Sliding the knife through the cake's creamy green and white frosting, I heard someone say my middle name. [name]. Turning to smile and see what the person needed, I heard it again, yet with the addition of my unofficial middle name. Being called [name] by people unrelated to me made me feel really happy and surprised because I haven't been called that by people outside of my family since we moved back to the USA from South Asia. In 2002, my...

When I visited The University of Pennsylvania during spring break in my junior year of highschool, I immediately felt at home. Though I loved Penn, specifically the College of Arts and Sciences, because of the excellent academics and scenic campus, I was primarily convinced that it was a good fit because of the happy, loving way in which the faculty, staff, and students interact in. An example of this occurred at the beginning of the Ethics in Biology class that...

If I were able to go back in time, I would have changed 3 things about my college application process. First, I would have actually studied for the ACTs. When I was younger, I took the ACTs and SATs through a program for gifted students called NUMATS. As a result,...

Aside from the financial aspect, a large part of why I declined schools was because of campus environment. One thing that is really important to me is happiness. I want...

I interviewed with Stanford and Penn in the winter of my senior year. My Stanford interviewer was an amazing woman and we hit it off very well. She asked me a lot of questions about myself, my application, and my goals and told me I was a good fit for Stanford. It was a fairly informal interview and we met at a coffee...

Based on advice given to me by high school counselors and some admissions counselors, I didn't use a private...

While I can't say for sure, I think that my uniquely diverse background set...

The first step to my college search began when I was in 7th grade and had recently been accepted into the NUMATS program run by Northwestern University. The kids in this program were allowed to take the ACT exam early and were given many opportunities to experience Northwestern in person. By the time I seriously started thinking about...

While I can't comment on the student body...

Busy (Penn students are constantly doing something whether it's interning or volunteering), Social (we love us some parties and...

Now that I've completed a full year at Penn, my favourite course by far was Fren 202, Advanced French. Even though I had completed the language requirement, I chose this class because...

Regardless of what year you are in, try and build relationships with your teachers, advisors, coaches, and other adults in your life. This is beneficial because they have so much advice to give and they're often also really interesting and wonderful people to get to...

During freshman year, I was a part of Spring Fling, Spec-trum, PennFa, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. I also tutored English at a highschool near campus. Spring Fling and Spec-trum are part of SPEC, our Social Planning and Events Committee. Fling plans the annual college festival and Spec-trum plans events representative of minority communities but geared toward all of our student body. I chose these two as I love planning events and was involved in similar activities in highschool. Fun fact, as...