My mother is the strongest influence on everything I am, everything I have attained, and everything I want to be. Our closeness is a result of the fatal car accident that my father got into when I was two years old; from that moment on, my mother and I were left alone together. After my mom and I left for Miami, she struggled with difficulties that naturally come with being a single mother: she worked, she cleaned, and she raised...

One night, towards the end of the Stanford Summer College program, the members of my dorm went out to the Main Quad, where the mentors led us in a discussion about what we'd take home from those eight weeks. One by one, each of my dorm mates spoke about what they felt and how move-out day seemed so far away at first. Unable to translate my feelings into words, I found myself grateful to be one of the last few...

Stanford Roommate Essay: Dear Roommate, College is a time for trying new things, exploring one’s self… AND POSTERS. One thing you’ll notice about me is that I’ll soon have my side of wall completely filled with posters of Game of Thrones, Legend of Zelda, Jimi Hendrix, Family Guy, and cats. Aside from my walls, another thing you’ll observe is that my desk will probably be a huge mess by the end of the first week of...

For the first fourteen years of my life, I’d been taught to be nonjudgmental and to see others as equals. It was easy enough to do so as long as I was separated from other students, who weren’t deemed “gifted” by the state. My elementary school and magnet middle school had done a good job of making us “gifted” kids feel different, special, and maybe even superior by separating us from the “regular” kids. Upon finishing middle school,...

I tried to make my essays more of a "stream of consciousness" type of narrative rather than a creative writing piece. I know some people who have flowery diction and stuck with this type of writing. The sooner I accepted that this was not the type of writing that I was strong at creating, the faster I embraced my strengths in writing: syntactical writing.

Ambitious, curious,...

I interviewed for Harvard and MIT. While every interview experience is different, every interview boils down...

At the end of the day, setting some time aside to visit the schools during their admit weekends gave me a sense...

If you can, get a teacher you have known for...

Apply for scholarships! There are multiple websites that compile huge lists of scholarships; go to those and...

Research the school! Reach out to current students and alumni whose interests...