50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays

Connecting Jigsaw Puzzles to Medical Research
“I wrote my admissions essay about how I used to do jigsaw puzzles when 
I was younger as a metaphor for how I look at the world and my interest into 
going into medical research. I arrived at this by thinking a lot about habits/
interests of mine and trying to find something at least slightly distinct and rel-
evant to why I was a strong candidate. I really wanted to highlight my interest 
in science and the labwork that I had done and basically was looking for some 
sort of common thread about my personality that I could tie it to. I did a lot 
of initial brainstorming, outlined a couple ideas that seemed to fit this criteria 
and ended up going with this. Even though I changed my mind about going 
into science before I even got here, I think the metaphor still is a pretty good 
way of describing determination and interest in problem-solving.”
—Anonymous, Harvard University