Honestly, these are the wrong questions. To know how to end a Common App essay, you have to know how to begin it. To begin it, you also must know how to carry it through the middle. In short, there’s no part that’s more important than any other. They’re all linked together.  

A person who leaves a lasting impression with an admissions official will understand all of this.

The Structure

Let’s talk about essay structure, but not academic essay structure. Let’s talk about college application essay structure.  

You probably already feel comfortable with writing an academic essay. Our schools do a good job of burning that structure into the minds of middle- and high school students all over the nation. You know the drill, but let’s review it: Start with introduction (always end with the thesis!), go to body paragraph 1, then body paragraph 2, then body paragraph 3, and finally the conclusion (always provide a restated thesis). You might even have been taught to preview your points in the introduction, and then review your points in the conclusion as well. That’s a mistake, but let’s skip over that for now. 

Well, the college application essay isn’t an academic essay, not like that. It isn’t even referred to as an essay. The Common Application calls it “the personal statement”. The University of California calls theirs “personal insight questions”. 

What does that mean for you? Don’t fall into mental routines that your teachers have built inside your head. Academic essay structure has almost no relationship to college application writing. This is hard for some of us to accept. 

Yes, there is some overlap between academic writing and college application writing. One, you should use claim and evidence in both. This means that if you make a general statement, you should follow it up with concrete evidence. Two, you should strive for as much specificity as possible. Writing the villain kicked the dog is general; writing the villainous stepfather stupidly kicked the angry pit bull is specific. And three, the so-called “cycle of evidence” remains the same for both types of writing: 1) set up the evidence, 2) provide the evidence, then 3) analyze the evidence. That’s so important that it bears repeating: you should always provide original, incisive analysis following your evidence.

But in most other ways, the personal statement (or personal insight questions) are exactly that: personal. You have to provide some stories about your life, and stories aren’t academic. If it feels like a journal, well, that’s because it is—a very insightful, smart, well-written journal. 

The structure of the personal statement is flexible. Below you will find one structure that you can rely upon, no matter what topic you select. It’s not mandatory, but many high school students have relied upon it. 

• Paragraph 1: Begin with an anecdote from your life, a moment of conflict. Write it using sensory description. 
• Paragraph 2: Go backwards in time, into the background. Describe your experience in this topic, maybe including your childhood. Talk about how you ultimately arrived at that moment of conflict.
• Paragraph 3: Explain how you resolved the moment of conflict, and what sort of tools (emotional, intellectual, physical) you developed to do that. 
• Paragraph 4: Story time is over. This is the place to show off your intelligence. Analyze your experience, relate it to other experiences via analogies, ask rhetorical questions. Be sure to give them the best of your brain. 
• Paragraph 5: The future. Discuss what you’ve learned from your experience in this topic, and how it’s going to influence you at university, in your career, and beyond. 

Remember that admissions officials read these personal statements by the truckload every night. Yours is, for better or worse, being compared with every other personal statement in the stack. If you follow this structure, you will leave a lasting impression with your statement.

What you can do to get better at writing college admissions personal statements

The best thing you can do is to read other people’s personal statements. There are many books and websites full of sample essays. Read the good, read the bad, read the in-between. Read them with friends. Read at least twenty. Ask yourself where they succeeded and where they failed. Ask yourself why. 

Another thing you can do is to write multiple versions of the same personal statement. Approach it from different perspectives, using different tones and different outlines. If you’re a perfectionist, this exercise will be especially helpful. It’ll teach you that perfection is impossible in the world of writing. It’ll also teach you the importance of the idea that the perfect is the enemy of the good. (Better to be on the side of the good.)

To improve the versatility of your writing skills, try doing a few exercises looking at the same topic from different modes, or points of view. 

Let’s pick a silly topic. Say you want to persuade the reader not to buy a hippopotamus. (It’s not that silly: they’re angry, aggressive creatures.) You could challenge yourself to write about the topic in several ways: 

• Compare and Contrast. Pit a hippopotamus against a parrakeet. 
• Process Analysis. Lead us through the laborious process of taking care of a hippopotamus.
• Poetic. Wax lyrical about the semiaquatic mammal’s horrid nature. 
• Argumentative. Write a classic persuasive essay, with claim and evidence, why we should steer clear of them.
• Informative. Select facts that illustrate their nasty nature, but don’t comment or analyze. 

You get the picture. A mature writer should be able to mine his or her own experience, then shape it to whatever is needed. 

One thing you shouldn’t do is rely upon artificial intelligence. AI tools are good at producing slick sentences, but they’re bad at presenting details, transmitting emotion, or analyzing experience. Its output text lacks personality, which makes sense, since AI doesn’t have a personality (for now). Besides, why would you want to hand over control of the most important essay you’ll probably ever write to somebody or something else? Keep that power for yourself.

Editing

First drafts should be expansive and fun. They should also contain more words than needed.

