Newest College Application Essays

I got lost.

Learning Calculus BC had been a somewhat predictable process of applying rules and formulas, until I met Taylor series. A quirky combination of X, N, derivatives, and factorials, it overwhelmed me with such a bombastic look.

Yes, I...

When the glorious makeup conceals my nerdy look, when the shiny spotlight embraces my entire body, and when I dance with my hair floating in midair, I turn into a different person.

Originally an amateur who loved to imitate dances in music...

“Honey, do you mind teaching my friends and me to dance?” Asked my grandmother in a thoughtful tone.

“Ok, no problem,” I answered without a second thought. Confident in my experiences, I became a dancing instructor in her “elderly dancers’...

Walk into my room and you will immediately notice blue draped across the walls and blanketed over my bed. This is not just any tone of blue; it is the Tennessee Titans’ baby blue. My infatuation with the Titans took root during my childhood....

On the backseat of a vehicle driven by a Maasai guide, I was able to view the city of Arusha in great detail through the window. While searching for distinctive cultural elements, I was distracted by the ubiquitous commercials along the street. “...

I stared at the inmates crowding the courtyard in front of me and began to wonder what I was doing in a prison. My visit was for three weeks during which I was tasked with helping teach computer code to inmates in San Francisco’s San Quentin State...

My childhood was marked by David Attenborough nature documentaries, issues of National Geographic Kids, and environmentalist parents. Naturally, I was the child who could tell you about echolocation or shark migratory patterns. My favorite...

My daily commute is the old woman who fries akara cakes near the bus stop; the strident calls of bus conductors calling out their various destinations; an antiquated bus radio stuttering with Igbo folk songs.

Two years ago, I would have refused...

The summer before my junior year, I watched my grandparents working on the far side of the lawn, shoveling compost and mounds of grayish soil over freshly seeded patches. It was a strangely perceptive moment: glistening beads of sweat ran over...

Half-priced bread, two-dollar savings on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and free eggs: it all adds up. This is the maxim I repeat to myself daily as I attempt to save money for my education. Indeed, the use of coupons and rebates to offset everyday...

In exploring the Western literary canon, I’ve noticed a clear link between felines and mortality. For instance: why do cats have nine lives? Why is the archetypal “cat lady” usually an elderly spinster? And why does Schrödinger's cat only exist in...

Don't expect me to laud a murder job too often! It is certain that my mother would have baulked at the prospect of me reading 'The Orient Express’ by Agatha Christie. However, there is a transcendent attraction between a drowsy child on a humid...

For me the world can have a strangely retentive quality, in which certain places represent the nerve points of my past. When I think of my childhood, I think of the room where I took art lessons, where I first met my art teacher. I see a floral...

I became a magician at age seven.

Standing before my friends, I plucked coins from elbow bends and crushed dandelion heads into painted buttons. Green hair ties ripened to rich plum hues. Cards flipped up and hoisted themselves into the air,...

I walked on land that was supposed be a stream. I stood with people who were supposed to be ‘animals’. Well, I myself wasn’t really supposed to be there at all, for Makoko, an unrecognized community, is a cradle of crime in Lagos. Swarms of...

It was my turn to speak.

The Korean girl across the table and I had spent the past hour in a back-and-forth of stilted conversation. Our pre-collegiate institute had demanded that all disciplines “mingle,” and the silence told a story of two...

The smell of a Nigerian Christmas is intoxicating. The sulphur-like pungency in the air tells of nearby fireworks. Or is it egusi soup simmering on an open fire surrounded by friends and relatives? For once, whilst on holiday with my family in a...

Growing up in an ultra-liberal town just outside of San Francisco’s Bay Area, I have become accustomed to the long-running joke in my school that it’s easier to be gay than it is to be Republican. As an openly bisexual Democrat, I would both agree...

I sat in the ornate home of my teammate’s mom, an established Palestinian surgeon, when she said, “I wish someone had killed them all.” I just finished asking this woman how the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict impacted her life, and was shocked at...

The pit yawned beneath my feet, over 50m deep and 200m in diameter. I stood at its edge, an infinitesimal figure at the boundary of endless filth and decay. I realised, with growing dread, that we had indeed come to Jakande; we had come to the...

It is often thought that the fastest route to Carnegie Hall is practice. I would never discredit the importance of practice, knowing its vitality in my own vocal development, but I believe confidence is equally important to success for any...

Telling my peers that I intern at a morgue catches them by surprise; typically, they look at me in bewilderment. Many question why I would want to do something like this. But I honestly do not think they would react with such astonishment if they...

From the time I was able to grasp the basic concepts of the body’s organ systems in elementary school, to my study of the laws of Isaac Newton and the applications of Le Châtelier's Principle, I have always been enraptured by the sciences. Even...

"Hurry, everyone, she's here!"

The children started running towards the door. As you can imagine, I turned around to see who all the fuss was about. There was no one behind me. Suddenly, I was encircled by a knot of small arms pulling me away...