what a college essay should look like

How to Format a College Essay: Step-by-Step Guide

Mark Twain once said, “I like a good story well told. That’s the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

At College Essay Guy, we too like good stories well told.

The problem is that sometimes students have really good stories … that just aren’t well told.

They have the seed of an idea and the makings of a great story, but the essay formatting or structure is all over the place.

Which can lead a college admissions reader to see you as disorganized. And your essay doesn’t make as much of an impact as it could.

So, if you’re here, you’re probably wondering:

Is there any kind of required format for a college essay? How do I structure my essay? 

And maybe what’s the difference?

Good news: That’s what this post answers.

First, let’s go over a few basic questions students often have when trying to figure out how to format their essay.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• College essay format guidelines
• How to brainstorm and structure a college essay topic
• Recommended brainstorming examples
• Example college essay: The “Burying Grandma” essay

College Essay Format Guidelines

Should I title my college essay?

You don’t need one. In the vast majority of cases, students we work with don’t use titles. The handful of times they have, they’ve done so because the title allows for a subtle play on words or reframing of the essay as a whole. So don’t feel any pressure to include one—they’re purely optional.

Should I indent or us paragraph breaks in my college essay?

Either. Just be consistent. The exception here is if you’re pasting into a box that screws up your formatting—for example, if, when you copy your essay into the box, your indentations are removed, go with paragraph breaks. (And when you get to college, be sure to check what style guide you should be following: Chicago, APA, MLA, etc., can all take different approaches to formatting, and different fields have different standards.)

How many paragraphs should a college essay be? 

Personal statements are not English essays. They don’t need to be 5 paragraphs with a clear, argumentative thesis in the beginning and a conclusion that sums everything up. So feel free to break from that. How many paragraphs are appropriate for a college essay? Within reason, it’s up to you. We’ve seen some great personal statements that use 4 paragraphs, and some that use 8 or more (especially if you have dialogue—yes, dialogue is OK too!).

How long should my college essay be? 

The good news is that colleges and the application systems they use will usually give you specific word count maximums. The most popular college application systems, like the Common Application and Coalition Application, will give you a maximum of 650 words for your main personal statement, and typically less than that for school-specific supplemental essays . Other systems will usually specify the maximum word count—the UC PIQs are 350 max, for example. If they don’t specify this clearly in the application systems or on their website (and be sure to do some research), you can email them to ask! They don’t bite.

So should you use all that space? We generally recommend it. You likely have lots to share about your life, so we think that not using all the space they offer to tell your story might be a missed opportunity. While you don’t have to use every last word, aim to use most of the words they give you. But don’t just fill the space if what you’re sharing doesn’t add to the overall story you’re telling.

There are also some applications or supplementals with recommended word counts or lengths. For example, Georgetown says things like “approx. 1 page,” and UChicago doesn’t have a limit, but recommends aiming for 650ish for the extended essay, and 250-500 for the “Why us?” 

You can generally apply UChicago’s recommendations to other schools that don’t give you a limit: If it’s a “Why Major” supplement, 650 is probably plenty, and for other supplements, 250-500 is a good target to shoot for. If you go over those, that can be fine, just be sure you’re earning that word count (as in, not rambling or being overly verbose). Your readers are humans. If you send them a tome, their attention could drift.

Regarding things like italics and bold

Keep in mind that if you’re pasting text into a box, it may wipe out your formatting. So if you were hoping to rely on italics or bold for some kind of emphasis, double check if you’ll be able to. (And in general, try to use sentence structure and phrasing to create that kind of emphasis anyway, rather than relying on bold or italics—doing so will make you a better writer.)

Regarding font type, size, and color

Keep it simple and standard. Regarding font type, things like Times New Roman or Georgia (what this is written in) won’t fail you. Just avoid things like Comic Sans or other informal/casual fonts.

Size? 11- or 12-point is fine.

Color? Black. 

Going with something else with the above could be a risk, possibly a big one, for fairly little gain. Things like a wacky font or text color could easily feel gimmicky to a reader.

To stand out with your writing, take some risks in what you write about and the connections and insights you make.

If you’re attaching a doc (rather than pasting)

If you are attaching a document rather than pasting into a text box, all the above still applies. Again,  we’d recommend sticking with standard fonts and sizes—Times New Roman, 12-point is a standard workhorse. You can probably go with 1.5 or double spacing. Standard margins.

Basically, show them you’re ready to write in college by using the formatting you’ll normally use in college.

Is there a college essay template I can use? 

Depends on what you’re asking for. If, by “template,” you’re referring to formatting … see above.

But if you mean a structural template ... not exactly. There is no one college essay template to follow. And that’s a good thing.

That said, we’ve found that there are two basic structural approaches to writing college essays that can work for every single prompt we’ve seen. (Except for lists. Because … they’re lists.)

Below we’ll cover those two essay structures we love, but you’ll see how flexible these are—they can lead to vastly different essays. You can also check out a few sample essays to get a sense of structure and format (though we’d recommend doing some brainstorming and outlining to think of possible topics before you look at too many samples, since they can poison the well for some people).

Let’s dig in.

STEP 1: HOW TO BRAINSTORM AN AMAZING ESSAY TOPIC

We’ll talk about structure and topic together. Why? Because one informs the other.

(And to clarify: When we say, “topic,” we mean the theme or focus of your essay that you use to show who you are and what you value. The “topic” of your college essay is always ultimately you.)

We think there are two basic structural approaches that can work for any college essay. Not that these are the only two options—rather, that these can work for any and every prompt you’ll have to write for. 

Which structural approach you use depends on your answer to this question (and its addendum): Do you feel like you’ve faced significant challenges in your life … or not so much? (And do you want to write about them?)

If yes (to both), you’ll most likely want to use Narrative Structure . If no (to either), you’ll probably want to try Montage Structure .

So … what are those structures? And how do they influence your topic?

Narrative Structure is classic storytelling structure. You’ve seen this thousands of times—assuming you read, and watch movies and TV, and tell stories with friends and family. If you don’t do any of these things, this might be new. Otherwise, you already know this. You may just not know you know it. Narrative revolves around a character or characters (for a college essay, that’s you) working to overcome certain challenges, learning and growing, and gaining insight. For a college essay using Narrative Structure, you’ll focus the word count roughly equally on a) Challenges You Faced, b) What You Did About Them, and c) What You Learned (caveat that those sections can be somewhat interwoven, especially b and c). Paragraphs and events are connected causally.

You’ve also seen montages before. But again, you may not know you know. So: A montage is a series of thematically connected things, frequently images. You’ve likely seen montages in dozens and dozens of films before—in romantic comedies, the “here’s the couple meeting and dating and falling in love” montage; in action movies, the classic “training” montage. A few images tell a larger story. In a college essay, you could build a montage by using a thematic thread to write about five different pairs of pants that connect to different sides of who you are and what you value. Or different but connected things that you love and know a lot about (like animals, or games). Or entries in your Happiness Spreadsheet .

How does structure play into a great topic?

We believe a montage essay (i.e., an essay NOT about challenges) is more likely to stand out if the topic or theme of the essay is:

X. Elastic (i.e., something you can connect to variety of examples, moments, or values) Y. Uncommon (i.e., something other students probably aren’t writing about)

We believe that a narrative essay is more likely to stand out if it contains: 

X. Difficult or compelling challenges Y. Insight

These aren’t binary—rather, each exists on a spectrum.

“Elastic” will vary from person to person. I might be able to connect mountain climbing to family, history, literature, science, social justice, environmentalism, growth, insight … and someone else might not connect it to much of anything. Maybe trees?

“Uncommon” —every year, thousands of students write about mission trips, sports, or music. It’s not that you can’t write about these things, but it’s a lot harder to stand out. 

“Difficult or compelling challenges” can be put on a spectrum, with things like getting a bad grade or not making a sports team on the weaker end, and things like escaping war or living homeless for three years on the stronger side. While you can possibly write a strong essay about a weaker challenge, it’s really hard to do so.

“Insight” is the answer to the question “so what?” A great insight is likely to surprise the reader a bit, while a so-so insight likely won’t. (Insight is something you’ll develop in an essay through the writing process, rather than something you’ll generally know ahead of time for a topic, but it’s useful to understand that some topics are probably easier to pull insights from than others.)

To clarify, you can still write a great montage with a very common topic, or a narrative that offers so-so insights. But the degree of difficulty goes up. Probably way up.

With that in mind, how do you brainstorm possible topics that are on the easier-to-stand-out-with side of the spectrum?

Brainstorming exercises

Spend about 10 minutes (minimum) on each of these exercises.

Values Exercise

Essence Objects Exercise

21 Details Exercise

Everything I Want Colleges To Know About Me Exercise

Feelings and Needs Exercise

If you feel like you already have your topic, and you just want to know how to make it better…

Still do those exercises.

Maybe what you have is the best topic for you. And if you are incredibly super sure, you can skip ahead. But if you’re not sure this topic helps you communicate your deepest stories, spend a little time on the exercises above. As a bonus, even if you end up going with what you already had (though please be wary of the sunk cost fallacy ), all that brainstorming will be useful when you write your supplemental essays .

The Feelings and Needs Exercise in particular is great for brainstorming Narrative Structure, connecting story events in a causal way (X led to Y led to Z). The Essence Objects, 21 Details, Everything I Want Colleges to Know exercises can lead to interesting thematic threads for Montage Structure (P, Q, and R are all connected because, for example, they’re all qualities of a great endodontist). But all of them are useful for both structural approaches. Essence objects can help a narrative come to life. One paragraph in a montage could focus on a challenge and how you overcame it.

The Values Exercise is a cornerstone of both—regardless of whether you use narrative or montage, we should get a sense of some of your core values through your essays.

How (and why) to outline your college essay to use a good structure

While not every professional writer knows exactly how a story will end when they start writing, they also have months (or years) to craft it, and they may throw major chunks or whole drafts away. You probably don’t want to throw away major chunks or whole drafts. So you should outline.

Use the brainstorming exercises from earlier to decide on your most powerful topics and what structure (narrative or montage) will help you best tell your story.

Then, outline.

For a narrative, use the Feelings and Needs Exercise, and build clear bullet points for the Challenges + Effects, What I Did About It, and What I Learned. Those become your outline. 

Yeah, that simple.

For a montage, outline 4-7 ways your thread connects to different values through different experiences, and if you can think of them, different lessons and insights (though these you might have to develop later, during the writing process). For example, how auto repair connects to family, literature, curiosity, adventure, and personal growth (through different details and experiences).

Here are some good example outlines:

Narrative outline (developed from the Feelings and Needs Exercise)

Challenges:

Domestic abuse (physical and verbal)

Controlling father/lack of freedom

Sexism/bias

Prevented from pursuing opportunities

Cut off from world/family

Lack of sense of freedom/independence

Faced discrimination

What I Did About It:

Pursued my dreams

Traveled to Egypt, London, and Paris alone

Challenged stereotypes

Explored new places and cultures

Developed self-confidence, independence, and courage

Grew as a leader

Planned events

What I Learned:

Inspired to help others a lot more

Learned about oppression, and how to challenge oppressive norms

Became closer with mother, somewhat healed relationship with father

Need to feel free

And here’s the essay that became: “ Easter ”

Montage outline:

Thread: Home

Values: Family, tradition, literature

Ex: “Tailgate Special,” discussions w/family, reading Nancy Drew

Perception, connection to family

Chinese sword dance

Values: Culture/heritage, meticulousness, dedication, creativity

Ex: Notebook, formations/choreography

Nuances of culture, power of connection

Values: Science/chemistry, curiosity 

Synthesizing plat nanoparticles

Joy of discovery, redefining expectations

Governor’s School

Values: Exploration, personal growth

Knitting, physics, politics, etc.

Importance of exploring beyond what I know/am used to, taking risks

And here’s the essay that became: “ Home ”

When to scrap what you have and start over

Ultimately, you can’t know for sure if a topic will work until you try a draft or two. And maybe it’ll be great. But keep that sunk cost fallacy in mind, and be open to trying other things.

If you’re down the rabbit hole with a personal statement topic and just aren’t sure about it, the first step you should take is to ask for feedback. Find a partner who can help you examine it without the attachment to all the emotion (anxiety, worry, or fear) you might have built up around it. 

Have them help you walk through The Great College Essay Test to make sure your essay is doing its job. If it isn’t yet, does it seem like this topic has the potential to? Or would other topics allow you to more fully show a college who you are and what you bring to the table?

Because that’s your goal. Format and structure are just tools to get you there.

Down the Road

Before we analyze some sample essays, bookmark this page, so that once you’ve gone through several drafts of your own essay, come back and take The Great College Essay Test  to make sure your essay is doing its job. The job of the essay, simply put, is to demonstrate to a college that you’ll make valuable contributions in college and beyond. We believe these four qualities are essential to a great essay:

Core values (showing who you are through what you value)

Vulnerability (helps a reader feel connected to you)

Insight (aka “so what” moments)

Craft (clear structure, refined language, intentional choices)

To test what values are coming through, read your essay aloud to someone who knows you and ask:

Which values are clearly coming through the essay?

Which values are kind of there but could be coming through more clearly?

Which values could be coming through and were opportunities missed?

To know if you’re being vulnerable in your essay, ask:

Now that you’ve heard my story, do you feel closer to me?

What did you learn about me that you didn’t already know?

To search for “so what” moments of insight, review the claims you’re making in your essay. Are you reflecting on what these moments and experiences taught you? How have they changed you? Are you making common or (hopefully) uncommon connections? The uncommon connections are often made up of insights that are unusual or unexpected. (For more on how to test for this, click The Great College Essay Test link above.)

Craft comes through the sense that each paragraph, each sentence, each word is a carefully considered choice. That the author has spent time revising and refining. That the essay is interesting and succinct. How do you test this? For each paragraph, each sentence, each word, ask: Do I need this? (Huge caveat: Please avoid neurotic perfectionism here. We’re just asking you to be intentional with your language.)

Still feeling you haven’t found your topic? Here’s a list of 100 Brave and Interesting Questions . Read these and try freewriting on a few. See where they lead.

Finally, here’s an ...

Example College Essay Format Analysis: The “Burying Grandma” Essay

To see how the Narrative Essay structure works, check out the essay below, which was written for the Common App "Topic of your choice" prompt. You might try reading it here first before reading the paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown below.

They covered the precious mahogany coffin with a brown amalgam of rocks, decomposed organisms, and weeds. It was my turn to take the shovel, but I felt too ashamed to dutifully send her off when I had not properly said goodbye. I refused to throw dirt on her. I refused to let go of my grandmother, to accept a death I had not seen coming, to believe that an illness could not only interrupt, but steal a beloved life.

The author begins by setting up the Challenges + Effects (you’ve maybe heard of this referred to in narrative as the Inciting Incident). This moment also sets up some of her needs: growth and emotional closure, to deal with it and let go/move on. Notice the way objects like the shovel help bring an essay to life, and can be used for symbolic meaning. That object will also come back later.

When my parents finally revealed to me that my grandmother had been battling liver cancer, I was twelve and I was angry--mostly with myself. They had wanted to protect me--only six years old at the time--from the complex and morose concept of death. However, when the end inevitably arrived, I wasn’t trying to comprehend what dying was; I was trying to understand how I had been able to abandon my sick grandmother in favor of playing with friends and watching TV. Hurt that my parents had deceived me and resentful of my own oblivion, I committed myself to preventing such blindness from resurfacing.

In the second paragraph, she flashes back to give us some context of what things were like leading up to these challenges (i.e., the Status Quo), which helps us understand her world. It also helps us to better understand the impact of her grandmother’s death and raises a question: How will she prevent such blindness from resurfacing?

I became desperately devoted to my education because I saw knowledge as the key to freeing myself from the chains of ignorance. While learning about cancer in school I promised myself that I would memorize every fact and absorb every detail in textbooks and online medical journals. And as I began to consider my future, I realized that what I learned in school would allow me to silence that which had silenced my grandmother. However, I was focused not with learning itself, but with good grades and high test scores. I started to believe that academic perfection would be the only way to redeem myself in her eyes--to make up for what I had not done as a granddaughter.  

In the third paragraph, she starts shifting into the What I Did About It aspect, and takes off at a hundred miles an hour … but not quite in the right direction yet. What does that mean? She pursues things that, while useful and important in their own right, won’t actually help her resolve her conflict. This is important in narrative—while it can be difficult, or maybe even scary, to share ways we did things wrong, that generally makes for a stronger story. Think of it this way: You aren’t really interested in watching a movie in which a character faces a challenge, knows what to do the whole time, so does it, the end. We want to see how people learn and change and grow.

Here, the author “Raises the Stakes” because we as readers sense intuitively (and she is giving us hints) that this is not the way to get over her grandmother’s death.

However, a simple walk on a hiking trail behind my house made me open my own eyes to the truth. Over the years, everything--even honoring my grandmother--had become second to school and grades. As my shoes humbly tapped against the Earth, the towering trees blackened by the forest fire a few years ago, the faintly colorful pebbles embedded in the sidewalk, and the wispy white clouds hanging in the sky reminded me of my small though nonetheless significant part in a larger whole that is humankind and this Earth. Before I could resolve my guilt, I had to broaden my perspective of the world as well as my responsibilities to my fellow humans.   

There’s some nice evocative detail in here that helps draw us into her world and experience.

Structurally, there are elements of What I Did About It and What I Learned in here (again, they will often be somewhat interwoven). This paragraph gives us the Turning Point/Moment of Truth. She begins to understand how she was wrong. She realizes she needs perspective. But how? See next paragraph ...

Volunteering at a cancer treatment center has helped me discover my path. When I see patients trapped in not only the hospital but also a moment in time by their diseases, I talk to them. For six hours a day, three times a week, Ivana is surrounded by IV stands, empty walls, and busy nurses that quietly yet constantly remind her of her breast cancer. Her face is pale and tired, yet kind--not unlike my grandmother’s. I need only to smile and say hello to see her brighten up as life returns to her face. Upon our first meeting, she opened up about her two sons, her hometown, and her knitting group--no mention of her disease. Without even standing up, the three of us—Ivana, me, and my grandmother--had taken a walk together.

In the second-to-last paragraph, we see how she takes further action, and some of what she learns from her experiences: Volunteering at the local hospital helps her see her larger place in the world.

Cancer, as powerful and invincible as it may seem, is a mere fraction of a person’s life. It’s easy to forget when one’s mind and body are so weak and vulnerable. I want to be there as an oncologist to remind them to take a walk once in a while, to remember that there’s so much more to life than a disease. While I physically treat their cancer, I want to lend patients emotional support and mental strength to escape the interruption and continue living. Through my work, I can accept the shovel without burying my grandmother’s memory.

The final paragraph uses what we call the “bookend” technique by bringing us back to the beginning, but with a change—she’s a different, slightly wiser person than she was. This helps us put a frame around her growth. 

… A good story well told . That’s your goal.

Hopefully, you now have a better sense of how to make that happen.

For more resources, check out our College Application Hub .

Celebrating 150 years of Harvard Summer School. Learn about our history.

12 Strategies to Writing the Perfect College Essay

College admission committees sift through thousands of college essays each year. Here’s how to make yours stand out.

Pamela Reynolds

When it comes to deciding who they will admit into their programs, colleges consider many criteria, including high school grades, extracurricular activities, and ACT and SAT scores. But in recent years, more colleges are no longer considering test scores.

Instead, many (including Harvard through 2026) are opting for “test-blind” admission policies that give more weight to other elements in a college application. This policy change is seen as fairer to students who don’t have the means or access to testing, or who suffer from test anxiety.

