Newest College Application Essays

On my fourth grade Sports Day, my father proudly embraced me and called me his ‘Sherni’ - or ‘Lioness’ - when I finally outran a girl twice my size. I had been coming in second to her for years. It became my parents’ nickname for me, encompassing...

When I first joined Boy Scouts in fifth grade, I was the only person of color in my troop. I didn’t have a mentor who looked like me. I became aware that many minorities like me don’t have a role model to look up to, so I decided to be that model....

I’m hiking in the woods with a friend and suddenly, he stops and asks me “which way is north?”

“That way,” I say as I point correctly towards north.

Very often, I can pinpoint my exact location on a map and have a sense of direction with limited...

What was the worst mistake in US history? Could it be the Compromise of 1877? Or Vietnam? Or could it even be Columbus stepping foot on the Americas? This question has always intrigued me, and I would like to explore possible answers to this...

My crown! It's lost! My crown is gone!" cries Babar the Elephant. As a toddler, mom would read my favorite bedtime story Babar Loses his Crown, an elephant who (you guessed it) loses his crown in Paris. That story, and others like it, are in...

I showed up to school in thongs today... no not that type of thong. Indeed, Australians call flip flops, thongs. As my physcis teacher told me he 'reckons' I should take off my thongs and put on 'runners' (i.e. sneakers) to avoid labratory...

Growing up in a Taiwanese household, my whole life revolved around the term “buyaolangfei”, or don’t be wasteful. Everything from empty egg cartons to used sauce jars are all to be used with gratitude and never wasted. In fact, we have a Chinese...

When I was in seventh grade, my mom, who is an acclaimed pianist, was invited to participate in the Vienna ConcertoFest, a two-week summer program to perform concertos. My mom asked me to join and participate with her at the festival. I played...

My life has not followed the well-planned course I intended while growing up in Canada: a political science degree from Queen’s University, a law degree from Osgoode Hall, becoming the youngest person ever elected to the House of Commons and...

I have experienced two nights that I would consider the best of my life. One, which I like to call Green Light Night, involved a rained out marching band competition, belting “The Ants Go Marching” while dancing through the pouring rain, listening...

Christopher Robin is the best movie in the world. Despite the poor acting and the animation that made the animals look sad and dreary, a movie is impressive if it can make the viewer feel an emotion, and Christopher Robin exceeds in that realm....

It is no secret that northern New Jersey is home to one of the most vibrant Italian-American communities in the country. Although The Sopranos might have taken their portrayal of us a bit too far, it is definitely true that our culture is defined...

As a 3-year old boy, I recall with clarity my fear of joining other children lined up at the edge of the pool. I remember looking down at a painted black line at the bottom of the pool as if it were challenging me to jump in. I stood alone arms...

I've gone 21 days without showering, swum across frigid lakes, climbed over mountains, and eaten the seemingly inedible. I believe any task can be accomplished with the right attitude, no challenge is too great, and no peak too perilous. I apply...

It's 2:45 on a Friday afternoon. I’m sitting in my Honors Humanities class, discussing the “Weltanschauung” of the Ancient Greeks. In a few weeks we’ll have moved on to exegesis analysis of the story of Job. When the bell rings, signaling the...

Long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, tall, tan, beautiful; I sit at cheer practice with my best friend Avery. Everything about her is amazing: her hair, her smile, her laugh. We were best friends, and we were inseparable. She was how I knew. I didn’t...

"That's art?" my seating neighbor exclaimed in the crisp air of our busy art classroom.

I had to admit, staring at Russian modernist Kazimir Malevich's Black Square painting, I didn't particularly see the esthetic appeal or even the intellectual...

I had only taken a couple of steps when I heard the barking and growling and could see two, massive dogs sprinting towards me. I am a survivor, so I ran as fast as my little legs could go. The seven meters of cement ahead of me, stretched and...

At my first karate class, unimaginably intimated, I picked up my big black burly uniform and my inflexible white belt and attempted unsuccessfully to put it on myself. An older girl graciously helped me. I stood in the very back of the class, and...

A loud boom echoes throughout the auditorium as a steel bullet pierces my heart. I fall to my knees, blood rushing from the open wound. The world fades out around me as I see the life drain from my best friend’s eyes beside me. The lights dim as...

Thump Thump. No sound had ever sounded better to my ears, although through a balloon encased in a beaker, it resembled more closely to "woosh woosh". For the past five months, I had been working on the model of an artificial heart for my...

The first thing I noticed about Columbia University was the cherry blossoms, strewn across the ground, plucked from their branches by a rainstorm that left the streets of New York damp and glistening. In Japan, cherry blossoms symbolize ephemera—...