Let that sink in. Always write more than you need; this allows you the wiggle room to edit unneeded words out of the essay. Sometimes applicants know the Common Application word count limit is 650 words, and then panic when their first draft goes to 700 words. In reality, that’s not enough: write 800 words, at the very least, for the first draft. 

When editing down, there are two types of edits: structural and line-by-line. Do the structural edits first. Sit with an experienced editor and decide if every part of the personal statement has meaning to the whole outcome. Be ruthless; if it’s off topic, cut it. 

After that, if you still need to reduce, do a line-by-line edit. This is a fine art that can be learned. Read the following first draft:

“Yes, of course I know how,” is what I said to my research mentor when he asked me if I knew how to optimize the XRD. The truth was, I did not know how to optimize the XRD, and so I went back to my computer 2 minutes later and went through 3 youtube videos and a catalogue of how to optimize an XRD, simply because I did not want him to think less of me. 

That’s 76 words. Here’s an edited second draft:

I looked my research mentor in the eye and lied, saying that I absolutely knew how to optimize the XRD. I was afraid to disappoint him, and YouTube is the world’s secret teacher anyways. 

That’s only 34 words. It contains the same ideas, delivered in less than half the words. You can learn to do this too. How?

• Replace dependent clauses with phrases or single adjectives
• Use a single well-chosen and sophisticated verb instead of ten less precise words
• Reduce the repetition: optimize the XRD is used three times in the first draft, but only once in the second draft

Some people can do this alone; others need some editorial help. 

Finally, we come back to the first question—how do you end your personal statement with a bang? There are many choices. You could end with a general statement of positivity about the future. You could end by repeating the lesson you’ve learned from your experience, and how you want to carry it into the future. Or you could end the way that this blog has ended—by returning to the first idea you stated, and finally answering the question that it poses. 

Whichever way you choose, remember that your personal statement is probably the most important piece of writing you will do in high school—so take care that it is the best it can possibly be!

If you’re interested in personalized assistance to make your essay shine, please check out out our College Essay Help service.

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About MathTowne

MathTowne is a locally-based tutoring resource. We are here to support students through the key phases of their academic journey: middle school, the transition to high school, all four years of high school, and college preparation. Our staff has years of experience in creating personalized lesson plans for all of our students.

High school seniors often feel that the college application process is out of their hands. 

You know how it goes. You’ve been told where to apply, when to apply, and what to put down in the data. Your AP scores are already set. The SAT or ACT is over, if you took them at all. Your extracurriculars have already been completed over a period of years, and it’s too late to start new ones. And your home address probably isn’t going to change either.

At this point in the application process, the only thing that the college applicant can control is the college application essays. This is the reason that many applicants obsess over essay review.

Key Focus of UC Admissions: What Holds the Most Weight?

People have always obsessed over the essays. It’s true that when college admissions were driven by quantitative scores on exams and GPA – which is how admissions at the University of California were conducted for many years, before the global pandemic – essays seemed less important by comparison. But the University of California has been leading the way into the test-blind area of admissions. It doesn’t require letters of recommendation either, so for the UC system and other universities like it, there are very few metrics left to use in making their decisions.

Today, the UC system essentially looks at three things:

1) GPA

2) Extracurricular activities

3) The application essays

How to write the UC application essays

Students often want to know how to end a college application essay. To know how to end a college essay, you must know how to begin it. And you can’t use any of the things you’ve learned in high school about introductions to academic essays, because a personal statement is not an academic essay. A personal statement is part story, part journal. Also, it has to be the smartest thing you’ve ever written, but not in an academic smarty-pants way. It has to be emotionally smart. It’s really important to remember not to present to the application committees the glossy promotional pamphlet version of yourself. Instead, you must present to them an aspect of yourself that is true, that is a little bit vulnerable. It should be something they would not know by reading all the other parts of your application.

In other words, emphasize soft qualities over hard accomplishments. 

This can take many forms. You can present yourself as someone who had to overcome serious obstacles in life. This is not recommended unless you are a person who has actually had to overcome serious obstacles in life. Physical problems, illnesses, severe struggles at home, parents causing problems, constant moving—all of these are real obstacles that some students have to handle.

(Side note: Rates of mental health issues have been climbing for years, particularly among adolescents in the developed world. If this describes you, you can discuss this in your personal statement, but only in a way that shows that you have learned something about yourself in the attempt to handle this mental health issue.)

Sharing Your Story: Qualities To Show

Overall, a memorable essay will display many good characteristics. Qualities to show in a college essay include conscientiousness and openness. It’s well known that conscientious people—those who pay close attention to detail, and who fulfill responsibility—succeed in college more than less conscientious ones. They also tend to succeed in careers. They also enjoy better health. Basically, they just care more about everything in life. At the same time, colleges also look for applicants who are high on openness, since it’s important to be open-minded in order to learn new ideas, skills, and processes in a university setting. 

