Vanderbilt University Application Essays

My academic interests are widely varied, ranging from Hebrew to psychology to architecture. Rather than briefly describing them all, I would prefer to focus on my main academic interest: international relations. As a strong-willed first grader, I consistently planted myself on the classroom beanbag to…

In the crowded waiting room of a medical facility, the tension was palpable. The few doctors rushed around, overwhelmed by the number of sick children. The kids’ cries and screams filled the air, while mothers competed for the staff’s attention. The saddest part of this…

“My six year old could do that,” a woman behind me remarks. I feel a twinge of irritation, but I don’t blame her; a few years ago, I would’ve agreed. To the average eye, Grace Hartigan’s work of Abstract Expressionism, The Gallow Ball, appears to…

It was the McCarthy era. Attorney General Tom Clark had just announced a list of fifty-six “subversive” organizations that were supposedly part of the communist crusade. My grandfather, vice president of the History Society at Tilden Senior High in Brooklyn, thought it would be a…

“Surrealism is embedded in the everyday, in the daily experience” — Katharine Conley It seems fitting for me to transform every moment or thought into a film screened inside my head. Cinema is my life, and guides me beyond my life. I rise from reality…

The chirps of crickets in lush grass, the gurgling of a clear book on a warm summer day, and the eerie whistling of a north wind in the winter all impart to me a different understanding. Nature and the environment have been treasured subjects for…

As the puck becomes tangled beneath my skates, my body tenses, and I frantically brace for the inevitable destruction. My senses are acutely alert to the heavy breathing that radiates from the opposing player barreling toward my backside. While this pulsing sensation skips wildly along…

June 16, 2000 — My sense of uncertainty had never been so overwhelming, my emotions never so mixed. Born seven weeks early on what I now view as a blessed day, my youngest brother, initially referred to as “Baby Malone,” hung on for dear life….

At Vanderbilt, I want to let my entrepreneurial thoughts run free. I have developed a successful business that provides a service to the community, and I love the challenges that entrepreneurship presents. I also find questions of efficiency, decision-making, and strategy fascinating. I plan on…

While all my extracurricular activities have helped me shape my values, there is one in particular I have enjoyed the most: picking tangerines from my grandmother’s orchard. Picking tangerines was often to me simply a burden. I had to wake up at six every Saturday…