Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Undergraduate College Application Essays

Pose an original question and answer it.

The traditional greetings of the hipsters in my area never really caught on with me. A “What’s popping?” or “Holla at yo’ boy?” coming out of my mouth would’ve screamed “trying too hard,” so I always...

Dear roommate,

Don’t be afraid if you hear noises at night. It’s probably just my muse going out for a walk. I know, she’s really loud. But she never listens to me when I tell her to keep it down.

And she’ll be back in the morning, so please make...

I am quadrilingual. Sure, it sounds fancy, but as a biracial child of two immigrants, being quadrilingual feels natural to me. English. My mother tongue. No explanation required. As an infant my mom would teach me words by holding up a ball and...

One Way Out of Gym, the mystery of a murdered gym teacher, is not a timeless classic. It’s a novel that spent zero weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List. There’s only one copy—I published it myself. Few care about Detective Charley or the...

Dare to be weird.

It’s a simple philosophy, really. Writing-wise, I’ve never been content with clichés, and I try to avoid sappy at all cost. I yearn to craft unique plots and make people see things in new ways—I dare to be weird. I was never able...

“Look!” I exclaimed as I wildly waved my bucket and spade in the air, “Mom, look at the sandcastle I made!”

My mother let out an amused chuckle. “Interesting, but what else can you make?” she asked with a twinkle in her almond brown eyes.

“I can...

It can be tricky pronouncing my name, Camila Sofia (Cah-me-lah / Soh-fi-ya) - Spanish accent and all. I’m a Latin American with bittersweet Colombian coffee from home running through my red, white, and blue veins. Identifying myself as a “Latin...

Tossed into the wild, alone I was to fend for myself against the ravenous beasts. A rustling, no the clanking of Jenga bricks upon the floor, startled me. His imposing 4-foot figure stood before me as a sudden shadow flickered before my eyes. A...