Claremont McKenna College Undergraduate College Application Essays

Last fall, my mother was able to snag four tickets to Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. The Arizona Diamondbacks, my home team, were taking on the New York Yankees. We had an extra ticket, and since my brother was studying in Europe, I invited my...

Ask any high school student about the John Hughes film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and you'll find that this mid-eighties teeny bopper flick still has kids hooked. Matthew Broderick stars as Ferris, the rebellious teenager from a wealthy suburb of...

Throughout the American Revolution, John Adams often humbly remarked, "We are ordinary men living in extraordinary times." Due to his modest nature, Mr. Adams most likely believed his statement to be true. However, I must disagree with Mr. Adams....

A single pair of legs, kicking up from the ocean. Kicking up from the far right corner of a pleasant landscape depicting what may be the most tranquil morning in the history of pleasant landscapes. And there, the legs - added as almost an...

Of all the founding fathers in America's history, few have played a role equaling the paramount importance of Thomas Paine, and few have been so repeatedly overlooked. At a time when even the most devout patriot stood uncertainly in the shadow of...

"Cassius Clay," my father declared, "KO'ed Moore in four. I was there. Ringside." Annoyed at hearing the thousandth incarnation of this story, I rolled my eyes. My father loved telling stories. If you let him, he would talk you up all night....

It was early morning in Alesia. Gleaming rays of red-orange light danced on the wheat fields of southeastern France. Suddenly, three hundred thousand Gallic soldiers blotted out the horizon. Vercingeterix's reinforcements had arrived to fight...

I would have never expected my life to change dramatically after a trip to the men’s room. However, on June 20, 2007, one did. I overheard a conversation that changed my point of view on nearly everything. “He didn’t even make it to Extemp...

During a trip to the US, my father brought back a boxed set of The West Wing DVDs. While I planned to watch them during my school holiday as amusement, the show instead became an obsession and an education in itself.

My greatest passion has always...

Vijay Mallya, an Indian airline and brewing tycoon, is an unconventional businessman. He is the owner of the world’s second largest spirits company and also of one of India’s largest airlines, and his business success is one of many examples of...

The colors through the window become inconsequential, only the forms and their faces significant. Through the window of my hometown Kolkata, India I see a half naked child running around on the street. His face depicts childish levity and frolic...

Whether or not one supported Barack Obama’s election to the White House, one must concede that the President’s campaign speeches brilliantly portrayed a new vision for a tired country. Yet Obama did not write them. The man behind the curtain was...

Three A.M. I still smell like the chicken-soaked grease of a shift spent working at Chick-Fil-A, but I’ve hit a plot snag. My character’s stuck in Boston, I’m stuck on page 78, and I need to figure out how to get us both out before I’ll let myself...

The Parks and Recreation star’s blonde locks and petite stature may be that of the quintessential Hollywood darling, but Amy Poehler is anything but. After becoming the first woman to ever become a full cast member of Saturday Night Live in her...

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...

It’s been three years. The edges of the photo are soft now, and the colors have dimmed. It has been worn thin and fragile, and there is a deepening crease down its center from the years it spent folded between my fingers. I don't usually keep...

If at any given moment there is not at least one child screaming, one dog barking, any variation of an alarm sounding and/or someone "practicing" an instrument they don't actually know how to play, something is awry in my house. Generally, any...

The American Ballet Theater (ABT) Gillespie School parent/student meeting back in March started off with nothing exciting, nothing new. New drop off and pickup procedures. The June showcase. Spring evaluations. Yawn. But then the school’s artistic...

As January snow fluttered outside the window of the hospital where I was born, my mom carefully chose a Chinese name to give me. While I go by Carolyn in America, I am Xuě Líng in China. Years later, my mom told me that my second name translates...