Common App Essay Examples + Writing Guide 2023
November 13, 2023
If there’s a surefire way to strike fear into the heart of a college-bound high school senior, it’s the prospect of writing a college personal statement. We can understand why: this is a high-stakes piece of writing that adds much-needed dimension and personality to your application’s quantitative elements, providing important insight into what type of student and community member you will be on campus. Compounding these factors is the decision of what to write about, and then, after you decide, figuring out how to express it all in under 650 words. No pressure, right? Understand that your nerves are normal, but don’t let them induce midlife crisis levels of panic–you can do this! Wondering how to write a personal statement for college? In today’s blog, we cover ten important tips. In addition, we also analyze several Common App essay examples and offer insight into what they can teach us.
College Personal Statement Tip #1: Remember your essay’s purpose.
To write the most effective piece of writing in any discipline, it’s important to understand the context in which that piece of writing is being evaluated and for what purpose. Your personal statement for college is a single subjective element of your application that helps tell the story of you, alongside other quantitative and qualitative information such as grades, test scores, teacher recommendations, and your extracurricular profile. It’s certainly true that essays can be a weighty element depending on the school you’re applying to and where you fall in relation to the rest of the applicant pool. However, since essays are often the final application piece that can be controlled, it’s common to overinflate their importance.
If your essay does its job, readers will obtain a clear sense of who you are and what you value. They’ll also have a better understanding of how you might contribute to their academic institution’s learning and social communities. Additionally, admissions officers should be able to sum up your essay’s main message in about one sentence.
College Personal Statement Tip #2: Be authentic.
You might be tired of hearing this one, but it’s the most salient piece of advice we can offer. Often, students attempt to manufacture certain application narratives, which typically wind up sounding forced or over-engineered. If you do make genuine connections between certain experiences, great! Perhaps your lifelong love of camping really did contribute to your engineering aspirations. However, if that connection doesn’t exist, don’t invent it. If you’re writing about what truly matters most to you–an experience, a passion, an idea, an important moment of growth or conflict–the different aspects of your application will naturally come together. We promise.
College Personal Statement Tip #3: Be humble and self-aware.
A self-important tone will sink an essay faster than holes in a canoe, no matter how impressive you are. The personal statement is not an opportunity to hit people over the head with accomplishments that appear elsewhere. Instead, it’s to reveal the voice of the person behind the application–what you value and think is important. Your essays are the closest admissions officers can get to having you in the room with them. Consequently, use that power wisely and let your grades, extracurricular profile, and teacher recommendations do the heavy lifting.
College Personal Statement Tip #4: Write well and with clarity.
Good writing is good writing, period. An excellent personal statement in 2023 would also have been an excellent personal statement in 2013. The criteria haven’t changed: colleges that use holistic admissions still rely on essays to obtain a sense of an applicant’s unique voice and hear their story in their own words.
However, packing your essay with figurative devices, subtle or abstract references, and complex syntax is not in your best interest. Your reader will not be sitting with your essay for 15-20 minutes appreciating its style. Instead, they’ll be reading it once–perhaps twice. They’ll synthesize its message and then move on. As such, your essay’s overall message–and its clarity–is paramount. When you do make sentence-level revisions, focus on those that will enhance your essay’s narrative or present your ideas even more clearly rather than worrying about using overly flowery language or uncommon vocabulary.
College Personal Statement Tip #5: Structure your essay in the way that makes the most sense for your story.
Too often, we see students attempting to make their essays stand out by adopting a “unique” structure or approach. However, to be quite frank, your chance of presenting admissions officers with something that they’ve never seen before has approximately the same probability as seeing a velociraptor in your backyard. Remember, they read thousands of applications per year. Their objective is not to be surprised but to get to know you. Style and presentation shouldn’t get in the way of substance.
College Personal Statement Tip #6: Trust your intuition.
When it comes to choosing topics, the way you write about any given topic often outweighs the topic itself. (See exceptions here.) As such, the topic that is often the most successful is the one that you feel most excited or inspired to write. In addition, many writing teachers and scholars agree that the most effective revision takes place when writers are interested and invested in their topics. Essentially, make sure you like what you’re writing about!
College Personal Statement Tip #7: Choose a topic you feel comfortable writing about.
