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Starting an Essay

Essay structure, writing a thesis statement, introduction paragraphs, body paragraphs, conclusions.

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Almost every course you will encounter in college will include writing assignments. One of the most common writing assignments is known as an essay. While the content and style of  essay projects will vary across the disciplines, there are a number of key components that all good essays include. This section of the guide walks you through some of the basic components of the essay genre.  Here are some general thoughts before you get started.  

• A good essay is well-organized and structured. Good essays have a clear introduction, thesis, and conclusion. Body paragraphs in the essay connect back to the thesis. 
• In college, we are no longer tied to a five-paragraph essay (unless an instructor specifically asks for this). Our essays in college can range in length. Some projects may be more than 10 pages, so it would be impossible to use only 5 paragraphs for an essay of this length. 
• Because we are no longer tied to a 5-paragraph essay, we do not have to include "three points" in our thesis statement as we may have done in other courses. 
• Essays should be cohesive and have a good flow. We can create this flow by using transition words and phrases to connect one point to the next. 
• Remember to the review the directions before you start. One can produce a wonderfully-written essay, but if it does not meet the project's parameters, it will not usually receive a passing grade.
• Schedule a meeting with your instructor or tutor before you begin. Visit  http://baker.mywconline.com/  to schedule a meeting with a professional tutor. 

• Parts of an Essay This handout breaks down an essay into it core parts. This short video will provide you with essay structure help.
• Creating a Strong Thesis Statement Here are some brief tips about how to write a strong thesis statement for your college writing project.
• How to Write an Excellent Introduction This handout leads you through a number of successful strategies to garner reader interest and transition into your thesis statement.
• Creating Body Paragraphs This resource walks you through paragraph creation including how to implement good topic sentences, proper organization, and excellent development.
• Crafting a Strong Conclusion We often focus on creating a strong introduction, but crafting a well-written conclusion is just as important.
• << Previous: Writing Process
• Next: Paragraph Structure >>
• Last Updated: Feb 29, 2024 2:31 PM
• URL: https://guides.baker.edu/writing
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Writing Help

• Writing Process

Starting an Essay

Essay structure, writing a thesis statement, introduction paragraphs, body paragraphs, conclusions.

• Paragraph Structure
• Paraphrase, Summarize, and Synthesize
• Writing Genres
• Sentence Structure
• Punctuation and Grammar
• Using Bias-Free Language
• Revision, Editing, and Proofreading
• Mastering the Literature Review This link opens in a new window
• Annotated Bibliography
• Help This link opens in a new window

Note: This guide was used/adapted with the permission of Baker College. For more information please visit the Baker College Writing Guide . 

Almost every course you will encounter in college will include writing assignments. One of the most common writing assignments is known as an essay. While the content and style of essay projects will vary across the disciplines, there are several key components that all good essays include. This section of the guide walks you through some of the basic components of the essay genre.  Here are some general thoughts before you get started.  

• A good essay is well-organized and structured. Good essays have a clear introduction, thesis, and conclusion. Body paragraphs in the essay connect back to the thesis. 
• Essays should be cohesive and have a good flow. We can create this flow by using transition words and phrases to connect one point to the next. 
• Remember to review the directions before you start. One can produce a wonderfully written essay, but if it does not meet the project's parameters, it will not usually receive a passing grade.
• Tips for Writing Your Thesis Drafting a thesis statement can be intimidating, but there are a variety of resources to help.
• Strong Introduction Paragraphs Review tips on starting your paper strong.
• Creating Body Paragraphs This resource walks you through paragraph creation including how to implement good topic sentences, proper organization, and excellent development.
• Crafting a Strong Conclusion We often focus on creating a strong introduction, but crafting a well-written conclusion is just as important.
• << Previous: Writing Process
• Next: Paragraph Structure >>
• Last Updated: Nov 30, 2023 1:00 PM
• URL: https://bethelu.libguides.com/writinghelp

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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Gordon Harvey’s Elements of the Academic Essay

The “Elements of the Academic Essay” is a taxonomy of academic writing by Gordon Harvey. It identifies the key components of academic writing across the disciplines and has been widely influential. Below is a complete list (with descriptions).

Elements of an Essay

“Your main insight or idea about a text or topic, and the main proposition that your essay demonstrates. It should be true but arguable (not obviously or patently true, but one alternative among several), be limited enough in scope to be argued in a short composition and with available evidence, and get to the heart of the text or topic being analyzed (not be peripheral). It should be stated early in some form and at some point recast sharply (not just be implied), and it should govern the whole essay (not disappear in places).”  — Gordon Harvey, “Elements of the Academic Essay”

• See this fuller discussion of some of the scholarly debates about the thesis statement:  The Thesis Statement
• See this piece on the pros and cons of having a thesis statement:  Pros and Cons of Thesis Statements
• See this piece on working with students without a thesis:  What To Do When There’s No Thesis
• And see this piece for working with students with varied levels of thesis development:  A Pseudo-Thesis

“The intellectual context that you establish for your topic and thesis at the start of your essay, in order to suggest why someone, besides your instructor, might want to read an essay on this topic or need to hear your particular thesis argued—why your thesis isn’t just obvious to all, why other people might hold other theses (that you think are wrong). Your motive should be aimed at your audience: it won’t necessarily be the reason you first got interested in the topic (which could be private and idiosyncratic) or the personal motivation behind your engagement with the topic. Indeed it’s where you suggest that your argument isn’t idiosyncratic, but rather is generally interesting. The motive you set up should be genuine: a misapprehension or puzzle that an intelligent reader (not a straw dummy) would really have, a point that such a reader would really overlook. Defining motive should be the main business of your introductory paragraphs, where it is usually introduced by a form of the complicating word ‘But.'”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“The data—facts, examples, or details—that you refer to, quote, or summarize to support your thesis. There needs to be enough evidence to be persuasive; it needs to be the right kind of evidence to support the thesis (with no obvious pieces of evidence overlooked); it needs to be sufficiently concrete for the reader to trust it (e.g. in textual analysis, it often helps to find one or two key or representative passages to quote and focus on); and if summarized, it needs to be summarized accurately and fairly.”  –Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay

“The work of breaking down, interpreting, and commenting upon the data, of saying what can be inferred from the data such that it supports a thesis (is evidence for something). Analysis is what you do with data when you go beyond observing or summarizing it: you show how its parts contribute to a whole or how causes contribute to an effect; you draw out the significance or implication not apparent to a superficial view. Analysis is what makes the writer feel present, as a reasoning individual; so your essay should do more analyzing than summarizing or quoting.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“The recurring terms or basic oppositions that an argument rests upon, usually literal but sometimes a ruling metaphor. These terms usually imply certain assumptions—unstated beliefs about life, history, literature, reasoning, etc. that the essayist doesn’t argue for but simply assumes to be true. An essay’s keyterms should be clear in their meaning and appear throughout (not be abandoned half-way); they should be appropriate for the subject at hand (not unfair or too simple—a false or constraining opposition); and they should not be inert clichés or abstractions (e.g. “the evils of society”). The attendant assumptions should bear logical inspection, and if arguable they should be explicitly acknowledged.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

One of the most common issues we address in the writing center is the issue of structure. Many students never consciously address structure in the way that they consciously formulate a thesis. This is ironic because the two are inseparable – that is, the way you formulate an argument (structure) is essential to the argument itself (thesis). Thus, when emphasizing the importance of structure to students, it is important to remind them that structure cannot be developed in the absence of a strong thesis: you have to know what you’re arguing before you decide how to argue it.

As a writing tutor, your first task in addressing issues of structure will be to try and gauge if the student writer has an idea of what good structure looks like. Some students understand good structure, even if it’s just at an intuitive level, while others do not. If comprehension seems lacking, it may be useful to actually stop and explain what good structure looks like.

Some Ways of Thinking about Structure:

The structure of the paper should be progressive; the paper should “build” throughout. That is, there should be a logical order to the paper; each successive paragraph should build on the ideas presented in the last. In the writing center we are familiar with the scattershot essay in which the student throws out ten arguments to see what sticks. Such essays are characterized by weak or nonexistent transitions such as “My next point…” or “Another example of this…”.

