While choosing the right topic is an important first step in writing the “perfect” essay, it is always the first line of the essay that will draw the admissions officer in. Usually by the end of the first paragraph, they will form an opinion of whether or not the essay is a winner or a dud. So, spend some time brainstorming your college essay introduction.

A few years ago, Stanford University published sample first lines of college essays of admitted students. These are great examples of unique and captivating ways to begin an essay.

College Essay Introduction Examples

• I almost didn’t live through September 11th, 2001.
  
  
• When I was 8 years old, I shocked my family and a local archaeologist by discovering artifacts dating back almost 3,500 years.
  
  
• When I was in eighth grade I couldn’t read.
  
  
• While traveling through the daily path of life, have you ever stumbled upon a hidden pocket of the universe?

• The spaghetti burbled and slushed around the pan, and as I stirred it, the noises it gave off began to sound increasingly like bodily functions.
  
  
• I had never seen anyone get so excited about mitochondria.
  
  
• Cancer tried to defeat me, and it failed.
  
  
• I stand on the riverbank surveying this rippled range like some riparian cowboy—instead of chaps, I wear vinyl, thigh-high waders and a lasso of measuring tape and twine is slung over my arm.
  
  
• I have old hands.

• Flying over enemy territory, I took in Beirut’s beautiful skyline and wondered if under different circumstances I would have hopped on a bus and come here for my vacation. Instead, I saw the city from the window of a helicopter, in military uniform, my face camouflaged, on my way to a special operation deep behind enemy lines.

• My younger sister, Jessica, arrived home one day reeling about the shirt that her friend had worn to school. It had simply read, “Genocide, Homicide, Suicide, Riverside.”
  
  
• I’ll never forget the day when my childhood nightmares about fighting gigantic trolls in the Lord of the Rings series became a reality. Sword in hand and clad in medieval samurai armor, I dragged myself into the battleground as I faced my opponent, a warmongering giant.

• Good Grief! You never would have guessed that an unassuming meek lovable loser like Charlie Brown would have an influence on anyone, but indeed he has.
  
  
• Some fathers might disapprove of their children handling noxious chemicals in the garage.
  
  
• I was paralyzed from the waist down. I would try to move my leg or even shift an ankle but I never got a response. This was the first time thoughts of death ever crossed my mind.

• As an Indian-American, I am forever bound to the hyphen.
  
  
• Journey to Gulu’s outskirts and you will uncover the scene where education was raped 11 years ago; some Ugandan teens also lost their innocence in exchange for their lives.
  
  
• I have been surfing Lake Michigan since I was 3 years old.
  
  
• On a hot Hollywood evening, I sat on a bike, sweltering in a winter coat and furry boots.
  
  
• I change my name each time I place an order at Starbucks.

The Perfect College Essay Introduction: Make Them Want More

Don’t you want to read more? Didn’t these first lines make you curious? So how do you get that stellar first line? How do you get started with your essay in the first place? Here are some examples from essays that some of my students have developed and how they found their first line.

Example 1: The Good Story

“Here comes a puff!” my dad shouted back to me over the howling wind. Three seconds later the wind lifted and tipped the boat and as I stretched my body over the side, I knew the feeling of the osprey soaring overhead; pure freedom!

Crafting this first line: This student wrote about one of his greatest passions, sailing. He did a great job of creating a visual picture right at the beginning of his essay. You can picture him leaning over the side, the howling wind, the smile on his face. The instant picture creates a connection for the reader and they want to read more.

Example 2: Be funny (but appropriate)

Crouching in the grass, the tiger parents spot their prey. They slowly approach her, watching for any distractions. At the first sign of laziness, they pounce, surprising the girl back into doing her homework. The recent Tiger Mom controversy has brought a new perspective into American culture.

Crafting this first line: This student uses a bit of humor to hook the admissions officer in. She is writing about a relatively serious topic, but by poking fun at it, she has made it even more interesting.

Example 3: Think Outside the Box

Sometimes I really wish I could write in cursive, not the semi-connected scrawl I normally use. When I see people who write in perfect cursive, I can’t help but be overcome by jealousy at the graceful, fluid movements creating equally inspiring marks on the page. 

Crafting this first line: This student had the advantage of having a really different topic to draw her first line. Who would think of writing her college essay about handwriting? Having an “outside of the box” topic can automatically hook an admissions officer and make them wonder where you are going with your idea.

