Newest College Application Essays

Very recently I finished writing a one-act play entitled Michelle. I love to write, but writing this play was often painful. That is what made it different.

I created three characters, each with their own set of oddities, aberrations, and manias....

Suspended on the wall of my fatherâs office is a photograph of someone I once knew well yet now barely recognize, a girl with a thick mane of platinum hair and a bronze, painted face. Images of this girl dance through my memory whenever my eyes...

Light brown autumn leaves blew swiftly across the cracked sidewalk that outlines my oldest brother Lance's house. I stood silently there and stared at him walking down the street, his two year old son Luke trotting at his side. The sun was orange...

For those who start their studies in the U.S. with linguistic disadvantages, AP and IB courses are unattainable dreams. As with many of my fellow international students in California, I could not benefit from the virtues of sophisticated academic...

France is a European fusion of culture, claiming diversely mastered specialties in its many regions and provinces. Crpes, dentelle Bretonne, languedoc, and fromages-mania are all constituent to this cultural synthesis, until you come down to...

1. Although I have a very vague understanding of the University of Chicago, from what I know, I believe it truly satiates all my learning desires. My wishes and anticipations for higher education are mirrored in even the most obvious aspects of...

On November 18, 2000, a group of my friends and I returned home from my birthday dinner at a local steakhouse. Upon our arrival, it was suggested that we watch the movie Fight Club. As if it were meant to be, we discovered that Fight Club was to...

In order to contribute to a community of any size or structure, some aspect of said community must be made better. This can be something as simple as cleaning up refuse or as profound as changing the way people live their lives. Regardless of the...

Hyperlexia. This is a term that very few people have heard of, but it is a term that I have become intimately acquainted with. Though it is shrouded in mystery, I have grown to know it frighteningly well, better than anything on this earth. I know...

I have always considered my self-employment as a private piano teacher to be my single greatest contribution, not only to my students but to myself. I began giving lessons as a freshman, after several family friends expressed interest in having...

As a teenage girl with hyperlexia - a communications disorder that causes some social problems - my life has had its share of interesting challenges. Although my disorder is not nearly as severe as it was during my childhood, it has left some...

Reading at a young age, I am told, is the best way to sharpen a developing mind. In the months leading up to the presidential elections in November of 1992, I was a seven-year-old with an undiagnosed case of attention deficit disorder and a...

My experiences with cultural diversity, while not necessarily limited to one particular event, have had a great impact on my life - most notably in fostering my fascination with world languages. Growing up in a half-Italian, half-Serbian home, I...

On July 1, 2001, the summer before my sophomore year, I was introduced to the University of Michigan's All-State Piano Program at Interlochen. Since I had never attended All-State, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Little did I know that this...

A petite young woman sits in the obstetrician's office, her four-year-old daughter in her lap. The little girl is restless yet unable to extricate herself from her mother's arms due to cerebral palsy. Both mother and daughter wear worried...

The pianist walks gracefully up the steps to the stage. She sits at the piano bench, adjusts the skirt of her white dress, and places her hands on the keyboard. She then begins to play. The simple, lyrical piece is unfamiliar to the audience, but...

They say "Patience is a virtue" and "Good things come to those who wait". I believe better versions of those statements are "Passion is a virtue" and "Good things come to those who work". These modified mottos are an explanation of who I am and...

On my first day of ninth grade, I stepped into my Spanish 1 classroom - a long, narrow room with desks arranged in a few rows backed by a wall covered in colorful posters. I had waited for years to take the opportunity to learn a foreign language,...

Kristina Roelefs was born on Christmas Day to parents who loved the arts - her mother was an actress and singer, and her father was a music professor. As a baby and toddler, not surprisingly, Kristina loved to "sing" along with her mother and...

I went home the other night, my mind full of ideas, words, and lines from a play.

Excitedly, I began to explain my outlook to those who would hear me. "It doesn't matter," I said with a smile on my face, "none of this matters." My audience was much...

One late Saturday afternoon, my friend Amelia and I were completely ravenous so I decided to order a pizza, not realizing how significantly that one pie could change not only the course of my day, but also my outlook on life. After shamelessly...

My life is filled with hantai, or opposites: potatoes and rice, forks and chopsticks, Bachan and Nana, and an English first name and a Japanese last name. When I was younger, it never occurred to me that I was any different than any of my...

I consider myself a food enthusiast. That is, I love food in all of its aspects; the obvious nutiritional significance, the delightful variations in flavor and texture, the cultural connections, and sometimes even the visual beauty of it. One may...

Admissions Board: In order to convey as much information as possible to you, I have written an essay that will help give an idea about what I am interested in, how I serve my peers and community, and the types of experiences that really stick in...