Newest College Application Essays

“This Jedi is female, so she’s not as smart.” The young man, Max, chortled this to his scene partner as our improvised Star Wars play came racing towards its climax. I stood backstage, suddenly feeling jarred. My character throughout the play had...

My family is anything but sedentary. Already in my life I have lived in Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and have found myself in England nearly every summer. I have explored the rainforests of Australia and New Zealand, braved the oppressive heat of...

When I turned sixteen, my grandparents took me out to the lavish Sixteen restaurant in Chicago. “Sixteen for sixteen,” they said. Over microscopic spoonfuls of diced cucumbers, which the restaurant dubbed "a salad," my Grandma handed me a velvety...

Failure is thought to demolish everything you are, but in truth is vital to self-realization and self-acceptance. I take pride in my ability to fail: to crash and burn, but to come out healed and ready. Yet in all my life I have never once been...

I never took the saying "window of opportunity" literally until I walked up to the "pick up" window at my local CVS. Better yet, there were two windows, one for "drop off" as well. These windows served as a sneak peek to the world behind the...

During my sophomore year, I took an elective history course, “Rediscovering the Lives of Women.” Learning about prominent female figures in history, as well as how society perceived and affected them, prompted me to reflect on how gender shapes my...

I first traveled to several different universes when I turned eight and fearlessly battled the worst creatures ever imagined. That was when I read A Wrinkle in Time.

I experienced the adventures of whaling and the sea when I was sixteen, fighting...

It is common in literature, poetry, and musical lyrics to use walking as a metaphor for life. This past summer, that metaphor took on a whole new meaning for me. In twenty-six long days, I walked about 700 kilometers across Northern Spain — from...

“$3.50, please.” I open up my worn wallet and fumble around for enough quarters, nickels, and dimes to pay for my Taco Bell burrito. I’m five cents short. A shake of my purse yields five lingering pennies, and my stomach and I sigh together in...

Warm, fluffy bread -- because Romanians cannot eat any meal without it. Pillowy pumpkin spinach ravioli -- a recipe my mother got from a chef in Italy in exchange for her strudel recipe. And apple pie -- because the U.S. makes the best. This could...

“A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.” - Harold MacMillan

Scuba diving is a special activity - physically demanding yet acutely spiritual. It has its own code of honour that all divers must comply with. It is an...

My fingers pirouetted up and down the fingerboard, spiraling faster than the notes running through my head. Every white callous and bloody blister had led up to this moment, as I could feel all those hours of repetition, struggle, and stumbling...

Sitting in the auditorium of Cherry Creek High School, I felt a sudden apprehension in the pit of my stomach. After a long and tumultuous journey, I was here at last. I, along with two of my friends and teammates, had spent the better part of the...

Lists are my forte. To-do lists, shopping lists, top ten lists, BuzzFeed lists; just name a list and I have a detailed version doodled on my planner. My list-making habit originated at an early age, around the same time I started to engage in...

I am a seventeen year old mother. Every single day after completing seven hours of rigorous Advanced Placement classes, I am ready to take on the responsibility of caring for a boy who desperately needs my help in order to grow up. I meet him at...

It was a humid and tense night. My dad flipped a table full of china plates and beer cans, because my mom refused to make a dish for his guests. She said she was tired from a full shift that day at her job. When I came downstairs, he was already...

It happened out of sheer stubbornness. Seemingly overnight, I went from being a cross country runner to the girl on crutches. I thought it was just a cramp. All runners have them from time to time, no big deal, right? I stopped running, stretched...

Reading this prompt made me share a wry smile with myself. It reminded me of a moment from twelve years ago whenmy childhood simplicity helped to changemy perspective on life in an enduring manner. My parents were having a conversation in the car...

At a strange intersection of customs exists my cultural essence; I am the product of an infinitely improbable arrangement of DNA. Seemingly, Fate threw darts at a board to select my parents from the world’s population, and just this once they...

A good majority of the time, a camera body and lens are strapped around my neck, waiting to capture the world’s beauty. It seems like a cliche for a teenage girl to buy a camera and assume that she is a photographer. However, I see it differently....

As sweat dripped down my nose and mixed with the dirt, I yelled, "I found glass!" Glass is considered a rare find, and upon hearing my announcement the excavation team stopped digging. Later, as I sat under the overhang on the laboratory roof...

Comfort is different to everyone: we may find comfort and serenity in nature, at the beach when seafoam waves gently caress our skin, or we may be comforted by the smaller, even insignificant things in life, like a smile from a stranger or...

“Jooooorrrrddddannnnn,” my mom screamed with utter fear and panic in her voice. Surprisingly, amongst all of the chaos, her voice was all that I heard. I’m not sure if I was disoriented, bewildered or just in complete shock but at that particular...