Sagan Award Winning Essays and Model Application Essays

Many Ohio Wesleyan students go on to high-profile graduate and professional schools.  Here is a small sample of the application essays written by these students, including many of our Sagan Writing Award winners. (Notice the power of an engaging first sentence!)

Scroll down the page to see essays in specific categories.

Sagan Award Winning Essays

2019

Jade (Bin) Jin -- "I have always known that I would love to become a professor, but I was ambivalent about what my focus should be ...."

Ahmed Wiqar -- "As someone who spent his early life planning to study biology, I took a long time . . . to realize that the answers to the questions that interested me most lay not in the natural, but rather the social sciences."

2013 - 2018

Meghan Byram -- "I sat quietly with my mother in the examination room waiting for the doctor to come in and check me out."

Sophie Crispin -- "Flyers of old rallies and posters promoting activist theater troupes line the walls of our living room like photographed ancestors of our current political causes."

Eileen Foley -- "I have had a range of academic and extra-curricular experiences that have prepared me to fully benefit from and contribute to the Boston University Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine Program."

Sijia Scarlet He -- "My mother was called a 'cursed girl'."

Katalyn Kuivila -- "In January of 2012, I began volunteering with Organizing for America, the grassroots arm of President Obama's reelection campaign."

Dianyi Li -- "I often ask myself the question 'What academic area inspires me so much that I am willing to face difficulties and challenges to pursue knowledge?'"

Niveditha Mannivannan -- "In late 2004, a tsunami hit my life, both literally and figuratively."

Jocelyne Munoz -- "As a child, I wanted to own an ice cream truck."

Sara Scinto -- "I believe that food and nutrition play a vital role in enhancing the quality of life, but are frequently neglected topics when considering contemporary public and community health."

Isabelle Sturgill -- "In second grade I was deemed by my classmates to be the 'judge of fairness' on the playground."

Meghean Teitleman -- "I am perfectly aware that is is abnormal to spend a long flight delay in a state of complete bliss."

Additional Model Essays by Category

Medical School Personal Statements

Essay #1: I was five years old when I witnessed one of my sister’s epileptic seizures.

Essay #2: My aunt leaned towards the auto-rickshaw driver.

Essay #3: When I was six years old, I lost my father in a bicycle accident.

Essay #4: Already diagnosed with appendicitis at an urgent care center, I waited for hours in the reception area of the emergency room.

Law School Personal Statements

Essay #1: I was a Midwestern girl from a small Ohio town who agreed to spend a semester as a Politics and Government intern in Washington D.C. I felt a little like the five-year-old girl who stood in the doorway of my kindergarten classroom while my mom gently nudged me forward saying, "You are going to be fine, honey."

National Science Foundation Personal Statements

Essay #1: Somewhere in the night, I could hear the dilapidated bus rumble as it maneuvered across the moldering bridge.

Rhodes Scholarship Essays

Essay #1: Standing on the rocking bow of the Viking Princess this past August, with the midnight moon overhead, I looked at the dark water of the English Channel.

Statements of Purpose

Essay #1: In my family there is a tradition of interest in science: my grandmother was a college professor in chemistry and physics, and both my parents were trained as mechanical engineers in college.

Essay #2: My desire to study cross-cultural psychology initially came from my experience during the summer of my freshman year.

Essay #3: As a child born and raised in Delhi, India, I never questioned the idea of my present life being a reflection of my actions from past lifetimes.