For Cornell: My parents have wanted me to apply to Cornell for as long as I have been alive. I grew up listening to, “Camilla, you remember Camilla right? My friend’s daughter, she comes over for Thanksgiving. She goes to Cornell. You know that right?” When my upperclassmen friends were accepted to and began attending Cornell, I thought my parents would never stop. “Sophie’s going to Cornell next year, and she says you would love it there too....

UVA: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way? Imagine being told you had cancer wondering, “How did this happen to me?” Now imagine the doctor replying, “You just have bad luck.” As unnerving as it sounds, bad luck, according to the article “Variations in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions,” by Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, represents two thirds of...

Tell stories in your essays. Use experiences you've had from work, internships, volunteering, research, etc., and relate them to your passions. Show, don't tell in your essays.

I'd have started earlier in the summer and spent more time editing...

I interviewed with Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Chicago, and Northwestern. From my interview experience, the interviewers were a lot more interested in...

I engaged in a research internship and worked as a summer chemistry teaching assistant...

I hope to enter...

Cornell offered me...

While other schools did...

I chose schools along the east coast, since the west coast was...

I applied for scholarships using...

Familiarize yourself with the school. Don't just apply to a school because "It's an Ivy League" or whatever....

Ask for recommenders at the end of junior year. Ask both and STEM...

I participated in Science Olympiad. Relay for Life, National Honor Society, and my school's Swim/Dive team. I love science, so Science Olympiad was great to get to see some applications of what I was learning. My aunt...