I have always maintained that if someone wants to know me, a great first step is to sift through my dresser drawer. Therein lies a wealth of t-shirts which, when examined by the careful eye, contain enough information to understand how I spend my time, what matters to me, and where my passions lie. The t-shirts represent my interests; the most worn represent my passions. And indeed, I hope the day will never come when my t-shirts are once more...

When Professor Wasow said the above quotation, he was giving an address regarding racial inequality in America. In the same speech he went on to say, "Racial inequality is at heart an ability for those of us with privilege to go about life as if there isn't a crisis right before our eyes." I was nearly a person who went about life ignoring the crisis until one important event altered how I perceive the responsibility I have. I was nearly...

Every Wednesday at 4 p.m., I get in the car and turn on a Spanish-language radio station. Forty-five minutes later, I pick up my friend Ben at his high school, and we chat in Spanish on the way to Norton Park Elementary School. By the time we arrive at the school's English class for Spanish-speaking adults, we are ready to engage with the thirty-or-so students, correct homework, and give personalized feedback in Spanish. The impact that Ben and I have...

At PROMYS, when we finished our problem sets and had no decks of cards, we suddenly found ourselves at a loss of things to do. If our time for leisure was extensive, we could go into Boston or play Frisbee. But if we had only a little time, we needed something else. This was when we played the set game. The game starts simply enough. One person says, "I'm thinking of a subset of the natural numbers." From there, anything...

As an institution, Caltech has a commitment to improve society through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. But before this process can begin, something very crucial must be present: communication. Caltech has the ability to make the world a better place, but for this to happen, Caltech must be able to talk to the world. As a student who has completed 30% of his high school coursework in Spanish, I believe I am a good candidate to start that communication. Through the...

There is a famous theorem in mathematics called Minkowski's Theorem. Formally, it states that a convex region symmetric about the origin with area greater than four must contain a lattice point other than the origin. Less formally, lattice points are everywhere! In some mathematically beautiful way, you can't avoid lattice points. At Caltech, you can't avoid brilliance. Students going about day-to-day life can't help but bump into ingenious people. Some may find themselves meeting an undergraduate student that is busy...

Yale is particularly attractive to me because I am virtually certain about majoring in a STEM field.Yale's increasing focus on STEM in recent years means that STEM majors at Yale receive exceptional individual attention and access to opportunities like research and internships. My experiences at PROMYS and the Georgia Governor's Honors Program excited me about mathematical research, but they also (more valuably) demonstrated how much I have to learn. Because Yale's STEM program is small, but staffed with top-notch...

For me, doing mathematics is like building a train station. The purpose of a train station is to create connections and provide opportunities. When I learn something new, I imagine myself adding a new line to my hub of possibilities. By studying calculus, I am building a line towards a physics lab developing a quantum computer. By practicing combinatorics, I am connecting my station to a technology start-up that is creating a faster way to browse the web. I have...

A group of crows is called a murder. A group of elephants can be called a memory. English speakers similarly refer to an implausibility of gnus, an unkindness of ravens, a prickle of hedgehogs, or a mischief of mice. The collective nouns used for an animal reflect how that animal is perceived; for example, I can easily imagine an ostentation of peacocks showing off their feathers or a parliament of owls starting their solemn business. When I think of a...

These essays are from my Princeton, Caltech, UChicago, and Yale essays. Of those 4, I was accepted into all but Yale.

The best thing to do in the summer is pursue something that you are *actually* passionate about. Colleges say that they want to see you...

Ultimately, I chose my school because when I was on campus, everything felt very comfortable. It felt as if anything you could possibly ask for was provided for. In...

I plan to pursue a PhD in mathematics and...

Ask the counselors at your school - they've...

I know these can sometimes be hard and frustrating, but try as hard...