Independence Day: College Admission Essay Sample

I wrote my first speech in elementary school. Awed by the power of the spoken word the fictional president Thomas Whitmore employed in the movie Independence Day, I pulled a Public Speaking for Dummies book off my parents’ shelf and penned what was — to my fifth-grade sensibilities — a rhetorical masterpiece. It was an impassioned plea to my fifth grade class to end bullying. I planned on climbing atop the lunch tables, seizing the principal’s bullhorn, and delivering it to a crowd of enraptured peers. Unfortunately for my schoolmates, their bullying would go unaddressed. The speech remained in my closet, gathering dust rather than thundering applause.

Since joining the public speaking club in high school, I discovered that I’m a better speechwriter than speaker. One judge’s comment commended me on a great speech, he just wished that I had the charisma to pull it off. Although my early, innocent attempts at leadership emulated the generals and presidents I’d seen in movies, I’ve since learned that there are many different types of leadership. In fact, it is often those who have more superficial qualities of leadership, the loud voices and eagerness to take charge, who may lack the subtler aspects that make a truly great leader.

At my first Model UN conference, I represented Florida in an immigration debate. On the floor were two resolutions representing the far right and left championed by the two loudest delegates. Each had roughly half the delegates’ signatures. Although the resolutions represented the contributions of only a few members, everyone had picked a side as those were the only two options.With both proposals stalled short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass, I began drafting a third. Together with those who had spoken only a few times, I crafted a resolution with aspects of both plans. Due in no small part to the fact that we were high school students who had been debating this for eight hours, the resolution passed unanimously. More importantly, the shyer members of the delegation showed that their ideas mattered -- even if they were not expressed as loudly.