Some students will understand structure better with the help of a metaphor. One particularly nice metaphor (courtesy of Dara) is to view the structure of an academic paper as a set of stairs. The paper begins with a small step; the first paragraph gives the most simple assumption or support for the argument. The paper then builds, slowly and gradually towards the top of the staircase. When the paper reaches its conclusion, it has brought the reader up to the top of the staircase to a point of new insight. From the balcony the reader can gaze out upon the original statement or question from higher ground.

How Gordon Harvey describes structure in his “Elements of the Academic Essay”:

“The sections should follow a logical order, and the links in that order should be apparent to the reader (see “stitching”). But it should also be a progressive order—there should have a direction of development or complication, not be simply a list or a series of restatements of the thesis (“Macbeth is ambitious: he’s ambitious here; and he’s ambitious here; and he’s ambitions here, too; thus, Macbeth is ambitious”). And the order should be supple enough to allow the writer to explore the topic, not just hammer home a thesis.”

“Words that tie together the parts of an argument, most commonly (a) by using transition (linking or turning) words as signposts to indicate how a new section, paragraph, or sentence follows from the one immediately previous; but also (b) by recollection of an earlier idea or part of the essay, referring back to it either by explicit statement or by echoing key words or resonant phrases quoted or stated earlier. The repeating of key or thesis concepts is especially helpful at points of transition from one section to another, to show how the new section fits in.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

Persons or documents, referred to, summarized, or quoted, that help a writer demonstrate the truth of his or her argument. They are typically sources of (a) factual information or data, (b) opinions or interpretation on your topic, (c) comparable versions of the thing you are discussing, or (d) applicable general concepts. Your sources need to be efficiently integrated and fairly acknowledged by citation.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

When you pause in your demonstration to reflect on it, to raise or answer a question about it—as when you (1) consider a counter-argument—a possible objection, alternative, or problem that a skeptical or resistant reader might raise; (2) define your terms or assumptions (what do I mean by this term? or, what am I assuming here?); (3) handle a newly emergent concern (but if this is so, then how can X be?); (4) draw out an implication (so what? what might be the wider significance of the argument I have made? what might it lead to if I’m right? or, what does my argument about a single aspect of this suggest about the whole thing? or about the way people live and think?), and (5) consider a possible explanation for the phenomenon that has been demonstrated (why might this be so? what might cause or have caused it?); (6) offer a qualification or limitation to the case you have made (what you’re not saying). The first of these reflections can come anywhere in an essay; the second usually comes early; the last four often come late (they’re common moves of conclusion).”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“Bits of information, explanation, and summary that orient the reader who isn’t expert in the subject, enabling such a reader to follow the argument. The orienting question is, what does my reader need here? The answer can take many forms: necessary information about the text, author, or event (e.g. given in your introduction); a summary of a text or passage about to be analyzed; pieces of information given along the way about passages, people, or events mentioned (including announcing or “set-up” phrases for quotations and sources). The trick is to orient briefly and gracefully.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“The implied relationship of you, the writer, to your readers and subject: how and where you implicitly position yourself as an analyst. Stance is defined by such features as style and tone (e.g. familiar or formal); the presence or absence of specialized language and knowledge; the amount of time spent orienting a general, non-expert reader; the use of scholarly conventions of form and style. Your stance should be established within the first few paragraphs of your essay, and it should remain consistent.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“The choices you make of words and sentence structure. Your style should be exact and clear (should bring out main idea and action of each sentence, not bury it) and plain without being flat (should be graceful and a little interesting, not stuffy).”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

“It should both interest and inform. To inform—i.e. inform a general reader who might be browsing in an essay collection or bibliography—your title should give the subject and focus of the essay. To interest, your title might include a linguistic twist, paradox, sound pattern, or striking phrase taken from one of your sources (the aptness of which phrase the reader comes gradually to see). You can combine the interesting and informing functions in a single title or split them into title and subtitle. The interesting element shouldn’t be too cute; the informing element shouldn’t go so far as to state a thesis. Don’t underline your own title, except where it contains the title of another text.”  — Gordon Harvey, “The Elements of the Academic Essay”

A student’s argument serves as the backbone to a piece of writing. Often expressed in the form of a one-sentence thesis statement, an argument forms the basis for a paper, defines the writer’s feelings toward a particular topic, and engages the reader in a discussion about a particular topic. Because an argument bears so much weight on the success of a paper, students may spend hours searching for that one, arguable claim that will carry them through to the assigned page limit. Formulating a decent argument about a text is tricky, especially when a professor does not distribute essay prompts—prompting students to come to the Writing Center asking that eternal question: “ What  am I going to write about?!”

Formulating the Idea of an Argument (Pre-Writing Stage)

Before a student can begin drafting a paper, he or she must have a solid argument. Begin this process by looking at the writing assignment rubric and/or prompt assigned by the professor. If no particular prompt was assigned, ask the student what interests him or her in the class? Was there a reading assignment that was particularly compelling and/or interesting? Engage the student in a conversation about the class or the paper assignment with a pen and paper in their hand. When an interesting idea is conveyed, ask them to jot it down on a paper. Look for similarities or connections in their written list of ideas.

If a student is still lost, it’s helpful to remind them to remember to have a  motive  for writing. Besides working to pass a class or getting a good grade, what could inspire a student to write an eight page paper and enjoy the process? Relating the assigned class readings to incidents in a student’s own life often helps create a sense of urgency and need to write an argument. In an essay entitled “The Great Conversation (of the Dining Hall): One Student’s Experience of College-Level Writing,” student Kimberly Nelson remembers her passion for Tolkien fueled her to write a lengthy research paper and engage her friends in discussions concerning her topic (290).

Additional ideas for consultations during the pre-writing stage .

Formulating the Argument

The pre-writing stage is essential because arguments must “be limited enough in scope to be argued in a short composition” according to Harvey’s  Elements of the Academic Essay . Narrow down the range of ideas so the student may write a more succinct paper with efficient language. When composing an argument (and later, a thesis), avoid definitive statements—arguments are  arguable , and a great paper builds on a successive chain of ideas grounded in evidence to support an argument. It is of paramount importance to remind your student that the argument will govern the entire paper and not “disappear in places” (Harvey). When composing an actual paper, it’s helpful to Post-It note a summary of your argument on your computer screen to serve as a constant reminder of  why  you are writing.

Difficulties with Arguments and International Students

When international students arrive at Pomona College, they are often unsure of what the standard academic writing expectations are. If a student submits a draft to you devoid of any argument, it’s important to remember that the conventions of their home country may not match up to the standards we expect to see here. Some countries place more of an emphasis on a summary of ideas of others rather than generating entirely new arguments. If this is the case for your student, (gently) remind him or her that most Pomona College professors expect to see new arguments generated from the students and that “summary” papers are frowned upon. Don’t disparage their previous work—use the ideas present in their paragraphs as a launching point for crafting a new, creative argument.

“Students, like all writers, must fictionalize their audience.”

– Fred Pfister and Joanne Petrik, “A Heuristic Model for Creating a Writer’s Audience” (1980)

The main purpose of imagining or fictionalizing an audience is to allow the student to position his/her paper within the discourse and in conversation with other academics. By helping the student acknowledge the fact that both the writer (the student) and the reader (the audience) play a role in the writing process, the student will be better able to clarify and strengthen his/her argument.

Moreover, the practice of fictionalizing the audience should eventually help the student learn how to become his/her own reader. By adopting the role of both the writer and the reader, the student will be able to further develop his ability to locate his/her text in a discourse community.

During a consultation, you may notice that a student’s argument does not actually engage in a conversation with the members of its respective discourse community. If his/her paper does not refer to other texts or ask questions that are relevant to this particular discourse, you may need to ask the student to imagine who his/her audience is as well as what the audience’s reaction to the paper may look like.

Although the student’s immediate answer will most likely be his/her professor, you should advise the student to attempt imagining an audience beyond his/her class—an audience composed of people who are invested in this discourse or this specific topic.

If your student cannot imagine or fictionalize such an audience, it may be because the student may not believe that he/she know enough about the topic to address such a knowledgeable audience. In this case, you should advise the student to pretend that he/she is an expert on the topic or that the student’s paper will be published and read by other members of the discourse community.

The student, however, should not pander to the audience and “undervalue the responsibility that [he/she] has to [the] subject” (Ede and Lunsford, 1984). Advise him/her to avoid re-shaping the paper so that it merely caters to or appeases the audience.

