Princeton University Undergraduate College Application Essays

Three months into my exchange year in Germany, my friend called me, a little dejected. She wanted to go downtown, and it was clear why. There was still something incredibly rousing, mysterious, and exciting about the European city that had...

When I was eleven, I lived in a trailer park full of kids. I preferred reading and writing to playing with them, so pretty often, when they knocked on the door, I would pretend I was doing chores. Then I would resume reading Harry Potter and...

My spacebar popped off of the keyboard for the seventh time that night. I snatched it from the floor and rammed it back in place, knowing that it was a futile effort. Apparently, my laptop was suffering from the tribulations of National Novel...

I prodded the chicken with my fork. The rest of the table was heatedly arguing about health care while I wondered how much longer the school fundraiser dinner would last. Then, an idle comment uttered by a boy I didn’t know made my head jerk up.

“…...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

I could feel the tears coming. My brother’s words pierced me like bullets, one by one, slowly overpowering my determination. I turned to face him and cleared my mind. After receiving the ball, I noticed him hesitate slightly and on instinct I...

“Dinner is ready!” Every Sunday a member of our family takes a turn choosing what we’re having for dinner, and today was my turn. My mother had prepared all of my favorite food, from foie gras to sea urchin sushi to satay. As we began eating, my...

My brain never turns off. Problem solving and efficiency have always been a part of me. I am always asking myself, “Can this be done better?” I’m not sure if it’s related to my effort to eliminate distractions, my ADHD, or the nature of being a...

During the summer of 2011, I switched to a new club swim team with my best friend and we were motivated to push each other to faster times. That was also my second summer working at my dad’s office, so I was happy to have been given more...

I find it incredibly difficult to go through life alone. As humans, we look to others for guidance because sometimes we do not know what is best. Four years ago I joined a new swim team and met my best friend, Andrew. Even though he is two years...

Unlike most children, I loved the doctor. As I bubbled after hearing the news of a doctor's appointment, I'd begin preparing a list of questions. At the clinic, the nurses laughed at me, but I was determined to get to the bottom of my quest of how...

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” (Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau)

I have always heard that it is best to be well rounded....

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...

I grew up hating history classes. They were always the same—read, remember, regurgitate, repeat—and I stubbornly insisted that no teacher could ever make the subject appealing to me. Freshman year of high school proved me wrong. With a focus on...

The clock strikes, marking the passing of another hour. He speaks to me, a soul emerging from a simple shell, a shell of intricately carved, French wood. Kai finally comes alive with the downward glide of my arm. He cries in anguish, sings in pure...

Infrastructure. Cuban tourism. NSA. Global warming. The words flow out of my mouth, scripted, rehearsed. For the nth time, the eighth year, I recite, "Hello, my name is Katie Liu, and I represent the Mount Olive Affirmative Team. My partner and I...

Our acquaintance began when I was four. I still remember my mother shouting in horror when I would hold lightsaber battles with my bow, recreating the scenes from Star Wars. But thirteen years later, I have put thousands of hours of practice into...

Sometimes, I find thought-provoking wisdom in the most unexpected places. From Wii error messages that state “Everything saved will be lost” to Hellman’s mayonnaise telling us to “Keep cool, never freeze,” I occasionally get my daily filling of...

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...

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...

“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.”