In sports, everyone wants to be the hero. We live in a society that glorifies the star player, but true leadership is doing what it takes to win even if that means sitting on the bench. Last year, as captain of my school’s Ultimate Frisbee team, I learned what true leadership looks like. I have always taken pride in what I do as a member of the Gann Academy Ultimate Frisbee team, so I was especially honored when my...

The reason that I want to go to college is captured perfectly in one distinction, namely the one between “freedoms from” and “freedoms to.” Often times in order to obtain an important “freedom to” one must first attain a corresponding “freedom from.” In my case, having begun my academic career in a small community-oriented high school, the passion for knowledge and learning that was instilled in me came with a relatively restrictive curriculum. Year after year I was handed a...

A community is more than a group of people with something in common. There has to be some aspect to a group of people with a shared interest that bonds them into a real community. Through my volunteer work at Community Servings, I have found that the experience of coming together to do something good for someone who really needs it has that bonding effect. Community Servings is an organization in the Boston area that cooks and delivers prepared meals...

Attending a small, religious high school has offered me insight into the pros and cons of learning in a small school environment. Although I love the strong sense of unity and community that comes with a small school, there is no question that my high school experience has suffered from both a lack of diversity and a lack of opportunities to do work on academic pursuits that really have an effect on the greater world. High school was great, but...

If there is one word that describes the beginning of my college search process, it’s “Overwhelming.” From the midpoint of my junior year of high school, I was bombarded with a steady flow of shiny information packets from every university this side of the Mississippi. I was quickly forced to recruit my parents as my personal spam filters over the mail slot. “Throw it all away!” I yelled at them. With all this information from all these different colleges,...

The volunteer community at Community Servings, an organization that cooks and delivers meals to families in need, is an important community to me. From the moment I began volunteering something resonated with me. Hundreds of strangers came together to provide for people they had never met and, in doing so, were brought closer together. Recognizing that we were responsible for total strangers made us all, strangers to each other, feel connected to and responsible for one another. In general, communities...

What immediately attracted me to Rochester was how well I felt it fit who I am as both a person and a thinker. My academic experience has always led me to follow my intellectual passions and attempt to study what I want to...

Greek life is very popular at Rochester. There are also a variety...

The high school I attended paired every student up...

There are a lot of really brilliant people at Rochester but the academic...