University of California - San Diego Undergraduate College Application Essays

Open-Ended This question seeks to give students the opportunity to share important aspects of their schooling or their lives - such as their personal circumstances, family experiences and opportunities that were or were not available at their...

It was a less-than-exciting afternoon in the waning days of junior year when the mess began. My name, along with the names of two other speech and debate officers, was called over the intercom. We were wanted in the principal's office immediately....

About 14 million people in the world identify themselves as Jewish, but what does that really mean? I struggle with this question because, to me, Judaism represents more of a culture than a religion. While I might say prayers and light the Shabbat...

Two years ago I didn’t think twice about what brand name I was wearing, let alone where the article of clothing was manufactured. Mexico, Vietnam, China—until last year, they were little more than locations on a map to me. It was September, and I...

When I was in grade school I wanted to be an engineer because my dad was an engineer. When I was in middle school I wanted to be a lawyer because my dad once tried to become a lawyer. I’m in high school-- my dad is still an engineer-- and I want...

Homework was the catch to summer break. In middle school, it was all too common. We had two school-free months to do 100 pages of a math workbook. Back in middle school, I was quite confident in myself, so made a bet with a friend: if I finished...

People often tell me how much I look like my grandmother. They say we share the same eyes, the same nose, and the same eager smile. What they don’t realize, however, is that the five-foot, white-haired, 61-year-old woman beside me is not my...

I had heard it all before: life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, and rarely any second chances. Yet in spite of the currents against me, I sought to make for myself a second chance. When my junior year of basketball ended, my heart sunk...

It was supposed to be a simple interview for entering a high school, but it felt like a grueling interrogation. In addition to having a high GPA, I had to go through two other hurdles; pass a test on seven different subjects, and go through the...

Metallic. That’s the first word that comes to mind when describing cochlear implant speech. Surgically embedded in the inner ear, cochlear implants can restore a certain level of hearing to the deaf by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve,...

When I found out I had been cast as Emile de Becque in the musical South Pacific, I was excited but confused, and even a little scared. Why had I been picked as the lead, even though I was a sophomore with no experience singing in the operatic...

I’m a starting linebacker, but my mother is way tougher than I am. She runs the legislative, executive and judicial branches of discipline in our house, takes care of all of our taxes, and single-handedly manages my father’s law firm. She also...

When my Academic Decathlon coach distributes materials in June—hundreds of pages of history, poems, research topics, and more—it is with the tacit understanding that students have just seven months to synthesize, analyze, and otherwise own this...

As a Peruvian native, my mother had to overcome many obstacles, yet, with her unique selfless character, fierce dedication, and immovable fortitude, she has raised me as a pinnacle example of maternal love. My mother is a cage fighter. The world...

The proudest personal experience of my life was being elected captain of the Carlsbad cross country team. I learned to become a leader by example and to inspire my teammates so that we could achieve our personal and collective best.

It seems like...

My childhood began amidst a bevy of confusion – my parents worked several jobs and rushed in and out of the front door from one shift to the next, each time in a different uniform. Although my sister and I were able to take part in every school...

At an age when most young girls spend their days watching Sunday morning cartoons and playing with Barbie dolls, I was struggling with the emotional turmoil that was my family. Growing up in the slums of L.A., my living situation was abominable: I...

I vividly remember running home from the library and locking myself upstairs to begin the reading. I rifled through the nutrition book with as much excitement as if I had found the Holy Grail. I stayed up all night to read it, to consume it, to...

The stage trembled under the rhythmic tapping of wood on wood as glossy ringlets bounced in the summer sun. After an energetic jig, a dozen grinning and giggling girls filed past me in their sparkling dresses. Meanwhile, I anxiously adjusted the...

Our society places great value on skin color. Nations have fought wars and people have initiated social movements because of conflicts over skin color. Those with dark skin sometimes try desperately to bleach themselves with various creams, while...

My world is multidimensional. Diverse. Eclectic. My “inay” (mother) is Filipina. My “otosan” (father) is Japanese. My “sabase accha dosta” (best friends) are Indians. My school is international.

After over 400 years of rule by various colonial...

As a French-American, I am symbolically bound to two altogether different cultural spheres via the hyphen. In its relation to me, the hyphen holds more than symbolic value alone. Growing up in America with divorced parents, my mother French and my...

When I stepped into the “Introduction to Anthropology” class as a 16-year old freshman, the youngest college student in the class, I found the perfect fusion of both natural and social science. Intermingled in the study of humanity were the...

It was a humid and tense night. My dad flipped a table full of china plates and beer cans, because my mom refused to make a dish for his guests. She said she was tired from a full shift that day at her job. When I came downstairs, he was already...