"You're going to college?" "In a year." "Apply early," he said, "and to scholarships. Opportunity is everywhere, if you know where to look." A pause. "When you get there, use every resource you can. Earn a voice so that, someday, you'll change things." I had to smile, stunned. Apparently the American Dream wasn't a fantasy. How else could someone here, in this room, be a college student? He was a rising junior on full scholarship at a nearby university—who...

Albert Einstein once said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” Propose your own original theory to explain one of the 16 mysteries below. Your theory does not need to be testable or even probable; however, it should provide some laws, principles, and/or causes to explain the facts, phenomena, or existence of one of these mysteries. You can make your theory artistic, scientific, conspiracy-driven, quantum, fanciful, or...

The University of Chicago celebrates the fact that every member of its community brims with bizarre brilliance. I love that the school’s proud intellectual reputation—while I’d known about the campus’s surfeit of Nobel laureates, I was amazed to learn that Albert Michelson, the first American science prizewinner and measurer of the speed of light (and someone we discussed in physics class!), was also a UChicago professor—is highlighted by a fiery, unquenchable zest for learning. As...

Favorites Books/Stories: § A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens—I love the densely descriptive language and the multilayered mystery with its thicket of converging plotlines. This book tickles my history obsession; Madame Defarge and the Jacquerie still endlessly intrigue me. § An Abundance of Katherines, John Green—For the abundance of anagrams and equations and the most fact-filled road trip imaginable. § Little Women, Louisa May Alcott—My middle-school favorite, Little Women taught me to accept life’s unpredictability. I still...

Start essays early,