So, what does this mean for you?

Simply that your college essay, traditionally a requirement of any college application, is more important than ever.

A college essay is your unique opportunity to introduce yourself to admissions committees who must comb through thousands of applications each year. It is your chance to stand out as someone worthy of a seat in that classroom.

A well-written and thoughtful essay—reflecting who you are and what you believe—can go a long way to separating your application from the slew of forgettable ones that admissions officers read. Indeed, officers may rely on them even more now that many colleges are not considering test scores.

Below we’ll discuss a few strategies you can use to help your essay stand out from the pack. We’ll touch on how to start your essay, what you should write for your college essay, and elements that make for a great college essay.

Be Authentic

More than any other consideration, you should choose a topic or point of view that is consistent with who you truly are.

Readers can sense when writers are inauthentic.

Inauthenticity could mean the use of overly flowery language that no one would ever use in conversation, or it could mean choosing an inconsequential topic that reveals very little about who you are.

Use your own voice, sense of humor, and a natural way of speaking.

Whatever subject you choose, make sure it’s something that’s genuinely important to you and not a subject you’ve chosen just to impress. You can write about a specific experience, hobby, or personality quirk that illustrates your strengths, but also feel free to write about your weaknesses.

Honesty about traits, situations, or a childhood background that you are working to improve may resonate with the reader more strongly than a glib victory speech.

Grab the Reader From the Start

You’ll be competing with so many other applicants for an admission officer’s attention.

Therefore, start your essay with an opening sentence or paragraph that immediately seizes the imagination. This might be a bold statement, a thoughtful quote, a question you pose, or a descriptive scene.

Starting your essay in a powerful way with a clear thesis statement can often help you along in the writing process. If your task is to tell a good story, a bold beginning can be a natural prelude to getting there, serving as a roadmap, engaging the reader from the start, and presenting the purpose of your writing.

Focus on Deeper Themes

Some essay writers think they will impress committees by loading an essay with facts, figures, and descriptions of activities, like wins in sports or descriptions of volunteer work. But that’s not the point.

College admissions officers are interested in learning more about who you are as a person and what makes you tick.

They want to know what has brought you to this stage in life. They want to read about realizations you may have come to through adversity as well as your successes, not just about how many games you won while on the soccer team or how many people you served at a soup kitchen.

Let the reader know how winning the soccer game helped you develop as a person, friend, family member, or leader. Make a connection with your soup kitchen volunteerism and how it may have inspired your educational journey and future aspirations. What did you discover about yourself?

Show Don’t Tell

As you expand on whatever theme you’ve decided to explore in your essay, remember to show, don’t tell.

The most engaging writing “shows” by setting scenes and providing anecdotes, rather than just providing a list of accomplishments and activities.

Reciting a list of activities is also boring. An admissions officer will want to know about the arc of your emotional journey too.

Try Doing Something Different

If you want your essay to stand out, think about approaching your subject from an entirely new perspective. While many students might choose to write about their wins, for instance, what if you wrote an essay about what you learned from all your losses?

If you are an especially talented writer, you might play with the element of surprise by crafting an essay that leaves the response to a question to the very last sentence.

You may want to stay away from well-worn themes entirely, like a sports-related obstacle or success, volunteer stories, immigration stories, moving, a summary of personal achievements or overcoming obstacles.

However, such themes are popular for a reason. They represent the totality of most people’s lives coming out of high school. Therefore, it may be less important to stay away from these topics than to take a fresh approach.

Explore Harvard Summer School’s College Programs for High School Students

Write With the Reader in Mind

Writing for the reader means building a clear and logical argument in which one thought flows naturally from another.

Use transitions between paragraphs.

Think about any information you may have left out that the reader may need to know. Are there ideas you have included that do not help illustrate your theme?

Be sure you can answer questions such as: Does what you have written make sense? Is the essay organized? Does the opening grab the reader? Is there a strong ending? Have you given enough background information? Is it wordy?

Write Several Drafts

Set your essay aside for a few days and come back to it after you’ve had some time to forget what you’ve written. Often, you’ll discover you have a whole new perspective that enhances your ability to make revisions.

Start writing months before your essay is due to give yourself enough time to write multiple drafts. A good time to start could be as early as the summer before your senior year when homework and extracurricular activities take up less time.

Read It Aloud

Writer’s tip : Reading your essay aloud can instantly uncover passages that sound clumsy, long-winded, or false.

Don’t Repeat

If you’ve mentioned an activity, story, or anecdote in some other part of your application, don’t repeat it again in your essay.

Your essay should tell college admissions officers something new. Whatever you write in your essay should be in philosophical alignment with the rest of your application.

Also, be sure you’ve answered whatever question or prompt may have been posed to you at the outset.

Ask Others to Read Your Essay

Be sure the people you ask to read your essay represent different demographic groups—a teacher, a parent, even a younger sister or brother.

Ask each reader what they took from the essay and listen closely to what they have to say. If anyone expresses confusion, revise until the confusion is cleared up.

Pay Attention to Form

Although there are often no strict word limits for college essays, most essays are shorter rather than longer. Common App, which students can use to submit to multiple colleges, suggests that essays stay at about 650 words.

“While we won’t as a rule stop reading after 650 words, we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you’d hoped it would,” the Common App website states.

In reviewing other technical aspects of your essay, be sure that the font is readable, that the margins are properly spaced, that any dialogue is set off properly, and that there is enough spacing at the top. Your essay should look clean and inviting to readers.

End Your Essay With a “Kicker”

In journalism, a kicker is the last punchy line, paragraph, or section that brings everything together.

It provides a lasting impression that leaves the reader satisfied and impressed by the points you have artfully woven throughout your piece.

So, here’s our kicker: Be concise and coherent, engage in honest self-reflection, and include vivid details and anecdotes that deftly illustrate your point.

While writing a fantastic essay may not guarantee you get selected, it can tip the balance in your favor if admissions officers are considering a candidate with a similar GPA and background.

Write, revise, revise again, and good luck!

Experience life on a college campus. Spend your summer at Harvard.

Explore Harvard Summer School’s College Programs for High School Students.

About the Author

Pamela Reynolds is a Boston-area feature writer and editor whose work appears in numerous publications. She is the author of “Revamp: A Memoir of Travel and Obsessive Renovation.”

How Involved Should Parents and Guardians Be in High School Student College Applications and Admissions?

There are several ways parents can lend support to their children during the college application process. Here's how to get the ball rolling.

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

How to Write an Effective Essay

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

Related Articles

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Format and Structure Your College Essay

←What Is a College Application Theme and How Do You Come Up With One?

How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges→

Does your Common App essay actually stand out?

Your essay can be the difference between an acceptance and rejection — it allows you to stand out from the rest of applicants with similar profiles. Get a free peer review or review other students’ essays right now to understand the strength of your essay.

Submit or Review an Essay — for free!

College essays are an entirely new type of writing for high school seniors. For that reason, many students are confused about proper formatting and essay structure. Should you double-space or single-space? Do you need a title? What kind of narrative style is best-suited for your topic?

In this post, we’ll be going over proper college essay format, traditional and unconventional essay structures (plus sample essays!), and which structure might work best for you. 

General College Essay Formatting Guidelines

How you format your essay will depend on whether you’re submitting in a text box, or attaching a document. We’ll go over the different best practices for both, but regardless of how you’re submitting, here are some general formatting tips:

• There’s no need for a title; it takes up unnecessary space and eats into your word count
• Stay within the word count as much as possible (+/- 10% of the upper limit). For further discussion on college essay length, see our post How Long Should Your College Essay Be?
• Indent or double space to separate paragraphs clearly

If you’re submitting in a text box:

• Avoid italics and bold, since formatting often doesn’t transfer over in text boxes
• Be careful with essays meant to be a certain shape (like a balloon); text boxes will likely not respect that formatting. Beyond that, this technique can also seem gimmicky, so proceed with caution
• Make sure that paragraphs are clearly separated, as text boxes can also undo indents and double spacing

If you’re attaching a document:

• Use a standard font and size like Times New Roman, 12 point
• Make your lines 1.5-spaced or double-spaced
• Use 1-inch margins
• Save as a PDF since it can’t be edited. This also prevents any formatting issues that come with Microsoft Word, since older versions are sometimes incompatible with the newer formatting
• Number each page with your last name in the header or footer (like “Smith 1”)
• Pay extra attention to any word limits, as you won’t be cut off automatically, unlike with most text boxes

Conventional College Essay Structures

Now that we’ve gone over the logistical aspects of your essay, let’s talk about how you should structure your writing. There are three traditional college essay structures. They are:

• In-the-moment narrative
• Narrative told over an extended period of time
• Series of anecdotes, or montage

Let’s go over what each one is exactly, and take a look at some real essays using these structures.

1. In-the-moment narrative

This is where you tell the story one moment at a time, sharing the events as they occur. In the moment narrative is a powerful essay format, as your reader experiences the events, your thoughts, and your emotions with you . This structure is ideal for a specific experience involving extensive internal dialogue, emotions, and reflections.

Here’s an example:

The morning of the Model United Nation conference, I walked into Committee feeling confident about my research. We were simulating the Nuremberg Trials – a series of post-World War II proceedings for war crimes – and my portfolio was of the Soviet Judge Major General Iona Nikitchenko. Until that day, the infamous Nazi regime had only been a chapter in my history textbook; however, the conference’s unveiling of each defendant’s crimes brought those horrors to life. The previous night, I had organized my research, proofread my position paper and gone over Judge Nikitchenko’s pertinent statements. I aimed to find the perfect balance between his stance and my own.

As I walked into committee anticipating a battle of wits, my director abruptly called out to me. “I’m afraid we’ve received a late confirmation from another delegate who will be representing Judge Nikitchenko. You, on the other hand, are now the defense attorney, Otto Stahmer.” Everyone around me buzzed around the room in excitement, coordinating with their allies and developing strategies against their enemies, oblivious to the bomb that had just dropped on me. I felt frozen in my tracks, and it seemed that only rage against the careless delegate who had confirmed her presence so late could pull me out of my trance. After having spent a month painstakingly crafting my verdicts and gathering evidence against the Nazis, I now needed to reverse my stance only three hours before the first session.

Gradually, anger gave way to utter panic. My research was fundamental to my performance, and without it, I knew I could add little to the Trials. But confident in my ability, my director optimistically recommended constructing an impromptu defense. Nervously, I began my research anew. Despite feeling hopeless, as I read through the prosecution’s arguments, I uncovered substantial loopholes. I noticed a lack of conclusive evidence against the defendants and certain inconsistencies in testimonies. My discovery energized me, inspiring me to revisit the historical overview in my conference “Background Guide” and to search the web for other relevant articles. Some Nazi prisoners had been treated as “guilty” before their court dates. While I had brushed this information under the carpet while developing my position as a judge, it now became the focus of my defense. I began scratching out a new argument, centered on the premise that the allied countries had violated the fundamental rule that, a defendant was “not guilty” until proven otherwise.

At the end of the three hours, I felt better prepared. The first session began, and with bravado, I raised my placard to speak. Microphone in hand, I turned to face my audience. “Greetings delegates. I, Otto Stahmer would like to…….” I suddenly blanked. Utter dread permeated my body as I tried to recall my thoughts in vain. “Defence Attorney, Stahmer we’ll come back to you,” my Committee Director broke the silence as I tottered back to my seat, flushed with embarrassment. Despite my shame, I was undeterred. I needed to vindicate my director’s faith in me. I pulled out my notes, refocused, and began outlining my arguments in a more clear and direct manner. Thereafter, I spoke articulately, confidently putting forth my points. I was overjoyed when Secretariat members congratulated me on my fine performance.

Going into the conference, I believed that preparation was the key to success. I wouldn’t say I disagree with that statement now, but I believe adaptability is equally important. My ability to problem-solve in the face of an unforeseen challenge proved advantageous in the art of diplomacy. Not only did this experience transform me into a confident and eloquent delegate at that conference, but it also helped me become a more flexible and creative thinker in a variety of other capacities. Now that I know I can adapt under pressure, I look forward to engaging in activities that will push me to be even quicker on my feet.

This essay is an excellent example of in-the-moment narration. The student openly shares their internal state with us — we feel their anger and panic upon the reversal of roles. We empathize with their emotions of “utter dread” and embarrassment when they’re unable to speak. 

For in-the-moment essays, overloading on descriptions is a common mistake students make. This writer provides just the right amount of background and details to help us understand the situation, however, and balances out the actual event with reflection on the significance of this experience. 

One main area of improvement is that the writer sometimes makes explicit statements that could be better illustrated through their thoughts, actions, and feelings. For instance, they say they “spoke articulately” after recovering from their initial inability to speak, and they also claim that adaptability has helped them in other situations. This is not as engaging as actual examples that convey the same meaning. Still, this essay overall is a strong example of in-the-moment narration, and gives us a relatable look into the writer’s life and personality.

2. Narrative told over an extended period of time

In this essay structure, you share a story that takes place across several different experiences. This narrative style is well-suited for any story arc with multiple parts. If you want to highlight your development over time, you might consider this structure. 

When I was younger, I was adamant that no two foods on my plate touch. As a result, I often used a second plate to prevent such an atrocity. In many ways, I learned to separate different things this way from my older brothers, Nate and Rob. Growing up, I idolized both of them. Nate was a performer, and I insisted on arriving early to his shows to secure front row seats, refusing to budge during intermission for fear of missing anything. Rob was a three-sport athlete, and I attended his games religiously, waving worn-out foam cougar paws and cheering until my voice was hoarse. My brothers were my role models. However, while each was talented, neither was interested in the other’s passion. To me, they represented two contrasting ideals of what I could become: artist or athlete. I believed I had to choose.

And for a long time, I chose athlete. I played soccer, basketball, and lacrosse and viewed myself exclusively as an athlete, believing the arts were not for me. I conveniently overlooked that since the age of five, I had been composing stories for my family for Christmas, gifts that were as much for me as them, as I loved writing. So when in tenth grade, I had the option of taking a creative writing class, I was faced with a question: could I be an athlete and a writer? After much debate, I enrolled in the class, feeling both apprehensive and excited. When I arrived on the first day of school, my teacher, Ms. Jenkins, asked us to write down our expectations for the class. After a few minutes, eraser shavings stubbornly sunbathing on my now-smudged paper, I finally wrote, “I do not expect to become a published writer from this class. I just want this to be a place where I can write freely.”

Although the purpose of the class never changed for me, on the third “submission day,” – our time to submit writing to upcoming contests and literary magazines – I faced a predicament. For the first two submission days, I had passed the time editing earlier pieces, eventually (pretty quickly) resorting to screen snake when hopelessness made the words look like hieroglyphics. I must not have been as subtle as I thought, as on the third of these days, Ms. Jenkins approached me. After shifting from excuse to excuse as to why I did not submit my writing, I finally recognized the real reason I had withheld my work: I was scared. I did not want to be different, and I did not want to challenge not only others’ perceptions of me, but also my own. I yielded to Ms. Jenkin’s pleas and sent one of my pieces to an upcoming contest.

By the time the letter came, I had already forgotten about the contest. When the flimsy white envelope arrived in the mail, I was shocked and ecstatic to learn that I had received 2nd place in a nationwide writing competition. The next morning, however, I discovered Ms. Jenkins would make an announcement to the whole school exposing me as a poet. I decided to own this identity and embrace my friends’ jokes and playful digs, and over time, they have learned to accept and respect this part of me. I have since seen more boys at my school identifying themselves as writers or artists.

I no longer see myself as an athlete and a poet independently, but rather I see these two aspects forming a single inseparable identity – me. Despite their apparent differences, these two disciplines are quite similar, as each requires creativity and devotion. I am still a poet when I am lacing up my cleats for soccer practice and still an athlete when I am building metaphors in the back of my mind – and I have realized ice cream and gummy bears taste pretty good together.

The timeline of this essay spans from the writer’s childhood all the way to sophomore year, but we only see key moments along this journey. First, we get context for why the writer thought he had to choose one identity: his older brothers had very distinct interests. Then, we learn about the student’s 10th grade creative writing class, writing contest, and results of the contest. Finally, the essay covers the writers’ embarrassment of his identity as a poet, to gradual acceptance and pride in that identity. 

This essay is a great example of a narrative told over an extended period of time. It’s highly personal and reflective, as the piece shares the writer’s conflicting feelings, and takes care to get to the root of those feelings. Furthermore, the overarching story is that of a personal transformation and development, so it’s well-suited to this essay structure.

3. Series of anecdotes, or montage

This essay structure allows you to focus on the most important experiences of a single storyline, or it lets you feature multiple (not necessarily related) stories that highlight your personality. Montage is a structure where you piece together separate scenes to form a whole story. This technique is most commonly associated with film. Just envision your favorite movie—it likely is a montage of various scenes that may not even be chronological. 

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée , while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “ Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

This essay takes a few different anecdotes and weaves them into a coherent narrative about the writer’s penchant for novel experiences. We’re plunged into her universe, in the middle of her Taekwondo spar, three years before the present day. She then transitions into a scene in a ballet studio, present day. By switching from past tense to present tense, the writer clearly demarcates this shift in time. 

The parallel use of the spoken phrase “Point” in the essay ties these two experiences together. The writer also employs a flashback to Master Pollard’s remark about “grabbing a tutu” and her habit of dorsiflexing her toes, which further cements the connection between these anecdotes. 

While some of the descriptions are a little wordy, the piece is well-executed overall, and is a stellar example of the montage structure. The two anecdotes are seamlessly intertwined, and they both clearly illustrate the student’s determination, dedication, reflectiveness, and adaptability. The writer also concludes the essay with a larger reflection on her life, many moves, and multiple languages. 

Unconventional College Essay Structures

Unconventional essay structures are any that don’t fit into the categories above. These tend to be higher risk, as it’s easier to turn off the admissions officer, but they’re also higher reward if executed correctly. 

There are endless possibilities for unconventional structures, but most fall under one of two categories:

1. Playing with essay format

Instead of choosing a traditional narrative format, you might take a more creative route to showcase your interests, writing your essay:

• As a movie script
• With a creative visual format (such as creating a visual pattern with the spaces between your sentences forming a picture)
• As a two-sided Lincoln-Douglas debate
• As a legal brief
• Using song lyrics

2. Linguistic techniques

You could also play with the actual language and sentence structure of your essay, writing it:

• In iambic pentameter
• Partially in your mother tongue
• In code or a programming language

These linguistic techniques are often hybrid, where you write some of the essay with the linguistic variation, then write more of an explanation in English.

Under no circumstances should you feel pressured to use an unconventional structure. Trying to force something unconventional will only hurt your chances. That being said, if a creative structure comes naturally to you, suits your personality, and works with the content of your essay — go for that structure!

←What is a College Application Theme and How Do You Come Up With One?

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

• How to Write a College Essay

College admissions experts offer tips on selecting a topic as well as writing and editing the essay.

Getty Images

Students can go online to review essay requirements for the colleges they want to apply to, such as word limits and essay topics. Many students may start with the Common App, an application platform accepted by more than 1,000 schools.

For college applicants, the essay is the place to showcase their writing skills and let their unique voice shine through.

"The essays are important in part because this is a student's chance to really speak directly to the admissions office," says Adam Sapp, assistant vice president and director of admissions at Pomona College in California.

Prospective college students want their essay, sometimes called a personal statement, to make a good impression and boost their chances of being accepted, but they have only several hundred words to make that happen.

This can feel like a lot of pressure.

