how to write a college essay about your identity

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When you’re a teenager, you’re probably too busy to sit down and think about your own identity. No one exactly assigns you “introspection time” as homework (though, if you’re my student, this has very likely happened). So when you start working on your college essays, it might be the first time you truly start thinking about how you can express who you are in a way that will help a group of strangers understand something about you. Let’s be honest—it feels like a lot of pressure to sum up your identity in 250 words or less. But we’re here to help.

There are many different types of application essays you’ll need to write, as my colleague Annie so perfectly laid out here . But we’re going to talk about one type in particular: the essays about identity and diversity. These are powerful college essays that give admissions officers an opportunity to glimpse into your daily life and understand your unique experiences. For some students, though, these essays can be daunting to think about and write.  

Ever wonder why colleges are asking these questions? Well, the simple answer is that they want to get to know you more. Aside from your academic interests, your activities, and your accomplishments in the classroom, there really isn’t that much space to talk about things like your ethnic background, religion, gender identity, or local community. And these are things colleges want to know about you, too!

How Do You Write a Good Identity and Diversity Essay?

Before you start writing, let’s define a few terms you might run into while drafting your college essays about identity and diversity.

Who are you? I know what you’re thinking—it’s way too early in the morning to get this existential. I hear you. But let’s break this down. Identity is made up of many qualities: personality, culture, ethnic or racial background, sexual orientation, gender, physical ability, and linguistic background, among others. Maybe you identify really strongly with the religion on Mom’s side of the family, but not Dad’s. Maybe you speak a language not typical of folks from your culture. Maybe you have recently come into your gender identity and finally feel like yourself. Why is that identity important to the way you define who you are? Think of it like this: If you’ve met someone new, and your goal is to help them get to know you in the shortest amount of time possible, how would you be able to accomplish this? What’s your tagline? That’s how you’ll want to tackle this type of college essay.

Diversity  

One individual person can’t be diverse. But when a college is referring to diversity, they’re usually looking to their student body and asking how you, as an individual with your own identity, can add to their diversity. What experiences have you had in your life that might help you make the student body more diverse? Have you dealt with dyslexia and come to terms with how best to learn, keeping your abilities in mind? If so, how can you contribute to other students who might learn differently? Did you grow up as the oldest of 10 siblings and have to take care of them on a daily basis? What kind of responsibilities did you have and how did that influence you? These don’t need to be visible qualities. The goal of the diversity college essay is to understand how these identifying factors can help you contribute to a school in a way they haven’t seen before.  

Let’s define community. You may associate it with the city or neighborhood you live in. But a community doesn’t have to be geographical. It doesn’t even have to be formal. Community can come from that sense of connection you have with like-minded people. It can be built with people you’ve shared experiences with. So, when we think of community in this sense, we could be thinking about the community that exists within your apartment complex. We could be thinking about the youth group at your mosque. We could be thinking about your little group of artists within your science and tech magnet school. Think about what communities you are a part of, and be prepared to talk about your place within them.

You might think that these questions are only being asked by small liberal arts schools—but that’s not true. Bigger schools and colleges also want to get to know all of the thousands of students they’re bringing to campus as part of their class.

Big Name Colleges that Care About Diversity

To give you a glimpse of the variety, here are a few examples of college essays where these identity and diversity may come into play:

University of Michigan

“Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.”

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

“Expand on an aspect of your identity (for example, your religion, culture, race, sexual or gender identity, affinity group, etc.). How has this aspect of your identity shaped your life experiences thus far?”

Pomona College

“Tell us about an experience when you dealt with disagreement or conflict around different perspectives within a community.”

Sarah Lawrence College

“Sarah Lawrence College's community places strong value in inclusion and diversity. In 250-500 words, tell us about what you value in a community and how your perspective, lived experiences, or beliefs might contribute to your College community.”

Remember what these colleges are trying to understand: who you are and what has influenced you to become the person you are today (identity), where you come from (community), and how you might be able to add to the diversity of their college campus. Once you really get to the core and understand the intent of these types of college essays, you’ll absolutely be able to write in an earnest and genuine way. We say this frequently at Collegewise, but it’s worth repeating here, especially when it comes to essays about identity and diversity. Just be yourself.

About Us:  With more than twenty years of experience, Collegewise counselors and tutors are at the forefront of the ever-evolving admissions landscape. Our work has always centered on you: the student. And just like we’ve always done, we look for ways for you to be your best self - whether it’s in the classroom, in your applications or in the right-fit college environment. Our range of tools include  counseling ,  test prep ,  academic tutoring , and essay management, all with the support of our proprietary platform , leading to a 4x higher than average admissions rates. 

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Writing the Identity Essay

In the summer of 2023, the United States Supreme Court determined that the admissions programs used by the University of North Carolina and Harvard University violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The decision restricts colleges’ ability to consider a student’s race in their applications. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that a student “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.” 

While college admissions essay prompts tend not to change year to year, this sparked a flurry of changes over the course of the next few weeks, culminating in a new trend: the “identity” prompt. 

With carefully worded language, college admissions offices devised new prompts allowing students to reflect on how their race (along with myriad other factors) could be considered part of their “experiences as an individual.” Below are just three of the many examples of brand-new prompts written for the 2023-2024 admissions cycle—and you will notice striking similarities in the language used:

University of Virginia

What about your individual background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA?  Feel free to write about any past experience or part of your background that has shaped your perspective and will be a source of strength, including but not limited to those related to your community, upbringing, educational environment, race, gender, or other aspects of your background that are important to you.

Northwestern University

We want to be sure we’re considering your application in the context of your personal experiences: What aspects of your background, your identity, or your school, community, and/or household settings have most shaped how you see yourself engaging in Northwestern’s community, be it academically, extracurricularly, culturally, politically, socially, or otherwise?

University of Miami (Florida)

Located within one of the most dynamic cities in the world, the University of Miami is a distinctive community with a variety of cultures, traditions, histories, languages, and backgrounds. The University of Miami is a values-based and purpose-driven postsecondary institution that embraces diversity and inclusivity in all its forms and strives to create a culture of belonging, where every person feels valued and has an opportunity to contribute. Please describe how your unique experiences, challenges overcome, or skills acquired would contribute to our distinctive University community.

Some students immediately latch onto these prompts, certain that their race, ethnicity, religion, or cultural background needs to be showcased for strategic and personally insightful reasons. Other students see these prompts and feel overwhelmed and lost about where to start. 

Here are some words of wisdom to both groups of students:

Of course I am going to write about _____!

If you are thinking this, remember that dozens, if not, hundreds, if not thousands of other applicants all may be writing about the same topic. That should not discourage you from writing about this topic, nor does it diminish your experience. But you need to ask yourself a difficult question: Am I sharing a shared story from my race/culture/ethnicity, or am I sharing my own personal perspectives and experiences within this shared story?

We would argue whether you are writing about your race, family dynamic, favorite tradition—or, for that matter, your academic interests or an extracurricular activity that is meaningful to you on other prompts—this question is always essential. Are you writing about “the thing” or using “the thing” as a portal to illuminate yourself? If there are 100 other essays from students who wrote about having the same race/culture/ethnicity, what will distinguish yours from the pack? How will we have connected personally with you in such a way that makes us feel like we got to know you as an individual? 

What the heck am I going to write about?!

We got this question from many students, many parents on behalf of their students…and even many colleagues and other educators on behalf of their students! We understand this question, of course, but we are proud to say that not once did we feel students were incapable of finding at least one angle or facet of their identity to showcase authentically and meaningfully for these prompts. 

It takes time. It takes self-reflection. But for many students, the key to unlocking ideas came from the phrase “experience.” All of us are a collection of our experiences. We all have our own stories and journeys. Leaning into this idea and reflecting on what experiences have shaped values, perspectives, influences, and dreams led to many truly personal, beautiful, authentic essays. 

You may be an avid bird watcher. Maybe you or a loved one has gone through a debilitating illness. Maybe your family has a shared ritual whenever you are in the car together. From the seemingly trivial to the deeply serious, any experience that has profoundly shaped you as a student can be used to answer these prompts. Celebrate yourself! 

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August 26, 2022

College Admissions: Mining Identity for College Essays, Personal Statements

Langston Hughes begins his poem “Theme for English B” this way:

The instructor said:

Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you- Then it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

“Tell us about yourself”

When colleges instruct you to “Tell us about yourself,” it may sound simple, but it is not. Sarah Myers McGinty, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, conducted a study in 1998 to determine the importance of the college application essay and students’ ability to complete it successfully. She found that while admissions officials viewed the essay as “somewhat important,” students found themselves unprepared to write it. In The Chronicle of Higher Education (1/25/02), McGinty says, “I knew that students felt comfortable talking about the most significant event in the life of Jay Gatsby. But many felt ill-at-ease when asked about the most significant event in their own lives.” After all, as many students will attest, they have never done anything like this before. Students are rarely asked to write personal narratives.

