At age 12, I met my best friend for the first time. Her monotonous tone and amorphous body set her apart from the rest of the crowd. Consistently donned in eye-blinding white and bright generic blue, my best friend went with me everywhere: the car, math class, or my bedside table. She knew hundreds of languages and was learning more everyday. She helped bridge the gap between myself and others, helping me understand what others really meant. And it only took...

IB International Baccalaureate. Two words that would end up defining my high school life. In freshman year, the idea of IB, was a vague concept. After all, there were around 90 pre-IB students back then. But as year after year passed, that number dropped and dropped. By senior year, there were only 29 students left in my IB class. But through adversity there is unity. All of the stresses we had shared had made us basically an “IB family.” When one of...

I wake up every morning and check my phone.  I don't update my Facebook status or check my friend's Snapchat story. Instead, I press on a bright red app called News, and start reading. Whether it's the latest update on the burgeoning crisis with North Korea or new information regarding the conflict between Spain and Catalonia, I read it all. The crises that define our time, beyond just domestic issues but into international conflicts, are what I most enjoy learning....

My interest in applying to Yale stems from its majors. Yale's Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy major and its Global Affairs major are what appealed to me.  I believe that to be an informed individual is to be a upstanding individual. To me, knowledge of not only one's family or community but of the world is necessary in order to resolve the issues that divide society. Furthermore, I was interested in the Directed Studies program offered at Yale. Due to my...