I am Muse. I'm always told how unusual my name is. It's a single syllable, sharp and strong. "Muse" never quite fit me right, like glass slippers that weren't mine, or a ball gown that was too tight around the waist. When I was in seventh grade, my teacher encouraged me to see Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at my local opera house, LA Opera. I wasn't interested in opera at all, but I fancied the...

Though the essay was originally written for the following Princeton prompt, I used it for many schools as my supplemental essay: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay. "...I could be bounded in a...

Many colleges ask what you did the previous summer or the previous two summers. Here is the essay I used. In the summer between tenth and eleventh grade, I participated in LA Opera's Opera Camp, also covering Camp for LA Opera's blog. I served as a delegate to the Global Youth Conference. According to personal tradition, I participated in Camp National Novel Writing Month and wrote my first detective novel. This summer, while I expanded on my preexisting work with...

I reused the same template for most of the colleges asking this question. a, b, and c are variables, unique features of each university that I plugged into the template. My life goal is to become America’s first Minister of Culture, but if that falls through, I’ll rent a starship, go to space, and live out my dream of being Star Trek’s Captain Kirk. He may seem a strange role model for someone focused on humanities, but...

I used this essay for a variety of creative response prompts, such as Amherst's Respond to This Quote prompt (the particular quote I responded to begins, "Literature is the best way to overcome death.") I see people’s minds as cities. Some are tangles of streets and subways, and others are ancient cities of bronze and stone. Reading allows me to experience all these cities, preserved like Pompeii in the geologic layers of literature. When I read, I pack my...

I wrote a truly awful number of drafts. I had no idea how to distill my entire personality, the whole range of my experience, into just 650 words. I eventually realized that I didn't have to. In poetry, you only have to look at a single line to see all of the poem's themes, symbols, and ideas; likewise, by describing one facet of yourself in depth, you reveal a great deal of the whole, because by discussing something you are deeply...

My grades and test scores were definitely on the borderline. They were decidedly out of the safe range for an Asian applicant. My grades were usually one or two As, a handful of A-s, and a B. However, I chose to prioritize the wild, wonderful pursuit of my bizarre interests over earning As, scoring 2400s and 5s, and taking all the prescribed classes. I took a lot of risks; some of these risks paid off and others didn't, but I think my risktaking spirit showed in my application. Know what kind of student you are. There are some students who...

Adventurous, open-minded, happy, original, dynamic. Stanford's proximity to Silicon Valley means that...

An additional...

You don't necessarily need to choose only teachers whose classes you excel in. You probably should have a...

Stanford is just perfect for me. It is not too close to home, not too far. The weather is beautiful--I won't have to buy winter coats! It has very strong programs in English and the arts. It even has offerings in my specific areas of interest, such as the works of Martin Luther King, Jr. (they have a King Papers Project) and novel writing (they have...

My advice would be to make the essay broad, but with designated places to insert specific details. That way, you can reuse...

Demonstrate your originality. The school's motto is, "The wind of freedom blows." Stanford loves to see students who have potential (even if not yet...

I was stuck between Williams and Stanford for a while, and turning down Williams was tough. Comparing the two was nearly impossible because they're just so different, and opposites in almost every way: rural vs. suburban, liberal arts vs. research, small vs. larger, East Coast vs. West Coast. It eventually came...

I actually got rejected from the schools with which I had the best interviews. I have also heard of people who had disastrous interviews who still got in. I've come to see that interviews really aren't that...

Though summer plans may seem somewhat trivial in comparison to test scores and grades, I think summer may be the most important topic in relation to college applications. There's a reason that college essays often ask what you've done with your summers. This is a topic I'm very passionate about. School doesn't allow much time (or safety) for trying new things, pursuing large dreams, or taking risks. If your SAT score is already decent, don't waste your summer trying to raise...