University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Unlike most students, I enjoy both writing essays and reading about the amazingly broad history of the world. I believe that an education in the area of Pre-Law will fulfill my desire to learn more about the English language and history, as well...

University of Wisconsin - Madison

While most of my friends were deciding how to spend their first Saturday of summer vacation, I was packing up my belongings for a week of hard work that seemed to have little reward. I was headed to Ripon College for the 66th annual Badger Boys...

Temple University

Annie’s face is as vivid in my mind now as it was four years ago. I can see the passion for life that sparkled in her eyes and the crazy, intense grin that stretched across her face like a bridge across the sea. Although my experience with Annie...

Salem State College

The theatre at Holy Name High School has had a huge impact on me. I have been performing there for over 9 years - more than half of my life. I also have been through several ordeals that have made me a stronger person and taught me valuable...

Harvard University

After five or six efforts at creating a framework and collection of words that can piece together what is me, I have found that no single experience or sole person can represent all that I am. I can only describe the variety of particulars that...

Duke University

Last summer when I was sulking in the banal tedium of the suburbs, I challenged my friends to visiting the ten top-ranked coffee houses in Denver. With my proximity to the city, I take every chance I can to experience the movement on the streets...

Boston University

My old poncho is an absurdly bright shade of blue. It has the uncanny ability to turn anyone who wears it into a baggy, rather ridiculous-looking blob. This poncho holds a special place in my heart.

When my mom first gave it to me as I was...

Emory University

I always looked forward to June 17, the birthday of my only living grandparent. Every year I spent the day composing corny jokes that made her to snort with laughter and murmur loving approval. But in 2002, in a matter of seconds, my associations...

University of Georgia

Three years ago, it had never crossed my mind to help people who were not part of my immediate sphere of family and friends. Instead, I adopted a convenient attitude of apathy when it came to service – never imagining that an invitation to...

Texas A&M

There’s no way that it’s morning already. I hear footsteps running down the hall; eight hours ago this would have been considered typical, but now, it’s completely ludicrous. The door to my dorm room swings open with a nauseating kind of reality,...

Bates College

Bates college provides an environment that I would enjoy working in for the next four years. From the beautiful campus to a challenging, expansive academic curriculum, Bates offers all of the qualities I have been searching for in a college. When...

Boston University

I love crap. I love bad novels and cheap clothes. I love dirty shoelaces and melted candles, junk earrings and instant coffee. It's about finding the beauty in everything. I find it in palms and tea leaves. I sense Pablo Neruda's sonnets in my...

Duke University

My eyes slowly closed to the last chords of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” fading from Mr. Connell’s guitar. It was the first night, and the day had been hectic, but things were going as planned. I looked around the cozy room and saw my classmates...

Columbia University

What came first, science or technology?" asked a tall and husky figure, who was dressed in an unbuttoned and rather threadbare lab coat. My initial response was science because I reasoned that technology was the application of science. An...

Tufts University

When I was young, I played golf with my dad in the summer, and people always told me I had a beautiful follow-through, but I never took the game seriously. After Sophomore year, however, my view on golf changed. I became obsessed, yet frustrated...

Tufts University

To my knowledge, curiosity never actually killed a cat. The 1920 Eugene O'Neil play, "Diff'rent," did include the metaphor, "Curiosity killed a cat!" but more importantly was followed by, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies." If O'Neil...

Duke University

In Norton Juster's novel, The Phantom Tollbooth, the protagonist, Milo, undertakes a journey much like the one many high school seniors find themselves facing today. He isn't sure of where he is going, and like many of us, he is carried by a sense...

Stanford University

With the wind in my face, my half-zipped jacket flying behind me, I feel alive. I'm barreling down a powdery hill at a hundred miles per hour on my snowboard, carving turns, jumping over shrubs, alone in the woods on the back of the mountain,...

Stanford University

In a school as small as The College Preparatory School (CPS), I often joke that just from looking at someone's shoes, I can give his or her first and last name and favorite color. Obviously this is an overstatement, but the point is that my...

Vanderbilt University

At Vanderbilt, I want to let my entrepreneurial thoughts run free. I have developed a successful business that provides a service to the community, and I love the challenges that entrepreneurship presents. I also find questions of efficiency,...

Duke University

"What's honor?" The student's voice was careless and lazy, punctuated with a shrug of his shoulder. He asked the question without expecting a response, dismissing the very idea. "That doesn't exist here anymore."

It hurt me to hear one of my...