The most popular college essay examples

By Published Writing Guides

Essay writing is the most challenging application for your college. They are complicated since they require the very least guidance, and you have to be creative and open-minded. Go through numerous essays written by students and get admitted to the college to get a glimpse of what you need to get involved in your article to get accepted in the college since they are among the successful ones in this field.

Students are however advised to keep on writing so that to perfect their writing skills. Those who are naturally lazy or do not know how to compose a college essay ends up purchasing it and may land them in trouble if caught.

In this article, we will go through different guidelines on the things that will make your college essay great. We are also going to provide the best college essay examples with 200, 250, 400, 500 and 650 words contain. This article will immensely help a student by providing a resource for learning and creating an incredible essay for their college admission.

The similarities of incredible excellent college essay

There are numerous types of college essays that differ from one another and have some similar features that you need to use while writing the essay.

Planning of the college essay that stands out

Having a concrete focus that has been built from a narrow

Many essays (case study papers) have the same structure. A writer starts with a question, a description of a place or a well-detailed story when writing the introduction of their essay. After an excellent introduction that creates a sense of imagery, the writer expands the essay by bringing the broader arguments or points and links them to an experience they encountered that is memorable to the current situation, maturity level, or new level of understanding.

Being great in telling the story

Several experiences in the essay are unique, but they involve daily activities of life. The writer’s approaches on the topic are what sets them apart, assessing the drama, humor, moving qualities, what it states about the writers’ life and how it links to the writers’ emotional experience.

How to make the college essay have stellar execution?

Attention-grabbing first sentence

You need to attract the attention of the readers first. The best place to achieve is in the first sentence. The first sentence must be very punchy. They are supposed to create an exciting scene or a situation that is not usual and a conclusion that is not clear. Making a reader excited about your essay ensures the first sentence is well written and will give the readers the morale to continue reading the essay.

An individual voice

The primary purpose of writing is for the readers to enjoy your piece. The readers of college essays are the admission office. The college admission staff have dealt and read many essays before yours. Do not make the readers lose interest in your piece of writing. Do not include clichés, jargon, however, add your observations. The essays should be about you and not any other person, also if you hire professional essay writer.

Correctness

The essay should not include mistakes. Spelling mistakes, punctuation, grammar mistakes should not be included in the college as much as possible. Proofread through the essay thoroughly to ensure there are no mistakes. Mistakes will make the admission office see you as a not qualified candidate. All college essays should be well formatted.

Most colleges advise students to allow their parents, friends, mentors, teachers’ professors to go through their essay first before submission. They will help them incredibly in seeing the mistakes and correcting them that they could not. It must be your work; however, it is not wrong to ask for help.

Common College essay prompts

An essay prompt is a clue that is given to the writer to assist them in remembering what to say. The 2020- 2021 essay prompts features some of the new prompts that were not available in the past. We want to share and explain this common app essay (term paper) prompts for the year 2020/2021 to help you write an excellent college essay. An essay determines if you will get admitted to the college.

They are the following:

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This is one of the best prompts since it offers an avenue for interaction with your best academic subject, and it will aid you in showing how proficient you are in the subject. This will help you in an essay that requires showing your personality and interest that is unique. These types of essays grab attention, especially if you have a passion for a particular activity.

It may seem intimidating for those who lack a unique talent or passion, but they need to talk on something you like. Do not impress the admission office with shocking things but show how you usually spend your free time. Your upbringing, identity, and experience should also be put into considerations.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

These prompts help show the problems you’ve ever encountered and which solutions you take—it is all about how you responded to a specific failure—for example, failing to win an award. Explain your thinking process after the failure to show how your thinking has changed. However, not all people have experienced a considerable problem. Some have experienced a smaller problem.

If you have experienced smaller failures, explain the more minor problems you have experienced that are related. A more trivial problem that you have experienced repeatedly will make you write an excellent essay or lab report.

