Newest College Application Essays

“No excuses;” the motto of Isaiah Bird, a nine-year-old fifth grader from my hometown. Isaiah was born without legs, and even with this impairment, he plays soccer, football, swims, runs track, surfs, and skateboards. However, the wrestling mat is...

Ithaca, New York is a long way away from Mississippi with its innate Southern values, sweltering summers, and a culture with an aversion to diversity and change. I’ve learned from my upbringing in a rural Southern town, though, that education and...

Although I was just playing with Barbie Dolls, I managed to apply rudimentary math skills at the age of four. “How many pairs of Barbie shoes did you just put away?” I attentively counted by twos and shouted out, “Six pairs, mom!” The utilization...

On a rainy October afternoon, I crouched before a pile of twigs, anxiously trying to start a fire. As I blew on the small flame, the words of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” filled my ears. I was in English class at Conserve School, a semester...

Stuffy rooms, stinking washrooms, cracked desks and torn books. There was a strange feeling, walking down the corridor as I entered the premises. It was totally unexpected, especially from a place like this - right after a long break for summer.

What qualities or unique characteristics do you possess that would allow you to contribute to the UCF community? At first, I didn’t know how it could be done. Transforming six sheets of white foam board into a ‘Warhol-esque’ abstract version of a...

If you had walked into my freshman history class, you might have seen two girls arguing vehemently over a controversial topic - contemporary politics, world religion, you name it. You would have likely thought there was no possible way the two...

My 13-year-old self slumped in the passenger's seat. The drive home was tense enough already, fueled by disappointment after I walked in the winning run of my baseball game. My dad and I barely exchanged a glance. I pushed the radio buttons in...

To fully comprehend me, one must comprehend the people I care about. Cross, a cheerful, flamboyant coworker of mine, puts nearly 100% of his $9.00/hr earnings toward supporting his unemployed grandmother and younger brother. I drive Cross to and...

The plane slowly descended from the clouds. In my hand was a letter entitled, “Open on the Plane over to Germany.” It was from my sister, the first of a series of ten letters that I was to open throughout the next eleven months. I slowly opened...

When faced with daunting writing tasks--including this one--that call upon me to convey uniqueness and summon eloquence, I have sought the assistance of a higher source: Intelligent Life. They beckoned to me from neon-bordered pages: Leaders whose...

In an odd twist of fate, the health preoccupations of my elementary school years - oddball hypochondriac tendencies included - proved to be the unlikely catalyst to my deep interest in microbiology and contagious disease. Perhaps it was simply a...

Presenting in the Kentucky senate chamber as a twelve-year old can be intimidating, but also relieving. You have been told for a dozen years that you are too young to influence your state’s government, yet you stand at a podium with a microphone...

My vessel was a single-sail dinghy called an Optimist, designed for young sailors like me. At age 13, I was in my very first solo race, propelled through the brackish water of the Caloosahatchee River by what felt like a gale but which in...

Most people are surprised to hear that I head from the suburbs to the city to ride a horse.. Just off a busy city avenue in Buffalo, tucked among white stucco apartment buildings sits The Buffalo Equestrian Center, a turn of the century polo arena...

Ever since I was young, I have shared my mother’s love and admiration for Audrey Hepburn. She was a popular actress, remembered primarily for her beauty and grace. However, she was much more than that. In World War II, when Hepburn was a teenager,...

In Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime”, an autistic boy named Christopher flees to London to live with his mother after discovering that his father has murdered a dog. Christopher, who has never travelled before, is...

Last summer, I had a 10 week paid internship working for American Traffic Solutions, a toll and ticket processing company. Naturally, I was nervous about working as part of a team of Ph.D.’s in math and computer vision. I learned to deal with the...

Compared to the stereotypical beach packed with tourists and surfers, New Hampshire’s Hampton beach seemed rather unremarkable. It was like any other New England Beach: cold, empty, and cloudy – just two miles of sand wedged between the road,...

My hand on the bar holds all my weight as my foot clumsily finds fifth position from fourth, while transitioning from relevé to plié. I struggle to remember tendu from bourree, then fall behind, as the rest of the class is executing the sequence...

My brain is in a superposition between string and music theory.

At any given moment, I am dedicating my full self to the growing popularity of cosmic rays…

When I visited Cornell over the summer, the first thing I noticed was that Cornell does not...

“Passionate people put pens to paper to produce poetry.”

While a third grade teacher may gush over this sentence, most others would find it appalling. Nevertheless, the truth behind it is undeniable; poetry rises from the fires in people’s eyes...