"I think this is the part of the application process that students are sometimes most challenged by," says Niki Barron, associate dean of admission at Hamilton College in New York, "because they're looking at a blank piece of paper and they don't know where to get started."

That pressure may be amplified as many colleges have gone test optional in recent years, meaning that ACT and SAT scores will be considered if submitted but are not required. Other schools have gone test-blind and don't consider such scores at all. In the absence of test scores, some admissions experts have suggested that more attention will be paid to other parts of an application, such as the essay.

But just as each applicant is unique, so are college admissions policies and priorities.

"Being test optional hasn't changed how we use essays in our selection process, and I wouldn't say that the essay serves as a substitute for standardized test scores," Barron wrote in an email. "A student's academic preparation for our classroom experience is always front and center in our application review process."

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against college admissions policies that consider an applicant's race. The ruling, though, does not prohibit students from writing essays on how their race has affected them, which experts say could significantly affect how students approach this portion of their applications.

Essay-writing tips offered by experts emphasize the importance of being concise, coherent, congenial, unique, honest and accurate. An applicant should also flex some intellectual muscle and include vivid details or anecdotes.

From brainstorming essay topics to editing the final draft, here's what students need to know about crafting a strong college application essay.

Getting Started on the College Essay

How long should a college essay be, how to pick a college essay topic, writing the college essay, how the affirmative action ruling could change college essays, editing and submitting the college essay.

A good time for students to begin working on their essays is the summer before senior year, experts say, when homework and extracurricular activities aren't taking up time and mental energy.

Starting early will also give students plenty of time to work through multiple drafts of an essay before college application deadlines, which can be as early as November for students applying for early decision or early action .

Students can go online to review essay requirements for the colleges they want to apply to, such as word limits and essay topics. Many students may start with the Common App , an application platform accepted by more than 1,000 schools. Students can submit that application to multiple schools.

Another option is the Coalition Application, an application platform accepted by more than 130 schools. Students applying through this application choose from one of six essay prompts to complete and include with their application.

In addition to the main essay, some colleges ask applicants to submit one or more additional writing samples. Students are often asked to explain why they are interested in a particular school or academic field in these supplemental essays , which tend to be shorter than the main essay.

Students should budget more time for the writing process if the schools they're applying to ask for supplemental essays.

"Most selective colleges will ask for more than one piece of writing. Don't spend all your time working on one long essay and then forget to devote energy to other parts of the application," Sapp says.

Though the Common App notes that "there are no strict word limits" for its main essay, it suggests a cap of about 650 words. The Coalition Application website says its essays should be between 500 and 650 words.

"While we won't, as a rule, stop reading after 650 words, we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you'd hoped it would," the Common App website states.

The word count is much shorter for institution-specific supplemental essays, which are typically around 250 words.

The first and sometimes most daunting step in the essay writing process is figuring out what to write about.

There are usually several essay prompts to choose from on a college application. They tend to be broad, open-ended questions, giving students the freedom to write about a wide array of topics, Barron says.

The essay isn't a complete autobiography, notes Mimi Doe, co-founder of Top Tier Admissions, a Massachusetts-based advising company. "It's overwhelming to think of putting your whole life in one essay," she says.

Rather, experts say students should narrow their focus and write about a specific experience, hobby or quirk that reveals something personal, like how they think, what they value or what their strengths are. Students can also write about something that illustrates an aspect of their background. These are the types of essays that typically stand out to admissions officers, experts say. Even an essay on a common topic can be compelling if done right.

Students don't have to discuss a major achievement in their essay – a common misconception. Admissions officers who spoke with U.S. News cited memorable essays that focused on more ordinary topics, including fly-fishing, a student's commute to and from school and a family's dining room table.

What's most important, experts say, is that a college essay is thoughtful and tells a story that offers insight into who a student is as a person.

"Think of the college essay as a meaningful glimpse of who you are beyond your other application materials," Pierre Huguet, CEO and founder of admissions consulting firm H&C Education, wrote in an email. "After reading your essay, the reader won't fully know you – at least not entirely. Your objective is to evoke the reader's curiosity and make them eager to get to know you."

If students are having trouble brainstorming potential topics, they can ask friends or family members for help, says Stephanie Klein Wassink, founder of Winning Applications and AdmissionsCheckup, Connecticut-based college admissions advising companies. Klein Wassink says students can ask peers or family members questions such as, "What are the things you think I do well?" Or, "What are my quirks?"

The essay should tell college admissions officers something they don't already know, experts say.

Some experts encourage students to outline their essay before jumping into the actual writing, though of course everyone's writing process differs.

The first draft of an essay doesn't need to be perfect. "Just do a brain dump," Doe says. "Don't edit yourself, just lay it all out on the page."

If students are having a hard time getting started, they should focus on their opening sentence, Doe suggests. She says an essay's opening sentence, or hook, should grab the reader's attention.

Doe offered an example of a strong hook from the essay of a student she worked with:

"I first got into politics the day the cafeteria outlawed creamed corn."

"I want to know about this kid," she says. "I’m interested."

The key to a good college essay is striking a balance between being creative and not overdoing it, Huguet says. He advises students to keep it simple.

"The college essay is not a fiction writing contest," Huguet says. "Admissions committees are not evaluating you on your potential as the next writer of the Great American Novel."

He adds that students should write in the voice they use to discuss meaningful topics with someone they trust. It's also wise to avoid hyperbole, as that can lose the readers' trust, as well as extraneous adverbs and adjectives, Huguet says.

"Thinking small, when done right, means paying close attention to the little things in your life that give it meaning in unique ways," he says. "It means, on the one hand, that you don’t have to come up with a plan for world peace, but it also means thinking small enough to identify details in your life that belong only to you."

The Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action has left some students feeling in limbo with how to approach their essays. Some are unsure whether to include racial identifiers while others feel pressure to exclude it, says Christopher Rim, CEO and founder of Command Education, an admissions consulting company.

"For instance, some of our Asian students have been concerned that referencing their culture or race in their essay could negatively impact them (even moreso than before)," Rim wrote in an email. He noted that many students he works with had already begun crafting their essays before the ruling came. "Some of our other students have felt pressure to disclose their race or share a story of discrimination or struggle because they expect those stories to be received better by admissions officers."

Some of the uneasiness stems from what feels like a contradictory message from the court, Rim says. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., said the ruling shouldn't be construed "as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise." But he added that colleges may consider race only if it's tied to an applicant’s individual experiences or qualities, such as demonstrating courage against discrimination.

Personal essays shouldn't serve as a way for universities to ask students about their race as a means to admit them on such basis, Roberts added.

Rim says he expects there to be a lot of confusion from parents and students as they navigate that line when writing their essay. He says his guidance will vary with each student depending on their specific situation.

"For a student from an immigrant family, sharing their racial and cultural background may be integral to understanding their identity and values and therefore should be included in the essay," he says. "On the other hand, a student who has never meaningfully considered ways in which their race has shaped their life experience and worldview should not push themselves to do so in their essay simply because they believe it will better their chances."

While admissions officers try to learn about students via the essay, they are also gauging writing skills, so students want to make sure they submit top-notch work.

"The best writing is rewriting," Sapp says. "You should never be giving me your first draft."

When reviewing a first essay draft, students should make sure their writing is showing, not telling, Huguet says. This means students should show their readers examples that prove they embody certain traits or beliefs, as opposed to just stating that they do. Doing so is like explaining a joke to someone who's already laughed at it, he says.

"Let’s say, for example, that the whole point of a certain applicant’s essay is to let admissions officers know that she thinks outside the box. If she feels the need to end her essay with a sentence like, 'And so, this anecdote shows that I think outside the box,' she’s either underestimating the power of her story (or the ability of her reader to understand it), or she hasn’t done a good enough job in telling it yet," Huguet says. "Let your readers come to their own conclusions. If your story is effective, they’ll come to the conclusions you want them to."

After editing their essay, students should seek outside editing help, experts recommend. While there are individuals and companies that offer paid essay help – from editing services to essay-writing boot camps – students and families may not be able to afford the associated fees. Some providers may offer scholarships or other financial aid for their services.

The availability and level of feedback from free essay advising services vary. Some college prep companies offer brief consultations at no charge. Free essay workshops may also be available through local high schools, public libraries or community organizations. Khan Academy, a free online education platform, also offers a series of videos and other content to guide students through the essay writing process.

Colleges themselves may also have resources, Barron notes, pointing to pages on Hamilton's website that offer writing tips as well as examples of successful admissions essays. Likewise, Hamilton also holds virtual panel discussions on writing admissions essays.

Students have other options when it comes to essay help. They can ask peers, teachers, school counselors and family members for help polishing an essay. Huguet says it's typically wise to prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to seeking feedback on essays. Too many perspectives can become counterproductive, he says.

"While it can be valuable to have different perspectives, it's best to seek out individuals who are experts in the writing process," he says. "Instructors or professors can be helpful, particularly if they possess subject expertise and can provide guidance on refining arguments, structure and overall coherence."

Proofreaders should not change the tone of the essay. "Don't let anyone edit out your voice," Doe cautions.

And while proofreading is fair game, having someone else write your essay is not.

When an essay is ready to go, students will generally submit it online along with the rest of their application. On the Common App, for example, students copy and paste their essay into a text box.

Sapp says even though students often stress about the essay in particular, it's not the only thing college admissions officers look at. "The essay is the window, but the application is the house," he says. "So let's not forget that an application is built of many pieces."

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

What to Do After Selecting a College

College Admissions

• How to Complete a College Application
• Use the Common App to Apply to College
• College Application Essay Grammar Tips
• See College Essay Examples

Tags: education , colleges , college admissions , college applications , students

2024 Best Colleges

Search for your perfect fit with the U.S. News rankings of colleges and universities.

College Admissions: Get a Step Ahead!

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S. News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

Ask an Alum: Making the Most Out of College

You May Also Like

Today naia, tomorrow title ix.

Lauren Camera April 9, 2024

Grad School Housing Options

Anayat Durrani April 9, 2024

How to Decide if an MBA Is Worth it

Sarah Wood March 27, 2024

What to Wear to a Graduation

LaMont Jones, Jr. March 27, 2024

FAFSA Delays Alarm Families, Colleges

Sarah Wood March 25, 2024

Help Your Teen With the College Decision

Anayat Durrani March 25, 2024

Toward Semiconductor Gender Equity

Alexis McKittrick March 22, 2024

March Madness in the Classroom

Cole Claybourn March 21, 2024

20 Lower-Cost Online Private Colleges

Sarah Wood March 21, 2024

How to Choose a Microcredential

Sarah Wood March 20, 2024

US California

Recently viewed courses

Recently viewed.

Find Your Dream School

This site uses various technologies, as described in our Privacy Policy, for personalization, measuring website use/performance, and targeted advertising, which may include storing and sharing information about your site visit with third parties. By continuing to use this website you consent to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .

   COVID-19 Update: To help students through this crisis, The Princeton Review will continue our "Enroll with Confidence" refund policies. For full details, please click here.

Enter your email to unlock an extra $25 off an SAT or ACT program!

By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., crafting an unforgettable college essay.

Most selective colleges require you to submit an essay or personal statement as part of your application.

It may sound like a chore, and it will certainly take a substantial amount of work. But it's also a unique opportunity that can make a difference at decision time. Admissions committees put the most weight on your high school grades and your test scores . However, selective colleges receive applications from many worthy students with similar scores and grades—too many to admit. So they use your essay, along with your letters of recommendation and extracurricular activities , to find out what sets you apart from the other talented candidates.

Telling Your Story to Colleges

So what does set you apart?

You have a unique background, interests and personality. This is your chance to tell your story (or at least part of it). The best way to tell your story is to write a personal, thoughtful essay about something that has meaning for you. Be honest and genuine, and your unique qualities will shine through.

Admissions officers have to read an unbelievable number of college essays, most of which are forgettable. Many students try to sound smart rather than sounding like themselves. Others write about a subject that they don't care about, but that they think will impress admissions officers.

You don't need to have started your own business or have spent the summer hiking the Appalachian Trail. Colleges are simply looking for thoughtful, motivated students who will add something to the first-year class.

Tips for a Stellar College Application Essay

1. write about something that's important to you..

It could be an experience, a person, a book—anything that has had an impact on your life. 

2. Don't just recount—reflect! 

Anyone can write about how they won the big game or the summer they spent in Rome. When recalling these events, you need to give more than the play-by-play or itinerary. Describe what you learned from the experience and how it changed you.

Free SAT Practice Tests & Events

Evaluate and improve your SAT score.

3. Being funny is tough.

A student who can make an admissions officer laugh never gets lost in the shuffle. But beware. What you think is funny and what an adult working in a college thinks is funny are probably different. We caution against one-liners, limericks and anything off–color.

4. Start early and write several drafts.

Set it aside for a few days and read it again. Put yourself in the shoes of an admissions officer: Is the essay interesting? Do the ideas flow logically? Does it reveal something about the applicant? Is it written in the applicant’s own voice?

5. No repeats.

What you write in your application essay or personal statement should not contradict any other part of your application–nor should it repeat it. This isn't the place to list your awards or discuss your grades or test scores.

6. Answer the question being asked.

Don't reuse an answer to a similar question from another application.

7. Have at least one other person edit your essay.

A teacher or college counselor is your best resource. And before you send it off, check, check again, and then triple check to make sure your essay is free of spelling or grammar errors.

Read More: 2018-2019 Common Application Essay Prompts (and How to Answer Them)

Test Your College Knowledge

How well do you understand the college admissions process? Find out with our quiz.

Take the Quiz

Explore Colleges For You

Connect with our featured colleges to find schools that both match your interests and are looking for students like you.

Career Quiz

Take our short quiz to learn which is the right career for you.

Get Started on Athletic Scholarships & Recruiting!

Join athletes who were discovered, recruited & often received scholarships after connecting with NCSA's 42,000 strong network of coaches.

Best 389 Colleges

165,000 students rate everything from their professors to their campus social scene.

SAT Prep Courses

1400+ course, act prep courses, free sat practice test & events,  1-800-2review, free digital sat prep try our self-paced plus program - for free, get a 14 day trial.

Free MCAT Practice Test

Thank you! Look for the MCAT Review Guide in your inbox.

I already know my score.

Enrollment Advisor

1-800-2REVIEW (800-273-8439) ext. 1

1-877-LEARN-30

Mon-Fri 9AM-10PM ET

Sat-Sun 9AM-8PM ET

Student Support

1-800-2REVIEW (800-273-8439) ext. 2

Mon-Fri 9AM-9PM ET

Sat-Sun 8:30AM-5PM ET

Partnerships

• Teach or Tutor for Us

College Readiness

International

Advertising

Affiliate/Other

• Enrollment Terms & Conditions
• Accessibility
• Cigna Medical Transparency in Coverage

Register Book

Local Offices: Mon-Fri 9AM-6PM

• SAT Subject Tests

Academic Subjects

• Social Studies

Find the Right College

• College Rankings
• College Advice
• Applying to College
• Financial Aid

School & District Partnerships

• Professional Development
• Advice Articles
• Private Tutoring
• Mobile Apps
• Local Offices
• International Offices
• Work for Us
• Affiliate Program
• Partner with Us
• Advertise with Us
• International Partnerships
• Our Guarantees
• Accessibility – Canada

Privacy Policy | CA Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information | Your Opt-Out Rights | Terms of Use | Site Map

©2024 TPR Education IP Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University

TPR Education, LLC (doing business as “The Princeton Review”) is controlled by Primavera Holdings Limited, a firm owned by Chinese nationals with a principal place of business in Hong Kong, China.

Your Trusted Advisors for Admissions Success

Admissions and test prep resources to help you get into your dream schools

14 College Essay Examples From Top-25 Universities (2024–2025)

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. The combined challenge of addressing a question in an interesting way while avoiding clichés and making yourself stand out, all within a limited number of words, is something that students struggle with every year. With a wide variety of prompts used by each school, alongside the Common App essays , it can be overwhelming to write strong, memorable essays.

However, there are some standard practices that will help elevate your essay:

Directly address any questions the prompt asks. Many essay prompts will ask you to write about extracurricular experiences in your life or to list interests such as your favorite movies or music. Be sure to include the answer to any questions and don't get distracted while providing context or other extra information.

Use specific information. Make sure to mention the specific volunteer program you worked at or the name of your favorite instructor from your summer STEM camp. While it's important not to overburden your essay with small details, peppering in a few specifics will highlight what's important to you both academically and personally—in addition to giving admissions committees (adcoms) memorable details to file away about you as they sort through hundreds of other applicants’ essays.

Create a narrative. Just like with any story or news article, you want to start your essays with a good hook. Setting the stage for your experiences, including anecdotes to drive home a point, or carrying a thematic element throughout your essay will help keep the reader interested and will show off your creativity.

Reuse material. There’s no reason to write completely new supplemental essays for every school you’re applying to. Many schools ask the same questions with slightly different wording, like the commonly used “diversity essay,” which essentially asks how you contribute to and benefit from diversity. With some editing, a single essay could answer multiple prompts — and cut down on your stress! Just be sure that you’re still directly answering the prompt, and you’re still demonstrating fit (more on that below).

Demonstrate fit. Many supplemental essay prompts will ask you explicitly to tell them why you chose to apply to their school, or why you’re interested in pursuing your intended major at their school. In other words, they want you to demonstrate why you’re a good fit for their school—and why their school is a good fit for you. The best way to do this is by providing evidence to back up your claims about why their school is your “dream school,” or why their Biology major is “the perfect place” for you to prepare for a career in medicine. The strongest applicants may even demonstrate fit in response to prompts that don’t explicitly ask them to do so. For example, if you know that the school you’re applying to offers a unique elective course that closely aligns with your interests, you should find a way to mention it in one of your essays.

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes. College admissions officers read hundreds of essays from hopeful applicants, each of whom think their personal experiences and reasons for applying to a particular school are unique. This contributes to the difficulty in standing out in your essays, since almost anything you write about will likely have been encountered by your reader before.

Putting yourself in your reader’s shoes can help strengthen your writing. Remember, it’s not necessarily about what you say, but how you say it. If you read your essay back to yourself and some of the descriptions sound trite or typical, these are spots that are ripe for improvement.

For example, if you describe a trip abroad to help build homes in a developing country with words like “life-changing” and “eye-opening,” you may run the risk of boring your reader. That experience could have been truly life-changing for you, but the simple act of thinking of more creative ways to express an idea not only makes your writing more interesting to read, it signals to your reader the amount of effort you’ve put into your essay.

Describing an experience as transformative can sound less cliché and exaggerated. Moreover, allowing your experiences to speak for themselves (showing instead of telling) will display your imagination and grant you space to emphasize what you learned–something always popular with adcoms.

Go through multiple drafts–and do so early. We can’t stress enough the importance of revision. While your initial ideas may be good, the first couple of drafts will never express them as well as they would after a few edits.

Writing takes place in the mind. It’s a thought process that involves reflecting on your experiences and then translating that reflection into words and—most importantly—time. Make sure you start writing your essays as early as possible to grant yourself as much space as possible to revise.

Be vulnerable and show emotion. Remember that college adcoms are people, not robots reading an essay to make sure you’ve ticked all the boxes for a particular university. Showing some vulnerability or emotion in your writing can make your story come alive for the reader.

Keep in mind there is a fine line between “showing emotion” and exaggerating your experiences just for the sake of a dramatic narrative. It’s a good thing to display your vulnerability in an essay, but adcoms can usually tell if you’re embellishing or exaggerating just for the shock value. And remember, emotion encompasses everything from feelings of triumph to feelings of despair — not all emotions are expressed with tears. Letting these shine through in your essay demonstrates your passion, which engages your reader.

