Newest College Application Essays

If I were to follow Henry David Thoreau's advice to simplify my life and eliminate any unnecessary possessions, I would find myself with perhaps half a dozen of the most important left. It is said that one can tell a lot about a person by his most...

My skin. Something biologically insignificant, yet socially so powerful. According to The Scientist magazine on February 18, 2002, those visible traits that humans use to define "race" make up only .01% of our genes. Race, biologically speaking,...

I don't try to deny it. I hate football. Or rather, in stereotypical female fashion, I simply don't understand it. I never bothered to learn because it just didn't appeal to me. So when my brother handed me a ticket to the 86th Rose Bowl game, I...

I do no know to what extent the actual "services" help the community. I don't know how many sandwiches need to be served or children need to be clothed before we--acting as humans, not as citizens--put any dent in the problems. However, for the...

Why do most diets fail? As a veteran dieter with nearly eight years' experience, I have acquired enough knowledge to answer this question. Those who readily jump into new diets are looking to realize possible goals through impossible methodology....

Tufts is the most balanced school I have seen in my "college search." I do not necessarily want a campus inside a city (Columbia, University of Chicago), or a campus proud of the nothingness that surrounds it (Bard, Bowdoin). Tufts is the perfect...

Very recently I finished writing a one-act play entitled Michelle. I love to write, but writing this play was often painful. That is what made it different.

I created three characters, each with their own set of oddities, aberrations, and manias....

Suspended on the wall of my fatherâs office is a photograph of someone I once knew well yet now barely recognize, a girl with a thick mane of platinum hair and a bronze, painted face. Images of this girl dance through my memory whenever my eyes...

Light brown autumn leaves blew swiftly across the cracked sidewalk that outlines my oldest brother Lance's house. I stood silently there and stared at him walking down the street, his two year old son Luke trotting at his side. The sun was orange...

For those who start their studies in the U.S. with linguistic disadvantages, AP and IB courses are unattainable dreams. As with many of my fellow international students in California, I could not benefit from the virtues of sophisticated academic...

France is a European fusion of culture, claiming diversely mastered specialties in its many regions and provinces. Crpes, dentelle Bretonne, languedoc, and fromages-mania are all constituent to this cultural synthesis, until you come down to...

1. Although I have a very vague understanding of the University of Chicago, from what I know, I believe it truly satiates all my learning desires. My wishes and anticipations for higher education are mirrored in even the most obvious aspects of...

On November 18, 2000, a group of my friends and I returned home from my birthday dinner at a local steakhouse. Upon our arrival, it was suggested that we watch the movie Fight Club. As if it were meant to be, we discovered that Fight Club was to...

In order to contribute to a community of any size or structure, some aspect of said community must be made better. This can be something as simple as cleaning up refuse or as profound as changing the way people live their lives. Regardless of the...

Hyperlexia. This is a term that very few people have heard of, but it is a term that I have become intimately acquainted with. Though it is shrouded in mystery, I have grown to know it frighteningly well, better than anything on this earth. I know...

I have always considered my self-employment as a private piano teacher to be my single greatest contribution, not only to my students but to myself. I began giving lessons as a freshman, after several family friends expressed interest in having...

As a teenage girl with hyperlexia - a communications disorder that causes some social problems - my life has had its share of interesting challenges. Although my disorder is not nearly as severe as it was during my childhood, it has left some...

Reading at a young age, I am told, is the best way to sharpen a developing mind. In the months leading up to the presidential elections in November of 1992, I was a seven-year-old with an undiagnosed case of attention deficit disorder and a...

My experiences with cultural diversity, while not necessarily limited to one particular event, have had a great impact on my life - most notably in fostering my fascination with world languages. Growing up in a half-Italian, half-Serbian home, I...

On July 1, 2001, the summer before my sophomore year, I was introduced to the University of Michigan's All-State Piano Program at Interlochen. Since I had never attended All-State, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Little did I know that this...

A petite young woman sits in the obstetrician's office, her four-year-old daughter in her lap. The little girl is restless yet unable to extricate herself from her mother's arms due to cerebral palsy. Both mother and daughter wear worried...

The pianist walks gracefully up the steps to the stage. She sits at the piano bench, adjusts the skirt of her white dress, and places her hands on the keyboard. She then begins to play. The simple, lyrical piece is unfamiliar to the audience, but...

They say "Patience is a virtue" and "Good things come to those who wait". I believe better versions of those statements are "Passion is a virtue" and "Good things come to those who work". These modified mottos are an explanation of who I am and...

On my first day of ninth grade, I stepped into my Spanish 1 classroom - a long, narrow room with desks arranged in a few rows backed by a wall covered in colorful posters. I had waited for years to take the opportunity to learn a foreign language,...