Application Essay Excerpts

1-2-3-4-5… These numbers represent my father. He was an accountant and one of my greatest mentors. At the age of three, he thought me how to count, play basketball and a little bit of piano. To me he was invincible but the reality is that he had two weaknesses. When hardships would hit our family, he would usually rely on alcohol and/or cigarettes...

The Rainbow Olympics is an opportunity for special needs children to participate in everyday sports in a healthy environment and my work as a volunteer continues to influence me. Each participant is paired with two or three volunteers who stay with them throughout the day to ensure that they enjoy the experience. Upon arrival, I am given a bright green t-shirt and that was when I met Joey...

Time, talent and resources are seeds. They are worthless entities until planted in fertile ground, grow, and yield a bounty for the enjoyment of many people. Every day I make it my personal goal to fertilize my surroundings through my leadership, tutoring, and work toward the improvement of education...

When I was little, I avoided conversations with strangers. I was called the 'bookworm' at school because I would rather read than talk to others. When I had to speak, I stuttered, and had trouble finishing my sentences because I believed that no one had heard...

My ability to face challenges and overcome them comes from my cultural background.Many of my strongest values – work ethic and integrity – come from my Chinese heritage. I often took walks around the neighborhood with my mother, and I always knew that a life story would start before the second stop sign...

My greatest intellectual experience was an independent research project on the Ant Colony Optimization algorithm. The algorithm simulates the communication and teamwork of an ant colony. I found many similarities between the algorithm and my life experiences, especially in volunteering. I was fascinated by the behavior of society, and the relationship between leaders and team members...

Is there a cool word for the phrase "getting the job done"? No matter how I think aboutit, there is none. There is no cool way or shortcut to 'get the job done' either. The entire process is heavily steeped in hard work and planning...

My childhood was two-dimensional, a life compressed into pages and pages of books, sheet music, and homework. The physical world was a distraction I ignored. But when I decided to be like the heroes in the books, I realized that I needed to confront reality...

Though I love to apply my mathematical knowledge to solve seemly impossible problems, I am most proud of establishing a tutoring club to help students in my community to excel in math. During the second semester of 10th grade, I asked myself, “What am I good at, and how can I contribute to the community using that quality?” I immediately came to a solution: mathematics...

“Is literature a lamp, a microscope or an x-ray?”It surprised me to come across such an unusual and innate question amongst old English papers while studying for my mock exams last year. While I thought that I would never risk answering such a question, even now it still lingers in my mind, perhaps due to the way it reflects my own enthusiasm for literature, for I believe that literature has a unique ability to open us up to ideas and emotions, like a lamp, a microscope and an x-ray all at once...