Newest College Application Essays

I find the Core irresistible. No, not just the famous Core Curriculum, though Columbia's central philosophy excites me as much as it does for so many others. I'm referring to The Columbia Organisation of Rising Entrepreneurs, which would allow me...

In today's food-centric culture, different cuisines give communities and regions distinct identities, from the wine and brie of France to the beignets and Chicory coffee of New Orleans. Yet for all the conversations we have over food, we rarely...

The clock strikes midnight, signaling we are into our tenth hour in the room. Hunched over computers, we work tirelessly on the school magazine, The Scribe. My creative journey to this moment began by writing for the features section, where I...

The world was closing in and the flame of desire to be a beautiful fire dancer was rapidly burning out with every shallow, poorly-oxygenated breath that I took. I was my own show, and not the one my parents drove three hours to come and see as my...

I walk into the cafeteria at 7:30 AM and make my way to the microwave, taking a tupperware container out of my lunch box. I look around the lunch room--I see people eating donuts, bagels, and breakfast sandwiches. What do I have? Chicken. The...

When I daydream, I see myself as a successful dentist who has opened her own dental office alongside her closest friends. I see myself breaking barriers and stereotypes that say first generation americans and college students can not achieve great...

As a child, whenever I would try to open a door, I would always attempt to push it open. Regardless of the fact that a door might have had a sign on it that said "Pull to Open", I would always push. It became something I would do unconsciously....

Sweat droplets streamed down my cheeks. It was an odd, balmy April day and my friend Grant and I had just finished an amiable game of street hockey when boredom began to claw at our minds. As the sun started to sink below the horizon, I focused my...

“Where are you from?” asked the guest speaker, picking me from the crowd. Just as I was about to answer, a passing thought squeezed my mouth tight and slapped me hard in the head. A conscious side of me perceived this simple question as “extremely...

Big data, big data, and big data. With the birth of the internet age, our world has inevitably produced massive quantities of data. Application is limitless as such data yields crucial information about human trends and preferences, clearly...

During the overnight at Vassar, my nighttime ritual was disrupted by the unexpected presence of a male Vassar student in what I thought was a female bathroom. Startled, I ran back into the dorm. There, my host explained to me that the bathrooms at...

My costume glitters in the black light of the backstage area, my body tensing up, my mind telling it to relax. The curtain opens slowly while the clapping from the audience ceases. The music comes on, and my routine begins. I have every movement...

During my interview at Colorado College, I explained why I advocate for mental health awareness. I recited some ingrained statistics, such as “1 in 5 teenagers experience a severe mental disorder”, “suicide is the second leading cause of death for...

The streets of Kunming, China are crooked and filled with potholes, and the ‘school’ was more of an abandoned building than a learning facility for children of full-time workers. Yet the children that sat on the dusty floor of my classroom were...

In our society, there is a divide between physical health and mental health. When we are young, we are taught to eat fruit and vegetables, exercise 60 minutes per day, and wash our hands before eating. Starting in Kindergarten, physical education...

The summer I turned thirteen, in the sticky humidity of a Circassian town in northern Turkey, I received two gifts. “Leave that book aside for a minute,” my grandfather said, walking into the living room with a leather case. I don’t remember what...

It is 9:30 on a sunny June morning, I’m standing alone in the ferry ticket line pretending to look for friends that aren’t coming with me, hopelessly trying not to look so uncomfortable. I move forward in line and see a group of people who I know...

When I moved from China to the Philippines during my sophomore year, my world turned upside down. Instead of ancient Chinese classics, Chinese geography, and Chinese history, I studied Shakespeare, geography, and U.S. history. In China, catching...

6:00 AM, small industrial town of Zhodino, Belarus. Summer 2008. I reluctantly boarded the bus, immediately noticing that it was absolutely packed. The bus, of course, was to my grandmother’s dacha, a cottage where she grew and tended to what I...

I walked up to the half-open garage and peered uncertainly into the cluttered space. At this point, I was alone in London, navigating purely by gut and intuition. My voice shook as I rasped out an indication of my presence. As I waited for an...

Here, on top of this duvet there exists a sun-soaked, silent universe. I pick up the object in my lap, lazily stretch out my legs and fill my world with the sound of its cracking spine. A gentle shhhhh, smoothing the page beneath my hand. The...

I am from the "Arab Spring generation": the generation that took the street in 2011 to fight for their dreams. I can no longer talk about a flourishing spring when I think about what is happening in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Egypt. However I am very...