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or an idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

This is one of the most challenging prompts to deal with. It involves explaining how you led to let us say a protest or revolution challenging something. However, not all people are capable of leading protests challenging something. If you have never tested an idea, state the time when you went against a particular norm, such as befriending an outcast person. If you have ever done something without the right qualification and you became successful, such as teaching, explain the experiences you got without a degree.

Have you ever noticed a need for a change in a particular thing? State the thing you have brainstorming and need to change. Emphasize the experiences that made you want to come up with the idea of change. This prompts lean toward reflective writing. It is all about thinking rumination and inquisition.

Have an outline where you will write the problem after brainstorming and try to come up with numerous solutions for the challenge while justifying them.

Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you would like to address. It can be an intellectual problem, a research query, an ethical dilemma that is of personal importance, regardless of scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

This prompt has specific suggestions that include: intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma. You need to choose a nagging problem that you encounter and make the readers why it is of importance to you. The topic selected here should also entail your personality, identity, and your thoughts on the world. This prompt helps in addressing a very ambitious problem that you would like to solve.

Be very creative and try as much as possible not to choose a cliché topic. The problem should be stated clearly, why it is a problem, note down the essential points and procedures you would take to solve the problem.

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself and others.

This is a very broad prompt in that you can choose an achievement or event reflecting personal growth. Use informal events to effectively address this prompt as it will enable you to show more creativity and personality. Anything that has made your growth; explaining the growth and the relationship between this growth and perception of yourself deeply.

This aspect of the essay or research paper requires as it requires a lot of time to go through the description.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

This prompt allows you to broaden and extensively discuss a small piece or a simple, idea, topic, or concept. For example, if you love fishing, you can deeply consider the fishing garments used. In this essay, you try to answer why a sure thing fascinates you.

Share an essay on any topic of your choice; it can be one you have already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your designs.

These prompts allow you to express what you want that doesn’t appear to the other prompts. It possesses a high risk since it involves writing your question but helps show your individuality and confidence.

Three essential tips for writing a college essay

Writing a college essay or personal statement is not an essay task since you need to impress the admission office. Below are the three essential tips that will help you write an incredible college essay

Go through other essays to get an idea

Read different essays to get a glimpse of what you should write on. You need to put into consideration the following factors:

If you can explain yourself and why the opening sentence works well;
The detailed personal anecdote of the essay; understands the kind of sense the writer is describing and if you can picture the scene in your mind;
Suppose you can look where the personal anecdote gives a broader insight into the writer. The link between the essay and the writer, for example, how it shows the characteristics of the writer;
The tone of the essay; Know the areas where humor is included if it is happy while sad, find the imagery, and describe how the feelings have been expressed. See how the choice of words has added to the tone.

When you find an essay that you think is well written, ensure that you note it. You should express the reasons why you like the essay. It will help you know much about the writer if their essay is unique. Use the things you have noted down when going through the essay when writing yours. Try to imitate the same techniques used by the writer; however, you need to be careful not to copy their work.

Look for an ” A-Ha” Moment

All the college essays are supposed to connect to the reader through a heartfelt and highly descriptive scene from the writer’s life. It can anything such as dramatic experience or mundane. However, do not forget it must be a personal experience and reviling about you and how you re now since you are entering the adult life.

Start early and have a frequent revision.

Do not wait until the last minute to start writing the essay. After understanding what you are required to do, start your essay immediately. The best writing is not just writing at all, it is rewriting. Fo you to rewrite the essay well, you need to start very early before the application deadline. It is recommended to finish the first draft two months before the deadline.
Ensure that you write the college essay with afresh mind to think about the things you rewriting critically. Starting early will enable you to rearrange sections that do not make sense. You also need to proofread the essay to correct all the spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mistakes that may be rising in the paper, also if you try to write the great dissertation.

The best college essay examples

Example 1. 200 Word essay.

“Burying my brother“

The elegant mahogany coffin was covered using a red pile of rocks, organisms that had decomposed, and weeds. I was so ashamed to send him off dutifully when my time to take the shovel reached since I did not bid him a very goodbye. I refused everything, throwing dirt on him, letting my brother go, and accepting that he was no more. I could not believe that a disease can just take the life of my beloved one away.

