Beyond your impressive academic credentials and extracurricular accomplishments, what else makes you unique and colorful? We know nobody fits neatly into 500 words or less, but you can provide us with some suggestion of the type of person you are. Anything goes! Inspire us, impress us, or just make us laugh. Think of this optional opportunity as Show and Tell by proxy and with an attitude. (William & Mary) I play the game with thoughtfulness and logic—I am blue. Passion and...

What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way? (UVA) When I think of Enrico Fermi, I picture an exasperated Italian physicist throwing his arms up and his head back, shouting out into the vast reaches of interstellar space with intense frustration, “Where is everybody?” The Fermi Paradox, expressed succinctly in the aforementioned famous quote by its namesake, is the idea that, in what is a seemingly infinite universe full...

Describe one of your quirks and why it is part of who you are. (UVA) My mom listens to Christian music on the radio. My sister shells out ten dollars a month for a music streaming service called Spotify. My brother incessantly listens to the same electronic dance songs, putting them on repeat for weeks at a time. While they blast their music (and sing off key), I spend my time listening to Radiolab, a podcast and radio show produced...

Clever, intelligent,...

UVA was too preppy and the professors I met were too full of themselves. Class sizes were also too large. JMU is where...

William and Mary is a largely liberal school. Nearly everyone is open-minded and...

Getting a summer job is likely one...

I did not use a private admissions counselor. The guidance...