Here are some example essays from some of the thousands of students we've helped get accepted to their dream school.

Note: Some personally identifying details have been changed.

College essay example #1

This is a college essay that worked for Harvard University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Harvard Undergrad )

This past summer, I had the privilege of participating in the University of Notre Dame’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program . Under the mentorship of Professor Wendy Bozeman and Professor Georgia Lebedev from the department of Biological Sciences, my goal this summer was to research the effects of cobalt iron oxide cored (CoFe2O3) titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles as a scaffold for drug delivery, specifically in the delivery of a compound known as curcumin, a flavonoid known for its anti-inflammatory effects. As a high school student trying to find a research opportunity, it was very difficult to find a place that was willing to take me in, but after many months of trying, I sought the help of my high school biology teacher, who used his resources to help me obtain a position in the program.

Using equipment that a high school student could only dream of using, I was able to map apoptosis (programmed cell death) versus necrosis (cell death due to damage) in HeLa cells, a cervical cancer line, after treating them with curcumin-bound nanoparticles. Using flow cytometry to excite each individually suspended cell with a laser, the scattered light from the cells helped to determine which cells were living, had died from apoptosis or had died from necrosis. Using this collected data, it was possible to determine if the curcumin and/or the nanoparticles had played any significant role on the cervical cancer cells. Later, I was able to image cells in 4D through con-focal microscopy. From growing HeLa cells to trying to kill them with different compounds, I was able to gain the hands-on experience necessary for me to realize once again why I love science.

Living on the Notre Dame campus with other REU students, UND athletes, and other summer school students was a whole other experience that prepared me for the world beyond high school. For 9 weeks, I worked, played and bonded with the other students, and had the opportunity to live the life of an independent college student.

Along with the individually tailored research projects and the housing opportunity, there were seminars on public speaking, trips to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and one-on-one writing seminars for the end of the summer research papers we were each required to write. By the end of the summer, I wasn’t ready to leave the research that I was doing. While my research didn’t yield definitive results for the effects of curcumin on cervical cancer cells, my research on curcumin-functionalized CoFe2O4/TiO2 core-shell nanoconjugates indicated that there were many unknown factors affecting the HeLa cells, and spurred the lab to expand their research into determining whether or not the timing of the drug delivery mattered and whether or not the position of the binding site of the drugs would alter the results. Through this summer experience, I realized my ambition to pursue a career in research. I always knew that I would want to pursue a future in science, but the exciting world of research where the discoveries are limitless has captured my heart. This school year, the REU program has offered me a year-long job, and despite my obligations as a high school senior preparing for college, I couldn’t give up this offer, and so during this school year, I will be able to further both my research and interest in nanotechnology. 

College essay example #2

This student was admitted to Harvard University.

I believe that humans will always have the ability to rise above any situation, because life is what you make of it. We don’t know what life is or why we are in this world; all we know, all we feel, is that we must protect it anyway we can. Buddha said it clearly: “Life is suffering.” Life is meant to be challenging, and really living requires consistent work and review. By default, life is difficult because we must strive to earn happiness and success.

Yet I've realized that life is fickler than I had imagined; it can disappear or change at any time. Several of my family members left this world in one last beating symphony; heart attacks seem to be a trend in my family. They left like birds; laughing one minute and in a better place the next.

Steve Jobs inspired me, when in his commencement address to Stanford University in 2005, he said "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma--which is living with the results of other people's thinking." I want to make mistakes, because that is how I learn; I want to follow the beat of my own drum even if it is "out of tune." The important thing is to live without regrets, so when my heart ceases to beat, it will make one last happy note and move on.

I want to live my life daily. Every day I want to live. Every morning when I wake up, I want to be excited by the gift of a new day. I know I am being idealistic and young, and that my philosophy on life is comparable to a calculus limit; I will never reach it. But I won't give up on it because, I can still get infinitely close and that is amazing.

Every day is an apology to my humanity; because I am not perfect, I get to try again and again to "get it right." I breathe the peace of eternity, knowing that this stage is temporary; real existence is continuous. The hourglass of life incessantly trickles on and we are powerless to stop it.

So, I will forgive and forget, love and inspire, experience and satire, laugh and cry, accomplish and fail, live and die. This is how I want to live my life, with this optimistic attitude that every day is a second chance. All the time, we have the opportunity to renew our perspective on life, to correct our mistakes, and to simply move on. Like the phoenix I will continue to rise from the ashes, experienced and renewed. I will not waste time for my life is already in flux.

In all its splendor The Phoenix rises In a burst of orange and yellow It soars in the baby blue sky Heading to that Great Light Baptized in the dance of time Fearless, eternal, beautiful It releases a breathtaking aurora And I gasp at the enormity

Struggling to write your college essays?

Get our free 110-page guide to help you with every single one: How to Get Into America’s Elite Colleges: The Ultimate Guide

100% privacy. No spam. Ever.

Thank you! Your guide is on its way. In the meantime, please let us know how we can help you crack the the college admissions code . You can also learn more about our 1-on-1 college admissions support here .

College essay example #3

This is a college essay that worked for Duke University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Duke )

As soon as the patient room door opened, the worst stench I have ever encountered hit me square in the face. Though I had never smelled it before, I knew instinctively what it was: rotting flesh. A small, elderly woman sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a hospital gown and draped in blankets from the neck down with only her gauze-wrapped right leg peering out from under the green material. Dr. Q began unwrapping the leg, and there was no way to be prepared for what I saw next: gangrene-rotted tissue and blackened, dead toes.

Never before had I seen anything this gruesome–as even open surgery paled in comparison. These past two years of shadowing doctors in the operating room have been important for me in solidifying my commitment to pursue medicine, but this situation proved that time in the operating room alone did not quite provide a complete, accurate perspective of a surgeon’s occupation. Doctors in the operating room are calm, cool, and collected, making textbook incisions with machine-like, detached precision. It is a profession founded solely on skill and technique–or so I thought. This grisly experience exposed an entirely different side of this profession I hope to pursue.

Feeling the tug of nausea in my stomach, I forced my gaze from the terrifying wound onto the hopeful face of the ailing woman, seeking to objectively analyze the situation as Dr. Q was struggling to do himself. Slowly and with obvious difficulty, Dr. Q explained that an infection this severe calls for an AKA: Above the Knee Amputation. In the slow, grave silence that ensued, I reflected on how this desperate patient’s very life rests in the hands of a man who has dedicated his entire life to making such difficult decisions as these. I marveled at the compassion in Dr. Q’s promise that this aggressive approach would save the woman’s life. The patient wiped her watery eyes and smiled a long, sad smile. “I trust you, Doc. I trust you.” She shook Dr. Q’s hand, and the doctor and I left the room.

Back in his office, Dr. Q addressed my obvious state of contemplation: “This is the hardest part about what we do as surgeons,” he said, sincerely. “We hurt to heal, and often times people cannot understand that. However, knowing that I’m saving lives every time I operate makes the stress completely worth it.”

Suddenly, everything fell into place for me. This completely different perspective broadened my understanding of the surgical field and changed my initial perception of who and what a surgeon was. I not only want to help those who are ill and injured, but also to be entrusted with difficult decisions the occupation entails. Discovering that surgery is also a moral vocation beyond the generic application of a trained skill set encouraged me. I now understand surgeons to be much more complex practitioners of medicine, and I am certain that this is the field for me.

College essay example #4

This is a supplemental essay that worked for Stanford University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Stanford Undergrad and How to Ace the Stanford Roommate Essay )

In most conventional classrooms, we are taught to memorize material. We study information to regurgitate it on a test and forget it the following day. I thought this was learning. But this past summer, I realized I was wrong.

 I attended the SPK Program, a five-week enrichment program with New Jersey’s best and brightest students. I lived on a college campus with 200 students and studied a topic. I selected Physical Science. On the first day of class, our teacher set a box on the table and poured water into the top, and nothing came out. Then, he poured more water in, and everything slowly came out. We were told to figure out what had happened with no phones or textbooks, just our brains. We worked together to discover in the box was a siphon, similar to what is used to pump gas. We spent the next weeks building solar ovens, studying the dynamic of paper planes, diving into the content of the speed of light and space vacuums, among other things. We did this with no textbooks, flashcards, or information to memorize.

During those five weeks, we were not taught impressive terminology or how to ace the AP Physics exam. We were taught how to think. More importantly, we were taught how to think together. Learning is not memorization or a competition. Learning is working together to solve the problems around us and better our community. To me, learning is the means to a better future, and that’s exciting.

College essay example #5 

This is a college essay that worked for University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into UPenn)

When I was thirteen and visiting Liberia, I contracted what turned out to be yellow fever. I met with the local doctor, but he couldn’t make a diagnosis simply because he didn't have access to blood tests and because symptoms such as “My skin feels like it’s on fire” matched many tropical diseases. Luckily, my family managed to drive me several hours away to an urban hospital, where I was treated. Yellow fever shouldn’t be fatal, but in Africa it often is. I couldn’t believe that such a solvable issue could be so severe at the time—so I began to explore.

The exploration led me to the African Disease Prevention Project (ADPP), a non-profit organization associated with several universities. I decided to create the first high school branch of the organization; I liked its unique way of approaching health and social issues. Rather than just raising money and channeling it through third parties, each branch “adopts” one village and travels there to provide for its basic needs. As branch president, I organize events from small stands at public gatherings to 60-person dinner fundraisers in order to raise both money and awareness. I’ve learned how to encourage my peers to meet deadlines, to work around 30 different schedules at once, and to give presentations convincing people why my organization is worth their donation. But overall, ADPP has taught me that small changes can have immense impacts. My branch has helped raise almost $3,000 to build water sanitation plants, construct medical clinics, and develop health education programs in the small village of Zwedru. And the effect doesn’t stop there—by improving one area, our efforts permeate into neighboring villages as they mimic the lifestyle changes that they observe nearby—simple things, like making soap available—can have a big effect. The difference between ADPP and most other organizations is its emphasis on the basics and making changes that last. Working towards those changes to solve real life problems is what excites me.

I found that the same idea of change through simple solutions also rang true during my recent summer internship at Dr. Martin Warner’s lab at UCLA. Dr. Martin’s vision involves using already available digital technologies to improve the individualization of healthcare. By using a person’s genome to tailor a treatment for them or using someone’s personal smartphone as a mobile-monitor to remotely diagnose symptoms, everyday technology is harnessed to make significant strides forward. At the lab, I focused on parsing through medical databases and writing programs that analyze cancerous genomes to find relationships between certain cancers and drugs. My analysis resulted in a database of information that physicians can use to prescribe treatments for their patients’ unique cancerous mutations. Now, a pancreatic cancer patient does not need to be the “guinea-pig” for a prototype drug to have a shot at survival: a doctor can choose the best treatment by examining the patient individually instead of relying on population-wide trends. For the first time in my science career, my passion was going to have an immediate effect on other people, and to me, that was enthralling. Dr. Martin’s lab and his book, Digital Healthcare: A New Age of Medicine, have shown me that changing something as simple as how we treat a disease can have a huge impact. I have found that the search for the holy grail of a “cure for cancer” is problematic as nobody knows exactly what it is or where to look—but we can still move forward without it.

Working with Project ADPP and participating in medical research have taught me to approach problems in a new way. Whether it’s a complex genetic disease or a tropical fever, I’ve found that taking small steps often is the best approach. Finding those steps and achieving them is what gets me excited and hungry to explore new solutions in the future.

College essay example #6

This student was admitted to UC Berkeley.

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into UC Berkeley and How to Write Great UC Essays )

The phenomenon of interdependency, man depending on man for survival, has shaped centuries of human civilization. However, I feel, the youth of today are slowly disconnecting from their community. For the past few years, human connection has intrigued me and witnessing the apathy of my peers has prompted me to engage in various leadership positions in order to motivate them to complete community service and become active members of society.

Less than a year before ninth grade began, my cousin and close friend passed away from cancer, and in the hodge-podge of feelings, I did not emotionally deal with either death. However, a simple tale helped me deal with these deaths and take action. 

I was never fully aware of how closely humans rely upon each other until I read The Fall of Freddy the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia in freshman year. The allegory is about a leaf that changes with the seasons, finally dying in the winter, realizing that his purpose was to help the tree thrive. After reading it, I was enlightened on the cycle of life and realized the tremendous impact my actions had on others. 

Last year, I joined the American Cancer Society‘s Relay for Life, a twenty-four-hour relay walk-a-thon designed to raise funds for cancer research and create awareness about its early detection. I started a team at school, gathered thirty students and chaperones, and raised $800 for the cause. I watched as each student created friendships with other students on our team and members of the Phoenix community. This year, I led a team in the relay for life again with the schoolwide team of 95 members, and we raised $2,900 for the cure for cancer. At first the group leader ship consisted of only my advisor in me; however, I gained the support of the administrators. I spent well over an hour a day preparing for the event, and it was all worth it! 

The Sonora Eagles were students of different grade levels, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and educational ability. We joked and played football while volunteering. The most important moment occurred during the night’s luminaria ceremony, during which cancer patients of the past and present were commemorated. Our whole team gathered around, and I asked people to share how they have been affected by cancer. As I went through the crowd, their faces illuminated by candlelight, their cheeks were wet with cleansing tears, I realize the impact I had on them, the purpose I was fulfilling; but most importantly, I realized the impact they had had on me. The Sonora Eagles were my means for dealing with the death of my loved ones to cancer. 

The theme for relay for life is a hope for a cure. Through this experience as a leader, I have come to realize, as a community, we hope together, we dream together, we work together, and we succeed together. This is the phenomenon of interdependency, the interconnectedness of life, the pivotal reason for human existence. I have continued this momentum by starting a Sonora High School chapter of American Cancer Society Youth, a club dedicated to youth involvement and several aspects of the American Cancer Society, including the recent Arizona Proposition 45. 

Each one of us leaves behind a legacy as we fulfill our purpose in life. I believe my purpose as a student is to encourage others to become active community members and motivate them to reach new heights. As a student of the University of California, I will contribute my understanding of the human condition and student motivation to help strengthen student relationships within the campus and throughout the community.

College essay example #7

This is a college essay that worked for Cornell University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Cornell )

My fingers know instinctively, without a thought.  They turn the dial, just as they have hundreds of times before, until a soft, metallic click echoes into my eardrum and triggers their unconscious stop.  I exultantly thrust open my locker door, exposing its deepest bowels candidly to the wide halls of the high school. The bright lights shine back, brashly revealing every crevice, nook, and cranny, gleaming across its scintillating, bare surfaces.  On this first day of senior year, I set out upon my task. I procure an ordinary plastic grocery bag from my backpack. The contents inside collectively represent everything about me in high school – they tell a story, one all about me.

I reach in and let my fingers trail around the surfaces of each object.  I select my first prey arbitrarily, and as I raise my hand up to eye level, I closely examine this chosen one.  A miniature Flamenco dancer stares back at me from the confines of the 3-D rectangular magnet, half popping out as if willing herself to come to life.  Instantly, my mind transports me back a few summers before, when I tapped my own heels to traditional music in Spain. I am reminded of my thirst to travel, to explore new cultures utterly different from my familiar home in Modesto, California.  I have experienced study abroad in Spain, visited my father’s hometown in China five times, and traveled to many other places such as Paris. As a result, I have developed a restlessness inside me, a need to move on from four years in the same high school, to take advantage of diverse opportunities whenever possible, and to meet interesting people.

I take out the next magnet from my plastic bag.  This one shows a panoramic view of the city of Santa Barbara, California.  Here, I recall spending six weeks in my glory, not only studying and learning, but actually pursuing new knowledge to add to the repertoire of mankind.  I could have easily chosen to spend my summer lazing about; in fact, my parents tried to persuade me into taking a break. Instead, I chose to do advanced molecular biology research at Stanford University.  I wanted to immerse myself in my passion for biology and dip into the infinitely rich possibilities of my mind. This challenge was so rewarding to me, while at the same time I had the most fun of my life, because I was able to live with people who shared the same kind of drive and passion as I did.

After sticking up my magnets on the locker door, I ran my fingers across the bottom of the bag, and I realized that one remained.  It was a bold, black square, with white block letters proclaiming my motto, “Live the Life You Imagine.” In my four years at Cornell University, I will certainly continue to live life as I imagine, adding my own flavor to the Cornell community, while taking away invaluable experiences of my own. 

College essay example #8

This student was admitted to Northwestern University .

As I sip a mug of hot chocolate on a dreary winter’s day, I am already planning in my mind what I will do the next summer.  I briefly ponder the traditional routes, such as taking a job or spending most of the summer at the beach. However, I know that I want to do something unique.  I am determined to even surpass my last summer, in which I spent one month with a host family in Egypt and twelve days at a leadership conference in New York City. The college courses I have taken at Oregon State University since the summer after 7th grade will no longer provide the kind of challenge I seek.

Six months later, I step off the airplane to find myself surrounded by palm trees, with a view of the open-air airport.  I chuckle to myself about the added bonus of good weather, but I know I have come to Palo Alto, California, with a much higher purpose in mind.  I will spend six weeks here in my glory, not only studying and learning, but actually pursuing new knowledge to add to the repertoire of mankind.  Through the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program, I will earn college credit by conducting original molecular biology research, writing my own research paper, and presenting my findings in a research symposium.

I decided to spend my summer doing research because I knew that I liked scientific thought, and that I would passionately throw myself into any new challenge.  I always want to know more – to probe deeper into the laws of the universe, to explore the power and beauty of nature, to solve the most complicated problems. I have an insatiable curiosity and a desire to delve deeper down in the recesses of my intellect.  At the Summer Research Program, I found out how much I enjoy thinking critically, solving problems, and applying my knowledge to the real world. 

While pursuing research in California, I was also able to meet many similarly motivated, interesting people from across the United States and abroad.  As I learned about their unique lifestyles, I also shared with them the diverse perspectives I have gained from my travel abroad and my Chinese cultural heritage.  I will never forget the invaluable opportunity I had to explore California along with these bright people.

I could have easily chosen to spend that summer the traditional way; in fact, my parents even tried to persuade me into taking a break.  Instead, I chose to do molecular biology research at Stanford University. I wanted to immerse myself in my passion for biology and dip into the infinitely rich possibilities of my mind.  This challenge was so rewarding to me, while at the same time I had the most fun of my life, because I was able to live with people who share the same kind of drive and passion as I do.

College essay example #9

When I turned twelve, my stepdad turned violent. He became a different person overnight, frequently getting into fights with my mom. I didn’t deal with it well, often crying to my mom’s disappointment, afraid that my life would undo itself in a matter of seconds. You might say that my upbringing was characterized by my parents morphing everyday objects into weapons and me trying to morph into the perfect white walls that stood unmoving while my family fell apart.

This period in my life is not a sob story, but rather, the origin story of my love of writing. During a fight once, my stepdad left the house to retrieve a baseball bat from his truck. He didn’t use it, but I’ll never forget the fear that he would, how close he’d gotten. And in that moment, I did not cry as I was prone to do, but I pulled out a book, and experienced a profound disappearance, one that would always make me associate reading with escapism and healing.

Soon I came to write, filling up loose ruled paper with words, writing in the dark when we didn’t have money to pay for electricity. And as I got older, I began to think that there must be others who were going through this, too. I tried to find them. I created an anonymous blog that centered what it meant for a teenager to find joy even as her life was in shambles. In this blog I kept readers updated with what I was learning, nightly yoga to release tension from the day and affirmations in the morning to counter the shame that was mounting as a result of witnessing weekly my inability to make things better at home.

