My College Application Essay

I first wrote this essay several months ago when I began applying for colleges.  I was asked to describe a passion in my life and I unquestionably chose politics.  Well now the college decisions are rolling around and I felt it would be a good time to post this.  

My math skills are, to say the least, underwhelming.  Decent, sure, but suffice it to say, John Nash or Stephen Hawking I am not.  But while the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences may overlook my name as they are considering the next recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, I take pride in the fact that I devote my life, not to the abstract and theoretical, but to the personal and real.  For the great passion in my life is one that affects every individual in the nation, if not the world...politics.
For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the game of politics.  Though the elation of election night for me has often...more than often...been eclipsed by sorrow, I continue returning to this strangely addictive "game."  While I, for some odd reason or another, take great pleasure in musing over the latest polling data, reviewing electoral strategy, and memorizing the congressional delegation of Indiana, I do not enter into this sport simply for the fun.  There is a greater goal in what I love, for this "game" has the power to do the unthinkable, change the unchangeable, and give hope to even the most desperate.
I have attended school for over two-thousand, two-hundred, and twenty days as of this writing, never missing a single day.  In that time, I have been privileged to attend some of the finest learning institutions in the country and have had numerous teachers impact my life in unimaginable ways.   Yet there are students, my age, who can barely read and write, who attend classes in down-trodden, dilapidated buildings, and who have never been inspired by that special teacher.  They are why I am interested in politics.
Ironically, I live literally down the street from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California.  Though it stands in stark contrast to my political views, my town is one of the safest areas to live in the entire nation.  From the Blue Ribbon schools, to the spacious parks, to the strong sense of community, my town is a town any American would be proud to call home.  Yet there are people in this same country who live in slums and barrios, where fear has far too powerful a grip on their lives.  They are why I am interested in politics.
I was born with two of the most caring and nurturing parents any child could hope for.  They taught me much more than how to read or how to ride a bike; they instilled in me my core beliefs and values; that you should defend the defenseless, protect the unprotected, and to look down on someone only when you are putting out your hand to help them up.  Yet, I know someone who has not grown up with nurturing and loving parents.  He lives in an understaffed, under funded group home, the politically correct term for an orphanage.  And despite his hardships and overwhelming obstacles he still faces, his drive to succeed and his outlook on life would astound anyone.  He is why I am interested in politics.
There is so much more that can be done.  And though I am by no means the smartest or most eloquent, I pride myself on being fiercely determined to see what should be changed.  I hope that one day I can become involved in the world of politics for our political system is a system that affects us all, most notably, those who have not enjoyed as blessed a life as mine.  They are why I love politics.

Sometimes we need something to remind us why we love what we love.  From electoral math, to polling data, to electoral strategy, it’s easy to get caught up in the game.  But it’s the ability to change the nation, and world, and right what is wrong that we are drawn to.