50 Successful Harvard Application Essays

III. INTROSPECTION

---

These essays are characterized by the fact that they mostly take place inside the author ’s head. They’re
made up of thoughts and ideas and are often more abstract than other personal statements. A good
introspective essay can hit on all the important goals of a personal statement while being unique and
interesting.
Letting an admissions officer inside your head is a surefire way of keeping the essay focused on
you. Good introspective essays help a reader get a sense for not just who you are as a person, but also
how you think and what you think about. This can be either good or bad. For people with novel,
impressive thoughts, it helps gain the admissions officer ’s respect. But at the age of seventeen,
finding something to say that the admissions officer hasn’t heard many times before can be difficult.
Many essays of this variety run the risk of being overwritten. When big words and complicated
metaphors are used ineffectively, an attempt to seem impressive falls flat. On occasion, this issue
lessens the impact of the essays in this section.
Yet, introspection, when pointed and specific, can do exactly what is intended—give the reader a
snapshot of a clear-thinking, interesting applicant with things to say and the ability to express them.

---

R
ACHAEL
S
MITH
I am a scientist and I am an artist. I am a musician, an athlete, a philosopher, and an activist. I am a
waitress and a world traveler, both a suburbanite and a citizen of the world. I fill so many roles and I
have such varied interests that sometimes I am not sure who I am. Jack Kerouac describes these
feelings best in his novel On the Road with the line, “All I have to offer anybody is my own
confusion.” The confusion of which Kerouac writes is an active confusion. He was not complacent in
his uncertainty; he was a searcher. He traveled thousands of miles, seeking to understand the world
and his place in it. He wrote of “offering” confusion, indicating a hope for reciprocity. Kerouac
viewed his search as a collaborative process, looking for answers in the many diverse and interesting
people he met along his journeys.
Like Kerouac, I am a searcher. This is a direct result of being raised in a Unitarian Universalist
congregation. The Unitarian Universalist doctrine encourages uncertainty. Among other things, we
affirm and promote the equality of all, persecution of none, and the free and independent search for
truth. My upbringing instilled in me a sense of moral responsibility. It has taught me the meaning of
service and the importance of respect. What has shaped me the most, though, is that idea of an
“independent search for truth.” Unitarian Universalism teaches that personal beliefs should be
developed individually through consideration of diverse input, and that differences in beliefs should
be not only respected but encouraged.
In my search I turn to everything for input: literature, music, films, world religions and politics,
modern art, and almost every other form of pop culture imaginable. I have traveled to eight foreign
countries, each expanding my global perspective. My most meaningful learning experiences, though,
have been in interactions with other people. I am a very social and outgoing person. I tend to make
friends with people from many different groups. I enjoy having many different friends because I am
given the opportunity to see from diverse perspectives. For this reason I love meeting and getting to
know new people.
This Kerouacian search for who I am and what I believe is something I hope to continue for the
rest of my life. Already, it has made me a politically and socially aware person and instilled in me a
passion for action. I hope to never stop learning, never lose my youthful curiosity, and never stop
sharing in my confusion, because each new experience, new place, and new person I meet is a shared
opportunity to learn. Perhaps by sharing in the confusion I will begin to find answers that work for
me, or perhaps not. In the end, it is not the answers I’m interested in so much as enjoying the search.
REVIEW

---

Seeking inspiration in classic literature is a time-tested method for essay-writing. Rachael’s
multitudinous introductory interests would be overwhelming, but Rachael sums them up cleanly with
a quote from Kerouac, explaining that the different directions she is being pulled in are confusing but
also reassuring. This successful representation of her various interests and identities rarely comes
through in a college application essay.
The way that Rachael connects her confused search for truth to her Unitarian Universalist faith is
admirable—that part of the essay is genuine and well written. She is passionate about connecting to
other people, about absorbing experiences so that she might be able to process the meaning for
herself. She also uses the lessons she’s learned from her religion to relate to her On the Road
metaphor, supporting the relationship between herself and her lessons from both sources.
But in her comparisons to On the Road, Rachael’s thesis loses direction. Perhaps her wandering
and vague final paragraph is a result of the line that Rachael chooses to highlight from On the Road:
“All I have to offer anybody is my own confusion,” which is actually a misquote from the original
Kerouac line, “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
Rachael’s conclusion is where she drives the essay home. By presenting herself as a searcher—in
pursuit of knowledge and personal advancement—she succeeds in convincing a reader that she is the
ideal member of a college community.
—Virginia Marshall

---