I knew aged ten that my brother was battling sickle cell anemia, and I became mad with myself. When my brother died, I could not take it anymore, I was trying to come with terms how I abandoned my sick brother in favor of watching T.V playing with my friends, and spending more time with other people rather than him.

I devoted myself to education and wanted to know about sickle cell anemia.

I promised myself that I would memorize all the journals and books talking about sickle cell anemia.

Sickle cell anemia as powerful may seem just a mere fraction of a person’s life. I want to be there as a sickle cell specialist to help those suffering from the disease in terms of emotional, physical, and all other supports to enable them to continue living. Through my work, I can accept the shovel without forgetting my brother’s memory.

N/B, this essay works with common app prompt 1 and 7 since it involves “telling us a story.”

Example 2. 250 Word Essay.

“A changed person“

I emerged victorious in the award at the Oscars in the category of the most original. It is just a consolation award. It is not about the prettiest or the best but the most unique one. I’ve won the award several times in the Oscars and other activities, and such is the soccer awards. So how can someone be most original while playing soccer?

Winning the award was not a very good thing to me as I would receive insincere congratulations that made me grew very hostile to the word Original. The winner of the award will receive disgusting comments such as a ‘bummer’ ‘well good for you’ and many other negative comments.
It may be an overreaction, but I cannot come to terms with the award. It made me hate to be original in any context, as it always let me down. I tried to be a typical student in my hometown of Texas by creating excellent rapport with crowds, and as typical as I was, I failed to surprise people.
I then relocated to California, an odd, vibrant place with vibrant people. Everything unique here was celebrated. I finally found out how originality was prominent in Chicago. I found out that the original people were influential. Being unique will help you in creating your ways and invent a new world.

I went back to Texas a changed person. I embraced originality, I loved myself, and I was always myself. Relocating in an area where the Most Original was the highest award helped me to find more about me without any fear.

Example 3. 400 Word Essay.

“Backing in my life“

A sweet aroma of cooked beans surrounded the house. My face was washed over by a wave of heat as I peeped through the window to see if my Australian Labradoodles were okay outside. From the edge of the window, Small pieces of chocolates peeked down. I laughed very loudly as I had craved for the chocolates the whole day.

My friends loved to compare me with Martin Luther King because of my wise nature, joking that I had made the whole village wise rather than knowing what to do with the smart people. I don’t like to be compared to such a great mind as I don’t see myself in that level yet, but any rancor brought out by this comparison is very overwhelmed by my enjoyment of the anticipation of my wise advises and words. I am also an incredible chef and they like my cooking a lot.

One type of thing I love is baking. I have done it as long as I can remember. The buttery smell of pastry in the kitchen is an excellent thing as it brings an utter relaxation feeling. I use this experience to shower people around me with my baked cakes. Many children love them, and it can be easily seen in the smiles that tick up in the corner of someone’s heart as they slice through the cakes with their sharp incisors make me proud and a great feeling of a person who has won an excellent award.

Baking has also played a key role in my life. I am the firstborn in a family of five, and thanks to my ever-hungry siblings and busy parents, I started cooking at a very young age. My whole time spent in the kitchen, I developed an interest in baking, and the glimmer of interest blossomed into a passionate hobby that makes me happy when stressed a lot. It creates a happy moment between people around me and me.

There is a saying that goes if you want to find your way to a man’s heart, and then you must focus on making his stomach full. The saying gives me motivation as I know if I want to get someone’s heart, then I need to make their stomach sorted out first. All the time spent in the kitchen, the effort made in creating my confectionary creations is a result of the love that makes me satisfied as much as my friends and family.

Example 4. 500 Word Essay

“A Facebook post“

An abortion debate had heated up in my high school and a non-Catholic student I was I needed to be very cautious about the positions I was going to take. However, I realized that most students supporting the debate were males. I could not take it anymore, and I immediately jumped into the discussions. I logged into my Facebook account and posted choices do not necessarily imply to pro-abortion.

