A persuasive and inspiring essay for successful admission to Harvard - 2025

Spreading Your Interest: How have you shared your passion for an interest with others, inspiring them or creating a community around it?

“The Obsession That Got Contagious”

Some people pass on recipes. I passed on an obsession — and it wasn’t even intentional.

It started with a bug. Not the metaphorical kind — a literal one. Sixth grade. Lunch period. Everyone’s trying to decode cafeteria spaghetti when I notice an ant. Just one. Jet black. Crawling across the corner of our table like it owned the world. I said — maybe too loudly — “You know ants farm aphids, right?” My friends looked at me like I’d just announced I was dating the ant.

That moment? Embarrassing, yes. But it cracked something open. I didn’t want to just know things. I wanted other people to feel how electrifying it is to look closely — to realize that the world isn’t boring, we’re just looking too fast.

So I slowed it down. Started sharing. At first, I posted grainy iPhone videos of leafcutter ants marching in perfect lines. I narrated like I was David Attenborough’s chaotic niece — breathless, overexcited, probably mispronouncing “symbiosis.” Somehow, it clicked. A few classmates followed. Then more. One person DMed, “Okay but WHY are these ants smarter than me??” I had no answer — I still don’t. They just are.

By sophomore year, “Bug Club” was real. Not official at first. Just six of us huddled under a picnic shelter with sketchpads and peanut butter sandwiches, watching beetles like they were soap opera characters. I remember a time one girl showed up with a butterfly jar and no idea what species she’d caught. We identified it together — a painted lady, Vanessa cardui — and I saw something spark in her eyes. Recognition. Connection. That invisible thread that ties wonder to belonging.

Then things escalated. We petitioned for club status, made posters that said things like “COME FOR THE MYSTERY, STAY FOR THE MANDIBLES.” I made a presentation for the entire biology class titled: “Five Reasons Ants Deserve Rights.” Number 3 was “They’re better at agriculture than most humans.” Debate erupted. Victory.

But in practice, it looked less glamorous. It looked like hauling field guides through muddy parks. Like missing social events because I was editing a time-lapse of a spider shedding its exoskeleton. It looked like constantly questioning: am I being too much? Too weird? Too bug?

Maybe I was. Maybe I am. But here's the twist: the weirdness made room for other people’s weirdness. One member brought her little brother with autism who couldn’t hold eye contact — but could name 43 moth species from memory. Another wrote a poem about dragonfly wings and read it aloud. Someone else suggested we collaborate with the art club — “Let’s paint insects huge. Like Godzilla huge.” We did.

And somewhere along the way, this stopped being about my passion and became our hive.

I understand how this sounds. But I swear, it’s not just a cute story about bugs. It’s about noticing. It’s about the fact that awe — real, feral awe — is contagious if you let it be messy and loud and strangely specific.

Now, I don’t think everyone in Bug Club will become an entomologist. One wants to study psychology. Another’s going into fashion. But the language of observation — of stopping, looking, noticing deeply — lives in all of us now. Maybe that’s the community I built: not a club of future scientists, but a collective of people who look closer.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all I did was talk too much about ants and somehow found friends patient enough to listen. But I don’t think so. I think I offered a way in — a portal into wonder — and they walked through.

That’s what I want to keep doing. Not just cataloging the fascinating, but building small, wild bridges so others can marvel with me.

Also, for the record, ants do deserve rights. But we can debate that later. Over coffee. Or maybe next to a log teeming with termites. Your pick.