Northwestern University Admission Essays

My grandfather’s hands hardly appeared photogenic. They were red, cracked, and rough, and they often bore cuts and scratches from whatever mechanical object he had last worked on. I knew those hands from an early age. They used to slap my back as soon I…

“No student ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him: it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required, that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction.” –Charles Kendall Adams I will not speak for all…

One of my favorite TED Talks, “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling” by Emilie Wapnick, begins with a loaded question: what was the first time someone asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Wapnick explains that this question…

Northwestern University is a renowned institution that has produced some of the best journalists in the world. As an aspiring journalist, I am eager to join the ranks of the university’s alumni and gain the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the ever-evolving field…

This summer, while attending a camp designed for the best high school policy debate students in the country, I noticed that only one-fourth of the participants in this camp were female. In the three and a half years I have committed to policy debate, I…

“If I were you, I’d take the white ones. They’d look nice with your purple trucks.” Chris, the sales assistant at the skate shop, was helping me choose some wheels for my new skateboard. As he set to work assembling it, I plopped down next…

My teenage life in Darien, Connecticut has been defined considerably by my involvement as a state certified EMT in Post 53, the only known ambulance service in America staffed and governed entirely by volunteer high school students. Through four years of responding to 9-1-1 calls…

Most people are surprised to find out that I am dyslexic. Of course, most people don’t know. It’s not that I am ashamed of it, just that I don’t like to tell people about my problems. It is hard to hide, however, when a teacher…

“Kai houtos manthano.”* To most, they are meaningless words, incomprehensible and bizarre. But to me, their meaning is legion: secrecy, silence, concealment. They are Greek, and they mean subversive. I am a subversive, of the Greek persuasion, and, having become such, I shall never go…