Ivy League Essay Examples

Harvard Extended Essay Example

At about eight o’ clock in the evening, our family steps outside. The cold air brushes our faces as I push myself up to a standing position from my wheelchair. Before standing, I have already turned on my best K-pop playlist on my phone, consisting of songs from my favorite group, BTS. 

As I try to maintain my balance with my hands on the black, metal walker, I sing along to the rapping of Rap Monster, BTS’s leader, having memorized all the lyrics. Finally, when I feel ready, I take my first step, using my hip to pull my right leg forward. My bright green shoes that have been with me for the past four years drag along the dark asphalt, causing the forming holes in the front of the shoes to grow even bigger. 

Asked about my day, I tell my parents about the idea that my Physics teacher presented to us in class comparing the spine to an electrical cord. Excitedly, I start to talk about the nervous system and the developments that are being made in relation to the field of neuro-regeneration, especially the potentials of regenerating neural connections by electrically stimulating the spine. 

Talking and laughing, we finally reach the bottom of the neighborhood and turn to go back up to the house. The upward incline proves to be difficult to overcome, stealing my breath. But holding a competition with my sister to see who can remember the most lyrics to our favorite songs, I forget that I’m even tired. 

While walking, my mom gets a call from my grandmother. Asking to talk to me, I can hear the excitement overflowing in her voice when I tell her that I will be applying to colleges this year. She says, “So finally, you’re going to Harvard.” My ninety-year old grandmother living in Korea believes that Harvard is the only college in the United States. 

Finally, we arrive back at our house, with sweat running down my body. As I sit down, I feel relief quickly rush down my arms. 

I exercise approximately two hours daily, riding a stationary bike, standing, or walking with my walker. In the few months after my injury, I despised exercising, seeing it only as a mere grasp towards empty goals. However, discovering research about new developments in neuroregeneration, and new growing ideas such as neuroplasticity, my therapy started to become not a continuous reach at impossible goals but a way to keep my legs healthy for possible ones.

While continuing to exercise, I aspire to contribute to the research being done in the field of neuroregeneration and to reach a deeper understanding of the functions of the nervous system so that one day, everyone can hold hope despite neurological damage. Through my therapy and experiences, I have learned that even a small amount of knowledge has the potential to drastically alter one’s view of their surroundings, and the amazing possibilities for future exploration offers abounding excitement.

Brown Essay Examples

Why are you drawn to the area(s) of study you indicated in our Member Section, earlier in this application? If you are “undecided” or not sure which Brown concentrations match your interests, consider describing more generally the academic topics or modes of thought that engage you currently. (150 word limit)

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To many, mathematics is little more than calculating how much flour Mrs. Smith needs to bake her famous apple pie. I felt this same way until I got to calculus. There, I was examining the fundamentals of change, infinity, and nothingness daily.

During one discussion with my teacher, he expressed his belief that the Fibonacci sequence was a proportion of divine handiwork. I’d never considered any application of mathematics outside of hard sciences. As I sat at my kitchen table that night calculating the instantaneous velocity at time t, I understood that mathematics, despite a well-defined set of laws, contains the philosophical ambiguity I find so stimulating. 

Though finding the volume of a sphere may not fit the traditional idea of aesthetics, it serves the same purpose — as a study of structure and order. This intersection between mathematics and philosophy is one I hope to continue to explore.

Why Cornell Essay Example

Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are exciting to you. Why will Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences be the right environment in which to pursue your interests? (Please limit your response to 650 words.)

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My happiness can be graphed on quadrants with two axes of biology and psychology. The closer to the origin in the center, the happier I am. 

The day before winter break, my AP Biology teacher wrote me the most adorable greeting card; as a dual-enrolled student completing a special curriculum and serving as her assistant grading piles of paperwork, it wasn’t special treatment at all! But what made my day was the bacteriophage. The top of the card included a little cartoon, “a dreidle with spider legs” one friend dryly commented. I ran around showing it to all who cared to listen. I was tickled by my teacher’s representation of a dangerous virus that hijacks a bacteria’s ability to reproduce itself. 

Moreover, I loved the card because it shows that my biology teacher understands my joy in learning about unusual diseases. My current personal fascination is kuru — caused by prions, mysterious misfolded proteins that produce degenerating nervous tissue and end in certain death. Scary, I know. Kuru folds into its realm fascinating symptoms, crazy laughter and slowing movement. It is also anthropologically significant: given that it was historically respectful to consume one’s relatives in parts of Papua New Guinea, the gender practices of this ritual adversely affected women and children. It is that nexus of biology and culture that fascinates me.

