He's different. Words that shouldn't mean anything, and yet they do. From my name to the way I look and speak, there's always been something different about me - just not quite like everyone else. Since I immigrated to the United States at the age of 2, I've long struggled to assimilate into the American culture - to become an exact copy of what I observed of others each day - something I'm glad to say I've failed in. My person...

Note to future roommate: Aloha future roommate, I hope you are a rather humorous individual yourself, because you're in for a pile of pun... sorry, that was weak. On a more serious note, though, I've lived a pretty peculiar life, resulting in quite a few rather quirky habits: What can I say? I enjoy experimenting with scents. I've amassed a collection of nearly every air freshener available to an average Walmartian, but still have yet to find the perfect combination...

What matters to you, and why? Why do we humans even exist? For what purpose do we to continue to strive day after day, knowing our inevitable end? As quickly as I have come into this world, I will soon be out of it; I am but a second on an ever-ticking geological clock. Yet, I carry with me an innate longing for greatness, the wish to be immortalized for what I will achieve for mankind. And in the 21st...

National Merit Scholarship Application Essay Fuuuufuuuufuuufuufuufufufufufufuuuu. Papers began to flutter and my hair was blown back as the rotor wash grew to critical speeds; there was no turning back now. I paused for a moment, hesitant, then mashed the key that would set me free from the ground. The motors purred perf - SKKRRRTTTKKK - a flurry of sparks flew amid an acrid cloud of burning plastic. Sigh. I flipped open my laptop and contemplated a discouraging screen filled with...

Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?(*) (200-250 words)  It was the summer of 2015 as I sat waiting in the sweltering heat of Valdosta State’s concert hall. On a whim, I’d elected to minor in music for the duration of Governors Honors Program, but little did I realize that it actually cumulated in a massive, campus-wide performance. But too late now....

How have you improved the lives of others in your community? (This could be one person or many, at school or at home, in your neighborhood or your state, etc.) (*) (200-250 words) Team Tech is a pilot program offered through my school, implemented to make possible our county’s ambitious policy of providing each student with a personal computer. Not surprisingly, this 1:1 student to device ratio requires managing massive amounts of electronics, and, just this year, I helped to set...

The first and second essays were supplemental essays for my Stanford application. The third essay is an adaptation of my Common App personal essay that I submitted for the National Merit Scholarship application and the last two are short answer essays that I submitted for the MIT application. In each essay, I attempted to share with the reader my unique perspective of the world - my personality, the values I believe in, and what my dreams and aspirations are.

I am a first generation college student, so I really didn't have much of an idea of where to begin the process of picking colleges. However, my family is...

First off, you can definitely gain a surprisingly accurate impression of a school's atmosphere just through alumni interviews. I had interviews for UChicago, MIT, and Stanford. I'll start with the least favorite; My UChicago interviewer showed up 5-10 minutes late for the interview, then preceded to make a phone call. I could tell that he was annoyed at having to conduct an interview after hours (he was a professor at the university), and was simply going through questions and typing down my answers. To be fair, he was open to questions and there was no doubt that he was intelligent,...

Stanford is a dream school that many people would have no hesitation to attend. For me, an aspiring techie, there is no better opportunity available than to study just minutes from Silicon Valley. The school has many internship and business startup programs...

I plan on working in the technology field, so I'm hoping to either join a startup...

You can do anything... work, intern, code, write, anything... but do DO SOMETHING! The more experiences you have, the more you can develop your...