University of California - San Diego Undergraduate College Application Essays

I am convinced that I only have friends because of my mother’s cooking. Friends always seem to come through the door when spanakopita, tiropita, baklava, and other ethnic Greek foods are on the table. Watching others become infatuated with the...

I am an explorer. At 10 months old, my travels began with my family’s first move. Over the years, we have been relocated because of my father’s company, gradually bringing a family of five from East to West. Five states, five homes, and five...

When I first landed in America to live with my mother after being raised by my grandparents, I was in third grade and knew only a handful of English words. As a single parent, my mother had to leave for work early every morning, while I went to...

There was a gleam and bright blue spark in my teacher’s eyes as she taught piano. The young student looked at her in excited amazement, a smile spreading across her face, like the smile of a mother seeing her newborn baby for the first time. This...

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...

Slowly walking down the stairs, wiping the sleep from my eyes, I head directly towards the kitchen. The cold metal mixing bowl meets my hand as I remove it from the cupboard. Struggling to make it to the counter with my hands full of ingredients,...

I shiver with anticipation as the other nine finalists and I line up on the Portland Teen Idol stage. I’ve performed my songs to the best of my ability, and now I grasp the clammy hands of my talented neighbors, waiting to hear the results. The...

Before signing up for Computer Science, I had never seen what a code looked like. But suddenly, I found myself fluent in the language of Python. While the other students stewed n frustration, for me, everything had clicked.

It wasn’t until a few...

When I used to fall asleep as a toddler, my mother would put on old Punjabi songs. Apparently, I always woke up doing bhangra. That’s where it all started, my passion for all things dance. My first stage performance came when I was seven. I...

I sat there staring at it. The so called “blob” of the food world. That infamously taboo food with a worse reputation than Lindsey Lohan. Its unpleasant corners, soft texture, and initial lack of flavor strike fear into the hearts of its...

This is the balcony that extends into infinite dimensions. Inside: paintings and the smell of dusk. Lined against the tiled walls are canvases both void and filled. A soft light overhead. There is something extremely calming about occupying this...

I'm standing in the arena, facing my opponent. Hands on guard and ready to fight, fists clenched and sweat dripping down my fingers. In the distance, I hear the command, "fight!" The match has begun.

Sparring, kata, sweeps, hooks, and grabs had...

Jessie trotted, dust plumes lifting around his hooves. I gripped the saddle’s hold bar, securing Jaidyn to the saddle with my forearm and keeping her feet in the stirrups. She flailed her arms, hurling the plastic red cup from her hand. It landed...

I belong to a secret community, one where nobody has seen another’s face or knows the other’s name, yet we still support, motivate, and learn from each other. I belong to NerfHaven, an online community of “Nerf Modders.” As Modders, we modify toy...

“Ms. Tucker, what happens when type A and type O blood are mixed together in a test tube at the same time? Since you’re not putting A into O or O into A, will the blood still clot?“

I knew that patients receiving blood transfusions could only...

I want to change the cynical, bitter stigma attached to politics. Many only see corruption and greedy lobbying, but politics is my outlet to solve the growing problems of our modern world. Nothing else has the potential to affect the lives of...

From the age of five, I've had an irrational fear of heights. Maybe because, as a short child, everything seemed to tower over me. Or maybe because, as a Floridian, I had not known any height above sea-level until later in my life. As a boy, my...

“Molly Christine McMillen! What in the world is this?” My mom scorns, as she drags one of her best tupperware dishes out from under my pink, Disney princess bed. My wide, five-year-old eyes look up at her with bewilderment and fear, yet with...

Of all the people I’ve met in my lifetime, three in particular have overwhelmingly influenced who I am and who I want to be.

At 4 years old, I found myself in Vietnam, racing a motorcycle with my mischievous cousins through chaotic streets against...

A smile spread on my face even before my feet touched the ground as I landed my flip and saluted the judge. I had just finished competing at the last meet of my first gymnastics season with Irvington High School, and my routines had all gone well....

I wrote my first speech in elementary school. Awed by the power of the spoken word the fictional president Thomas Whitmore employed in the movie Independence Day, I pulled a Public Speaking for Dummies book off my parents’ shelf and penned what...

“I’ve got a pass for Griffin Young. Principal’s office ASAP.”

I packed my stuff amid playful “oooh”’s and headed to the office, unsure of what to expect. I took a seat across from the principal. “Griffin, you changed addresses this year, right?” I...

I rushed home, moving as fast as my gangly 12-year-old legs could take me. After an obligatory “Hi Mom!”, I set about gathering materials to fuel my latest experiment: loose sheets of paper and paper clips. Today, my music teacher had presented...

The physician didn't have to say a word for me to understand that foreboding news was to come. I had seen that expression before: unseeing eyes, unmoving lips.

“Your uncle has been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.”

Images of patients...