Jason used the following essay in his applications to Harvard and Yale. The essay prompt was something to the effect of: Describe an experience that has shaped the way you have grown personally and intellectually. PS：留学e网为DIY留学的学生整理了各类留学文书范文模板供学生们参考，下载地址：
They Got Me Too
I sat in the middle of the third row at the closing ceremony for the 1995 NJ Governors School of the Arts — a fittingly mediocre seat, considering my mood at the time. Everyone around me seemed to have bonded in friendship over the past month. The dancer in front of me sobbing into her friend's shoulder must have had a spiritual experience. But here I was, in the very center, unable to share the nostalgic vibes. Why wasn't I as emotional as the rest of them?
An experience was finished that I had dreamt of since fourth grade, when my sister attended the School for dance. I remembered her description of a great magic trick in the student "Coffeehouse" of her Governor's School that had piqued my interest so long before. I suddenly felt much older. I now sat on the other side of the fence, looking back. I had practiced hard on trombone, auditioned, been selected, and performed my own magic trick in the Coffehouse. My dream had come true, and passed. As director Jack McCullough was saying in his speech, I was now a Governor's School alumnus. Where did that leave me? Stranded.
Words failed me for good-byes to my friends. I only felt a strong impulse to leave the building before my friends could see how unmoved I was. Avoiding eye contact, Istrode back to my family and urged them to leave with me. My mother, noticing something unfulfilled in my expression, asked, "Are you sure?"
Taking one last survey of the auditorium, I spotted Dr. William Silvester, the director of the Wind Ensemble (the group in which I had played trombone) on the stage. He was a giant man, so tall his body bowed outwards around the center like an exaggerated Greek column. Everyone liked "Doc." When the candy machine next to the rehearsal room had swallowed someone's money one day, he tilted and shook the entire half-ton unit until the candy came free. This was a man to whom I could say a heartfelt good-bye. When I got to Dr. Silvester, he pulled my handshake into a bearhug. With that hug, my flak jacket of machismo ripped open.
The bridge of my nose stung as my eyelids overflowed with tears. Here was the man to whom I had given more respect in a month than I have most people in seventeen years. The bond that had developed between us as I focused all my energy on him in rehearsals, glowed brilliantly. Memories of his intensity matching my own, during the climax of Esprit de Corps, flashed through my eyes as I hugged him back. I had played the notes that he could not reach from his conductor's stand. In return, he had become the grandfather that I never knew; he was my mentor — my sensei.
Ashamed of my tears. I left without a word and sneaked to a bathroom to dry my face. New tears mixed with water from the tap as I tried to douse my eyes. In my mind I relived (he rush of crushing out a low Ab in Symphonic Metamorphosis as Dr. Silvester pantomimed the note —jaw dropped, head lowered, eyes intense, and hand poised upward as if crushing a bowling ball. I recalled matching his grand vision of Armenian Dances with my sound. I could not erase the tears from such an intense experience, so I wore them as a badge of honor instead.
Outside in the auditorium, a fellow scholar said, "They got you too, huh?" She was right, and it's a good thing they did "get me." I might have just done some magic tricks, met some cool friends, played trombone in a good band, and left Governor's School in a hurry, my macho exterior unruffled by the experience. Instead, my reluctant tears revealed to me how powerful a bond I had formed with Dr. Silvester through the music.
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