It meant that all people must respect a woman’s fundamental choice. The majority of my colleagues called me a dumb bitch, but some recognized and agreed with my reasoning. I felt offended and needed an apology from those who had called me the bad names but was told they were jokes, and I need to learn how to take them.

I was glad that I had initiated a discussion, but by midnight I was exhausted mentally and emotionally. I could not go through the whole over 200 comments that were trickling in on the post. The bad comments affected me, and I had to seek my parents to console me. I was very shocked when my parents ordered me to pull the post down. I thought they were going to be very happy with me because standing firm on my own opinions, but I was wrong.

I could not remove the post, so I just stayed silent. I could see students continuing with the discussion in the next months, but I felt like I had duct tape on my mouth. It forced me to dig deeper into the research of parenthood, and the history of the feminist movement really interested me. The study helped me a lot as I found out that not conforming to the conventions of society is what propels us towards equality.

Before making my post, I had thoughts on sexism being dead but excruciatingly experienced its ubiquity. Young girls are very vulnerable to gender stereotypes. I developed an interest in coaching young girls. I could spend all my afternoons with middle school girls, singing, playing, discussing what we intend to achieve, and setting our ideas for the following day.

The activities helped the young girls a lot as they could express themselves positively and freely while setting up their goals and improve their self-esteem. While doing some researches as a result of my controversial post, I came across the Raise the Wage Act and all the women’s’ acts. I realized that the job was my wake up call to dissent.

The single post helped me a lot, as I started a broader discussion on campus, and I challenged the majority of the opinions of most of the students openly for the first time.

Example 5. 650 Words Essay.

“Easter Holidays“

It was a normal thing to celebrate the Easter holiday with my family members, but this one was unusual as we were locked in the house by my father as he was not going out and had to ensure we also do not. It was hard for me.

My mother was an immigrant in the USA from South Africa. She had enrolled in a school to study English, and she was excellent at the school with a very bright future ahead of her but found a man whom she fell in love with and now is my father. My father abused her a lot, both physically and mentally, as he would hurl insults to her and beat her up. The fear of starting over left my mother with no choice but to stay with my father. But she did not want the same to be done to me.

I secured a scholarship to study in France, but my father would not listen to any of it. He refused that I was going nowhere. On the other hand, my mother was not okay with my father’s refusal and would not. She did not want my dreams to be quashed away just like that, so I accepted the scholarship. I was thrilled s I could finally get the freedom that I was looking for in France.

While in France, I was harassed, and insults hurled at me while walking in the streets, but I could not bow down to the societal expectations of women staying indoors. I walked in Paris, familiarizing myself with the city. When my time finally ended in Paris, and I had to return to the USA, I had an opportunity to pass through London and Barcelona. It was astonishing to me as I could not imagine a girl from slums will be touring the world as much as I was doing what was pleasing is that there was no man in my life to dictate to me on what I was supposed to do and not to do.

I enjoyed the tour of the Cambridge University to the British Museum and while in Barcelona I enjoyed the best holiday place in Ibiza. Although I was not fluent in Spanish, I was not afraid to ask people for directions when I felt lost. Things at home went from bad to worse as my mother finally moved out and rented her place as I enjoyed myself in Europe.

It felt like we had finally gained independence and freedom from my abusive father. She was thrilled as I send her pictures of my vacations while telling her my adventures.

I currently stay in America with my loving mother. We do not know my father’s whereabouts since he moved out of the place we were earlier staying. I enjoy the perfect relationship I have my mother as there are tranquility and stability in our lives. I am the leader of my school’s event committee that I foresee as a stepping stone for my future. My focus is on majoring in Women’s studies. Most of the women are vulnerable hence oppressed so much, especially in the Middle East Countries.

These oppressions ensure that the majority of them are silenced. My journey towards having my freedom has helped me a lot in assisting other women.

Conclusion

College papers require a lot of effort when writing on them. Set aside enough time to write an effective college essay that may help you get admitted to your choice. We have provided examples of popular college essays as well as on how to write them. And if you need help with your essay, you can try to use our perfect essay writing services, that will be reviewed by our experts in this year.