50 Successful Harvard Application Essays

M
ICHELLE
C
HOI
“You should scrub off the top layer of your skin whenever you lose a round,” my debate teammate
once advised me.
“That’s not practical,” I replied.
“Neither is your refusal to wear clothes you’ve lost important debate rounds in. Your wardrobe has
very little to do with your success.”
Half of me disagrees with him. I still bring three BIC Round Stic pencils with 0.7 lead to every test
because my gut tells me this fastidious procedure raises my scores. I’m still convinced that labs
receive better grades if written in Calibri. And I still won’t rewear clothes in which I’ve lost crucial
rounds.
Yet the other half of me is equally dismissive of my own superstitions. I love logic, never failing
to check that steps in a proof lead to a precise conclusion without gaps in reasoning. Fortunately, I
often abandon my penchant for pragmatism to accommodate for my unwarranted superstitions. And
since I only feel the need to act logically in selective situations, I am perfectly content with the
illogical nature of my other habits:
Raised with my great-grandmother, grandparents, and parents all under one roof, I never lacked
a consultant to help me transcribe Korean holiday dates from the lunar calendar onto my
schedule. Yet whenever all four generations of my family celebrates with a traditional meal of
bulgogi, my untraceable and admittedly nonexistent Italian blood flares in protest; I rebelliously
cook myself linguine con le vongole that clashes terribly with my mom’s pungent kimchi.
If I plot a graph of “hours I spend in physical activity” versus “week of the year,” the result
looks like an irregular cardiac cycle. The upsurges symbolize my battles with colossal walls of
water in hopes of catching a smooth surf back to Mission Bay shore. The ensuing period of rest
mirrors the hours I spend researching in that one spot in my debate team’s war room that isn’t
covered in papers (yet), or at the piano sight-reading the newest Adele song. Then the diastolic
tranquility is interrupted by the weekends when I’m sprinting through trenches to avoid
paintballs swarming above my favorite arena at Paintball USA.
I find comfort in the familiar. I treasure the regular midnight chats with my brother as we
indulge in batter while baking cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, keeping our voices hushed to
avoid waking our mom and facing her “salmonella is in your near future” lecture. Yet, some of
my fondest memories involve talking to people with whom I share nothing in common.
Whether my conversations are about the Qatari coach’s research on Kuwait’s female voting

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patterns, or about the infinite differences between the “common app” and the Oxford
interviewing process, or even about my friend’s Swedish school’s peculiar policy of mandating
uniforms only on Wednesdays, I love comparing cultures with debaters from different
countries.
My behavior is unpredictable. Yet it’s predictably unpredictable. Sure, I’ll never eat a Korean
dinner like one might expect. But I’ll always be cooking linguine the moment I catch a whiff of
kimchi.
REVIEW
Despite suffering from a lack of cohesiveness, this essay is successful in breaking the typical
boundaries of the college essay and giving us a sense of the individual behind the computer. The
author starts off the piece using an exchange with a debate teammate about her clothes choice before a
debate, which she uses as a starting point for a discussion of the “illogical nature of [her] other
habits.” The opening story is engaging because it rings with authenticity—it’s a discreet way to
indicate that debate means a lot to her.
The magic doesn’t work as well with the other examples of illogical habits that the author brings
up in the rest of the essay, however. What is illogical about liking to alternate surfing with debate
preparation, for example, or liking to mix up the familiar with the unexpected? The anecdotes seem
more like a way to draw attention to some of the author ’s achievements—surfing, piano—than an
occasion to reflect on her “predictably unpredictable” behavior.
What saves the essay from sounding like a list of extracurriculars is the sizable dose of humor
injected into the descriptions. The author ’s description of “the debate team’s war room” and her
“untraceable and admittedly nonexistent Italian blood” not only create vivid images in the mind of the
reader, but also give off the impression she is poking fun at herself. Likewise, alternating mentions of
such high and lofty topics as Kuwait’s female voting patterns with descriptions of paintball and
midnight baking sessions create the image of a young woman who has passions and goals, but who
also knows not to take herself too seriously.
In spite of its choppiness, this essay thereby succeeds in a very difficult quest: making the author
likable to the reader. It’s a great illustration of the fact that writing a good essay should involve
writing about things that mean a lot to you—whether it’s dressing for debate tournaments, discussing
Middle Eastern politics, or just baking cupcakes.
—Sarah Fellay

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