Writing about trauma or deeply personal challenges is not a prerequisite for your application. Every student is so incredibly multidimensional with myriad stories to tell about themselves (yes, it’s true!). As such, you shouldn’t feel pressured to reveal details or experiences that you aren’t ready to write about or share. If you do elect to write about a traumatic experience or difficult circumstance, we’d advise engaging in a quick self-check. How much are you attaching yourself to this essay? In other words, if your application is not accepted to College X, will you be okay with that? If that question immediately induces self-doubt and negativity, you likely want to choose something else to write about.
College Personal Statement Tip #8: Solicit feedback.
Most professional writers ask a trusted peer, mentor, or colleague to read their work at least once before finalizing it. It can be difficult to be objective, so receiving quality feedback from an outside reader can make an important difference.
However, this tip has one important caveat: be choosy about whom you solicit feedback from. The person you ask should be familiar with the college essay genre and understand what is expected. Otherwise, it would be like asking someone who doesn’t play baseball to give you advice on your swing.
If you do ask a friend, family member, or teacher for feedback who is not familiar with college essay conventions, a great question to ask is “Does this essay sound like me?” In addition, the feedback you receive should, ideally, be very specific with well-explained reasoning. This allows you to decide if and how to use it.
College Personal Statement Tip #9: Use spell check.
An error or two won’t hurt you–we promise. We’re all humans and miss a comma here and there. However, if your essay is littered with typos that could have been remediated by running a Grammarly scan, a reader may assume you’re not serious about the application or lack attention to detail.
College Personal Statement Tip #10: Read Common App essay examples (with perspective).
How can we write a good poem without ever reading a piece of poetry? Or craft a short story without first immersing ourselves in the classics? Or develop a college personal statement without reading good examples? Well–that last one isn’t exactly rhetorical.
We’ve noticed that providing Common App essay examples is more complicated than providing examples for other types of writing. This is because college essays are often associated with a particular desired outcome. As such, students are prone to arrive at unhelpful and/or inaccurate conclusions after reading. For example: “If so-and-so got into Harvard by theming all their essays about chicken soup, then I should do the same!” or “This person used an extended metaphor, so that must be the way to do it!” What happens even more frequently is that students compare their writing styles and life experiences to others. They’ll then (falsely) conclude that they’re not good enough or interesting enough to be accepted to College X. This can result in confidence issues and unnecessary panic.
It’s also important to note that reading a college personal statement by itself is akin to watching a fish out of water. To truly understand its context, it should be read within the framework of the application. That said, to better understand the basics of the genre, it can be helpful to read a variety of Common App essay examples, observing their general structure and what they reveal about their writers. Below, we’ve included several personal statement examples along with a short breakdown of what writers can learn from each piece.
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #1
On a hot day last summer, my brother ran his bike into the mailbox. He skinned his knee, but was less worried about that and more worried about the chipped paint on his new bike. Tears welling in his eyes, he rubbed it with his finger and even more paint flaked off.
“Wait,” I said. “Wait here for just one minute.”
I had taken my brother outside because my mom was sleeping after a chemo treatment, but I ran upstairs as quickly and quietly as I could to get my box of paints. It’s a wooden box, smudged with charcoal fingerprints and streaks of acrylics. I hadn’t always been an artist, but when my art teacher noticed the designs in my notebook margins and asked if I wanted to come to an art club meeting, I decided to try it.
At that first meeting, my teacher taught us how to create a mountain sunrise. As the painting took shape, I marveled at the techniques–using my thumbprint to create the sun, crafting shadows with surprising colors, creating different effects by applying varying types of pressure to my brush. I was also surprised that focusing on my piece felt so meditative–it was the first time since my mom’s diagnosis that I hadn’t been preoccupied with whether her treatments would work or what I was going to cook my brother for dinner.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
“What do you want on your bike?” I asked my brother. “Instead of the scratch.” I opened up my box and pointed toward his bike. His eyes widened.
“Anything I want?” he asked.
He chose a baseball bat, and crouched next to me as I painted. When I was done, he said, “Can you paint a baseball, too? Over here.” He pointed to the other end of the bike.
“I’ll show you how.” I dipped his thumb in white and pressed it on the bike’s frame, then showed him how to use my thinnest brush to add curved red stitching.
