题目：Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.（有些学生认为，某段背景、身份、兴趣或才华对他们意义重大，缺少它，申请就不完整。如果你也是这样，请分享你的故事。）
Racecar noises irreversibly altered the course of my life.
I waded into sixth period with my trumpet swinging back and forth at my side. Taking my seat, I noticed impatience prominent in every classmate's furrowed brows. We were all wondering why we were told that we won't be playing today—it was a band class, after all. I felt my eyelids lethargically drooping as the band director droned on.
"VROOM!"
A sudden rip of sound exploded through my eardrums, prompting my eyes to shoot open and rest upon the culprit: the band director was wielding a trombone. I was fortunate enough to be able to try the instrument out, trying to recreate that race car noise. When that glorious sound burst forth, I instantly knew that this was the instrument for me.
From that moment on, I dedicated every ounce of my free time to the band room. As I invested more into the trombone, the instrument invested more in me. Every sliding second, whether it be working on fundamentals or solo repertoire, molded me into not only a stronger player, but a stronger musician.
Listening to the flawless passage of phrases from instrument to instrument in the Canadian Brass' live performance of Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor ignited my passion for chamber music, inspiring me to form a brass quintet of my own. As I led the rehearsals, the group played together, listened to each other, and developed an unspoken bond that would last all throughout high school.
As my musicianship developed, more opportunities arose. I joined the California Youth Symphony in seventh grade, and just two years later, I was delighted to receive an acceptance letter to the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra after refreshing my inbox five times per day for a month. All of my time spent in these groups rewarded me with musical discoveries and lifelong friends.
I was in the band room practicing a recitatif when news of lockdown rung upon me, endangering everything I loved. Within the next few months, I received email after email of cancellations. Solo repertoire began to feel dull, ensemble playing became extinct, and racecar noises weren't so appealing anymore. However, I gathered the ashes of my motivation and like a phoenix, burst back into life.
This new energy drove me to bring ensemble playing back, and I started the Bay Area Symphonic Ensemble, recruiting my friends from County and State Honor Bands. My hours spent editing audio and video paid off as we live streamed our virtual concert in support of frontline healthcare workers. I also joined Tri-City Band Corps, where I taught aspiring low brass players in both group and individual lessons. Seeing the children smile in glee after finally being able to play a difficult tune always plasters a smile to my face as well.
All this momentum prepared me to spring right back into action when lockdown restrictions were lifted.
My most emotional performance ended my junior year with a school tour to the red carpets of the great Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. featuring our brass quintet that has been my lifeblood for years on end. Our last piece was a world premiere named Catharsis for orchestra, a name befitting of such a performance. Each one of my solos carried joy, loneliness, years of practice, and brought tears to my eyes.
But when I think of my musical journey, I'm always reminded of my first victory that opened up the great gates of music—making race car noises.
I always hated the word tacet.
Why? Composers use tacets—a kind of elongated rest—to instruct musicians to not play for an entire movement or section of music. To me, this felt like the musical equivalent of shoving me into a corner and telling me I was in time-out. As a trombonist, the audacious oxymoron of 'playing rests' was something I simply never understood.
When I started playing the trombone in sixth grade, I saw mastering the instrument as a challenge; I was motivated by the prospect of playing increasingly difficult music. In the band room, I embraced the stereotypical boisterousness of other trombonists, but in the practice rooms, I found happy, lonesome solace— just me and my trombone.
My quick progression soon whisked me away from wind ensembles into the uncharted territory of advanced, audition-based symphony orchestras. But I couldn't evade the dreaded tacets! Although I understood the necessity of rests in music, it was still difficult to bring myself to have to sit through three hours of rehearsal just to play for twenty minutes.
Tacet. Tacet. Tacet. They seemed to follow me everywhere, like determined ghosts. I took my professionalism too seriously to allow myself to get distracted, and so in rehearsals my devotion to the music left me perched uncomfortably on my stool, glaring silently at the tacet written on the second movement of Gounod's ballet suite.
Then, that five-letter word seemed to leap off the page into my very life. When the pandemic lockdown began, I received email after email of music cancellations. The band room, my magical sanctuary, was out of reach, and my music friends fell out of touch. Virtual playing wasn't the same. In the silence of the lockdown, I felt the boisterous, energetic trombonist within me slipping away, being replaced by a quiet, tacet shadow.
