Princeton University Undergraduate College Application Essays

Scrolling through the lines of G-code iterations, I rubbed my eyes as my cursor hovered over the “Run” button onthe monitor. The image of the Arc de Triomphe taunted me. My finger rested on the mouse in anticipation, but thehigh stakes furthered...

On any given dusky afternoon, I find myself asking the pressing question: Will I make it a third time in a row? I raise my arms, examine a dulled orange orb clinging to my aching, sweaty palms, and squint at the near-invisible net. Far from...

Everyone associates something different with each day of the week. Mondays are lethargic and painful, Tuesdays are not much different, and generally, as the week progresses, our outlook steadily improves. Because of this progression, some people...

During my summers, I passionately pursued humanitarian endeavors to alleviate suffering, learn about the medical field and fortify my Catholic values. In the summer of 2015, I began devoting more time to working in low-income ophthalmic clinics,...

While learning a new language is extremely difficult, its benefits outweigh the numerous hours that must be devoted to it. Throughout my high school career, a decent ability to converse in -broken- Spanish has been vital to my volunteerism.

Many...

Dear roommate,

Don’t be afraid if you hear noises at night. It’s probably just my muse going out for a walk. I know, she’s really loud. But she never listens to me when I tell her to keep it down.

And she’ll be back in the morning, so please make...

With six layers on, I waddled out the door, feeling and looking like an oompa loompa. My mother had dressed me in layer after layer, and, begrudgingly, I had allowed myself to be smothered with an array of puffy jackets and scarves. The weather...

One Way Out of Gym, the mystery of a murdered gym teacher, is not a timeless classic. It’s a novel that spent zero weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List. There’s only one copy—I published it myself. Few care about Detective Charley or the...

Is it weird to say that an 84-year-old woman keeps me young?

My Grandma Nan may have arthritis, bad eyesight, and a couple of new knees, but she is an unstoppable bundle of geriatric energy. Her age is merely a number that keeps her humming show...

“I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.” Brian Greene, as quoted in This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and...

I looked down at the robot before me. I had spent weeks and weeks programming and building it, putting in countless hours of concentration. Then I looked up at my robotics teacher, excitedly, as he tested it himself — and it worked perfectly. The...

As the cliché states, anything worth achieving only comes through blood, sweat, and tears. Well, in my case, it was lots of sweat, some tears, and a little bit of blood—I tripped over branches periodically. At the age of fifteen, I encountered an...

Poetry makes nothing happen, so W. H. Auden famously said. And there are Sunday afternoons where I wonder why I am teaching it to middle school students. Make no mistake: for all my enthusiasm and bantering in class, I understood from the...

I met Hugo last summer while backpacking in Alaska. He was a small Inuit man who lived north of the Arctic Circle in the Nunamiut village of Anaktuvuk Pass, which is accessible only by foot or plane. We entered the small museum where Hugo worked...

I always dread the first day of school. Each year, seven unlucky teachers get the opportunity to butcher my last name horribly (Ne-guy-yun, Neg-ren, Nu-gwen and every other imaginable mispronunciation), while my classmates get their entertainment...

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” ―Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

There is a crescent that runs across my thigh, then down my knee, pauses, and continues in an uninterrupted path across my calf. It is...

The trick to picking a perfect peach is simple: Gently squeeze the chot (stem and fruit junction); if the inside of the fruit is juicy and dark yellow, carefully roll the fruit and pull while holding the stem to avoid bruising.

After nine summers,...

“Ridiculously disrespectful,” I mumbled to myself. I’d just seen two students stealthily looking into their desks, utterly disinterested. Shocked by their distracting whispers, which rose above the sound of my voice and the harsh scratches of my...

I woke up at six that morning. My mom had left an hour earlier to work her two full-time jobs. It was a routine weekend; surrounding me was our ramshackle apartment decorated with sparse furniture, a Hindu temple in the corner, and a telephone I...

“This looks not like a nuptial” - Much Ado About Nothing

For a split second hanging in the air, I could feel the forces of gravity drag me toward the packed-down snow. The knowledge that I had made a horrible decision swam through the pink folds...

Even with her sharp, monosyllabic words that often lack vowels, my mother is a gentle language whose simple phonetic spelling and liberal syntax nurture me. She is my first love and the first proof of my infatuation for words. She is the essence...

The pungent odor of my mother’s borscht drifted across our campsite, along with the smoky smell coming from the fire. The field was filled with cars, tents, and a large stage. Onstage was a famous Russian group, “Masha and the 3 Bears,” playing...

I can’t eat Werther’s butterscotch candies anymore. For eight years Mr. Werth, my piano teacher, always kept a bag of Werther’s Butterscotch candies in his bag that he would share with me and my siblings. I have an enduring association between the...

anacrusis

A basic C major chord followed by an equally basic G major chord, arpeggiated: use your left hand to hit C-E-G… that sounds accurate. Now, slide your hand down a bit further and hit G-B-D. Good. Hit the first chord three times, do the...