Tolstoy was wrong. The first line of Anna Karenina is the famous "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. That principle—that there are many ways to make something fail, and only one way to make it work—has been applied to disciplines like science, statistics, even the domestication of animals. But, in my experience, it doesn’t work for the very thing it seeks to describe—families. Families are systems that are...

Georgetown College (my sub-school) requires all applicants to submit an essay about what they want to do with the major they're applying for.

If you were to meet me in the DC metro, you’d probably catch me staring up at those Futurist barrel-vaulted ceilings they have in all the stations, marveling at how amazing it is that humans were able to figure out how to travel in iron and concrete tubes below the ground. If you were to talk to me, I might say, out of the blue, that I think the influence of Ingmar Bergman on Werner Herzog is understated. I...

I'm from Southern California, where aquatics is a very big deal. I swam for 7 years and became very good at it; good enough to walk on to Georgetown's team. Instead I decided to join crew. Mind you, I had never in my entire life seen a crew shell before I came to the east coast, but boy...

Does going to basketball games count as an extracurricular? If so, it's that by far; basketball season is followed with religious zeal at Georgetown. While there's been some consternation at the current coach, John Thompson III, we all still watch the games anyway, and...

1) Intelligent. Everyone at Georgetown got into Georgetown, and they didn't do it by being dumb. At my previous school, American University, I would often times feel like the smartest student in the room (whether I was or was not is open to debate) but at Georgetown I *never* feel that way. Everyone is interesting and everyone is capable of compelling conversation. Except, maybe, the basketball players. 2) Driven. Just like the point above, people don't get in here by being slackers! Most everyone is focused, involved, and pursuing what they want. If you're a student who doesn't know what they want...

DC is, in my opinion, the best place in the United States to go to college. Georgetown is the best place in DC to go to college. We've got the second highest population percentage of college students of any major...

My literary theory class this semester has been excellent. I...