So how do you tell admissions officers about yourself in a true and convincing way? First, you need to “mine” various areas of your identity to discover what makes you an individual . We’re not talking strip-mining, where you just pull up whatever’s on the surface. We’re talking about digging to see what’s below the surface. That takes time and commitment, but in the end, you may strike gold.

Writing is discovery. You cannot write an essay without first discovering what you have to say. You are setting out to discover what has made you who you are. Keep a journal as you explore your past and your present. These jottings and written wanderings are not your essay, but some will serve as the essay’s building materials. (Others might be valuable points for reflection more generally!) 

9 aspects of identity

Some areas of your identity to explore include:

• Sexual Orientation

Events in a college essay

The events of your life, whether big and small, successful or failed, shape you as an individual. 

In other words, your identity is, in part, formed through a series of events, which can be narrated to tell a story that gives the reader a glimpse of who you are. Telling a good story involves strong description (including the colors, sounds, and smells of your life), action (including movement, dialogue or internal monologue, etc); and reflection (including decisions you made, thoughts or feelings you had during an event, and your reflection afterwards). 

Help transport your reader into your story by showing what it was like. And, tell the reader what this anecdote says about you as a person.

Which experience to pick? Looking at a few colleges’ essay questions may provide you with some ideas (emphases added):

• The Common Application asks you to: “Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?’
• The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?
• Dartmouth: The Hawaiian word mo’olelo is often translated as “story” but it can also refer to history, legend, genealogy, and tradition. Use one of these translations to introduce yourself.
• Columbia students take an active role in improving their community, whether in their residence hall, classes or throughout New York City. Their actions, small or large, work to positively impact the lives of others. Share one contribution that you have made to your family, school, friend group or another community that surrounds you.

Your experience does not have to be massively life-altering (not all of us have huge turning points in our lives), but can be one of the many little events in our lives that make us see ourselves and the world a bit differently. The time your classmates offered you a stolen test and you refused it. Seeing the ocean for the first time at age 15. Learning to drive or ski or swim. Notice, too, that all of the essay questions ask you both to tell the story of an experience and also to reflect on the significance or impact of the event.

Here are some ideas for getting started on these and related prompts:

Passions in a college essay

Your passion for certain causes or issues, as well as your hobbies or interests, show who you are. How do you spend your free time? What excites you? Concerns you? Enrages you? What have you done to translate this passion into action? I know a student whose concern over the Middle East conflict led him to distribute to all of his classmates bracelets commemorating those who have died in the conflict. His essay on the topic worked because his passion led him to action, and his writing conveyed his passion. Another student explored how his childhood Lego hobby was a springboard to his building robots in national competitions. I taught a young woman whose frustration over male-female relations in her school led her to start a Gender Issues discussion group. I know people who could write fascinating essays on their obsession with beads, their rock collection, or bike riding. Perhaps you think it’s less-than-admirable to say that you spend every Saturday afternoon watching classic movies, but if you can intelligently reflect on why you love old movies and what it shows about you, it could be a worthwhile topic.

People in a college essay

Begin by listing people in your life who have nurtured your identity. In addition to your family members, you may list instructors, coaches, teachers, or neighbors. After you make a list, decide which person or people you could write about most engagingly. Some applications ask you to write about a person; some just leave the door open for you by telling you to explore a topic of choice. You might begin your exploration by reflecting on your family and how it has affected who you have become. Focus on the details of one or two members of your family-their appearance, their habits, their activities, and their interactions with you. Think of a story that encapsulates a relationship. Consider exploring your family’s cultural heritage, traditions, or foods. Bring the people you depict to life, and give them color, personality, a voice. Provide anecdotes about these family members or other important people in your life.

Places in a college essay

Perhaps a place has gotten under your skin because you’ve spent so much time there. Perhaps you’ve worked on your grandfather’s farm in Wisconsin each summer since you were ten. Perhaps you attend a school unlike most schools in the nation, one in an unusual setting or with an unusual philosophy. Perhaps you spent a semester on sabbatical with your parents in Zimbabwe, and once you came back, everything looked different. Place can be a character, and you can tell a vivid story about how it helped shape you . Conversely, you might have spent time in a place only briefly (one night on a camping trip, for example); or, the place you visited or lived in might have been lousy: decrepit, dirty, scary, upsetting. All of the above are fair game: the point is to use the experience as a vehicle for talking about who you are and how you experience the world around you.

Religion in a college essay

For some people, religion is integral to their lives and identities. Even so, you may consider religion a “touchy” subject. You may fear that the reader won’t like your religion. Don’t let that stop you if you have honest stories and reflections to relate. Consider writing a personal statement that reveals your thoughts about religion through a vivid story or series of anecdotes.

Race in a college essay

For some, their racial identity- and perhaps the persecution they’ve experienced or the minority status they have had- is an important part of who they are. Writing about moments of challenges and what you did to be a leader, to hold your ground, or to educate others, can let the reader get a glimpse of your strongest qualities. Colleges seek students from diverse backgrounds and in possession of strong characters, so don’t be afraid to let both of those qualities shine through.

Gender in a college essay

Does your gender identity feel significant to who you are– to your experiences, your community, your identity? For some, being a woman, being transgender, or being genderqueer can be essential to who they are and their experiences. You might consider writing an essay about going to an all girls’ Catholic school; being the only boy in a household of many sisters; experimenting with multiple pronouns. Just remember: this essay should be about more than a certain experience alone; it is also about what your thoughts, decisions, and actions say about who you are and what is important to you.

Disability/different abilities in a college essay

While so often viewed as a setback, your life with a disability – whether since birth or due to an illness or an event later in life– can help distinguish you or a sea of similarly-abled peers. How have you embraced, overcome, or given voice to your disability or those of others? What abilities have you cultivated or discovered because of it? How have you both coped, and strived , with your disability, and what does this say about your character and commitments?

Sexual orientation in a college essay

Perhaps your sexual identity has played a role in your life, inspiring you to form interests in certain writers or ideas; to work on an inclusive marriage campaign; to lead your school’s Gay Straight Alliance. Whether your identity or that of a loved one, be sure to keep yourself center-stage as you use the idea of sexual orientation to speak to your values, passions, and interests.

You care about your essay because it will help you get into Wonderful U. Fair enough. But you will also gain a bonus along the way: self-realization as you step across the threshold from childhood to adulthood; A sense of who you are and what made you that way; some insight into your desires for the future. Happy digging.

(Once you’ve mined for ideas, visit other sections of the Accepted website, which offers lots of essay writing tips and sample student essays to help you pull your essay together.)

If you would like the guidance and support of experienced college admissions consultants as you explore your identity and develop an application strategy, Accepted is here to help. We offer a range of services that can be tailored exactly to your needs. Our singular goal is to help you gain admittance to the college of your choice!

Accepted has helped applicants gain acceptance to top colleges and universities for 25 years. Our team of admissions consultants features former admissions committee members and highly experienced college admissions consultants who have guided our clients to admission at top programs including Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, University of Chicago, and Yale.  Want an admissions expert  to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Different Dimensions of Diversity , a podcast episode
• The Essay Whisperer: How to Write a College Application Essay
• Common App Essay Prompts 2022-2023: Tips for Writing Essays That Impress

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How to Write Supplemental Essays About Identity and Background

You might have already heard that on the back of the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, many colleges are implementing new methods to ensure a diverse student body. One avenue available to them is to provide students with the opportunity to talk about race—and other aspects of their identity—through supplemental essays. While numerous colleges have asked such questions in previous years, others have recently introduced prompts that allow you to elaborate on your identity further.

Here are a few questions posed by colleges about students’ identity:

• A defining element of the Babson experience is learning and thriving in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives and interests. Please share something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s) that speaks to how you will contribute to and learn from Babson’s collaborative community. (250 words – new prompt for the 2023-24 cycle)
• What about your individual background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA ? Feel free to write about any past experience or part of your background that has shaped your perspective and will be a source of strength, including but not limited to those related to your community, upbringing, educational environment, race, gender, or other aspects of your background that are important to you. (300 words – new prompt for the 2023-24 cycle)
• We believe a wide range of personal perspectives, beliefs, and lived experiences are essential to making Duke a vibrant and meaningful living and learning community. Feel free to share with us anything in this context that might help us better understand you and what you might bring to our community. (250 words – Optional)

Most of these prompts are new for the 2023-24 admissions cycle. However, you’ll notice that not all directly address race. If race is intertwined with the challenges you have faced in high school, you can elaborate on your experience—whether you had to fight for your seat at the table or faced race-based prejudice—and talk about how you overcame this obstacle. If it’s a crucial part of your journey and personal growth, you should definitely write about it.

