University of Pennsylvania Application Essays

A few days ago, I watched a video titled “People React to Being Called Beautiful,” made by a student, Shea Glover. She filmed various other students and told them she was “taking photos of things [she] find[s] beautiful.” The various reactions are surprising to say…

My dad’s yellow courier van has been a part of my life ever since I was born. Every day before light floods the sky, I would hear its engine rumble as my dad headed to work. After school, I would sit in the passenger seat…

While opportunity cost is what we must give up in order to attain what we desire, I’m sure that there is no opportunity cost of attending Penn. From research, volunteering, and publications to distinct majors, the opportunity cost of Penn is nothing compared to that…

Although my areas of interest are broad, I am certain of my passion for creativity and design. My ability to think creatively is not only in the visual aesthetic of things, but in using innovative and unorthodox methods of problem solving as well. Ultimately, two…

When I was ten months old, I grabbed onto the coffee table and hauled myself up, arms shaking, fists clenched, knees wobbling; ten minutes later, much to my parents’ dismay, I was sprinting around the house, choppy bangs flapping in the wind like sails. When…

Kurt Vonnegut’s quintessential anthropological romp, Cat’s Cradle. However, I trusted that then, unlike in the aforementioned novel, my “joining the natives” would not cause the world around me to come crashing down, or in that story’s particular case, freezing up. I had lighted upon a…

Terminalia bentzoe, known as ‘benjoin’ in my local vernacular, is a plant endemic to Mauritius. In the past, local people would use its leaves to make decoctions against the common cold but unfortunately, this subspecies is today vulnerable in its natural habitat. Certainly, we do…

From the time of dispatch, an EMT has approximately 120 seconds to get to the patient before life expectancy begins to drop. A fire engine has the luxury of 600 seconds before the number of alarms doubles and triples. These estimates do not include any…

“The U.S. and China should work to unify the Koreas.” Eight minutes left. As I walk to the podium, I present myself as a confident junior. Yet in my mind, I am still a freshman, stammering through my first speech, unnerved by the seven pairs…

When I was eight, as my father and I were walking down an ordinary street in Bangladesh, we passed several street vendors, all shoeless, dirty, and tattered. I halted. “Dad,” I whispered, tugging on his arm. “Do they earn enough to eat?” My shock at…