The perfect college essay introduction may not be easy to come by but don’t focus on that first. Sometimes it is easier to write the entire essay than think of the appropriate introduction. Also, think about what is the part of your essay that stands out the most. What is the most unusual aspect? What is the part that most people can relate to? There is a creative first line in your essay somewhere!

Remember that admissions officers read thousands of essays a year, and most will read over 50 in a day. The reality is that after a while all of these essays begin to blur together. By crafting the perfect first line, you will not only hook them into your essay, but this will also ensure that you can reel them in!

How to Start Your College Essay

Getting started is hard. The task can be made harder if you feel pressure to write that first, great line before you’ve even got a good topic. Usually, the opening line becomes more apparent as the the message of the essay becomes more clear. For most students, we find that it’s best not to start with the first line–but to end with it.  

It’s sort of like the art of writing a headline.  Newspapers, magazines, and publishers of online content know how important it is to grab that attention of the reader.  The “big words” at the top of the story can make a difference: a great headline will encourage the reader to read on, while a poor one may make a reader skip over the article completely. 

But, generally, most publications develop the headline after the article is written. The headline writer is sometimes even a completely different person than the writer of the content. The headline emerges from the content.  

This is how it often works with writing the first line of your college essay.  You might have to complete the essay before a fantastic first line just pops out at you. 

So don’t worry too much if you can’t come up with a fantastic first line of your college essay right away. Focus on crafting a message for the essay that presents you in the best possible light. When you feel comfortable with what you have written, that first line may just come to in a flash of inspiration. When it does, run with it!

The Great College Advice guide to the perfect college essay

• Overview
• Answer the Prompt: For your essay to succeed, take the time to understand the question being asked;
• Make yourself the main character of your essay;
• Go Deep;
• Keep the reader’s eyes glued to the screen by telling a good story from beginning to end;
• Make sure the length of your essay is appropriate;

Need help with your college essay?

The team at Great College Advice has years of experience helping students craft excellent essays that gets those admissions office hooked. If you need help not only finding the introduction to the essay, but you need to decide on a topic and structure it in a way that makes you shine, give us a call or contact us here.  We’d be happy to talk to you about how we have helped thousands of successful college applicants write exceptional essays for their applications.  

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other. 

The post The Perfect College Essay Introduction: Get Them Hooked first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Now that you have taken some time to think about what you want your essay to say about you, let’s examine our next tip: Go Deep!

When writing your personal statement, it is essential to go below the surface. Think about things that are hidden, something you may not have shared with many people. Remember admissions officers want to get to know you. They want to know you as a person, not just a piece of paper. So, consider going deep. 

Here are some tips to help you discover some buried treasures.

Uncomfortable(often)=Good

Many students are afraid to write about something personal because it is uncomfortable for them. More than likely this is the best essay topic to consider because it will be PERSONAL. However, an experience that is close to you, private, hurtful, difficult, has also deeply affected you.

The perfect college essay shows some vulnerability

Many students hesitate to write about such experiences, believing that they need to demonstrate strengths, rather than weaknesses. They fear that they will be passed over if they do not appear superhuman: “I faced the unbeatable foe, and slayed him!” Yet admissions officers are not looking for superheroes to populate their campuses. They are looking for living and breathing humans who are capable of reflection, who understand their fallibility, and who will contribute their strengths and an ability to reflect upon weakness to the betterment of the campus community.

Find your voice

You know that little voice inside your head? The one that you talk to when you can’t sleep at night? They one that questions your decisions and helps you deal with your everyday problems? What would that little voice say about you? Write your essay using that voice.

Take chances 

While it can be incredibly scary to reveal your vulnerable side, remember that you will more than likely never see admissions officers once you arrive on your college campus. They will not share your essay with the entire college community or publish it in the school paper. More than likely, only a handful of people in the admissions office will read your file. So, don’t be afraid to share deeply personal information.

‘Show, Don’t Tell’ when crafting the perfect college essay 

‘Show, don’t tell’ is a favorite phrase of ours at Great College Advice as we provide feedback to our students during the college essay writing process. We didn’t invent the term, but it’s a helpful guideline to remember in creative writing. What does it mean? Simply, it encourages writers to transmit experiences to the reader, rather than just information.