Word spread quickly about my bike designs. My brother’s friends stopped by the house with pictures of designs that they wanted, and my neighbor’s little girls shyly approached when I was outside with my brother, asking for butterflies. I started carrying my paints around just in case. The kids always gave me something–a shiny rock they’d found, a few quarters, a special feather. It makes me smile when I look out the window and see those bikes pedaling around the neighborhood, my brother’s among them. It makes my mom smile, too. I asked what she would want painted on her bike if she had one, and she said a sunflower. I painted one on our mailbox, cheery and yellow, its stem curling around the handle and down the post.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
There are always new techniques to learn and improvements to strive toward, but I feel that art is about trying to create meaning within a chosen medium. There’s so much I can’t control, but what I can do is create beauty in my life and in the lives of others. It’s why I started teaching an afterschool art class at my brother’s elementary school, why I’m currently working on a wall mural in the children’s room at the library, why I’ve taught myself graphic design skills to create posters for art club events and shows. Also, my mailbox paint creations gained so much popularity that my entire street commissioned me to do their boxes. I donated the money to cancer research, but more importantly, the designs are a beacon of support to my mom each day that she feels strong enough to walk outside and check the mail.
Although college will bring new challenges, I also know it will bring a new collection of scratched-up bikes and bare mailboxes, waiting to be painted with brightly colored designs that allow me to express myself and impact others.
What we can learn from this personal statement example:
Many students have hobbies or passions that are a defining part of their lives. This writer’s involvement in the arts is given context and dimension here. Upon reviewing other parts of the application, such as the extracurricular profile, the reader might wonder, Why art? What sparked this interest? Why is it so important to her? As such, it can be helpful to provide insight on the influence of a certain hobby or passion by sharing a related personal experience.
In addition, the writer alludes to her family circumstances and responsibilities without going too in-depth. This is an excellent choice for students who may not feel comfortable sharing anything other than a basic level of information.
Finally, this writer reflects throughout the essay, tying everything together at the end with just one sentence. It’s a good reminder that just a few well-placed moments of insight can go a long way.
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #2
By some people’s standards, my grandma might be considered a hoarder. When I say there is stuff everywhere at our house, I mean it: broken crystal glasses from a hundred years ago, old watch straps, a shockingly large collection of thumbtacks. Three coffee makers that haven’t worked since before I was born. A broom no one uses because it doesn’t actually sweep anything up.
Whenever I make a motion to throw something out–an empty spice jar for example, or socks with holes in them, my grandma acts personally insulted. (She has also been known to survey the trash can for offending items.) She’ll take it from me grouchily and remind me of its potential uses–spice jars can be cinnamon-and-sugar shakers! Socks are free dusters! Sometimes, though, she doesn’t have a reason beyond “I might need it someday.”
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
At first, I thought this statement was weird. What could we possibly need a cracked Tupperware container for? But then I learned that her attitude stems, in part, from growing up on a rural farm. Everything was repurposed, and it was common to keep things that may not have direct uses, knowing you’d likely find one at some point or another. For example, a large plastic container with a broken lid could be turned on its side and stuffed with hay for the cat in the winter, or plastic bread bags could be used to pack school lunches. Dried-up markers? Homemade watercolor paint. Egg cartons and dryer lint? Fire starters. Chipped bowl? Bird bath.
Her attitude made me interested in our collective willingness to sentence an item to the trash before finding a reuse for it. We buy cheap clothes knowing they might only last us a year. Single-use plastic still dominates, even though the vast majority of it heads to the landfill instead of being recycled. Old jeans are tossed instead of patched up and used as gardening pants, like my grandma does. The worst part is that we do all this knowing that our planet is undergoing irreversible shifts as a result of climate change. The world we’re heading toward is a world none of us can possibly be prepared for.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
But what if people could be convinced to adopt my grandma’s mindset? And what would it take to inspire such behavioral changes on a large scale? I started learning about the field of neuroeconomics through books, podcasts, and a summer course at our local college, and became fascinated with the neuroscience behind decision-making. Could principles of neuroeconomics influence environmental policy? What factors could help people make long-lasting, environmentally conscious changes, and how we might facilitate them? These are massive, long-term questions. For now, was there a way to inspire my friends to start being more mindful of their consumption? To start reusing spaghetti jars and dusting with hole-y socks? And what might people be willing to donate or repurpose when there was a community effort to do so?
So, me and my grandma started advertising our services, and the response was unlike anything I could have possibly imagined. We now have a garage full of items that we either donate, sell, or repair, everything from antique dresses that my grandma soaks the stains out of to custom-patched jeans to dressers and wooden toys that need a quick sanding and fresh coat of paint. Our yard sales have become legendary and I’m the go-to kid when people have an old end table with Buzz Lightyear on it that they don’t know what to do with. “Drop it off at my grandma’s,” I say, and they do. Until I can figure out how to effect the kind of large-scale change I’d like to make, I’ll start small and keep going, hopeful that I’m making a difference one revitalized sock at a time.
