Quantum Expediat ab Omnibus Vinci: The Utility of Being Beaten By Everyone. At the beginning of my freshman year in high school I joined the cross-country team. When I was deciding whether or not to do this, I asked my father what he thought. He said, “Well, that would be bold.” I was unathletic and overweight. I could barely run two minutes before I had to stop and rest. My father told me that I would have to be okay...

“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all Although I had always liked this poem, I ignored the second and third stanzas to focus on the first. The first is the pretty one. Emily Dickinson isn’t known for cheery poems, but stopping here allowed me to ignore the poem’s darker mood and fierceness. And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be...

As a fifth grader flipping through a thesaurus, I stopped on the word “Pecksniffian.” What stopped me was the look of it, the way it would roll off the tongue. It was long. And the two syllables that carry the word were each curt, and fit together in a way that conveyed a sense of mystery. “Pecksniffian” derives from Dickens’ villain Seth Pecksniff, and his defining characteristic, hypocrisy. Dickens creates delightful names, names that convey the character before the character...

UVA is in Charlottesville, which is a fantastic city if you love the arts, a good music scene, tons of great restaurants, and nearby places to go hiking. A few things about UVA culture: we're super type A, over involved, over committed, over achieving kids. We take the...

Econometrics! It's a hard class that's in the realms of economics and statistics. When I started out in the class I didn't think...

A Capella is *huge* here. Also...

Say that you're interested in computer science (especially if you're a woman), or art ...

I would recommend talking about Jefferson's academical village and the...