Undergraduate / "ketchup's popularity" - uc prompt-tell us about your community [5]

Ketchup is the most wonderful condiments in the world. Nothing can go wrong when you add ketchup to it, not even that brick of a meatloaf a family friend brings to a dinner. There are many reasons why it's so great. One: it has a wonderful color; red that can brighten anything, even the dreaded broccoli. Two: Ketchup has a conglomerating taste that works well with any food. In the same sense, the world from which I come from has the same aspects that make ketchup great; great color (atmosphere) in the city and a wonderful community at school.

Plano, Texas is one of the most prosperous towns in the nation. Aside from the economy, culture thrives in this city like rabbit in Australia. Every month, the city has public activities planned for the amusement of its residents. As a National Honors Society member, I volunteer at many of these occasions and end up staying after my shifts to enjoy myself. The most popular gathering is the Plano Balloon Festival at which I both attended and worked. Bearing the atmosphere of a fair, the festival allows visitors to participate in a myriad of activities from eating to jumping in jump houses. As a grand finale, dozens of passenger bearing hot air balloons are released followed by spectacular fireworks. At the end of the night, everyone leaves exhausted, happy, and loaded with freebies.

In addition to the grandiose cultural atmosphere it bears, Plano also has the best public high schools in the nation. My high school, Plano Senior High School (PSHS), has a great student body committee that allows everyone to feel like he or she is an active part of the school. For instance, PSHS has over 30 clubs and organizations on campus, ranging from anime club to the Academic Decathlon; everyone can find a club that suits his or her interests. Over the past school year, my friends and I formed the first ever Art Club on campus and arranged meeting that attracted dozens of members with our interesting activities and excursions. Furthermore, organizations such as the Student Counsel and Student Congress allow my fellow classmates to take part in how the school is run. Recently, our senior class president was selected solely on the votes of students with no administrative interference. This practice, along with our broad range of activities allows every student to achieve his or her best in academics as well as feeling great about the school and having fun.

For me, ketchup's popularity rests on its color and ability to work well with other foods. These characteristics model the community from which I come from. A great atmosphere of culture and wonderful surroundings at school are all revealed as I reflect upon my city. I hope that my admission to UCLA will allow me to bring these qualities to the school and its surroundings.

Undergraduate / Being an artist - ucla prompt 2 tell us about a talent [6]

In Texas, the summer air boils. The roads flash with the mirage of watery heat shines. As the thermometer blows its top, I can actually see sweat appearing from my pores; small drops at first, then they merge and form the large beads that roll down my body. Before I know it, it feels like I just ran a marathon through a category five hurricane. It's not a very pleasant feeling, especially when I sit in my garage studio painting a picture. Painting is my talent, my passion, my life.

In my life I have noticed adults are particularly fond of the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" In fact, I have been asked this question so many times that I have formulated two theories: a) all the minds of adults have been synchronized under a mass conspiracy to annoy teenagers or b) the creativity of humans decay exponentially with age. Even better is their reaction when I declare "an artist or a painter." At that point the inquirer leaps backwards away from me as if I had suddenly contracted a horribly contagious disease. I silently chuckle as the stereotypical thoughts of artist race through the adult's mind. It always happens.

I have been an artist all my life. I don't remember what sparked my interest in art; nevertheless, I cannot remember a time when I did not scribble, doodle, sketch, color, or paint. I'm sure as a baby, I wreaked havoc with the myriad of crayons, markers, and colored pencils lying around. Afterwards, during my childhood, I did what children do best: mimic. Sitting at my desk at home or in school, I copied from the picture-filled elementary textbooks like a student of the baroque school from a textbook on Caravaggio.

I take great pride in the fact that I can make art. When I put my heart and soul into a painting, I emulate emotions, messages, and designs onto a canvas. It's magical, more than magical, how we artists, like God, create something out of nothing. Every time I look at a fresh, glossy new canvas I feel a tingling ecstasy as I envision the boundless possibilities. In the past few years, I have participated in numerous art contests in the past few years, such as the Visual Arts Scholastic Event and the Fort Worth Star Telegram Blooming Artists Contest, and the plethora of medals, ribbons, and monetary rewards have made me very proud.

Of course, all artists have one thing in common. Art defines who they are as how they perceive the world. Over the years, as age takes its toll on me, I have become more and more expressive. However, in a world where teenagers are perpetually smothered by adults, my need to express is always suppressed by a finger to the lips. Despite my excruciating frustration, I realized that smoldering alone isn't going to help very much. So one day, as I was filling up my sketchbook with silly nonsense, I suddenly realized that instead of verbally expressing my ideas, I can paint them on a canvas. Clutching my sketchbook, I raced down to my studio (aka my garage). After three weeks of furious work, I produced a Pieta that expresses the serene suffering I endure from being stifled.

