University of Florida Undergraduate College Application Essays

On November 18, 2000, a group of my friends and I returned home from my birthday dinner at a local steakhouse. Upon our arrival, it was suggested that we watch the movie Fight Club. As if it were meant to be, we discovered that Fight Club was to...

In order to contribute to a community of any size or structure, some aspect of said community must be made better. This can be something as simple as cleaning up refuse or as profound as changing the way people live their lives. Regardless of the...

Personal Statement Choice #1

Swimming has been the main focus of my life since I was 8 months old, when I first learned how to swim. In 1988, I was part of the Senate Safety Council on whether or not to teach infants how to swim. From learning how...

Essentially, individuality is a product of nature and nurture. I believe that one's individuality, comprised of many factors, ultimately predicts their later success and influence. A product of my environment, my unique upbringing has affected my...

I always looked forward to June 17, the birthday of my only living grandparent. Every year I spent the day composing corny jokes that made her to snort with laughter and murmur loving approval. But in 2002, in a matter of seconds, my associations...

I credit the development of my personal values to my parents and culture. My parents were raised in Puerto Rico, where they became medical doctors. While my father came from a college educated family, my mother did not. Overcoming deep economic...

Although my tale is about a basketball player, it is not about a six-foot-eleven athlete whose name is splashed across the sports pages of daily newspapers and whose picture graces the tops of Nike and Adidas boxes. Rather, this is a story of one...

I stood on the ground where millions of innocent people perished. I walked into a gas chamber, and I walked out. I saw the scratch marks on the walls where people were clawing their way to the top, trying to get one last gasp of oxygen as the...

A crowd of people forms at the entrance of the Eastside High School Gym. A five-foot-eleven, one-hundred-and-sixty-pound, curly-haired freshman shyly makes his way into the sea of faces. Today is tryouts for the Eastside basketball team. Eastside,...

We were inches from the edge; they were shouting “Dale la vuelta! Dale la vuelta!” (“Go around!”). Unless they moved their truck forward, we would plunge to our deaths, our tires were beginning to slip over the edge of the 2,000-foot cliff.

Our...

I’ve lived with my grandparents all my life. My grandfather, whom I call “Pipo,” is like a father to me, and he is absolutely, no-doubt-about-it my favorite person in the world. He is intrigued by everything academic and has a photographic memory....

My annual trips to Pakistan can be summarized with the use of a few basic words, including eating, sleeping, shopping, and complaining. If the car didn't have a fully-operating AC system, I'd curse the people and their lack of technological...

Countless books, documentaries, and museums recount the story of the Jewish Holocaust. Comparatively few people, however, have heard of the modern holocaust that took place in Indonesia twelve years ago in my hometown of Jakarta.

One particular...

I left my house on the first day of middle school wondering if I would fit in and if my iPod was fully charged. By the end of the day I was wondering if my mother would be alive by the time I got to seventh grade. I still vividly remember parts of...

Kicking rocks as I trudged down the windy path to my undesired destination, I heard my dad loading the obnoxious sounding cars onto the ramp. Every time I looked at the vehicle I was being forced to ride in, I couldn't help but be embarrassed. My...

I get off of the train into the piercingly cold winter morning, anxious, not knowing what to expect. "So who am I supposed to be looking for?" I think as I nervously scan my surroundings. After a draining 20 hour flight and train ride to get to a...

When my mom gave birth to me, I weighed in at nine and a half pounds and measured twenty-two inches. One could say I was pretty big for a newborn, but whenever I tell this story, it is soon followed by a: “And that’s pretty much when I stopped...

“Jooooorrrrddddannnnn,” my mom screamed with utter fear and panic in her voice. Surprisingly, amongst all of the chaos, her voice was all that I heard. I’m not sure if I was disoriented, bewildered or just in complete shock but at that particular...

As the new student in my sixth grade English class, I was asked where I was from. "Where is your home?" a classmate inquired. As I opened my mouth to answer, I was struck by the sudden realization that there was no particular place that I was able...

I remember when the flowers stopped blooming.

All throughout my childhood there was always one thing that would instantly make me happy. I had a beautiful backyard in my childhood home. The smell of the ripe red mango trees and the chirping of the...

There was one playground not too far from my grandparents' apartment in Cairo (the summer home of my childhood) where I wasn't treated like the quirky, abnormal kid that I was used to being. It wasn't your ideal picture of a playground, though....

Warm, fluffy bread -- because Romanians cannot eat any meal without it. Pillowy pumpkin spinach ravioli -- a recipe my mother got from a chef in Italy in exchange for her strudel recipe. And apple pie -- because the U.S. makes the best. This could...

As a child, I was obsessed with 80’s movies. I admired Ferris Bueller’s infectious charisma and fearless confidence. I dreamed of having my own Jake Ryan waiting outside the church, grinning an impish smile while standing by his cool red Porsche....

The University of Florida's butterfly and moth exhibit houses more than 10 million variations of 10 million species! When I read that fact I couldn’t believe it. Each critter displayed in those glass cases is completely unique; now multiply that...