Newest College Application Essays

“I believe as many as [three] impossible things before breakfast.” – Alice in Wonderland

One: I can save the world.

Converting tattered t-shirts into headbands, I am already looking ahead to “upcycling” tires. Additionally, I give as much time as...

The dazzling stage lights blocked out the members of the audience, momentarily blinding me. With sweaty palms, I bowed deeply towards the crowd, symbolically expressing my gratitude. I walked slowly off the wooden stage, my long, white gown...

Picture the scene. I, a young high school girl, walk into a reputable college's biomathematics laboratory. I have high hopes of finding several successful women walking around the lab, women I would be able to call my mentors for the summer. After...

They call it free falling for a reason. There’s something liberating that comes with taking the plunge, but that sense of freedom didn’t come easily for me.

My sophomore year of high school, I joined the Durango High School’s dive team. Our...

Here you find a wild Kirby in her natural habitat.

~ My hair still damp and smelling of chlorine, a product of summer’s first swim, I settle into the armchair’s cool leather embrace. Sipping iced coffee and gazing out the window I mentally prepare...

Why does the Northeast have a reputation for an uptight, academic attitude, and why is the Midwest considered one of the most relaxed places in the US? What are the origins of so-called "Southern Hospitality," and is this concept even close to the...

“Would you like fries with that?” Very few, if any, aspire to say that phrase at any age, but I’ve been lucky enough to have been saying it since I turned fourteen. Almost every teenager loathes getting a first job, but for me working at McDonald’...

Comparing unlike objects usually comes down to using a scoring system of sorts. So it is that teachers in school grade essays, adjudicators in jazz festivals evaluate performances, and judges in Iron Chef America score dishes. For my part, I will...

As a kid, I loved traffic jams, since they meant playing ‘The License Plate Game’ with my dad. The rules are simple: chose a license plate on a car and find a meaning or a pattern in those numbers and letters. For example, if a woman in her mid...

My mother’s rehearsed speech about how “Tiffany became interested in business because I took her along to see my financial advisor” is not entirely true. Although I found my mother’s financial consultation sessions interesting and felt flattered...

I select Grace Lee Boggs to delve with me into the origins and implications of radical activism. As a self-identified writer, activist, and philosopher, Boggs embodies the character and tenacity I hope to evolve in myself and in my investigations...

As American journalist Sydney J. Harris once said, “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” When asked why I want to study journalism at Ohio University, my answer is just that: I want to turn mirrors into windows.

It took...

I don't know what possessed her to do it, but at the of end sophomore year, after we read Julius Caesar, Mrs. Freda decided to assign her classes a video project. At the time, Andin was also in this class, so it just seemed natural to work...

I remember the first Tuesday I stepped into the hall of the church. The raucous noise of children playing was quickly quieted by Jake, our youth group leader, as he led fifty teenagers in solemn prayer. As everyone bowed their heads to pray, I...

For more than three generations, my family has answered the call of elected public office. My father served in the State Legislature, my Grandfather and Great Grandfather as locally elected officials. Most teenagers my age have a passion for...

Each of our plates was piled high with crab legs, easily the best part of the buffet, our taste buds descended from the seafood rich island that had raised us. We passed around the poor quality plastic crackers, at first, patience feeding off of...

I will not stop dancing until each of my toes fall off. I am currently waiting on the sixth toe to take a turn for the worse.

I have an intense relationship with dance. I have been dancing on a competitive team since I was twelve— meaning that I...

To many, it may seem farfetched to associate the feeling of being perfectly content with a sport as salty as fishing, but not to me. The way the cork grip of a fishing rod gingerly held between my fingers instills the feeling of being so...

There was one playground not too far from my grandparents' apartment in Cairo (the summer home of my childhood) where I wasn't treated like the quirky, abnormal kid that I was used to being. It wasn't your ideal picture of a playground, though....

Chabela sits across from me with a nearly finished cigarette pursed between her wrinkled lips. As she watches me, I pour myself a cup of coffee and butter the one slice of white sandwich bread I’m allowed to consume each morning. My head is foggy...

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

--Hippocrates

I am fortunate to have grown up in a medical family: my grandfather and his brothers are traditional Chinese medical doctors. In fact, since my parents took...

One hundred and forty-eight years ago, in the midst of exile on the island of Guernsey, Victor Hugo narrated these words – “Whatever the goal may be, in earth or in heaven, the whole secret lies in proceeding to that goal” – in his novel The...

My first love affair was longer than thirty pages; it had no thirty-point font; it did not include any colorful illustrations. In the summer of third grade I read Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I was awed at the size of the thing; I mean, I could barely...