Magazine subscriptions became my gateway to my eventual academic study of psychology.  Reader’s Digest, with its articles on happiness (diminishing marginal utility!) and the dangers of energy drinks (poor teenage brains!), evolved into an obsession: hours at the library flipping through Psychology Today. Between those glossy covers were hours of entertainment: stories of narcissists and psychopaths, of test-taking mindsets between pessimism and optimism, giving me a view beyond the you-like-pink-so-you-must-be-bubbly world of American Girl. That interest survives in my free time reading and my choice of an eventual major.  

Taking AP Psychology allowed me to bring my private reading into classroom discussion. I loved talking about the ethics and design of psychological studies. I had read about the Asch conformity tests, had seen the videos of the experiment. When my teacher set up the experiment with three classmates as subjects and the rest of us as confederates, two subjects did not conform; I still wonder why our ratio of nonconformity was lower than Asch had found. Could it be a trait of the magnet population and experience or the fact that we weren’t great liars? 

Cornell’s Biology and Society major combines interdisciplinary studies from the sciences and humanities. In viewing biological concerns from a sociocultural perspective, it connects my love of disease and psychology and addresses a subset I find to be necessary – the ethical aspects. 

In particular, neuroethics appeals to me in speaking to child abuse; having encountered situations of reportable child abuse multiple times during my work with Teen Line, a crisis hotline at which I volunteer, I am particularly interested to learn more about the aftermath. What happens after I’ve called Child Protective Services? Those of us at Teen Line never know the end result.  Would the child be placed in foster care or with a relative? Would the child, whose life began in endangerment, thrive in a loving environment? We never know. 

But what I can learn is how abuse has affected the child neurologically, how it may manifest in adulthood, and perhaps even what can be done to counter it. The idea that abnormal reactions derive from social contexts can be expanded by studying biochemistry; research about the lack of a neurotransmitter uptake or the presence of potential genetic markers may explain the seeming irrationality behind mental disorders and may, hopefully, lessen the social stigma.

Yale Essay Example

Please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more. You may write about anything—from personal experiences or goals to interests or intellectual pursuits. (Please answer in 500 words or fewer).

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“She’s in the hospital.”

I sputtered into the receiver, speechless at my grandmother’s words. The previous week, she explained that my mother had been acting strangely. At first, I wasn’t concerned. I didn’t consider putting plasticware in the toaster oven or raving about hackers online a cause for alarm. But her behavior only escalated from there.

One night, at the height of Florida summer, my grandmother awoke covered in sweat to find the air conditioning had been turned off. When asked, my mother confessed, insisting that the circulated air had been poisoned by some spiteful coworkers. The following day, she was found slumped over the edge of a balcony, seconds from taking the leap.

Despite all of this, I couldn’t believe that there could be anything wrong with my mother. I couldn’t believe it when I got a call shortly afterward informing me of her diagnosis: schizoaffective disorder. 

In the days following the news, I felt a growing darkness within me. While my mother endured emergency evaluations at the local hospital, I was consumed by self-pity and anger. I couldn’t decide who to blame — the doctors who diagnosed her or the heavens who allowed the woman that raised me to disappear. I was shaken at the loss of the woman who tangoed with me in the kitchen and cheered me on at recitals. 

My world had lost any semblance of sense within a few weeks; the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. But I began to see that this event wasn’t the terror that it seemed to be. I had to accept change. Fate hadn’t wronged me. My mother’s diagnosis, though painful, was just another happening, another day, and another moment, not something I could expect the earth to atone for. 

My mother reading to me every night as a young child is a miracle. All of those days spent swaddled in a comforter watching television together are a miracle. And while these things didn’t last forever, they also will never fade. No matter what my mother’s mental state is, my memories with her will remain timeless. I can tenderly recall her patience as she cleaned the spilled milk off of the kitchen floor, or the gentle humming in my ear as she rocked me to sleep. It is these memories that will live on forever, not the illness befalling her. 

One loss doesn’t destroy all of the beauty that’s been had, and I know that I’ll never lose the tenderness of my life’s small miracles. I refuse to believe that the radiance of my world will ever be lost because one aspect of it doesn’t go as planned. I will never escape change or circumstance, but I know that they are nothing to fear.

