If you are an amateur ice-skater as I am, then you understand the wrenching feeling as your legs give way on the ice. Shock. Fury. Helplessness. The same numbing panic washes over me when the emcee calls my name for Phillips Exeter Academy’s Summer Variety Show. My gladiator sandals slap the floor like beaver tails as I make a beeline to center stage. I seat myself on a wooden chair. Like a content, chirping cat, my guitar sits upright...

As the manager gives us a tour of our new sixteenth-floor apartment, my siblings and I determine how the bedrooms will be divided amongst us. Maria and I take the first room. When we enter, the first thing we register is that the room is far more spacious than our old room in Brooklyn. I sprint to the window. In front of me lies the horizon of a new city. My mother had called it Glasgow. Maria calls me over...

Start early! Also, find a systematic method for organizing all of your documents and essays so that you have saved drafts you could always revisit.

Honesty, my SAT scores weren't perfect, but I believe I got to where I am because of my personal...