Newest College Application Essays

I confess, at the age of eight, I did not know how to spell my name. I confess, at the age of twelve, I did not know how to comb my hair. I confess, at the age of sixteen, I was not ready to lead three hundred people.

A couple of weeks ago, on a...

There’s a wall near my grandparents’ home in Kolkata that’s stood for decades. Spray-painted on it, in carmine-colored dye, is an enormous hammer and sickle, a reminder of the Communist Party’s stranglehold over the area’s regional politics for...

Trenton isn’t really one city—it’s two. The first Trenton runs between North Broad Street and West Hanover Street, and there’s a government building on every block: gleaming façades, Grecian columns, security checkpoints every few feet. The second...

I have to speak up and say something. No, I don’t.

These were the thoughts that battled in my mind as I sat still in my chair. The spacious classroom seemed suddenly like a restrictive cage. For two days in homeroom, the entire school was...

When I was about the age of six, my parents introduced me to the technological toy-marvel of the 90s, the original Nintendo Gameboy, which I came to both cherish and dissect. I would move on to owning my first computer at around age 8, an HP...

Opening the door to the Cat Assessment room was like entering a world with a myriad of lessons, some delightful and others difficult. This program, Kitten Garten, was brought to my attention by volunteer services at Pasadena Humane Society &...

In the corner of my room sits my grandfather’s diary: soft, well-worn, and cracked. The first entry, written in English, is dated “June 1st, 1970,” in the halting, elaborate script of a man accustomed to Bengali. The last entry, dated “November...

Unlike most people I know, I’ve never been disappointed by a meal at a restaurant. It’s hard to believe, but if there’s anything I’ve got a knack for, it’s picking food off of a menu. Here, for the first time ever, I intend to share my most...

Around the age of four, my mother became my first teacher. In the summer, she would spend her days exposing my brother and me to various topics we seemed interested in, covering subjects ranging from ancient Egyptian history to cooking. Each...

Surrounded by 800 other kids chanting, “Let us in! Let us in!”, we wait outside the chapel as the sun goes down the mountain. When the doors are open, we all rush into the sanctuary to find the work crew member waving a poster with our church’s...

Right now mothers across India are leafing frantically through the US News Rankings, trying to advise their children on where to enroll. Mine chooses to place her faith in a more traditional approach- the family tarot card reader!

I was resistant...

The lights were blinding. The stage felt cold. But I knew this was my moment. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, as the audience was roaring and cheering us on. I felt nervous, so I looked over at my teammates. I knew that we were in...

“Are you sure you want to make that move?” Grandpa asks.

I take yet another look at the board in front of me and walk myself through it one more time, step-by-step. He’ll take my rook―he has to―with his last bishop, which’ll allow me to corner his...

When I was younger, I treated my bilingualism like a spy gadget. I wore my second language comfortably hidden with a hint of pride. My Spanish proved to be a useful tool for gleaning insight into different cultures. My ears caught a snatch of a...

My journey as a violist began seven years ago, when I made a trip to my local music center and the director searched around in a cluttered inventory closet, pulling out a case. Inside lay my first viola. It was slightly off color, worn down and...

Tish and Snooky’s Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink Classic High Voltage Permanent Hair Dye. $9.03 per tub of 4 fluid ounces. 14 tubs for 14 girls, that’d be a total of $126.42. A ski team tradition. “Not hazing,” the older girls argued, with a wink...

The smell of chalk dust and anticipation, lights up my brain, narrowing my focus to a pinpoint of cold, unforgiving rock. The beauty of the rock as it gives one the option to dance in so many ways up its face. The granules of each stone feel like...

In the U.S., there are five standard barn styles. Iron Horse is a Midwestern classic; Homestead, is basic, easily adaptable. Offset Roofline takes a more angular structure, while Round Barn is the circular American original. Gambrels are...

“Fearless!” I snatched the pack of watermelon gum from Michael’s hand.

“Oh great,” he said. Earlier that morning, a GHP teacher in my Word Congress class challenged us to pick a word that we felt was an important quality to have, then spend the...

“OK… I’m not sure that was supposed to happen.”

My co-worker Greg and I both regarded the bike shock that now lay in two parts on the shop floor in a puddle of hydraulic fluid. The bike itself hung from the work stand, looking disconcertingly like...

As soon as my sister and I had settled into the back of the ambulance, I pulled out my phone and opened the “Notes” app despite my dwindling battery—putting my thoughts down meant everything to me in that moment. I wrote:Right now, I’m Schrödinger...

I last raced with him at our favorite venue, where he dusted me (and all of us) decidedly. Wiley was headed to big things. That much, I thought was certain. If only I had known this might be the last time I saw that blue race suit streak past me,...

My mother is a refugee from Cambodia who witnessed the murder of her father by the Khmer Rouge at age 2. Her response to her trauma was to put pressure on her kids to be the best. Growing up I remember writing out the ABC’s hundreds of times a...

Stairs, my lifelong arch(itectural)-nemesis. Over my seventeen years we’ve, unfortunately, had many encounters and some heated “stair”downs. Even when nothing goes explicitly wrong, the experience is hardly pleasant. Of course stairs aren't solely...