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• March 11, 2019
• 8 Components of Successful College Essay
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• Author Christina Battons

Writing an essay seems to be “mission impossible” for many students. They feel intimidated and bewildered, as it is a huge project during which they can be overloaded with other studies. These overwhelming peculiarities of the logic sequence – what goes first and last, what we write in the main body, and so on. You may think it is a catastrophe… How to write a successful essay, interesting and neat? Of course, it is a challenge for everyone, but it is doable. Let’s review the components of a quality essay.

#1 Topic. Choose one that is interesting to you 100 per cent. Then, decide if it should be a general proposition or a detailed overview of the subject. Later, this will form the thesis of your essay, which will be proven either right (usually) or wrong by the end of your work. Relevant, interesting thesis will help you to develop and support the idea of your paper.

Once you pick a topic, you start the research process. A thought-through essay is all about scientific approach. Do you have a feeling that you investigate your life? Turn it into an intriguing process to make it exciting. Think about your life, interests, and jot information about it down.

In the end, figure out what is the goal of your paper. If you want to educate, then pick a subject you have already studied. You should be passionate to persuade your readers. Just remember that it should be an interesting subject for you first of all.

#2 Ideas. Work out a list of your thoughts on the subject. It can be a diagram or an outline if it is easier for you. Just jot ideas down. It is very important as your thoughts should not be scattered; they should be organized in the right way. Even if you have plenty of ideas in your head, just put them on   college paper . This list will be your mind map.

To create an outline, just write down an idea and leave some space below. Then the next, and the next. You may come back to the previous point to develop it with sub ideas related to the main subject. Finally, you will have a paper lined with ideas.

If you prefer a diagram, then put several main ideas on paper and connect them to smaller ideas with links.

When you prepare the plan with your thoughts, you will see how to connect them and make links from one to another. These links are your first step to a successful essay.

#3 Thesis. So, gradually, from searching for a topic to forming ideas, we approached a critical component – thesis. A thesis is a key part of your essay. Once again, look through your topic, your thoughts, and make up a good thesis. What does a good thesis mean? The main thing – it should be arguable. It means that if you lay out an argument, then you should set a stage for the exploration that will definitely follow. For instance: “Global Warming: Reality or Myth?” There have to be intelligent ways to contradict it. Ability to argue is a sign of good thesis. As a result, a smart reader will be challenged to agree or disagree.

#4 Motive. A reason why you decided to write about this topic is to demonstrate a current misunderstanding of an important issue. There is a contradiction here that needs to be sorted out. The truth is not what people expect and while reading the essay, there can be an interesting wrinkle in the matter. The author promises to clarify something that otherwise would be left unclear and in ambiguity. Nevertheless, your essay is not going to deepen, illuminate, or solve the problem; the problem is merely discussed in the paper.

#5 The evidence. It is represented by facts and details in a summary or quotation to prove your main idea and sub ideas. It must be ample and concrete to be able to grapple with facts, patterns, and passages. Readers have to be oriented to the source of the evidence that must be cited. As it progresses, it should gain complexity. Furthermore, make logical transitions between the paragraphs.

#6 Analysis and explanation. The evidence is turned into an argument to show the reader how it develops, supports or extends the thesis. The reader might not be an expert on the subject you’ve chosen; this is why the writer is responsible for at least two words of analysis for every word of a citation (but usually more). Ideally, quotations should comprise no more than 10% of your paper – if you want to compose college non-plagiarized essay that will not get you into trouble, of course.

Comments and explanations should follow the main body of the paper. From time to time, it is good to make some connection that echoes some key words or phrases stated earlier. As a result, the reader will draw an analogy between their own perception of the thesis and yours.

#7 Introduction and conclusion. Now that you have the main body of the paper (where the idea is developed and discussed), you need to write an introduction that will attract the readers and make them interested. It is better to grab attention with ‘drama,’ e.g. some shocking numbers, information, story, dialogue, and so on.

The conclusion restates your overall ideas to the reader; usually, it consists of three or five strong sentences. Although you do not need to repeat your thesis, make a reinforcement of it providing a review of main points. In this part, you broaden the implications of your thesis. However, make sure that you do not go too far generalizing; otherwise, you may go astray. You do not want to sound confusing or clichéd, but rather logically and suggestively.

#8 Revision. Finally, after writing the conclusion, you may think that you have completed your essay. It is true. Now you need to check all small and specific details.

Pay attention to the correct order of your paragraphs. They should follow each other in a logical way. If we make some comparison, it must be like the recipe of a birthday cake or mathematical formula. You always should remember that your strongest points are stated in the first and last parts of the paper body; the rest is in the middle.

Double check instructions for your essay if it is possible, as many colleges follow different academic formats (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, etc.)

Check the grammar and spelling in your paper. Reread it to see whether it makes sense. Does it sound like what you intended it to sound? Congratulations, you have done it!

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By Christina Battons

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Blogger and freelance writer from sigmaessays , who is interested in topics about education, writing, blogging. I also like to share knowledge with people. Currently, I write for various blogs. less

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7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

Bonus Material:  30 College Essays That Worked

The college essay is one of the most important aspects of a student’s application.

It gives applicants an opportunity to articulate their personal values, character traits, and perspectives. It’s also a chance to add more value to your application, simply by demonstrating who you are outside of your resume and transcript.

A “successful” college essay is one that makes the most of these opportunities and, in many cases, earns an acceptance.

We’ve demystified what most admissions officers look for in college applications . But what are these officers looking for in the college essay itself? What are the top qualities of a successful application essay?

In analyzing various essays of admitted applicants, we’ve come up with a list of the characteristics that most of these pieces have in common. We’ll be referring to some of these pieces throughout the post.

Plus, we give you access to 30 college essays that earned their writers acceptance into Ivy League schools. Grab these below.

Download 30 College Essays That Worked

Here’s what we cover:

• What is The College Application Essay (in a nutshell)?
• 7 Qualities of a Successful Essay
• Bonus: 30 College Essays That Worked

The College Application Essay In a Nutshell

Most students applying to a college or university in the U.S. must submit an application essay (or “personal statement”) with their application.

Depending on the application platform the college uses (typically either Coalition or the Common App ), students have 500-650 words to craft a response. While each of these platforms has college essay prompts, it’s helpful to view these prompts as general guidelines as to what colleges are looking for in a response.

Based on these prompts and our own experience coaching college essay students , the application essay is:

• the chance to say what the rest of your application doesn’t say
• a demonstration of your character, values, and/or voice
• the platform to show who you are outside of a resume/transcript
• an introspective personal essay

The college essay is NOT :

• a rehashing of your resume
• an excuse or explanation of other components of your application
• a formal, five-paragraph essay
• what you think “colleges want to hear”

A standard college application includes an academic transcript, recommendation letters, extracurricular / activities section, an optional resume, and standardized test scores. The essay is an addition  to these 4 general components, so it makes sense that it should complement them by saying something new.

That’s why we like to define the essay as a “demonstration of character, values, and/or voice.” True, these elements can be inferred from other components of the application. But the essay is your opportunity to clearly and personally demonstrate what matters to you, who you are at the core, and/or your essential perspectives of the world.

For this reason, the college essay is introspective and personal. Colleges want to hear that “I” voice in the application essay, loud and clear, and they want active, intelligent reflection.

You can see this in action in the 30 college essays that worked, which you can download below.

( Note: Some colleges might require applicants to submit supplemental essays in addition to their personal statement. These often have very specific prompts and different word lengths. Here are 8 great tips for approaching supplemental essays . )

 7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

We’ve assessed several college essays of applicants admitted to a wide range of schools, including Ivy League institutions. While extremely diverse, these pieces generally had the following characteristics in common.

1. Introspective and reflective

Many English teachers tell their students not to use the first-person “I” in their essays. While this might be the standard for some academic essays, the college essay  should  include that “I.” What’s more, it should include a  lot  of that “I”!

This can be understandably uncomfortable for students, many of whom may simply not be used to talking about themselves openly and declaratively on a page. It can also feel awkward from a stylistic point of view for students who are not used to writing in the first-person.

Yet colleges want to hear your words in your own voice, and they are especially interested in learning more about your perspectives on the world and insights gleaned from your various life experiences. That’s why many successful college essays are highly introspective, full of the writer’s active reflections on what they’ve learned, how they view the world, and who they are.

