Newest College Application Essays

He had a complete poker face when I asked for $250,000. This man was on the panel of investors to whom I presented my entrepreneurial venture as part of a scenario analysis project during The Fullbridge Program, a rigorous business boot camp for...

With as much grace as I can summon, I'd begin a conversation with Augusta Savage by thanking her. I’d tell her, “Thank you. Thank you for being a warrior in the Civil Rights Movement, for following your passion and being a great educator, artist,...

I work in one of the most loved, yet most hated industries in the world. Criticism comes from all angles in the fast food business – whether the guests' food is not prepared to their liking, their table isn’t as clean as they would like it to be,...

When I was thirteen, my grandparents took my cousin and me on a trip to the mountains of North Carolina to celebrate our thirteenth birthdays. My grandparents wanted to give us an opportunity to step outside our comfort zones and try new things;...

A rush of patriotic horns and brasses bellowed with fire and passion. I closed my eyes and I envisioned Dvorak at the forefront of the ship as the land drifted out of sight, the vessel carrying him to America. From the New World set me with a...

My dad is the preacher at the red-brick Southern Baptist church that I’ve attended since I was seven. It’s just down the road. Sunday school at 9:30, “big church” at 10:30. Youth Group on Wednesday nights. As the preacher’s kid, I know all the ins...

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...

I round the corner into my cubicle and toss my coat on my chair. I chat with April as my computer starts up, and then check my Threads calendar, which is riddled with deadlines. My day could be filled with writing blog posts, driving over to help...

The little orange lights blink against the dark blue background, resembling the twinkling of stars at dusk. As the black rings of rubber rapidly revolving around the orbits of metal hubcaps come to a halt, a screech of protest is heard. The driver...

Although “Latin Club” conjures up images of stodgy professors scrutinizing ancient texts, my own club consisted of nine teenagers enthusiastically translating Harry Potter spells.

I co-founded the club with visions of handouts and worksheets—...

Whenever I’m taking notes in English, answering questions on a history test, or listening to a class discussion, I doodle flowers. Yes, flowers. You might imagine that a high school senior in AP classes would be too busy absorbing PowerPoint...

My blades kiss the pasty ice as I step onto the empty rink. The zamboni driver has signed out for the night, leaving everything engulfed in darkness, except for a few dim yellow lights. I revel in the frosty silence until the rude hums of the...

I am a human ping-pong ball, constantly moving to and fro, packing up my life in a record-breaking 25 minutes. In a flurry of well-practiced movements I gathered all the books off my overfull shelves and all the clothes from my slightly...

A thrift store is a naturally dynamic world, with a constant influx of the unknown and an incessant purging of the unwanted. Any moment may yield a glimmer of Fendi drowning in an ocean of Gap, everything marked $3.99. The objective is to find the...

Everyone thinks me strange because I love it all as though it were a person.

I love the quiet road named after my great-uncle Pintor Ruano as though it were my great-uncle himself; I love the old church like an old friend; I love the sound of its...

“Climbers, at your marks!” shouted the Chilean official in his thick Spanish accent. The musty air filled my nostrils before I let out one last, shaky breath. I wasn’t really supposed to be here. Luck was the only thing that had gotten me to a...

I grew up in the most All-American suburban town imaginable. My father, a former quarterback, married Miss Talladega County; they settled down in Vestavia Hills with the expectation that their first child would be a sweet, Southern belle with a...

It's 4:55 on a Thursday morning when you hear a shrill ring pulse through the room. You rub your eyes groggily, praying that the noise will go away soon, when a dim light blinks on. Roommate #1 climbs out of her bed and finally, blessedly, turns...

The transition between childhood and adulthood is not denoted by a fine line, but sometimes there is a definitive moment that rearranges everything that has gone before and shapes everything that comes after. For me, that moment was the first day...

It’s no secret that millennials want to change the world; an entire generation of young men and women who have been told repeatedly that they have the capacity to accomplish whatever they set their minds to. They are raised to be cognizant of...

While most girls in second grade were playing with their Barbies, I was designing homes. I was the little girl who dreamed of being an architect, who at the time was only concerned about the design of elaborate yet welcoming interiors and...

Thank goodness apartments don’t have emotions. If my one bedroom apartment did, I can guarantee that its paint would be chipping off as rapidly as the layers of my sanity. Every morning, I'd wake up to the sound of my alarm clock simultaneously...

For many of my friends, summer break means swimming at the local pool and hanging out at our downtown movie theater. Yet for me, summer means traveling 6,000 miles to a completely different country, where I speak a completely different language...

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

The Prince - Machiavelli

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Art of War - Sun Tzu

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning spoke to me on a deeper, more emotional level than...