"Stock For The Long Run", beating the average, and what I think of SAT scores

Online or in writing all colleges look the same: great. Therefore finding the college you want to go to can be a real challenge, lucky for me it wasn't so. I refused to frantically search for a college, scour the Princeton reviews or endlessly browse the Internet. I knew I wanted a college located in a big city so I could experience American city life, as I have just recently moved to the US from Poland. I believed that as long as I pursued my interests (mainly management and information technology which I talk about in more detail in a separate essay), finding a great college I'd like to attend would come naturally, and it did. I've been interested in the stock market since I was fifteen and since then I tried to learn everything I could about it. For the last two years I have followed the market daily and after reading "Stock For The Long Run," by Jeremy Siegel, who I often saw on CNBC the decision to apply to Penn came naturally. A bit of research revealed Penn had everything I wanted. Located in a great city offering a joint degree program in the two areas that most interested me, a selective admissions policy that attracted the best students in America, this was great, I said to myself.

How many colleges have a question on their application about "which professor you would like to do research with and why?" I mean really, how many expect their prospective students to know their prospective professors? This makes me believe that those admitted to Penn are really passionate about what they do. And this is great. Luckily, I had no problem with answering the question. Jeremy Siegel's work on the stock market is exceptional. In the acknowledgments to the second edition of "Stock For The Long Run," he thanks Wharton undergraduate students who helped him prepare the book, and I realize that working with Jeremy Siegel, the "Sage of the stock market" as his personal website describes him, is within arms reach if I'm accepted to Wharton. And this is great. On top of that, Penn is located in Philadelphia and within driving range of other huge American cities. I miss the city feel as I've spend all my life in metro areas, and feel pretty odd living in Columbia, Missouri. Living in a historical city in a country I'm just beginning to explore and understand is another reason that makes me want to study at Penn. The faculty, the great program with a mandatory International requirement (having lived in four countries gives me a bit of international perspective :), the student profile, the location, this all comes together at the University of Pennsylvania.

I realize that many of my peers have done a lot of searching, thinking and reading, and by now some seem to believe they know the process of admission to Ivy league colleges better then the admission officers themselves. Compared to them, you could say I'm lazy, or that I didn't spend enough time looking for my College of First Choice just because I haven't memorized and compared all the details of all the colleges offering a joint-degree in management and technology. Yet, I feel the reasons I'm applying to Penn are good reasons, and wouldn't be any better if I spent hours deciding whether I like the campus housing, cafeterias or extracurricular activities. My life is too short for me to be stuck on little things like that. In the past eighteen years, I've attended nine different schools in four different countries on two different continents and have learned a bit about flexibility. I'm applying to Penn because of the potential I see in spending the next four years working with great people, who I hope will amaze me on many levels. A degree from one of the world's top business school is just a nice perk.

I don't believe in boasting about the greatness of your education, as doing so just proves that you haven't learned anything in college. The same can be said about standardized tests, and people who seem to think that they are defined by their SAT scores. I think they are up for some major disappointments in life outside of high school. There are overeducated criminals, and there are B- students who founded companies like Walmart. I'd rather have my school be proud of me one day for what I achieved. As an immigrant I have an awareness of the way some see foreigners in America, with many being illegal aliens living below the poverty line and taking American jobs. I realize that being Polish in New York City isn't all that foreign. Green Point could be considered the world's most popular tourist destination, with the average "tourist" staying there for about eight years. Looking back at life, I want to feel proud of what I did and who I am. Not proud like, "my people have been here 8000 years and your people have been here only 7000 years, so I'm proud to be X." I'd rather be proud of the what I accomplished, coming from a broke marriage, from a post communistic country, legally immigrating to the United States (a challenge in itself since the PATRIOT act), attending a great school and finding success in the greatest country in the world, this is my definition of success. I hope to prove, that immigrants can create jobs for Americans, not only take them. I want to become the change I wish to see.

"This is not a psychotic breakdown; it's a cleansing moment of clarity."