I am perfectly content sitting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room, preferably in the best seats around the fireplace. I know it’s impossible for me to be physically present in this fictional environment, but ever since I first started reading the series at age nine, the world of Harry Potter has been a very real place of comfort for me. As a shy, sensitive, and awkward kid, books helped me escape the confines of my...

UChicago: What's so odd about odd numbers? As I stretched out onto the floor to start this essay (I can’t write at desks), I began to wonder why we use words such as odd and even to categorize numbers, especially when these words have other meanings unrelated to math. It turns out that the terms “odd” and “even” may have preceded their modern English meanings. The ancient Greeks defined odd numbers as those that form a shape when arranged...

Harvard: optional supplement A conversation in my brain: I’m in my room, reading over my to-do list. The only unchecked item is “College Plan.” Hmm. This might take some time. I dig through one of my more cluttered desk drawers, labeled “Academic Interests,” until I find Math and English. I invite them to take a seat. “Hi guys, thanks for being here,” I say. “I want to ask you for advice about what I should study in college. You...

Dartmouth and Yale: open-ended supplement I didn’t start calling myself a feminist until I was fifteen, but I think I’ve always been one. From a young age, I wasn’t confident in my appearance and knew that I didn’t have the nonchalance of a popular girl. But I found that my love of books and quirky personality better classified me as a nerd, and I learned to embrace my low position in the queen bee hierarchy, championing...

Princeton: Write about someone that has influenced you. My introduction to John Green involved, what else, Harry Potter. The first video of his that I ever watched was entitled “Harry Potter Nerds Win at Life,” and while I figured that he would make me laugh, I didn’t expect him to start discussing the miracle of human consciousness and the philosophy of being a nerd. But I soon found that this sort of thoughtful and enthusiastic observation is typical of...

I had alumni interviews for UChicago, Princeton, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Brown, Penn, and Northwestern. I applied Early Action to UChicago so my interview was in early November, and the rest of them were in January. All of them were in person. A couple took place at the interviewer's home, and the others were at places such as cafes. I also had an interview for Harvard over Skype in early March, possibly because I didn't get an alumni interview. A few differences between my interviews: ...