Art has always been part of my life. In my future, I hope to expand upon my talent in painting and make a career of it. As I dowse myself in sweat each summer painting, I will always see that as a milestone to success and treat it as a free sauna.

Undergraduate / 'Coming mom / Do not panic' - intellectually engaging exp. and letter to roomate [4]

1. intellectually engaging experience

"Yes we are the first ones!"
It was a bright and sunny day in Chicago. The Windy City was calm and peaceful at 9 A.M. as my parents and I stood outside the Art Institute of Chicago. On a Monday morning, the whopping crowd of ten people stood anxiously awaiting the doors to be opened by a bored looking security guard. I shuffled over to the stone lions and began to take some photos. After a few shots, I heard the "CLICK" of the museum door opening.

"Winston!"
"Coming mom!"
I bounded up the steps of the museum, ran over several people, and filed in after the other visitors in line. A few minutes later, I began my tour of the museum, armed with a camera, sketchbook, and pencils.

That day, I was fortunate enough to experience a retrospective of Dali. As a painter, Dali experimented with and explored a variety of different concepts: paranoia, religion, science...etc. Walking through the paintings, I found that I was fascinated with his portrayal of the human subconscious. In paintings such as the La Persistance De La Mïmoire and Metamorphosis of Narcissus Dali depicts dreamlike settings to emphasize space-time concepts and vanity. These paintings greatly intrigue my mind. On the one hand, I found them whimsical, as if Dali had accidentally put his pocket watch in a microwave; however, on the other hand, the painting reflected a sense of anxious peacefulness. As I walked out of the museum into the bright sunlight of Michigan Avenue, I was deep in thought.

Dali's retrospective was an intellectual treasure trove. As I grabbed lunch at a Subway with my parents, I could not stop thinking of how Dali played with time in his paintings. How can time be tangible that an artist like Dali could deter, arrest, or hasten it on a canvas? The heavens dictate time, humans record it. As an artist, I began take great interest in time as matter, concrete and tangible, and record its movements.

2. letter to roommate to help us better understand you

Dear Roommate,
I'm so glad we can't light fires in our dorms. Don't panic! I'm not a pyromaniac stashing explosives under my bed; however, I am an artist with canisters of turpentine in the closet. I apologize up front about the smell, but what odor can't be removed with some Febreeze? As for oil paints, I will spare you the trouble of possible cancer. I hope to make our dorm as lively as possible; after all, it will be our home for quite a while.

We have one room to share, so I will keep the painting in the studio. However, it doesn't mean there won't be art supplies everywhere. You see I'm not the world's biggest neat freak, but I will do my best not to have you slip on color pencils. After all, I don't want to step into a bucket of paint when I wake up.

With that said, let's make the best of our stay in the dorm! How about making it the most comfortable dorm ever? Throw in some lava lamps and a soft couch! With some design skills, I can transform a regular dorm into something you see on HGTV. It will be a wonderful environment where we can study and play. By the time we leave, it will feel like we're leaving home.

Stanford isn't always about studying! In the less than one percent time we have to enjoy ourselves, we can visit the gym and shoot some hoops or troop out to the lawn and throw a freebee around. Like to go out? Let's explore the city and its night life! And if we have a few hours, I'm can even teach you how to paint if you want!

I may not be the most organized person you meet, but I am friendly and laidback. So let me accommodate my habits to your needs and make the best of our time at Stanford!

Undergraduate / RISD essay- if you can eliminate one thing from the world what would it be? [4]

Look around. Imagine! You have the opportunity to eliminate one thing from existence. What is it? Tell us how the absence of this thing would change the world and why you made the choice you did.

I'm not an idealist. Looking around, I see the world is way too screwed for any potential idealism to take shape. Of course, who doesn't want to get rid of fear, death, disease, etc? But in the end the sadistic realist always wins. I am not a sadist, but I do like to have all my marbles at the end of the day as a realist. Thus if I had my pick of eliminating one thing from the world, it would be gasoline.

It was call black gold when people actually made stable incomes from gasoline. Today, it's more like black mold. It spoils our society, which has come to overly depend on it. It infects countries with greed as it pits one nation against another in prolonged conflicts over the resource. Its place in the world today is, unfortunately, monumental. And for the love of God, Americans cannot stop siphoning up this disgusting slime to power their precious cars. Therefore as demand increases, the supply must follow suit. Combine that concept with corporate idiocy; you get the perfect recipe for a BP oil spill.

