Mini Scholarship for July 15 - August 15, 2006

beatthegmat · Last edited by beatthegmat on Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:45 pm; edited 4 times in total

Here's the essay topic for this month's mini scholarship, for July 15 - August 15. This topic comes from the 2006 Stanford MBA application:

What matters most to you, and why?

You can submit your essay response by replying to this discussion thread.

Please review these rules to determine whether you are eligible to participate in this scholarship opportunity. The prize is a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate; one winner will be selected by me and announced on August 16. Please submit your essay by end of day, August 15.

Best of luck! I look forward to reading all of your responses!

beatthegmat · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:25 pm Post subject:

Just a friendly reminder: the deadline to submit an essay is August 15. I'd love to give away this $50 Amazon.com gift certificate this month...

aim-wsc · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 4:46 am Post subject: What matters to me? and why?

This is the first time in my life I am facing this question, explicitly. I never discussed about this issue with anybody nor I had a dedicated brainstroming for the same. But that doesn’t mean I am confused about my life or I don’t do introspection.
Introspection is the art of meditation that analyzes your current situation and allows you to draw a plan for the future. Therefore, every person should use this tool to move up in life. And I must say that such questions force you to think about yourself, your life, your values, what matters to you most.
Let us analyze what are things that I prefer, prefer to do and what matters to me most. In that way I'll get the opportunity to introspect and at the same time I'll get my answers to the given questions.
Everything I do, every move I make has force, it could be within my soul or it could be from the environment, the social system that I am living in.
I work. Why I work? I work for pleasure and I also work for money. But the pleasure part of work is very less. I live in crowded, dim-lit urban area. I to and fro in an ultra-crowded local train. My office environment doesn’t suit me. …still I am working there. Why? Honestly I would not have worked for eight to twelve hours a day without money.
I work for money. Money matters me for security. I have a family and have retired parents I have to look for. Money has to be my first priority. As we all know, money is the medium of trade. You need money to eat, drink, sleep; you need money for everything. From traveling to surfing. YOU NEED MONEY TO LIVE.
So, why I still work there?
Because of the security and the money company provides to me. But when I am concerned about the security, is the money all I can depend on?
NO.
Money won’t solve my parents’ problems, live in countryside. They need a good carpenter to fix the compound gate. The carpenter wont do it just for money he would it because he has healthy relation with my father. Money wont stop local kids to climb on the mango tree and steal some mangoes, we planted at our backyard. My parents have built a respect in community and I have to keep that image intact. I have to behave nicely to people.
One cannot say ‘NO’ to a noble man. So you have to be Noble;... to gain power, to gain security. And that’s where I think the power lies. Power matters for security, assurance.

I said I work for pleasure. And there are other things that I do voluntarily. I also donate money. I do some charity work.
Why I do all this?
Charity donation if I do it openly I get respect in community. But if I do it privately, it's because there’s something good inside me.
You think about ethics when there’s some good inside you. You have your values, I call it individual ethics that you develop as you move along with your life. That means you decide what to do and what not to do, what are the things that you should avoid doing it. That is ethics. You wont bribe anybody you wont filch anything because you know that these are some of things that are considered to be illegal or rather unethical. I keep myself in the line I follow social ethics.
Why?
For gaining social respect! And I need social respect, so that people will treat me nicely. That’s why I behave nicely with people.
And in all this process, I keep a track whether I am not hurting anybody in anyway? If somebody Becomes victim of something awful that occurred due to my moves, it really hurts me.

So, ultimately what matters me most?
I am a social person; I work in social environment; I interact with dozens of people everyday. So I follow the rules made by society. This place, society, PEOPLE, humanity matters me most.

beatthegmat · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject:

The winner of the July-August Monthly Mini Scholarship is aim-wsc! Congratulations--you have won a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate! It sure was easy picking him as this month's winner, given the fact that he was the only person that submitted a response. I hope that next month there will be more participation.

aim-wsc, I wanted to give you some feedback on your essay.

You submitted a very "free-form" essay. What I really liked about your response was that it was raw and sincere. I think one problem that occurs with essays that are overly polished is that the message comes out stale. Your essay was certainly not stale, and I learned a lot about you from it.

Some thing to think about for improvement: while I like your somewhat unpolished style, it can be very hard to follow at times. When I finished reading your essay, I didn't have a good sense of what you were ultimately trying to communicate. In your final paragraph, you state:

aim-wsc · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:56 am Post subject: Thank you.

Thanks beatthegmat for this $50 certificate.

dblazquez · Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:37 am Post subject:

Congratulations aim-wsc!!. Next time I will take part also Smile

aim-wsc · Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:50 pm Post subject:

My acknowledgements: Smile

I must thank to Eric for starting this mini scholarship. Smile

as i said earlier it s a great as well as an innovative idea.
great work Eric.
again thanks to Eric for this perticular Essay.
i would call it Stanford practise essay. forced me to think a bit. Exclamation

also thanks to my niece Supriya.
who typed more than half of my essay ( i was dictating her) Cool

And lastly i must thank Daniel
who was on 29 mark for TWO days and didnt post a single entry in the forum.
thanks Daniel. Laughing

dblazquez · Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:25 pm Post subject:

Hehe the problem was not to post to reach 30 posts... but writting the essay Very Happy

too bad considering that i'm applying to Stanford (yes, i am a dreamer) and i will have to face that piece of hell soon... did you spend a lot of time with it or was it just a "formatted brainstorming"? I like the main ideas (society, people is what matters me) but i'd have tried to use a more formal style... sometimes it is more the transcription of a conversation than an essay. But as you mention, it is a good job of introspection! are you applying to Stanford?

congrats again and thanks to eric!

aim-wsc · Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:06 pm Post subject: Stanford real one.

this essay on beattheGMAT was much easier since it was sort of ^^free-style ^^one.

but on actual stanford Essay. you hv to present yourself.
Your complete self should be portrayed in that essay...your values your priorities ,,,, the essay is not at all short its a heck long essay; it rather makes you feel short :lo:

On other essays,
you usually find it dificult to manage word count IN the line, (on those 500 words essay)...so cut cut & cut it down to make it 500....unlike on stanOne essay where you are asked to write 3-4 pages, at times you feel you re short of good material Sad

So thats the real test.
thanggod that stanford ppl hv removed word restriction...still they hv provided tentetive idea about how long it should go.

dblazquez · Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:13 am Post subject:

Thanks for the follow-up,aim; and don't worry, i won't use the points of your essay Smile

. By the way, if you re-read the usage terms of BeatThGMAT you'll find that Eric holds the intelectual property of all our posts, answers, essays and souls... he is going to use all that crap in his application!!

just kidding! Very Happy

I subscribe aim's petition of more information about Eric Smile

daniel

beatthegmat · Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject: