50 Successful Harvard Application Essays

III. I
NTROSPECTION
Rachael Smith
Winnie Wu
Kevin Dong
Carrie Tian
Danielle Lessard
Alyssa Chan
Justine Liu
John Finnegan
IV. O
VERCOMING
O
BSTACLES
Lazarus D.
Hannah Umanski-Castro
Sarah Chapin
David Roberts
Eda Kaceli
Aran Khanna

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Scott Lazarus
V. F
OREIGN
L
IFE
SF
Danielle Feffer
Josh Palay
Lucien Chorde
Alex Foote
David Liu
VI. P
ASSION
Ye Zhao
Octav Dragoi
Joshuah Campbell
Sadie McQuilkin
Will Shih
James Gillette
Connor Denney
Anumita Das
VII. I
NSPIRATION
Anthony Wilder Wohns
Shang Wang
Al I. Duiswin
Maliza K.
Yueming C.
Tony Cheang
Sidartha Jena-Sidujena
VIII. E
XPERIENCES
Charles Wong
Letitia Li
Rory O’Reilly
Leslie Ojeaburu
Isaac Alter
Taras Dreszer
Lisa Wang

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About The Harvard Crimson
Copyright

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I. INTRODUCTION
The Admissions Essay

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You spend four years working on your GPA and four hours sitting for the SATs and now you’re left
with one last big obstacle—the college application essay. Now you’re sitting at your desk, staring at a
blank computer screen, wondering how someone like you will ever find anything worth writing
about. If that sounds familiar, read on.
Before getting unduly stressed, remember this: When you express yourself in an application essay,
you can attempt to sum up all that you are, but you won’t succeed. No one fits into five hundred
words. If, in that space, you can successfully present even one fragment of who you are, you’ve done
your job.
Some people write essays about their experiences—about travel abroad or new people they’ve met
or new things they’ve learned. Sometimes, people take those experiences and use them to explain the
way they’ve lived their lives or hope to live their lives in the future. And when these options fail,
applicants turn inward, to their own thoughts on, really, anything.
Every type of essay has its advantages. Writing about experiences gives the reader an engaging
story to follow. Looking forward with an application essay is a good route for someone who feels
like there is more to say about the future than about the past. And writing an introverted essay requires
nothing more than an open mind.
So don’t despair—for everyone, there is an appropriate topic for the personal statement.
Remember the primary intention of the personal statement: Give your readers a sense of who you
are as a person. This is the part of your application in which you get to communicate directly with the
decision-makers, and you want to leave them with the impression that you are a full, interesting
individual with something to add to their college.
The second purpose of the personal statement: Readers will look over these statements as one of
very few writing samples submitted to them. For great writers, this makes the personal statement a
perfect opportunity to highlight a talent for self-expression. But a borderline application could be
pushed off the edge by incorrect spelling or grammar or awkward word use or sentence structure.
This part of the personal statement is not hard, so get it right. Have anyone and everyone who is
willing to proofread your essay do just that.
Third, these essays allow the readers to put emotions and agency behind the list of
accomplishments they see on a résumé. Do not list your résumé in your application—they already
have that information. Use the essay to humanize one or, at most, two of the activities listed. Seeing
that you were the captain of your high school volleyball team doesn’t tell admissions officers the
same thing they learn after reading an impassioned description of what leadership means to you, in
the context of high school volleyball. But be careful—in this instance, the important part of the essay
must be your interest and passion for leadership and not the fact that you were a leader. If you are

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writing about the captainship of your volleyball team because it is impressive and not because you are
passionate about it, you need to rethink your approach.
Now that you have a sense for what a personal statement is, we have compiled our top tips for a
successful writing process.
1. Start brainstorming early. If you start early enough, you’ll give yourself time to consider ideas,
mull them over, and then reject them. Attempting a late start will lead to problematic results—
giving yourself the time to throw out an essay or two is key to submitting your best possible
work.
2. Find something interesting and original to write about. If your essay is indistinguishable from
the fifty other applicants who also visited the Grand Canyon and were struck by the magnitude
of it, you will not leave an impression with the admissions officer you are trying to impress.
No need to find something outlandish, but try to avoid writing about common experiences in a
predictable way.
3. Use the people around you to test your idea. Talk to your friends, parents, and teachers before
you start writing. If they seem uninterested, that’s a pretty good sign that you should try
something else. And remember, people are not always as critical as you need them to be. Look
for enthusiasm, not just positive feedback, before you settle on a topic.
4. Sometimes, the hardest part about drafting an essay is getting started. If you’ve found a topic
but don’t know how to put it onto paper, try to just start writing. Maybe you feel like you’re
opening in the middle; maybe you’re just scribbling sentences onto a whiteboard. Whatever
gets you to move from thinking to writing will be helpful.
5. Cut and discard. If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to drop it and try something else.
6. Grab the reader at the beginning, hold on to him through the middle, and leave him satisfied at
the end. If your essay starts dragging, you’ll lose the reader. If your introduction is boring,
you’ll never get the reader ’s attention. And if your conclusion is disappointing, you’ll leave
your reader with a bad last impression. Avoid all of these things. Write a good essay all the
way through.
7. Avoid overreaching. Essays that try to do too much in five hundred words read exactly as such.
Don’t let yours fall into this trap. The word limit for these is set because that’s the scale the
admissions office wants you thinking on. You are not solving the world’s problems with these
essays, nor are you writing a great work of literature. You are just giving the reader a taste of
who you are.

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8. Every good essay has a point, whether you planned for it to or not. Figure out what it is and
stay focused. To get your message across, you can’t waste time with distractions. You need to
be working toward the ultimate message in every line.
9. This one is predictable: Proofread. Get all the input you can. Don’t agree with all of it and don’t
do what everyone says, but get a range of opinions. If one person loves your essay and another
forty-nine don’t get it, you’ve only got a 2 percent chance of finding an admissions officer
who will appreciate you. Keep your odds in mind—stand by your beliefs, but not to the point of
foolishness.
10. Be yourself. The worst thing you can do is present someone other than yourself. And an essay
that reads as hyperbolic or fake will not make a good impression.
So go forth and compose. And remember that what we said in tip number 10 goes for this book as
well—listen to what we say, and then make your own decisions. For the essay to be truly successful,
who you are needs to come through—your hopes and dreams, your insights and accomplishments.
Getting feedback is important, but the applicant you present through this essay is unique. Ultimately,
the only person who can write your personal statement is you.
Good luck!

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