Sticky hands peel off pieces of cotton candy, laughter arises over music, little steps tap along stone pathways, and fingers excitedly point towards gangly giraffes. As a young girl, I looked forward to attending the zoo and fantasized about eating snow cones and kettle popcorn. Due to my fascination with animals, I applied for a volunteer position at the Los Angeles Zoo. As part of my preparation, during my sophomore year, I took eight-hour classes for six months every Sunday,...

2001. A little girl dragging a fuchsia suitcase gets shoved into a large faded door. Her eyes scurry, while her nose detects roots and prunes. “You’ll be living with your grandfather.” She finds a gentle face smiling at her then looks down embarrassed. For several years she begins learning her Korean alphabets, questioning the bittersweet taste of ginger tea, and tolerating her grandfather’s obsession with the clarinet. 2005. She is reunited with her parents. She is free from California’s...

For three years, I have volunteered at the Glendale Memorial Hospital. At the hospital, I help in the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU), also known as an intensive care nursery (ICN), an intensive-care unit specializing in the care of ill or premature newborn infants. When I volunteer, I organize paperwork, answer the phone, create charts and informational packets, restock supplies, go to the pharmacy and pick up medicine, and assist parents when they take their babies home for the first time....

Growing up, my primary caretakers were my grandparents. Visits to a medical clinic in Koreatown or the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center were commonplace for me ever since I was 3 years old. When driving to the pharmacy or the doctor, my grandfather would often point towards the USC building, jabbering about how I needed to go to the Keck School of Medicine and become involved in the medical and science field. Being young, I believed he was just mumbling...

Honestly I would have to say that my essay topics were what set me apart from the other applicants. My essay topics were far from the generic topics and actually had specific content that not everyone...