University of California - Irvine Undergraduate College Application Essays

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I'm a two-backpack kind of girl. Let me explain.

The bag on my right struggles to swallow every last sheet from my heft of papers with its gaping jaws and its straps bite sharply into my shoulder,...

“10-64. CODE 10-43! Suspect Heading Northeast!” she said while running in her heels, dodging cars and people. Suspect five feet away. Jumps the fence, gets cuts on her palm from the shattered glass on the floor. Suspect takes out a gun, but she is...

Sitting down in the authentic-looking Japanese restaurant, rated 4.5/5 stars on TripAdvisor, I find that my hopes are up. I sip my matcha latte and my mind buffers. After another sip, I ask myself, Do I taste the authentic matcha magic? Or does...

In fourth grade, I invented the “Swiss Army Cook” for the Invention Convention. In fifth grade, I hand wrote and drew entire magazine issues, scanned them, and sent them to all my friends and relatives for 50 with the hope of becoming the next...

I possess superpowers that I inherited from my namesake, Geraldine, my dad’s late mother. Grandma Jeri was the daughter of Portuguese immigrants who worked on the pineapple plantations of Hawaii and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (during the 1941...

I collect rocks.

I promise it isn’t as lame as it sounds.

On a winter afternoon, the wet mulch crunched under my feet as I walked towards the school bus after my third-grade field trip to the Boston Science Museum. My small, calloused hands held...

During P.E., my friend whispered to me that “Aunt Flo was visiting” and she didn’t have a pad. I took a pad from my backpack and handed it over to her, only for her to squeal “Don’t take it out so obviously!” Followed by, “I don’t have a pocket,...

“This has to be the worst summer ever,” I thought to myself. The only television in our apartment broke.

Unsettled by pure boredom, I started to flip through books on the shelf. I read voraciously that summer, and became inevitably fascinated with...

“Feminism is witchcraft.” someone said.

Adrenaline rushes through my body. Friends I’ve had for years vanish when we discover that we held polarizing stances on at least this issue and perhaps more. I found myself in a similar situation during...

I sat stagnantly in confusion with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" open in my hands. Bewildered, I closed the book. On the cover, transcribed in glittering gold, was a sticker with the words: "Nobel Prize Winner!".

How did...

“Can’t you make it 40? I come here every day!” my grandma smirked at the vendor’s defeated face. She looked at me with a victorious smile as she claimed her trophy from the vendor. The vibrant color of the freshest produce, the unforgettable aroma...

When I first stumbled across machine learning in 11th grade, I had no idea the challenges that lay before me in seeking to conquer it. To begin developing my understanding, I scoured the internet, read textbooks from my school, and sought help...

As much as I loved the stars as a child, I was rarely given the opportunity to be outside at night. Since the annual Christmas reunion at my aunt’s house culminated after 10 PM however, I was able to spend some time on those nights staring into...

The first beats of the tabla played, and my body relaxed. I closed my eyes to absorb the rhythm, then I started to sing. The interweaving of melodies and micro-tunes required deep focus; I needed to block out all distractions. The tensions from my...

Biology. Cellular research. Diagnosing neurological diseases. These are my passions. I was eight years-old when my mother gave me a small but very real microscope. I first used it to examine the cellular structure of my father’s hair. A field...

I attempted my first back handspring during Cheer tryouts my freshman year. My legs clumsily guided me across the mat, the momentum of the trick promptly knocking me off-center and, by extension, onto the ground.

When I received a congratulatory...

The pointe shoes on my feet carry me across the floor with restrained urgency, the movement of my arms in alignment to the syncopation of the music. Ideas flow through my fingertips, and manifest themselves in the form of choreography.

From a...

Raised as a figure skater, and indoctrinated into believing that thinner thighs produced higher jumps and faster rotations, I started my first diet as a ten-year-old. Meals were replaced with protein shakes, and childlike innocence devolved into...

My eyes glistened as I watched a documentary on Korean Pop Stardom. The trainees were subject to strict diets, inflexible rules, and practice from morning to midnight. The video intended to reveal the supposed horrors of the industry. Yet, as a...

My mom loves to tell the story of when I was a baby, and I would pull the biggest book I could find off the shelf and into my lap, tracing my fingers over the words and pretending I knew what I was reading. Since the night I came home from the...

For as long as I can remember, my parents have always been insistent on taking photos whenever they got the chance. I used to find it annoying, always having to look at the camera, smile, and pose on demand, but now I realize the value of those...

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...

From a one-man bake sale bringing in hundreds of dollars to spending hours between classes boxing stuffed animals, I have found the best of myself in my work for U.S.-Africa Children’s Fellowship (USACF). But more than finding pride in what I do,...

How does one prepare for a test with no correct answer? There aren't flashcards to flip through, past practice tests to predict similar problems, or a study guide to fill out. How would a test like this even be administered? The answer - a...