FileTitle: Prose88.html
Category: Humor
Type: Prose
Description: College Entrance Exam
A College Entrance Exam

An actual essay written by a college applicant to SPU; the author
was accepted and is now attending SPU.

3A. IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO
GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT
EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE
REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice.  I
have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them
more efficient in the area of heat retention.  I translate ethnic
slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time
efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can
pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook
Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes.  I am an expert in stucco,
a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly
defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of
ferocious army ants.  I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I
am the subject of numerous documentaries.  When I'm bored, I build large
suspension bridges in my yard.  I enjoy urban hang gliding.  On
Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of
charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. 
Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear.  I
don't perspire.  I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail.  I
have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes.  Last summer
I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration.

I bat 400.  My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in
international botany circles.  Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy.
I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day
and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening.
I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket.  I have
performed several covert operations with the CIA.  I sleep once a
week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair.  While on vacation in Canada, I
successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a
small bakery.  The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.
On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami.
Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.  I
have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a
toaster oven.

I breed prize-winning clams.  I have won bullfights in San Juan,
cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the
Kremlin.

I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I
have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.