Stanford University Undergraduate College Application Essays

It was the start of something new. There I was, a freshman bouncing on the beanbags in the debate room, ready to embark on a new journey called Extemporaneous Speaking. I decided to try this event defined by its rapid-fire intensity to prepare...

Dear roommate,

Don’t be afraid if you hear noises at night. It’s probably just my muse going out for a walk. I know, she’s really loud. But she never listens to me when I tell her to keep it down.

And she’ll be back in the morning, so please make...

I am the complete contradiction of what I was expected to be, and I couldn’t be more proud. As a gay ex-Mormon who left home at sixteen, moved across the world, and began learning Arabic, I’m may well be the most unconventional person from Rigby,...

When I was eight, I read the 531-page Book of Mormon cover-to-cover. The vocabulary and concepts which comprised the set of doctrine was unbelievably complex, so it usually took an entire hour to get through three of its short pages. To do this, I...

“All-analysis-is-contrary-to-its-own-intent-and-the-affirmative’...

“Good things come in threes.”

I walked into my first job thinking I was overqualified; most of my coworkers were Chinese immigrants attending the local community college. But time slowly brought a new lens of admiration into my perspective. They...

I first discovered this versatile building material as a seven-year-old visiting my father's HVAC shop. While waiting for him to finish working one night, I wandered from the modestly finished space at the front of the building to the shop in...

Dear roommate,

Fair warning: when you walk into our room, you’ll smell an odd, sweet tanginess. Yet, before you have the chance to investigate, I’ll be jumping off the bed and pouring you a mug of my signature orange oolong tea — the source of the...

I lean my head against the cold glass window and watch the world fly by at 70 mph, as the soothing tones of stringed instruments and a dancing guitar line melt into Emm Gryner’s voice singing "Stereochrome." I was 6 years old, riding in the...

To pass the time in monotonous car rides, my dad would describe an environment from a random point of view. I would guess where he was, or what he was. We called this the Imagination Game. As I grew older, my dad began to recount scenes from all...

Pomelo, pamplemousse, trai buoi, grapefruit - Spanish, French, Vietnamese, and English. My ability to connect languages has enhanced my understanding of every subject I learn and has led me to cherish language as a bridge between different...

There is an incomprehensible secret embodied in the experience of feeling death without dying. It is a secret that I now share with the city of Paris, and every word I write feels like the spilling out of a sacred vow. In the attack on the...

The trick to picking a perfect peach is simple: Gently squeeze the chot (stem and fruit junction); if the inside of the fruit is juicy and dark yellow, carefully roll the fruit and pull while holding the stem to avoid bruising.

After nine summers,...

I winced in aversion when the document loaded. Displayed before me was a dauntingly long list of bizarre names, obscure titles, and dates hundreds of years in the past. As I scrolled through the PDF, my disorientation only grew.

Earlier that day,...

Peonies, marigolds, asters, tulips. My small hands stroke delicate yellow, pink, blue, and I hold the petals up to the light of the bright window in awe. When the strong sunlight beams down, the flowers remind me of fairy wings in their...

I approach Wallace Stevens’ poetry with frightful bewilderment, occasional terror, and a sense of ambitious delight—much like how the Macbeths approached the murder of King Duncan.

Stevens was my first “difficult” poet. For fourteen years, I’d...

I showed up to school in thongs today... no not that type of thong. Indeed, Australians call flip flops, thongs. As my physcis teacher told me he 'reckons' I should take off my thongs and put on 'runners' (i.e. sneakers) to avoid labratory...

The smallest things in life often carry the most meaning.

I realized this when I found myself as the only teen among a group of teachers for a USACF meeting in Brooklyn. As I sat there nervously, clenching onto my shirtsleeves, I came face to...