Why Dartmouth essay that worked

What attracts you to Dartmouth? (100 words)

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I always had a keen interest in numbers, probability, and finance. Early on, I  could quickly calculate sales tax, analyze probabilities, and visualize complex mathematical models. After taking AP classes in economics and statistics, I became intrigued with mathematical representations for economic markets and statistical models.

This sparked my desire to pursue an actuarial career to utilize my talents in quantitative reasoning. The Major in Mathematical Data Science will provide me the skills to apply abstract mathematical and statistical theories to the concrete world. I will also have the opportunity to stimulate my academic intrigue through an intensive research project. 

Dartmouth Essay Example

Talk about a creative moment in your life. (300 words) 

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Music has always been a big part of my life. Early on, my musical inclination was engendered in me through my family. My father was an accomplished “Timbalero” in his high school salsa band. While my mother still plays her extensive library of 80’s arena rock albums during long car rides.

My family’s love for music is even more pronounced during family gatherings; salsa music rumbles the floor and vibrant dancing fills the living room. Surrounded by various types of music made it second nature for me to learn an instrument. Ever since I picked up the guitar in the second grade, I have been surrounded by creative impulses that have driven me to write my own songs. Melodies constantly play in my head and are not silenced until I release them through the strings of my guitar. However, my greatest piece of music drew inspiration from the children’s TV show Adventure Time, a light-hearted show about a boy and his dog seeking adventure.

One silent episode where two characters trek a post-apocalyptic landscape prompted me to pick up my guitar and play what came to my head. In sixth grade, this story was the most tragic and complex that I was ever exposed to. Naturally, I had to create something that mimicked its artistry. My efforts would materialize into my song titled, “Remains.” It begins with an exchange of ominous chords that mirrors the depravity of the scenery depicted in that episode. Then, the guitars lift out of their sluggish state and usher in a series of chords that float between tones of desolation and hope.

Finally, the song culminates with an epic power-rock portion before returning to the desolate chords that started the song. Hence, my most intricate piece of music would be inspired by a children’s TV show.

Princeton Essay Example

If you are interested in pursuing a B.S.E. (Bachelor of Science in Engineering) degree, please write a 300-500 word essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had, and how you think the programs in engineering offered at Princeton suit your particular interests. (independent work, community, junior papers, senior thesis, incredibly easy to change course of study)

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“Some of you may wonder ‘When will I ever use derivatives in real life?’ Welcome to when.” My physics teacher described engineering as the “when” math and physics were applied to real problems. That is what is so attractive about engineering; it gives me the ability to apply intriguing concepts to fascinating projects

During the Chain Reaction Contraption competition, my team and I created a Rube Goldberg machine to complete a certain task. I found a love for the hands-on, creative portion of mechanical engineering. The ability to step away from the calculator and notebook and get my hands dirty is the most enjoyable aspect of this profession. I also enjoyed how engineering combines creative freedom and mathematical certainty. In creation of each step, I could design whatever I desired and had a large degree of flexibility. Afterwards, I would complete the calculations and see how math and physics concepts applied to a real-life problem. Finally, I would build the step, getting to experience a “hands-on” area of engineering. While I participated in other engineering activities in high school, this experience solidified my passion for engineering.

However, other engineering activities also provided important experiences that contributed to my desire to pursue engineering. In my engineering design class, I enjoyed using computer programs like Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD to create my designs. In FTC Robotics, I discovered that in addition to building the robot, I also loved the programming aspect. 

Reflecting on these experiences with engineering, particularly mechanical engineering, I am certain engineering is the best path for me. As sure as I am about pursuing engineering, I am even more certain Princeton Engineering is the best fit for me.

One thing I appreciate about Princeton is the emphasis placed on independent work. I learn best through independent learning, and Princeton already has this area built into its curriculum. Through Junior papers and the Senior thesis, I will be able to conduct original research or undertake a significant engineering project. My favorite classes in high school are those that culminated in independent final projects. The process of thinking through ideas and finding the best solution provides an outlet for my curiosity and allows me to immerse myself in a subject.