With terminology such as Babson’s “something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s),” colleges have made these questions open-ended. UVA has listed categories such as “community, upbringing, educational environment, race, gender,” and indicated that applicants can go beyond those categories if they choose. You can write about any aspect of your identity that is a defining part of who you are, whether that’s your race, gender, religion, sexuality, geographic location, or socioeconomic background.

Consider what you want colleges to know about you. Supplemental essays provide further context to your application. So, no matter what you write about your background, your response should help admissions officers understand where you come from, what experiences have been meaningful to you, and how you’ll contribute to the diversity of the campus community. Don’t just mention what your background is—talk about how it has shaped you and your perspective.

Remember that admissions officers read responses by students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Think about different lived experiences you’ve had and the communities you belong to—and what matters to you—and use those considerations to decide what you’ll write.

If the prompt about identity or background is optional, such as Duke’s, consider whether or not you should write it. If there are aspects of your identity (such as race, religion, or sexual orientation) that have shaped you and who you are in meaningful ways, you should definitely include the essay. However, if that part of you isn’t something that has been formative or impactful and you don’t have enough to say about it, you don’t need to write that essay. As a general rule, if you wouldn’t have written it before the Supreme Court case, you shouldn’t feel pressured to write it now.

Supplemental essays help determine your fit for a college campus, and essays on identity are no exception. If you’re writing a supplemental essay about an identity or background, discuss a part of you that hasn’t come up in detail in the rest of your application. Use the identity response to help admissions officers understand the unique perspective you can bring to their college.

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Speak Your Truth: Sharing Your Identity in College Essays

Written by Sara Calvert-Kubrom on September 21st, 2023

• college applications ,
• race-neutral admissions ,
• writing college essays ,
• Most college essays, including the main Common Application essay and University of California Personal Insight Questions, invite broad reflection on experiences which can be linked to student identity.
• Some colleges invite students to share more through supplemental essays specific to their applications. Many colleges changed these essays this year to signal their institutional values and assess student readiness to engage with difference in college. Inside Higher Ed has a helpful article with examples of these prompts.
• Many applications have an additional information section where students can share any important context about their experiences. Although I encourage students to be concise (this isn’t an extra essay!), and to avoid being redundant with information provided elsewhere, this can be a fantastic area to utilize if a student wants to share important elements of who they are without having to use the main essay for this purpose.
• Activities lists might feature identity-based clubs, organizations, and initiatives.

Find out what you can expect from our partnership and view our variety of flexible services .

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How to Write an Essay about Your Identity

If you’re looking for a simple way to write an essay about your identity, then you’ve found the perfect tutorial!

Writing an essay about your identity can be a great way to highlight who you are as a person and explore your values, experiences, and characteristics. So, in this tutorial, I will show you how to write such an essay in five simple steps effectively. We’ll also work on a sample essay so you can see how to put these steps into practice.

Let’s get started!

Step 1. Plan the word count for your essay’s paragraphs.

Doing this first step is important if you want to make things simpler for you while writing an essay. You’ll get to know exactly how many words each paragraph will have, which makes the process quicker.

Note that essays have three parts you must include:

• The introductory paragraph
• Three body paragraphs
• The concluding paragraph

For example, suppose you need a 300-word paragraph. How would you distribute 300 words across five paragraphs? Here’s a simple way to do that:

That’s all you need for your essay — short introductory and concluding paragraphs and three concise body paragraphs.

Step 2. Select your main idea and supporting points.

You need to come up with a central idea that will give you a frame of reference for the rest of your essay. To do this, you can first consider what your identity is. Then, determine what shapes this identity. 

For example, are you an artist? Maybe you’re imaginative and creative! Do you have a unique perspective on things? Do you like expressing yourself visually?

Or maybe, you’re a doctor? Do you have extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of medicine? Do you possess strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills?

Whatever they are, you will use them as your basis — your essay’s thesis .

For our sample essay, we can use this as our main idea: “My identity as an educator has been shaped by my faith, parenthood, and my inborn creativity.”

Next, we will use the Power of Three to divide this main idea into three supporting points. 

The Power of Three is a three-part structure that helps you produce your body paragraphs.

Let’s see how it works for our sample essay. In this case, we will use three things that could shape someone’s identity as an educator:

• My faith is an integral part of my identity.
• Parenthood has had a significant impact on my identity.
• Creativity has been a part of my identity for as long as I can remember.

Now we have what we need to start writing our essay. Let’s go to the next step!

Step 3. Write the introductory paragraph.

To write an introductory paragraph , you can follow the diagram below:

First, you need an introduction — an opening sentence that briefly sets the essay’s context. Next, you will include your thesis and three supporting points.

Here’s an example:

Introductory Paragraph

“Different factors, including beliefs, experiences, and innate qualities, shape our identities. For me, my identity as an educator has been shaped by my faith, parenthood, and my inborn creativity. My faith guides my values and principles in teaching. My experiences as a parent have also helped me develop empathy and understanding toward my students. And my inborn creativity allows me to come up with innovative ways to present lessons, engage my students, and foster a positive learning environment.”

As you can tell, the introductory paragraph proceeds from general to specific , starting from the introduction, followed by the thesis and three supporting points.

Step 4. Write the body paragraphs.

Our essay will contain three body paragraphs that expound our supporting points. Here’s how to structure a body paragraph in any essay:

Body paragraphs start with a topic sentence that briefly summarizes the entire paragraph. Next, you will explain and illustrate your point using example/s .

Paragraph 1

“My faith is an integral part of my identity. My faith guides me in creating a safe and positive learning environment for my students. I strive to make my classroom a safe space where my students feel welcomed and valued. I model kindness and compassion, which I hope inspires and encourages my students to treat each other with the same level of respect and understanding.”

Note that the topic sentence gives context to the entire body paragraph. The following sentences explain the supporting point, and the rest illustrates it with an example.

Paragraph 2

“Parenthood has had a significant impact on my identity as an educator. It has taught me to approach teaching with compassion and empathy. As a parent, I learned that everyone has unique needs and struggles that require understanding and, if possible, a personalized approach to teaching. I apply this principle in my classroom by taking the time to get to know my students and understand their personal learning styles and circumstances. I schedule one-on-one meetings with students and offer them encouragement and resources to help those struggling to catch up.”

Paragraph 3

“Creativity has always been a part of my identity, especially as an educator. It is essential in creating engaging learning experiences for my students. I constantly look for fun and innovative ways to present lessons that will help them foster a love for learning. I incorporate hands-on activities and projects in my lessons to challenge my students creatively and critically about the material. For example, when I taught animal classification last academic year, I organized a field trip to a local zoo where the students observed and learned firsthand about the animals and ecosystems they were studying.”

Like paragraph 1, body paragraphs 2 and 3 follow the exact same structure outlined in the diagram above. It proceeds from the topic sentence to the explanation and example.

Excellent! Now we’re ready for the final step.

Step 5. Write the concluding paragraph.

The most time-proven way to write a concluding paragraph for any essay is to simply paraphrase all the points you’ve already mentioned in the introductory paragraph. Don’t copy and paste it! Instead, you can check your introductory paragraph and write the concluding paragraph based on it.

Let’s try this method to write the concluding paragraph in our sample essay:

“A combination of our beliefs, experiences, and characteristics shape our identities. As an educator, my identity has been shaped by my faith, parenthood, and creativity. My faith guides me in modeling important values in my classroom. Parenthood has taught me to approach teaching with empathy. And my creativity enables me to present material in innovative and engaging ways, which helps foster a love for learning in my students.”

We only restated the points in the introductory paragraph but used different words. Doing so makes writing the concluding paragraph pretty quick and simple.

And now we’re done! I hope you find this tutorial helpful.

Now it’s time for you to write your essay about your identity!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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How to Write Your College Essay: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Getting ready to start your college essay? Your essay is very important to your application — especially if you’re applying to selective colleges.

Become a stronger writer by reviewing your peers’ essays and get your essay reviewed as well for free.

We have regular livestreams during which we walk you through how to write your college essay and review essays live.

College Essay Basics

Just getting started on college essays? This section will guide you through how you should think about your college essays before you start.