At that time, I felt uncertain about who I was because I was different online than I was at home or even at school where I was editor of my high school literary journal. It took me a while to understand that I was not the girl who hid in the corner making herself small; I was the one who sought to connect with others who were dealing with the same challenges at home, thinking that maybe in our isolation we could come together. I was able to make enough from my blog to pay some bills in the house and give my mom the courage to kick my stepfather out. When he exited our home, I felt a wind go through it, the house exhaling a giant sigh of relief.

I know this is not the typical background of most students. Sharing my story with like-minded teens helped me understand what I have to offer: my perspective, my unrelenting optimism. Because even as I’ve seen the dark side of what people are capable of, I have also been a star witness to joy and love. I do not experience despair for long because I know that this is just one chapter in a long novel, one that will change the hearts of those who come across it. And I can’t wait to see how it will end.

College essay example #10

This student was accepted at Yale University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Yale )

I was a straight A student until I got to high school, where my calm evenings cooking dinner for my siblings turned into hours watching videos, followed by the frantic attempt to finish homework around 4 am. When I got an F on a chemistry pop quiz my mom sat me down to ask me what was happening. I told her I couldn’t focus or keep track of all my materials for classes. I thought she would call me lazy, accuse me of wasting the gift of being an American that she and my father gave me. Instead, she looked around at the walls covered in sticky notes, the index cards scattered on the computer desk, the couch, the table, and she said, “How are your friends managing it?” 

It turned out while my peers were struggling to juggle the demands of high school it didn’t seem like they were working as hard to complete simple tasks. They only had to put things in a planner, not make sure the deadlines were placed in multiple locations, physical and digital. At my next doctor’s appointment my mom mentioned that I had a learning problem, but the doctor shook his head and said that I didn’t seem to have ADHD. I was just procrastinating, it’s natural.

My mom took off from her grocery store job to take me to two more appointments to ask about ADHD, the term the doctor had used, but other doctors were not willing to listen. I had As in every class except for World Literature. But I knew something was wrong. After our third doctor visit, I worked with the librarian after school to sift through research on ADHD and other learning disabilities until we came across the term executive functioning. Armed with knowledge, we went to a new doctor, and before my mom could insist that we get testing or get referred to a specialist, the doctor handed us a signed referral. She asked me about the folder in my hand. I told her it was full of my research. My mom mentioned that some doctors had refused to refer us to a specialist because my grades were too high. “It’s because we’re Asian,” she added. 

I was shocked at this revelation. The last three doctors had mumbled something about grades but had never said a thing about race. Before I could deny it fervently, the doctor, who was from Taiwan, nodded sympathetically. She said it’s common to miss learning disabilities among different races due to biases. And some adolescents learn to mask symptoms by building systems. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I believe you should get tested.” My mom thanked her fervently and the doctor said to her, “She’s going to be a great lawyer.”

The semester following the confirmation of my learning disability diagnosis was challenging to say the least. My school switched me out of all of my IB courses to “accommodate my special needs,” and I went back to the library, working with the librarian with numerous index cards and stacks of books to make a case for discrimination. The librarian, who had become my close confidante, introduced me to an academic tutor who specialized in learning disabilities and taught me skills like using redundancy and time management to make it easier for me to grapple with moving parts. He noted that with ADHD, the problem wasn’t always the inability to focus but rather the difficulty focusing without adequate perceived reward. It wasn’t that I was not capable but that I had to make myself sufficiently interested or reiterate why something mattered. This reframe changed my life, and when I came back to the library with my new schedule in hand, the most advanced courses my school had to offer, the librarian said, “You’re going to make a great lawyer.”

I smiled and said, “I’ve heard that before.”

College essay example #11

This student was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania.

My brother and I are exactly one year and one day apart. We look like twins — people confuse us — but we couldn’t be any more different. As children we wore the same clothes, received the same haircut. By the time we got to middle school it was clear that my older brother preferred quiet, indoor activities, while I was a born performer who preferred the theatrical, even when off stage. I took his relative silence to be disinterest and found it offensive. To the chagrin of my parents, we simply didn’t get along. 

I didn’t mind having a tense relationship with my brother because I was involved at school. In particular I delved into the world of musical theater in addition to regularly singing solos at our high school choir concerts. I spent hours after school preparing for shows. And when I came home, I practiced as well, falling into a rigorous routine I thought I needed to remain at my best and be competitive for parts. 

My bedroom was far enough from my parents so as not to disturb them, but space to practice became an issue with my brother because, well, we shared a room. Imagine him meditating on a window seat while I am belting, trying to sustain a high note. Needless to say, this created tension between us. From my point of view he could have meditated in the living room or while I was at practice, but he wasn’t willing to budge. From his point of view, high school was hard enough without the constant sound of Glee arrangements.

At the start of the semester, I practiced “Circle of Life” for a concert audition. While I could sing it fine in its original key, I had a hard time singing it along with the music because the arrangement of the song we were working on had a key change that was out of my range. I couldn’t change key without my voice cracking as I switched to a head voice. This was the first time I struggled to learn a song, and I was a week from the audition. I was irritable in that period and stopped practicing, declaring I had reached the height of my singing career. My brother experiencing quiet when I got home for the first time in years. 

After a couple days of this, when I got home, he asked me to join him in meditation. And feeling my anger at my inability to navigate this song gracefully, I did. It was difficult at first. I was trying to clear my head. Later my brother told me that wasn’t the point. When your mind drifts away, you simply come back, no judgment. I liked the sound of that, and it became my new philosophy. I kept trying at the song, no longer getting angry at myself, and just in time for the audition I was able to maintain power in my voice despite the key change. It was important for me to learn you don’t have to always get everything right the first time and that good things come with continual effort. As for my brother, we no longer argue. I now understand why he prefers the quiet. 

College essay example #12

This student was admitted to Brown University .

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Brown )

My parents are aerospace engineers, humble even as their work helps our society explore new frontiers. They believe that you make a stand through the work that you do, not what you say. This is what they taught me. This is what I believed until my sophomore year when I was confronted with a moment where I could not stay quiet. 

I live outside of a major city in a small, rural town that’s majority white but for a small South Asian population. My high school wasn’t diverse by any standards. Some students were openly the children of skinheads. After a racist exchange with a student who insulted her and refused to sit at the same lunch table, my best friend, who was Muslim, did not stand for the pledge of allegiance in homeroom the next day.

I hadn’t heard about the encounter that sparked this move on her part and was surprised when she didn’t stand up beside me, hand against her heart, mouth chanting an oath. She hadn’t mentioned any mounting discomfort to me, nor had I noticed anything. Unlike my “patriotic” peers, I was less upset by her refusal to stand up for the pledge of allegiance and more upset that she didn’t share with me that she was hurting and what she was going to do to protest how she was treated because of her beliefs and the color of her skin. 

She was suspended for insubordination and when I called her, she said that surely in this situation I might find a way to think of more than my own feelings. I felt ashamed. It didn’t even occur to me to seek to understand what was behind her decision in the first place. I apologized, asking how to best support her. She said it was just important that I listen and understand that she could not thrive in an environment that promoted sameness. She spoke to me with a vulnerability I had never heard before. At the end of our conversation, I apologized profusely. She said she did not need my words and what she needed from me was to take a stand.

This was the opposite of the belief my parents drilled in me. I felt conflicted at first, as if by speaking about the situation I was doing something wrong. However, my friend had to deal with a reality that I did not. And perhaps taking a stand would allow my institution and everyone in it to learn to be a more inclusive space for everyone. Maybe there was a way to take a stand and to do the necessary work to change things.

I started a petition with my friend’s permission to end her suspension and to take disciplinary action instead on the student who had taken racist actions in the first place. Of the 1000 students at my high school, over 200 signed, a number that far exceeded my expectation. When I shared the results with my friend, she said to me, “Because of who you are, you will always have supporters. Use your power to do good.”

Since then, I have tried to be more aware that not everyone experiences comfort in the same environments that I do. Rather than assume everyone feels safe and supported, it’s best to create space to listen and to ask how you can be supportive. My friend and I created a club to foster cross-cultural dialogue. In the past year two other clubs of its kind began at other local schools. More than anything I am proud that I have learned to be a better friend and a more thoughtful community member in a way that honors who I am and what I value.

College essay example #13

This is a college essay that worked for Washington University in St. Louis (WashU).

I held my breath as my steady hands gently nestled the crumbly roots of the lettuce plant into the soil trench that I shoveled moments before. Rainwater and sweat dripped from my brow as I meticulously patted and pressed the surrounding earth, stamping the leafy green creature into its new home. After rubbing the gritty soil off of my hands, I looked at Brian, a co-volunteer and nonverbal 20-year-old with autism, who extended his arm for a high-five. In the year that I’ve been working with him, I’ve watched him revel in planting, nurturing, and eventually harvesting his veggies, especially the grape tomatoes, which we enjoy eating fresh off the vine! Upon walking to the next row of hollowed cavities, we were not contemplating the lengthy work that lay ahead, but rather, we sought to liberate the helpless lettuces, imprisoned in produce cartons that were too small for them to grow in. Finally, after taking a step back to admire the day’s last plant, my chest swelled as a wave of contentment flushed through my body. 

My love for gardening began when I moved to Georgia during my sophomore year. In the time I’ve spent learning how to garden, I’ve developed an affinity for watching my vegetables grow to maturity, eager to be harvested and sold at the Saturday market. Though many see gardening as tedious busywork, I find it meditative, as I lose track of time while combining peat moss and soil in the garden’s compost mixer. Saturday morning garden work has become a weekend ritual, ridding me of all extraneous responsibilities. My body goes into autopilot as I let my mind wander. I don’t actively focus on focusing, but rather I observe myself internally digest the week’s events. I’m a bystander to fireworks of thought that explode in my mind as my perception of important matters becomes trivial. Sometimes, it’s the physics midterm that suddenly seems less daunting or the deadlines I need to meet for my Spanish project that push back farther. Other times, I contemplate alternative endings to conversations or make perfect sense of the calculus answer that was at the tip of my tongue in class. 

I met Brian, a close friend of mine who also basks in the tranquility of nature, through my gardening endeavors. While we aren’t able to communicate verbally, we speak the language of earth, water, peat, and seedlings. He doesn’t speak with words, but his face tells stories of newly found purpose and acceptance, a pleasant contrast to the typical condescension and babying he feels by those who don’t think he’s capable of independent thought. 

Throughout my time in the garden with Brian, I began to understand that he, like everyone, has a particular method of communicating. There are the obvious spoken languages, body languages, facial expressions, and interactions we share on a day-to-day basis that reflect who we are and communicate what we represent. Brian expresses himself through various manifestations of unspoken language that he uses to signal how he feels or what he wants. But the nuanced combinations of different methods of communicating are oftentimes overlooked, raising a barrier to mutual understanding that prevents one from being capable of truly connecting with others. I began to understand that in order to reach people, I have to speak in their language, be it verbally or otherwise. Working with Brian over the past year has made me more aware that people can have difficulty expressing themselves. I found that I can positively lead people if I can communicate with them, whether on the track or in my Jewish youth group discussions. As I move into the next phases of my life, I hope to bring these skills with me because, in order to effectuate positive change in my community, I learned that I must speak in the language of those around me. Those are the words Brian taught me.

College essay example #14

This student was accepted at Brown University.

It felt like I threw myself out of a plane without a parachute. My eyes firmly shut, I feared for my life as I plummeted towards the ground. In hindsight, perhaps half coming out at a public restaurant wasn’t the brightest idea. Then again, living as the half-closeted queer kid meant that I was all too familiar with intimidating situations.

I asked my mom: “What would you do if I had a girlfriend?” She instantly replied that she couldn’t understand. Immediately, my heart dropped and the emotional free fall began. She explained that Americans choose to be gay for personal enjoyment, which in my Korean culture is an attitude that is severely frowned upon. I sat there like a statue, motionless and afraid to speak, blindly hurtling towards a hard reality I hadn’t expected. Rejection cut me deeply and I started to feel the itch of tears welling in my eyes, yet I had to contain myself. I couldn’t let the pain seep through my facade or else she would question why I cared. All I could do was keep looking down and shoveling food into my mouth, silently wishing I could just disappear. That night, I realized it would be a long time before I could fully come out to my mom. My eyes tightened as I continued to fall.

In the following weeks, I started noticing how discomfort played a natural part in my life. I recognized the anxious reactions of my classmates as I argued with my Christian friends when they said my queerness is a sin. I observed the judgmental glances my mentors gave me as I passionately disagreed with my conservative lab mates over my sister’s abortion. Eventually, my friends decided to censor certain topics of discussion, trying to avoid these situations altogether. I felt like vulnerability was the new taboo. People’s expressions and actions seemed to confine me, telling me to stop caring so much, to keep my eyes closed as I fall, so they didn’t have to watch.

Had others felt uncomfortable with me in the same way I had felt uncomfortable with my mom? Do they feel that our passions might uncover a chasm into which we all fall, unsure of the outcome?

Perhaps it was too raw , too emotional .

There was something about pure, uncensored passion during conflict that became too real. It made me, and the people around me, vulnerable, which was frightening. It made us think about things we didn’t want to consider, things branded too political, too dangerous. Shielding ourselves in discomfort was simply an easier way of living.

However, I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t my comfort, but rather, my discomfort that defined my life. My memories aren’t filled with times where life was simple, but moments where I was conflicted. It is filled with unexpected dinners and unusual conversations where I was uncertain. It is filled with the uncensored versions of my beliefs and the beliefs of others. It is filled with a purity that I shouldn’t have detained.

Now, I look forward to tough conversations with a newfound willingness to learn and listen, with an appreciation for uncertainty. I urge others to explore our discomfort together and embrace the messy emotions that accompany it. I try to make our collective discomfort more navigable. Since that dinner, my relationship with my mother is still in free fall. It’s dangerous and frightening. Thankfully, the potentially perilous conversations I’ve had with my friends has given me a newfound appreciation for my own fear. I’ll admit, part of me still seeks to close my eyes, to hide in the safety I’ll find in silence. Yet, a larger part of me yearns to embrace the dangers around me as I fall through the sky. I may still be falling, but this time, I will open my eyes, and hopefully steer towards a better landing for both my mom and me.

THERE'S NO REASON TO STRUGGLE THROUGH THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS ALONE, ESPECIALLY WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE. SCHEDULE YOUR COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION TO ENSURE YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANCE.

What Does an Essay Look Like? Tips and Answers to Succeed

What does an essay look like? At a glance, the answer is obvious. An essay looks like a mere piece of paper (one page or several pages) with an organized text. It’s generally divided into five paragraphs, though there may be more. The essential essay structure includes:

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

• introduction;
• 2-3 body paragraphs;
• conclusion.

Yet, will this description help you write a good essay? We suppose not because this piece of paper “hides” many secrets inside!

Let our team give you more details and describe what a good essay looks like in reality. We’ll show the inside and out of this academic paper with a few tips on writing it.

📃 What Does an Essay Look Like on the Outside?

First of all, you should know that a good essay should look pretty. How can you do that? By following all the requirements set by your teacher or of a particular formatting style.

• What does an essay look like according to the teacher’s requirements? It is usually a paper with 1-inch margins on all sides typed using a 12 pt. standard font. Standard school and college essays have a five-paragraph format.
• What does an essay look like if it should be arranged according to a format? Depends on the format. MLA and APA are the most popular ones, but there are many more (Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, etc.). Besides, each of them has different editions. Before writing an essay, ensure that you understand what format is required.

You will also have to set up 1-inch margins, use a 12 pt. font and double spacing throughout the text. However, it is better to get a specific style manual for more details. You can also check our article about MLA or APA styles.

✒️ What Does an Essay Look like on the Inside?

What we mean is how the text itself should be organized. Its content relies on the task given and the paper’s type.

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

We recommend you follow the instructions and understand clearly what the tutor wants from you regarding the task. If you’re unsure, don’t hesitate to clarify before writing. Checking out some examples of academic essay writing would be helpful too.

The essay type defines the contents of your assignment, considerably affecting the main body of your text. To identify it, make sure you read the task well, and understand what the tutor asked you to do.

In other words:

Not everyone knows that what makes a good essay is how precisely you follow your essay guidelines. First, underline the keywords from your assignment that will help you in doing that. Then, complete the task.

Here is the list of the most common keywords:

Receive a plagiarism-free paper tailored to your instructions. Cut 20% off your first order!

• Agree/Disagree. Identify your position and think about a list of arguments that can support your point of view. It can help come up with an essay plan at this point because it will allow you not to deviate from your arguments.
• Analyze. Here, the college instructor or your school teacher wants to test your analytical abilities. They want to see if you can build bridges between the arguments and analyze the relationships between them.
• Compare. This keyword means that you need to demonstrate differences and similarities between problems, ideas, or concepts in your essay.
• Describe/Discuss. On a surface level, to describe is to examine an issue or an object in detail.
• Explain. Similarly, to explain is to tell why the things the way they are.
• Illustrate. Here, your teacher expects you to come up with some great examples to bring the topic alive.
• Interpret. If you find this keyword in your assignment, you should give your understanding of the matter. It should provide some interesting angles of looking at the topic.
• List/State. To write an essay with this keyword in the assignment, make a list of facts or points.
• Summarize. Your essay should focus on the main ideas and problems.

A typical essay structure is split into five paragraphs:

• Introduction: The goal of an introduction is to hook your reader. It sets a tone and prepares for what is yet to come. It is done through your thesis statement. You can start your introduction paragraph with a quote, a short joke, a question, or a historical reference. Don’t try to bring complicated terminology and wording into this part of your essay. Use clear sentences that are engaging and catchy for a high-quality essay introduction.
• Body Paragraphs: Think about this part of your essay as the essay base. Here, you are expected to prove your thesis and find an interesting approach to looking at it. You will have to restate your main idea again, provide evidence that proves it, analyze the evidence, and connect these ideas.
• Conclusion: A conclusion is the last part of your essay, which summarizes the arguments and explains the broader importance of the topic. In a way, a concluding paragraph should answer a “so what?” question. To have a clearer vision of what a conclusion for your essay may look like, you can put its text into a summary machine and see what comes out.

It is a standard structure that allows disclosing a topic properly, logically expressing all your ideas. What does an essay look like if you want to make it original? In this case, it will look like a paper with a couple of pictures, diagrams, or maps.

It is always useful to check some examples before getting down to work. Here you can check how 9th-grade essays should look like.

Thank you for reading this article. We hope you found it useful. Don’t forget to share it with your peers!

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

References:

• Essay Structure: Elizabeth Abrams, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
• General Essay Writing Tips: Essay Writing Center, International Student
• What is an Essay? How to Write a Good Essay: LibGuides at Bow Valley College
• Academic Essay Structures: Student Support Center Quick Tips, University of Minnesota
• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

Some students find writing literary analysis papers rather daunting. Yet, an English class cannot go without this kind of work. By the way, writing literary analysis essays is not that complicated as it seems at a glance. On the contrary, this work may be fascinating, and you have a chance...

These days, leadership and ability to work in a team are the skills that everybody should possess. It is impossible to cope with a large educational or work project alone. However, it can also be challenging to collaborate in a team. You might want to elaborate on importance and difficulties...