What we can learn from this personal statement example:
If you’re naturally humorous, feel free to incorporate it into your college essay! That said, if you do write a humorous piece, avoid waiting until the last paragraph to be funny or sarcastic. Otherwise, your one joke may not be received the way you intend.
It was important to this author to demonstrate intellectual curiosity, which was accomplished in several ways. For starters, the writer asked open-ended, interesting questions. Secondly, the writer provides examples of formal and informal engagement with neuroeconomics. Finally, the writer attempts to create a solution to at least one of their questions. This move gives the reader an opportunity to see how the writer’s mind works as well as how they process and utilize information. Finally, the writer is careful not to make future claims that are too grandiose in nature. For example: “I will single-handedly save the planet by repurposing furniture!”
Moreover, their use of vivid details and examples supports the narrative instead of acting as filler. Notice that the writer only provides examples of repurposable items (which are the focal point of the story). Other types of details, such as the house’s design features or Grandma’s physical attributes, may have felt distracting. When incorporating descriptive elements, it’s important to make sure that they’re serving a purpose and pulling their weight.
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #3
My life has always been punctuated by my father’s military deployments, like periods placed in the middle of sentences. I often measured time in relation to them: before, during, or after, holding my breath for my father’s departure or homecoming, for the inevitable extensions and sporadic phone calls, for the unexpected emotions and responsibilities. By the time I was in high school, my father had been gone for more of my childhood than he had been present, and in tenth grade, my parents decided to divorce.
Until then, I had always been surrounded by friends who also had an active duty parent. We didn’t have to explain to each other what the ups and downs felt like. We just knew. I knew that when Mariela’s father’s deployment got extended, she could use a trip to the beach, her favorite place, knew that one of the most painful parts of the whole deployment cycle was the anticipation, and would check in with my friends more frequently during that time, knew that the first week often felt the most discombobulated, and was usually when my mom would offer to drop off meals or help ferry kids to after-school activities. That first week was also the time when things usually went wrong: a burst pipe, a dead car battery, a broken washing machine. Murphy’s Law, my mom always said.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
I had spent my entire life existing within this predictably unpredictable cycle. So, when my mom and I moved right before my junior year to a small condo ten minutes from my grandparents but 2,000 miles away from my father’s last duty station, I assumed it wouldn’t be that much different from other moves. I’d join new clubs, make new friends, get to know our neighbors.
But I was immediately confronted by a sense of otherness in a community of kids who had known each other since kindergarten. Explaining where I’d lived before–and why–either solicited shocked reactions “You’ve moved six times?” or prying questions “Why didn’t you stay with your dad?” Mentioning a deployment received a blank stare. It felt like the previous version of me, the way I’d always thought of myself–as a military kid–was no longer true, or had somehow evaporated into thin air.
Then, last spring, I had an unexpected breakthrough. My chemistry lab partner struggled with some of the steps. As I explained them to her, she visibly relaxed and shot me a thankful smile. I grinned too, because in that moment, I felt more like myself than I had in months.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
Later that week, I applied for a peer tutoring position and was accepted. I feel passionate about trying to make personal connections with my students so that I can try to understand and anticipate their needs. I notice whether some students like to brainstorm ideas aloud before writing them down, or prefer when I use pictures to explain concepts. Some students appreciate small talk for a few minutes before we get started, and others need to be more efficient, trying to squeeze in a tutoring session before their after-school job. Not only that, but as I got to know my fellow tutors, I found friendship and connection. When Sophia’s brother was in the hospital, I picked her up for an afternoon movie. On the night of my piano recital, Olivia and Mary were in the front row cheering me on.
I’ve come to understand that my previous identity is still part of me, even though I now live a very different lifestyle than I did several years ago. Sometimes, I still miss being a military kid. But all the lessons I learned from that time in my life–the importance of a supportive community, empathy, kindness, and anticipating others’ needs–are always with me, informing everything I do.
What we can learn from this personal statement example:
This essay deals with several significant personal challenges, including military deployments, divorce, and a cross-country move. Notice that the writer contains these challenges in the first half of the essay and only includes need-to-know details. For example, we don’t need to know the reason for the divorce, or every nitty-gritty deployment detail. She sticks to the facts.