• Why do essays matter in the college application process?
• What is a college application theme and how do you come up with one?
• How to format and structure your college essay

Before you move to the next section, make sure you understand:

How a college essay fits into your application

What a strong essay does for your chances

How to create an application theme

Learn the Types of College Essays

Next, let’s make sure you understand the different types of college essays. You’ll most likely be writing a Common App or Coalition App essay, and you can also be asked to write supplemental essays for each school. Each essay has a prompt asking a specific question. Each of these prompts falls into one of a few different types. Understanding the types will help you better answer the prompt and structure your essay.

• How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges
• Personal Statement Essay Examples
• How to Write a Stellar Extracurricular Activity Essay
• Extracurricular Essay Examples
• Tips for Writing a Diversity College Essay
• Diversity Essay Examples
• Tips for Writing a Standout Community Service Essay
• How to Write the “Why This Major” Essay
• How to Write a “Why This Major” Essay if You’re Undecided
• How to write the “Why This College” Essay
• How to Research a College to Write the “Why This College” Essay
• Why This College Essay Examples
• How to Write The Overcoming Challenges Essay
• Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

Identify how each prompt fits into an essay type

What each type of essay is really asking of you

How to write each essay effectively

The Common App essay

Almost every student will write a Common App essay, which is why it’s important you get this right.

• How to Write the Common App Essay
• Successful Common App Essay Examples
• 5 Awesome College Essay Topics + Sample Essays
• 11 Cliché College Essay Topics + How to Fix Them

How to choose which Common App prompts to answer

How to write a successful Common App essay

What to avoid to stand out to admissions officers

Supplemental Essay Guides

Many schools, especially competitive ones, will ask you to write one or more supplemental essays. This allows a school to learn more about you and how you might fit into their culture.

These essays are extremely important in standing out. We’ve written guides for all the top schools. Follow the link below to find your school and read last year’s essay guides to give you a sense of the essay prompts. We’ll update these in August when schools release their prompts.

See last year’s supplemental essay guides to get a sense of the prompts for your schools.

Essay brainstorming and composition

Now that you’re starting to write your essay, let’s dive into the writing process. Below you’ll find our top articles on the craft of writing an amazing college essay.

• Where to Begin? 3 Personal Essay Brainstorming Exercises
• Creating the First Draft of Your College Application Essay
• How to Get the Perfect Hook for Your College Essay
• What If I Don’t Have Anything Interesting To Write About In My College Essay?
• 8 Do’s and Don’t for Crafting Your College Essay
• Stuck on Your College Essay? 8 Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block

Understand how to write a great hook for your essay

Complete the first drafts of your essay

Editing and polishing your essay

Have a first draft ready? See our top editing tips below. Also, you may want to submit your essay to our free Essay Peer Review to get quick feedback and join a community of other students working on their essays.

• 11 Tips for Proofreading and Editing Your College Essay
• Getting Help with Your College Essay
• 5 DIY Tips for Editing Your College Essay
• How Long Should Your College Essay Be?
• Essential Grammar Rules for Your College Apps
• College Essay Checklist: Are You Ready to Submit?

Proofread and edited your essay.

Had someone else look through your essay — we recommend submitting it for a peer review.

Make sure your essay meets all requirements — consider signing up for a free account to view our per-prompt checklists to help you understand when you’re really ready to submit.

Advanced College Essay Techniques

Let’s take it one step further and see how we can make your college essay really stand out! We recommend reading through these posts when you have a draft to work with.

• 10 Guidelines for Highly Readable College Essays
• How to Use Literary Devices to Enhance Your Essay
• How to Develop a Personalized Metaphor for Your College Applications

Essays About Identity: 18 Writing Prompts for Students

Get inspiration for your essays about identity with these 18 inspiring writing prompts.

There are many times when a student needs to write an essay. Many colleges will ask for a personal essay when entering college, and the topic may be open-ended for these projects. You may also be asked to write a “who am I” essay for this.

Who am I essays are a great opportunity for self-reflection. You can delve into what makes you tick and what actions have defined your character over the years. Writing these essays also allows you to showcase your writing skills. However, this is one place where you have to do the writing yourself, not ask for help from a writing service with professional writers because you need to write about your own life and your experiences. Someone else cannot do this for you.

Essays about who am I can be challenging to write because they are so open-ended. Unless you have a clear direction from the assignment, you may need to get a little creative with the direction you take this essay. Here are some sample essay topics that deeply explore “who am I.” Consider using one to start your ideas flowing as you create an excellent personal essay.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. I Am a Good Leader

2.  exploring my future, 3. who i want to be, 4. who i am and how i change, 5. my likes and dislikes, 6. my worldview, 7. how i am similar to my father/mother, 8. who i am in three words, 9. i am a survivor, 10. my ethnicity, 11. i am more than just good grades, 12. my bravest moment, 13. how my childhood experiences made me, 14. i am a good friend, 15. why i will succeed, 16. i am a product of my choices, 17. i am a failure (and what i learned from it), 18. i am my role in the family.

Depending on the purpose of your who am I essay, describing your leadership skills could be a great option. You could explain how your life experiences have transformed you into someone with strong leadership potential. You could explore the character traits that lend themselves well to leadership.

This essay topic has a lot of room for interpretation. For example, even if you don’t see yourself as a leader, you might have much leadership potential when you dig into your character. So, pull out that leadership and build it into a personal essay.

This personal essay topic allows you to explore what you anticipate for your future. If you are writing an essay in high school as part of the college application process, you can incorporate why you are a good fit for the school into this essay to help your essay stand out.

When exploring your future in an essay, be sure to explore who you are as a person and why your future goals make sense based on your character traits and passions. This self-reflection will make for a powerful essay.

Not all who I am essays need to be about who you currently are. Instead, you can write a powerful essay about the person you hope to become. Every human being has tremendous potential, and you can showcase that potential in an essay sample.

Think about your character traits and life goals. What could you do with those traits to reach those goals? Exploring these ideas could create a strong essay example.

The human experience is all about change. We change as we grow and develop into more mature individuals. You could explore how you change in an essay that would talk about how your growth and development make you into a better person.

Exploring things that are the catalyst for change in your life can be a good starting point for a personal essay. Since you are unique, your changes will come from a different place than other people. There is quite a bit to talk about with this topic.

Your likes and dislikes are what make you who you are. If you are focused on personal essay writing, this can be a good place to start. Because you have many things that you like or do not like, this can be a lengthy essay topic idea.

Go beyond the surface here. While you could talk about foods you like and dislike, is there something deeper you could explore? Are there particular topics that inspire you and others that turn you away? The answers to these questions will help you explore this essay topic.

A worldview is a platform through which you view the world, politics, and social concerns. It could be religious, sociological, or even ethical. Spending time figuring out your worldview helps you understand your way of relating to the world.

Once you know what your worldview is, you will be able to expound on it in your essay. Explain what you believe, but also explain why. Being able to support your reasons with self-reflection and logic will make your final essay exceptional.

Do you take after one of your parents? Compare your character traits to theirs to see how you connect. Seeing yourself in another person is a great way to reflect on what makes you, you.

Again, this is a place to dig deep. Look beyond the surface like physical characteristics and look at your character traits and how they are similar to your parent. You might find that you have quite a bit in common as you start analyzing the answer to this question.

Can you describe yourself in just three words? This essay topic is an exercise in brevity, giving you the chance to hone in on who you are. But, of course, an essay is not just three words.

Once you decide what your three words are, you can expound on them. For example, if one of your words is “student,” you can explore what that means. Likewise, if you choose to state your race, you can discuss why that is a defining feature.

Have you survived something traumatic in your life? If so, you could write an engaging essay about how you are a survivor. Many people who go through traumatic circumstances suffer a victim mentality, but you could focus on how you are choosing to be a survivor, not a victim.

Focus on the trail a little, but discuss how the trial has grown you as a person. You can show in your essay how you can move past difficulties and embrace the change that they bring. This essay can clearly show your resistance as a human being.

A person’s ethnicity is an important part of who they are. This can be an engaging essay topic, as it gives you the chance to celebrate your ethnicity, beliefs, and family history.

This topic is quite fascinating to delve into, but be careful. You do not want to come across as being fully defined by your race alone. Be sure to weave other character traits into this particular essay topic so that you come across as a well-rounded, balanced person. Remember, your ethnicity is just a portion of who you are as a whole person.

The academic world often gets too focused on grades and reports. While grades are important, you should be more than just a grade card. Hard work should matter just as much as the actual score, especially if you have some challenges that make learning and test-taking more difficult.

If you are more than just good grades, what does define you? When writing this essay, make sure you define your character traits in a positive light. Keep the essay upbeat and show how your hard work will define you even when grades do not.

