My LMU College Application Essay: Our Hardest Moments Teach Us The Most

Below is the essay I submitted to LMU when applying. It's one of the most reflective and emotional essays I've ever written.

LMU’s Application Question:

Critical thinking is a central goal of Jesuit education, and at LMU you'll be asked to think critically and intensively in every class. Dr. King suggests that critical thinking results in our ability to inform intelligence with character and strengthen character with intelligence. Please talk about a situation that demanded critical thinking from you, and how your choices or decisions integrated intelligence and character.

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By: Jackson Miller

*some names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved*

It had dumped snow the night before. My dad and I are walking from the parking garage to the hospital’s automatic doors. They open. We pass through the turnstiles and check in with the security attendant. He asks us for our IDs, takes our fingerprints, hands us our name tags, and gives us directions to the children’s psychiatric ward.

“Who are you here for?” asks a doctor the moment the elevator doors open.

Behind him is a scene of utter chaos. The first thing that catches my eye is a ten-year-old kid crying hysterically. Many of the kids are crying or screaming, and they’re all wearing maroon jumpsuits as if it were a prison.

“I’m here for my friend Josh.”

“Come with me.”

We pass through three locked doors. A metal wall opens up and, like a scene out of Star Wars, we walk through it. Another set of doors to get to the common area. Another kid screaming hysterically. Another beep. Another door. Finally, we arrive at Josh’s room. The guard reminds us we’re being watched, and promises he’ll come for us “if anything happens.” He leaves the room and locks the door behind him.

It had been the biggest snowstorm in decades in Seattle, but Josh didn’t realize it had snowed at all. They had just opened his blinds for the first time in four days. In his maroon jumpsuit, he looked as physically and emotionally exhausted as a person could look, as if he had been crying for four straight days.

Josh was granted one item from outside the hospital and chose a soccer ball. With every step he took, the ball was right there at his feet. He was the captain and MVP of our soccer team and clearly didn’t like missing practice.

Two weeks earlier, I received a call from an unknown number. It was Josh calling from the hospital with little explanation as to how he got there. He told me that he tried to overdose by taking 6 Xanax pills at once.

“This place is a glorified prison. I hate it. But I know I need to be here.”

As I was his closest friend at the time, I was the guy Josh called when his situation became dire. The pressure of supporting Josh while maintaining confidentiality subsumed me. I had to be aware, alert, and responsive, but time was limited so I could not overthink my decisions. I had to act fast based on what I knew about Josh and what I believe he needed. Meanwhile, I was terrified for my friend’s life. I was so scared that if anything went wrong it would be all my fault. In spite of all those fears, I had no choice but to stay as composed as I could be and be the best friend I could be.

As Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrates, building character requires making sacrifices. As I was going through this traumatic experience with my best friend, I had to make my own sacrifices. When I’d receive secret calls for help from Josh I would need to abruptly leave social situations with our mutual friends and family with no explanation whatsoever. I had to temporarily abandon every aspect of my own life to focus on his situation. I could not focus in the classroom during the hardest academic period of high school. I could not keep it together mentally on the soccer field either, constantly remembering my teammate who was not present.

Josh called me on the day he was dismissed from the hospital to tell me that he had been “released from prison.” In the months that followed, I reflected on those traumatic events. In addition to having that experience, I now have the wisdom to analyze my own emotional intelligence. I saw and accepted that I was not perfect. I had toed a dangerous line in always dropping everything for Josh and reinforcing a cycle of dependence. I requested to my parents that I could seek the help of a therapist to iron out my emotions. I learned that emotional intelligence means knowing when and how to put up boundaries so that the cycle of dependence doesn’t persist. At the time, the way I treated Josh was probably the best I could’ve done for him, but I’m now mature enough to recognize that I had been neglecting self-care. To truly care for others we must also look out for ourselves.

Even though our soccer team ended up losing in the state tournament, I have never felt a greater sense of triumph than when Josh got the game-winning assist in overtime to send home our rivals in the district tournament, sending us to state. All that juggling in his hospital room must’ve paid off.