Newest College Application Essays

“GIMME A PIGGYBACK RIDE! HORSEY!!!!”

I scrambled to allow the giggling seven year old girl to climb onto my back. I was volunteering as a camp counselor at the Hand in Hand Chinese Cultural Summer Program, a program that introduces adopted Chinese...

In an old moon-cake box lay hundreds of hang tags; they are different shapes and colors, flaunt decisive typography, and showcase intricate logos, differentiating each and every one. To many, these tags are a nuisance - quickly snipped off of...

“God is too big to fit in one religion.” It it is a beautiful paradox of how much hate and love can come from having a faith; it can cause war but also save lives. Religion is a vehicle for so many causes; it is not something to be scared of, but...

“O-Week, Beer Bike, & The Rest—we know Will Rice is the Best!”

Returning for the holidays, my friend had incessantly been repeating Will Rice cheers before I even knew what Rice, much less residential colleges, was. But maddening as they were,...

Whether we like it or not, life is messy, and the world is messy; it doesn’t make sense to assume that the subjects taught in school are abstract and insular concepts, neatly categorized and inevitably isolated from one another by the five-minute...

I am the complete contradiction of what I was expected to be, and I couldn’t be more proud. As a gay ex-Mormon who left home at sixteen, moved across the world, and began learning Arabic, I’m may well be the most unconventional person from Rigby,...

When I was eight, I read the 531-page Book of Mormon cover-to-cover. The vocabulary and concepts which comprised the set of doctrine was unbelievably complex, so it usually took an entire hour to get through three of its short pages. To do this, I...

I vaguely recall the cozy, packed Dunwoody apartment I first lived in—the patchwork couch I would scramble onto while fleeing my volcanic floor, the artificial plants that transported me to the Amazon rainforest. When my family upgraded to a house...

On the sofas in my home theater, I watched Riley struggle to come to terms with her new home in Inside Out, John Nash contribute to game theory in spite of his frequent hallucinations in A Beautiful Mind, and Nina differentiate reality from...

“So, like, if I pinch you, will the other two feel it?”

“Are you all identical, even the boy?”

”How many minutes are you oldest by?”

Being a triplet comes with daily quirky questions. I do not remember the exact moment when I realized my...

I have the soul of a 74 year old grandmother. I used to be ashamed to say it, because what kind of teenager wants to openly admit she enjoys spending time in retirement homes. But, there’s no use in masking the age of my soul any longer. I like...

A woman in heels click-clacks through the parking lot, walks up three steps, and pauses as a young man with short curly hair and an inviting smile opens the door to the building. An old man, grandfather to many, hobbles into the building from his...

One of the first dances I ever performed was a trio with my two best friends: a frivolous, cheerful number with far too many sequins, gauzy handkerchiefs disguising the awkwardness of our skinny arms. Backstage, we trembled in terror at the...

I am standing there on the threshold. The air is different. It’s lighter with a touch of lavender. The Ivory marble is glistening. It feels cool. It soothes me. In front of me, I see the beckoning white chair. I proceed. The cool dark mat...

I often travel through a land of backpacks, ironed silk suits, Hawaiian slippers, colorful shirts, low-waist jeans and outfits that do not even have a name. This is a land where shoes are worn and pants are stained with adhesive, where tie knots...

Dear roommate,

Don’t be afraid if you hear noises at night. It’s probably just my muse going out for a walk. I know, she’s really loud. But she never listens to me when I tell her to keep it down.

And she’ll be back in the morning, so please make...

For my seventh birthday, my grandma gave me a "Grow Your Own Crystals" kit. I was instantly obsessed. I set out to discover every different type of crystal I could create. It was breathtaking to watch powders transform into beautiful crystalline...

A big part of my who I am is my racial identity. All of my life, I have dealt with unwarranted phrases directed towards me like "you look nothing like your family" and "are you sure you're not adopted?". It has been an occurrence during all 18...

I am quadrilingual. Sure, it sounds fancy, but as a biracial child of two immigrants, being quadrilingual feels natural to me. English. My mother tongue. No explanation required. As an infant my mom would teach me words by holding up a ball and...

The girl with a locker next to mine begins to ask about the math homework, and then stops herself.

“Oh wait. You’re a PRISM kid.”

PRISM. Synonymous with over-achievement, arrogance, seclusion, perfectionism, but above all: expectations.

I’m...

If there are two things in this world that I cherish, they are my best friend, Manuel, and my driver’s license.

Being able to drive has allowed me to go beyond the bounds of the South Floridian suburb in which I currently reside, where the most...

Eight years ago, I was a plastic surgeon – then again, anyone could say that after watching an entire season of Dr. 90210.

My mother was my main patient, with the tummy tuck being her favorite procedure. Instead of a scalpel, my most faithful tool...

When a converter fails to transform its digital signals to analog commands for the effectors, the robot is as good as immobile. Similarly, without leadership and effective communication, even a group of capable engineers can be ineffectual. With...

Vigorously shaking the two milliliter eppendorf tube, the bubbles sprawled out from the bottom, captivating the threads into a structure that engulfed me in a trance. Then the trance was broken. I looked at the scratch left on my hand when I...