Lewis and Clark College Undergraduate College Application Essays

It was to my temporary Italian address that a package arrived in mid-November. Even though it had been only a couple of months, I had yearned for something to read as a respite from the unending flow of Italian, which inundated my still-untrained...

I was practically born on the river. Both of my parents were extreme whitewater raft guides, and they passed on their love of the river and nature in general to me. From a young age, my parents took me rafting on rivers like the San Juan, the...

Two days after leaving home this past June, I stood alone amidst thousands of people, not knowing a single one. I heard no English, saw no familiar sights, and was caught up in a dusty, polluted, hectic metropolitan whirlwind. I was in Kathmandu,...

There I sat on the piano bench, leather sticky where shorts ended and legs began, and all I could think was, "No, please don't make me learn that." The piece was Burgmüller's Ballade, the time somewhere around my twelfth birthday. The song was...

Sitting in the Templeton Campus Center, I looked out through the square, geometric windows at the trees beyond. The simply shaped white metal frames of the window contrast with the trees hugged by moss. Lewis and Clark in itself is a contrast....

I was confused when I saw “85%” scrawled in red ink on my eighth-grade algebra worksheet despite all of the answers being correct. Underlined at the top of the page were the words "No Doodling!" and a large arrow pointed to a cluster of flowers...

I believe in hiking boots. Stiff, clunky and unapologetically dorky, preferably made of waterproof leather. Neat rows of hiking boots line the back wall of REI. An employee who calls himself a “shoe expert” lists the pros and cons of each pair. “I...

My legs are dotted with faded scars left behind by mosquito bites.

Sitting in a stuffy classroom in early September, I look down at them nostalgically. In June, my feelings towards mosquito bites were less cordial. I had just begun a 45-day...

Getting to work at ten in the morning to go stand in what I charitably referred to as the Hut for eight hour stretches was probably not how most people envisioned their summer but when you live in Santa Cruz for as long as I have, working at the...

When I was seven I had my first crush. I remember the numerous sleepovers where I would be asked to divulge such a secret, with the stereotypical “so who do you like Dana?” I’d have no problem responding “I like Jessy,” which was always met with...

I've gone 21 days without showering, swum across frigid lakes, climbed over mountains, and eaten the seemingly inedible. I believe any task can be accomplished with the right attitude, no challenge is too great, and no peak too perilous. I apply...

My crown! It's lost! My crown is gone!" cries Babar the Elephant. As a toddler, mom would read my favorite bedtime story Babar Loses his Crown, an elephant who (you guessed it) loses his crown in Paris. That story, and others like it, are in...