Priority The two had long passed the stage of scorching venom, a wedded couple’s favorite, and any words now spoken stung like ice, until finally, a silence crept over. They no longer stared futilely at each other, gazing instead at the most convenient objects residing in the other’s direction, as if a Disney mug or a coffee splotch on the tablecloth could be the real villain. “I’m going to take the job,” the man concluded. He must...

My love for biology has always been indescribable. As the mysteries of life unravel, I find myself marvelling at its increasingly magical qualities. A leisure excursion through The Attentive Brain paved the way for my interest in neuroscience, in particular perception and learning. MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department (thus Course 9) provides a desirable and multidisciplinary podium on which to stand and discover. I look forward to beginning research early in tertiary education, and MIT makes a point of...

11PM Saturday night. Captain’s room. Full day of practice; my teammates are brain-dead, but unwilling to part with second family. As per tradition, we play arbitrary Christopher Nolan films, pull out gummy bears for Texas Hold’Em wagers, and deal. Victory requires quick statistical calculations and mind-reading, but more importantly, a sense of fun. Poker also provides an ephemeral simplification of life, generally filled with immeasurable risks and gambles. At present, I’m gambling on faith, gambling on “poker”...

I come from Love; from the moment of conception when two beings intertwined irrevocably, the tacit agreement that both would take responsibility, from the resolve to begin a family. I come from Bliss; from naming and preserving twenty stuffed animals, accumulated since birth conquering, melting into Ravel’s Jeux D’Eau from carpe diem. I come from Abstraction; from young fish in David Foster Wallace’s water, putting on the silk dress that Dean Young said came out the laughing...

“Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence. … It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.” —David Foster Wallace, 2005 Kenyon College Commencement Address. I dismiss my opponent’s value, contentions, and overall framework. I am frustrated by his stubbornness and waste no time exploiting and explaining to the judge the holes in his arguments. For a moment,...

I didn't receive any help...

Society of Women Engineers: in high school, most of math club and science club at my school were male. As a female computer science/brain and cognitive sciences...

Motivated, diligent,...

More people than I think are stressed out all the time. In fact, five students took their own lives this year. As a freshman, this came as...

I only applied to 7 schools total. Originally I had a list of about 15. After getting into MIT from early action, I deleted all the colleges I liked...

1. I feel like I accurately reflected myself in my essays. Instead of trying to display what I thought colleges might want to see, I gave them truly personal...

Ask teachers and other mentor figures who truly know...

Hack culture, ...

Good faculty-to-student ratios, research opportunities, etc. are equally fantastic at all prestigious colleges. Ultimately, you should...