words on a piece of paper, a blinking cursor on a computer screen. a series of numbers, a list of extracurricular activities. my ethnicity, my parent’s education history, my birthdate, my age, my social security number. somehow these essentially random characters are supposed to be representative of who i am and what i can be.
i’d beg to differ, common app.
on paper, i’m just another hispanic kid with decent academics and standard credentials that barely separate me from the kid sitting next to me right this very moment. decent sat scores, a mediocre transcript, i’m hardly more than average; just what you’d expect out of a small community like new paltz.
this is not christopher james bravo.
sports have been a defining aspect of my life since my early childhood; expectations were interesting to say the least. my elder siblings and father pressured me to play soccer, the game of ecuador, south america, the whole world. a universal language spoken between the ten toes of many a player. however, my aspirations were ruined by my respirations. asthma has been a crippling factor in trying to achieve my goals athletically. having given up the game of my ancestry in exchange for the intelligent man’s sport, long distance running, i ended up even more restricted by my physique: foot skills would do me no good in a world where it doesn’t matter how fast you can sprint from one end of the field to the other. at first, all i wanted was to be able to complete a race five kilometers long; but now my dreams have expanded beyond improving myself individually. i have been tasked with the well renowned captainship of new paltz cross country, a team that hasn’t even lost a dual meet in 5 years, only defeated by schools triple its size at large invitationals and the sectional championship meet. i can’t let my ex-teammates down, so i feel an obligation to lead my team, my family to one more victory over fdr high school to secure the mid-hudson athletic league’s equivalent of the stanley cup.
music is something i can immerse myself in where i feel i finally found a home that isn’t my computer or the internet; i am able to immerse myself in the vibrations emitted from my saxophone, i find a peace that i am unable to achieve anywhere else in the whole world. there’s something about the tactile feel of my fingers pressing against the pearly keys and how i direct air through the carefully hand carved mouthpiece. every detail has been carefully tracked, to ensure that only the best quality of sound can escape from my playing. without a doubt, i strive to achieve only the best in my playing, spending dozens hours on a single miniscule measure, hundreds on a single piece, thousands on a single concert. i, however, differ from the average alto player; many people would expect me to be sitting at a park bench in central park, softly blowing smooth jazz, or maybe sitting in a subway ripping away at charlie parker or coltrane riffs. no, that really isn’t my style. i’m the musician standing alongside the grand piano in carnegie hall, blowing away the audience, making them doubt that the saxophone wasn’t an instrument that the great composers of old wrote music for.
ultimately, it comes down to how i want to plan the rest of my life. i feel that college is my path to success in doing what i want to do with the rest of my life. for now, i’m most interested in computer science and engineering programs because of my love of logic, math, and science; but, i’m ready to adapt at a moment’s notice should an opportunity arise because i want to succeed and i know i can do that at this university.
sincerely,
christopher bravo
i’d beg to differ, common app.
on paper, i’m just another hispanic kid with decent academics and standard credentials that barely separate me from the kid sitting next to me right this very moment. decent sat scores, a mediocre transcript, i’m hardly more than average; just what you’d expect out of a small community like new paltz.
this is not christopher james bravo.
sports have been a defining aspect of my life since my early childhood; expectations were interesting to say the least. my elder siblings and father pressured me to play soccer, the game of ecuador, south america, the whole world. a universal language spoken between the ten toes of many a player. however, my aspirations were ruined by my respirations. asthma has been a crippling factor in trying to achieve my goals athletically. having given up the game of my ancestry in exchange for the intelligent man’s sport, long distance running, i ended up even more restricted by my physique: foot skills would do me no good in a world where it doesn’t matter how fast you can sprint from one end of the field to the other. at first, all i wanted was to be able to complete a race five kilometers long; but now my dreams have expanded beyond improving myself individually. i have been tasked with the well renowned captainship of new paltz cross country, a team that hasn’t even lost a dual meet in 5 years, only defeated by schools triple its size at large invitationals and the sectional championship meet. i can’t let my ex-teammates down, so i feel an obligation to lead my team, my family to one more victory over fdr high school to secure the mid-hudson athletic league’s equivalent of the stanley cup.
music is something i can immerse myself in where i feel i finally found a home that isn’t my computer or the internet; i am able to immerse myself in the vibrations emitted from my saxophone, i find a peace that i am unable to achieve anywhere else in the whole world. there’s something about the tactile feel of my fingers pressing against the pearly keys and how i direct air through the carefully hand carved mouthpiece. every detail has been carefully tracked, to ensure that only the best quality of sound can escape from my playing. without a doubt, i strive to achieve only the best in my playing, spending dozens hours on a single miniscule measure, hundreds on a single piece, thousands on a single concert. i, however, differ from the average alto player; many people would expect me to be sitting at a park bench in central park, softly blowing smooth jazz, or maybe sitting in a subway ripping away at charlie parker or coltrane riffs. no, that really isn’t my style. i’m the musician standing alongside the grand piano in carnegie hall, blowing away the audience, making them doubt that the saxophone wasn’t an instrument that the great composers of old wrote music for.
ultimately, it comes down to how i want to plan the rest of my life. i feel that college is my path to success in doing what i want to do with the rest of my life. for now, i’m most interested in computer science and engineering programs because of my love of logic, math, and science; but, i’m ready to adapt at a moment’s notice should an opportunity arise because i want to succeed and i know i can do that at this university.
sincerely,
christopher bravo
This is a really good essay overall, and I think it's cool how you don't adhere to the sax stereotypes. btw asthma sucks.
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