College Admission Essay on Aspergers.. please help!

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The following is a very rough draft of a essay i plan on submitting to colleges for acceptence, i wish to attend a business school. Please read it and reply with criticism and help.

I've always know that I'm different. One day I stumbled upon a website that listed the translation of the word squirrel in many different languages. I clicked on a link there that went to the author's "about me" page. In it he told of a condition he had, called Asperger's syndrome. Being the curious person I am, I researched the syndrome, and at that moment i had an epiphany. Everything made sense to me, I had Asperger's syndrome. I sat there dumbfounded as I was reading the symptoms, most of which I could directly relate to.

It's always been hard for me to fit in and make friends. A major symtom of Aspergers syndrome is the lack of solation interaction. Things such as recognizing social cues, and maintaning eye contact are extremely difficult for me. I never have and till this day feel comfortable talking with people. I prefer being solitary rather than gregarious. Also I don't understand slang and have a difficult time understanding abstract concepts.

I often wonder how much better my life would be without this syndrome. I wouldn't be looked at as weird and I could communicate without fear and much better than right now. I wouldn't incessantly be nagged upon from my parents for not being so shy. But then I think of the positive aspects, and they far outweigh the setbacks I face. People with Asperger's syndrome have excellent rote memoization skills, and often pursue one area of interest. My area of interests include geography and the english vocabulary. I have amassed a wealth of knowledge in both, and am well-known as a result of that. Whenever anyone has a question about a world capital or wants to know what a certain word means, they come to me. It gives me great pleasure that I have this esoteric skill.

Being from the "old country" my parents encouraged me and to this day encourage me to pursue a career in the engineering or medical field. They tell me that in business I will have to deal with people all the time, and I wouldn't be able to survive because of my weak communication skills. I could be an engineer, and it would be an utopia for me I could have a high income job, and avoid social contact for the most part. Unless I challenge my weakness I will forever be victim to them, therefore coupled with my intense interest in business, I wish to pursue a career in it.


I know lots of errors etc... i wrote it inllike 15 minutes,,, but please help
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I'm a bit confused- why are you writing about asperger's syndrome for a college application letter?

it's probably not a good idea to talk about AS in you application. college applications are kind of like job interviews. you want to put your best foot forward. they don't know the person you are, so they will automatically focus on the 'syndrome' and some of the weaknesses you talked about in your essay. if i were you i would downplay the weak social skills or at least not use the word syndrome. i would focus on the positive aspects more. for example:


lengthen this paragraph.

did they give you a topic to write about?

For a college class and college admission essay I had to write about a challenge I faced and overcome. I used AS for that; since it is obviously a challenge, and I explained how I have learned to use my AS to help me and stop it when it hinders me. (BTW, I got a 98 out of a 100 on the college paper, I didn't send the admissions essay; but my college professor thinks it's an excellent topic. I'm in a college English class but I'm techinally a high school student)

'I've always know that I'm different.'

I don't like this as an opening sentence...It's rather striking and gets attention but uh I think I'd talk about why you'd like to apply for the business college course (like in your last paragraph) and then slip in the 'I've always known I'm different' later. You say (in a later post) that you wrote this initially for a school essay on challenges and opening statements like that make it still too much an essay on challenges, rather than an application for business college.

...'One day I stumbled upon a website that listed the translation of the word squirrel in many different languages. I clicked on a link there that went to the author's "about me" page. In it he told of a condition he had, called Asperger's syndrome. Being the curious person I am, I researched the syndrome, and at that moment i had an epiphany. Everything made sense to me, I had Asperger's syndrome. I sat there dumbfounded as I was reading the symptoms, most of which I could directly relate to.'


'It's always been hard for me to fit in and make friends. A major symtom of Aspergers syndrome is the lack of solation interaction. Things such as recognizing social cues, and maintaning eye contact are extremely difficult for me. I never have and till this day feel comfortable talking with people. I prefer being solitary rather than gregarious. Also I don't understand slang and have a difficult time understanding abstract concepts.'

mmmyeah, I think these are all the negatives and these are important skills in the world of business, I don't think they need to know this or that it will help your application. Leave it out or tone it down, make it more positive.

'I often wonder how much better my life would be without this syndrome. I wouldn't be looked at as weird and I could communicate without fear and much better than right now. I wouldn't incessantly be nagged upon from my parents for not being so shy. But then I think of the positive aspects, and they far outweigh the setbacks I face. People with Asperger's syndrome have excellent rote memoization skills, and often pursue one area of interest. My area of interests include geography and the english vocabulary. I have amassed a wealth of knowledge in both, and am well-known as a result of that. Whenever anyone has a question about a world capital or wants to know what a certain word means, they come to me. It gives me great pleasure that I have this esoteric skill. '

Yes, this is better - emphasise the positives, maybe give example of well known successful people suspected of having AS, particularly business people and or those who have done higher education/degrees successfully eg temple grandin maybe? I dunno.... with a sentence like 'she used her areas of special interest/focus to create a very succesful business, even though people may have thought her interests odd or obscure.'

