Newest College Application Essays

It was time for me to go. I didn’t think it could get any more complicated than it was but it did I timidly shuffled into the daunting assembly room of a church to approach a rather unwelcoming judge panel. My heart raced as the heat from the...

NUDE PHOTOS FOUND ON MAYOR MEGAN BARRY’S BODYGUARD'S PHONE. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NASHVILLE MAYOR MEGAN BARRY. HOT POLITICIAN SCANDAL.

So read the bold headlines of national newspapers, claiming a cinema-worthy political mishap in hopes of...

He busted through the black doors of the Taekwondo studio running around screaming. I caught him and told him this was no place for mischief. Consequently, his cold, hard saliva slapped me across my face and he took off.

He was not the first...

“You’re not easy to figure out,” they say. I tell them I am the strength of Hancock, the wit of Tony Stark, the brain of Dr. Brown and the mystery of Anton Chigurh.

People find friends in novels, but I found myself in movies. Everything I do,...

The sound of the bullet pierced the air like a 'banger' set off on Independence Day. From my bedroom window, I saw mother slump to the ground. My leaden lips trapped my scream within me. Why did nobody rush to her side? Where was Friday, our...

Who was this strange woman and why did she know my name?

The muscles in my body turned rigid as she stooped low to embrace me. A familiar scent flooded my nostrils. "Mum?" I pulled away and, awe-stricken, scrutinized the face of the stranger for...

Tables made from charred wooden slabs filled the cavernous hall. The air smelt distinctly of pumpkin seeds and fermenting palm wine. The strains of Fela’s ‘beast of no nation’ could hardly be heard for the clamorous chatter of men and women who...

Fifty naira is the price of a child's chin-chin snack pack; the payment given to a roadside tailor for complicated repairs; the worth of a palm-sized carton of guava juice. Fifty naira is, technically, the equivalent of a seventh of a dollar...

There was an intruder in my home; I was certain of it. I held my breath and pushed open my bedroom door slowly. A wave of foreign, discordant sounds struck me where I secretly crouched, turning my muscles to stone. But when I summoned the courage...

She greets me from her permanent abode whenever I return to my bedroom: chunky African braids trailing over her shoulders as she tilts her head to stare. I wonder, sometimes, if she blames me for what I did to her. She looked quite different when...

It begins with a dark cerulean sky eerily illumined by forks of lightning. To a visitor, this might be an ordinary thunderstorm, but the locals exchange anxious looks and murmur "Nne tse logun": the rains are coming.

As a child, I looked forward...

When my grandmother arrived in the Nigerian village of Nowa for the first time, women wearing nothing but dyed fabrics tied around their waists danced in procession behind the vehicle that my newly wedded grandfather drove. My grandmother tells me...

At 5:00am my blissfully dark world was shattered by the indignant cries of Nne, the woman who looked after me while my mother worked. At 6:00am I was hauled into the bath tub where a bucket and a smooth, coloured bowl - not elegant, working taps -...

Hell's marching band. I suppress a wince as the sound of cymbals ushers Lizzy and me into alien territory. The entrance door swings shut behind us and we shuffle in, breaths drawn. Two dozen heads turn to stare. A man with a jagged scar across his...

I came of age underneath the faded awnings of stalls that sold peppers and crayfish; boiled pears and ripe ears of corn. The older women smiled at me as I, surreptitiously, tried to avoid the animal droppings that littered the market roads. Theirs...

On September 25, 2010, my parents agreed that shaving my head would be an effective disciplinary measure against my growing indifference towards my studies. It was a scaldingly hot day in Lagos. My mother drove down the old Ikoyi bridge that would...

As Tai moved through the strange garden, scarcely breathing in wonderment, I moved with him. When Tai’s classmates mocked him for drinking tea with his grandmother instead of attending sporting events, I flinched as though I was the recipient of...

A single road escapes from the bustle of the commercial corridor that is Raymond Njoku Street. This lesser known road leads into a neighbourhood known as ‘Manuwa’. Here, wooden kiosks that sell soap, bread, and mosquito-repellant coils are the...

At 12:05 she emerged at the door of the classroom. In her hands she held my future, and yet, with an irreverence that made me flinch, she shook out the folded sheet she held in two brisk motions as she entered. “Here are the results of the class...

Thursday afternoons in Edgewood College were synonymous with several things: assessment tests, pans of limp spaghetti in the vast dining hall, and the constant whir of the gardener’s mowing machine. However, these seemed pale in comparison to the...

Look at her.

I swallowed nervously and raised my eyes to regard the figure before me. A girl stared back at me with an expression of sorrow etched into her features. As I raised my hands to my cheeks, she did too, flinching as my fingertips...

They stand idly in rectangular packages, dull and ashy underneath the fluorescent lights of the neighbourhood shop. No one else would buy them but I do. When I am prepared to embark upon an artistic project, I unveil my unlikely tools. I begin...

I sat quietly at my desk on the morning of September 4th, 2005, steeling myself for my first day of second grade. Thus far, I had managed to deflect my classmates’ earnest conversation attempts, and my seeming indifference made them wonder about...

Above the clouds, on the peak of the mountain, I stand, overlooking the vast silhouette of slopes and trees, contemplating the infinite possibilities of routes to take.

I watch other skiers play “follow the leader” down the groomed trails,...