We typically see the bulk of such introspection at the  end  of an essay, where the writer summarizes these reflections (although this is by no means standard), as we can see in the conclusion to Erica’s essay here, which describes her earlier attempt to write and publish a novel:

Sometimes, when I’m feeling insecure about my ability as a novelist I open up my first draft again, turn to a random chapter, and read it aloud. Publishing that first draft would have been a horrible embarrassment that would have haunted me for the rest of my life. Over the past half-decade, I’ve been able to explore my own literary voice, and develop a truly original work that I will be proud to display. This experience taught me that “following your dreams” requires more than just wishing upon a star. It takes sacrifice, persistence, and grueling work to turn fantasy into reality.

In her personal statement, Aja reflects deeply on what she specifically learned from an experience described earlier on in the piece:

I found from my experiment and questioning within my mind that my practices distinguished me from others, thereby allowing me to form relationships on the basis of common interest or personality, rather than cultural similarities, that summer. I valued the relationships more, and formed a deep connection with my lab partner, whom I had found was similar to me in many ways. 

Notice how both of these selections contain a lot of that first-person voice, which is critical to elaborating perspectives, learning points, and introspective thoughts. And did we mention that admissions officers are  looking for  those specific perspectives, learning points, and thoughts that compose who you are?

2. Full of a student’s voice

An academic transcript can be revealing to admissions officers. The same goes for recommendation letters and resumes. But it’s hard to convey an individual voice in these application components. The college essay is your prime vehicle for speaking directly to colleges in your own words  about what matters to you.

Successful college essays thus veer away from the formal voice many students employ when writing academic essays. Rather, they showcase a student’s unique way of expressing themselves on a page, which can be, for example, humorous, informal, intimate, lyrical, and/or speculative.

Voice is at the forefront of Elizabeth’s essay about her love for “all that is spicy:”

I am an aspiring hot sauce sommelier. Ever since I was a child, I have been in search for all that is spicy. I began by dabbling in peppers of the jarred variety. Pepperoncini, giardiniera, sports peppers, and jalapeños became not only toppings, but appetizers, complete entrées, and desserts. As my palate matured, I delved into a more aggressive assortment of spicy fare. I’m not referring to Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, the crunchy snack devoured by dilettantes. No, it was bottles of infernal magma that came next in my tasting curriculum.

Notice how Elizabeth’s descriptions of her passion for spice are rich with her voice: playful, intelligent, and humorous. This also gives us insight into a specific aspect of her character–that’s the power of voice when it comes to personal essay writing, and college admissions officers are very interested in applicants’ characters.

3. Descriptive and engaging

You don’t have to be a natural creative writer to compose a successful college essay. Yet competitive essays aren’t afraid to dive deeply into a subject and describe it, whether that description relates to imagery, emotions, perspectives, or insights. A college essay shouldn’t leave the reader guessing in any way–it should be highly specific and it should tell your story in an engaging fashion.

Harry’s more intellectual essay presents his views on common values in society. He is careful to be very specific and descriptive in these views, incorporating both a relevant incident from history and his own direct relationship to the issue:

Admittedly, the problem of social integration is one I feel can be widely overstated – for example, when I was looking into some research for a similar topic a couple of years ago, I found numerous surveys indicating that ethnic minorities (especially Islam) identify much more closely with Britain than do the population at large. Still though, I, like many others, find myself constantly troubled by the prospect of the war from within that seems to be developing. This fear is fuelled by events such as the brutal killing of the soldier Lee Rigby at the hands of two British Muslims a couple of years ago.

In her essay, Amanda is extremely detailed in describing her experience as a caretaker for a difficult child. The result is a clear portrait of the challenge itself and Amanda’s relationship to this challenge, told from the perspective of an engaging storyteller:

Then I met Robyn, and I realized how wrong I was. Prone to anger, aggressive, sometimes violent (I have the scar to prove it). Every Sunday with Robyn was a challenge. Yoga, dancing, cooking, art, tennis – none of these activities held her interest for long before she would inevitably throw a tantrum or stalk over to a corner to sulk or fight with the other children. She alternated between wrapping her arms around my neck, declaring to anyone who passed by that she loved me, and clawing at my arms, screaming at me to leave her alone.

The successful college essays we see always  emerge from a place of honesty. Writing with honesty also is more likely to accurately convey a student’s unique voice, inspire reflection and introspection, and result in a descriptive, meaningful piece (all of the qualities listed in this post!).

Sometimes this means adopting a candid or direct voice on the page. James starts his essay frankly in this singular statement:

Simply put, my place of inner peace is the seat of that 50 foot sliver of carbon and kevlar called a rowing shell, cutting through the water in the middle of a race.

Or it might mean describing a challenge, vulnerability, or perspective truthfully, as Martin does in his essay about the experiences that have molded his character over the years:

Looking back, I have never been the “masculine boy” as society says my role to be. I have always thought I do not fit the social definition of a male as one who is “manly” and “sporty” and this alienating feeling of being different still persists today at times. However, I also have become more comfortable with myself, and I see my growth firsthand throughout high school.

Given that many universities value “truth” in their own mission statements and mottos, admissions officers will prioritize those essays that ring with a student’s honest voice.

5. Unconventional & distinct

This is by no means a requirement of a successful college essay. But many of the essays that earn students acceptance at their dream schools veer away from the predictable or expected, as we saw in Elizabeth’s essay above (“I am an aspiring hot sauce sommelier”). They are, in a nutshell, 100% unique.

We’ve seen some essays, for example, that follow more radical structures, such as list formats or experimental narratives. Others focus on unexpected subjects, like Shanaz’s piece on the relevance of Game of Thrones in her life and trajectory of learning.

And, time and again, successful college essays step away from what admissions officers already see in applications–academics, standardized tests, extracurricular activities, and classes. They may focus on something very specific (hot sauce or Game of Thrones ), seemingly ordinary (eating a kosher meal in public or working on a problem set), or personally interesting (a historic murder or wrestling game).

Regardless, the essays that “work” emphasize the unexpected, as opposed to the expected. Distinct essays will also feel as if they could not have been written by anyone else .

6. Well-written

This might also sound like an obvious quality of a successful essay, but it’s still worth mentioning. The most competitive application essays showcase strong writing skills, providing evidence of a student’s ability to tell a specific story artfully and well. 

Essays should also be error-free, grammatically precise, and stylistically on point. Successful pieces also might demonstrate versatility through varied sentence structure, word choice, and rhetorical or literary devices. Lastly, well-written essays typically adhere to a specific storytelling structure.

This excerpt from Justin’s essay about his experience in the California Cadet Corps, for example, displays a high command of language, word choice, and sentence structure:

Through Survival, I learned many things about myself and the way I approach the world. I realized that I take for granted innumerable small privileges and conveniences and that I undervalue what I do have. Now that I had experienced true and sustained hunger, I felt regret for times when I threw away food and behaved with unconscious waste. 

7. Meaningful

Above all, a successful college essay adds value to a student’s holistic college application. It is full of  meaning , in that it

• showcases a student’s unique voice
• elucidates an applicant’s particular perspective(s), character trait(s), and/or belief(s) and
• honestly conveys a significant component of who a student is

It might be difficult to compress the entirety of who you are into 650 words. Yet it is most certainly possible to craft 650 words that add significant meaning to an overall application in terms of a student’s  personal potential for the future. This is exactly what admissions officers are looking for . 

What can you do to ensure that your college essay aligns with these successful qualities? You can check out examples of essays that do!

You can download 30 actual college essays that earned their writers acceptance into Ivy League schools, right now, for free.

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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16 Strong College Essay Examples from Top Schools

What’s Covered:

• Common App Essays
• Why This College Essays
• Why This Major Essays
• Extracurricular Essays
• Overcoming Challenges Essays
• Community Service Essays
• Diversity Essays
• Political/Global Issues Essays
• Where to Get Feedback on Your Essays

Most high school students don’t get a lot of experience with creative writing, so the college essay can be especially daunting. Reading examples of successful essays, however, can help you understand what admissions officers are looking for.

In this post, we’ll share 16 college essay examples of many different topics. Most of the essay prompts fall into 8 different archetypes, and you can approach each prompt under that archetype in a similar way. We’ve grouped these examples by archetype so you can better structure your approach to college essays.

