Newest College Application Essays

Despite what he meant to me, I won’t tell you his name; that privilege was signed away as part of camp counselor protocol.

I moved myself under the rock wall. The dense heat rising from the tire pieces covering the floor paired with the green...

“Objection!” I demand, rising from my chair. The judge looks up at me. “Basis?” he questions. I look him in the eye and put on my best Law and Order lawyer face before confidently responding, “Leading the witness.”

“Hmmm,” he says, “Sustained.” I...

Some girls might find it intimidating being the only girl among fifty male high schoolers. Other girls might see it as a dream come true. For me it doesn’t matter: I just want to play football.

My sophomore year it was announced that we would have...

Silver saris and raging reds of glamorously decorated individuals beamed with faces masked with makeup and jewelry. Twinkling yellow lights hung above her head like shimmering stars and breathed pure radiance over her. Standing before the myriad...

Some parents have to take their kids for a drive before they can fall asleep, and others have to sing to them. Mine had to tell me a story — or two, or three, or ten — before I went to bed every night.

Storytime was my favorite part of the day —...

I look down and stare at my child-sized hands resting awkwardly on the keys and see a puzzled face staring back at me in the shiny black reflection. I squint at the music, deciphering the notes, and press what I presume to be a C chord: the piano’...

This is how my nightmare begins.

I’m standing in the heart of a pristine university campus, surrounded by hundreds of teenage girls fidgeting with their luggage. Damp hair sticks to the backs of our necks; we can taste the heat and the salt and...

Picture me: the morose toddler, hands balled into fists as my mother pulled a wide-toothed comb through my full, coarse hair. Tears stung my eyes but I did not cry even when my mother held a ball of knotted hair in her palm, a triumphant grunt...

“Click.”

The sharp, decisive sound of the chess clock suddenly snapped me out of my concentration. My opponent had made his move.

Deadlock — At that moment, it wasn’t just about victory; my faith and integrity were challenged. Winning meant...

Under the shadow of a magnificent mango tree at the heart of communist Cuba was the place where I learned to appreciate the beauty of the art of chess. When I was five years old, my father taught me the theory of chess, how the pieces moved and...

The sound turned the very marrow in my bones to ice: a six pound bag of olotun beans trickling onto a shallow plastic tray. I did not wait for my mother to instruct me to perform the ensuing task. I made reluctant haste to the kitchen where the...

He never rang the doorbell, never knocked, just walked right in. Jackson never needed to knock; he was just “family.” He eats his meals with us, watches sports with us, and if it weren’t for the human eye, you’d think he was one of my siblings....

I believe that every writer’s style can basically be described as a mosaic, consisting of fragments of childhood memories, a string of English teachers, and most notably, scraps of stanzas from each poem they have ever read. Shards of glass,...

Standing atop the highest peak in the continental United States, the thin, crisp air and spectacular beauty of Mt. Whitney’s crest energized and humbled me. I could hear my heart beating, the individual rocks crunching beneath my feet, and the...

I have never had a space to be a writer. In high school, whenever my class is given a creative writing assignment, my friends groan in unison. By the time their groans have quieted, I have already thought of a first sentence. At lunch, everyone at...

Worlds apart though they may seem, English and science have always been my realms of study. English, because I like people -- listening to them, deconstructing them, empathizing with them. And science because I like puzzles -- that moment when the...

“The U.S. and China should work to unify the Koreas.”

Eight minutes left.

As I walk to the podium, I present myself as a confident junior. Yet in my mind, I am still a freshman, stammering through my first speech, unnerved by the seven pairs of...

I opened the door, immersing myself in the crisp, chilly air of Portland, Oregon. I had just traversed the vast Pacific Ocean, and I was now in America. How I ended up here, I was not quite sure. All I knew was that I stood there — homesick,...

An empty house with white walls, filled with boxes covered in brown packing tape is all that’s left of a place that was once my home. It’s packed with sweaty movers loading my memories into a U-Haul van -- a scene I would become accustomed to my...

My clammy hands trembled as I prepared to meet my camper for my very first day as a volunteer at Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp. I had no idea how to instantly connect with him, but as Sebastian raced towards me in his Formula red...

I spent much of my adolescence in Arcadia; a world illumined by artificial suns. There, people eschewed costly 'real' clothing for digitally enhanced 'shifts', government propaganda was broadcast hourly onto illusionary blue skies, and one could...

Danger looms in this idyllic, Floridian community and I, the stranger, am alert to the seamless transitions. The carbon texture of the hardening skies, the desertion of once bustling streets, the tentative schedules that allow room for imminent...

“I never want to raise my hand in school again.”

At least that is what I initially thought after being laughed at by my entire sixth grade science class. Sporting a faded Bob Dylan t-shirt, the middle school teacher asked if anyone could tell him...

My dad taught me my first science lesson. He knew it did not have to start at school, but rather the minute a mind starts asking questions. That is what science has always consisted of—a curiosity forming into a question and a question being...