I first became aware of the problems with the scientific community's focus on "Western" diseases in my Spanish class when we studied the effects of actinic prurigo in rural communities throughout the Americas. Actinic prurigo is an autoimmune disease that results in painful, easily-infected skin lesions as a result of sun exposure. No cure exists for it, and current treatments are ineffective. Despite the fact that many people throughout the Americas suffer from this disease, little research is being done...

I am interested in working with the UN to give researchers in developing countries access to a uniform and politically acceptable set of translation and ethical guidelines. This ensures that work conducted in developing or recently industrialized countries will not be dismissed due to doubts about the way it was conducted or a language barrier. To accomplish my goals of bringing the international scientific community closer together, I will need to study my intellectual interests of biology, foreign languages, and...

I am a member of the lower middle class. However, I grew up surrounded by poverty and lack of opportunity. I felt lucky to be so “rich.” The majority of my classmates received free lunches, and many had never picked up a book until Kindergarten. Some of my friends wore the same ill-fitting clothes for years. That said, I loved the diversity of my elementary school, and I loved learning about all of the interesting holidays like Ramadan and Holi...

The prompt was to describe two or three of my current intellectual interests, and then explain why Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences would be a good place to pursue them.

I felt reluctant to pay for a private SAT tutor, because I felt like...

I should have looked into taking...

Make sure you do *something*. I took summer classes twice, and between Junior and Senior year I got a prestigious paid internship with Social Services. Not...

My high school had a pretty non-rigorous curriculum, so I took the hardest classes available...

In the end, it came down to Berkeley vs. Macalester vs. Cornell Berkeley would have been virtually free if I had lived at home, but I didn't want to live at home anymore. Had I lived...

Cornell seemed like a happy medium, even though it was $5000 more expensive per year than my other options. It's big, but still...

I want to obtain an...

To be honest, I went almost entirely by...

Ithaca is just chill. It's not dingy and dirty like Berkeley is, and I would feel safer walking around by myself than I would in Berkeley. Not that Berkeley is super dangerous, but you do hear about muggings...

I e-mailed Brown's cheer coach...

Cornell is huge on its motto of "any person, any study." It loves to increase diversity in any way possible, both through offering a diverse array of classes and...

Make sure you talk about...