Application Essay Excerpts

In every family photo album, there is an iconic image of me with a book. In Rome, age eight, it was Eyewitness Geology; San Gimignano, age nine, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Orlando, age twelve, Angels and Demons...

Many high schools students have a problem with picking out what they want to do in the future. Before they graduate, they deliberate on which university to pursue the next 4 years of their life in. Passing entrance exams can be very challenging for these teenagers. While they require exhausting intellectual strains and oodles of effort, some never do pass...

Contributing to the richness of my community is something I already look forward to. My vast talents of skills and traditions are waiting to be unleashed positively to enhance the university community on arrival. I am a versatile and very active person, characteristic, that has made me very different from most of my peers, who tend to concentrate their energy on one thing rather than trying different things...

My summers from the past two years have been very adventurous and exciting to me. In addition to my usual extended hours of daily viola practice, going to modeling and acting castings, volunteering at a soup kitchen (the St. Francis Xavier Welcome Table) on Sundays, I became an intern at The Mark Hotel, a five-star hotel in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I had the privilege of experiencing various roles in hotel administration, as a concierge, human resources assistant, and an accountant while learning about skills in business, management, communications, and hospitality...

I am the daughter of a Swiss immigrant and a South Korean immigrant. Because English is the second language for both of my parents, I grew up watching my parents struggle to communicate with each other. I would be mortified whenever my parents would argue in public in incomprehensible English...

“DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!” The fans scream, waving giant foam fingers. Eventually, the halftime buzzer sounds, and the basketball game stops. The Knicks SportJamz Talent Search competition in Madison Square Garden begins, and I am completely petrified...

A former coach told me, "you have to want it." Throughout the years, I've come to realize that these words hold true in all endeavors. In order to achieve a goal, you have to know what you want and you have to be determined to go through hell and back to get it; you have to want it that bad that you would do anything to get it...

The amphitheaters of Lincoln Center are impressive structures indeed. Its lighting, architecture, and acoustics complement one another just like the sections of the bands that play in them. But without the orchestra, this is nothing more than just a pretty building...

I take most aspects of life in stride, except cold weather. I really don’t like that. The stinging winter winds, dry air, and slippery ice turn the outdoors into a battle with the elements...

In retrospect, I probably looked really strange with my half gaze and chicken scratched notepad: I was going to live concerts to write my thoughts. Easily done if you're music student like myself. Incognito. During my many hours in concert halls and jazz venues, I found an enigmatic property of live music: it will reveal sincere and thoughtful questions faster than the particles whirling around at CERN...