In addition, there should always be a purpose to sharing a challenge, which needs to be revealed in the second half of the essay. As we often can’t control our circumstances, readers are most interested in how you handled the adversity you experienced or how it has impacted your perspective.
In essays about challenges, it’s also essential to strike a mature and positive tone, which this writer certainly demonstrates. However, positive doesn’t have to mean that you have to slap a shiny bow on an unresolved issue or arrive at a forced conclusion. Positive simply means that there is some type of upward trajectory, some type of forward momentum or thinking. At the end of the essay, one has the overall sense that, even though this writer sometimes struggles with her new lifestyle, she’s ready to take on new challenges. It’s also clear that she values and prioritizes being part of a community.
Finally, this writer chose to use several figurative devices in her essay, including similes and anaphora. However, she uses them sparingly. As such, they demonstrate her writing style without overshadowing or detracting from content.
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #4
The scent of crushed garlic permeates the air, mingling with tamari and sesame oil. The nutty smell of brown butter hits my nose next, followed by earthy sage. Something sweet and spicy—sweet potatoes tossed in cinnamon and gochujang.
Most Saturday mornings, the kitchen counter is a mess of ingredients, whisks, and hot pans with my parents shuffling around in the middle, kneading bread or marinating meat. They’re rarely home for dinner during the week, but Saturdays are when we try our hand at everything from my Italian great-grandmother’s tomato-stained lasagna recipe to new dishes like bulgogi, potstickers, and garlic naan.
Often, the recipes fail miserably the first time. A few months ago, our naan dough was so sticky that it was difficult to knead and then impossible to flip in the pan. Our raviolis split open when we dropped them in boiling water; our lemon curd always broke. Without fail, though, there was some special trick we were missing. My mom’s best friend, who gave us the naan recipe, showed us how to oil our hands before kneading the dough and brush the back of each naan with water before dropping it into the pan. The result? Perfectly chewy and easy-to-flip bread. YouTube tutorials fixed our ravioli problem—turns out we needed to turn down the heat and avoid overloading the pot. (We’re still figuring out the lemon curd.)
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
I always write down the adjustments in the margins of our recipe notebook, adjustments that are sometimes happy accidents, like when we successfully thickened a soup with cashews instead of butter or accidentally added cinnamon to a chocolate chip cookie recipe. It made me embrace the mindset that whatever problem we were facing could always be creatively solved.
It was this sense of possibility that helped me navigate new territory last year. After extensive testing and many years of chronic stomach problems and headaches, I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance. I felt both relieved and nervous as I wondered whether our cooking Saturdays would be more difficult. My mom, however, seemed undeterred and immediately started researching gluten-free substitutes and flours. We quickly found that there were an overwhelming number of flour possibilities—tapioca, rice, coconut, almond, oat—all combined in various ratios and used for differing purposes.
We decided to test the flours one by one, quickly finding that coconut flour cannot be directly substituted for regular flour, almond flour naturally creates a chewier cookie, and gluten-free flours almost always need more moisture than regular flour. Every time we successfully modified one of our “old” recipes, I felt both energized and encouraged that I didn’t have to give up foods I loved just because I was gluten-free.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
My experiences have made me realize that food inclusivity can be an underrated yet simple way to show kindness to others. After multiple events and birthday parties where I brought my own snacks or avoided the food table, I’ve become more mindful of people’s food traditions and considerations. For example, one of my Indian friends eats exclusively vegetarian while my Muslim friend doesn’t eat pork. My cousin has an anaphylactic peanut allergy, and my neighbor recently became vegan for environmental reasons. When they come over to study or hang out, I love the smile I get when they realize they can eat whatever snack or baked good I’ve made (especially if it’s brownies).
In addition to empathy, all those Saturday mornings cooking with my parents—and the food knowledge I’ve gained from our friends and family—have encouraged my curiosity. Instead of focusing on what might go wrong, I focus on how I can always learn something new if I’m open-minded enough to do it. Making perfect ravioli might just mean turning down the heat, unsticking my naan might just require a little sprinkle of water, and finding new friends in college might just take a warm plate of nut-free, vegan, gluten-free brownies.
