University of Southern California Undergraduate College Application Essays

I went home the other night, my mind full of ideas, words, and lines from a play.

Excitedly, I began to explain my outlook to those who would hear me. "It doesn't matter," I said with a smile on my face, "none of this matters." My audience was much...

One late Saturday afternoon, my friend Amelia and I were completely ravenous so I decided to order a pizza, not realizing how significantly that one pie could change not only the course of my day, but also my outlook on life. After shamelessly...

My life is filled with hantai, or opposites: potatoes and rice, forks and chopsticks, Bachan and Nana, and an English first name and a Japanese last name. When I was younger, it never occurred to me that I was any different than any of my...

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...

In fourth grade, after recovering from a brief "I want to be a waitress!" phase, I discovered art, and knew that one day I would become an artist. At that age, I knew people liked art and I had fun creating art, so it seemed like the perfect thing...

A few years ago, USA Today named the star of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Sarah Michelle Gellar, the epitome of the modern feminist. Declaring "with her take-no-prisoners attitude...vampire-slaying Buffy Summers has become... a feminist hero who's...

We were nervous. The breeze of early morning stung our bare arms with cold. I complained, out of my own bitter hatred for the cold, and in hopes of quieting the spinning butterflies in my stomach. Doubts floated through my head as I acknowledged...

At School of the Arts (SOTA) in San Francisco, film and video students set out to create independent projects twice a year. In spring semester of senior year, my friend Julian and I decided we would produce a movie so incredible, it would be...

Date of birth: eleven seven eighty eight. Sex: male. Grade: eleven. Social security number: 606261790... "No, that's not right," I mumbled to myself. How could I forget my social security number? "I'm just nervous for the SAT," was my first...

As I watched my first black and white print slowly emerge from nothingness, the methodical ticking of the timer behind me, I smiled as a wave of excitement passed through me. Without thinking, I began to dance to the rhythm of the clock. From the...

In a school as small as The College Preparatory School (CPS), I often joke that just from looking at someone's shoes, I can give his or her first and last name and favorite color. Obviously this is an overstatement, but the point is that my...

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...

The day: December 27th, 2007. The time: 6:45 PM. The location: Karachi, Pakistan. There was nothing out of the ordinary on this crisp December day, or so I thought. I did not know that this ordinary day would soon become one of the most important...

As I rushed up to the sliding glass doors that marked the entrance to the Emergency Room, my heart pounded with exhilaration. Patients were sitting in chairs, lying on stretchers, and nervously pacing the floor. With a dry mouth and sweaty palms,...

As I stood on the wet beach assessing the oncoming wave, I threw the skimboard onto the sand, and jumped on. “How could I generate more speed?” I thought to myself. Calling upon inspiration from Mr. Harvie, my AP Physics teacher, I envisioned a...

"BANG! BANG! BANG!" I slam the gavel on the desk to get everyone's attention. As I sit in front of the High School Site Council, full of administrators, teachers, students, and members of the community, I call the meeting to order. Serving as the...

It was a less-than-exciting afternoon in the waning days of junior year when the mess began. My name, along with the names of two other speech and debate officers, was called over the intercom. We were wanted in the principal's office immediately....

People often tell me how much I look like my grandmother. They say we share the same eyes, the same nose, and the same eager smile. What they don’t realize, however, is that the five-foot, white-haired, 61-year-old woman beside me is not my...

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...

Both of my parents came from very different worlds. My mother was born and raised in the impoverished country of Colombia in South America, where she had to help my grandparents take care of her four younger brothers in their small apartment in...

The great passion of my high school years has been debate. One of the reasons that I attended Damien High School in the first place was because of its reputation in competitive debate. I was thirteen years old when I began and I realized very...

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...

I lead a double life. You don’t often find someone who both dances and plays football. I suppose that makes me a statistical anomaly, because I go to tackle practice at six a.m. and barre class at six p.m. I love dance because it’s art with...

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...