Johns Hopkins University Undergraduate College Application Essays

Muted pastels climbed sluggishly into the sky that morning, pale pinks and periwinkles barely peeking through the marine layers of Imperial Beach. It was the kind of morning ideal for lounging in pajamas. And yet as dawn shed its light, I found my...

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...

The snow crunched underneath my feet as I walked, and I wondered how it must have felt to step on the moon. I had decided to make the most of the cloudy day by exploring and taking pictures at a local state park. Was the view from the moon...

I guarantee I can make you the perfect cake. Not just a delicious cake, or an overly expensive looking cake – I'll make one you'll have to love because it will reflect you as an individual. It's a pretty rare talent, the skills for which took me...

As a selected participant for the Medical and Education Perspectives program at Johns Hopkins University, I was given the opportunity to put my passion for medicine into practice. With support from a fellow classmate and a current Biomedical...

I grabbed my first camera in sixth grade. I would grasp the handle of the silver Sony camcorder like slipping on a comfortable glove, and glide my thumb over the intricate aluminum buttons, finally putting it to rest on top of the big red dot...

“…Thus I advocate for the global suicide of humanity as a solution to anthropocentrism…” I dropped my pen, frozen in shock and hilarity. Surely this was a joke; although I had only attended a few debate tournaments, I had never encountered...

Your world seems to fall here. Air so cold and fingers so numb, you would barely know when it happened. But you do. As your grip slips, it takes only seconds before you realize. Gravity unforgivingly pulls you from your scull and into the frigid...

If there are two things in this world that I cherish, they are my best friend, Manuel, and my driver’s license.

Being able to drive has allowed me to go beyond the bounds of the South Floridian suburb in which I currently reside, where the most...

A few times a week, I make the hour-long trek from my home in the suburbs to my fencing school in West Philadelphia. As I drive to practice, suburban towns slowly fade into red and brown brick row homes, until all around me are boarded up windows,...

My greatest interests and passions are immunology, allergy, and epidemiology. These areas have evolved throughout the years. My fascination with pathology started in the first grade with a basic science fair project on environments conducive to...

Newspapers and magazines strewn over the table, heated discussions about the financial markets, and closing prices of the Dow Jones scrawled on post-it notes. One may think that this is an office in a major banking firm, but it’s not—it’s my...

The sunlight mutedly shone through the grimy windows, peering through the blinds. We maintained steady eye contact between the covered Erlenmeyer flasks, mouthing our countdown: “three … two … one!" As if perfectly rehearsed, the purple...

I was shocked by the sound of my own voice.

Having recorded myself, I excitedly pressed play, expecting to validate an acoustic theory I had just read about in physics textbook. As sound travels faster through bone than air, I expected a...

Even with her sharp, monosyllabic words that often lack vowels, my mother is a gentle language whose simple phonetic spelling and liberal syntax nurture me. She is my first love and the first proof of my infatuation for words. She is the essence...

The first day of a Minecraft game is crucial to survival. Huddled in the living-room, iPhones and iPads in-hand, the seven of us carefully formulate our plan. First, we lay down ground rules: no killing each other’s avatars, no lazing around. He...

It took two hours to get home, a three mile drive that should have taken a few minutes. A drive we’d made countless times without thinking. But things were different now. Everything was different now. Dad presented his license to the National...

“A mi no querer takar la clase de español”, I fervently and somewhat jokingly argued with my mother after she DECLARED that I would take Spanish 1 in 7th grade. It’s sort of like those times when you know the battle has long been over, yet you...