University of California - Santa Barbara Undergraduate College Application Essays

Snowflakes, soft and silver in the dark, drift past the window, casting shadows on the floor. The door creaks open as my mother peeks into the room to check on my brand new baby sister. She finds me crouched besides the tiny swaddled figure,...

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...

What if you were eighty-one years old when you saw a photo of yourself for the first time? Elma was.

We sounded joyless as we warbled, “Take me out to the balllllgame, take me out to the crowwdd, buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks…” our voices...

“This has to be the worst summer ever,” I thought to myself. The only television in our apartment broke.

Unsettled by pure boredom, I started to flip through books on the shelf. I read voraciously that summer, and became inevitably fascinated with...

“Feminism is witchcraft.” someone said.

Adrenaline rushes through my body. Friends I’ve had for years vanish when we discover that we held polarizing stances on at least this issue and perhaps more. I found myself in a similar situation during...

I sat stagnantly in confusion with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" open in my hands. Bewildered, I closed the book. On the cover, transcribed in glittering gold, was a sticker with the words: "Nobel Prize Winner!".

How did...

As much as I loved the stars as a child, I was rarely given the opportunity to be outside at night. Since the annual Christmas reunion at my aunt’s house culminated after 10 PM however, I was able to spend some time on those nights staring into...

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...

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...

Nickelback, Green Day, and Blink 182 shook the walls in my room as I let my mind wander. Tap, two, three, four, I thought, as the beat of Photograph vibrated around my room and slid into my ears. My pillows became a drum set and the carpet...

The pointe shoes on my feet carry me across the floor with restrained urgency, the movement of my arms in alignment to the syncopation of the music. Ideas flow through my fingertips, and manifest themselves in the form of choreography.

From a...

Raised as a figure skater, and indoctrinated into believing that thinner thighs produced higher jumps and faster rotations, I started my first diet as a ten-year-old. Meals were replaced with protein shakes, and childlike innocence devolved into...

My eyes glistened as I watched a documentary on Korean Pop Stardom. The trainees were subject to strict diets, inflexible rules, and practice from morning to midnight. The video intended to reveal the supposed horrors of the industry. Yet, as a...

My mom loves to tell the story of when I was a baby, and I would pull the biggest book I could find off the shelf and into my lap, tracing my fingers over the words and pretending I knew what I was reading. Since the night I came home from the...

For as long as I can remember, my parents have always been insistent on taking photos whenever they got the chance. I used to find it annoying, always having to look at the camera, smile, and pose on demand, but now I realize the value of those...

How does one prepare for a test with no correct answer? There aren't flashcards to flip through, past practice tests to predict similar problems, or a study guide to fill out. How would a test like this even be administered? The answer - a...

Crystals fell from the sky, images of a never-seen winter wonderland falling into place. Snow flurries drifted through the air; a faded yellow fluorescent light from the rundown Chinese restaurant radiated through each flake, reflecting the...

Grasping the air bulb in my hand, I squeeze till the arm cuff is snug around the nurse. Methodically, I turn the valve on the bulb, letting out a faint stream of air, still pressing my stethoscope firmly upon the brachial artery, listening for the...

As a son of first-generation Indian immigrants, stories of hardship were not unfamiliar to me. Hate manifested in the form of chants like "Go back to YOUR country!". Hate manifested in the form of fear- fear of wearing our traditional kurtas or...

At the age of seven, I would collect ladybugs in small containers, take them home, and play with them. I admired how they traveled high and low, imagining their view of the world to be even more exhilarating than mine. Entering high school, my...

The process of watering my houseplant grounds me. I believe that every plant lives its own story, just like the eight million different forms of life that inhabit the Earth. As I learn more about the life cycle of my plant and the support Aurora...