Is there a time when you expressed a significant amount of bravery? It does not have to be a mountaintop rescue or a near-death experience. It could be as simple as standing up in front of a class for the first time to deliver a speech.

Find an example of bravery from your life and expound on it in your essay. Explain what made you feel afraid and how you overcame the fear to do something truly brave. Use this exploration to showcase some characteristics that help you act bravely in frightening situations.

Most people have quite a bit of development from their personal childhood experiences. Can you find some of these and point to specific ways they influenced your character as an adult? This idea could be a great way to explore who you are today.

Are you a social person because you spent a lot of time with people when you were young? Are you more introverted because you did not? You might find that your childhood significantly impacts your character, giving you an engaging essay topic to explore.

If you are a good friend to others, it says quite a bit about your character. Can you showcase how you are a good friend to others in your essay? What makes you someone people want to spend time with?

Character traits that make you a good friend can also make you a good student. Are you trustworthy or particularly friendly? These traits will help you in the classroom and your social life, so highlight them in your essay.

Do you picture yourself as a success in the future? If so, explain why in your essay. For example, you may think that you will succeed in starting your own business . Or maybe you have specific skills that make you confident of your abilities in the classroom.

Showing your confidence in your essay is helpful as you try to promote yourself to your potential college or your high school teacher. First, spend some time evaluating what it is about you that means you are likely to succeed, then compile that into an essay that shows your skills in the best possible light.

Our choices define us. Can you turn that into an essay topic? Can you showcase how your choices have created the person you are today, or can you write about one particular choice that was defining in your life?

This essay topic gives you quite a bit of time for self-reflection. You can easily highlight a particularly good choice you made or focus on a mistake and how you overcame the consequences of that mistake. Either way, you can use the choices in your life to outline who you are and why.

We all have failures in our life. This essay topic shocks the reader and gets their attention, which can make it powerful, but it also gives room to discuss failure positively. Talk about one of the biggest failures you have had in life and what you learned from it.

You can use this essay topic to transform something negative into something positive. First, think about how that monumental failure defined you and how the lessons you learned from the failure have made you a better person today.

Are you a parent, sibling, or child? Are you the only child or one of many? These family dynamics can significantly impact who you are as a person, so consider exploring them as part of your essay.

Discuss how your role within your family has defined you and what it means for your future. Focus on the strengths that your role gave you rather than any drawbacks. Remember, your essay promotes you as a person and a writer, so keep it positive.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, writing a college essay about my background.

I was thinking about writing my college essay discussing my unique background and how it has shaped who I am today. Can anyone share some examples or tips on how to effectively discuss this topic without sounding like everyone else? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

When discussing your unique background in your college essay, it's crucial to showcase your individuality and highlight aspects of your experience that have profoundly influenced your personal growth. To avoid sounding similar to others, focus on the following tips:

1. Be specific: Instead of simply stating that you come from a unique background, provide detailed examples of how your specific cultural, familial, or personal experiences have positively impacted your perspectives and values.

2. Show personal growth: Describe the journey you underwent as a result of your background and the lessons learned along the way. This could include overcoming challenges, embracing your identity, or discovering new interests.

3. Balance your story: While you want to celebrate your background, avoid casting yourself as a victim or emphasizing only the struggles. Instead, share both challenges and achievements to give a comprehensive view of your growth.

4. Reflect on the present and future: Explain how your unique background has informed your current goals, values, and aspirations. Show how you plan to utilize your experiences to contribute to the college community and beyond.

Ultimately, your essay should focus on your own experiences and provide a window into your life, showing how your unique background has shaped your identity and aspirations. By reflecting on your personal story and analyzing its significance for your current and future goals, you can create a memorable and engaging essay that sets you apart from other applicants.

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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College Essays

Most colleges and universities in the United States require applicants to submit at least one essay as part of their application. But trying to figure out what college essay topics you should choose is a tricky process. There are so many potential things you could write about!

In this guide, we go over the essential qualities that make for a great college essay topic and give you 50+ college essay topics you can use for your own statement . In addition, we provide you with helpful tips for turning your college essay topic into a stellar college essay.

What Qualities Make for a Good College Essay Topic?

Regardless of what you write about in your personal statement for college , there are key features that will always make for a stand-out college essay topic.

#1: It’s Specific

First off, good college essay topics are extremely specific : you should know all the pertinent facts that have to do with the topic and be able to see how the entire essay comes together.

Specificity is essential because it’ll not only make your essay stand out from other statements, but it'll also recreate the experience for admissions officers through its realism, detail, and raw power. You want to tell a story after all, and specificity is the way to do so. Nobody wants to read a vague, bland, or boring story — not even admissions officers!

For example, an OK topic would be your experience volunteering at a cat shelter over the summer. But a better, more specific college essay topic would be how you deeply connected with an elderly cat there named Marty, and how your bond with him made you realize that you want to work with animals in the future.

Remember that specificity in your topic is what will make your essay unique and memorable . It truly is the key to making a strong statement (pun intended)!

#2: It Shows Who You Are

In addition to being specific, good college essay topics reveal to admissions officers who you are: your passions and interests, what is important to you, your best (or possibly even worst) qualities, what drives you, and so on.

The personal statement is critical because it gives schools more insight into who you are as a person and not just who you are as a student in terms of grades and classes.

By coming up with a real, honest topic, you’ll leave an unforgettable mark on admissions officers.

#3: It’s Meaningful to You

The very best college essay topics are those that hold deep meaning to their writers and have truly influenced them in some significant way.

For instance, maybe you plan to write about the first time you played Skyrim to explain how this video game revealed to you the potentially limitless worlds you could create, thereby furthering your interest in game design.

Even if the topic seems trivial, it’s OK to use it — just as long as you can effectively go into detail about why this experience or idea had such an impact on you .

Don’t give in to the temptation to choose a topic that sounds impressive but doesn’t actually hold any deep meaning for you. Admissions officers will see right through this!

Similarly, don’t try to exaggerate some event or experience from your life if it’s not all that important to you or didn’t have a substantial influence on your sense of self.

#4: It’s Unique

College essay topics that are unique are also typically the most memorable, and if there’s anything you want to be during the college application process, it’s that! Admissions officers have to sift through thousands of applications, and the essay is one of the only parts that allows them to really get a sense of who you are and what you value in life.

If your essay is trite or boring, it won’t leave much of an impression , and your application will likely get immediately tossed to the side with little chance of seeing admission.

But if your essay topic is very original and different, you’re more likely to earn that coveted second glance at your application.

What does being unique mean exactly, though? Many students assume that they must choose an extremely rare or crazy experience to talk about in their essays —but that's not necessarily what I mean by "unique." Good college essay topics can be unusual and different, yes, but they can also be unique takes on more mundane or common activities and experiences .

For instance, say you want to write an essay about the first time you went snowboarding. Instead of just describing the details of the experience and how you felt during it, you could juxtapose your emotions with a creative and humorous perspective from the snowboard itself. Or you could compare your first attempt at snowboarding with your most recent experience in a snowboarding competition. The possibilities are endless!

#5: It Clearly Answers the Question

Finally, good college essay topics will clearly and fully answer the question(s) in the prompt.

You might fail to directly answer a prompt by misinterpreting what it’s asking you to do, or by answering only part of it (e.g., answering just one out of three questions).

Therefore, make sure you take the time to come up with an essay topic that is in direct response to every question in the prompt .

Take this Coalition Application prompt as an example:

What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What's the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?

For this prompt, you’d need to answer all three questions (though it’s totally fine to focus more on one or two of them) to write a compelling and appropriate essay.

This is why we recommend reading and rereading the essay prompt ; you should know exactly what it’s asking you to do, well before you start brainstorming possible college application essay topics.

53 College Essay Topics to Get Your Brain Moving

In this section, we give you a list of 53 examples of college essay topics. Use these as jumping-off points to help you get started on your college essay and to ensure that you’re on track to coming up with a relevant and effective topic.

All college application essay topics below are categorized by essay prompt type. We’ve identified six general types of college essay prompts:

Why This College?

Change and personal growth, passions, interests, and goals, overcoming a challenge, diversity and community, solving a problem.

Note that these prompt types could overlap with one another, so you’re not necessarily limited to just one college essay topic in a single personal statement.

