Newest College Application Essays

This was it, the moment of truth. All that was going through my head was, “Please don’t forget your lines, please don’t sing a wrong note, please don’t mess up; so many people are watching you.” I felt like my heart was going to pop out of my...

At my home, it sometimes feels like “angle of refraction”, “thin films”, and “escape velocity” are as common as “hello”, “thank you”, and “go to sleep”. That's what you get when your parents are both professors in engineering. When I ask a single...

I dip my upper body to form an acute angle with my lap, unsticking my shirt from the sweat on my chest. My throat burns almost as if I had eaten an entire ghost pepper. I knew this was going to happen—I had run with my students yesterday as well.

“Oh d-d-d-d-dear, dear!”

Among the lush trees of the Hundred Acre Woods, a little stuffed pig named Piglet searches for his friends. Despite being a tiny ball of anxiety, he displays remarkable amounts of compassion and fortitude whenever his...

Is she moody... or just broody? An obstacle course game should do the trick. Let’s also add some dried mealworms to the mix!

Every day, my pet chickens surprise me with their unique personalities and quirky behaviors, whether they are gracefully...

I have learned to never take myself too seriously; after all, it's hard to keep a straight face when I tell someone I lead my school's vegetarian club. Yet the vegetarian club has allowed me to raise awareness about topics I genuinely care about—...

“This weekend we’ll be travelling to Auburn. Please make sure you sign up on the spreadsheet if you wish to compete!”

Click.

“If the U.S. were to crack down on the grey market for software vulnerabilities, it would decrease IP theft of military...

There it is in front of me: a box, its edges carefully encased in a glossy white wrapping paper. The exterior is plain and simple—she loves things minimalistic. Inside, an ambient light in the shape of a mystical creature glows her favorite color....

ASSIGNMENT: Simulate a disaster victim. My home was destroyed by a hurricane. We hurry into a disaster relief shelter set up by the Red Cross. We are handed a care package with a meal and a toothbrush. My mind races as I try to understand the...

Rolling a suitcase through the Morning Heights gates with a backpack slung over my shoulder, the view ahead of me is bright. Through College Walk, undergraduate students pace past me to catch the subway on 116th St. The breeze from their stride,...

The world would have us believe that there is nothing inherently significant about Legos. The simple fact that millions of people grew up with Legos as a part of their childhood does not devalue or minimize my own experience. Rather, I think my...

The off-white, slimy cube looked back at me with a concentrated gaze that matched my own. I tentatively picked up my fork, poked its side, and watched it jiggle and sway under my fork’s careful teasing. “The time has come,” I thought to myself. “...

The year is 2025, and you are standing in the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. You hear the lyrics “come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be,” blaring through the stadium and Kurt Cobain is standing 5 feet away from you. He...

“You’re too stupid to go to college!” my mother screams at me as I help my two sisters with their homework. I have already made dinner for my whole family and cleaned the mess my mom left in the kitchen. She is finally home after sneaking off to...

Throughout high school, entrepreneurial spirit has always driven me to turn ideas into realities. My endeavors ranged from arranging rhetoric workshops through a non-profit organization and eventually establishing my own organization to host...

Your world seems to fall here. Air so cold and fingers so numb, you would barely know when it happened. But you do. As your grip slips, it takes only seconds before you realize. Gravity unforgivingly pulls you from your scull and into the frigid...

The city of Chicago derives its moniker from the Algonquin word for “smelly onion”. Accordingly, the University of Chicago translates to the “University of Smelly Onion”. Although a somewhat unbecoming name for one of the world’s premier...

“Don’t turn the flip flop upside down!” I heard my grandmother let out a screech, that truly, could have awoken the dead had my mother not briskly calmed her down. Weird, I thought to myself. It was only a brown leather flip flop that my brother...

I come from a world where canvases are stacked higher than dishes, dirty paint brushes line the sink, and stained jeans are merely accepted side effects of artist's syndrome. All this is expected when my sister is a painting major and my parents...

One of the most difficult challenges I faced was overcoming the loss of my friendship with Ana—a friend who had crawled into my life in the seventh grade and disappeared in my freshman year. Her disappearance had certainly not been the most...

I have an affinity for magnificent endings. The final words of a novel, the last bite of a salted caramel chocolate bar, or the teetering crescendos of a timpani at the end of a grand symphony by Beethoven are just a few examples. When life...

I have no idea why freshman me signed up for debate. However, I marked a check next to “DEBATE1” on my tentative schedule because it seemed like the thing nerdy kids do and I most definitely am a nerdy kid. My first time competing at a debate...

“No—No! Wrong place!” a European man shouted from his Hyundai window, pointing up the steep incline. We knew we hadn’t seen any other bikers for miles, but we were determined and ignored his admonition. The 35 pounds of equipment strapped to the...

Book 1: Jurassic Park

This was the first book I read that combined math with action and portrayed the mathematician as a hero, which made me hopeful about my professional future—but did give me unusual, dinosaur-infested nightmares.

Book 2: Der...