“My name is Rose. What's your name?” I gaped at the wrinkled old Chinese lady curled up in the hospital bed. There we were, in a nursing home in Qingdao, China, yet she spoke to me in accented, but unmistakable English. “My name is Hannah,” I responded calmly, “I'm a volunteer here. Can I stay and chat?” She reached for my hand and smiled, showing the few teeth she still had. “See, I haven't forgotten my English.” After asking me...

Columbia asked a supplemental essay question on how a book/movie/cultural event has influenced you. This was my response: By the standards of a proper Asian-American upbringing, as detailed in “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, my parents are half-hearted felines at best. When I read Chua's memoir, I was having a self-proclaimed existential crisis over the SAT and deciding upon a future career path. It was January 7, my birthday, but more importantly, 21 days away from test day. I...

Columbia's question on why I wanted to pursue the major I wanted to pursue. This was my response: My passion for politics began as I stood at a podium in front of 300 girls in a sweltering lecture hall. I was at Girls State, and I had been elected chairman of the Agriculture Committee because no one else wanted the job. Now, I had to defend the pesticide bill that my committee wrote in front of the mock state assembly and...

Here is another essay that I drafted but ended up not using, not because of lower quality, but because I found that I wanted to advocate a different story. TeenInk Magazine might as well have been the National Enquirer. Staring down at the tabloid-esque pages, I half-expected to see pictures of an alien invasion in New Mexico. And then I remembered why I had gotten a free copy of TeenInk in the mail. Its editors decided to publish two articles...

Columbia University asked "Why Columbia?" as one of its supplemental essay questions. Approaching this topic, I strongly encourage you to focus on what really makes a school unique, rather than waxing sentimental about how much you love a school's surrounding city or how you were inspired when you looked at the buildings. The admissions counselors smell that kind of nonsense from miles away. They want to make sure that you actually did research and know why you want to attend the school. This is the paragraph I wrote for Columbia. I focused on my diverse academic interests and how that...