Temple University Undergraduate College Application Essays

High school student government is a microcosm of American politics: a group of elected officials makes decisions that will affect and hopefully benefit their peers. They represent the larger student body, and therefore play an extremely integral...

I remember sobbing with my face pressed against the wooden swing set in my backyard while my parents yelled at each other on the patio. I remember playing with my toys in my room only to go hide in the darkness of my closet because my parents were...

Del Kon tee. Everything takes time.

Whispered and spoken to me in hundreds of instances, it took me seventeen years to comprehend the essence and purpose of this phrase. Surrounded by sounds that many children my age have only heard in war movies,...

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...

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...

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...

“Jooooorrrrddddannnnn,” my mom screamed with utter fear and panic in her voice. Surprisingly, amongst all of the chaos, her voice was all that I heard. I’m not sure if I was disoriented, bewildered or just in complete shock but at that particular...

The transition between childhood and adulthood is not denoted by a fine line, but sometimes there is a definitive moment that rearranges everything that has gone before and shapes everything that comes after. For me, that moment was the first day...

I stare out from the bay, my hip waders sunken into the mushy sand as I admire the smooth and confident glide of a blue heron landing on a rusted rack off the next sandbar. My father and I share an affinity towards nature, as well as an...

Her unnatural red hair.

The limp in his walk.

The crease in his dark, velvet forehead.

The sorrow-filled eyes of the woman in the back.

His mother abandoned him when he was only two years old. She was valedictorian of her high school class and got...

"Taking care of plants is a meticulous task. It’s not at all easy like people think, young lady. Do you see how these leaves were burnt by the sun? It gives this plant such a dislikable appearance. See how by pruning the burnt leaves, you’ll make...

The soft reminder of warm light, the neat rows of novels and biographies and volumes of poetry against mahogany shelves back to back in a literary continuum… I walk further into Barnes and Noble. Swim in circles around the small brown tables in...

Akim, Jerusalem. That is where I was sent for the summer by my parents, after they heard that a school for the mentally disabled was in need of volunteers. I appreciated the idea of helping children in need, but was not thrilled about it being in...

"I think I'm ready to go home now," I inform my roommate Patrick, yet again, as we mix cement and shovel rocks for hours upon hours under the beating Mexican sun. It is Tuesday of our week-long mission trip to Nuevo Durango, and I already feel...

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008, started out as an ordinary day in Zimbabwe. I was eight-years-old then, and I awoke unaware of the fact that this Tuesday would be the most devastating day of my life. My parents, my little brother and I lived on a large...

Waiting in line at the gleaming grand piano, I listen to repetitive scales. Each girl in the choir takes her turn singing along. After each ascent and descent of the duet, the director announces which voice part she will sing in the choir. The...

“Let’s try that again” my Mom says as she picks up the piece of dough that I have rolled into an unrecognizable shape. “Now remember, the key to making your roti round is to move your shoulders and loosen your grip on the rolling pin.” I do as my...

“Wissen Sie, wo die Stadtamhof Haltestelle ist?” (Do you know where the Stadamhof Station is?). The German man directed his question to me, but before I had the chance to respond, my sister interjected, “Oh no, that's just my brother.” In that...

Getting to work at ten in the morning to go stand in what I charitably referred to as the Hut for eight hour stretches was probably not how most people envisioned their summer but when you live in Santa Cruz for as long as I have, working at the...

My eyes only followed the two figures, donned in white, squat-walking back, forth, extend, stab. I watched as the fencers calculated their every movement with precision and speed. What do the arm movements of the ref mean? How do I know when...

The inner truth hidden beneath the outer layers of a mandala - the profound, rooted love represented by astronomical symbols, the vitality and fertility expressed through leaves and paisleys. As a child I excitedly sat to have my hands decorated...

My mother is a high school dropout with a daughter at 16.

Sitting alone surrounded by grey-toned seats on my number five elementary school bus, my eyes are stuck to a large, bold letter “B” stamped onto a stark white piece of paper. I look up out...

My mother is a refugee from Cambodia who witnessed the murder of her father by the Khmer Rouge at age 2. Her response to her trauma was to put pressure on her kids to be the best. Growing up I remember writing out the ABC’s hundreds of times a...

Vision blurry, fastened heartbeat, confused & humid head. There’s an excruciating pain all over my body and fear has engulfed my heart. The sun aggressively embraces my eyes. I raise my right hand to block the light, simultaneously bringing my...