If you’re looking for school-specific guides, check out our 2022-2023 essay breakdowns .

Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Note: the essays are titled in this post for navigation purposes, but they were not originally titled. We also include the original prompt where possible.

The Common App essay goes to all of the schools on your list, unless those schools use a separate application platform. Because of this, it’s the most important essay in your portfolio, and likely the longest essay you’ll need to write (you get up to 650 words). 

The goal of this essay is to share a glimpse into who you are, what matters to you, and what you hope to achieve. It’s a chance to share your story. 

Learn more about how to write the Common App essay in our complete guide.

The Multiple Meanings of Point

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. (250-650 words)

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

The first obvious strength of this essay is the introduction—it is interesting and snappy and uses enough technical language that we want to figure out what the student is discussing. When writing introductions, students tend to walk the line between intriguing and confusing. It is important that your essay ends up on the intentionally intriguing side of that line—like this student does! We are a little confused at first, but by then introducing the idea of “sparring,” the student grounds their essay.

People often advise young writers to “show, not tell.” This student takes that advice a step further and makes the reader do a bit of work to figure out what they are telling us. Nowhere in this essay does it say “After years of Taekwondo, I made the difficult decision to switch over to ballet.” Rather, the student says “It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers.” How powerful! 

After a lot of emotional language and imagery, this student finishes off their essay with very valuable (and necessary!) reflection. They show admissions officers that they are more than just a good writer—they are a mature and self-aware individual who would be beneficial to a college campus. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values: “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.”

Sparking Self-Awareness

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (250-650 words)

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

First things first, this Common App essay is well-written. This student is definitely showing the admissions officers her ability to articulate her points beautifully and creatively. It starts with vivid images like that of the “rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free.” And because the prose is flowery (and beautiful!), the writer can get away with metaphors like “I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms” that might sound cheesy without the clear command of the English language that the writer quickly establishes.

In addition to being well-written, this essay is thematically cohesive. It begins with the simple introduction “Fire!” and ends with the following image: “When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.” This full-circle approach leaves readers satisfied and impressed.

While dialogue often comes off as cliche or trite, this student effectively incorporates her family members saying “Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” This is achieved through the apt use of the verb “taunted” to characterize the questioning and through the question’s thematic connection to the earlier image of the student as a rustic princess. Similarly, rhetorical questions can feel randomly placed in essays, but this student’s inclusion of the questions “Was I so dainty?” and “Was I that incapable?” feel perfectly justified after she establishes that she was pondering her failure.

Quite simply, this essay shows how quality writing can make a simple story outstandingly compelling. 

Why This College?

“Why This College?” is one of the most common essay prompts, likely because schools want to understand whether you’d be a good fit and how you’d use their resources.

This essay is one of the more straightforward ones you’ll write for college applications, but you still can and should allow your voice to shine through.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This College?” essay in our guide.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

This prompt from Penn asks students to tailor their answer to their specific field of study. One great thing that this student does is identify their undergraduate school early, by mentioning “Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics.” You don’t want readers confused or searching through other parts of your application to figure out your major.

With a longer essay like this, it is important to establish structure. Some students organize their essay in a narrative form, using an anecdote from their past or predicting their future at a school. This student uses Roach’s 5 C’s of Caring as a framing device that organizes their essay around values. This works well!

While this essay occasionally loses voice, there are distinct moments where the student’s personality shines through. We see this with phrases like “felt like drinking from a fire hose in the best possible way” and “All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence.” It is important to show off your personality to make your essay stand out. 

Finally, this student does a great job of referencing specific resources about Penn. It’s clear that they have done their research (they’ve even talked to current Quakers). They have dreams and ambitions that can only exist at Penn.

Prompt: What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Coin collector and swimmer. Hungarian and Romanian. Critical and creative thinker. I was drawn to Yale because they don’t limit one’s mind with “or” but rather embrace unison with “and.” 

Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone about the correlation between hedonism and climate change, making it my goal to find implications in environmental sociology. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arielle Baskin-Sommers, I explore the emotional deficits of depression, utilizing neuroimaging to scrutinize my favorite branch of psychology: human perception. At Walden Peer Counseling, I integrate my peer support and active listening skills to foster an empathetic environment for the Yale community. Combining my interests in psychological and environmental studies is why I’m proud to be a Bulldog. 

This answer to the “Why This College” question is great because 1) the student shows their excitement about attending Yale 2) we learn the ways in which attending Yale will help them achieve their goals and 3) we learn their interests and identities.

In this response, you can find a prime example of the “Image of the Future” approach, as the student flashes forward and envisions their life at Yale, using present tense (“I explore,” “I integrate,” “I’m proud”). This approach is valuable if you are trying to emphasize your dedication to a specific school. Readers get the feeling that this student is constantly imagining themselves on campus—it feels like Yale really matters to them.

Starting this image with the Beinecke Library is great because the Beinecke Library only exists at Yale. It is important to tailor “Why This College” responses to each specific school. This student references a program of study, a professor, and an extracurricular that only exist at Yale. Additionally, they connect these unique resources to their interests—psychological and environmental studies.

Finally, we learn about the student (independent of academics) through this response. By the end of their 125 words, we know their hobbies, ethnicities, and social desires, in addition to their academic interests. It can be hard to tackle a 125-word response, but this student shows that it’s possible.

Why This Major?

The goal of this prompt is to understand how you came to be interested in your major and what you plan to do with it. For competitive programs like engineering, this essay helps admissions officers distinguish students who have a genuine passion and are most likely to succeed in the program. This is another more straightforward essay, but you do have a bit more freedom to include relevant anecdotes.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This Major?” essay in our guide.

Why Duke Engineering

Prompt: If you are applying to the Pratt School of Engineering as a first year applicant, please discuss why you want to study engineering and why you would like to study at Duke (250 words).

One Christmas morning, when I was nine, I opened a snap circuit set from my grandmother. Although I had always loved math and science, I didn’t realize my passion for engineering until I spent the rest of winter break creating different circuits to power various lights, alarms, and sensors. Even after I outgrew the toy, I kept the set in my bedroom at home and knew I wanted to study engineering. Later, in a high school biology class, I learned that engineering didn’t only apply to circuits, but also to medical devices that could improve people’s quality of life. Biomedical engineering allows me to pursue my academic passions and help people at the same time.

Just as biology and engineering interact in biomedical engineering, I am fascinated by interdisciplinary research in my chosen career path. Duke offers unmatched resources, such as DUhatch and The Foundry, that will enrich my engineering education and help me practice creative problem-solving skills. The emphasis on entrepreneurship within these resources will also help me to make a helpful product. Duke’s Bass Connections program also interests me; I firmly believe that the most creative and necessary problem-solving comes by bringing people together from different backgrounds. Through this program, I can use my engineering education to solve complicated societal problems such as creating sustainable surgical tools for low-income countries. Along the way, I can learn alongside experts in the field. Duke’s openness and collaborative culture span across its academic disciplines, making Duke the best place for me to grow both as an engineer and as a social advocate.

This prompt calls for a complex answer. Students must explain both why they want to study engineering and why Duke is the best place for them to study engineering.

This student begins with a nice hook—a simple anecdote about a simple present with profound consequences. They do not fluff up their anecdote with flowery images or emotionally-loaded language; it is what it is, and it is compelling and sweet. As their response continues, they express a particular interest in problem-solving. They position problem-solving as a fundamental part of their interest in engineering (and a fundamental part of their fascination with their childhood toy). This helps readers to learn about the student!

Problem-solving is also the avenue by which they introduce Duke’s resources—DUhatch, The Foundry, and Duke’s Bass Connections program. It is important to notice that the student explains how these resources can help them achieve their future goals—it is not enough to simply identify the resources!

This response is interesting and focused. It clearly answers the prompt, and it feels honest and authentic.

Why Georgia Tech CompSci

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words max)

I held my breath and hit RUN. Yes! A plump white cat jumped out and began to catch the falling pizzas. Although my Fat Cat project seems simple now, it was the beginning of an enthusiastic passion for computer science. Four years and thousands of hours of programming later, that passion has grown into an intense desire to explore how computer science can serve society. Every day, surrounded by technology that can recognize my face and recommend scarily-specific ads, I’m reminded of Uncle Ben’s advice to a young Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility”. Likewise, the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed with AI’s far-reaching presence in society; and I believe that digital fairness starts with equality in education.