What we can learn from this personal statement example:
Many of us have core food memories, and they can be a great way to demonstrate values and qualities. Food is an innately sensory experience, which means it can be an attention-grabbing way to start an essay. However, if you do choose to write about a particular food or food-related experience, it’s important to consider its merits beyond the opening “hook.” What does it demonstrate about you, the applicant? How has this particular food—or food experience—influenced you in a significant way? In essence, make sure that your opener is pulling its weight and serving a purpose.
Additionally, when you have a number of potential examples to share—as this writer did—consider embracing the rule of three. Our brains like patterns, and three is typically the sweet spot of effectiveness and memorability. Notice that this writer uses three examples in several areas: the opening paragraph, third paragraph, sixth paragraph, and final paragraph. Limiting yourself to three can be an excellent way to increase your writing’s power nd simultaneously reduce words. Win-win!
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #5
Beep. As the cashier passes each item over the scanner, she rolls it in my direction, where I have a growing collection of produce, soup cans, and chip bags. Beep. I sort through the heap, automatically stacking cans and moving eggs and bread to the side. Beep.
“Paper, plastic, or reusable?” I ask.
I started my job as a grocery bagger last summer, and at first, it seemed like it would be easy money. However, on my first day, I quickly learned that bagging groceries was part art, part science.
How hard could this be? I assumed the goal should be to load each bag with as many items as possible, and so placed three jars of spaghetti sauce, canned vegetables, and a half-gallon of milk in one bag, confident that I was being efficient.
Wrong. So, so wrong.
As soon as I lifted the bag toward the cart, the handles ripped off and the entire thing crashed to the floor. The cans rolled in multiple directions; the milk skidded across the tiles in what seemed like slow motion.
No spills. Phew.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
I breathed a sigh of relief about those glass jars of sauce…until I picked up the bag, the inside of which was now a crime scene of tomatoes and broken glass. The cashier rolled her eyes at me and other customers stopped to crane their necks and see what was happening. I felt like everything was staring at me, and wanted to disappear.
“Hey, kid.” An older man limped over to where I was standing and took the bag from my hands. “Why don’t you go grab this lady some new sauce?”
I scurried off to the spaghetti sauce aisle, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. How could I have messed up something as simple as bagging groceries?
I got the sauce and went back. Gerry—as I would soon come to know him—was standing at my bagging station, patiently sorting the customer’s pile of food. When he saw me, he gestured me over.
“Now,” he said. “Here’s what you do. Cans on the bottom, around the outside, see? But only a couple.” He watched me load some in. “No, no, that’s too many.” He took one out. “You should be able to easily lift it, see?” He picked up the bag with one hand.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
“Cans around the outside. Good. Now glass in the middle. Take one of these—” he took a spaghetti sauce jar out of my hands and deposited it snugly between the cans. “Good. Now, what else we got? Put the boxes and crushable items on top—look, she’s got granola bars, popcorn. Yep, just like that.”
Gerry supervised me for the rest of the week, teaching me how to handle all kinds of bagging conundrums, like fresh meat (put it in a separate bag); cleaning supplies (don’t put them with the food, in case they leak); recently-misted produce (put another plastic bag over it to keep it from getting the rest of the groceries wet); and eggs (either on top of a mid-weight bag or at the bottom of a light bag. Oh, and tell the customer which bag the eggs are in!).
I’ve quickly learned our customers’ bagging preferences, and cashiers now often request me as their bagger. I’ve also learned that these interactions mean a lot to people, as properly bagged groceries make it easier for people to transport their food home efficiently and in one piece. Most importantly, Gerry taught me that nothing is more essential than your willingness to learn and do your best, no matter what job you find yourself doing.
Gerry retired last month, but I think of him whenever I’m training a new bagger or navigating ripped-bag catastrophes. And when I see a jar of spaghetti sauce coming down the conveyor belt, I can’t help but grin as I place it safely between a few cans.
What we can learn from this personal statement example:
Many times, students want to share a memorable story or anecdote in their essays. The best stories and anecdotes are those that bring the reader into your world, often accomplished through the use of storytelling elements like dialogue, imagery, and interior monologue. White space is also an important consideration—in an essay this short, physical white space can be a helpful way to heighten or slow down a particular moment. Note that this writer used a number of short paragraphs at the most climactic point of the story, a great way to amp up tension without adding words.
In addition, this is very much what we’d call a “slice-of-life” essay. Many students shy away from writing essays about part-time jobs or seemingly “ordinary” moments, which they often believe are mundane and uninteresting. However, in our experience, these types of topics can be incredibly compelling, humorous, and revealing. In sum, look no further than your day-to-day life for plenty of essay-writing inspiration!
