How to open a college essay with a word's history

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office, the office we learned from, noticed the applicant who taught them something, and a reader on the thirtieth file of the day notices it most of all. Most essays open by telling the reader what they already know: that the student loves biology, that space is vast, that philosophy asks big questions. Each of those sentences spends a reader's attention and gives nothing back.

A handful of applicants open differently, with a single sentence that leaves the reader knowing something they did not know a moment earlier, and that signals the student already thinks like someone in the field. It takes one sentence, and the reasons it works are worth understanding before you try it.