Oil is hard to clean up. Even in our driveways, oil stains are not welcomed. Mother Nature sure doesn't want it in her oceans either. Due to some corporate idiot at BP, a simple methane valve malfunction was overlooked for four years. Hmmmm, if BP would have patched up the problem then, it wouldn't have to try to wrestle with its explosion now. Now BP has to face millions of dollars of reparations and cleanup costs that are probably a lot more expensive than replacing a valve.

We see what gasoline and petroleum does to the world; even the EPA does. So what does the might USA decide to do? Steal more oil from the Middle East and make itself look stupid to fuel its 62 million registered vehicles. Good job White House. For all that money we use to put gas in tanks, bombers, HUMVEEs, alternative resource agencies could have relieved us from the bondage of oil.

Being part of a generation that will foster a future one, I would hate to leave my children a world dominated by the slimy grasp of gasoline. It's bad for everyone; no exceptions.

Undergraduate / "The road to college as a psychologist" - stanford essay: why a good fit [12]

"Where are we going mom?"
Silence.
"Where?"
"Winston I told you a million times; Texas."
"Texas" I repeated
The word tasted foreign in my mouth. It didn't belong.
Five years ago we trekked from California to Texas. Everyday I stay under the harsh Texas sun; I pine for the soothing California waves. The day I left the Golden State, I bottled a handful of smooth sand and briny ocean water to remind me of the land I love so much. That day I vowed, with childish conviction, to return one day. Now as college appears on the horizon, I hope to fulfill my promise to where I planted my roots in America.

That's why Stanford fits me so well. Situated in sunny California, Stanford overlooks the great Pacific that I yearn for. Academically, it is ranked number one in the major of psychology. As a child, I was sent to see a psychologist for ADHD treatment. The year I spent going to the clinic was incredible. My therapist was personable as well as understanding. Despite being an adult, I saw him as a close friend; someone who could erase all my troubles. Every day for two hours, I had the most fun a nine year old could have; we played basketball, chess, and sometimes just talked. Since then, I have always wanted to become a psychologist so that I can ameliorate the lives of others.

Psychology has also intrigued me in art. As an artist, I admire the works and ideas of Salvador Dali. At Stanford, I would also like to pursue a major in Fine Arts. Stanford is in the proximity of San Francisco, a major cultural center. The area is dotted with galleries and exhibition opportunities. Studying art and psychology at Stanford can help me develop into a surrealist painter and allow me the opportunity to join the ranks of the Magritte, Picabia, and Dali. In addition to being near San Francisco, the great outdoors around Stanford, like that of Port Lligat for Dai, can provide me with infinite inspirations for my artwork.

The road to college had not been paved with gold and the road through college will definitely not be so either. However, as I prepare to cross the finish line of high school, a great education at Stanford is definitely something to look forward to. For then I will have fulfilled my pledge and once again feel the California air on my cheeks.

Undergraduate / "my art will hang in every major art museum in the world"- something to know about me [3]

I dream that one day my art will hang in every major art museum in the world. It is a dream most people don't understand. They ask "what's so good about having your art on a wall?" For a long time I had no answer. However, I refused to lose hope. Hence I retreated into my own world of art where I found the answer to the question.

Art is special. It may not fight crime, cure diseases, or create world peace, but for me it does much for my soul. When I create a piece of art, I feel like I'm dancing, the canvas being the dance floor and my partner the brush. Doing nothing else gives me such ecstasy as making art, as seeing an idea given life on a canvas. What is my garage turns into a studio and the easel not only supports my painting but also my dream of becoming famous. All it takes is some paint and a little imagination.

Sometimes, It is painful to have my dream. People think I want to become an artist so I can take the easy way out in life, so I don't have to take all the hard classes in college. I invite those people to fill my shoes for one day. I would like them to experience art school for one day, and then tell me I am taking the easy way out. Art is not an easy way out. I t is a hard way in and hard way out.

I think I love art for the way it inspires me. It dominates my every sense. I view the world through artistic lenses. I often find myself thinking of how I can portray an emotion I just saw or how similar that sunlight in late afternoons is to Hopper's sunlight. Every time I see a blank space, I wonder what kinds of colors and designs I can fill it with. Such thoughts keep my dream alive, despite the criticism I receive.

Sure art may not be a financially safe career. But who cares. I have a dream and I want to follow it until I achieve it. And even if that means living under a bridge, so be it. As I become more and more serious about being a professional artist, I begin to ask myself the same question skeptics ask me "what's so good about having you art on a wall?" Now I understand. Now I know why. Because it means I made it, I finally made it.