Racial profiling is not uncommon. It’s incredibly offensive and unfair behavior that causes most of the protests in support of people of color. It occurs when people are suspected of committing a crime based on their skin color or ethnicity. Unfortunately, most people are unaware that racial profiling is an everyday...

Without a doubt, a natural disaster essay is a tough paper to write. To begin with, when people encounter a disaster risk, it’s a tragedy. Emergency situations can affect hundreds, thousands, and millions of people. These are the crises and events that change people’s lives drastically. So, disaster and emergency...

“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say”Martin Luther There are a lot of other good quotations that can serve as a good beginning for your essay on responsibility and provide good ideas for writing.

Exemplification essays, which are also called illustration essays, are considered one of the easiest papers to write. However, even the easiest tasks require some experience and practice. So, if you are not experienced enough in writing exemplification essays, you will face certain challenges.

You push the snooze button once again and finally open your eyes. It is already 8:50, and your classes start at 9. “I’m going to be late again!”— you think, already in full panic mode. In a minute, you rush out the door half-dressed, swallowing your sandwich on the go.  ...

An essay about Harriet Tubman is to focus on the biography and accomplishments of a famous American abolitionist and political activist of the 19th century. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery, escaped it herself, and helped others escape it. She changed many jobs throughout her lifetime, being a housekeeper, a...

What is a documented essay and what is the purpose of it? It is a type of academic writing where the author develops an opinion relying on secondary resources. A documented essay can be assigned in school or college. You should incorporate arguments and facts from outside sources into the...

What is a reflexive essay? If you have just received the assignment and think there is a typo, you’re in the right place. Long story short, no, there is no mistake. You actually need to write a reflexive essay, not a reflective one. The thing is that reflective and reflexive...

Fairies and evil spirits, noble kings and queens, beautiful princesses and brave princes, mysterious castles and abandoned huts somewhere in a thick a wood… This is all about fairy tales. Fairy tales are always associated with childhood. Fairy tales always remind us that love rules the world and the Good...

Subjective or objective essay writing is a common task students have to deal with. On the initial stage of completing the assignment, you should learn how to differentiate these two types of papers. Their goals, methods, as well as language, tone, and voice, are different. A subjective essay focuses on...

I would like an essay to be written for me about Accepting Immigrants as a Citizen

Hello! Our experts will definitely help you with any task

I really don’t understand the connection been a topic and a thesis.

Hey Anna, It’s our pleasure to hear from you. A lot of students have difficulties understanding the connection between a topic and a thesis statement. That’s why we’ve created a super useful guide to cover all your questions. Or, you may want to check out the best examples of thesis statements here . We hope it helps. In case of any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Wonder, what does an essay look like! Read the post, and you’ll find the answer to your question and many tips to use in your paper.

It is a common question among first-year students: what does an essay look like and how to write it? You answer all the questions in full! Thank you very much for this!

Calculate for all schools

Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, what does a good college essay look like.

Can someone help me understand what admissions officers are actually looking for in a college essay? I'm kinda stressing because I want to write something that stands out but still sounds like 'me'. I hear a lot about showing personality and being memorable, but what does that look like in practice? Would really appreciate any tips or examples you guys might share!

Hey there! I totally understand the stress you're feeling - the college essay can seem like a huge task. In essence, admissions officers are looking for an authentic and compelling glimpse into who you are. The key is to share a story or experience that is unique to you, one that showcases your personality, your perspective, and your values. It's not just what you've done, but how you reflect on those experiences and what you've learned from them that counts.

For example, instead of saying you love to volunteer, delve into a specific moment during your volunteering that changed your view on something or helped you grow. The best essays often focus on small, personal stories that highlight bigger truths about you. Remember, the goal is to give them a reason to remember you among the thousands of essays they read. Also, don't shy away from your voice and writing style, as long as it's appropriate and polished; if you're naturally humorous, it's okay to be a bit funny, or if you're a deep thinker, dive into those reflections.

Don't forget, it's always a great idea to have others read your essay - a teacher, mentor, or someone whose writing you admire. They can provide valuable feedback on whether your 'voice' is coming through and if your essay is striking the right note. Best of luck - you've got this!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

• Plan for College and Career
• Take the ACT
• School and District Assessment
• Career-Ready Solutions
• Students & Parents
• Open Search Form
• College and Career Readiness
• Succeed in High School
• Popular Downloads
• Testing Advice for the ACT
• High School Resources
• What to Do After High School
• Prepare for College
• Most Popular Downloads
• Applying to College
• Choosing a College
• Paying for College
• College Life
• Career Planning
• Starting Your Career
• Recursos para estudiantes y padres
• Consejos de prueba para el ACT
• Planificación universitaria y profesional
• Aplicar a la universidad
• Vida de la escuela secundaria
• Pagar la universidad
• Vida universitaria

Other ACT Services and Products

How to Find Scholarships

How to get scholarships.

Scholarships are a type of financial aid awarded to students based on academic achievements, athletic skills, community involvement, financial need, or other considerations. Earning scholarships can help make college more accessible and affordable. Dive into our guide for an overview of how to find and apply for scholarships to ease the financial burden of college. 

Understanding Scholarships

Several types of scholarships are available, such as merit-based aid, skill-based, and need-based aid. Every scholarship comes with unique requirements to both receive and keep the funds. Be sure to carefully read the scholarship eligibility requirements, application process, and other details before applying.

Do you have to pay back scholarships? 

College scholarships are a type of financial assistance that you won't need to repay. It’s essentially free money given to help cover your educational expenses like tuition, housing, class supplies, and more. This makes them an excellent option for students looking to reduce the cost of college without worrying about student loan debt. 

How do scholarships differ from grants?

While both grants and scholarships offer financial aid for college, they differ in several important ways. Scholarships are usually merit-based, meaning they're awarded based on achievements like academic excellence, athletic skills, or involvement in community service or clubs. They're often provided by private organizations, colleges, or individuals.

On the other hand, grants are typically need-based and awarded to students who demonstrate a financial need. They are often provided by either state or federal government sources. A well-known example of a government-backed grant is the Pell Grant, which is federal aid given to undergraduate students with significant financial need.

You can visit the official Pell Grants page for more detailed information. This resource details qualifications, application processes, and how Federal Student Aid can help fund your college education. 

Why You Should Apply for Scholarships

Scholarships are an important tool for making your college education more affordable. Despite what many think, there's actually a lot of unclaimed scholarship money out there every year. According to the National Scholarship Providers Association (NSPA), about $100 million worth of scholarships are not awarded annually, mainly because students do not apply for them.

With so many available scholarships going unclaimed, it's important to explore your options thoroughly. Doing well on standardized tests like the ACT is one way to enhance your chances of tapping into this unclaimed scholarship pool. Actively seeking out and applying for scholarships can increase your likelihood of receiving financial support, which not only eases the financial strain of college but also supports your academic and personal growth, smoothing the path to a brighter and more secure future.

Typical application requirements for scholarships

When applying for scholarships, students must meet a variety of requirements to be considered for aid. Common requirements include:

• Academic performance: Keeping up a certain GPA or academic level.
• Extracurricular activities: Being active in clubs, sports, or community service projects.
• Standardized test scores: Some scholarships ask for scores from tests like the ACT to measure your academic readiness.
• Essays: Crafting an essay that reflects your personal achievements or aspirations.
• Letters of recommendation: Securing support from teachers or mentors who can speak to your character and achievements.
• Financial need evidence: Showing that you require financial support to pursue your education. Often this requires you to submit your FAFSA.
• Unique qualifications: Adhering to specific conditions outlined by the scholarship, like studying in a certain field or identifying with a particular demographic. 

Will all scholarships require an essay?

How to find scholarships.

While earning a scholarship isn't guaranteed, there are several steps you can take to increase your chances of securing these valuable funds. Focus on the factors within your control such as timing, research, preparation, organization, and commitment. Taking your scholarship search seriously can help you tremendously in the long run.

Start the process early

It's important to start your scholarship application process as early as possible. Studentaid.gov suggests getting a head start on your research and applications during the summer between junior and senior years of high school. Starting the process early gives you ample time to find opportunities, meet deadlines, and prepare stronger applications.

Utilize scholarship searches

Various lists and resources are available that specialize in helping you find scholarships that fit your needs. One notable option is the  ACT free scholarship list , which includes more than 80 scholarships that require an ACT score. The Department of Labor also provides information for over 9,500 scholarships on their sponsored  scholarship finder . These searches can help you discover a wide range of opportunities that align with your specific academic and extracurricular achievements.

Check local scholarships

Students should also focus on local scholarships, which often have fewer applicants and higher chances of winning compared to larger, national scholarships. Check with local businesses, community and religious organizations, clubs, and your school counselor if they offer any scholarship opportunities. Often the scholarship details and application can be found on their website. You might also consider searching for scholarships through word of mouth, community Facebook pages, or local newspapers

Apply for several scholarships

Increase your chances of receiving financial aid by applying for multiple scholarships. Each application improves your likelihood of success, broadening your range of opportunities. You can enhance your chances for securing a scholarship by applying for a range of scholarship types from many different sources. 

Look out for fake scholarships

Students and parents need to be vigilant to identify fake scholarships. Warning signs include requests for personal financial information or payments, such as application fees or processing charges, no past recipients mentioned, or saying you won a scholarship you don’t recall applying for. Legitimate scholarships will never ask for money or sensitive personal financial details as part of the application process. 

How to apply for scholarships

The process of applying for scholarships will largely depend on the type of scholarship you're pursuing, but several standard steps are involved in most applications. Understanding and following these common steps can help you collect and prepare the documents you’ll need when applying. Here are some ways in which the process may differ:

• Eligibility criteria: Some scholarships are open to all students, while others may target specific groups, such as students pursuing certain majors, belonging to certain demographic groups, or having specific talents or interests. 
• Application requirements: While some scholarships may require essays, others might request video submissions, artistic portfolios, or project proposals, depending on the criteria. 
• Submission method: Methods range from online forms to mail-in or even in-person presentations. Be sure to adapt your approach based on each scholarship’s guidelines. 
• Selection process: Each scholarship committee will assess candidates based on what was submitted. Recipients are typically students who had a well-rounded application, met all the criteria outlines, and demonstrated their readiness for college. 
• ​​ Financial need assessment: Some scholarships are merit-based and don't consider financial need, while others may require financial information and a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to determine need-based eligibility. 
• Recommendation letters: Some scholarships might ask for multiple letters of recommendation from a teacher, mentor, or community leader.  
• Deadlines: Deadlines can vary significantly. Some scholarships offer multiple application rounds, while others may be once-a-year chances. 

​​It's important to keep track of deadlines for each scholarship and submit your applications promptly, as late submissions can disqualify you even if you’re an outstanding candidate. Try using an online calendar or planner specifically for scholarship deadlines to stay organized and ensure you never miss a submission date. You can also keep a digital folder with all your scholarship materials —essays, recommendation letters, transcripts, and any other required documents. This makes it easier to tailor each application without starting from scratch. 

Explore more resources to help pay for college

To learn more about paying for college and managing your expenses, check out some  additional resources  that offer helpful tips and advice. Starting to look for scholarships that match your interests early in high school gives you plenty of time to set your goals and plan how to achieve them. 

This action will open a new window. Do you want to proceed?

Welcome to ACT

If you are accessing this site from outside the United States, Puerto Rico, or U.S. Territories, please proceed to the non-U.S. version of our website.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 7 things that really look good on a college application.

College Admissions , College Info

What looks good on a college application? It's the question nearly every high school student will ask at some point while applying to college. But is there a clear answer?

Fortunately, the answer is yes! Read on to learn what colleges look for in applicants, what looks really good on a college application, and what kinds of myths there are about good things to put on a college application.

What Are Colleges Looking for in Applicants?

Everyone applying to college has wondered, "What exactly are colleges looking for in applicants?" In other words, what looks good on a college application?

While all colleges are different, of course, with some valuing certain qualities or skills more or less than other schools, all colleges generally look for smart, studious, ambitious, and passionate students.

Therefore, your college application should emphasize your best, most impressive qualities. For example, if you play the violin and want to study music in college, you'll want to touch on this interest you have in different areas of your application.

A good college application will also showcase your sincere interest in the school. You wouldn't be applying to a college unless you had a reason to want to go there, right? Make sure to explain (especially if you need to write a "Why This College" essay ) exactly how you became interested in the school and why you think it's a good fit for you and your goals.

You don't need to be the next Marie Curie or Stephen Hawking, but you should be open to new opportunities and willing to challenge yourself.

Overall, the basic point of a college application is to make you stand out from other applicants in a positive, memorable, and unique way.

This fact is especially important in light of how many first-year applications colleges receive each year. According to the 2019 report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) , the number of first-year applications received by US colleges increased by 6% from fall 2017 to fall 2018.

The report found that "the average number of applications for each admission office staff member (excluding administrative staff) for the Fall 2017 admission cycle was 1,035 for public institutions and 461 for private institutions."

These trends indicate that your application will definitely need to leave a lasting impression on the admissions committee if you hope to get into that school.

The degree by which you must stand out from other applicants will depend on how selective a particular school is. In general, the more selective a college is, the more impressive and unique your application will have to be.

Finally, what looks good on an application will vary depending on the college and what the college values. For instance, at colleges that don't place a big emphasis on standardized tests, a high SAT score likely won't be much of a factor in admissions.

This is just a general overview of what colleges look for in applicants. So what looks really good on a college application? Up next, we look at the specific qualities you should strive to include on your application so you can raise your chances of getting accepted.

What Looks Good on a College Application? 7 Key Elements

In addition to key personality traits, such as ambition, passion, genuine interest, and academic curiosity, what looks really good on a college application?

In general, a great application will have most or all of the following elements:

• A high GPA (relative to what admitted students have) and a rigorous curriculum
• Strong test scores (relative to what admitted students have)
• A specific, honest, and well-written personal statement and/or essays
• A unique extracurricular interest or passion (a "spike," as we like to call it)
• Volunteering experience with measurable impact
• Compelling letters of recommendation written on your behalf
• Work experience, particularly jobs related to your academic or professional interests

It's OK if you don't have every single quality listed above, but if you do, your chances of getting accepted to the college of your dreams will go way up!

Now then, let's take a look at each of these qualities in more detail.

#1: Excellent Grades in Challenging Courses

The first important part of the college application is the transcript, which consists of your GPA and the names and types of classes you've taken in high school.

Most people believe a high GPA (the definition of which can vary at different colleges) will make an application stronger. And this is true!

According to NACAC, 75% of colleges ranked grades in high school classes considerably important. In fact, this factor was ranked the most important of any in the report.

What's truly important, though, isn't that you simply have a high GPA overall but rather that you have a GPA that's higher than the average GPA of admitted students at the college you're applying to.

To find a college's average GPA, search "[School Name] PrepScholar admission requirements" on Google and then click our database link to that school. This page will show you what the school's average GPA is, in addition to other admission requirements.

For example, if you want to apply to Notre Dame, you would search for "Notre Dame PrepScholar admission requirements" and click the link to our Notre Dame admission reqs page , which looks like this:

As you can see, Notre Dame's average (weighted) GPA for admitted applicants is 4.06. As a result, if you're applying here, you'll want to have a GPA of at least 4.06, preferably higher so you will be an above-average applicant.

It's not just about getting a high GPA, though; you must also take a range of challenging courses throughout high school if you really wish to impress an admissions committee. According to the NACAC report, 73 percent of colleges rated grades in college prep courses as considerably important. This means you'll want to take not just basic-level classes but also some AP, honors, and/or IB courses, particularly in subjects you are good at and might want to continue to study in college or major in.

The 2019 NACAC report found that a whopping 84% of colleges ranked an applicant's rigor of curriculum moderately or considerably important.

Think about it: though a perfect 4.0 might look great at an initial glance, if you got this high GPA by only taking the easiest classes available and didn't challenge yourself with higher-level coursework, your transcripts aren't likely to impress college admissions officers that much.

Even if you started high school with lower grades, an upward grade trend is a great point to emphasize on your application. This suggests that you're capable of bouncing back from any difficulties you might face and are willing to put in the work necessary for excelling in college.

#2: High Test Scores

Test scores, mainly SAT/ACT scores, are another key part of college applications (unless, of course, you're applying to colleges that don't require test scores ).

On the NACAC report, 83% of colleges believe admission test scores are at least moderately important. This is why it's vital that you try to get as high an SAT/ACT score as you can, ideally one in at least the 75th percentile for your colleges.

The 75th percentile means that 75% of admitted students at a particular school achieved this score or lower. Reaching (or surpassing) this threshold means that you're scoring higher than most other admitted applicants are—and well above that college's average score.

To find the middle 50% (that is, the 25th and 75th percentile SAT/ACT scores) for a school, search on Google for "[School Name] PrepScholar admission requirements." Click the link to our page for the school to see its requirements, including its average SAT/ACT scores.

For example, say you're planning to apply to NYU. Here's what the SAT scores section on NYU's PrepScholar admission reqs page looks like:

Here, we can see the average SAT score for NYU is 1440—that's pretty high, in the 95th percentile nationally !

To really stand out as an applicant, though, you'll want to aim for at least the 75th percentile. For NYU, that's 1510, which corresponds to the 98th percentile, or the top 1% of test takers.

Since you're likely applying to more than just one school, you'll need to set an SAT / ACT goal score , that is, a score high enough to get you into all the colleges you're applying to.

To set a goal score, start by making a chart of all the schools you're applying to. You can make your own chart or download a blank template .

Below is a sample SAT goal score chart:

Next, look up the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores for each of the schools you're applying to using our PrepScholar admission requirements pages. (Follow the steps above for NYU to learn how to do this.)

Once you've got these scores, write them in your chart as so:

Now, look at all the 75th percentile scores in your chart. The highest score will be your goal score, as this is the one most likely to get you into all the schools you're applying to.

With our example chart, the highest score is 1480, or the 75th percentile score for the University of Illinois and UW Wisconsin. By getting a 1480 or higher, you'll be getting an impressive score not just for these two schools, school but also for Marquette and MSU, thereby raising your chances of getting into all colleges you're applying to.

#3: Sincere, Specific, and Well-Written Essays

The personal statement is an important part of your college application as it's one of the only areas where you can really showcase your personality.

According to the 2019 NACAC survey, 56% of schools consider application essays moderately or considerably important. While some colleges don't require essays , those that do usually place at least moderate importance on them.

So how can you ensure your essay will impress the admissions committee? Generally, colleges are looking for three main qualities in a personal essay:

• Honesty: What you write about should have actually happened to you and should be how you actually feel. Exaggerating details and outright lying are big no-nos here!
• Specificity: Using concrete details to effectively convey your thoughts, views, and experiences will make your essay a lot more memorable, personable, and—most importantly—unique.
• Eloquence: Don't expect to get accepted anywhere if your essay is poorly written and full of grammar and spelling errors. A great personal statement has a sensible organization, tells a compelling story, and is completely free of technical errors.

Below are some steps you can take to guarantee that your essay will have all three qualities.

Step 1: Brainstorm Significant Moments From Your Life

What you write about for your college essay will vary depending on the prompt(s) you're given from your school or the prompt you choose (for example, the Common App and Coalition App allow you to choose from among several prompts for your essay).

In general, you'll want to pick a topic that meets the following criteria:

• It really happened and was significant to you: If you're writing about a specific incident, it should be something that actually happened and that had a large impact on how you define yourself, your goals, and/or your interests.
• It's specific and interesting: Don't write about a broad, universal topic that can apply to tons of other applicants as well. Instead, focus on an event, issue, person, or struggle that's unique to you and your life.
• It reveals something important about you: The essay is meant to highlight something you think the admissions committee should know about you, such as a personality trait you have, how you overcame some sort of challenge, or how you became interested in a field of study.
• It has a positive lean: While you don't need to pick a topic that's overly light or cheery, it should still have an ultimately positive lean that reveals something good about you rather than something bad, controversial, or immoral.

