College: The 4 Best Years of Your Life on Purpose

When faced with applicants of otherwise equal qualifications, colleges use personal statements—which showcase your values, insight, emotional maturity—as a tiebreaker. Your essays will tell admissions officers what matters to you, why they matter to you, and what kind of friend you would be to a fellow classmate.

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Atlas of the Heart

When I decided to major in Cognitive Systems at University of British Columbia, I was baffled by how this intensely multidisciplinary program could encompass seemingly disparate fields from computer science to psychology to linguistics. It was only in my fifth year that I was able to start drawing pathways connecting these nodes which I had thought were wildly different. Like filling in a blank map, I realized that with every experience, good and bad, I was coming to a greater understanding of my mind and my soul—I was charting the atlas of my heart…

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The Girl Who Lived Freshman Year Twice

Everyone obsesses over college rankings, and they’re the reason I ended up transferring from UC Irvine to UCLA. After I transferred, however, I realized that I had left something precious behind, something even more important than number rankings, something that I had first discovered when I was at Irvine and would never be able to find again anywhere else even if I started freshman year all over again…

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Why Your Race Does Affect College Admissions

How many minorities does it take to achieve school diversity?

With affirmative action likely to be obliterated next summer, emotions are running pretty high, with some celebrating the end of what seemed like an unfairly discriminatory measure that punished certain people (Asians) for their success and others lamenting that the loss of diversity would be a devastating blow to students of all races.

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