University of California - Los Angeles Undergraduate College Application Essays

As I walk on stage in front the hundreds of spectators, my heart starts to race. I can feel the roughness of the chalk covering my hands as I stand in front of the barbell, ready to lift it overhead. The silence and anticipation from the audience...

Reverberating voices. Flying spit. Clinking shot glasses. A gaggle of grandpas in furry trapper hats, perched on potato crates, pontificating about Soviet politics in a farm shed. They agreed, yet still managed to yell. As a routine observer of...

Bylo, jest, bedzie. These words were stitched into my six-year-old mind as Babushka’s deft fingers stitched hems into shirtsleeves, needle pausing in midair to conjugate Polish verbs for me, to translate them into my native Russian and Ukrainian....

History is a bad driver. It rarely ever indicates when it’s about to take a turn. But on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, I saw it shift gears. “Can I get the afternoon off, ma’am?” our housekeeper Kavita asked my mom. Despite my offer of a Netflix...

I was waiting at the dinner table for the right moment and decided to serve it just before dessert, “I need 10,000 rupees to start a venture.” As my parents lost their appetite, their faces flashed curious amusement at a 15-year-old’s odd request....

Ten bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder huddled around a laptop screen. Our giddy excitement all fell to a hush with the click of a play button. Suddenly, children’s laughter and thick Tanzanian accents filled the room, soon echoed by our own...

I am an artist, and this title manifests itself in the proud paint splotches on my denim Bob Ross-esque button up. Beyond the frequent color stains on my hands and clothing, this title is backed by 10 years of apprenticeship spent beside my dad’s...

4:30 pm. The senior citizens at the communal garden are depending on me to fight off the pesky weeds encroaching on their potato fields. My thighs burn as I furiously pedal, and my hoodie flaps wildly behind me like a cape-- a superhero racing to...

I search “how to grieve properly” in the naive but hopeful belief Google knows the answer. An article tells me “broken crayons still color.” This strikes me as not only condescending but false. I am in pain and I am healing, but I am not broken....

I’m at Chinese school listening to my Laoshi, or teacher, Qian, berate me about my behavior: I brag about cheating on and failing tests, throw school supplies and generally wreak havoc. “Why do you even bother to show up?!” Feeling guilty, I...

My life in poetry didn't begin with the slam sessions or political activism I know today. Instead, in first grade, I wrote a haiku about my bunny, Brownie. I can’t remember the gory details, but I know it contained the adjective ‘fluffy’ at least...

The final notes of Tchaikovsky’s overture fade. The curtain creeps upward, revealing rows of watching eyes—toddlers in tutus and married couples on date night—all gathered for the same purpose. I begin shaking fake presents and twirling across the...

I could feel the creative energy growing, pushing restlessly against the silence as they waited for me to finish reading the brief. As soon as I did, it released itself in an outburst; voices grew loud as they struggled to make themselves heard,...

I possess superpowers that I inherited from my namesake, Geraldine, my dad’s late mother. Grandma Jeri was the daughter of Portuguese immigrants who worked on the pineapple plantations of Hawaii and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (during the 1941...

Every Friday at seven a shouting match commences in my house. The same argument is dredged up week after week like clockwork but the end result is always different. Sides change and so do loyalties. Some days it’s children versus adults and on...

I watched as eight people plummeted at the speed of lightning towards surefire slaughter. I watched lines of people eagerly waiting to embrace the same fate. I watched my sister giddy with excitement for her turn. Being voluntarily strapped to a...

When I was nine, my parents purchased a seemingly unspectacular piece of land. Eight years ago it was just mud and brick surrounded by a boundary wall. Today, it’s my home. Every weekend my father, an impassioned civil engineer, would drag me to...

Like any toddler, I despised my car seat; I’d arch my back and defiantly kick my feet as Mom strapped me in. Finally accepting my fate, I’d sulk throughout the drive to ensure Mom understood my frustration. One day, however, this scene played out...

It was a sizzling September day. I was behind a table at the Club Fair handing out shiny, glazed donuts. My peers meandered by with their giant plates of stromboli as I attempted to convince them to sign up for Jewish Club.

My biggest leadership...

The barbed wire fence was still wet from the morning dew. I peered across the broad fields and felt the pang of sadness, thinking about the countless souls buried before me. I stood within the haunting gas chambers and touched the scratch marks...

“I used to work for Johnny Adams,But he has abused the States!Taken away all their rights,Oh, he did abuse the States!He was a real nasty guy,That can only mean one thing…He wants to declare war on FranceA Quasi-War don’t make no sense!”

Picture...

The first beats of the tabla played, and my body relaxed. I closed my eyes to absorb the rhythm, then I started to sing. The interweaving of melodies and micro-tunes required deep focus; I needed to block out all distractions. The tensions from my...

Biology. Cellular research. Diagnosing neurological diseases. These are my passions. I was eight years-old when my mother gave me a small but very real microscope. I first used it to examine the cellular structure of my father’s hair. A field...

I attempted my first back handspring during Cheer tryouts my freshman year. My legs clumsily guided me across the mat, the momentum of the trick promptly knocking me off-center and, by extension, onto the ground.

When I received a congratulatory...