Let’s go exploring Imagine you’re floating in the air, it’s the year 2005, and as you look down you spot an airplane. Inside the airplane you see a six-year-old boy passionately enjoying another episode of Pokemon armed with his special edition Pikachu trousers. At this age a child’s imagination is unrivaled and anything can happen in their mind. His eyes widen as he looks out of the plane window and sees the vibrant metropolitan area of New...

Letter to roommate: Hey roomie, To prepare for when we meet I’d like to warn/notify you beforehand, as any half-reasonable roommate would, that most people consider me to be a little bit on the eccentric side. Typically, I yell encouraging words to myself in the mirror in the morning, sing my way to school, carry my friends to class to brighten their day, and study by rapping to myself. Earplugs, thus, might be necessary. Sometimes I’ll strike...

What matters to you and why? My mind is focused on one thing. I feel the thoughts that recurrently invade my mind fade away together with my surroundings. All I can feel is the surge of blood through my veins, my heart pumping impetuously, and the contraction of my muscles. I feel as if my last fraction of energy, too, is being sucked away by my physical exertion, but I somehow, against all odds, manage to persist. I run to...

please write a 300-500 word essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had, and how you think the programs in engineering offered at Princeton suit your particular interests. Once my realistic thinking disintegrated I started to see risks as opportunities to succeed rather than as opportunities to fail. I recognized that in an odd way my school had actually fostered my development by having an almost non-existent extracurricular program....

Scientific exploration clearly excites you. Beyond our 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio and our intense focus on research opportunities, how do you believe Caltech will best fuel your intellectual curiosity and help you meet your goals? (500 word max) The beaver, nature’s engineer, isn’t just Caltech’s mascot to me, in this animal I see each and every Caltech student. In the beaver, I see myself. More importantly the beaver allows us to understand the oh-so-complicated creatures we like to call Techers:...

This was my second common app answering question number 4 I used this essay for the schools I applied early to: MIT, CalTech and Georgia Tech. My grandma's eyes lit up as she was preparing to tell me a story, which she was prompted to tell after hearing that I had been unmotivated at school. She started reciting the story and I listened carefully. “One day your grandpa was walking through the cemetery, surrounded by Tuzkoy’s worn-down asbestos-built houses, to...

Rather than getting recommendations from teachers of subjects related to your major just make sure to get...