Step 2: Write Your Essay

The next step is to actually begin writing your essay. Don't worry too much about grammar and flow at this point; just get down your ideas and start deciding which details and examples might work well in your essay.

As you write, remember to channel your inner voice. This essay should sound like the real you, not an imitation of what you think colleges want to hear. So if you're the sarcastic type, you might want to include a joke or two, for instance. Don't forget that the essay is a way for the admissions committee to learn more about you, so don't shy away from your true self!

On that same note, it's OK to get creative here. The essay isn't an academic essay you'd write for English class—it's a story. Feel free to inject your writing with various literary techniques , such as a non-chronological organization, realistic dialogue, and memorable imagery.

Lastly, make sure you're sufficiently answering the prompt and are abiding by all technical requirements (such as length). You can check a college's essay requirements by referring to its application requirements page or by reading the instructions on the Common App, Coalition App, or Universal College App websites (if submitting your application through one of these platforms).

An essay that's too long might get cut off when you submit it electronically, so be sure it adheres to all the requirements.

Step 3: Edit and Proofread Several Times

Once you have a rough draft of your college essay, it's time to polish it up for submission.

The best way to edit is to put your essay away for a few days. This will give you some distance away from your writing, allowing you to look back at your essay later with a fresher perspective.

As you reread your essay, mark any areas in it that are unclear, awkward, or irrelevant to the main point you're trying to make with it. You should also correct any obvious typos or errors, such as mistakes in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

Once you've done this process a few times, give your essay to someone to read. Ideally, this will be a person you trust, such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or tutor. Have the person you choose offer clear feedback on your essay and check that you've met all requirements. Edit your essay as needed in accordance with the comments you get.

After you've finished all of this, you should now have a perfect college essay to submit with your application!

#4: A Spike in Your Extracurriculars

Almost every college will want to know what kinds of extracurricular activities you do or have done in your spare time.

Indeed, 49% of colleges surveyed regard students' extracurricular activities moderately or considerably important. Ask yourself: what are your interests outside of school and how do you engage in them?

The trick here is to provide not a list of all the random activities you've done but rather a detailed overview of one to two of your most passionate interests and any big achievements you've made in them.

In other words, you need to figure out what your "spike" is, a concept which PrepScholar co-founder and Harvard alum Allen Cheng describes in his expert guide on how to get into the Ivy League .

To put it simply, a spike is deep accomplishment in and knowledge of a particular field.

As an example, say you plan to major in biology. You'll stand out as an applicant if you have tons of biology- or science-related experiences under your belt. Maybe you're part of your school's biology club, or maybe you volunteered at a local research lab, which taught you the basics of handling lab equipment.

In addition to having a variety of experiences and sufficient background knowledge in the field, you want to highlight any relevant major accomplishments you have. For instance, maybe you won a science fair your sophomore year of high school; most recently, you submitted an award-winning invention idea to a national science contest. All of these accomplishments illustrate your deep accomplishment and knowledge in the field of science!

As you can see, this concept of the spike is the opposite of being well rounded, which most students assume they need to be (read the next section to learn more about this myth).

If you're not sure what your spike is just yet, take some time to try out new activities and explore any interests you have, both in and outside of school. Over time you should start to get a feel for what you're passionate about and what you can see yourself committing to in the future.

#5: Compelling Letters of Recommendation

Most colleges require at least one letter of recommendation from either your high school counselor or a high school teacher (or both).

The 2019 NACAC survey indicates that 54% of colleges consider teacher recommendations at least moderately important, while a higher 55% consider counselor recommendations the same. Therefore, we can say it's pretty important to secure great recommendation letters for your application.

If you're asking for a letter from a teacher , make sure to choose someone whose class you got a high grade in (ideally an A) and who is familiar with your abilities, ambitions, and interests. Typically, you'll need to submit at least one letter from a teacher who taught a core class (so math, English, science, or social studies/history).

It's a good idea to also get a letter from a teacher who works in the field you plan to major in. So if you got an A in AP English and plan to major in English, asking that teacher for a recommendation letter would give a great boost to your application.

While you don't have to be best buddies with the teacher you ask, they should definitely know you well , beyond the classroom, so they can effectively explain to admissions committees what makes you special, that is, what makes you worth admitting.

For example, if you did research with a particular teacher, are part of a club this teacher coaches or leads, or helped out this teacher with a project, this would be a good person to ask to write a letter for you.

Once you've secured a recommendation letter writer, be sure to provide them with any materials or information they might need to help them craft a compelling letter .

#6: Volunteering Experience With Measurable Impact

Colleges love it when an applicant has not simply volunteered but has also made a measurable impact with their volunteering efforts. What does this mean exactly? If you have volunteered somewhere or for an organization, your assistance should have resulted in a noticeable, positive change to the group, community, or area you were aiming to help.

For instance, say you volunteered at a local library. Maybe the library was struggling to get funds to continue operating, and you came up with the idea to hold a 24-hour reading marathon in order to raise money. The fundraiser ended up making more than $5,000, a figure that would be a concrete indicator of the positive impact your service had on the library. With your college application, then, you could specifically mention how your initiative allowed the library to remain open.

Note that you don't need to have assumed a leadership role in order to have made a positive impact through your service. That said, college admissions committees are often very big fans of students who show evidence of their budding leadership skills.

#7: (Relevant) Work Experience

Although you're certainly not required to work a part-time job in high school, having some work experience on your college applications, especially any jobs that are related to what you want to study or do professionally, will help you stand out in a positive way.

Even if your job isn't connected to a long-term academic or career goal you have, any (part-time) work experience you have will be great to put down on your application because it emphasizes your sense of responsibility, maturity, and willingness to work for your goals, key qualities that are usually considered important for success in college.

Also, if you have any room on the application to elaborate on your job, I suggest explaining why you initially took the job and what values or skills it's taught you, such as the importance of responsibility or how to work with certain equipment that you'll likely use again in the future.

4 Myths About What Looks Good on a College Application

What looks really good on a college application? Many students think they know, but the truth is that there are a lot of myths out there about what you should include on your application.

Below, we introduce to you the top four myths about what looks good on college applications.

Myth 1: Being Well Rounded Is Critical for Success

One of the most pervasive myths out there about what looks good on a college application is the idea of being well rounded.

Many students assume they'll need to have tons of extracurricular activities on their applications; this, they believe, will emphasize their array of interests as well as their knowledge of a variety of fields. But all this really tells admissions committees is that you're stretching yourself too thin and (most likely) lack focus on a specific endeavor in your life.

What colleges actually want to see is a spike, that is, a single passion. This allows colleges to get a clearer feel for who you are, what you're interested in, and what your goals are. Having a spike lets you stand out in a truly meaningful way, whereas being well rounded will make you forgettable and seem too similar to other applicants.

Spikes are especially important at highly selective colleges and universities , such as Harvard, Yale, and other Ivy League-level schools . You can read more about how to develop a spike in our guide to getting into the Ivy League . Alternatively, if you're interested in pursuing education at a liberal arts school , check out our article on how to figure out what to go to college for .

Myth 2: Essays Aren't That Important

After Time published a 2014 article on why college application essays don't actually matter all that much , students began to fear that all their hard work on their statements wouldn't mean much in the end, if at all.

But while some colleges don't require personal essays , most colleges do require at least one or two essays—and will place a decent amount of emphasis on it, especially if it is being used as a deciding factor between two otherwise equally qualified applicants.

Even though you should approach the essay seriously, it's still generally rare for an exceptionally well-written essay to make up for tons of low grades and poor test scores. On the flip side, if you have a great application but a badly written essay, that essay alone could get you rejected!

Therefore, make sure that you are following all the steps listed above so you can craft the perfect statement for your application.

Myth 3: An A in an Easy Class Is Better Than a B in a Hard Class

Many students believe it's better to stick to the classes you know you'll get As in, but this piece of advice is misguided when it comes to college applications.

In general, colleges prefer students who challenge themselves by taking an array of difficult classes, such as AP and honors classes. And you don't have to get perfect grades in them. If you get a B in a tough AP class, for example, this will emphasize to the admissions committee that you are willing to take on new challenges and test your limits, traits that are necessary for succeeding in and after college.

On the other hand, getting As in all easy classes, though not totally unimpressive, is not nearly as interesting to colleges, as it suggests you're unwilling to push yourself and further hone your higher-level critical thinking skills.

All of this being said, try to avoid getting very low grades in any classes you take (regular or honors/AP). C and D grades obviously won't look great to an admissions committee, even if you got these grades while challenging yourself in AP classes.

If you can't get at least a B or B+ in a difficult class, it'll probably be better for you to drop it and switch to either the regular version of that class or an entirely different class altogether.

Myth 4: Only Perfect Applicants Get Admitted

Many students assume that if they have one little flaw in their application, such as a below-average test score or slightly low grade in a class, their chances of getting admitted to college will be slim to none.

This just isn't true.

Yes, a very low test score or a very poor transcript may cause you to get rejected from a college, but many colleges use a holistic admission process, meaning they look at and consider each individual applicant as a whole. So even if your application has a not-so-stellar component on it, this doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a reject.

In fact, at particularly selective colleges, such as the Ivy League , you'll often hear of cases in which ostensibly "perfect" applicants got rejected. This is most likely because they didn't have a spike in their applications (i.e., something that made them stand out).

Overall, just try your best to produce the best application you can, and then hope for a good result!

Takeaways: What Looks Good on a College Application

Applying to college is tough, and knowing what to put on your applications to make yourself stand out is even tougher. What looks really good on a college application?

Generally speaking, colleges want to see your passion, intellectual curiosity, willingness to challenge yourself, and academic accomplishments.

More specifically, though, colleges typically prefer applicants who have most or all of the following characteristics:

• Good grades and a challenging course load
• Strong test scores
• Honest, specific, and eloquent essays
• A spike in your extracurricular activities
• Compelling letters of recommendation
• Volunteer experience with clear impact on the groups or places you've helped
• Any relevant or impactful work experience

Finally, as you apply to college and try to think of good things to put on a college application, make sure you're aware of the following truths about the application process:

• It's better to have a spike than to be well rounded
• Essays are important!
• A B in a hard course is more impressive than an A in an easy course
• You can still get into your dream school even if your application isn't perfect

What's Next?

A great college application will get you admitted. Use our college acceptance calculator to get an estimated percentage of your chance of getting into your dream school, based on your SAT or ACT score and GPA.

One thing a great college application can have is a high SAT or ACT score. Get expert tips in our guides on how to get a perfect 36 on the ACT and how to get a perfect 1600 on the SAT .

Need help figuring out which colleges to apply to? Our guide teaches you how to narrow down your college choices so that you're applying to the best schools for you.

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

• Share full article

For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio , a new iOS app available for news subscribers.

How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall

Elon musk’s factory in china saved his company and made him ultrarich. now, it may backfire..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, the story of how China gave Tesla a lifeline that saved the company — and how that lifeline has now given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game. My colleague, Mara Hvistendahl, explains.

It’s Tuesday, April 9.

So, Mara, you’ve spent the past four months investigating Elon Musk and his ties to China through his company, Tesla. Tell us why.

Well, a lot of American companies are heavily invested in China, but Tesla’s kind of special. As my colleagues and I started talking to sources, we realized that many people felt that China played a crucial role in rescuing the company at a critical moment when it was on the brink of failure and that China helps account for Tesla’s success, for making it the most valuable car company in the world today, and for making Elon Musk ultra rich.

That’s super intriguing. So maybe take us back to the beginning. When does the story start?

So the story starts in the mid 2010s. Tesla had been this company that had all this hype around it. But —

A lot of people were shocked by Tesla’s earnings report. Not only did they make a lot less money than expected, they’re also making a lot less cars.

Tesla was struggling.

The delivery of the Model 3 has been delayed yet again.

Tesla engineers are saying 40 percent of the parts made at the Fremont factory need reworking.

At the time, they made their cars in Fremont, California, and they were facing production delays.

Tesla is confirming that Cal/OSHA is investigating the company over concerns over workplace safety.

Elon Musk has instituted a kind of famously grueling work culture at the factory, and that did not go over well with California labor law.

The federal government now has four active investigations involving Tesla.

They were clashing with regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate a second crash involving Tesla’s autopilot system.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk — friends are really concerned about him. That’s what Musk told “The New York Times.”

And by 2018, he was having all of these crises.

According to “The Times,” Musk choked up multiple times and struggled to maintain his composure during an hour-long interview about turmoil at his electric car company, Tesla.

So all of this kind of converged to put immense pressure on him to do something.

And where does China come in?

Well, setting up a factory in China, in a way, would solve some of these problems for Musk. Labor costs were lower. Workers couldn’t unionize there. China provided access to this steady supply of cheaper parts. So Elon Musk was set on going to China. But first, Tesla and Musk wanted to change a key policy in China.

Hmm, what kind of policy?

So they wanted China to adopt a policy that was aimed at lowering car emissions. And the idea was that it would be modeled after a similar policy in California that had benefited Tesla there.

OK, so explain what that policy actually did. And how did it benefit Tesla?

So California had this system called the Zero-Emission Vehicle program. And that was designed to encourage companies to make cleaner cars, including electric vehicles. And they did that by setting pollution targets. So companies that made a lot of clean cars got credits. And then companies that failed to meet those targets, that produced too many gas-guzzling cars, would have to buy credits from the cleaner companies.

So California is trying to incentivize companies to make cleaner cars by forcing the traditional carmakers to pay cleaner car makers, which basically means dirtier car makers are effectively subsidizing cleaner cars.

Yes, that’s right. And Tesla, as a company that came along just making EVs, profited immensely from this system. And in its early years, when Tesla was really struggling to stay afloat, the money that it earned from selling credits in California to polluting car companies were absolutely crucial, so much so that the company structured a lot of its lobbying efforts around this system, around preserving these credits. And we talked to a former regulator who said as much.

How much money are we talking about here?

So from 2008, when Tesla unveiled its first car, up until the end of last year, Tesla made almost $4 billion by selling credits in California.

Wow. So Musk basically wants China to recreate this California-style program, which was incredibly lucrative for Tesla, there. And they’re basically holding that up as a condition to their building a factory in China.

Right. And at this point in the story, an interesting alliance emerges. Because it wasn’t just Tesla that wanted this emissions program in China. It was also environmentalists from California who had seen the success of the program up close in their own state.

If you go back to that period, to the early 2010s, I was living in China at the time in Beijing and Shanghai. And it was incredibly polluted. We called it airpocalypse at times. I had my first child in China at that point. And as soon as it was safe to put a baby mask on her, we put a little baby mask on her. There were days where people just would try to avoid going outside because it was so polluted. And some of the pollution was actually wafting across the Pacific Ocean to California.

Wow, so California is experiencing that Chinese air pollution firsthand and, in a way, has a direct stake in lowering it.

That’s right. So Governor Jerry Brown, for example — this became kind of his signature issue, was working with China to clean up the environment, in part by exporting this emission scheme. It was also an era of a lot more US-China cooperation. China was seen as absolutely crucial to combating climate change.

So you had all these groups working to get this California emissions scheme exported to China — and the governor’s office and environmental groups and Tesla. And it worked. In 2017, China did adopt a system that was modeled after California’s.

It’s pretty incredible. So California basically exports its emissions-trading system to China, which I imagine at the time was a big win for Californian environmentalists. But it was also a big win for Tesla.

It was definitely a big win for Tesla. And we know that in just a few years Tesla, made almost $1 billion from the emissions-trading program he helped lobby for in China.

So Elon Musk goes on, builds a factory in China. And he does so in Shanghai, where he builds a close relationship with the top official in the city, who actually is now the number-two official in all of China, Li Qiang.

So according to Chinese state media, Elon Musk actually proposed building the factory in two years, which would be fast. And Li came back and proposed that they do it in one year, which — things go up really quickly in China. But even for China, this is incredibly fast. And they broke ground on the factory in January 2019. And by the end of the year, cars were rolling off the line. So then in January 2020, Musk was able to get up on stage in Shanghai and unveil the first Chinese-made Teslas.

Really want to thank the Tesla team and the government officials that have been really helpful in making this happen.

Next to him on stage is Tesla’s top lobbyist who helped push through some of these changes.

Thank you. Yeah, everybody can tell Elon’s super, super happy today.

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

And she says —

Music, please.

Cue the music. [UPBEAT MUSIC]

And he actually broke into dance. He was so happy, a kind of awkward dance.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

And what is the factory like?

The Shanghai factory is huge. 20,000 people work there. Tesla’s factories around the world tend to be pretty large, but the Shanghai workers work more shifts. And when Tesla set up in China, Chinese banks ended up offering Tesla $1.5 billion in low-interest loans. They got a preferential tax rate in Shanghai.

This deal was so generous that one auto industry official we talked to said that a government minister had actually lamented that they were giving Tesla too much. And it is an incredibly productive factory. It’s now the flagship export factory for Tesla.

So it opens in late 2019. And that’s, of course, the time when the pandemic hits.

Yes. I mean, you might think that this is really poor timing for Elon Musk. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. In fact, Tesla’s factory in Shanghai was closed for only around two weeks, whereas the factory in Fremont was closed for around two months.

That’s a big difference.

Yes, and it really, really mattered to Elon Musk. If you can think back to 2020, you might recall that he was railing against California politicians for closing his factory. In China, the factory stayed open. Workers were working around the clock. And Elon Musk said on a podcast —

China rocks, in my opinion.

— China rocks.

There’s a lot of smart, hardworking people. And they’re not entitled. They’re not complacent, whereas I see —

We’ve seen a lot of momentum and enthusiasm for electric vehicles, stocks, and Tesla certainly leading the charge.

Tesla’s stock price kept going up.

Tesla has become just the fifth company to reach a trillion-dollar valuation. The massive valuation happened after Tesla’s stock price hit an all-time high of more than $1,000.

So this company that had just a few years earlier been on the brink of failure, looking to China for a lifeline, was suddenly riding high. And —

Tesla is now the most valuable car company in the world. It’s worth more than General Motors, Ford, Fiat, Chrysler.

By the summer, it had become the most valuable car company in the world.

Guess what? Elon Musk is now the world’s richest man.

“Forbes” says he’s worth more than $255 billion.

And Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock. And in the following year, he became the wealthiest man in the world.

So you have this emission trading system, which we discussed and which, in part, thanks to Tesla, is now established in China. It’s bringing in money to Tesla. And now this Shanghai factory is continuing to produce cars for Tesla in the middle of the pandemic. So China really paid off for Tesla. But what was in it for China?

Well, China wasn’t doing this for charity.

What Chinese leaders really wanted was to turn their fledgling electric vehicle industry into a global powerhouse. And they figured that Tesla was the ticket to get there. And that’s precisely what happened.

We’ll be right back.

So, Mara, you’ve just told us the story of how Elon Musk used China to turn Tesla into the biggest car maker in the world and himself — at one point — into the richest man in the world. Now I want to understand the other side of this story. How did China use Tesla?

Well, Tesla basically became a catfish for China’s EV industry.

A catfish, what do you mean by that?

It’s a term from the business world. And, essentially, it means a super aggressive fish that makes the other fish in the pond swim faster. And by bringing in this super competitive, aggressive foreign company into China, which at that point had these fledgling EV companies, Chinese leaders hoped to spur the upstart Chinese EV makers to up their game.