Common App Essay Examples: Essay #6
I’ve always been obsessed with the ocean. Bioluminescent plankton. Killer whales. Alien-like creatures that only exist in the abyssal zone, a place less explored than outer space. As a child, I spent summer beach days observing tide pools and writing down what I saw in a notebook. I learned about scientists like Eugenie Clark and Sylvia Earle, fearless crusaders who explored the ocean through scuba diving and deep-sea expeditions. Although many jobs within marine biology don’t require diving ability, I dreamed of being the type of scientist who boldly investigates underwater caves and cascades down to the bottom of the ocean in a submersible with bizarre and never-before-seen fish flashing past the tiny windows.
Even though the cold waters near our home weren’t exactly a diving mecca, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was learn. I started saving up money to pay for lessons and was so excited when I finally had enough to take an introductory course. The class started out in a pool, and once we mastered a certain set of skills, we’d be able to do our first open-water dive.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
Since I loved the ocean so much, I thought diving would come naturally to me. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. I managed to keep up until it came time to work on clearing our masks underwater, which is when you rinse the inside of the mask while you’re diving rather than have to re-surface every time the glass fogs. However, whenever I loosened my mask to flood it with water, I couldn’t push away the nagging sense of panic. I kept sucking water up my nose instead of blowing out and would immediately need to surface, choking and gasping.
I tried again. And again. And again. Over and over, the mask clearing went sideways: I’d press on the seal, tilt my head up, and attempt to blow through my nose, only to inhale instead of exhale or become overwhelmed by the water clouding my vision. After several weeks and little improvement, my instructor sat me down to discuss taking a break.
Honestly, rather than feeling a sense of failure, all I felt was a sense of relief. However, as soon as I got home, that instant relief was replaced by intense disappointment. Diving was my dream, and I couldn’t let myself give up that easily.
Common App Essay Examples (Continued)
I knew that there must be something mentally preventing me from enjoying diving and being able to complete certain skills. To figure out what that “something” was, I started talking to both beginning and experienced divers on online forums, who were quick to share their own experiences of struggling on their first dives. They emphasized water comfort as well as mindfulness techniques, such as yoga and meditation. Instead of diving, I started heading to the pool multiple days per week, doing laps and getting more comfortable in the water, in addition to taking a yoga class and meditating every morning.
Several months ago, I went back to my diving class with renewed purpose and confidence. I successfully cleared my mask underwater and quickly mastered the next set of skills. And two weeks ago, when I lowered myself beneath the surface of the ocean on my first open-water dive, it was nothing short of magical.
Diving is about more than my childhood dream—it’s about my confidence in myself. Although it was a longer journey than I anticipated, I’m proud of myself for committing to my goal. Rather than allowing myself to believe that my fears can’t be overcome and that I have to live with limited opportunities, I choose to embrace the belief that having fears—and confronting them—will only make me a stronger diver and a more resilient scientist.
What we can learn from this essay:
Similar to fervently hoping that you will not be asked “What’s your greatest weakness?” in a job interview, many students shy away from writing about failure. Quite understandably, they want to avoid portraying themselves negatively on their application. However, some of the most powerful essays that we’ve read are those that deal with a less-than-stellar experience, a personal mistake, or a project that went sideways. You won’t find a human on Earth who hasn’t stumbled (repeatedly), and stories of this nature are not only relatable but also demonstrative of valuable character attributes like grit, perseverance, resilience, and self-awareness.
In addition, this writer takes the time to provide us with essential context (she’s been obsessed with the ocean since she was a child, and diving has always been a personal goal). If you do choose to write an essay about a particular failure or struggle, think about why it felt so significant, and be sure to incorporate that “why” into your essay. Remember, the reader doesn’t know what you don’t tell them, so it’s important to frame your struggle with an appropriate level of detail.
Final Thoughts – Common App Essay Examples
The college personal statement is an important part of the application that can reveal more about who you are and what you’ll bring to a college campus. Studying the genre is an essential part of being well-prepared to do your best writing, an exercise that includes understanding the essay’s purpose as well as how it will be evaluated. In addition, reading Common App essay examples can be an insightful addition to your writing process. Relax, be yourself, and know that admissions officers are eager to get to know you–the real, multidimensional, interesting person–behind the application.
Looking for more essay writing advice? Check out the following blogs:
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