Did you have a transformative experience during your time volunteering with a local organization the last few years? Don’t just tell the admissions officer that it was transformative. Provide specific stories using vivid imagery that brings to life your experience with this volunteer opportunity. In this way, the application reader can better visualize you in this setting and perhaps then picture you making an impact on their campus.

Now that you have spent some time gaining some personal insight in order to write your essay, tomorrow we will cover the next step on the road to the perfect college essay: developing a good story.

The Great College Advice guide to the perfect college essay

• Overview
• Answer the Prompt: For your essay to succeed, take the time to understand the question being asked;
• Make yourself the main character of your essay;
• Grab the reader’s attention with a compelling introduction;
• Keep the reader’s eyes glued to the screen by telling a good story from beginning to end;
• Make sure the length of your essay is appropriate;

Need help writing the Perfect College Essay?

The expert college counselors at Great College Advice have years of experience helping students craft college essays that stand out to college admission officers. We know how to help you choose topics, structure the prose, hone the messages, and edit the essay to perfection. These essays are an essential aspect of the college application process, and you want to make sure your essay represents you well. If you need some personalized guidance on how to write the personal statement and supplemental essays, please give us a call or fill out our contact form. 

Also, visit our Guide for the Common App Essay for more tips on how to make your application stand out to admission officers as well as our supplemental essay tips.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post Tips on the Perfect College Essay: Go Deep first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

One of the biggest problems for most students is that they are not accustomed to writing about themselves. We learn at a young age that it’s not polite to talk too much about ourselves, lest we come off like a show off or a braggart. However, the college essay requires that students write about themselves in a way that is both positive and uplifting, but also honest and humble. It’s a hard balance.  

But you can do it.

The perfect college essay is an opportunity to show the real you

While writing about ourselves is one of the most difficult tasks we are called upon to do, your personal statement is essentially an opportunity. College applications are very superficial. The blanks and spaces in the application require you to fill in basic data about yourself: parents’ names, grades in school, and extracurricular involvements. It’s all a bunch of facts–information devoid of spirit or humanity.

The essay is your chance to put who you really are in your application. It is your chance to tell the admissions officer something about yourself that will not be reflected anywhere else in your application. So how do you determine what you want to say?

However you decide to write your essay, one thing is certain. You must keep yourself at the center. You are the main character of the story. You are in the spotlight. Generally in our academic writing at school, we learn to take out the first-person pronoun “I” and make our analysis more impersonal. However, with the perfect college essay, you’ll be bringing that first-person pronoun back into your prose. You are the focus of your college essay.

See our Guide for the Common App Essay for more information on how to make your application stand out to admission officers as well as our supplemental essay tips.

Crafting the perfect college essay to match the Common App prompts

College essay prompts are often tricky to dissect. Sometimes they invite you to focus on things other than you. They ask you to write about another person in your life, or a historical character, or an issue you care about. They ask you to write about your conception of diversity. Or maybe they want to know about an activity you enjoy.

Beware! The problem with the prompts is that most students launch into a lengthy exegesis about that other person, or that issue, or that activity, without saying much of anything interesting about the real focus of a college essay: the applicant (that would be YOU!).

Fortunately the most recent Common App prompts do a fairly good job of helping you to focus on yourself. For example, one prompt asks you to focus on a particular background, identity, interest or talent that is important to you.  Another is about a time in which you experienced failure. In both of these cases (and with all the other Common App prompts), you have to zero in on something that is pretty personal. 

You want to think about what your essay says about you. As you review the prompts, ask what you want the admissions officer to know about you. While most people rarely take the time to sit down and really think about who they are, when writing your college essay, it is essential to attempt to answer the insuperable question: “Who am I?” 

When attempting to write the perfect college essay, consider the following:

It is not about your resume

Some students erroneously believe that they should simply write about something on their resume since that is important to them. But your essay should be more than that. Your list of activities should be the place to brag about your accomplishments. The essay is where you put yourself, your personality, and your soul into the application. If you find yourself talking about one of your primary activities in the essay, don’t brag here. Talk about how the activity or accomplishment humbled you or changed you, or opened your eyes to something new and interesting. Once again, pay close attention to what each essay prompt is asking you.

