My answer to MSU's personal statement question.

"If you feel that your high school record does not accurately represent your academic abilities, please explain why. Include and discuss particular extenuating circumstances that may have contributed to any scholastic challenges. "

For the longest time, I never did well in school. I had always been determined to be bright, but unmotivated. Perhaps I was unmotivated, perhaps I was bored because I wasn't challenged, the reason is still unclear.

I am also diagnosed with a mental illness. I have been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. I had spent many years of my life struggling with it, and it affected my ability to do school work. I was distracted most of the time, and not much could hold my interest. I choose to remind you now, though, that John Forbes Nash, Jr. - who is one of my heroes – won the Nobel Prize, and was also diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

I have been stable now for several years. Doctors who see me now say that I am one of the highest functioning schizophrenics they have ever seen. I manage my illness very well and am able to work around it.

One of the biggest differences between me in school before, and me in school now, is that now I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I spend most of my time while not in class studying. I want to learn everything about everything. I know that this is an impossible goal.

Now, I find a way to like all of my classes. That is easy to do when simply information is enough to keep me motivated. I push myself to do well in every class, and to retain all of that information beyond the end of the class.

While I have not taken the ACT or the SAT, I have had my IQ tested. I took the WAIS and received a score of 151. Based on statistics, nearly 0% of people who measure this high fail to graduate high school. I fall into that small percentage. I wish for nothing more now than to achieve academic success in the field that I am the most passionate about.

I have been fascinated by astrophysics since I was in the 7th grade. Our class broke into groups, and each got a planet in the Solar System to do a project on. I asked if I could do my own project, and I was granted my request. I decided to do black holes instead. I was absolutely entranced.  Ever since, it has been my passion. I could study it for the rest of my life.