Newest College Application Essays

From a young age, I knew the career path I wanted to pursue. During the tenth grade, my mother mentioned working on the F-15 for Northrop as part of the team that was redesigning electronic countermeasure hardware. She told me about another team...

My world is multidimensional. Diverse. Eclectic. My “inay” (mother) is Filipina. My “otosan” (father) is Japanese. My “sabase accha dosta” (best friends) are Indians. My school is international.

After over 400 years of rule by various colonial...

I watched my mother raise the hand that held the knife to wipe the tears falling down her cheek. “It’s just the onions,” she said, and then she continued chopping. Though I was only at the tender age of seven, I already knew better.

I am a hybrid...

Continuing my education in the full-time MBA program at Bryant University would not only build directly on my undergraduate experience at Bryant, but would also provide the best means of launching my career in the business world when I graduate....

My love affair with medicine started when I was seventeen. It was a time of personal discovery, and of great sorrow as well. While other teens my age were enjoying their junior and senior proms or falling hopelessly in love, I was with my...

I arranged the bottles in front of me: 30% acrylamide, TEMED solution, ammonium persulfate, Tris buffer, and distilled water -- all of the materials I needed to run electrophoresis on the protein samples I had isolated earlier that morning. Oh,...

I was a master of my hometown, of its shortcuts, playgrounds, and potholes. I knew all of the secrets of Cary, North Carolina -- admittedly not difficult in our traditional, white, conservative community. The houses were, by law, as beige as their...

Dear Future Roommate,

I have never told my sister that I love her.

Growing up, it was not part of our culture -- in our traditional Chinese family, my mother still believes that women belong in the home. There are no hugs or kisses. We respect each...

I sat down on the bench, apprehensive. I hadn’t touched the ivory keys in almost eight years. Instead, I had actively avoided them, treasuring instead the strings of my violin. In debates I claimed that it was harder to play my instrument,...

Our society places great value on skin color. Nations have fought wars and people have initiated social movements because of conflicts over skin color. Those with dark skin sometimes try desperately to bleach themselves with various creams, while...

<BLOCKQUOTE>“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” --Plutarch</BLOCKQUOTE>

I asked everyone how to write a perfect college essay. “Show your passion,” they said. “Proofread” was another common admonition. The...

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States ceased to be the backdrop to my life and instead became an ideal, a cause, a veritable force. The autumn parade in my town, which had previously been a ragtag band of candy-throwing Girl...

“Go fish.” The vibrant smell of freshly crushed Roma tomatoes and oregano splashes across the dusty kitchen, letting me know that it’s time to stir the red sauce for tonight’s lasagna.

Silence. My opponent stares defiantly. How dare I insult her...

When I was young, my family owned a beat-up old couch. The couch was nothing out of the ordinary: it was a simple floral-print loveseat that had somehow survived the wear and tear that only a toddler can provide. The time came, however, when my...

My hero is not the world’s hero. He is not graced with fleetness of foot, excessive charm, or vast amounts of wealth. He neither asks for nor receives much attention or help from others, and he certainly does not limit himself to the confines of...

Our ridiculous expedition was scheduled to conclude with a birthday celebration, a climax that my girlfriend anticipated and expected to savor. “Won’t it be wonderful,” she would muse, “that the trip will conclude the day after my birthday in...

Two things happened to me in elementary school that changed my life: I started organizing small local peace rallies with my mother and I got my first alto saxophone. In those days, the two were unrelated. Years later, however, upon joining the...

I open my front door and the rich perfume of pine needles fills my nose. I step in, close the door behind me, and smile at the familiar scene. To my left sits the Christmas tree, covered in various decorations, ranging from tiny tin stars to...

“We’re moving,” my father announced to me, a happy eleven-year-old boy being picked up from his first summer at sleepaway camp.

Excited that we might finally be moving out of our too-familiar house in Miami and into a house closer to all of my...

When I was sixteen, my parents handed me an itinerary and said, “Make sure you don’t speak English.” I arrived in Bordeaux by myself, with just four years of classroom French, and waited for my cousin to pick me up from the airport.

I have visited...

The stage trembled under the rhythmic tapping of wood on wood as glossy ringlets bounced in the summer sun. After an energetic jig, a dozen grinning and giggling girls filed past me in their sparkling dresses. Meanwhile, I anxiously adjusted the...

I vividly remember running home from the library and locking myself upstairs to begin the reading. I rifled through the nutrition book with as much excitement as if I had found the Holy Grail. I stayed up all night to read it, to consume it, to...

At an age when most young girls spend their days watching Sunday morning cartoons and playing with Barbie dolls, I was struggling with the emotional turmoil that was my family. Growing up in the slums of L.A., my living situation was abominable: I...

“I wanna go home!” I say as I sit on the kitchen floor watching my mother cook.

“What do you mean?” she asks, giving me a questioning look. “Ethiopia?”

“I don’t know.”

Home. For most people, the word can be easily defined as the place where they grew...