College Application Essay Examples That Give You an Edge!

One of the most vital parts of any college application is the essay portion, or personal statement.  Naturally, you want to do as well as possible so you begin to research college application essay examples to either give you a good starting point, or to see how yours measures up to someone else’s.  And in reality, that’s perfectly fine.  The intention of this college preparation article is to give you a concrete example of what your college application essay or personal statement should look like.

So let’s begin…

Writing a dull, uninteresting or worse yet, inappropriate college essay can get you denied!  Yes, you read that right.  But then the question sets in: “What in the world should I write about?”.  It’s a good question, so let’s take a look at 3 main things you want to cover when beginning, as an outline.  After each point, we’ll give a look at what most college application essay examples look like!  But please, don’t copy this format word for word!  Do your own work, make it about YOU and make it unique to your experiences and background.

You and Your Family
Your first paragraph should begin with some things about you…what is your home life like?  Who lives with you?  Parents? Siblings?  What’s your family dynamic like?  The key here is to be brief but informative.  It shouldn’t take you more than 5 to 7 sentences to accomplish your goal here.  The college representative want to hear about you, but not for the entire essay.  On that note, let’s look at a good opening sentence or two…

When I was growing up with my sister and brother, we always knew that our parents had high expectations of us.  Although we came from a small town, college education was always something that I was taught to strive for, and to do well in school in order to accomplish it…

Ok, these first couple sentences do a couple things.  First, they tell the college that this applicant has a brother, sister and probably live together with their parents.  Also, they are from a small town and have good family values by instilling the college education “bug” in their children.  Right off the bat, the college rep is hooked and wants to read a little more about you.  After these sentences, write a handful more about you and your background.  Stay positive and give them a “warm and fuzzy” feeling after reading it.  Then, move on to the next paragraph…

What Are Planning As A Major Area of Study, and Why?
Here’s is where you have to roll up your sleeves and dig into your college application essay.  You are applying to a college for a reason and now is the time to declare your intentions.  In the second paragraph, tell the college rep what you plan on majoring if you’re accepted to their college.  But not only that, try and transition that into the actual reason behind your decision. 

Make sure you focus on the “why” here.  Give them an interesting and unique story about how you came to the decision to major in a specific area.  With that being said…

Ever since I was in Junior High, my Aunt would tell me about the business she ran and how happy she was working for herself.  But it wasn’t until high school that I actually got to see the inner-workings of her business and how much work it was “behind the scenes”.  I remember when she let me shadow her for a day while she went about her normal, everyday business routine.  I was completely blown away and fell in love with business and managing a business for yourself!  After taking a few classes in high school, it confirmed that Business was my passion and that I would pursue a degree and career in it…

Let’s break this down for a second.  The previous paragraph incorporated a few things that we were trying to convey here.  Number one, there was somewhat of an emotional, personal tie to this story by using an “Aunt” as someone the applicant looks up to and want to follow in her footsteps.  Also, indirectly, we’ve declared our major…Business…and told the college that we’ve taken a couple classes and have some experience in the subject area.  Colleges love this sort of “feel good” stuff, but not as much as what we’re going to say next…

A Little Flattery Goes a Long Way!
In looking at a bunch of college application essay examples that were successful, we notice there was an outstanding theme to most of them.  What you want to do in your 3rd or 4th paragraph is tell the college or university how great they are!  Now, don’t just come out and say “Notre Dame is an awesome school and they have a great football team!”  Instead, use this little trick:

First, go onto the school’s website and browse around a little bit.  Pick out 2 or 3 things that jump off the page as things that the college is very proud of and are using it as a “recruiting tool” on their website.  For instance, look for improvements or new things on campus, information about some of their more prestigious alumni, or any kind of program that has been nationally or publicly recognized in the news or other publication.  Take that information and incorporate it into your college essay like this…

One aspect of The University of Notre Dame that really stands out to me is the number of alumni students that are in management positions of Fortune 500 Companies as outlined in Forbes Magazine.  Also, the improvements you’ve done on the University bookstore and the North Dining Hall were extremely impressive when I was on my campus visit.  It really showed me the level of quality, pride and commitment that Notre Dame has it it’s school…

Now, these are “made up” compliments for the purpose of writing this article, but you get the picture.  Did you see what we accomplished here?  Not only did we stroke Notre Dame’s ego a little bit, but we also showed them that we have done our “homework” about the school and have a genuine interest in attending there.  Again, college love students that know what they’re talking about and not just sending out a “feeler application” to see what they say.  You are much more likely to gain admission if you show the college reps that you’re genuinely interested and can prove it by stating some facts about them…facts that they’re proud of and want applicants to notice!

After seeing literally thousands of college application essay examples, these points above are the ones you should focus on.  Obviously if a school gives you a specifictopic to write an essay on, you should follow those guidelines TO THE “T”.  But if you need a good personal statement or have an open-ended college essay to write, you can’t go wrong with what we just discussed.

If you need even more help and want a professional to look over your college application essay, take a look at our College Essay service…

Related Articles:

• Get an Acceptance Letter…after being denied!
• Get Accepted To Harvard Without Perfect Grades
• Is There A Backdoor To College Admission?

 

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