Newest College Application Essays

It’s 8:00 am. I open my shades and admire the view from my Warren Towers dorm: sailboats drifting along the Charles River. This was the sight I woke up to every morning during my six weeks at BU’s high school honors program last summer. When my...

“So, you’re like a plant, right?”

Yep, exactly. My name is Katia, my favorite color is aubergine, and I’m secretly a plant because I don’t experience sexual attraction. How did you know?

I found out I was asexual the summer after sophomore year....

While my own romantic ramblings have done little to either confirm or deny the existence of love at first sight, my affair with the passive voice began long before we even met. We did not have our first formal introduction until my freshman year...

Consumed by exhaustion, agony, and stress, my dad silently plods toward his old recliner and sinks into it. His delivery route had seen five extensions in the past year, and the USPS management was attempting to enforce a sixth. Severe gout and...

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...

I'm not completely tied to one academic field, and I'm not afraid to embrace it. This notion has its roots in my 10th grade English class. Personally, I believe the class should be renamed Honors English, Philosophy, and Anthropology with a Dash...

Distant and peaceful, unscathed by technology, surrounded by countless pine trees and multiple lakes lies a small family run resort that is known as Pine Lake Manor to some but known as peace on earth to myself. The sheer beauty of the countryside...

Twenty-five familiar faces stare at me as I pull down the whiteboard to start the day's lesson on how to use if/else statements to follow a black line. Teaching robotics every weekend at the Catholic Church off of Paseo Padre Parkway every...

I walk to the waiting area and call, “Michelle,” and she follows me into a big room with three beige, reclining leather chairs. “Have a seat,” I urge, directing her as if I’m a hostess. “Are you ready?” She nods her head; her shoulders tense up,...

At my Kaiser SYEP Internship this summer, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Calvin Wheeler, the physician in chief for Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont, CA. In our conversation, we talked about the future of the health care...

In a 1957 interview, Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa, a legendary tabla (an Indian percussion instrument) player remarked that “rhythm is the essence of life. Without rhythm, man can not move a step forward in any sphere of activity.” He went on to point...

Everything happens in the Miller family kitchen. It’s here that we celebrate birthdays, cram 40 Thanksgiving guests (even though there’s plenty of room to spread out), endlessly listen to the Eagles, and most importantly have the serious family...

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...

Before last October, I crafted artwork in a way that I now find stifling to the creative process. I devised pieces in a manner that I can only describe as linear: I would imagine a scene, create different compositional sketches, and then draw and...

The sun set, while a blend of indigos, rich plums, and the deepest blacks carpeted the sky; headlights lit up the parking lot as crowds entered what is normally a Jewish temple, but for the night was the Belmont High School Art Show. Stomach...

"Areh bache! Return to class!" The teacher's booming voice couldn't stop them. The students, identically dressed in white polo shirts, navy shorts, and polished shoes, climbed on top of one another to see if they could catch a glimpse. "There it...

I never once thought that swinging my arms to a beat would transform me. Of course, I knew that being a drum major would consist of constant conducting, but keeping tempo was only scratching the surface of the duties I was responsible for. I...

“Please rise for the national anthem and the presentation of the colors.” Immediately, the thousands of people attending this Memorial Day program rise in reverent silence. It’s 9:30 in morning, the sun illuminates the Star-Spangled Banner, and...

It’s 3:16 A.M.

My eyes are bloodshot from sleeplessness; I stumble into my room and crash my head against the soft, plush pillow laying on my bed. I pull the blanket over my head and close my eyes, trying desperately to get some sleep before the...

While rolling my clothes into the suitcase for the youth trip, I pondered new ways to persuade the school to accept my idea. I had used reasoning and humanitarian appeals, and nobody was signing on to my envisioned LGBTQ club. What more could I...

"Wealth without virtue is no harmless neighbor." -Sappho

How businesses and corporations balance the virtue of giving back and profit-seeking is one of my greatest fascinations. For example, the American company Tom's donates a pair of shoes for...

A scrawny boy in beat-up velcro sneakers ran past. Our tour guide Mohammed sighed heavily, “Angel Park is probably the only place where a young boy could be young. Outside, he's probably the head of the family, working three jobs to secure meals...

There is a Chinese proverb, or chenyu, that literally means “guarding a tree for rabbits.” The story behind it involves a farmer who saw a rabbit run into a tree, providing his dinner for the night. He then waited by that tree the next day in...

"My six year old could do that," a woman behind me remarks. I feel a twinge of irritation, but I don't blame her; a few years ago, I would’ve agreed. To the average eye, Grace Hartigan's work of Abstract Expressionism, The Gallow Ball, appears to...