The unique use of threads at the College of Computing perfectly matches my interests in AI and its potential use in education; the path of combined threads on Intelligence and People gives me the rare opportunity to delve deep into both areas. I’m particularly intrigued by the rich sets of both knowledge-based and data-driven intelligence courses, as I believe AI should not only show correlation of events, but also provide insight for why they occur.

In my four years as an enthusiastic online English tutor, I’ve worked hard to help students overcome both financial and technological obstacles in hopes of bringing quality education to people from diverse backgrounds. For this reason, I’m extremely excited by the many courses in the People thread that focus on education and human-centered technology. I’d love to explore how to integrate AI technology into the teaching process to make education more available, affordable, and effective for people everywhere. And with the innumerable opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know that I will be able to go further here than anywhere else.

With a “Why This Major” essay, you want to avoid using all of your words to tell a story. That being said, stories are a great way to show your personality and make your essay stand out. This student’s story takes up only their first 21 words, but it positions the student as fun and funny and provides an endearing image of cats and pizzas—who doesn’t love cats and pizzas? There are other moments when the student’s personality shines through also, like the Spiderman reference.

While this pop culture reference adds color, it also is important for what the student is getting at: their passion. They want to go into computer science to address the issues of security and equity that are on the industry’s mind, and they acknowledge these concerns with their comments about “scarily-specific ads” and their statement that “the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed.” This student is self-aware and aware of the state of the industry. This aptitude will be appealing for admissions officers.

The conversation around “threads” is essential for this student’s response because the prompt asks specifically about the major at Georgia Tech and it is the only thing they reference that is specific to Georgia Tech. Threads are great, but this student would have benefitted from expanding on other opportunities specific to Georgia Tech later in the essay, instead of simply inserting “innumerable opportunities.”

Overall, this student shows personality, passion, and aptitude—precisely what admissions officers want to see!

Extracurricular Essay

You’re asked to describe your activities on the Common App, but chances are, you have at least one extracurricular that’s impacted you in a way you can’t explain in 150 characters.

This essay archetype allows you to share how your most important activity shaped you and how you might use those lessons learned in the future. You are definitely welcome to share anecdotes and use a narrative approach, but remember to include some reflection. A common mistake students make is to only describe the activity without sharing how it impacted them.

Learn more about how to write the Extracurricular Essay in our guide.

A Dedicated Musician

My fingers raced across the keys, rapidly striking one after another. My body swayed with the music as my hands raced across the piano. Crashing onto the final chord, it was over as quickly as it had begun. My shoulders relaxed and I couldn’t help but break into a satisfied grin. I had just played the Moonlight Sonata’s third movement, a longtime dream of mine. 

Four short months ago, though, I had considered it impossible. The piece’s tempo was impossibly fast, its notes stretching between each end of the piano, forcing me to reach farther than I had ever dared. It was 17 pages of the most fragile and intricate melodies I had ever encountered. 

But that summer, I found myself ready to take on the challenge. With the end of the school year, I was released from my commitment to practicing for band and solo performances. I was now free to determine my own musical path: either succeed in learning the piece, or let it defeat me for the third summer in a row. 

Over those few months, I spent countless hours practicing the same notes until they burned a permanent place in my memory, creating a soundtrack for even my dreams. Some would say I’ve mastered the piece, but as a musician I know better. Now that I can play it, I am eager to take the next step and add in layers of musicality and expression to make the once-impossible piece even more beautiful.

In this response, the student uses their extracurricular, piano, as a way to emphasize their positive qualities. At the beginning, readers are invited on a journey with the student where we feel their struggle, their intensity, and ultimately their satisfaction. With this descriptive image, we form a valuable connection with the student.

Then, we get to learn about what makes this student special: their dedication and work ethic. The fact that this student describes their desire to be productive during the summer shows an intensity that is appealing to admissions officers. Additionally, the growth mindset that this student emphasizes in their conclusion is appealing to admissions officers.

The Extracurricular Essay can be seen as an opportunity to characterize yourself. This student clearly identified their positive qualities, then used the Extracurricular Essay as a way to articulate them.

A Complicated Relationship with the School Newspaper

My school’s newspaper and I have a typical love-hate relationship; some days I want nothing more than to pass two hours writing and formatting articles, while on others the mere thought of student journalism makes me shiver. Still, as we’re entering our fourth year together, you could consider us relatively stable. We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences; at this point I’ve become comfortable spending an entire Friday night preparing for an upcoming issue, and I hardly even notice the snail-like speed of our computers. I’ve even benefitted from the polygamous nature of our relationship—with twelve other editors, there’s a lot of cooperation involved. Perverse as it may be, from that teamwork I’ve both gained some of my closest friends and improved my organizational and time-management skills. And though leaving it in the hands of new editors next year will be difficult, I know our time together has only better prepared me for future relationships.

This response is great. It’s cute and endearing and, importantly, tells readers a lot about the student who wrote it. Framing this essay in the context of a “love-hate relationship,” then supplementing with comments like “We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences” allows this student to advertise their maturity in a unique and engaging way. 

While Extracurricular Essays can be a place to show how you’ve grown within an activity, they can also be a place to show how you’ve grown through an activity. At the end of this essay, readers think that this student is mature and enjoyable, and we think that their experience with the school newspaper helped make them that way.

Participating in Democracy

Prompt: Research shows that an ability to learn from experiences outside the classroom correlates with success in college. What was your greatest learning experience over the past 4 years that took place outside of the traditional classroom? (250 words) 

The cool, white halls of the Rayburn House office building contrasted with the bustling energy of interns entertaining tourists, staffers rushing to cover committee meetings, and my fellow conference attendees separating to meet with our respective congresspeople. Through civics and US history classes, I had learned about our government, but simply hearing the legislative process outlined didn’t prepare me to navigate it. It was my first political conference, and, after learning about congressional mechanics during breakout sessions, I was lobbying my representative about an upcoming vote crucial to the US-Middle East relationship. As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents.

As I sat down with my congresswoman’s chief of staff, I truly felt like a participant in democracy; I was exercising my right to be heard as a young American. Through this educational conference, I developed a plan of action to raise my voice. When I returned home, I signed up to volunteer with the state chapter of the Democratic Party. I sponsored letter-writing campaigns, canvassed for local elections, and even pursued an internship with a state senate campaign. I know that I don’t need to be old enough to vote to effect change. Most importantly, I also know that I want to study government—I want to make a difference for my communities in the United States and the Middle East throughout my career. 

While this prompt is about extracurricular activities, it specifically references the idea that the extracurricular should support the curricular. It is focused on experiential learning for future career success. This student wants to study government, so they chose to describe an experience of hands-on learning within their field—an apt choice!

As this student discusses their extracurricular experience, they also clue readers into their future goals—they want to help Middle Eastern communities. Admissions officers love when students mention concrete plans with a solid foundation. Here, the foundation comes from this student’s ethnicity. With lines like “my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents,” the student assures admissions officers of their emotional connection to their future field.

The strength of this essay comes from its connections. It connects the student’s extracurricular activity to their studies and connects theirs studies to their personal history.

Overcoming Challenges

You’re going to face a lot of setbacks in college, so admissions officers want to make you’re you have the resilience and resolve to overcome them. This essay is your chance to be vulnerable and connect to admissions officers on an emotional level.

Learn more about how to write the Overcoming Challenges Essay in our guide.

The Student Becomes the Master

”Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay is great because it has a strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction is notably suspenseful and draws readers into the story. Because we know it is a college essay, we can assume that the student is one of the competitors, but at the same time, this introduction feels intentionally ambiguous as if the writer could be a competitor, a coach, a sibling of a competitor, or anyone else in the situation.

As we continue reading the essay, we learn that the writer is, in fact, the competitor. Readers also learn a lot about the student’s values as we hear their thoughts: “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was.” Ultimately, the conflict and inner and outer turmoil is resolved through the “Same, but Different” ending technique as the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiencing it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is a very compelling strategy!

Growing Sensitivity to Struggles

Prompt: The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (650 words)

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here you can find a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

Community Service/Impact on the Community

Colleges want students who will positively impact the campus community and go on to make change in the world after they graduate. This essay is similar to the Extracurricular Essay, but you need to focus on a situation where you impacted others. 

