Newest College Application Essays

I wake up an hour before the stampede towards the shower begins in my summer camp residence hall. Quietly, I close my dorm door so as to not startle my week-long roommate awake--I had to be alone. My clothes and towel hang on the stall as I brace...

I stare out from the bay, my hip waders sunken into the mushy sand as I admire the smooth and confident glide of a blue heron landing on a rusted rack off the next sandbar. My father and I share an affinity towards nature, as well as an...

The grass brushed against my ankles and my backpack bounced with each step as I walked through the field. Through my sunglasses, I looked towards kids playing what I knew was soccer. With my school, I had traveled to Haiti over Christmas break....

Tightening my grip on the thin paintbrush, I squinted my eyes as I carefully traced the flawless face. My hand shook and the paint bled outside of the brow. In frustration, I set down the canvas to inspect my work. The painting was like a...

Dairy products crushed my dreams. My pediatrician delivered the terrible news: she said that my constant stomach aches had been caused by a dairy allergy that had, until recently, lain dormant. This development would be a tough pill for any...

As I walked through the door there she stood, staring into oblivion with a dazed look on her face. Alice was my first Adaptive student, and the only discernible sound that she emitted was "ribbit." I was intrigued, but not surprised, because the...

We climbed out of the van and into the lush Thai jungle, overgrown and wild, unlike anything in America. The soothing trill of the locusts was met by complete silence, aside from the deep breaths of the colossal creatures across the road and the...

Maggi is desire. Maggi is beautiful. There are few things I wouldn’t give up to have Maggi. Just so things are clear - Maggi is a brand of instant noodles.

Every night in our dormitories, my friends and I used my kettle and cooked up exactly these...

As a volunteer fireman and EMT trainee, I have witnessed archaic machinery’s fatal effect on lives and buildings. In my short time with the Great Neck Vigilant Fire Company, I have already begun to outline prototypes to help my colleagues ensure...

According to tradition, every Chinese New Year children receive lucky money in red envelopes from older relatives and friends. In my toddler years, finding the crisp, red envelopes embossed with gold characters to be aesthetically superior to and...

A few Thanksgivings ago, my mom decided to buy a whole pig and roast it herself. Unfortunately, the pig had a ghastly aroma which filled the whole house, and everyone immediately scolded her for the acrid smell ruining their Thanksgiving meal....

I step into the studio, a room dominated by a towering record collection and the flashing fluorescent lights of a soundboard. It’s a very small room, but its endless possibilities for transmitting different types of sound make it seem larger than...

The stench of a burnt building polluted the air. Children huddled around the damage, confused, even though the fire was forty-eight hours behind them. What had been a recently remodeled apartment project just six short years earlier had been...

I have two brothers. They’ve always been everything I’ve ever hoped to become. From the beginning of my life, they enchanted me. I was not only drawn to them because they bore a strong resemblance to me, but because everyone else was fascinated by...

It hit me. Not while I was scaling cliffs that were sculpted with the help of a straightedge, not even while I dreamed that I was suffocating, only to wake up and realize I really did have a snow-covered tarp pressed against my face. Not the first...

Few things make my grandfather more proud than fulfilling the sense of duty that comes with casting a ballot. A Cuban political refugee, my grandfather never misses an opportunity to reinforce just how important voting and democracy are. The sad...

“Understand the meaning of MC. The power to Move the Crowd like Moses splits the seas.” Remembering the lyrics of Talib Kweli, my favorite rapper, I rapped, surrounded by a small crowd on the streets. As I stole glimpses of teens in their...

“He smells like death.”

A petite nurse muttered this to the physician as she left the patient’s room. When she saw me, she scrunched her face into an expression of embarrassment. Although I smiled back politely, a mixture of shock and apprehension...

Her unnatural red hair.

The limp in his walk.

The crease in his dark, velvet forehead.

The sorrow-filled eyes of the woman in the back.

His mother abandoned him when he was only two years old. She was valedictorian of her high school class and got...

Most kids obtain the same eye color or a few facial features from their parents, yet I've acquired substantially more: an unquenchable enthusiasm for technology. My dad, an electrical designer, taught me to investigate the world with curious eyes,...

“Mom, I’m gay,” I whispered quietly into her ear. I had waited three years to tell her in the hopes that she would understand, but she did not. Instead, she told me I was an abomination, and at that time I was fragile, so I believed her. Feeling...

Two parts baseball diamond, one part treehouse, a little picnic, and a slice of stickball. Add to the list a lot of yard work, and much of my portrait is complete. While many people build memories with their families and friends, learning life’s...

The patient shakes, her feeble arm plastered with goosebumps. The room is a standard 63 degrees. The air is crisp, cool, and sterile. The physician’s hands are gloved. The warm blue latex seems to comfort the teenage girl, and some of the...