So you’re saying that at this point, China actually already had a number of smaller EV companies, which many people in the West may not even be aware of, these smaller fish in the pond that you were referring to.

Yes, there were a lot of them. They were often locally based. Like, one would be strong in one city, and one would be strong in another city. And Chinese leaders saw that they needed to become more competitive in order to thrive.

And China had tried for decades to build up this traditional car industry by bringing in foreign companies to set up joint ventures. They had really had their sights set on building a strong car industry, and it didn’t really work. I mean, how many traditional Chinese car company brands can you name?

Exactly none.

Yeah, right. So going back to the aughts and the 2010s, they had this advantage that many Chinese hadn’t yet been hooked on gas-guzzling cars. There were still many people who were buying their first car ever. So officials had all these levers they could pull to try to encourage or try to push people’s behavior in a certain direction.

And their idea was to try to ensure that when people went to buy their first car, it would be an EV — and not just an EV but, hopefully, a Chinese EV. So they did things like — at the time, just a license plate for your car could cost an exorbitant amount of money and be difficult to get. And so they made license plates for electric vehicles free. So there were all these preferential policies that were unveiled to nudge people toward buying EVs.

So that’s fascinating. So China is incentivizing consumers to buy EV cars and incentivizing also the whole industry to get its act together by chucking this big American company in the mix and hoping that it will increase competitiveness. What I’m particularly struck by, Mara, in what you said is the concept of leapfrogging over the conventional combustion engine phase, which took us decades to live through. We’re still living in it, in many ways, in the West.

But listening to you, it sounds a little bit like China wasn’t really thinking about this transition to EVs as an environmental policy. It sounds like they were doing this more from an industrial-policy perspective.

Right. The environment and the horrible era at the time was a factor, but it was a pretty minor factor, according to people who were privy to the policy discussions. The more significant factor was industrial policy and an interest in building up a competitive sphere.

So China now wants to become a leader in the global EV sector, and it wants to use Tesla to get there. What does that actually look like?

Well, you need sophisticated suppliers to make the component parts of electric vehicles. And just by being in China, Tesla helped spur the development of several suppliers. Like, for example, the battery is a crucial piece of any EV.

And Tesla, with a fair amount of encouragement — and also various levers from the Chinese government — became a customer of a battery maker called CATL, a homegrown Chinese battery maker. And they have become very close to Tesla and have even set up a factory near Teslas in Shanghai. And today, with Tesla’s business — and, of course, with the business of some other companies — CATL is the biggest battery maker in the world.

But beyond just stimulating the growth of suppliers, Tesla also made these other fish in the pond swim faster. And the biggest Chinese EV company to come out of that period is one called BYD. It’s short for Build Your Dreams.

We are BYD. You’ve probably never heard of us.

From battery maker to the biggest electric vehicle or EV manufacturer in China.

They’ve got a lot of models. They’ve got a lot of discounts. They’ve got a lot of market growth.

China’s biggest EV maker just overtook Tesla in terms of worldwide sales.

BYD 10, Chinese automobile redefined.

I’ve actually started seeing that brand on the streets here in Europe recently, especially in Germany, where my brother actually used to lease a Tesla and now leases a BYD.

Does he like it?

He does. Although he did, to be fair, say that he misses the luxury of the Tesla, but it just became too expensive, really.

The price point is a huge reason that BYD is increasingly giving Tesla a run for its money. Years ago, back in 2011 —

Although there’s competitors now ramping up. And, as you’re familiar with, BYD, which is also —

— Elon Musk actually mocked their cars.

— electric vehicles, here he is trying to compete. Why do you laugh?

He asked an interviewer —

Have you seen their car?

I have seen their car, yes.

— have you seen their cars? Sort of suggesting, like, they’re no competition for us.

You don’t see them at all as a competitor?

Why is that? I mean, they offer a lower price point.

I don’t think they have a great product. I think their focus is — and rightly should be — on making sure they don’t die in China.

But they have been steadily improving. They’ve been in the EV space for a while, but they really started improving a few years ago, once Tesla came on the scene. That was due to a number of factors, not entirely because of Tesla. But Tesla played a role in helping train up talent in China. One former Tesla employee who worked at the company as they were getting set up in China told me that most of the employees who were at the company at the time now work for Chinese competitors.

So they have really played this important role in the EV ecosystem.

And you mentioned the price advantage. So just for comparison, what does an average BYD sell for compared to a more affordable Tesla car?

So BYD has an ultra-cheap model called the Seagull that sells for around $10,000 now in China, whereas Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys in China sell for more than twice that.

Wow. How’s BYD able to sell EVs at these much lower prices?

Well, the Seagull is really just a simpler car. It has less range than a Tesla. It lacks some safety measures. But BYD has this other crucial advantage, which is that they’re vertically integrated. Like, they control many aspects of the supply chain, up and down the supply chain. When you look at the battery level, they make batteries. But they even own the mines where lithium is mined for the batteries.

And they recently launched a fleet of ships. So they actually operate the boats that are sending their cars to Europe or other parts of the world.

So BYD is basically cutting out the middleman on all these aspects of the supply chain, and that’s how they can undercut other car makers on price.

Yeah. They’ve cut out the middleman, and they’ve cut out the shipping company and almost everything else.

So how is BYD doing now as a company compared to Tesla?

In terms of market cap, they’re still much smaller than Tesla. But, crucially, they overtook Tesla in sales in the last quarter of last year.

Yeah, that was a huge milestone. Tesla still dominates in the European market, which is a very important market for EVs. But BYD is starting to export there. And Europe traditionally is kind of automotive powerhouse, and the companies and government officials there are very, very concerned. I interviewed the French finance minister, and he told me that China has a five - to seven-year head start on Europe when it comes to EVs.

Wow. And what has Elon Musk said about this incredible rise of BYD in recent years? Do you think he anticipated that Tesla’s entry into the Chinese market could end up building up its own competition?

Well, I can’t get inside his head, and he did not respond to our questions. But —

The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world.

— he has certainly changed his tune. So, remember, he was joking about BYD some years ago.

Yeah, he’s not joking anymore.

I think they will have significant success.

He had dismissed Chinese EV makers. He now appears increasingly concerned about these new competitors —

Frankly, I think if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.

— to the point that on an earnings call in January, he all but endorsed the use of trade barriers against them.

They’re extremely good.

I think it’s so interesting, in a way — of course, with perfect hindsight — the kind of maybe complacency or naivete with which he may not have anticipated this turn of events. And in some ways, he’s not alone, right? It speaks to something larger. Like, China, for a long time, was seen as kind of the sweatshop or the manufacturer of the world — or perhaps as an export market for a lot of these Western companies. It certainly wasn’t putting out its own big brand names. It was making stuff for the brand names.

But recently, they have quite a lot of their own brand names. Everybody talks about TikTok. There’s Huawei. There’s WeChat, Lenovo. And now there is BYD. So China is becoming a leader in technology in certain areas. And I think that shift in some ways has happened. And a lot of Western companies — perhaps like Tesla — were kind of late to waking up to that.

Right. Tesla is looking fragile now. Their stock price dropped 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. And to a large degree, that is because of the threat of companies like BYD from China and the perception that Tesla’s position as number one in the market is no longer guaranteed.

So, Mara, all this raises a much bigger question for me, which is, who is going to own the future of EVs? And based on everything you’ve said so far, it seems like China owns the future of EVs. Is that right?

Well, possibly, but the jury is still out. Tesla is still far bigger for now. But there is this increasing fear that China owns the future of EVs. If you look at the US, there are already 25 percent tariffs on EVs from China. There’s talk of increasing them. The Commerce Department recently launched an investigation into data collection by electric vehicles from China.

So all of these factors are creating uncertainty around what could happen. And the European Union may also add new tariffs against Chinese-made cars. And China is an economic rival and a security rival and, in many ways, our main adversary. So this whole issue is intertwined with national security. And Tesla is really in the middle of it.

Right. So the sort of new Cold War that people are talking about between the US and China is, in a sense, the backdrop to this story. But on one level, what we’ve been talking about, it’s really a corporate story, an economic story that has this geopolitical backdrop. But it’s also very much an environmental story. So, regardless of how Elon Musk and Tesla fare in the end, is BYD’s rise and its ability to create high-quality and — perhaps more importantly — affordable EVs ultimately a good thing for the world?

If I think back on those years I spent living in Shanghai and Beijing when it was extremely polluted and there were days when you couldn’t go outside — I don’t think anyone wants to go back to that.

So it’s clear that EVs are the future and that they’re crucial to the green energy transition that we have to make. How exactly we get there is still unclear. But what is true is that China did just make that transition easier.

Mara, thank you so much.

Thank you, Katrin.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

[CROWD CHEERING]

Millions of people across North America were waiting for their turn to experience a rare event on Monday. From Mexico —

Cuatro, tres, dos, uno.

— to Texas.

Awesome, just awesome.

We can see the corona really well. Oh, you can see —

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

Oh, and we are falling into darkness right now. What an incredible sensation. And you are hearing and seeing the crowd of 15,000 gathered here in south Illinois.

Including “Daily” producers in New York.

It’s like the sky is almost —

— like a deep blue under the clouds.

Wait, look. It’s just —

Oh my god. The sun is disappearing. And it’s gone. Oh. Whoa.

All the way up to Canada.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m talking about.

The moon glided in front of the sun and obscured it entirely in a total solar eclipse, momentarily plunging the day into darkness.

It’s super exciting. It’s so amazing to see science in action like this.

Today’s episode was produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie with help from Rachelle Bonja. It was edited by Lisa Chow with help from Alexandra Leigh Young, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Diane Wong, Elisheba Ittoop, and Sophia Lanman and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m catching Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow.

• April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
• April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma
• April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
• April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
• April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
• April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
• April 3, 2024   •   27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief
• April 2, 2024   •   29:32 Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate
• April 1, 2024   •   36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
• March 29, 2024   •   48:42 Hamas Took Her, and Still Has Her Husband
• March 28, 2024   •   33:40 The Newest Tech Start-Up Billionaire? Donald Trump.

Hosted by Katrin Bennhold

Featuring Mara Hvistendahl

Produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie

With Rachelle Bonja

Edited by Lisa Chow and Alexandra Leigh Young

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Diane Wong ,  Elisheba Ittoop and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

When Elon Musk set up Tesla’s factory in China, he made a bet that brought him cheap parts and capable workers — a bet that made him ultrarich and saved his company.

Mara Hvistendahl, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains why, now, that lifeline may have given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game.

On today’s episode

Mara Hvistendahl , an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading

A pivot to China saved Elon Musk. It also bound him to Beijing .

Mr. Musk helped create the Chinese electric vehicle industry. But he is now facing challenges there as well as scrutiny in the West over his reliance on China.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Katrin Bennhold is the Berlin bureau chief. A former Nieman fellow at Harvard University, she previously reported from London and Paris, covering a range of topics from the rise of populism to gender. More about Katrin Bennhold

Mara Hvistendahl is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on Asia. More about Mara Hvistendahl

Advertisement

Have a language expert improve your writing

Check your paper for plagiarism in 10 minutes, generate your apa citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• College essay
• What Do Colleges Look For in an Essay? | Examples & Tips

What Do Colleges Look For in an Essay? | Examples & Tips

Published on September 27, 2021 by Meredith Testa . Revised on May 31, 2023.

As part of the college application process , colleges ask prospective students for a personal essay in order to learn more about them. They want to see context on each student’s background, positive traits that the student could bring to campus, and examples of the student demonstrating those qualities.

That means that you, as an applicant, have a great opportunity to make a positive impression on the admissions officers with your essay. You should aim to write an essay that

• Humanizes you
• Makes your application memorable and differentiates you from other applicants
• Demonstrates your unique positive traits

Table of contents

Context: what sets you apart, positive character qualities, proof: show, don’t tell, two strategies for finding your essay’s topic, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Your application will probably be similar to many other students’ applications. There will likely be many students from the same geographical area as you with comparable grades and test scores who have similar interests. Admissions officers will use your essay to see how you stand out from the crowd.

The context that admissions officers are looking for could be anything about you that differentiates you from other students. It could include your ethnic or socioeconomic background, your values, your passions, or anything else that sets you apart from your peers. International students may want to write about why they want to study in the US.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Of course, it’s important to show your best qualities in the essay. Admissions officers want students who can demonstrate specific positive character traits.

Self-reflection and vulnerability

Self-reflection is a sign of maturity, and it can elevate an application from good to excellent. Colleges already have a list of each applicant’s accomplishments, so a student who can admit their mistakes—and prove that they’ve learned from them—will seem more human and likable.

Some students are hesitant to show their flaws, but keep in mind that colleges know you aren’t perfect. If your essay is just about how fabulous you are, you might come across as inauthentic or, worse, arrogant.

Initiative is one of the top qualities that colleges look for. Students who show initiative will likely bring that take-charge attitude with them to college, where it will help them contribute to the campus.

The essay should always involve you taking some kind of action—it shouldn’t just be about things that happened to you. For example, rather than writing about how it was emotionally difficult for you when several family members caught COVID, write about specific coping strategies you developed during that time or ways that you contributed to the family while they needed you.

“Show, don’t tell” means that you should always aim to prove something rather than just state it. This is especially important to avoid sounding arrogant when writing about yourself . For example, don’t just tell admissions officers that you’re hardworking; show them by detailing how you accomplished a goal through hard work.

So how do you actually write all that? The first step is choosing a good topic . Here are two effective ways to choose a topic that meets expectations and impresses admissions officers.

Option 1: Start with your qualities

One approach is to start by thinking of positive character traits you possess and then finding examples of times you demonstrated those traits.

Option 2: Start with a story

You could also approach your topic selection in the opposite way: start with a story, then work backwards to show how it demonstrates your positive qualities.

• He is independent, as his parents were often preoccupied and couldn’t help him in the same ways that his peers’ parents could.
• He is unflappable, as dealing with emergencies has always been a regular part of his life.
• He is empathetic, as he realizes that some people are going through difficult times that aren’t necessarily obvious to outsiders.

Whatever you choose to write about, your essay should give admissions officers plenty of proof that you’re a desirable candidate. And make sure your essay has a memorable introduction and ends effectively to grab the reader’s attention.

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.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

In your application essay , admissions officers are looking for particular features : they want to see context on your background, positive traits that you could bring to campus, and examples of you demonstrating those qualities.

College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.

Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Testa, M. (2023, May 31). What Do Colleges Look For in an Essay? | Examples & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/college-essay/what-colleges-look-for/

Is this article helpful?

Meredith Testa

Other students also liked, how to make your college essay stand out | tips & examples, how to write about yourself in a college essay | examples, style and tone tips for your college essay | examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

The physical sensations of watching a total solar eclipse

Regina G. Barber

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world." Paul Myers hide caption

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

David Baron can pinpoint the first time he got addicted to chasing total solar eclipses, when the moon completely covers up the sun. It was 1998 and he was on the Caribbean island of Aruba. "It changed my life. It was the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen," he says.

Baron, author of the 2017 book American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World , wants others to witness its majesty too. On April 8, millions of people across North America will get that chance — a total solar eclipse will appear in the sky. Baron promises it will be a surreal, otherworldly experience. "It's like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

Baron, who is a former NPR science reporter, talks to Life Kit about what to expect when viewing a total solar eclipse, including the sensations you may feel and the strange lighting effects in the sky. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens." Photographs by David Baron; Bronson Arcuri, Kara Frame, CJ Riculan/NPR; Collage by Becky Harlan/NPR hide caption

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens."

What does it feel like to experience a total solar eclipse — those few precious minutes when the moon completely covers up the sun?

It is beautiful and absolutely magnificent. It comes on all of a sudden. As soon as the moon blocks the last rays of the sun, you're plunged into this weird twilight in the middle of the day. You look up and the blue sky has been torn away. On any given day, the blue sky overhead acts as a screen that keeps us from seeing what's in space. And suddenly that's gone. So you can look into the middle of the solar system and see the sun and the planets together.

Can you tell me about the sounds and the emotions you're feeling?

A total solar eclipse is so much more than something you just see with your eyes. It's something you experience with your whole body. [With the drop in sunlight], birds will be going crazy. Crickets may be chirping. If you're around other people, they're going to be screaming and crying [with all their emotions from seeing the eclipse]. The air temperature drops because the sunlight suddenly turns off. And you're immersed in the moon's shadow. It doesn't feel real.

Everything you need to know about solar eclipse glasses before April 8

In your 2017 Ted Talk , you said you felt like your eyesight was failing in the moments before totality. Can you go into that a little more?

The lighting effects are very weird. Before you get to the total eclipse, you have a progressive partial eclipse as the moon slowly covers the sun. So over the course of an hour [or so], the sunlight will be very slowly dimming. It's as if you're in a room in a house and someone is very slowly turning down the dimmer switch. For most of that time your eyes are adjusting and you don't notice it. But then there's a point at which the light's getting so dim that your eyes can't adjust, and weird things happen. Your eyes are less able to see color. It's as if the landscape is losing its color. Also there's an effect where the shadows get very strange.

Crescent-shaped shadows cast by the solar eclipse before it reaches totality appear on a board at an eclipse-viewing event in Antelope, Ore., 2017. Kara Frame and CJ Riculan/NPR hide caption

You see these crescents on the ground.

There are two things that happen. One is if you look under a tree, the spaces between leaves or branches will act as pinhole projectors. So you'll see tiny little crescents everywhere. But there's another effect. As the sun goes from this big orb in the sky to something much smaller, shadows grow sharper. As you're nearing the total eclipse, if you have the sun behind you and you look at your shadow on the ground, you might see individual hairs on your head. It's just very odd.

Some people might say that seeing the partial eclipse is just as good. They don't need to go to the path of totality.

A partial solar eclipse is a very interesting experience. If you're in an area where you see a deep partial eclipse, the sun will become a crescent like the moon. You can only look at it with eye protection. Don't look at it with the naked eye . The light can get eerie. It's fun, but it is not a thousandth as good as a total eclipse.

A total eclipse is a fundamentally different experience, because it's only when the moon completely blocks the sun that you can actually take off the eclipse glasses and look with the naked eye at the sun.

And you will see a sun you've never seen before. That bright surface is gone. What you're actually looking at is the sun's outer atmosphere, the solar corona. It's the most dazzling sight in the heavens. It's this beautiful textured thing. It looks sort of like a wreath or a crown made out of tinsel or strands of silk. It shimmers in space. The shape is constantly changing. And you will only see that if you're in the path of the total eclipse.

Shots - Health News

Watching a solar eclipse without the right filters can cause eye damage. here's why.

So looking at a partial eclipse is not the same?

It is not at all the same. Drive those few miles. Get into the path of totality.

This is really your chance to see a total eclipse. The next one isn't happening across the U.S. for another 20 years.

The next significant total solar eclipse in the United States won't be until 2045. That one will go from California to Florida and will cross my home state of Colorado. I've got it on my calendar.

The digital story was written by Malaka Gharib and edited by Sylvie Douglis and Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected].

Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify , and sign up for our newsletter .

NPR will be sharing highlights here from across the NPR Network throughout the day Monday if you're unable to get out and see it in real time.

Correction April 3, 2024

In a previous audio version of this story, we made reference to an upcoming 2025 total solar eclipse. The solar eclipse in question will take place in 2045.

• Life Kit: Life Skills
• total eclipse
• solar eclipse