Don’t overlap with the other essays you may have to write

Take some time to consider all of the essays you need to write before brainstorming ideas for your personal statement. You may have to write supplemental essays that are specific to each college. These essays may cover why you are interested in a particular college, what you want to major in and what your future goals are, so think of some other aspects of your personality, your values, or your priorities that you want to share with colleges. Other supplementals may ask about your academic interests or other accomplishments. 

The point is that you do not want to waste precious space on your application by duplicating essays or saying the same thing twice. You want each essay to project a different facet of you as a human being. You want to use every opportunity on the application to give the reader as much information about yourself as possible.  

Consider what you want your perfect college essay to say about you

Start with some hard thinking about what aspects of your personality, your values, and your personal priorities would be helpful in conveying a sense of who you are as a person. What would you tell an admissions officer about yourself if you had a chance to meet them in person?  

Here are some questions to help you examine who you are:

Before you get started examining the specific prompts of the Common App, you might want to think more broadly about the messages you want to communicate on your college application. 

To help you brainstorm, here are some questions that can get your juices flowing. Take the time to answer these questions fully.  The better and more complete your answers, the more good fodder you’ll have for the perfect college essay.

• What aspects of your high school experience have you enjoyed the most?
• If you could live this period again, would you do anything differently?
• What values are most important to you?
• What do you care about most?
• What kind of person would you like to become?
• Of your unique gifts and strengths, which would you most like to develop?
• What would you most like to change about yourself?
• Is there anything you have ever secretly wanted to do or be?
• If you had a year to go anywhere and do whatever you wanted, how would you spend that year?
• What events or experiences have shaped your growth and way of thinking?
• How would you describe your family and hometown and how has your environment influenced your way of thinking?
• What has been the most controversial issue that concerns you? How does the issue concern you? What has been your reaction to the controversy? What is your opinion?
• Do you often encounter people who think or act differently from you? What viewpoints challenge you the most? How do you respond? From this, what have you learned about yourself and others?
• What are your finest qualities?
• What are your most conspicuous shortcomings?
• Which relationships are most important to you and why? Describe the people whom you consider your best friends, critics, and advocates?
• How do others who are important to you influence you? What pressures have you felt to conform? How important are approval and recognition to you?

Remember that YOU are the center of your college essay. No matter if you choose a topic of your choice or a predetermined prompt, you have to bring the essay back to you.

The Great College Advice guide to the perfect college essay

• Overview
• Answer the Prompt: For your essay to succeed, take the time to understand the question being asked;
• Go Deep;
• Grab the reader’s attention with a compelling introduction;
• Keep the reader’s eyes glued to the screen by telling a good story from beginning to end;
• Make sure the length of your essay is appropriate;

Need help writing the perfect college essay?

The expert college counselors at Great College Advice have years of experience helping students craft college essays that stand out to college admission officers. We know how to help you choose topics, structure the prose, hone the messages, and edit the essay to perfection. These essays are an essential aspect of the college application process, and you want to make sure your essay represents you well. If you need some personalized guidance on how to write the personal statement and supplemental essays, please give us a call or fill out our contact form. We’d be delighted to chat with you about how we can help.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post The Perfect College Essay: Focus On You first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

• Be concise.  Most essay prompts have a word limit, so it is important that you make every word count.  Avoid repetition or using excess “fluff” in your essay.  Also be on look out for excessive use of passive voice and vague terms.

• Appropriate?  Many students attempt to use humor in their college essays and that is great (believe me admissions officers could use a laugh every now and then).  However, I always advise students to be funny if they are inherently funny.  Don’t try to be something you are not.  If your friends would not necessarily describe you as humorous, then you may want to steer clear of adding humor to your essay and try to aim more for witty, clever or creative.

• Format matters.  Even the best-written essay can be debilitated by format. Make sure you have clearly designated paragraphs and appropriate use of punctuation.

• Read it out loud.  Spell check is a lifesaver, but it also can eradicate the best-written essay.  Read your essay out load.  Not just to check for flow, but to also catch those mysterious misspellings that pop up in your essay.

The post The Perfect College Essay: Edit, Edit, Then Edit Again first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

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Keep in mind, however, that it’s rarely a good idea to emulate someone else’s topic or writing style.  The point of asking students to write these essays for their college applications is to get a sense of who that individual is as a person.  Copying someone else’s format or incorporating others’ ideas into your own essay is a sure-fire way to muddle things up.

