Newest College Application Essays

At my school, AP U.S. History has a reputation all its own - difficult, lengthy, overbearing. Still, in comparison to the teacher’s notoriety, the class seems like a piece of cake. You would have thought The Imitation Game was based on the way...

I have two homes, and they could not be more different.

My life in futurism-crazed Dubai is punctuated by my summers, which are spent amid the feeble cleanliness systems and lack of robust infrastructure endemic to places like Kolkata. This...

“I hate coming to this school.” I vividly remember overhearing during the first week at my new school. I couldn't believe someone would say such a thing in America. Back in Japan, students certainly complained about school but never with such...

At the School of Engineering, I hope to concentrate in Mechanical Engineering. I am currently considering the energy conversion or structures tracks.Brown’s program would give me a solid grounding in mechanical and thermal systems, as well as the...

I glared at the plastic contraption before me and tried one last time to summon any telekinesis powers.

Nope. Nothing. The device’s arm stubbornly oscillated at a regular pace, like a mocking tongue across a palate. I sighed dejectedly and shut...

When I was in eighth grade, during the 2012 Presidential Election, I ran to represent President Obama in my American History class’ mock election. Despite the obvious differences between the President and myself, I believed that with preparation,...

If given the opportunity to sit down with any woman and converse for an hour, I would select Jeanine Tesori, the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Original Score. Tesori is credited with composing the musicals Fun Home, Thoroughly Modern...

I can’t draw, I don’t paint, and I certainly can’t dance, but I can still create art. Video editing is a an art of supreme sensitivity and I have been developing my skills since I was 13 years old. Movies and videos have the power to make you...

Carefully, I move the probe around the patient’s belly. Sliding it on top of piles of gel that I had generously poured until suddenly everyone can hear it…Lub.dub...Lub.dub. Tears of joy roll down my patient’s eyes as she listens to the rhythmic...

From the age of seven, when I first stepped off the train at Grand Central Station and took in a performance of Les Miserables with my mother, there has not been a doubt in my mind that my future would lead me to New York City. With time, the...

On the 23rd floor, in the midst of darkness and a sea of repetitive buildings, I breathed freely through the footage I was editing. I was inhaling fear and exhaling joy as I trimmed through the videos in symphony with the emotions of the scene....

Salmon Point beach and campground in Bridgton, Maine on that early summer morning was idyllic, with maroon picnic tables staggered along the lake’s edge and sand bridging the distance. A simplistic playground with a swing set and some monkey bars...

“There is a one percent chance of rain,” my camp counselors told us as we packed for our overnight. We threw in just what we needed, leaving our raincoats behind.

The next day, after a trek through the beautiful Yosemite backcountry, it began to...

Among the rooms in our small old house, the one at the extreme is aroom I find banal. A room lacking luster, with very small woodenwindows that barely lets light rays in; no one placed value on it. OneSaturday, my mum told me to clean the room for...

In the fifth grade, I touched a human brain. The children in my enrichment program clustered around the sterile table with little regard for the stench of formaldehyde that engulfed us. Granted, much of the interest we showed can be attributed to...

In 1964, Norman Rockwell produced his famous painting, The Problem We All Live With. This iconic Civil Rights Era piece depicts six-year-old Ruby Bridges, the first African American child to attend an all-white elementary school, being escorted by...

When I was younger, lions were my favorite animal (that coveted title, for anyone interested, is now occupied by the raccoon). I dressed up as a lion for four Halloweens in a row, I had perfected a roar which I believed to be intimidating, and my...

“I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.” Brian Greene, as quoted in This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and...

As my thoughts drifted through Geometry class, I was startled with a loud “BANG!” My classmate slams to the ground like a sack of potatoes, after crashing her head onto her desk. Her body begins shaking uncontrollably; her legs and arms were like...

Official time of death: 9:03 PM. Cause of death: Age.

Even if you live a healthy life and take plenty of vitamins, age will always be the final killer. However, recent studies have discovered a possible alternative to stretch life spans through an...

Dare to be weird.

It’s a simple philosophy, really. Writing-wise, I’ve never been content with clichés, and I try to avoid sappy at all cost. I yearn to craft unique plots and make people see things in new ways—I dare to be weird. I was never able...

Is it weird to say that an 84-year-old woman keeps me young?

My Grandma Nan may have arthritis, bad eyesight, and a couple of new knees, but she is an unstoppable bundle of geriatric energy. Her age is merely a number that keeps her humming show...

One Way Out of Gym, the mystery of a murdered gym teacher, is not a timeless classic. It’s a novel that spent zero weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List. There’s only one copy—I published it myself. Few care about Detective Charley or the...

With six layers on, I waddled out the door, feeling and looking like an oompa loompa. My mother had dressed me in layer after layer, and, begrudgingly, I had allowed myself to be smothered with an array of puffy jackets and scarves. The weather...