University of Virginia Undergraduate College Application Essays

When I think of food, the first thing I think of is happiness: memories of my family and friends eating, chatting, and laughing together flash through my head. In particular, I am drawn back to a birthday dinner for my dad. I can almost taste all...

“C810,” the judge announced. I check my code again — it’s mine. Rising from my seat, I step towards the front of the room. The other competitors clap, as is customary for speech events, breaking the sacred silence that previously occupied the...

In front of the board stood two kindergarteners, a classmate and I, ready to engage in fierce competition. The task? Simply solving a two-digit addition problem. I felt my heartbeat racing, my hands shaking while holding the marker. I had no...

Revelation. This one word describes my learning style, my writing habits and my insights. I can be in a library studying for a subject I don’t quite understand and out of nowhere I receive a revelation. Revelation, to me, is the missing puzzle...

I walk into the cafeteria at 7:30 AM and make my way to the microwave, taking a tupperware container out of my lunch box. I look around the lunch room--I see people eating donuts, bagels, and breakfast sandwiches. What do I have? Chicken. The...

My 13-year-old self slumped in the passenger's seat. The drive home was tense enough already, fueled by disappointment after I walked in the winning run of my baseball game. My dad and I barely exchanged a glance. I pushed the radio buttons in...

When I was in ninth grade, my sister ran into my room and threw a book at me. “Read this,” she demanded. “You’ll like it.” She had no idea what she had just started.

That fateful book was Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky, which...

If you’ve never heard of the word Anatidaephobia, you’re going to think I made it up. It’s the fear that you are being watched by a duck. No, really.

I don’t have Anatidaephobia. I don’t know anybody with Anatidaephobia. I don’t hunt or fish. 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...

The sound of my bassoon echoed throughout the Kennedy Center, supporting the upper register of the flute, oboe, and clarinet. I locked eyes with the flautist, sitting directly across from me, and with the quick movement of his flute, the four of...

I smile when I suffer. That may seem rather sadistic and self deprecating, but it’s a quirk that I developed through years of mountain bike racing. Despite the feeling of pain shooting through my legs and my lungs gasping for air, I can’t help but...

Out in the country, past the city limit sign there’s a girl wandering the woods and creeping along the creek traveling down the county line. Her friends are giggling as they boogie in step with radio tunes.

"Boogie" paints a picture of complete...

It begins with an itch, a malignant rash of fire and ice water running down my neck and arms. My heartbeat is a steady rhythm in my ears and my tongue is coated in lead. I have told a lie: an act that is contradictory to my nature.

I was six years...

Half-priced bread, two-dollar savings on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and free eggs: it all adds up. This is the maxim I repeat to myself daily as I attempt to save money for my education. Indeed, the use of coupons and rebates to offset everyday...

In my hometown, Nanchang, China, the Gan River divides the city into two worlds. One side of the river has enjoyed much government investment: skyscrapers are adorned with beaming neon lights, and beacons are announcing the economic prosperity of...

I got lost.

Learning Calculus BC had been a somewhat predictable process of applying rules and formulas, until I met Taylor series. A quirky combination of X, N, derivatives, and factorials, it overwhelmed me with such a bombastic look.

Yes, I...

The competition had come down to the wire with my rival classmate, who I have competed academically with since elementary school, and me. It was my turn. My overconfidence bounced me out of my chair as I cheerfully awaited the next word. “...

“You are going to a boarding school in Singapore,” said my parents one day.

The decision to send me off to boarding school came as a surprise for my family’s acquaintances. It came as a shock to me --- especially since I did not even know what the...

I find it humorous when my family debates who looks more Asian versus White, me or my twin brother. My parents also joke that Brandon and I would be even taller or better at math had it not been for the “shortcomings” each contributed to our...

To my future roommate,

Over the summer, I became somewhat of a trail mix connoisseur. I discovered a deep love of trail mix while spending time in a residential program where I essentially subsisted on the stuff. It makes sense for me to want to...

Every superhero has an origin story, but the one I stumbled across wasn’t in any ordinary comic book or Marvel movie. It was in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

My tenth-grade biology teacher loved to squeeze in tidbits of information...

If I had the opportunity to paint whatever I wanted on the Beta Bridge, I would paint eleven numbers in navy blue contrasted by an orange background. I would paint the suicide hotline, 1-800-273-8255.

I didn’t realize to what extent conversation...

It was a brisk summer day in the park next to my house. I had just finished my Eagle Scout project I had been working on for the past week and I was preparing for a quick jog to unload all of the stress and grogginess of the past couple of days....

In photography, "aperture" is one of three settings that dictates the quality of a photo. It determines how much light to let into the camera and can be adjusted to optimize a photo’s brightness, focus, and depth. It’s a fun word to say, but was...