Learn more about how to write the Community Service Essay in our guide.

Academic Signing Day

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me.     

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, every time I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This essay answers the prompt nicely because the student describes a contribution with a lasting legacy. Academic Signing Day will affect this high school in the future and it affected this student’s self-development—an idea summed up nicely with their last phrase “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With Community Service essays, students sometimes take small contributions and stretch them. And, oftentimes, the stretch is very obvious. Here, the student shows us that Academic Signing Day actually mattered by mentioning four months of planning and hundreds of students and parents. They also make their involvement in Academic Signing Day clear—it was their idea and they were in charge, and that’s why they gave the introductory speech.

Use this response as an example of the type of focused contribution that makes for a convincing Community Service Essay.

Climate Change Rally

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (technically not community service, but the response works)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day.  

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

Like with the last example, this student describes a focused event with a lasting legacy. That’s a perfect place to start! By the end of this essay, we have an image of the cause of this student’s passion and the effect of this student’s passion. There are no unanswered questions.

This student supplements their focused topic with engaging and exciting writing to make for an easy-to-read and enjoyable essay. One of the largest strengths of this response is its pace. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we center ourselves in real-time, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” Community Service essays run the risk of turning boring, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Having a diverse class provides a richness of different perspectives and encourages open-mindedness among the student body. The Diversity Essay is also somewhat similar to the Extracurricular and Community Service Essays, but it focuses more on what you might bring to the campus community because of your unique experiences or identities.

Learn more about how to write the Diversity Essay in our guide.

A Story of a Young Skater

​​“Everyone follow me!” I smiled at five wide-eyed skaters before pushing off into a spiral. I glanced behind me hopefully, only to see my students standing frozen like statues, the fear in their eyes as clear as the ice they swayed on. “Come on!” I said encouragingly, but the only response I elicited was the slow shake of their heads. My first day as a Learn-to-Skate coach was not going as planned. 

But amid my frustration, I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater. At seven, I had been fascinated by Olympic performers who executed thrilling high jumps and dizzying spins with apparent ease, and I dreamed to one day do the same. My first few months on skates, however, sent these hopes crashing down: my attempts at slaloms and toe-loops were shadowed by a stubborn fear of falling, which even the helmet, elbow pads, and two pairs of mittens I had armed myself with couldn’t mitigate. Nonetheless, my coach remained unfailingly optimistic, motivating me through my worst spills and teaching me to find opportunities in failures. With his encouragement, I learned to push aside my fears and attack each jump with calm and confidence; it’s the hope that I can help others do the same that now inspires me to coach.

I remember the day a frustrated staff member directed Oliver, a particularly hesitant young skater, toward me, hoping that my patience and steady encouragement might help him improve. Having stood in Oliver’s skates not much earlier myself, I completely empathized with his worries but also saw within him the potential to overcome his fears and succeed. 

To alleviate his anxiety, I held Oliver’s hand as we inched around the rink, cheering him on at every turn. I soon found though, that this only increased his fear of gliding on his own, so I changed my approach, making lessons as exciting as possible in hopes that he would catch the skating bug and take off. In the weeks that followed, we held relay races, played “freeze-skate” and “ice-potato”, and raced through obstacle courses; gradually, with each slip and subsequent success, his fear began to abate. I watched Oliver’s eyes widen in excitement with every skill he learned, and not long after, he earned his first skating badge. Together we celebrated this milestone, his ecstasy fueling my excitement and his pride mirroring my own. At that moment, I was both teacher and student, his progress instilling in me the importance of patience and a positive attitude. 

It’s been more than ten years since I bundled up and stepped onto the ice for the first time. Since then, my tolerance for the cold has remained stubbornly low, but the rest of me has certainly changed. In sharing my passion for skating, I have found a wonderful community of eager athletes, loving parents, and dedicated coaches from whom I have learned invaluable lessons and wisdom. My fellow staffers have been with me, both as friends and colleagues, and the relationships I’ve formed have given me far more poise, confidence, and appreciation for others. Likewise, my relationships with parents have given me an even greater gratitude for the role they play: no one goes to the rink without a parent behind the wheel! 

Since that first lesson, I have mentored dozens of children, and over the years, witnessed tentative steps transform into powerful glides and tears give way to delighted grins. What I have shared with my students has been among the greatest joys of my life, something I will cherish forever. It’s funny: when I began skating, what pushed me through the early morning practices was the prospect of winning an Olympic medal. Now, what excites me is the chance to work with my students, to help them grow, and to give back to the sport that has brought me so much happiness. 

This response is a great example of how Diversity doesn’t have to mean race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, or ability. Diversity can mean whatever you want it to mean—whatever unique experience(s) you have to bring to the table!

A major strength of this essay comes in its narrative organization. When reading this first paragraph, we feel for the young skaters and understand their fear—skating sounds scary! Then, because the writer sets us up to feel this empathy, the transition to the second paragraph where the student describes their empathy for the young skaters is particularly powerful. It’s like we are all in it together! The student’s empathy for the young skaters also serves as an outstanding, seamless transition to the applicant discussing their personal journey with skating: “I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater.”

This essay positions the applicant as a grounded and caring individual. They are caring towards the young skaters—changing their teaching style to try to help the young skaters and feeling the young skaters’ emotions with them—but they are also appreciative to those who helped them as they reference their fellow staffers and parents. This shows great maturity—a favorable quality in the eyes of an admissions officer.

At the end of the essay, we know a lot about this student and are convinced that they would be a good addition to a college campus!

Finding Community in the Rainforest

Prompt: Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke (250 words).

I never understood the power of community until I left home to join seven strangers in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Although we flew in from distant corners of the U.S., we shared a common purpose: immersing ourselves in our passion for protecting the natural world.

Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns. My classmates debated the feasibility of Trump’s wall, not the deteriorating state of our planet. Contrastingly, these seven strangers delighted in bird-watching, brightened at the mention of medicinal tree sap, and understood why I once ran across a four-lane highway to retrieve discarded beer cans. Their histories barely resembled mine, yet our values aligned intimately. We did not hesitate to joke about bullet ants, gush about the versatility of tree bark, or discuss the destructive consequences of materialism. Together, we let our inner tree huggers run free.

In the short life of our little community, we did what we thought was impossible. By feeding on each other’s infectious tenacity, we cultivated an atmosphere that deepened our commitment to our values and empowered us to speak out on behalf of the environment. After a week of stimulating conversations and introspective revelations about engaging people from our hometowns in environmental advocacy, we developed a shared determination to devote our lives to this cause.

As we shared a goodbye hug, my new friend whispered, “The world needs saving. Someone’s gotta do it.” For the first time, I believed that someone could be me.

This response is so wholesome and relatable. We all have things that we just need to geek out over and this student expresses the joy that came when they found a community where they could geek out about the environment. Passion is fundamental to university life and should find its way into successful applications.

Like the last response, this essay finds strength in the fact that readers feel for the student. We get a little bit of backstory about where they come from and how they felt silenced—“Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns”—, so it’s easy to feel joy for them when they get set free.

This student displays clear values: community, ecoconsciousness, dedication, and compassion. An admissions officer who reads Diversity essays is looking for students with strong values and a desire to contribute to a university community—sounds like this student!  

Political/Global Issues

Colleges want to build engaged citizens, and the Political/Global Issues Essay allows them to better understand what you care about and whether your values align with theirs. In this essay, you’re most commonly asked to describe an issue, why you care about it, and what you’ve done or hope to do to address it. 

Learn more about how to write the Political/Global Issues Essay in our guide.

Note: this prompt is not a typical political/global issues essay, but the essay itself would be a strong response to a political/global issues prompt.

Fighting Violence Against Women

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. (250-650 words)

“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” 

– Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University. 

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus. 

My feet stride quickly down the sidewalk, my hand grasps on to the pepper spray my parents gifted me for my sixteenth birthday. My eyes ignore the surrounding city life, focusing instead on a pair of tall figures walking in my direction. I mentally ask myself if they turned with me on the last street corner. I do not remember, so I pick up the pace again. All the while, my mind runs over stories of young women being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped on the street. I remember my mother’s voice reminding me to keep my chin up, back straight, eyes and ears alert. 

