Hometown: Nashua, New Hampshire, USA

High School: Public school, 500 students in graduating class

Ethnicity: Asian

Gender: Female

GPA: 4.0 out of 4.0

SAT: Reading 750, Math 800, Writing 730

ACT: n/a

SAT Subject Tests Taken: Mathematics Level 2, Biology E/M, Chemistry

Extracurriculars: National Honors Society, Math Honors Society, varsity math team, Science Bowl captain and founder

Awards: America’s Top Young Scientist, Forbes 30 Under 30, Stockholm Junior Water Prize national winner, ISEF second Grand Award

Major: Neurobiology

Free example college essay

I first performed brain surgery before I learned how to drive. I vividly remember guiding a slender, metal scalpel and the thin trail of red that followed. Before I made my next incision, I took a look at my patient, a Sprague Dawley rat, to make sure he was still breathing. Then came the trickiest part: drilling a hole just deep enough to pierce the skull, while saving the brain beneath it from harm. With one accidental slip of the hand, I could sever this animal’s brain and prevent it from ever awakening. However, despite this responsibility placed on my hands, I felt perfectly confident and successfully executed the surgery.

My hands-on experience of performing brain surgery was part of my research internship with the National Institutes of Health Summer Internship Program (NIH SIP). In order to academically prepare myself for this competitive program, I started taking advanced placement science and math courses ahead of my peers, in my first two years of high school. After contacting several principal investigators at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a division within the NIH, I was accepted by Dr. Judith Walters, whose research focuses on Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by rigidity and a lack of motor coordination. Slight unsteadiness gradually creeps into the patient until they are unable to perform simple tasks such as brushing their teeth or buttoning their shirt. The current standard treatment for Parkinson’s disease is a drug called levodopa. While levodopa is effective for initial therapy, prolonged treatment often leads to the development of abnormal involuntary movements. At the NIH, I conducted research to better understand the mechanisms underlying the development of these involuntary movements. The hemiparkinsonian Sprague Dawley rat (a rat with half of its brain affected by the disease) was used as an animal model. The results of my research and future investigations in this area may contribute to improved treatment methods for Parkinson’s disease patients.

As one of the youngest researchers at the NIH, I felt privileged to be working alongside graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who had an extensive knowledge of the subject. Toward the end of my internship, I finished compiling results for my final poster presentation. I was honored to receive the Exceptional Summer Student Award for my work titled “The Relationship between Spiking Activity and High Gamma Oscillations in the Ventral Medial Thalamus during L-dopa-induced Dyskinesia.” My presentation was one of the top three of all NINDS interns’ projects, so the following day I was selected to deliver a lecture to a large audience of NIH researchers and fellow interns. On my last day at the NIH, I was thrilled to learn that the results of my research may contribute to a future journal paper.

For me, everything from the task of reading scientific papers on neurology, to the quest of sorting through hundreds of neurological recordings, to the thrill of performing brain surgery has been gratifying. My enriching experience at the NIH gave me a profound appreciation for medical research, and the confidence that we will soon find cures for many neurological disorders.

REVIEW

While research internships are fairly common essay topics, Deepika’s account of her experience stands out because of the balance she strikes between explanation, entertainment, and self-reflection.

In her opening sentence, she juxtaposes performing brain surgery and learning to drive, emphasizing the impressiveness of her accomplishment for her age without sounding arrogant. She uses the shock-and-awe factor of brain surgery to her advantage by not revealing her patient—a rat—until later in the paragraph. She effectively builds suspense and then transitions into a useful explanation of her internship.

Deepika conveys her commitment to academics and research by describing how she took AP courses early in high school and personally contacted researchers and professors at the NIH. She shows her initiative and academic achievements without listing them like a résumé.

While some background about her research is necessary, her explanation of Parkinson’s is a bit too long—it pulls the reader’s focus away from Deepika. The essay could have been even more effective if she had talked more specifically about what she actually did or any particular challenges she faced.

In her final paragraphs, Deepika reflects on how this opportunity allowed her to learn from others, contribute to pressing medical inquiries, and affirm her passion for medical research. A final sentence about what she hopes to do in the future or how the experience has influenced her goals for college could have made her essay even stronger.

From 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays, 5th Edition edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2017 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.