Cornell University Undergraduate College Application Essays

When my English teacher died last spring, I wrote in his tribute a song called "Confusion." It is not the most technically impressive thing I have written, but it's my favorite because it conveys emotions I still can't put into words. Taking...

"Relate a clever anecdote from your life in which you make veiled references to your academic abilities, talents, and personality in the fashion of a college admissions essay. Be neat."

Last summer, I was accepted to attend Brown University for a...

The history of politics reads somewhat like a petty drama. The son of the president who lost to Clinton later beats Clinton's vice president. His brother, Jeb, beats a guy who beat Clinton's attorney-general in the gubernatorial primaries. Mel...

Headlines like "Baghdad Residents Treated To Magnificent Light Show" and "Duraflame Introduces Slow-Burning American Flag" aren't typical of mainstream publications. But writing such leads has been a major interest of mine for the past year and a...

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My surprise at winning the district FBLA Accounting competition was understandable. Accountants are, on the whole, prosaic individuals, and I didn't consider myself a prosaic person. Or an accountant, for that matter.

Yet I did win, and...

Sitting in Starbucks in Providence, I had one day to complete three "character sketches." A friend and I figured a coffee shop would be a good place to find unique individuals to describe, though we ended up taking different approaches - she...

While my classmates were eagerly participating in a discussion of The Grapes of Wrath, their hands constantly raised, I looked down, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Colgate, and pretended to jot down notes. I wanted to say something, but my mouth...

When life throws me a curve, I try to find an equation for the best-fit line. Actually, life never really throws me a perfect curve, only a series of data that resembles one. Most people are content by connecting these random dots, forming a...

>From the Peach State to the Big Apple

by, Rebecca van Laer

September 1, 2003

<b><i>Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, or risk that you have taken and its impact on you.

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By the time I was fourteen, I...

The announcer called my name.

I walked up to the stage towards the piano. My footsteps echoed like a metronome through the grand performance hall at the University of Georgia. I had woken up early that morning in January 2002 to spend a couple of...

I love English. I love its little quirks and idiosyncrasies, I love the etymology, I love the language. It all started back in the second grade when I checked Robinson Crusoe out of the school library. Every day, I would read a few pages on the...

Waking from calm dreamless sleep, I find intricately patterned welts on my skin, embedded by the woven bamboo mattress, the only reminders of the night. I descend from the bed and frown as my feet reach the cold and damp dirt floor. It rained...

The School of Industrial and Labor Relations truly beckons me. It combines my fascination for government and politics with the labor issues of our era. Courses incorporating public policy and law--in which I will dissect issues such as the...

My fascination with foreign affairs can be traced to a series of experiences in my childhood. Coming of age in New York City, I have been privy to many experiences which would have remained foreign to me had I grown up in suburbia. En route to my...

My fascination with foreign affairs can be traced to a series of experiences in my childhood. Coming of age in New York City, I have been privy to many experiences which would have remained foreign to me had I grown up in suburbia. En route to my...

Throughout my high school career, I have received multiple recognition awards related to my coursework. For example, I was awarded "Outstanding Student" honors in Spanish, math, and chemistry during my high school tenure. I also received a Letter...

I still remember it like it was yesterday. After seven days of grueling labor pushing my body to its limits, I was proudly walking - no, strutting. As my clean and pressed uniform held my new ribbons for the world to see, I looked up to the stands...

When I was just five months old, my father was transferred to the USA to represent Bangladesh as a diplomat. My cousin came along with us, and in the first three years of my life, I became extremely attached to him. When my father was transferred...

Nevin peeled off a sticker from his binder and posted it to my forehead. "MADE IN CHINA," it said. I faked a nonchalant laugh, but my blushing face betrayed my feeling of defeat. All that I had strived for seemed to have been futile. What Nevin...

"An institution where any person can find instruction in any study" This is the vision that Ezra Cornell founded the university on. This quote has inspired me to explore different fields of study. Growing up in a family of engineers, I have always...

I wonder sometimes if any author's story is quite like mine. I'm not talking about the stories they write with their pens, or tap out on typewriters or keyboards. I'm talking about the stories they craft with their very lives, their every breath,...

Leaping over crooked crevices in the sidewalk, my childhood self hopped a few yards ahead of my grandfather. As I paused to scrutinize a colorful candy wrapper, the smell of melting sugar drifted from a small blue cart where an old woman flipped...

I like to play with guns and knives.

It’s not what you think: I’m in color guard. Although events like the Virginia Tech incident have worsened the reputation of weaponry, color guard attempts to transform the traditional connotations of...

“Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.”

~ Carl Sandburg

It is impossible to convey the art of words with more words. Case in point: try to find another word for “salty.” It isn’t bitter; it isn’t sour; it’s salty. Likewise, the terms “...