However, while I am an independent worker and learner, I also enjoy working in groups and being part of a strong community. Every undergraduate student at Princeton I have spoke to, mentions how supportive and tight-knot the Princeton community is. Students consistently bring out the best in one another and push those around them to reach their goals. Coming from a hometown with this kind of atmosphere, Princeton’s community would feel comfortable.

Lastly, Princeton’s strong Hispanic community would also provide another source of support and social connection for me. In my school, I do not have a large Hispanic base. As a result, this ethnic community attracts me to Princeton because I would love to be apart of a group with individuals like myself.

Another Princeton Essay Example

Please tell us how you have spent the last two summers (or vacations between school years), including any jobs you have held. (About 150 words)

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Cross-country and marching band dominated my daily schedule. Cross-country practices were six days weekly, all summer. Marching Band consisted of two band camp weeks with six to ten hours daily.

For work, I worked about 15 hours weekly at Scally’s Driving Range one summer and Panda Express the next.

Prior to Junior year, I went to programs to explore possible career interests: Medical Career Seminar, where I learned about the medical field, shadowed doctors, and volunteered at hospitals, and Washington Week, where I met with congressmen, FBI agents, and visited sites in D.C. 

Before Senior year, I was accepted to University of Michigan’s Summer College Engineering Exposure Program (SCEEP) and MIT Online Science, Technology, Engineering Community (MOSTEC). In SCEEP, my team solved a design challenge and presented the solution to university staff. In MOSTEC, I took Neuroscience and Science Writing and presented my Neuroscience project during conference week at MIT.

Princeton Extracurricular Activity Essay Example

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you. (About 150 words)

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Gasping for air, I do not dare to move as the last chord resonates through the parking lot where the marching band rehearses. Check and adjust. Did I make my final spot, or am I off, possibly costing the band points if I’m off in a show? Standby. Bringing my flute down, I relax and glance around me, ensuring my section had adjusted as well.

Reflecting on my last four years in the organization, I am grateful for the experience. Marching band combined two favorite pastimes, athleticism and music, and introduced me to my closest friends and role models. 

Ten hour rehearsals at band camp and returning home from a band competition in Canton, Ohio at 3 a.m. after a 6 a.m. departure the previous day seemed more like pleasure than work. In marching band, exhaustion is nonexistent and passion is enduring. 

Princeton Essay Example

Sitting around the table at Denny’s, the waitress asks my grandfather about our family’s heritage. He smiles, knowing he won’t be giving the simple answer expected. He explains he is a Spaniard and his wife is German. My other grandfather and my parents are Venezuelan. That grandfather’s wife is from Martinique. My brothers and I are American and the only ones who live in their home country.

For the last few generations, my ancestors have rarely resided in the same country into adulthood. As a result, their unique experiences have created open-minded individuals with widespread impact.

In contrast to the mobility of my ancestors, I live in a stagnant town, in which many live in the same place where they grew up. The lack of exposure to different people and experiences means much of my community is afraid of change and resistant to new ideas.

Witnessing two different lifestyles from my family and community, I know I want to live my family’s lifestyle. As an individual, I hope to embrace change and always be growing in my understanding of the world. Rather than confining myself to preconceived notions, I aspire to take part in my family’s culture and allow my experiences to shape my beliefs and perspectives.

My family’s culture of open-mindedness has inspired me to bring the idea of encouraging change and progress to society through technology. Using my talents, I will contribute to the advancement of society and bring a new perspective to the field while respecting other viewpoints. Lack of progress creates an aversion to change and the inability to improve lives. Because I have seen these effects of stagnancy on a community and its individuals, I wish to help create a world that is constantly changing – for the better. 

5 Tips for writing Ivy League essays

1. Stay true to your voice

The admissions committee wants to get to know you. Don’t just write what you think they want to hear or a narrative if it isn’t genuine.

2. Tell us something we don’t know

You should use your essays as a way to show the admissions officers something they can’t see elsewhere in your application. 

3. Show, don’t tell

Work anecdotes and strong imagery into your writing to make the reader feel as if they’re along for the ride with you. Remember, however, that very short essays may not have room for narrative writing.

4. Answer the question

Different questions need different answers, and the word count can drastically change the structure of your essay. Include detail, but be concise—there’s no need to include flowery sentences that don’t add new information. Focus on addressing the prompt.

5. Use correct spelling and grammar

Reading the essay out loud will help you catch any grammar mistakes or typos while editing. Don’t be afraid to ask a parent or counselor to read the essay over for you.