Newest College Application Essays

I've always been my own life coach. Some people are born to be “lucky,” but others have to create that “luck” by themselves. Having had to fight obesity at the age of 6 was the first and the biggest challenge that life ever put me through. The...

Last year, I was a runaway for a grand total of 27 hours.

I stormed out of my house in complete confusion. I couldn't understand why, after all the awards I'd managed to win, after I'd been set as the model of success by our relations, my own...

In high school, writing a research paper is synonymous with baking your own mini-textbook. You crack open a few statistics, sprinkle in a few quotes, and add a pinch of SAT vocabulary. Mix well until blended, and voila—a hot, piping thesis (though...

The piano groaned in dismay as my fingers struck the wrong chords. My wrists were stiff, my shoulders hunched forward, and my gaze was expressionless—but I continued to play, unconcerned, as this broken Chopin spiraled downward into a crumbling...

I grew up in a nonreligious household, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been taught to worship my academics as the key to my success in the future. Instead of praying 5 times daily or memorizing biblical verses, nearly every day my mother...

The shutter button is released, causing a chain reaction: the lens opens and closes in the span of microseconds, and, for a moment, the world stands still to allow genius or despair to be captured.

When I was eleven years old, fresh out of...

When one envisions winning a state championship, it’s not usually pictured from the bench player’s perspective. However, as the seconds ticked down on the game clock and I sat in my dry swimsuit on the sidelines, I couldn’t have been more ecstatic...

I owe it all to Anna. Three years ago when she tapped my shoulder, I was an overwhelmed freshman lost in the pulsing sea known as Club Rush. Turning around, I found myself face-to-face with a petite, quivering girl. Although she held herself in a...

Among the candid celebrity shots and photogenic pets, one aspect of Instagram has always intrigued me: the Popular page—a continuously changing mosaic of current top posts. After checking the page, I often wondered what made those photos so...

The Parks and Recreation star’s blonde locks and petite stature may be that of the quintessential Hollywood darling, but Amy Poehler is anything but. After becoming the first woman to ever become a full cast member of Saturday Night Live in her...

In a classroom occupied by thirty students, I am the only one of African descent. In a locker room of varsity basketball athletes, I am the only one under six feet tall, and during a first priority assembly hosted by a peer, I am the only one of...

Picture it: Hoboken, New Jersey 1999. I sit on the floor of my living room as my parents consult with two speech professionals. I am three years old and to say I am a quiet toddler is an understatement. I act just like any other three year old,...

I’m hanging on a half inch thick loop of nylon webbing over a 100 foot cliff, double checking my anchor set up for a climb I’m about to try with a friend. My hands are a little numb and my breath hangs in the air in front of me. Looking out from...

As a salesman at my local outdoors store, I get paid to convince people to spend what I’ll admit to be absurd amounts of money on outdoor apparel and gear. The $350 Arc’teryx rain shell is not that much better than the $99 dollar Marmot...

My family and I immigrated to the United States when I was just seven years old. Although it was very hard for my parents to leave their home and family behind in El Salvador, they were motivated to give me and my siblings a better life in the...

"You are next." The words of the referee still resonated in my mind as I walked across the soccer field. After 90 minutes of intense play, the score was still tied. The outcome of the game was in my hands. Coach Alcaraz had entrusted me with the...

To the outside world, my high school is the antithesis of diverse. When my peers considered me a legitimate minority for being a redhead, I assumed “diversity” to be a dirty word within the ivory-skinned social scene. However, I discovered that...

When my mom gave birth to me, I weighed in at nine and a half pounds and measured twenty-two inches. One could say I was pretty big for a newborn, but whenever I tell this story, it is soon followed by a: “And that’s pretty much when I stopped...

When I was about fourteen, my dad lost his job. He wasn't at fault; the hotel he worked at was in a poor financial situation, so fingers were wrongly pointed at him, the director of sales. The moment I heard I felt that my comfortable world was...

Many share the same goal: to create and manage a website that will grow to be successful and well-known, with plenty of active users keeping it afloat. At the mere age of thirteen, I can't say that this was exactly what I was aiming for when I...

Despite the bleak November evening, the people around the kitchen table were filled with joy. We had just finished studying the first of the Ruhi books, a series designed to teach the basics of Baha’i, and the tutors, Mary Kay and Chet, were...

Hair a mess, eyelids heavy, and bags under her eyes: every day I would see my mom come home, looking like this, tired from a day’s load of work. My mother, who had me at a young age, was forced to raise and support me all on her own. Where was my...

“The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes. Anyone can pass a history test by memorizing the facts. Anyone can follow an essay format and make an A....

From the first day, one thing became painfully obvious--if I didn’t get moving, I would get run over. It started off easy; I made sure to travel in the right direction. The tempo was slow. It was a cinch to fix a mistake without being noticed or...