So, by all means, have a look at some good essays to give you a general idea of how other students have completed this highly personal, highly specific assignment.  But when you sit down to write your own, look into your own mind, your own heart, your own soul to formulate the essay that works for you.
Here is a list of college websites that have examples of college essays on them.

Johns Hopkins University‘s Office of Admission

Hamilton College’s Alumni Magazine

Tufts University’s Office of Admission

Connecticut College‘s Office of Admission

The College Board‘s advice on writing essays has a few examples with critique.

If you want a sense of how important the opening lines of your college essay can be, see my own post here, with samples from Stanford.

And if you run across other colleges and universities that public successful examples of essays, please let me know!  I’ll add them to this list.

The post Essays That Worked–Examples of Successful College Applications first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

• As of January 15, 2.1 million students had submitted the Common App to one or more schools, surpassing the entire volume of applications last year. About one quarter of all these applications were submitted on a single day, December 31.
• A total number of 495,450 students had submitted applications, up 17% over last year.
• This means that students submitted an average of 4.24 applications each.

One bit of good news, however:  the essay prompts for the Common Application itself will not change for next year.  So juniors, you can  start writing those essays now without fear that you’ll have written on a topic that is obsolete.
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

The post Common Application–Record Numbers of College Applicants and Applications first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

• Familiarize yourself with the Common Application site.  Watch their demonstration videos on how application and school official forms work.  Print out the forms and fill out some of the personal information by hand before you attempt to do it electronically.
• Look at the application requirements for the schools that you are interested in applying to.  You don’t have to make your final decisions now, but just be aware of what each school is requiring.
• Create a timeline with the deadlines for each school you are applying to and what is required for each application. Set goals for when you want to complete each application.  Break up what is required into small tasks so it does not seem so overwhelming.
• Begin working on your personal statement.  Also look at the supplemental essays.
• Ask for letters of recommendation from your teachers.
• Put together your resume or list of activities outside of the classroom.

Spending a few minutes to get organized can cut down on the anxiety that students often feel with this process.

Educational Consultant

The post Being First is Not Necessary first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Essentially, these boil down to the following:

1. A person who has influenced you
2. An experience that reflects your personality in some way
3. A social or political issue that interests you
4. A fictional character or historical personage that interests or reflects upon you in some way
5. Your perception of diversity

The Common Application also includes the catch-all prompt: “Topic of Your Choice.”
Frankly, I hate all these prompts. I understand they are meant to get students thinking and off to a good start. But from my perspective, these prompts usually set students off on the wrong course from the get go.

For example, when writing about an influential person (real or imagined, fictional or historical), the student focuses so much on the other person that they neglect to write anything about themselves. Or when writing about an experience, they recount the experience without any reflection as to why it was important. Or worse, they choose an incident in which they exaggerate their own agency, hoping that they will appear heroic or even superhuman. The average college applicant in America has faced enormous obstacles along their educational path.

When it comes to social and political issues, most students start trying to solve the Palestinian problem or combat deforestation, without really telling us why such issues are important to them personally. And the diversity issue is one of the most difficult, in part because most teens have had limited experience of diversity; furthermore, diversity is such an abstract concept that it’s hard for any of us to get our minds wrapped around what it really means in practice.

So, since I’ve tossed out all the usual college essay prompts, what are we left with? Fortunately, the Common Application, as well as many individual college applications, allow students to write about a “topic of your choice.”
Bingo.

So I start not with a prompt, which can lead us in artificial or superficial directions, I start with the student. I ask them to tell me stories. I want to know about their friends. I want them to tell me stories about parents and grandparents. I want to know how they spend their time. I want to know about significant school projects. What do they read, and what do they read about?

All this conversation takes time. But it helps me to understand what is important to the person behind this application. I need to get a glimpse of their foibles and frailties. I need to plumb the depths of their feelings. Through this process, I generally can help a student come up with several viable topics for college essays. I then ask them to write stream-of-consciousness paragraphs that revolve around the general topic area until we witness the evolution of a tightly-woven essay.

Again, the process takes time. It takes patience. Some drafts work; others don’t. But with persistence, students can deliver an excellent essay that reveals something interesting and essential about their personality.
And, in the end, the topic usually does revolve around one of the prompts that appear in the Common Application. The prompts are a great place to end. But you wouldn’t really want to start there.

Mark Montgomery
College Essay Consultant

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