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Apr 3, 2024 · College essay examples from students accepted to Harvard, Stanford, and other elite schools. REVIEWING SUCCESSFUL COLLEGE ESSAY EXAMPLES CAN HELP YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ODDS OF ACCEPTANCE. Responding effectively to college essay prompts is quite different from other essay writing.
In this article, I'll go through general guidelines for what makes great college essays great. I've also compiled an enormous list of 100+ actual sample college essays from 11 different schools. Finally, I'll break down two of these published college essay examples and explain why and how they work.
- What Excellent College Essays Have in CommonEven though in many ways these sample college essays are very different from one other, they do share some traits you should try to emulate as you...
- Links to Full College Essay ExamplesSome colleges publish a selection of their favorite accepted college essays that worked, and I've put together a selection of over 100 of these (pl...
- Analyzing Great Common App Essays That WorkedI've picked two essays from the examples collected above to examine in more depth so that you can see exactly what makes a successful college essay...
- 3 Essential Tips For Writing Your Own EssayHow can you use this discussion to better your own college essay? Here are some suggestions for ways to use this resource effectively.
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- Essay 1: Sharing An Identity Or Background Through A Montage
- Essay 2: Overcoming A Challenge, A Sports Injury Narrative
- Essay 3: Showing The Influence of An Important Person Or Thing
- Other Interesting Articles
This essay uses a montage structureto show snapshots of a student’s identity and background. The writer builds her essay around the theme of the five senses, sharing memories she associates with sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. In the weak rough draft, there is little connection between the individual anecdotes, and they do not robustly demon...
This essay uses a narrative structure to recount how a student overcame a challenge, specifically a sports injury. Since this topic is often overused, the essay requires vivid description, a memorable introduction and conclusion, and interesting insight. The weak rough draft contains an interesting narrative, insight, and vivid imagery, but it has ...
This essay uses a narrative structureto show how a pet positively influenced the student’s values and character. In the weak draft, the student doesn’t focus on himself, instead delving into too much detail about his dog’s positive traits and his grandma’s illness. The essay’s structure is meandering, with tangents and details that don’t communicat...
If you want to know more about academic writing, effective communication, or parts of speech, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
- Background, identity, interest, or talent. This essay explores the student’s emotional journey toward overcoming her father’s neglect through gymnastics discipline.
- Overcoming challenges. This essay shows how the challenges the student faced in caring for her sister with autism resulted in an unexpected path forward in her education.
- Questioning a belief or idea. This essay illustrates a student’s courage in challenging his culture’s constructs of manhood and changing his course while positively affecting his father in the process.
- Appreciating an influential person. The student demonstrates how his teacher giving him an unexpected bad grade was the catalyst for his becoming a better writer.
- Harvard. Prompt: The Harvard College Honor code declares that we "hold honesty as the foundation of our community." As you consider entering this community that is committed to honesty, please reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to make a choice about whether to act with integrity and honesty.
- Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
- Prompt: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find, so engaging it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you?
- Prompt: The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?
We’ll break down examples of college essays from every category so that you feel prepared to write your own. Each sample college essay we’ve included in our college essay examples shows how you can use strong, intentional writing to approach a variety of college essay topics.
Posted by Christine Sarikas. General Education. Need to defend your opinion on an issue? Argumentative essays are one of the most popular types of essays you’ll write in school. They combine persuasive arguments with fact-based research, and, when done well, can be powerful tools for making someone agree with your point of view.
