Much of my freshman year of high school was spent after school in debate practice, learning how to do Lincoln-Douglas debate. From lectures on philosophy taught by senior boys who didn’t know how to explain themselves, to speaking drills where I was told to stand on a desk and yell, I somehow embraced debate, learning quickly what I loved and wanted to know, like rhetorical skills and philosophy. Of course, in the weeks approaching Georgia’s varsity state debate...

Spring of my sophomore year I went on my first college tour: The University of Chicago. As we were led through a building that housed one of the dining halls, I watched as a group of students passionately debated. That was when I knew UChicago was the right fit for me. UChicago isn’t just about learning inside the classroom. It’s about furthering the discussion outside of it, and I have yet to see any other school with that...

Prompt: Alice falls down the rabbit hole. Milo drives through the tollbooth. Dorothy is swept up in the tornado. Neo takes the red pill. Don’t tell us about another world you’ve imagined, heard about, or created. Rather, tell us about its portal. Sure, some people think of the University of Chicago as a portal to their future, but please choose another portal to write about. A year after the invention of the telephone in 1876, the first recorded story...

Prompt: Share with us a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, blogs, magazines, or newspapers. Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed, or add a category of your own. At DragonCon this past August, I met my childhood idols, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. After ten years of being off air, the two actors filled a room with young adults and a few teenagers...

Prompt: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. I was born a Chicago Cubs fan. There was no way around it. My grandfather, raised in Illinois, was a Cubs fan, and he passed it onto my mother who in turn passed it to...

Prompt: If you could only do one of the activities you have listed in the Activities section of your Common Application, which one would you keep doing? Why? I learned to play guitar because I wanted to express my voice in the best way I knew how-- music. I believe that, oftentimes, pitches, chords, and lyrics can tell us more about the human experience than hundreds of years of history. The idea of telling stories and relating to people through...

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Language, Science, and the Arts College has many unique programs that are important to me. With a large assortment of study programs and majors, a diverse population in the school and classroom, a multitude of extracurricular activities, and opportunities for study programs outside of the school, LSA has all the benefits of being a large university while also having smaller communities within. I want to go into a career where I can learn...