There's a reason teachers don't tell you how complicated things really are. If I had known that there were different kinds of bowstrokes and that the time period of a piece dictates how you play it, I would have stopped playing violin. If I had known that inflected languages have verbs that look passive but are active, I wouldn't have seen the beauty in those languages. That's a lot of information for a twelve year old, just like the ideas...

Every portrayal of the "Tufts student" that I've heard sounds like it's describing me. At Tufts, an admissions officer categorized a Jumbo as "intellectual," "unpretentious," "down-to-earth,"and "kind." I wandered through the Tisch Library, and the bites of conversation I heard weren't about parties or homework complaints but mathematical theories and the best way to translate a Sanskrit phrase. If I hadn't been so unabashedly eavesdropping, I would have joined in. Tufts feels full of all of the wonderful things...

I was raised by books. My very first memory is sitting on the speckled carpet of the Baltimore Public Library with an illustrated edition of Little House on the Prairie in my lap. For the first fourteen years of my life, we went to the library every week, and I devoured everything I could find in the children’s section. My mother would read aloud at night—Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maud Hart Lovelace, and Raggedy Ann. By the age of...

I don't like to sing, but I LOVE choir. It's the best part of my day. On the days we travel to a competition, singing on the bus and laughing like we’ll never stop, I’m always the one who emotionally exclaims “I love you guys!” I'm not sure exactly why I'm enamored with choir (especially when I was so disgruntled by the requirement that seniors had to audition for All-State that I chose a solo entitled "Come, Sweet...

Learning matters to me. My insatiable curiosity manifests itself both in and out of the classroom. I’ve never taken a class that I thoroughly disliked, and I’d love to do almost anything with the rest of my life. I have interests that I’m more passionate about than others, but ultimately I would love to be a chemist, a physicist, a mathematician, an editor, a teacher, a writer, a linguist, a translator, or a musician. I’m never...

Dear Roommate, I am organized. Not in the ordinary way: my closet isn’t color-coded, my books aren’t alphabetized, but my mind is organized, and I would like the world to be also. I am realistic; I know that it’s not, but my internal sense of justice hopes for a place where everyone is treated the way they deserve based on their own performance and behavior, and nothing else. I will not ask you to stack your books...