As I was hopelessly surrounded by darkness, a flame of hope appeared.
Every musician in the Bay Area dreams of joining the prestigious San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and I was no exception. Coached by San Francisco Symphony musicians and rehearsing in the magnificent Davies Symphony Hall, the orchestra, with its global reputation in youth symphonies, boasted the highest level of musicianship accessible to me. With my heart in one hand and my trombone in the other, I began the audition process.
After hours spent recording and constantly refreshing my inbox, I was overjoyed to receive an acceptance letter, although I wasn't able to actually play in Davies Hall until over a year later.
It didn't matter; this accomplishment rekindled my spirit and gave me a new home. I quickly became a part of the active online community of SF Youth musicians, playing games together, writing bizarre fan-fiction, and having unforgettable late-night chats. Filled with an invaluable sense of belonging, I found my authentic self emerging from the tacet shadow.
Joining the orchestra's second concert cycle last spring, I was the assistant principal for Gustav Holst's The Planets. Although tacet for four entire movements—34 minutes—sitting in such a pristine concert hall with my favorite people and playing one of my favorite pieces, I found comfort in my silence.
The concert's most memorable part was in the sixth movement: Uranus, The Magician. I joined the section in projecting four colossal, ringing notes across the hall, each played with the utmost charisma. As I counted through my rests, my ears perked up at the bassoons' playful skipping and downward scales from the trumpets, building into the brilliant French horn soli that shook my soul to the core. The timpani's thunderous rolls brought the whole orchestra to a raging gallop as I blasted out two climactic, gut-wrenching notes.
Tacet helped me transcend ink on a page to understand the beauty behind silence, and my newfound friends reignited my passion. I may have only played 14 of the 159 notes in the score—but for the first time, I finally played my rests.
题目：Many students pursue college for a specific degree, career opportunity or personal goal. Whichever it may be, learning will be critical to achieve your ultimate goal. As you think ahead to the process of learning during your college years, how will you define a successful college experience?（展望大学阶段的学习，你如何定义一段成功的大学经历？）
I want my college experience to be filled with opportunities to apply my education in the real world— to be switching between the classroom and my community.
Throughout college, I want to explore the intersection between politics and economics. To pursue my interest, the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences' Institute for Politics and Strategy intrigues me with electives like Sustainability, Energy, and Environmental Economics and The Future of Warfare. The careers available to me after completing a B.S. in Economics and Politics such as nonprofit advocacy and government positions align with my goal to improve public policy and welfare.
The Tepper School of Business engages me with its encouragement for startups through alumni connections and its Innovation & Entrepreneurship Minor. Its resources of Project Olympus and Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship forward my goal to combine social sciences research and business to address real-world challenges. I am excited to collaborate with their alumni, faculty, business model resources, and market research coaches.
CMU's wealth of student clubs inspires me to be engaged on campus. I'm drawn to the Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Association and Scottie Ventures clubs that provide networking boot camps and venture capital workshops. The Oakland Review also attracted my attention with vibrant illustrations and stylistic layouts. As a school magazine editor myself, I value sharing diverse ideas and look forward to participating in a student publication. I want to help enhance campus voices and add my own to the mix at CMU.
I hope that by my graduation, I have experienced several internships and changed my perspective on social sciences. A fulfilling college experience will include opportunities to interact with the experts in the fields I pursue and the communities I hope to impact.
My image of a successful college experience is filled with community engagement as I gain an education to serve others. I'll apply my learning experience to business projects, volunteering, and student organizations by switching between classroom and industry.
The Tepper School of Business attracts me with its encouragement for startups through alumni connections and its Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor. I admire Tepper's flexibility in providing concentrations like Global Economics and Business. Giving students time to explore and narrow down their interests provides me an opportunity to specialize and succeed in my passions. I'm eager to take hands-on courses on acquiring venture funding and pushing out prototypes. As I build on those foundations, I can create a venture meaningful to others, such as addressing food insecurity through new farm distribution channels or an organization aiding nonprofit funding campaigns.