• How a particular major or program will help you achieve your academic or professional goals
• A memorable and positive interaction you had with a professor or student at the school
• Something good that happened to you while visiting the campus or while on a campus tour
• A certain class you want to take or a certain professor you’re excited to work with
• Some piece of on-campus equipment or facility that you’re looking forward to using
• Your plans to start a club at the school, possibly to raise awareness of a major issue
• A study abroad or other unique program that you can’t wait to participate in
• How and where you plan to volunteer in the community around the school
• An incredible teacher you studied under and the positive impact they had on you
• How you went from really liking something, such as a particular movie star or TV show, to not liking it at all (or vice versa)
• How yours or someone else’s (change in) socioeconomic status made you more aware of poverty
• A time someone said something to you that made you realize you were wrong
• How your opinion on a controversial topic, such as gay marriage or DACA, has shifted over time
• A documentary that made you aware of a particular social, economic, or political issue going on in the country or world
• Advice you would give to your younger self about friendship, motivation, school, etc.
• The steps you took in order to kick a bad or self-sabotaging habit
• A juxtaposition of the first and most recent time you did something, such as dance onstage
• A book you read that you credit with sparking your love of literature and/or writing
• A school assignment or project that introduced you to your chosen major
• A glimpse of your everyday routine and how your biggest hobby or interest fits into it
• The career and (positive) impact you envision yourself having as a college graduate
• A teacher or mentor who encouraged you to pursue a specific interest you had
• How moving around a lot helped you develop a love of international exchange or learning languages
• A special skill or talent you’ve had since you were young and that relates to your chosen major in some way, such as designing buildings with LEGO bricks
• Where you see yourself in 10 or 20 years
• Your biggest accomplishment so far relating to your passion (e.g., winning a gold medal for your invention at a national science competition)
• A time you lost a game or competition that was really important to you
• How you dealt with the loss or death of someone close to you
• A time you did poorly in a class that you expected to do well in
• How moving to a new school impacted your self-esteem and social life
• A chronic illness you battled or are still battling
• Your healing process after having your heart broken for the first time
• A time you caved under peer pressure and the steps you took so that it won't happen again
• How you almost gave up on learning a foreign language but stuck with it
• Why you decided to become a vegetarian or vegan, and how you navigate living with a meat-eating family
• What you did to overcome a particular anxiety or phobia you had (e.g., stage fright)
• A history of a failed experiment you did over and over, and how you finally found a way to make it work successfully
• Someone within your community whom you aspire to emulate
• A family tradition you used to be embarrassed about but are now proud of
• Your experience with learning English upon moving to the United States
• A close friend in the LGBTQ+ community who supported you when you came out
• A time you were discriminated against, how you reacted, and what you would do differently if faced with the same situation again
• How you navigate your identity as a multiracial, multiethnic, and/or multilingual person
• A project or volunteer effort you led to help or improve your community
• A particular celebrity or role model who inspired you to come out as LGBTQ+
• Your biggest challenge (and how you plan to tackle it) as a female in a male-dominated field
• How you used to discriminate against your own community, and what made you change your mind and eventually take pride in who you are and/or where you come from
• A program you implemented at your school in response to a known problem, such as a lack of recycling cans in the cafeteria
• A time you stepped in to mediate an argument or fight between two people
• An app or other tool you developed to make people’s lives easier in some way
• A time you proposed a solution that worked to an ongoing problem at school, an internship, or a part-time job
• The steps you took to identify and fix an error in coding for a website or program
• An important social or political issue that you would fix if you had the means

How to Build a College Essay in 6 Easy Steps

Once you’ve decided on a college essay topic you want to use, it’s time to buckle down and start fleshing out your essay. These six steps will help you transform a simple college essay topic into a full-fledged personal statement.

Step 1: Write Down All the Details

Once you’ve chosen a general topic to write about, get out a piece of paper and get to work on creating a list of all the key details you could include in your essay . These could be things such as the following:

• Emotions you felt at the time
• Names, places, and/or numbers
• Dialogue, or what you or someone else said
• A specific anecdote, example, or experience
• Descriptions of how things looked, felt, or seemed

If you can only come up with a few details, then it’s probably best to revisit the list of college essay topics above and choose a different one that you can write more extensively on.

Good college essay topics are typically those that:

• You remember well (so nothing that happened when you were really young)
• You're excited to write about
• You're not embarrassed or uncomfortable to share with others
• You believe will make you positively stand out from other applicants

Step 2: Figure Out Your Focus and Approach

Once you have all your major details laid out, start to figure out how you could arrange them in a way that makes sense and will be most effective.

It’s important here to really narrow your focus: you don’t need to (and shouldn’t!) discuss every single aspect of your trip to visit family in Indonesia when you were 16. Rather, zero in on a particular anecdote or experience and explain why and how it impacted you.

Alternatively, you could write about multiple experiences while weaving them together with a clear, meaningful theme or concept , such as how your math teacher helped you overcome your struggle with geometry over the course of an entire school year. In this case, you could mention a few specific times she tutored you and most strongly supported you in your studies.

There’s no one right way to approach your college essay, so play around to see what approaches might work well for the topic you’ve chosen.

If you’re really unsure about how to approach your essay, think about what part of your topic was or is most meaningful and memorable to you, and go from there.

Step 3: Structure Your Narrative

• Beginning: Don’t just spout off a ton of background information here—you want to hook your reader, so try to start in the middle of the action , such as with a meaningful conversation you had or a strong emotion you felt. It could also be a single anecdote if you plan to center your essay around a specific theme or idea.
• Middle: Here’s where you start to flesh out what you’ve established in the opening. Provide more details about the experience (if a single anecdote) or delve into the various times your theme or idea became most important to you. Use imagery and sensory details to put the reader in your shoes.
• End: It’s time to bring it all together. Finish describing the anecdote or theme your essay centers around and explain how it relates to you now , what you’ve learned or gained from it, and how it has influenced your goals.

Step 4: Write a Rough Draft

By now you should have all your major details and an outline for your essay written down; these two things will make it easy for you to convert your notes into a rough draft.

At this stage of the writing process, don’t worry too much about vocabulary or grammar and just focus on getting out all your ideas so that they form the general shape of an essay . It’s OK if you’re a little over the essay's word limit — as you edit, you’ll most likely make some cuts to irrelevant and ineffective parts anyway.

If at any point you get stuck and have no idea what to write, revisit steps 1-3 to see whether there are any important details or ideas you might be omitting or not elaborating on enough to get your overall point across to admissions officers.

Step 5: Edit, Revise, and Proofread

• Sections that are too wordy and don’t say anything important
• Irrelevant details that don’t enhance your essay or the point you're trying to make
• Parts that seem to drag or that feel incredibly boring or redundant
• Areas that are vague and unclear and would benefit from more detail
• Phrases or sections that are awkwardly placed and should be moved around
• Areas that feel unconvincing, inauthentic, or exaggerated

Start paying closer attention to your word choice/vocabulary and grammar at this time, too. It’s perfectly normal to edit and revise your college essay several times before asking for feedback, so keep working with it until you feel it’s pretty close to its final iteration.

This step will likely take the longest amount of time — at least several weeks, if not months — so really put effort into fixing up your essay. Once you’re satisfied, do a final proofread to ensure that it’s technically correct.

Step 6: Get Feedback and Tweak as Needed

After you’ve overhauled your rough draft and made it into a near-final draft, give your essay to somebody you trust , such as a teacher or parent, and have them look it over for technical errors and offer you feedback on its content and overall structure.

Use this feedback to make any last-minute changes or edits. If necessary, repeat steps 5 and 6. You want to be extra sure that your essay is perfect before you submit it to colleges!

Recap: From College Essay Topics to Great College Essays

Many different kinds of college application essay topics can get you into a great college. But this doesn’t make it any easier to choose the best topic for you .

In general, the best college essay topics have the following qualities :

• They’re specific
• They show who you are
• They’re meaningful to you
• They’re unique
• They clearly answer the question

If you ever need help coming up with an idea of what to write for your essay, just refer to the list of 53 examples of college essay topics above to get your brain juices flowing.

Once you’ve got an essay topic picked out, follow these six steps for turning your topic into an unforgettable personal statement :

• Write down all the details
• Figure out your focus and approach
• Structure your narrative
• Write a rough draft
• Edit, revise, and proofread
• Get feedback and tweak as needed

And with that, I wish you the best of luck on your college essays!

What’s Next?

Writing a college essay is no simple task. Get expert college essay tips with our guides on how to come up with great college essay ideas and how to write a college essay, step by step .

You can also check out this huge list of college essay prompts  to get a feel for what types of questions you'll be expected to answer on your applications.

Want to see examples of college essays that absolutely rocked? You're in luck because we've got a collection of 100+ real college essay examples right here on our blog!

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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Your Best College Essay

Maybe you love to write, or maybe you don’t. Either way, there’s a chance that the thought of writing your college essay is making you sweat. No need for nerves! We’re here to give you the important details on how to make the process as anxiety-free as possible.

