Newest College Application Essays

The hill is too tall. That’s what my friends said. That’s what everybody said. Which is exactly why I tried to climb it.

Every Saturday morning I would begin my workout by biking around Walnut, making sure to stop by Norman Boulevard, a street...

Rolling fields of sunflowers stretch to each horizon. Every step you take you can hear the crunch of dried leaves that have recently drifted off the branches hanging above your head. There is not an inch of landscape that does not exude red,...

Click.

“Alright, perfect.” I announce, looking down at my camera to peruse through the pictures I had just captured. The model in front of me wore a meticulously curated outfit of my choosing: a muted rainbow of varied sportswear, accompanied by...

I inched closer with silent footsteps, holding my breath… and Click! As the moment froze in my camera, the sparrows whizzed past and flew into the trees.

My tryst with photography began many years ago upon discovering the old 35mm Leica in Dad’s...

“Just do it!” suggested Benjamin Graham’s ‘The Intelligent Investor’, resulting in my impulsive foray into the dynamic world of stock market investment.

“Just do it!” my camera yelled at my shy self. Seconds later I mustered the courage to request...

“A girl walked along the beach tossing marooned starfish back into the sea. How could she possibly save them all? Why try when the act seemed futile? A man discouraged her from her task but she ignored his opposition.”

I heard this story at one of...

What makes a human tick? The brain, the mind, the personality? Why do we act the way that we do? How do we sense and perceive the world around us?

I am an inquisitive person. A trait I believe to be very important in the field of psychology. I...

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...

The best way to learn is through blood, sweat, and a little bit of vomit. Prior to my relatively new experiences in EMS I always believed that the classroom was where you learned and the real world is where you apply your skills. 150 hours of...

I was in second grade the first time someone told me my words meant something. Eight years old with a state winning story! That was the little spark that started my love, and ever since then, I have wanted to reach into minds and whisper...

“The 1880s are when art gets interesting,” the boy in the airport agrees with me. He had just sheepishly told me he sometimes goes on and on about art to his girlfriend on FaceTime, which was probably a subtle clue for me, but I was nonplussed and...

Our Pre-K classroom was in a trailer outside the actual school. Public school budgeting. But Mrs. Ellis made do, decorating with colorful posters and animal silhouettes. The floor was laced with floor mats that we were each assigned to. I sat in...

The alarm heralding the dawn becomes redundant as a mix of dread and excitement has kept me up all night. It’s 5 am. Today I will compete in my third Junior National Equestrian Championship in Pune at the National Defence Academy.

I’ve determined...

At Waffle House, the waiter asks where I go and I reply, “Brookstone.” He scoffs, “Heh, the rich kid private school.”By reputation, Brookstone is full of kids that grew up with cotillion manners, groomed for debutante balls, settled in gated...

I didn’t understand what street lights were until I was about eight. Still, some of my earliest memories are of street lamps. Growing up, I clearly remember seeing blurry beacons of light suspended in the dark. In the daytime, the seemingly...

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...

The mayor named it Uptown. It’s really just downtown. Take Exit One, go sixty down Second Avenue until you hit Broadway. We are downtown kids, brought together by those brick buildings a street over, home of our beloved Springer Theatre Academy....

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...

My independence began with a walk.

One morning, instead of bursting into my mom’s room and shaking her awake to drive me to school, I quietly inched the door open. As I peeked down at a silhouette curled up in a fluffy mess of blankets, I couldn't...

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...

Moshing - the arm flailing, leg kicking dancing that happens at hardcore concerts. And I mosh with my parents, of all people. As you can imagine, they weren’t too keen on the idea of their 13-year-old daughter “turning emo”. I developed a love for...

All I heard was giggles coming from my classmates as my name was announced back during my middle school graduation ceremony. Mr. Raleigh, my eighth-grade geometry teacher, had nominated me for the “Human Calculator” award. As I embarrassingly yet...