Prompt: Your response should be no more than 200 words. What academic areas are you interested in exploring in college?
Essay:
9th grade winter break: a supposed reprieve from the stress of the school year, instead spent in an urgent care getting an earring extracted from my swollen ear. My embarrassment immediately dissipated, however, when the kind doctor laughed it off, explaining how common this issue was. His reassuring bedside manner, coupled with his efficient treatment, left me with deep respect towards the medical field. I want to do that for someone else, I thought.
While I no longer get earrings embedded in my earlobe, I continue to marvel at the talent of doctors, who seamlessly address their patients’ physical pain and emotional anxiety. In high school, I’ve become enthralled with how the diverse areas of science, from molecular interactions to the cognitive basis of our emotions, intertwine to make up the medical field, inspiring me to join my town’s first aid squad as an EMT.
I had once thought that doctors need to be emotionless to survive the harsh realities of treating illnesses, but I now realize that both rationality and empathy coexist to make for a good doctor. With the goal of being a highly attentive doctor in mind, I hope to pursue pre-medicine at Emory.
Tips for Writing:
The admissions staff will already know about the extracurriculars you do from the activities section of the Common App, so try to bring something new into your essays that do not appear in other parts of your application. It helps to think of interesting stories/anecdotes from your life, even if they seem insignificant – you can always transform them into something that taught you a meaningful lesson. It can be hard coming up with ideas, but that is why it is okay to write multiple drafts with different topics. Don’t make the mistake of waiting for an idea to “come to you”, you have to actively brainstorm and write down anything that comes to mind.