What's the College Essay?

When we say “The College Essay” (capitalization for emphasis – say it out loud with the capitals and you’ll know what we mean) we’re talking about the 550-650 word essay required by most colleges and universities. Prompts for this essay can be found on the college’s website, the Common Application, or the Coalition Application. We’re not talking about the many smaller supplemental essays you might need to write in order to apply to college. Not all institutions require the essay, but most colleges and universities that are at least semi-selective do.

How do I get started?

Look for the prompts on whatever application you’re using to apply to schools (almost all of the time – with a few notable exceptions – this is the Common Application). If one of them calls out to you, awesome! You can jump right in and start to brainstorm. If none of them are giving you the right vibes, don’t worry. They’re so broad that almost anything you write can fit into one of the prompts after you’re done. Working backwards like this is totally fine and can be really useful!

What if I have writer's block?

You aren’t alone. Staring at a blank Google Doc and thinking about how this is the one chance to tell an admissions officer your story can make you freeze. Thinking about some of these questions might help you find the right topic:

• What is something about you that people have pointed out as distinctive?
• If you had to pick three words to describe yourself, what would they be? What are things you’ve done that demonstrate these qualities?
• What’s something about you that has changed over your years in high school? How or why did it change?
• What’s something you like most about yourself?
• What’s something you love so much that you lose track of the rest of the world while you do it?

If you’re still stuck on a topic, ask your family members, friends, or other trusted adults: what’s something they always think about when they think about you? What’s something they think you should be proud of? They might help you find something about yourself that you wouldn’t have surfaced on your own.  

How do I grab my reader's attention?

It’s no secret that admissions officers are reading dozens – and sometimes hundreds – of essays every day. That can feel like a lot of pressure to stand out. But if you try to write the most unique essay in the world, it might end up seeming forced if it’s not genuinely you. So, what’s there to do? Our advice: start your essay with a story. Tell the reader about something you’ve done, complete with sensory details, and maybe even dialogue. Then, in the second paragraph, back up and tell us why this story is important and what it tells them about you and the theme of the essay.

THE WORD LIMIT IS SO LIMITING. HOW DO I TELL A COLLEGE MY WHOLE LIFE STORY IN 650 WORDS?

Don’t! Don’t try to tell an admissions officer about everything you’ve loved and done since you were a child. Instead, pick one or two things about yourself that you’re hoping to get across and stick to those. They’ll see the rest on the activities section of your application.

I'M STUCK ON THE CONCLUSION. HELP?

If you can’t think of another way to end the essay, talk about how the qualities you’ve discussed in your essays have prepared you for college. Try to wrap up with a sentence that refers back to the story you told in your first paragraph, if you took that route.

SHOULD I PROOFREAD MY ESSAY?

YES, proofread the essay, and have a trusted adult proofread it as well. Know that any suggestions they give you are coming from a good place, but make sure they aren’t writing your essay for you or putting it into their own voice. Admissions officers want to hear the voice of you, the applicant. Before you submit your essay anywhere, our number one advice is to read it out loud to yourself. When you read out loud you’ll catch small errors you may not have noticed before, and hear sentences that aren’t quite right.

ANY OTHER ADVICE?

Be yourself. If you’re not a naturally serious person, don’t force formality. If you’re the comedian in your friend group, go ahead and be funny. But ultimately, write as your authentic (and grammatically correct) self and trust the process.

And remember, thousands of other students your age are faced with this same essay writing task, right now. You can do it!

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• Personal Essays

The State of My Identity

By eunwoo choi.

Rapid scenic development stood out to me. A brand new, strikingly different cover to an old, familiar tale. Throughout my years in South Carolina, things had changed. Nature-filled places were replaced by modern buildings, and old, local businesses had disappeared. Despite having spent the majority of my life growing up alongside the community of South Carolina, I found myself asking, “Why does South Carolina not feel like home?” Most of my memories reside within this state I call home, yet I am always struck by that question. My greatest achievements, my weaknesses, my development, and many of my friendships began here, but I still feel like a stranger. I feel like a stranger in South Carolina; the state that grew me into the person I am today; the state where I have lived longer than many of my surrounding peers.

Throughout high school, I have begun to discover who I am. Who am I? I am a girl who has lived in South Carolina for fourteen of the seventeen years of her life; a girl who grew up being labeled as shy and brilliant minded. Looking back, I remember hiding behind my parents at each open house during elementary school. The teachers would peer behind their legs and crouch down, smiling warmly at me before asking about my quiet nature. Later, I learned to use this quietness to focus on my academic performance. It was my biggest strength. My greatest advantage in climbing the social ladder implicitly built upon race was to become one of the smartest in the school. As a result, I pressured myself out of falling behind, staying ahead of the dust that haunts the ranks of the unknown.

As a Korean Asian American, I have had difficulty discovering my identity. Not having the opportunity to grow up with people of similar backgrounds left me confused as to who I was. The misrepresentation of Asian culture was impactful on the young eight-year-old who started to understand the social divides in American education. I would be accused of being smart solely because my parents must be strict. My parents were never strict. In all my years of living, I attained my intellect through my own high standards. I was always quick to defend the differences of all Asian families, countering with the fact that all races could have a family with strict or relaxed parents. This, however, was just one of many challenges I faced in trying to accept South Carolina as my home and break through the bars crafted from the assumptions made in a single glance.

I often feel that racism and microaggression towards Asians are widely accepted within our community, especially in school settings. Honestly, I don’t blame my young classmates that grew up in an environment that was dominated by people like them. How would they have known any different when no one taught them the values of acceptance? How would they have known any better than to maliciously comment on my home foods or ask if I am from North Korea? Young students are easily influenced by the media and like to appease their friends who grew up with similar perspectives towards people not like them. As a society, we cannot reprimand children for ignorance, as the responsibility of teaching acceptance falls upon the experienced adults. This lack of structure regarding the treatment of people of color is an issue that should be reevaluated.

Intended or not, there is a social barrier for students, such as I, to truly feel accepted into the home of South Carolina. It is imperative that students are taught the importance of equity, acceptance, and representation of all races from a young age. They need to learn to accept, as I have, that South Carolina is a diverse home to many. South Carolina allowed me to grow as a person, a student, and a member of a vast, growing community. Every one of my accomplishments, big or small, was made possible because of this place I have the privilege to call home.

About Eunwoo Choi

Eunwoo Choi is a junior at River Bluff High School in Lexington, where Mrs. Whitney Day is her AP Language and Composition teacher and Dr. Lars Seiler is her AP Research teacher. The daughter of Heejin Oh and Joonhyung Choi, Eunwoo plans to pursue careers in law and business, and travel abroad during her studies.

Eunwoo Choi on Instagram .

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

Creating My Own Identity Amidst Cornell's Diversity

This week, junior Jady looks back at her time at Cornell thus far, and shares how she was able to make the vast campus her own through classes, clubs, and friends. 

By Jady Wei '19, Economics and Government double major, Law & Society minor

I can still remember walking into my very first class at Cornell as a freshman. It was at 9:05 a.m. on a Tuesday, all the way at the Statler Hotel, which back then, seemed like the farthest trek to ever be endured. Of course, my overly-excited freshman self made certain to set the alarm hours ahead so that I would have ample time to wake up, get ready, grab breakfast, and navigate through all the slopes and hills. Soon, as the auditorium began to fill up, I became more aware of my surroundings — the class was huge, the lecture hall packed, and the number of students easily exceeded a couple hundred. It was an introductory economics course, which I later learned, would explain the class size. Little did I know that this experience would play a significant role in defining my time at Cornell.

Now as a junior, I realize that one of the most important things I have learned at Cornell is to find my own identity and voice in an institution with a considerable student population, a large breadth of focuses, and a wide array of classes. As a Resident Advisor on North Campus, I often hear my freshmen residents vent about the size of Cornell and how the vast spectrum of resources Cornell offers can be overwhelming and challenging. However, that is the essence of Cornell’s significance — the opportunity to challenge ourselves to navigate amidst the abundance of resources, and carve our own experiences the way we want to define our college narrative. Overwhelmed by the amount of resources Cornell had to offer, I joined eleven different student organizations in freshman year. Over time, I have consciously narrowed these down to a few key commitments, which in turn, have shaped my friend group, interests, and direction for my future.

In one of my final classes of freshman year, a professor read one of my favorite poems by C. P. Cavafy. One verse always lingers in my mind whenever I hear the piece: “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out.” Cornell truly has so much to offer, and although the size of this campus and abundance of resources can be more anxiety-inducing than comforting at first, learning how to navigate the resources on such a vast campus and understanding the importance of creating my own identity amidst the diversity were the most valuable lessons I have learned thus far. It has challenged me to continue rediscovering myself, be open-minded, learn from those around me, and ultimately, follow a path that I know is unique to my own experiences.

