Newest College Application Essays

My body felt as if it had run a hundred miles in 98 degree weather. I was standing in a blazing hot room surrounded by bright lights. An overwhelming feeling of fatigue filled my body. The room was surrounded by mirrors, so I couldn’t escape from...

During the first months of my residence in New York City, the lavishness and consumption of the American lifestyle surprised me. As a new immigrant from rural China to the Big Apple, I was mentally unprepared for the sights and sounds of such a...

When I read through my first semester schedule, my face glowed with happiness when I saw Ceramics as my first period class. On the first day of school, I walked into the classroom with a smirk. I pitied the freshmen and sophomores for listening so...

Vijay Mallya, an Indian airline and brewing tycoon, is an unconventional businessman. He is the owner of the world’s second largest spirits company and also of one of India’s largest airlines, and his business success is one of many examples of...

His skinny figure stoops and meticulously cleans and wipes each green Dong leaf, then puts it into an small pile. Afterwards, he takes out a basket of peas and grinds them till they are as fine as wheat flour. Each of his movement is quick but...

During a trip to the US, my father brought back a boxed set of The West Wing DVDs. While I planned to watch them during my school holiday as amusement, the show instead became an obsession and an education in itself.

My greatest passion has always...

“The world is flat.” When I was little, I never believed this line. I would always show off in class, proudly proclaiming: “The earth is a sphere!” But now, I see the line again, on the title of a book by Thomas Friedman—and, this time, I have no...

The day I moved to Norfolk was fairly typical of Hampton Roads in the summer: hot and humid. I remember that specifically, probably because our air-conditioning hadn’t yet been turned on in our house. That morning, sometime in mid-July, my sister...

This year, my family had a surprising new addition: an eleven year-old Chinese boy.

No, he isn’t a product of an affair one of my parents had at the Number One China Buffet years back, as joked by various friends. After coming to the U.S. in...

Baseball has taken over my life. I don’t play it, but the game has imposed itself in a different way. With two brothers who play on two teams each and a father who coaches, I seem to be living, breathing and eating baseball every day of my life.

...

I'm sick of myself.

After writing countless drafts of college essays on everything from extreme poverty to playtime in elementary school, I'm sick of the word "I". Sure, I write a column every month, an editorial here and there, and update my...

There simply was no solution. With tears of frustration in my eyes I went through the options for the hundredth time. I had come face to face with one of life’s many brutal truths: no one can build a sand-castle by herself. About to give up in...

School was almost over and I could not wait to walk out of the gloomy library. Just when I thought I was done for the day, I noticed four girls sitting two tables away from me. They talked loudly without any concern for the quietness around them....

Ode to a Dictionary (with acknowledgment to Pablo Neruda)

You were a gift of language, given to me by my father eight years ago. My dad was traveling to Oxford that year to attend a lecture and asked if I wanted a present. Book-lover that I was, I...

Emory is one of the few schools that offers the two fields I wish to study as a joint major in Economics/History due to its incorporation of multiple disciplines, especially that of mathematics. I also plan to undertake the pre-med requisites, as...

“Quick, help us out! Have you done the first bonus question yet?”

There are five minutes left in the GAME Candy Bar Contest. I turn the problem sheet over; the question is on…probability. I groan. Probability has always been my white rabbit; I take...

September 15, 2002

4:35 P.M.

“Star 94 FM Real-time Traffic…those heading northwest on Peachtree Industrial should expect major delays due to a gas leak….”

I abruptly change the radio station. What luck! I have moved exactly one mile in ten minutes....

I play the B.

A small square office, no more than ten feet wide, holds two upright mahogany pianos sitting back-to-back. The metronome marks the beat, ta-ta-ta-ta, first 100 beats per minute, then 105, 110, working toward 120. The door is closed,...

As I rushed up to the sliding glass doors that marked the entrance to the Emergency Room, my heart pounded with exhilaration. Patients were sitting in chairs, lying on stretchers, and nervously pacing the floor. With a dry mouth and sweaty palms,...

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Press together two shells in a 9 x 13 (double filling) pan

Mix:

6 eggs, lightly beaten

1 c. lt. corn syrup

2/3 c. sugar

16 tsp. oleo

4 oz. unsweetened choc. melted

2 tsp. vanilla

Stir in:

2 c. broken pecans

Pour in shell and bake in 400...

Academic Preparation

Last summer, I attended the COSMOS program at UC Santa Cruz to learn about Stars, Sight, and Science. Pulling up into the driveway of College Nine, my heart began to beat rapidly and I quickly realized that it was time for me...

As I was part of Chicago, I thought Chicago was a part of me. It seemed as though nothing could extricate my Chicagoan heart, any more than tame my native accent. So when shifting vocational winds drove my family to Bethesda, Maryland, I thought...

My mother first introduced me to the me-to-we way of life. She has always been my heroine and my source of motivation. Her primary concern as a physician is to help as many people as possible. At first, I did not understand why she always worked...

I glanced upward from my computer and saw a wall covered with posters, each displaying a beautiful computer modified image of a college campus. One of them struck me for months. It was a clear aerial view of a field of green trees dotted by...