Application Essay Excerpts

I see my community as very culturally eccentric. Chula Vista celebrates a plethora of cultures and is home to many festivities, such as the Village Street Fair and the Filipino and Brazilian Festivals. I have a fully African-American background, but when I look deeply within, I am Hispanic, Asian and Indian. I cannot just simply limit myself to one way of living and thinking...

With only 1,000 meters left in what was quite obvious would be our last race of our time at nationals the last thing on my mind was the pain engulfing my body, trying to drag me through the carbon fiber racing shell and down into the frigid water of the lake filled by the Tennessee mountains...

Ting! Metal clanks against metal, voices chirp like content cicadas. Sitting on a rough, navy blue rug, I find myself looking up at people of different ages, excitedly talking and sharing stories as they wait for the usual routine: football. Every Friday during the fall, we gather in this room and await orders to get dressed, sit in our sections, and be ready to perform...

Okay, I thought to myself, take a deep breath. My bow was delicately grasped over the strings of my violin. In front of me, the eager audience was bathed by the light of the glittering chandeliers hanging above. I looked to my partner, Andrea, who was holding the guitar in her arms. I placed my finger on the first note, signaled to her, and began to play...

At the end of every day, I reflect upon what had happened, from the moment I stepped out of my house to the second I returned, and ask myself, “what if?” I wonder about all the possible events that could have occurred if I had just changed my regular school routine...

In that moment, I started my love affair with books and have never looked back. As a senior in high school, I have pored over countless other works, both for school and pleasure. I have laughed at Katherina and Petruchio, been amazed at the abilities of Sherlock Holmes, and cried when Dally dies in The Outsiders. I have journeyed to the far away land of Middle Earth, fallen in love with Mr. Darcy and celebrated the Boy Who Lived more times than I can remember...

I went through the first nine years of my life happily avoiding exercise. However, after an embarrassing mile run in gym in the fourth grade, enough was enough. I was determined to be reborn as athlete. The next year, I went out with my dad to train a few weeks before the race-of-doom...

At its core, engineering is not only mastering the concepts behind what we create, but also understanding our creations in the context of the world around us. Michigan Engineering and the University of Michigan embrace that more than anywhere else by emphasizing the intersection of engineering, design, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and innovation...

As someone who has been fascinated by the linked operations of economic systems and governmental procedures since my discovery of video games such as Civilization, Total War, and Age of Empires, my dream is to pursue a concentration in Business Economies and Public Policy (BEPP) at The Wharton School...

As a child my favorite fairy tales consisted of Snow White, Peter Pan, and Little Red Riding Hood. They were not my favorites due to the characters nor their plots, but because of the setting. I found myself at a young age having a love for the outdoors, especially the woods, and the idea of a mystical forest always left me awestruck. At this time little did I know that I would soon have my own mystical forest fifteen minutes away from my house...