Project Olympus incubator and Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship forward my goal to actively turn my ideas into reality by helping me identify markets and network with investors with opportunities like the Maker Workshop. I'm drawn to CMU's student organizations like the Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Association and Scottie Ventures, which provide networking bootcamps and investment workshops.
The Dietrich College Institute for Politics and Strategy intrigues me with courses like ECO 73427 Sustainability, Energy, and Environmental Economics, and 84-605 The Future of Warfare. Outside of classes, opportunities like the Meeting the Minds Symposium give me a venue to be inspired by campus research and innovations, gaining new perspectives on how others use research to investigate. By facilitating transparency of information, more social progress can be made.
From my classes, I'll apply what I learn as a volunteer or intern for local nonprofits like Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh. With a fulfilling college career, my perspective on entrepreneurship, civil engagement, and social sciences will be expanded.
题目：Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?（描述你面对过的最重大的挑战，以及你为克服它采取的行动。这个挑战如何影响了你的学业表现？）
When I first moved to America as a native Mandarin speaker, English seemed to be complete gibberish to me. Especially in classes, I was completely lost in my new surroundings, I couldn't understand a thing people said to me in classes, nor did I know how to ask for help. Being unable to communicate and assimilate into its culture, I refrained from speaking English at school, I became a student without any accompanies.
I was soon placed in the English Language Development program, a place full of students like me. These students spoke with accents and stuttered severely as they read. I lent out my knowledge to correct my classmates' pronunciation mistakes, humming with flourished joy as they learned to say the correct syllables. Knowing that I was able to help my peers, I was inspired to pursue English further. Soon, I envisioned myself becoming just as good as any native English speaker. This dream fueled my desire to become further proficient. My afternoons were spent memorizing vocabulary and phrases, and I put these words into practice by talking with my colleagues during the day. The reluctance in my tone disappeared, and I became capable of holding conversations without any fear. Before completing middle school, I was already out of ELD.
As high school came around, I joined the speech and debate team at my school to prove I was on par with any native English speaker. Having prepared vigorously before going into my first debate tournament, I was ecstatic when the judge gave the win to my side. I knew I had proven to myself and others that I was capable of victory even though English was not my first language. Tasting victory, I was hungry for more. I spent countless hours practicing, honing my skills of rebuttal and counterargument. After winning a multitude of matches, I was promoted to varsity. Now my opponents ask much more difficult questions in cross-examinations, but the once perplexed expression has been replaced with a confident smile; I'm ready to take on the next competitor and any challenge that comes my way.
Perplexion was an emotion I simply couldn't wipe off of my face. Having just moved to America, the learning environment was absolutely overwhelming—I didn't understand a single thing others said to me, and I had no clue how to ask for help. I accepted defeat, resigning to the idea that my English couldn't improve much more, and tried to not speak it as much as I could manage.
But in the English Language Development (ELD) class, I found myself surrounded by students like me, speaking with stutters and heavy accents. Thanks to my English classes in China that put me relatively ahead, I felt for once that I wasn't the weakest link, extending a helping hand to correct their pronunciation mistakes and grammar assignments. Eventually, their accents seemed to dissipate, and their test scores improved. I couldn't help but smile—my efforts paid off in others' improvement.
Knowing that I was able to help others, I figured there's no way I couldn't help myself. With my efforts, I soon envisioned myself becoming just as good as any native English speaker. My afternoons became filled with vocabulary memorization, and my evenings with grammar studies. Something that I never would've even considered, reading books, became a regular and enjoyable usage of my free time. My once-hesitant demeanor in holding conversations turned into that of confidence. To my pleasure, I was out of ELD before even completing middle school.
In my sophomore year, I eagerly joined my school's Speech and Debate team—I hoped that my casual conversational support for watermelon being the best fruit could amount to something greater. After vigorous preparation for the first debate tournament, I was ecstatic when the judge declared my team the winner. But I knew I wasn't done yet.
I spent countless hours practicing, honing my skills of rebuttal and counterargument, and soon found myself promoted to varsity. Whether faced with tough questions during the infamous phase of cross-examination or life in general, a confident smile triumphs over my once-perplexed expression.