Newest College Application Essays

The stench of a burnt building polluted the air. Children huddled around the damage, confused, even though the fire was forty-eight hours behind them. What had been a recently remodeled apartment project just six short years earlier had been...

I have two brothers. They’ve always been everything I’ve ever hoped to become. From the beginning of my life, they enchanted me. I was not only drawn to them because they bore a strong resemblance to me, but because everyone else was fascinated by...

It hit me. Not while I was scaling cliffs that were sculpted with the help of a straightedge, not even while I dreamed that I was suffocating, only to wake up and realize I really did have a snow-covered tarp pressed against my face. Not the first...

Few things make my grandfather more proud than fulfilling the sense of duty that comes with casting a ballot. A Cuban political refugee, my grandfather never misses an opportunity to reinforce just how important voting and democracy are. The sad...

“Understand the meaning of MC. The power to Move the Crowd like Moses splits the seas.” Remembering the lyrics of Talib Kweli, my favorite rapper, I rapped, surrounded by a small crowd on the streets. As I stole glimpses of teens in their...

“He smells like death.”

A petite nurse muttered this to the physician as she left the patient’s room. When she saw me, she scrunched her face into an expression of embarrassment. Although I smiled back politely, a mixture of shock and apprehension...

Her unnatural red hair.

The limp in his walk.

The crease in his dark, velvet forehead.

The sorrow-filled eyes of the woman in the back.

His mother abandoned him when he was only two years old. She was valedictorian of her high school class and got...

Most kids obtain the same eye color or a few facial features from their parents, yet I've acquired substantially more: an unquenchable enthusiasm for technology. My dad, an electrical designer, taught me to investigate the world with curious eyes,...

“Mom, I’m gay,” I whispered quietly into her ear. I had waited three years to tell her in the hopes that she would understand, but she did not. Instead, she told me I was an abomination, and at that time I was fragile, so I believed her. Feeling...

Two parts baseball diamond, one part treehouse, a little picnic, and a slice of stickball. Add to the list a lot of yard work, and much of my portrait is complete. While many people build memories with their families and friends, learning life’s...

The patient shakes, her feeble arm plastered with goosebumps. The room is a standard 63 degrees. The air is crisp, cool, and sterile. The physician’s hands are gloved. The warm blue latex seems to comfort the teenage girl, and some of the...

I sat at my cherrywood desk, staring at the block of digital text I had produced while attempting to analyze my personal connections to John Keats’ poem “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be”. I had read my essay three times over, and still...

“You save BIG money, you save BIG money, you save BIG money at Menards!”

The songs that I sang as a child were never the opening themes of Clifford or Arthur. Instead, I would sing the jingles of the commercials I saw on television: Luna, State...

The first thing I learned in sophomore-year chemistry is that when two atoms or molecules hit each other with enough force while oriented in the correct manner, magic can happen. Well, “magic” isn’t exactly the word that the textbook uses, but...

Both heels of my four-year-old, worn out, hand-me-down tennis shoes were propped up on the tree branch in front of me. In my lap, I held the seventh book in the Series of Unfortunate Events, and a half-empty bottle of water was buried in the...

There’s something about falling. That feeling of weightlessness, those butterflies tickling the insides of my stomach, the uncertainty that comes with willingly letting go… I crave it. There is nothing in the world that excites me as much as...

My interest in economics and finance sprouted during my childhood. Back then, I followed my mom while she explored real estate for her business and visited her financial advisor. However, it wasn’t until I started Cosh(ex), my calculator...

Two days after leaving home this past June, I stood alone amidst thousands of people, not knowing a single one. I heard no English, saw no familiar sights, and was caught up in a dusty, polluted, hectic metropolitan whirlwind. I was in Kathmandu,...

Every bus ride is marked with either utter serenity or galling racket. At eight years old, I found both equally unbearable. "The world," my mother would often say, "isn't always going to be the way you want it to be." Innumerable repetitions of...

With bright tangerine walls, meticulously hung alphabet charts, and “remember to wash your hands” posters, Kumon Learning Center is not the place I would have expected to find my maturity. As I stand in the Center now, though, I look back and see...

The creak of the curtains as they fly out of sight. The first notes of music beginning to play. The sight of a silent audience sitting, waiting.

These are the moments a dancer lives for.

Performing is both exhilarating and peaceful. Offstage...

With forested hills open to exploration and a lake for boating and fishing, Spring Lake Park has become a second home to me. I come here regularly for a run, a bike ride, or a walk with my family. I have participated in community work days and...

I rushed from the greenroom to backstage. As I waited for my cue, I chanted and repeated the words in my head.

Finally, the lights dimmed, and I moved to center stage, clenching my fists and willing myself to stop shaking. As the spotlight...

It was my second trip to Emory. Sitting in a lecture room in White Hall, I only experienced a single doubt: hesitation about voicing a few of my opinions and, perhaps, interrupting Professor Robins’ Metaphysics class.

Speaking, eating, and being...