University of Michigan - Ann Arbor Undergraduate College Application Essays

Grind the spices in the molcajete. Taste the gritty texture on your tongue.

"No, mija," my grandmother says as she shows me how to mash the cumin, garlic, onions, and tomatillo. She is in Michigan for the summer, and I think she is homesick. After...

Daniel's viola rings across the stage, and I tap my foot lightly to the beautiful melody. I feel myself exhale when he completes his solo, and in one motion, I lift my violin and join him with the rest of the orchestra.

The passion for music and...

It is Friday night and I am wondering how Frida Kahlo was associated with Leon Trotsky. Naturally this leads me to Lenin, who led the October Revolution, which brings me to the Russian Empire, which is very overwhelming and full of details about...

Why was the Fatimid Empire so important? Did al-Khwarizmi really invent Algebra? Who were the Zoroastrians? Each week, the walls of Room #2 witnessed my chubby face transform into a tomato as my religious education teacher answered each of my...

Staring out at the rain pouring down onto the sidewalk beside the airport exit, I thought one thing. This is foreign territory. Just moments before, I had found myself facing down a horde of about 60 squealing EXO (a Kpop idol group) fangirls....

I scan the room, brightly decorated with an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, three trumpets, a keyboard, and a karaoke machine. Above it all sits a black and yellow poster bearing the phrase “Band Members Only.” The corner in which the musical...

While I anxiously grasped the head of the gear shift, waiting for the colossal machine to come to life, curiosity overcame my sense of reality. The feeling of bending the rules triumphed over what was right and wrong. I erratically slid the gear...

The sun set, while a blend of indigos, rich plums, and the deepest blacks carpeted the sky; headlights lit up the parking lot as crowds entered what is normally a Jewish temple, but for the night was the Belmont High School Art Show. Stomach...

Before last October, I crafted artwork in a way that I now find stifling to the creative process. I devised pieces in a manner that I can only describe as linear: I would imagine a scene, create different compositional sketches, and then draw and...

It’s 3:16 A.M.

My eyes are bloodshot from sleeplessness; I stumble into my room and crash my head against the soft, plush pillow laying on my bed. I pull the blanket over my head and close my eyes, trying desperately to get some sleep before the...

In a 1957 interview, Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa, a legendary tabla (an Indian percussion instrument) player remarked that “rhythm is the essence of life. Without rhythm, man can not move a step forward in any sphere of activity.” He went on to point...

At my Kaiser SYEP Internship this summer, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Calvin Wheeler, the physician in chief for Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont, CA. In our conversation, we talked about the future of the health care...

“So, you’re like a plant, right?”

Yep, exactly. My name is Katia, my favorite color is aubergine, and I’m secretly a plant because I don’t experience sexual attraction. How did you know?

I found out I was asexual the summer after sophomore year....

A vivacious and carefree four-year-old, I dropped my paintbrush, splattering globs of blue paint all over my t-shirt and classmates nearby. Immediately, my thin lips transformed into an enormous grin. My grandpa, or as we say in Russian, my ...

There are many places in Des Moines that I call home - Java Joe’s Coffeehouse, The Continental, Turner Jazz Center - and the one thing they have in common? The people. These are jazz musician joints. Walking into a room and spotting fellow...

I come from a world where canvases are stacked higher than dishes, dirty paint brushes line the sink, and stained jeans are merely accepted side effects of artist's syndrome. All this is expected when my sister is a painting major and my parents...

I have learned to never take myself too seriously; after all, it's hard to keep a straight face when I tell someone I lead my school's vegetarian club. Yet the vegetarian club has allowed me to raise awareness about topics I genuinely care about—...

Zipping through the tiled halls, I glance back and grin. I grab her hand, and we soar through an arch of fluorescent-lit stores, gliding past stands selling cheap accessories in our clunky rollerblades. We stop, resting our feet, and scope out our...

Vigorously shaking the two milliliter eppendorf tube, the bubbles sprawled out from the bottom, captivating the threads into a structure that engulfed me in a trance. Then the trance was broken. I looked at the scratch left on my hand when I...

I glared at the plastic contraption before me and tried one last time to summon any telekinesis powers.

Nope. Nothing. The device’s arm stubbornly oscillated at a regular pace, like a mocking tongue across a palate. I sighed dejectedly and shut...

It started when my sister fell off the bed and nearly fractured her skull.‘Trauma to the occipital cortex,’ the doctor told my parents. ‘That explains the vision impairment.’ With the eloquence only a seven year-old could muster, I piped up, ‘I...

97%. That is the survival rate for thyroid cancer. It’s the first thing I looked up after my diagnosis. I felt like something inside me shattered. I told myself I could live with that because, statistically speaking, I would be okay.

However, my...

I’m sure that it won’t be the last. However, the first really difficult academic decision I’ve made was in February, 2015: choosing my A-Level subjects. Overnight, I had to cut down my earlier eleven subjects, many of which I had really enjoyed -...

Bok Choy and mushrooms. Pig tongue and beef liver. Dishes like these grace our dinner table every day. These unusual, even exotic animal parts and vegetables may turn away the average diner, but my family welcomes this cuisine with gleaming eyes.