New York University Application Essays

Just like many others, I’ve spent my life hearing the hackneyed phrase “actions speak louder than words.” Based on personal experience, however, I’ve decided that I disagree. I believe that words are magic. Not magic in the conventional sense; a much subtler form of magic,…

As I pulled the handle, the drawer gave way, allowing year’s worth of junk to spill out onto the floor. I rushed to put everything back into the neatly arranged disorder that I found it before my parents walk in to see the snooping I’d…

Sweat dripped off my face, and my body trembled in excitement. Playing along with some of the top high school players in the nation, I yearned to belong. However, as I sat on the flight back to Taiwan after camp, I realized that my mind…

Maturation is a long, tedious process, as thrilling as it is challenging. Each stage of a young life poses its own set of unique challenges: the toddler taking his first clumsy steps, slowly progressing towards two-limbed balance; the first grader reciting the alphabet with gusto…

“Ugly,” my grandfather blatantly declared. The eight-year-old me looked down in confusion and shame, having just committed the greatest crime of the century: breaking and entering a makeup bag. “You must get rid of that,” he continued. Following his command, I submissively raised one hand…

I’m the last one into the room. I was busy responding to an “I remember you” from Airianna, a five-year-old girl I had tutored a few weeks ago. I remembered her too; remembered how much I had liked her name, remembered getting none of her…

Last year, I was a runaway for a grand total of 27 hours. I stormed out of my house in complete confusion. I couldn’t understand why, after all the awards I’d managed to win, after I’d been set as the model of success by our…

New York–the city that never sleeps, the concrete jungle–is home to the Empire State Building, Strawberry Fields, and bustling Wall Street. It is a city that rose in the awe of American pioneers, and was built on the backs of immigrants. New York is its…

I have experienced the scene so many times that all recollections of the event blend together into a single, unforgettable memory. The seasoned, old general, with an eye for perfection, conducted his troops, me included, through daily, often mundane exercises. Any man who lost focus…

I am sitting inside a carrot. Burnt orange walls surround me. Rough brush strokes of this rusty shade streak the back of the door. Paint is hastily dripped in visible spots on the concrete floor. The room is about three feet by three feet and…