored in English and minored in history, and find that I would still do just that, except that my interests have grown to encompass government, philosophy, psychology, and language. Sometimes I wonder where I am deficient in knowledge my contemporaries may have, and sometimes, honestly, I wonder if I made the right choice that summer out of high school. Most of all, I have a lust for life and learning. While recognizing that the latter comes through infinite media in the world around us over the span of a lifetime, I acknowledge the value of an intense, set-apart season of study and discussion in the universe of the university…as long as that universe is not divorced from the real one.
I do not “need” a degree in the sense that I have gotten along quite well without one for over thirteen years, and do not currently intend to pursue professional or trade certification. However, I need to develop and use my gifts to the fullest. I need to enrich my mind and soul for enrichment’s own sake and for the journey ahead. And suddenly I need to devour great books and write papers and discuss and form opinions and listen and grow and change and become!
St. John’s is both the beginning and the end of that recently-felt need. Its unique curriculum has reignited my passion for learning and will also fulfill it, should I be admitted. Its approach to learning and love for freedom and connection to reality all combine to convince me that perhaps this is what I was meant to wait for. And I trust it will be worth the wait.
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