Newest College Application Essays

Of all the people I’ve met in my lifetime, three in particular have overwhelmingly influenced who I am and who I want to be.

At 4 years old, I found myself in Vietnam, racing a motorcycle with my mischievous cousins through chaotic streets against...

Since my childhood, I have been disturbed by inequality and injustice in the world. I felt like a solitary beacon of humanitarianism upon a coast of apathy and egoism. The idea of college life, then, was unnerving to me; I imagined attending a...

My father used to call me Betsy Ross. Before anyone was up, I would go downstairs and pull my quilt out from under the couch. I’d thread my needle with string, and by that time, quite regularly, my father would come to me on the couch and swiftly...

For three days, after a heavy equatorial rain, the main road to my village remained impassable. This implied that some families had to subsist without their normal meals, since their breadwinners could not work. Transportation of goods using...

It is Sunday afternoon and my friends and I are all making nonsense syllables. “Dim dims” and “Ooh bop bops” fill the room and flow out of the windows we have opened in the heat. We’re not crazy – we’re just having a cappella rehearsal.

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After my first semester of Anatomy and Physiology, I thought that I was a genius in the subject. The class was rigorous, but rightfully so; in those five months I became fluent in obscure topics and conditions. But, on the first day of second...

Quiet as thieves, Diego and I slipped unnoticed from the boisterous dining room full of clinking glasses and roaring parents into the warm Guatemalan night. It was the middle of the dry season but the air was heavy with the smell of sulfur....

My uncle, a father of two who works as a waiter at a Marriott hotel in Fairfax Virginia, had his identity stolen in late 2014 by someone in New York City. For the most part, our everyday lives are a series of passing decisions; in an ever-evolving...

At only three-years old, my sister lost her heart-wrenching battle against cancer. Four years later, I helplessly watched as two of my most-beloved cousins lost their own lives to this disease. It was while dealing with this onslaught of...

As in Harry Potter, where the wand chooses the wizard, the trumpet chose me—although, at the time, I thought I was choosing the trumpet. Four wind musicians stood before me in my elementary school’s auditorium. Each one played an excerpt...

I do not fit the stereotypical image of a cheerleader, the status-obsessed glamour girls of teen movies and the public consciousness. I don’t drink, smoke, or go to parties. I prefer to spend Friday nights at home watching war movies like Fury and...

There he is, clad in his “World’s Biggest Fish Fry” baseball cap, neon orange diabetic footsoles, and multicolored top hat à la Dr. Seuss. Four hundred and twenty pounds, bound to his high-backed leather armchair (driven with tender care all the...

As my family has traveled, a reproduction of one artwork has traveled with us: The Creation of Adam by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo. The composition depicts the Biblical anecdote of God breathing life into man, who was created to...

I sit on a chair outside of the Staff Office, and examine myself in the floor-length mirror provided us for the inspection. Picking out minor flaws, I adjust my medal and my ribbon bars, each a sign of an accomplishment over my few years in the...

My hometown has been recently dubbed "The most segregated city in America." This past July, Baton Rouge made headlines after white policeman killed a black man. Two weeks later, an ambush on policemen left three officers dead, with the shooter...

“Niki Ragone? Is Thomas Ragone your brother?”

Before everything happened, this was a compliment. Five years my senior, he was a popular student, and I was proud to be known as his sister. The summer before eighth grade, though, that phrase took on...

At 9 years old, I thought I would never have to wrap my head around any words more challenging than the one that caused me to come in second place at the county’s spelling bee. Of course, I was a fourth-grader, not a psychic, and just one year...

Asian people do not discuss mental illness. While “Asian” is a broad term that cannot possibly encompass all the nationalities and ethnicities of the Asian continent, this is a solid fact in the most prominent cultures: China, Japan, Korea,...

“Oh, wow! You look like your skin's gotten lighter!” were the first words out of all my relatives’ mouths when I visited Bangladesh. Everyone expected me to say “thank you” as if it were a compliment. I’ve always known that within the South Asian...

In the spring of my second year of high school, I shaved my head in front of the entire school. Yes, it was for a greater cause than my own teenage restlessness, but I cannot confidently say it was for that sole reason. In a way, this act of...

“Molly Christine McMillen! What in the world is this?” My mom scorns, as she drags one of her best tupperware dishes out from under my pink, Disney princess bed. My wide, five-year-old eyes look up at her with bewilderment and fear, yet with...