Application Essays

Application Essays I know too many people who are content with limited knowledge and are discontent with limited possessions. I want to expose myself to as many ideas and viewpoints as possible, and I want to be more than a consumer. It is that surprise that I can see in the community at St. John’s. I imagine life there will be four years of running out of clean white space. The aforementioned aspects signify what makes Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita great in my opinion. Not only do the literary devices make it a wonder to read, but the way it discusses eternal human problems makes it a great book. The work displays the Soviet society under immense repression and how it affects people’s mindsets. I know too many people who want to silence their opponents instead of understanding them. I want a safe space for inquiry, not a safe space for ignorance. I was skeptical that even the most appealing humanities class, AP Literature, would be anything but anticlimactic by comparison. I’d become so accustomed to reading the function-focused writings of Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Thoreau, that I found it difficult to see “literature” as anything more than mere stories. I wanted substance that I could actually do something with, and I didn’t expect to find it in AP Lit. When I think about my principles, I think about how I aspire to the humility of Helen Burns and the resolution of Jane Eyre and the stoicism of St. John. But more than anything, I would like to live my life thoughtfully. I am too used to sitting in crowded high school classes where more than half the class did not do the reading. Reading is not checking off a box or attaining a grade, but something I have chosen many times and will continue to choose for the rest of my life. I think that my sophomore to senior years of high school have been a great preparation for a school like St. John’s. Each year I had a two hour seminar course every day, in which half of the grade is based on discussion, and the other half is on papers. This has given me unique experience both in practice with writing analytical papers on a text, as well as practice with reading and discussing a text in a deeper way. It taught me that there is no ending to a conversation, and no meaning without conversation. Martin Amis described this experience best, in his introduction to and essay on Lolita, “Clearly, these are not a scholar’s notes, and they move towards no edifice of understanding or completion. And I am running out of clean white space.” This is what I wish to be, I do not want to pretend to that kind of edifice, but rather be met every day by surprise. J.K. Rowling clearly saw her application of appellations not as a burden, but an opportunity to enrich the story and world she had created and expand its reach. Maybe not, but I loved the rules, the structure, and the big questions that surrounded organizing a government. I thought about these things constantlyâ€"while brushing my teeth, doing chores, and driving to school. Unable to take this beloved course a second time, I chose my senior classes with more than a touch of melancholy. There is greatness to be found in every book, but these are some of the writers that challenged what I thought to be true and opened the door to moral questions that will take more than my lifetime to answer. I hope to start answering these questions at St. John’s. When I think back, my favorite memories and my moments of greatest esteem are not those when I was victorious, but when I was thoughtful. I treasure the philosophical debates I’ve had with friends, the snow days spent reading in bed, the essays I labored over until they were a source of pride. I am a reader because I am a writer, not the other way around. Index cards, store receipts, and any other paper I can find, covered in notes I took, stick out of the tops of my books. I dream of a place where everyone enjoys books differently. A book will occupy my thoughts and conversation for a period of time but Lolita awakened a violent response- this is what I have to do, for the rest of my life. I have to analyze great literature and live in its questioning. My experience with Lolita informed my entire way of thinking. This experience will not only be beneficial to me in discussion, but will hopefully raise the quality of a seminar for the class as a whole. The small enrollment size of as well as the overall approach to education makes St. John’s the ideal place for me to extend my positive experience of high school into the college setting. St John’s advertises itself as the school for readers and thinkers, people who want more than a degree. I know too many people whose only hope for college is to earn a diploma, and if they can do it without learning or growing, even better. I want to spend the rest of my life learning as much I can, because getting a diploma without expanding your mind is like saving a receipt for something you don’t own.