University of Southern California Admission Essays

We were nervous. The breeze of early morning stung our bare arms with cold. I complained, out of my own bitter hatred for the cold, and in hopes of quieting the spinning butterflies in my stomach. Doubts floated through my head as I acknowledged that…

Zipping through the tiled halls, I glance back and grin. I grab her hand, and we soar through an arch of fluorescent-lit stores, gliding past stands selling cheap accessories in our clunky rollerblades. We stop, resting our feet, and scope out our audience. A sea…

Beep. Beep. I opened my eyes, turned my head to the right, and saw the spiky graph on the little monitor that told me someone was alive. I looked at my body and saw the wires stuck to it, which informed me that the beeping…

My life is filled with hantai, or opposites: potatoes and rice, forks and chopsticks, Bachan and Nana, and an English first name and a Japanese last name. When I was younger, it never occurred to me that I was any different than any of my…

Paper plates. It was always the favorite medium for my five friends every Saturday morning. Through connections with a certified neurologist, Kyung Il Park, I helped to develop an art therapy program for children and adults with special needs. While there would be different participants…

Both of my parents came from very different worlds. My mother was born and raised in the impoverished country of Colombia in South America, where she had to help my grandparents take care of her four younger brothers in their small apartment in the city…

In this essay about cheerleading I’ll discuss how being a captain of a team impacted me. I do not fit the stereotypical image of a cheerleader, the status-obsessed glamour girls of teen movies and the public consciousness. I don’t drink, smoke, or go to parties….

Picture me: the morose toddler, hands balled into fists as my mother pulled a wide-toothed comb through my full, coarse hair. Tears stung my eyes but I did not cry even when my mother held a ball of knotted hair in her palm, a triumphant…

I hate playing baroque music. The urgency, the false sense of drama imbued in unnecessary ornamentation, the singular melodic idea, the abrupt changes from loud to soft…none of the characteristics of baroque music appeal to me. I find myself incapable of drumming up enough motivation…

“BANG! BANG! BANG!” I slam the gavel on the desk to get everyone’s attention. As I sit in front of the High School Site Council, full of administrators, teachers, students, and members of the community, I call the meeting to order. Serving as the President…