Carnegie Mellon University Undergraduate College Application Essays

Throughout high school, entrepreneurial spirit has always driven me to turn ideas into realities. My endeavors ranged from arranging rhetoric workshops through a non-profit organization and eventually establishing my own organization to host...

The world would have us believe that there is nothing inherently significant about Legos. The simple fact that millions of people grew up with Legos as a part of their childhood does not devalue or minimize my own experience. Rather, I think my...

I often travel through a land of backpacks, ironed silk suits, Hawaiian slippers, colorful shirts, low-waist jeans and outfits that do not even have a name. This is a land where shoes are worn and pants are stained with adhesive, where tie knots...

I glared at the plastic contraption before me and tried one last time to summon any telekinesis powers.

Nope. Nothing. The device’s arm stubbornly oscillated at a regular pace, like a mocking tongue across a palate. I sighed dejectedly and shut...

I have two homes, and they could not be more different.

My life in futurism-crazed Dubai is punctuated by my summers, which are spent amid the feeble cleanliness systems and lack of robust infrastructure endemic to places like Kolkata. This...

In tenth grade, I had a wild idea: a reusable cosmetics container made from plastic recovered from the ocean. I would negotiate a deal with an ocean cleanup organization, build prototypes out of the acquired plastic, pitch my product and my vision...

A semicolon, and a brace there. Done! I hit the “Compile and Run” button, my first ever computer program has printed out the famous “Hello World.”

When I was ten years old, I found a book on “Windows” operating system from my parents’...

After the last shot had been fired, I realized I had been holding my breath. As fatigued comrades began to scoop stray bullets from the ground and put them into sacks containing plastic props, I took my first stilted breaths in four weeks. We had...

For my entire life, I have had an affinity for creating things. When I was young, it was by building Lego spires that seemed to stretch to the sky, or epic Lincoln Log castles that could win out over any dragon. But one thing that always...

“You are going to a boarding school in Singapore,” said my parents one day.

The decision to send me off to boarding school came as a surprise for my family’s acquaintances. It came as a shock to me --- especially since I did not even know what the...

When I was in seventh grade, my mom, who is an acclaimed pianist, was invited to participate in the Vienna ConcertoFest, a two-week summer program to perform concertos. My mom asked me to join and participate with her at the festival. I played...

I carefully pour matcha into my glass mug, watching as the mug’s ice cubes go from reflecting sunlight to deflecting tea. The matcha rose latte I perfected consists of three clean stripes: red from the homemade rose syrup at the bottom, white from...