University of California - Los Angeles Undergraduate College Application Essays

I had heard it all before: life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, and rarely any second chances. Yet in spite of the currents against me, I sought to make for myself a second chance. When my junior year of basketball ended, my heart sunk...

Metallic. That’s the first word that comes to mind when describing cochlear implant speech. Surgically embedded in the inner ear, cochlear implants can restore a certain level of hearing to the deaf by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve,...

Education provides students with the tools to make a difference in their community, but what students do with those tools is ultimately up to them. A solid grounding in any subject area is not enough by itself; students must have the desire and...

"Those who do not know their opponents’ arguments do not completely understand their own.” My mother had emailed me the quote, saying it reminded her of me. As I read the quote, I saw how it reflected my life. In all my schooling, all my...

When I found out I had been cast as Emile de Becque in the musical South Pacific, I was excited but confused, and even a little scared. Why had I been picked as the lead, even though I was a sophomore with no experience singing in the operatic...

I’m a starting linebacker, but my mother is way tougher than I am. She runs the legislative, executive and judicial branches of discipline in our house, takes care of all of our taxes, and single-handedly manages my father’s law firm. She also...

Last summer, while aurally interpreting the script of Lorca’s ‘Yerma’, my biggest challenge was bringing to life the ‘shepherd’s horn in the distance’. My initial choice, the authentic sound of a conch-shell horn actually used by Andalusian...

Like every other year, a spectrum of color surrounds me on the first day of 2009. My January 1st mornings have always been shared with Grandma, a 91-year-old woman who still manages to scurry through the kitchen preparing the brunch that stares at...

Countless books, documentaries, and museums recount the story of the Jewish Holocaust. Comparatively few people, however, have heard of the modern holocaust that took place in Indonesia twelve years ago in my hometown of Jakarta.

One particular...

At an age when most young girls spend their days watching Sunday morning cartoons and playing with Barbie dolls, I was struggling with the emotional turmoil that was my family. Growing up in the slums of L.A., my living situation was abominable: I...

I vividly remember running home from the library and locking myself upstairs to begin the reading. I rifled through the nutrition book with as much excitement as if I had found the Holy Grail. I stayed up all night to read it, to consume it, to...

The stage trembled under the rhythmic tapping of wood on wood as glossy ringlets bounced in the summer sun. After an energetic jig, a dozen grinning and giggling girls filed past me in their sparkling dresses. Meanwhile, I anxiously adjusted the...

“Dinner is ready!” Every Sunday a member of our family takes a turn choosing what we’re having for dinner, and today was my turn. My mother had prepared all of my favorite food, from foie gras to sea urchin sushi to satay. As we began eating, my...

As a French-American, I am symbolically bound to two altogether different cultural spheres via the hyphen. In its relation to me, the hyphen holds more than symbolic value alone. Growing up in America with divorced parents, my mother French and my...

"You are next." The words of the referee still resonated in my mind as I walked across the soccer field. After 90 minutes of intense play, the score was still tied. The outcome of the game was in my hands. Coach Alcaraz had entrusted me with the...

My family and I immigrated to the United States when I was just seven years old. Although it was very hard for my parents to leave their home and family behind in El Salvador, they were motivated to give me and my siblings a better life in the...

I owe it all to Anna. Three years ago when she tapped my shoulder, I was an overwhelmed freshman lost in the pulsing sea known as Club Rush. Turning around, I found myself face-to-face with a petite, quivering girl. Although she held herself in a...

When I stepped into the “Introduction to Anthropology” class as a 16-year old freshman, the youngest college student in the class, I found the perfect fusion of both natural and social science. Intermingled in the study of humanity were the...

In the classic Greek epic, ‘The Odyssey,’ Homer idealizes Odysseus for portraying two attributes: physical and intellectual strength. These are the two qualities that help the protagonist on his difficult journey. Greek society is similar to the...

When you hear someone grew up in Dubai, your first thought may be skeptical and even dismissive. However, having had the first-hand experience, I can say that these reactions are far from fair. Quickly growing, Dubai is the home to people of 202...

As a kid, I loved traffic jams, since they meant playing ‘The License Plate Game’ with my dad. The rules are simple: chose a license plate on a car and find a meaning or a pattern in those numbers and letters. For example, if a woman in her mid...

A thrift store is a naturally dynamic world, with a constant influx of the unknown and an incessant purging of the unwanted. Any moment may yield a glimmer of Fendi drowning in an ocean of Gap, everything marked $3.99. The objective is to find the...

My blades kiss the pasty ice as I step onto the empty rink. The zamboni driver has signed out for the night, leaving everything engulfed in darkness, except for a few dim yellow lights. I revel in the frosty silence until the rude hums of the...

My fingers pirouetted up and down the fingerboard, spiraling faster than the notes running through my head. Every white callous and bloody blister had led up to this moment, as I could feel all those hours of repetition, struggle, and stumbling...