Newest College Application Essays

When my Spanish teacher introduced conjugation, most of my peers could not comprehend the concept. For me, however, having been raised bilingual in Russian and having studied its verbs, conjugation made perfect sense. While explaining to baffled...

In fourth grade, I learned how to fold “fortune tellers”-- square, pointy origami creations. My class crowded together as one of our peers patiently explained the process, and we followed attentively, eagerly grasping our pieces of hastily torn...

The van was parked on the third floor of the parking garage, meaning the team had to walk almost 15 minutes together in near silence. Mark was raving, twirling his fingers and vitriolically murmuring something to himself. Devon and Tristan moved...

Before I had even entered kindergarten, I would sit on the floor of my father's study room every Saturday morning, both of us bent over a large artist’s sketch pad that was covered in numbers and equations instead of paint or charcoal. From a...

Routine is the enemy of relationships, spontaneous workers, and thrillseekers, gradually lessening excitement and draining the life out of the things we enjoy. However, through my own experiences, I have come to realize that routines, commonly...

"I think I'm ready to go home now," I inform my roommate Patrick, yet again, as we mix cement and shovel rocks for hours upon hours under the beating Mexican sun. It is Tuesday of our week-long mission trip to Nuevo Durango, and I already feel...

1,2,3,2…1,1,2,5…1,6,5,3…at first you have to remember each combination, which move is next, but after a while it becomes instinctive: in a bout you don’t have time to think. Despite boxing’s bad rap for being barbaric, it’s long been known as the...

I learned about Vassar the way I grew up - independently. I stumbled upon the school online one lonely night while my single mother traveled for business. Upon visiting Vassar, I remember having goosebumps. The college was Phoebe incarnate, from...

Most people do not realize how much work making sandwiches really involves. Slicing tomatoes, spreading the toppings, positioning the lettuce just right, and selecting the meat to put on requires a delicate touch. Of course you could just slop it...

“There aren’t any more chairs. Just pull one up!”

It was a crowded lunch hour as usual at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. I volunteered there during the summers and each day encountered the same problem – finding enough space to eat....

Sitting in the Templeton Campus Center, I looked out through the square, geometric windows at the trees beyond. The simply shaped white metal frames of the window contrast with the trees hugged by moss. Lewis and Clark in itself is a contrast....

Doors open, then close. Signs in bright colors pop out at every corner. Floors begin to move on their own accord. People bump into one another, pushing and shoving, making a turbulence of their own. A light flashes, a buzzer dings, an engine roars...

The woman sitting on the examination table half-heartedly feigns a cough. I find the eyes of the physician I am shadowing, who is standing behind the patient with a stethoscope to her back. After a brief moment, the physician steps back, returns...

Before I started diving, I yearned for a special place with an amazing view reachable only by a chosen few: the top of Everest, or a view of Earth from a porthole of a space shuttle. However, from the first moment I put on a mask and a pair of...

Artistically, I'm a bad postmodernist: I've never been able to look at a painting of a potato and discern the meaning of life hidden within its brushstrokes. Somehow, though, I found myself inside the world-renowned Museum of Modern Art,...

I walked past a building labeled “prayer room” and knew I did not fit in. A Buddhist boy playing basketball in a Christian basketball league, I found myself walking through a parochial school on a Saturday in search of a gym.

I ambled through two...

During my summers, I passionately pursued humanitarian endeavors to alleviate suffering, learn about the medical field and fortify my Catholic values. In the summer of 2015, I began devoting more time to working in low-income ophthalmic clinics,...

In my temporary home in Edison, I often witness and must mitigate the tension that arises between my Hindu and Catholic relatives.

Whenever there is conflict, my mother and father, two people who I love the most and hold to the highest moral...

While learning a new language is extremely difficult, its benefits outweigh the numerous hours that must be devoted to it. Throughout my high school career, a decent ability to converse in -broken- Spanish has been vital to my volunteerism.

Many...

Having been surrounded by numerous physicians and surgeons in my family, I have been enamored by the prospect of becoming a doctor since childhood. My father, seeing this, allowed me to spend a couple of my weekends shadowing him at his clinic in...

As a devout Catholic, I have passionately embraced my spirituality by reading and adhering to the moralities outlined in Theology and Philosophy which I hold so close to my identity. Taking thirty minutes out of my daily routine, I always find...

Throughout life, we are constantly learning and applying our knowledge to our world. In second grade, we matured from sneakers with Velcro to laces and learned the lifelong skill of tying our shoes. In seventh grade, we devoutly began pursuing our...

Music has always been something that interested me. As a kid, I adored the piano and took every moment I could to play the ivory keys with the very fibers of my being. However, as I became older and listened to different kinds of music, the genre...

While many other candidates applying to the University of California perform volunteer work, I feel my volunteerism in economically deprived neighborhoods as a devout Catholic provides me with insight on life that is only available through...