I ran to the friendly face in all my childhood memories. Expecting a warm embrace, I received a slap on the face and curses. “Grandma?” I cried. She hissed, “Leave.” At eighty years old, my grandma had disappeared behind a veil of disorientation cast by Alzheimer’s, which I lift by doing stimulating activities like flipping through photo albums, putting puzzles together, dancing, and singing traditional Chinese songs with her. Seeing and trying to prevent her decline inspired me to...

National research university? Liberal arts? As I was lost in my college search, my dad suggested I visit Columbia and Barnard because he had been a teaching assistant for both. But where Columbia is large, undergraduate-only Barnard is small -- a close-knit community that exudes its sophisticated liberal arts culture. There, I followed the in-the-classroom debater, outside-the-classroom tour guide, Miss Outgoing, around, and I met Miss Confident, a glossy cosmopolitan with glasses perched proudly on her nose and a twinkling...

Anne Frank would lament her depression, the terror of being hunted by Nazis, and the loss of hope as Hitler destroyed Jewish Germans. She would then scold herself, telling me how her friend Hanneli suffered in a concentration camp, with no secret annex escape. Anne felt that she lacked gratitude? I’m ashamed of myself. If we were to converse for an hour, she would explain how a radio broadcast calling for accounts of the German occupation inspired her to...

I infused my essay with details about the school. When I wrote the essay about Anne Frank, I researched by reading her diary and examining quotes.

Get an internship,...

Be respectful to your teachers,...

I applied to over 100 scholarships, and...

I would have started writing...

I showed that I was REALLY interested in the...