College essays about family and college essays about personal growth often reveal things about the applicant that other parts of the application cannot. If your family is unique in some way, either emotionally or mentally, feel free to write about that. You don’t necessarily have to show it to your parents. If you have undergone a period of intense personal transition—such as moving to another country for a few years—then it’s a good idea to write about that. Not many people in high school can claim that honor.

Whatever you choose, play to your strengths. If you’re funny, feel free to use humor. If you’re a process-driven person, analyze the inner workings of something in close detail. If you speak or think in poetic phrases that make people go silent, then use that style. Do whatever you do best. That’s good advice in life too.

What do colleges look for in essays?

There’s no easy answer to that question except authenticity. The applicant needs to write something revealing, somewhat original (it doesn’t have to be totally new), and coherent with the rest of the application. In other words, it should connect in theme with the rest of your application. It won’t do you any good if you’re applying for computer science programs to write about your deep desire to become a Broadway musical theater star.

There are many types of overused college essay topics. One is describing volunteer trips to developing countries. If your message is until I went to [xxx] I didn’t realize there were poor people in this world omg!, you should definitely pick a different topic. Another overused essay topic is sexuality. In recent years, LGBTQ students have been very vocal and open about telling the story of coming to terms with their sexuality. Plus, university campuses have become very accepting places for such students. All this means that it’s become trite and nearly useless to write about sexuality (with some exceptions).

Can You Use the Same Essay for Multiple Colleges?

Sometimes students have another question: Can you use the same essay for multiple colleges? The answer is yes, you can submit the same essay to different colleges. The personal statement on the Common Application is delivered to all the colleges that you apply to using Common App. It’s very convenient! However, most of the colleges also demand that you answer additional smaller supplemental essays. These prompts can range from statements about diversity, to the dreaded “why do you want to come to [X University]?” question. 

How to answer the diversity question

For the diversity question, remember that 9 out of 10 applicants are going to default to a boilerplate answer about race. That’s a cliche. There are many more forms of diversity on this planet. Try psychological diversity as a better response: learn about the differences between divergent and convergent thinking or look up the Big 5 personality traits for some ideas. 

How to answer the “why this school” question

For the “why this school” question, you will definitely have to do some research. Search the news and events tab on the university website, or check out the hyperlinked references on the university’s Wikipedia entry. See, the thing is, the university wants to know that you’ve selected it for specific reasons. 

How to prove that? Follow these DON’Ts: 

• Don’t repeat the school motto. 
• Don’t discuss how pretty the campus is. 
• Don’t gush about how much you’ve always wanted to live in [name of city]. 
• Don’t mention its US News and World Report ranking (or any other ranking). 

Instead, research the university for specific qualities that attract you. So what should you write about in your response? Try these DOs: 

• DO write about specific professors in your field, or specific courses in your major 
• DO mention famous alumni who could serve as your future role models
• DO refer to investments that the school has made in its campus, buildings, or programs 
• DO provide demographic data that impressed you
• DO describe specific clubs that you want to join
• DO mention other unusual extracurricular activities or events that pique your interest

Sometimes students try to write a perfect first draft of the personal statement, one that hits 650 words immediately. This is a fool’s errand. Nobody writes a perfect first draft of anything, ever. A better strategy is to write 800 to 900 words, allowing yourself to be free, and not worrying about making it pretty. Include all the ideas you have about the topic, all the anecdotes, all the insights. Go too far: you can always cut, reduce, and reorder on the second draft.  

Capturing your own unique voice is more important than anything else. To that end, feel free to use a dictation tool. There’s one on both Google Docs and Microsoft Word. Speaking in your own natural voice helps some people, especially those who don’t like typing. 

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve now equipped yourself with insights and techniques to start creating a stellar college essay that leaves a lasting impression. Remember, the journey to a perfect essay is about embracing your uniqueness and conveying your story with authenticity.

At MathTowne, we understand the significance of this task. Our team of experienced writers is dedicated to helping you craft an essay that reflects your individuality while meeting the highest academic standards. We specialize in personalized essay writing services that ensure your voice shines through every word.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

If you’re looking to elevate your college application with an essay that captures the essence of who you are, our services are here to support you. Let us bring your story to life and present you in the best possible light to your dream institutions.

Visit our College Essay Help service to learn more about how we can assist you.

SEE ALSO: Do Colleges Look For Well-Rounded Students?

Need more personalized recommendations?

The above tips and recommendations are broad strokes on College Prep. If you have further questions, feel free to contact us for a personal consultation. We look forward to helping you.

About MathTowne

MathTowne is a locally-based tutoring resource. We are here to support students through the key phases of their academic journey: middle school, the transition to high school, all four years of high school, and college preparation. Our staff has years of experience in creating personalized lesson plans for all of our students.