With some of the most competitive schools in the country, such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, and NYU, all receiving over 40,000 applications each year, there is clear pressure for applicants to stand out, and the personal essay is often the time to do so.

I am but a mild-mannered botanist -- and certainly more of a lover than a fighter. But after a decade of studying the unusual sexual habits of "bush tomatoes" in the northern Australian wilds, my voyeurism may have finally caught up with me.

I was cruising and they seemed to be with me. And then it happened: I hit that moment where lecture becomes more like theatre -- where one becomes less "professor/orator" and more "actor/dancer/performer."

You may think your little baby is laying around like a lump, fixated on the corner where the ceiling meets the wall or captivated by the whirring sound of the lawnmower outside. You would be mistaken!

"Mistletoe and Holly" is a holiday masterpiece. But I know the biology of those two plants that Mr. Sinatra croons about... and that makes me wonder: Is there more to this song than standard Christmas cheer?