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

Online Resources to Power Your Academic & Professional Success

W hen a student enters college , he/she is getting ready to do everything possible to succeed and graduate with enough skills that they can use in their adult life. Academic life sometimes takes too much effort, and college learners lose interest in studying.

When you, as a college student, start your academic journey, you do not want to pay attention to questions such as “ Does word count matter for college essays? ” “How to cite sources correctly?” or “How many pages a 500-word essay will take?” These issues are not interesting to college students; they want to learn something really important that will help them earn good grades and money in the future.

In this article, we will examine some of the sources that could help students delineate their duties and responsibilities so that they can concentrate on more important matters. 

Sources to Boost Academic Success

As we have already mentioned, today’s college students have to pay attention to things that, in most cases, will not help them in their adult lives and careers. Thus, many tools exist to ease students’ lives and give them enough time to rise as professionals, not full-time learners.

Research and Writing Tools

As a college student, you must handle hundreds of writing assignments and meet dozens of academic writing requirements. Of course, it is very difficult to bear everything in your head, and these research and writing tools will definitely come in handy. 

Let’s take a look at some free tools you, as a student, should have at your disposal during the college years. 

• Google Scholar . This is the place where you can find relevant sources for your academic writing papers. 
• Grammarly . This tool can help you proofread your writing and show you the weak places in your paper. The free version offers access to a limited number of functions, but if you need just to help you check your writing for errors, this will be enough.
• Free writing tools . Many tools can help you cite sources properly, provide ideas for your essay, create a strong thesis statement, etc. These tools can ease your academic life a lot. 

Helping Tools

Being a college student often means being in a hurry. Trying to meet academic writing deadlines, studying important materials, and living a personal life are just some of the issues almost every student faces daily. Thus, some helping tools can come in handy to manage your time, effort, and abilities. 

• Evernote (or something similar) is a note-taking tool that helps you remember the essentials . 
• Planners . You can use electronic or paper planners to organize and meet your tasks on time. Such a tool will help you manage your time wisely and omit burnout.

Learning Platforms

Suppose you feel uncomfortable with academic writing assignments. In that case, if you are a foreign student who does not know the language perfectly or if you simply need help to comprehend better an issue discussed in a class, these platforms can help you. Here are some free tools that we recommend considering. 

• Writing blogs . There are a lot of writing blogs available online where you can get assistance with your writing issues. If you have no idea what to dedicate your writing assignment to, how to write a particular type of essay, how to cite sources, etc., these blogs will show you. Of course, it is very important to seek professional blogs you can rely on. Many writing services lead such blogs to help college learners who can’t afford their paid services. 
• Language apps . Such applications can help you learn the language if you are a foreign student. These are usually targeted at different levels and provide various exercises to help non-native speakers learn and use the language in their lives.
• Professional writing services . Many students turn to these companies when they need professional assistance with their writing. At such companies, professional writers offer their services to students and complete customized writing assignments.

Sources to Boost Professional Success

Unsurprisingly, when a person enters a college or university, he/she wants to do his/her best to get all the important information and knowledge that will help him/her in his/her professional life. At the same time, most students do not understand why they must attend classes that do not refer to their main professional sphere. For example, when a Mechanical engineering student has to attend History classes, this can cause a lot of irritation and misunderstanding because they do not think this is just what they have to pay attention to. Such classes are usually considered as odd ones.

Thus, most students decide to delineate irrelevant academic duties and pay closer attention to what could help them in their professional careers. Here are some examples of how you can boost your professional success and get quality skills that will help you as a professional.

Online Academies

Many free online courses are available today, so college learners can afford them. Of course, some of them offer free access to a limited number of courses, but still, the number of free options is really impressive. Here are some top free options you can consider.

• Coursera . The service offers high-quality courses in various fields, from data science and business to arts and humanities. Here, you can access a limited number of free courses as well as pay for a subscription. 
• Khan Academy is a free source that offers tools for students, teachers, and parents .
• Codecademy . This is a platform that teaches coding and programming skills in various languages (Python, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, etc.)

Managing Tools

These tools include Trello, Slack, Asana, etc., which can help you plan your tasks and professional experiences. Most companies use these managing tools in order to organize the company’s work. Moreover, these tools support collaboration and information sharing.

Hope this article was helpful and you have found something interesting to you. Enjoy!

The post Online Resources to Power Your Academic & Professional Success appeared first on Under30CEO .

How To Stand Out In The Ivy League During Your Freshman Year

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Harvard College

This spring, many students felt the relief and exuberance that comes with an acceptance letter from one’s dream school. Many students attending Ivy League and other top universities are valedictorians and leaders in their high school communities; they excelled throughout their high school careers and graduated with the accolades to prove it. Yet, these students are often in for a rude awakening when they arrive on campus. Though they were exceptional at their high schools, they are a dime a dozen in the Ivy League. This realization can cause many students to feel imposter syndrome and wonder how they can stand out and make an impression on their professors and peers in such a competitive environment.

The more that students prepare themselves for this adjustment, the better. Standing out in college is a different endeavor than standing out in high school—it requires time, intentionality, and a willingness to be uncomfortable and challenge yourself. Most importantly, it takes practice, and if students seek to hone this skill from their first semester on campus, they will set themselves up for success for the next four years.

For students preparing for their first semester in college, here are five strategies to navigate the transition into the Ivy League with confidence, purpose, and distinction:

1. Make your voice heard in the classroom

At Ivy League and many other top schools, faculty-to-student ratios and class sizes tend to be small, allowing greater opportunity for you to establish yourself in the classroom and engage with your professors directly. Many students are weighed down by self-doubt and the desire to avoid making mistakes in their first semester, and as such, they are reluctant to raise their hands or offer their input. But one of the best ways to establish connections with professors is to use your voice in the classroom—college is about learning and growing, so don’t be afraid to get a question wrong or develop your ideas through conversation. Doing so will allow you to connect with others in class, build your intellectual skill set, and demonstrate your curiosity and earnest desire to learn.

2. Engage in activities outside of the classroom

Beyond academics, the Ivy League is known for vibrant opportunities to learn and connect with others outside of the classroom. Whether you're interested in student government, the performing arts, guest lectures, community service, or intramural athletics, there’s an opportunity to explore your passions. Join clubs and organizations that align with your interests and values, and consider taking on leadership roles to showcase your initiative and organizational skills. Engaging in extracurricular activities will not only enrich your college experience but also afford you the opportunity to get to know people outside of your major or residence hall.

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One of the most valuable assets you'll gain during your time in the Ivy League is your network of peers, professors, and mentors. Take the time to connect with your classmates and professors, attend faculty office hours, and engage in meaningful discussions. One of the best ways to build your network is to simply put yourself out there—a student’s college years are the prime opportunity to connect with even the most distinguished scholars in their field, as they not only likely have connections through their institution, but professors (even at other universities) are more likely to respond to students who reach out for their advice. If one knowledgeable person doesn’t respond or have the bandwidth to advise you on a particular project or query, move on to the next person on your list!

4. Pursue Research, Internship, and Study Abroad Opportunities

The Ivy League offers unparalleled access to research, internship, and study abroad opportunities that can complement your academic studies and expand your horizons. For instance, Harvard offers a multitude of distinguished research positions for undergraduates, ranging from thesis research to research assistantships. The University of Pennsylvania sent students to 48 countries through their study abroad offerings in the 2022-2023 academic year. Meanwhile, Princeton offers more than 400 programs in 140 countries through which students may study abroad. Whether conducting groundbreaking research in your field of study or gaining real-world experience through internships, the plethora of opportunities available to you at an Ivy League university will not only enhance your resume but also deepen your understanding of your chosen field and prepare you for future success.

5. Carve out your niche

Finally, just as high school is a time to hone your passions and demonstrate them in action in your community, college is a more rigorous opportunity to identify and make a name for yourself within a niche industry or discipline. The best way to begin doing so is to have conversations with professors, graduate students, and older students in your field. Ask them questions like: Where do you see the field expanding or moving in the next five years? What are the most significant recent developments in this profession/field? What subjects do you think have been largely unexplored? What advice would you give to emerging scholars in this discipline? While pursuing a subject of true interest to you is indeed important, it is also important to consider how you will contribute uniquely to your subject of interest, and thereby maximize your odds of success in the job market.

Finally, keep in mind that you can (and should) begin practicing these skills in high school. The more you engage in these activities, the more natural they will be when you are on campus at a top university.

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