'Being from the "old country" my parents encouraged me and to this day encourage me to pursue a career in the engineering or medical field.' They tell me that in business I will have to deal with people all the time, and I wouldn't be able to survive because of my weak communication skills.'

Well this is possibly true and the admissions people will be wondering if you can cope too. Talk about where you expect to find support and help with these problems... I think there's an asperger college students net group and give other examples of where you will find help coping.


'I could be an engineer, and it would be an utopia for me I could have a high income job, and avoid social contact for the most part. Unless I challenge my weakness I will forever be victim to them, therefore coupled with my intense interest in business, I wish to pursue a career in it. '

but you haven't said anything about your 'interest' in business, or if you did, I missed it - you need to say a lot more about your interest in business and probably less about AS in the body of the essay. You're basically saying you want to do it for a personal development reasons which isn't that strong a case, since there are many other avenues for personal development and probably limited places for business students. Overall, your essay needs to focus much more on business, and less on AS, when you talk about your problems with AS, talk about how/where you will find support and give examples of other succesful AS college graduates and business people. I don't think the 'challenge' or 'personal development' thing is strong enough to get you accepted. Sure that's all part of it and it's worth talking about but don't make it the main thing.

I referred to Asperger's indirectly when I applied to college (though back in the spring of 1990 I didn't know what "The Problem" was). Here are some suggestions. The title of my essay was "Can Emotions Be Reduced To X/(1-X)?"

I remember deliberately crafting the first sentence in a way which would rivet the attention of the admissions officer (trying to sell myself, figuring that he'd probably have seen a lot of these essays all starting the same way):

"I think I was born with two left brains."

The essay was good enough to make our high school yearbook, and the last sentence ("All these mathematical theories...are useless when I try to figure out why I am in love [actually, stupid schoolboy crush...like I knew what the hell was going on]) has since become a common .signature.

Here are a few other excerpts. As I look at it in retrospect I'm starting to think: how could I have written such a miserable essay (then again, it was high school) in terms of word choice -- could I have been getting over hyperlexia? I was definitely hyperlexic in junior high (in fact, several hyperlexic "misused words" have effectively become recognized alternate definitions when I talk with my doctor: if I ever wrote a dictionary, they'd actually appear in it under "definition 2" or something like that)
---------
I think I was born with two left brains.

Since my childhood, I have found that math and science have come easily to me, yet abstract concepts and emotions have been difficult to understand. I have found that I usually cannot accept something as fact or as truth unless it is presented with some tangible, concrete proof...

For eighteen years, I have had one important goal in mind: to be able to use the logic...to figure out how I should respond to understand...friendship and emotion. If I could logically deduce how I right brain would work, I would then be able to, at least artificially, create one.

Through use of arithmetic and geometric sequences, I have tried to model possible patterns in a person's behavior...

I can go on and on. But it could give you some ideas.

By the way, I still remember the basis for the x/(1-x) thing. Zero (x=0) emotions is always zero, and feelings start out pretty week unless you start getting a pretty strong input. The problem, though, is that if you get too strong -- you need to walk a very fine line -- you basically overwhelm me and I back off. The x/(1-x) only makes sense if there is a limit to the point where I can understand and process emotions. Sound familiar?

ACG

I wrote about Asperger's for my Sophomore CP English class, and I got an A- on it, or around 90%. The teacher thought it was interesting.

Asthe others say I also would not focus on Asperger's for the college aceptance letter. Howver I would mention something about it. Talk about why your interested in your subject, maybe voluntering work thta you've done in it, or show job experince that you have put towards it. Show your enthusiaism, tell them what your plans are for your classes, or where you plan to go with your degree, do you plan to contiunue your education after your degree like getting a MA degree let them know.....also tell them what you hope to acompish by acheiveing your goal.

hope this helps...but fous on positive, people don't like to hear the negative, they don't want to feel sorry for you. That will get you no where.

This post is almost a year old. Just an FYI before anyone else gives too much feedback.

Thanks, joku_muko

BeeBee

You can definately write about your aspergers for a college essay about something you have overcome. But this is not the essay. Perhaps you should spend more than 15 minutes on it and then post asking for input. This essay will get you roundly rejected from many schools (a lot depends on the school too, the ranking etc...). I can't even begin to fix what you have posted with out completely rewriting it.