Newest College Application Essays

When some hear my name, Mujahid, the first thing that may come to mind is the Mujahideen, the Afghan warriors in the Cold War era who later became extremist jihadists. Some are taken aback upon hearing it, but I don’t blame them for their...

Ice cream machine to my left, plate of pasta perilously balanced in the palm of my hand, I glanced at Russell Jens ‘18, inquiring, “tell me Tufts has an unlimited meal plan,” to which he responded with a resounding “yes”. Over our meal Russell...

I come from a place where the Sears Tower dominates the glitter of the skyline, the glorious silver Bean lives, and the notorious winters leave us all to witness weather that would even have Demeter herself question the decision of her revenge:...

As my tongue swelled, I realized — hold on, this might be a peanut butter cookie. Immediately, I began to panic — “I’m too young to die! I haven’t even gone to college yet!” Then I reminded myself. “Stay calm. Getting worried won’t help.” Instead,...

“Chance, if you pull my hair one more time you’re going to be in big trouble!” I threatened. The boy in front of me sat in his wheelchair, grinning wide with a devilish look on his face. “Chance, no one will want to be your friend if you hurt...

I am not a religious person. I cringe at the sound of Christian rock, think Broadway's The Book of Mormon is shamelessly hilarious, and am often scolded by my elders for flippantly exclaiming "Oh my God!" I find the following of dogmatic religious...

I stood in the Sainte-Chapelle, listening to the echoes of angelic choir voices, while a soft pink glow set over the whole room, filtering through the stained glass windows that cover the walls. Every crevice, every little detail can be seen...

I have been solving problems my whole life, from mathematical proofs to the dilemmas of the pendulum. These problems are the glowing embers inside my heart. The elegant approaches of masterminds, like Gauss, are the kindling to the flame. I fell...

“You know how in Chinese, the first character for swan…”

“No.”

Stop right there. I do not know anything about the characters for swan. Turning to my classmate, I repeat the phrase for the hundredth time in my life: “See… I don’t speak Chinese.”

It was an excellent idea in theory—the fishing wire would be released from some unknown mechanism, invisible to the audience, and the paint strip leaves would fall, revealed the bare, jagged-looking trees that were supposed to make up our creative...

“Entonces, Max, ¿dime porque has venido a España?”

I stared blankly at my host Dad while trying to catch a glimpse of how large his moustache really was, as he glanced over his shoulder towards me, his car narrowly avoided the oncoming traffic....

A girl drops in her seventh Alka-Seltzer tablet, still perplexed that her cough medicine can transform her mundane plastic bottle into a colorful lava lamp.

“Again!”

Five boys laugh as their Coca-Cola rockets spiral through the air. The 300 kids...

It’s May 5, a typical Thursday. Your alarm rings. You sit up, check your phone, and spot a Facebook viral video on Holocaust Memorial Day. It's not an ordinary day. Plugging in your headphones, you brace yourself and hit play.You see a black...

It’s 8:00 am. I open my shades and admire the view from my Warren Towers dorm: sailboats drifting along the Charles River. This was the sight I woke up to every morning during my six weeks at BU’s high school honors program last summer. When my...

“So, you’re like a plant, right?”

Yep, exactly. My name is Katia, my favorite color is aubergine, and I’m secretly a plant because I don’t experience sexual attraction. How did you know?

I found out I was asexual the summer after sophomore year....

While my own romantic ramblings have done little to either confirm or deny the existence of love at first sight, my affair with the passive voice began long before we even met. We did not have our first formal introduction until my freshman year...

Consumed by exhaustion, agony, and stress, my dad silently plods toward his old recliner and sinks into it. His delivery route had seen five extensions in the past year, and the USPS management was attempting to enforce a sixth. Severe gout and...

I want to change the cynical, bitter stigma attached to politics. Many only see corruption and greedy lobbying, but politics is my outlet to solve the growing problems of our modern world. Nothing else has the potential to affect the lives of...

I'm not completely tied to one academic field, and I'm not afraid to embrace it. This notion has its roots in my 10th grade English class. Personally, I believe the class should be renamed Honors English, Philosophy, and Anthropology with a Dash...

Distant and peaceful, unscathed by technology, surrounded by countless pine trees and multiple lakes lies a small family run resort that is known as Pine Lake Manor to some but known as peace on earth to myself. The sheer beauty of the countryside...

Twenty-five familiar faces stare at me as I pull down the whiteboard to start the day's lesson on how to use if/else statements to follow a black line. Teaching robotics every weekend at the Catholic Church off of Paseo Padre Parkway every...

I walk to the waiting area and call, “Michelle,” and she follows me into a big room with three beige, reclining leather chairs. “Have a seat,” I urge, directing her as if I’m a hostess. “Are you ready?” She nods her head; her shoulders tense up,...

At my Kaiser SYEP Internship this summer, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Calvin Wheeler, the physician in chief for Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont, CA. In our conversation, we talked about the future of the health care...