At a young age, I learned that harassment is a part of daily life for women. I fell victim to period-shaming when I was thirteen, received my first catcall when I was fourteen, and was nonconsensually grabbed by a man soliciting on the street when I was fifteen. For women, assault does not just happen to us— its gory details leave an imprint in our lives, infecting the way we perceive the world. And while movements such as the Women’s March and #MeToo have given victims of sexual violence a voice, harassment still manifests itself in the lives of millions of women across the nation. Symbolic gestures are important in spreading awareness but, upon learning that a surprising number of men are oblivious to the frequent harassment that women experience, I now realize that addressing this complex issue requires a deeper level of activism within our local communities. 

Frustrated with incessant cases of harassment against women, I understood at sixteen years old that change necessitates action. During my junior year, I became an intern with a judge whose campaign for office focused on a need for domestic violence reform. This experience enabled me to engage in constructive dialogue with middle and high school students on how to prevent domestic violence. As I listened to young men uneasily admit their ignorance and young women bravely share their experiences in an effort to spread awareness, I learned that breaking down systems of inequity requires changing an entire culture. I once believed that the problem of harassment would dissipate after politicians and celebrities denounce inappropriate behavior to their global audience. But today, I see that effecting large-scale change comes from the “small” lessons we teach at home and in schools. Concerning women’s empowerment, the effects of Hollywood activism do not trickle down enough. Activism must also trickle up and it depends on our willingness to fight complacency. 

Finding the solution to the long-lasting problem of violence against women is a work-in-progress, but it is a process that is persistently moving. In my life, for every uncomfortable conversation that I bridge, I make the world a bit more sensitive to the unspoken struggle that it is to be a woman. I am no longer passively waiting for others to let me live in a world where I can stand alone under the expanse of darkness on a city street, utterly alone and at peace. I, too, deserve the night sky.

As this student addresses an important social issue, she makes the reasons for her passion clear—personal experiences. Because she begins with an extended anecdote, readers are able to feel connected to the student and become invested in what she has to say.

Additionally, through her powerful ending—“I, too, deserve the night sky”—which connects back to her beginning— “as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky”—this student illustrates a mastery of language. Her engagement with other writing techniques that further her argument, like the emphasis on time—“gifted to me for my sixteenth birthday,” “when I was thirteen,” “when I was fourteen,” etc.—also illustrates her mastery of language.

While this student proves herself a good writer, she also positions herself as motivated and ambitious. She turns her passions into action and fights for them. That is just what admissions officers want to see in a Political/Global issues essay!

Where to Get Feedback on Your College Essays

Once you’ve written your college essays, you’ll want to get feedback on them. Since these essays are important to your chances of acceptance, you should prepare to go through several rounds of edits. 

Not sure who to ask for feedback? That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review resource. You can get comments from another student going through the process and also edit other students’ essays to improve your own writing. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools.  Find the right advisor for you  to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Success Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on success.

Success Essay- In today’s world everyone wants to be successful but what is a success. The perspective of success varies from person to person. For the record, the people before us have a different view on success and the person after us will have a different view on success.

Moreover, people compare different people performance to evaluate their success. But success is not something that you can copy from others. You have to make your own path to achieving success. In modern-day, people are obsessed with success because of the glamour and lifestyle of successful people .

What formulates a person successful?

There are many ways in the world to be successful. But most people think of celebrities, artist, politicians, and businessmen whenever they heard the word success.

Moreover, they think doing what they will make you successful but that not the case. They forget the most basic thing that makes a person successful that is their hard work, dedication, and the desire to achieve their dream. More importantly, they what they like to do not what that others told them to do. Successful people do what they like to do also they do what they feel correct for their business.

If you look in the dictionary for the meaning of the word success then you will find that it means the achievement of one’s goal or aim . So, basically, anyone can achieve success by simply achieving their aim or goal.

What is the harm of success?

We all knew that we can’t achieve something without sacrificing something. Success also demands various things from you. But these sacrifices will not go in vain if you achieve your goal.

Certainly, many people achieve professional success but in doing so they fail in achieving mental, social and physical success. The tension of lacking behind in other things pulls them apart.

Also, there are cases where people became so obsessed with success that the people around them start to feel uncomfortable around them. In some cases, they have gone mad. Apart from that, people also get depressed if they can’t achieve success like others. So, we can say that there is much harm to success.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Success and hard work

It may sound unfit to some peoples but success depends a lot of hard work. Without it, you can’t become successful. Hard work does not mean that you do laborious work or the work that make you sweat. Hard work means having a healthy body, strong mind, willpower and positive attitude towards things. And for all those things you need energy. So, be attentive to your body and soul.

Besides, do not just work on your program, push your limit, take charge of other things, improve your skills and most importantly keep learning. Apart from that, be with positive peoples, develop positive habits, and do exercise not only for the body but also for your mind.

To sum it up, we can say that success is like a seed that needs a balanced proportion of all the elements of life. And no one can achieve success in a day they have to go through and face different conditions in life for being successful. Above all, success is the feeling of fulfillment that you feel when you achieve your goal.

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Essay on Success

Essay generator.

Success, a concept often chased yet seldom defined in absolute terms, varies from person to person. It is not just an end goal but a journey filled with challenges, learning, and personal growth. This essay delves into the multifaceted nature of success, exploring its various dimensions and offering insights into achieving it.

Traditionally, success has been associated with wealth, power, and fame. However, this perspective is narrow and one-dimensional. In reality, success is subjective and can be defined in myriad ways. For some, it may mean achieving personal goals, for others, making a positive impact on society. The beauty of success lies in its diversity of meanings.

Components of Success

• Hard Work and Dedication: The foundation of success is hard work and unwavering dedication. Stories of successful individuals across various fields underline the importance of persistence and effort. Whether it’s scientists making breakthrough discoveries or artists creating masterpieces, their success is rooted in relentless hard work.
• Learning from Failures: Success is not about never failing but learning from failures. Each failure is a lesson in disguise, offering invaluable insights and paving the way for future triumphs. Embracing failure as a part of the journey is crucial for anyone aspiring to succeed.
• Setting Realistic Goals: Goal setting is pivotal in the journey to success. It involves identifying clear, achievable objectives and working systematically towards them. These goals provide direction and a sense of purpose, essential for maintaining motivation.
• Adaptability and Flexibility: In an ever-changing world, adaptability is key to success. The ability to adjust strategies in response to new challenges and circumstances can make the difference between stagnation and growth.
• Self-Belief and Confidence: Believing in oneself is fundamental. Self-confidence empowers individuals to take risks and step out of their comfort zones, essential for achieving extraordinary success.
• Measuring Success
• Measuring success is as subjective as its definition. For some, it could be quantified in terms of career achievements or academic accolades. For others, it’s about personal satisfaction and happiness. The true measure of success is personal fulfillment – achieving what one set out to do and feeling content with the outcome.
• Pathways to Success
• Education and Continuous Learning: Education lays the groundwork for success. It equips individuals with knowledge and skills necessary in their chosen fields. However, learning shouldn’t stop with formal education. Continuous learning and upskilling are crucial in an ever-evolving world.
• Networking and Mentorship: Building a strong network and seeking mentorship can accelerate the journey to success. Networking opens doors to new opportunities, while mentors provide guidance, support, and invaluable advice based on their experiences.
• Hard Work and Perseverance: There is no substitute for hard work. Persistent efforts, even in the face of obstacles, often lead to success. It’s about staying the course and not giving up despite challenges.
• Maintaining Work-Life Balance: Success isn’t just professional achievements; it’s also about personal well-being. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is essential for sustained success. It involves managing time efficiently and making room for hobbies, relationships, and relaxation.

Examples of Successful Individuals

• Steve Jobs: His journey with Apple Inc. is a testament to innovation, vision, and resilience. Despite facing setbacks, Jobs’s belief in his vision led to revolutionary products that changed the technology landscape.
• Malala Yousafzai: A young activist who turned a life-threatening attack into a global campaign for girls’ education, exemplifying that success can also be about impacting lives and making a difference.

Success in the Digital Age

• Digital Transformation: Start by explaining the concept of the digital age and how it has transformed various aspects of life, including work, communication, and education.
• Technological Advancements: Discuss the rapid technological advancements that have paved the way for success in the digital age. Highlight innovations in areas like artificial intelligence, automation, and connectivity.
• Entrepreneurship Opportunities: Explain how the digital age has democratized entrepreneurship. Online platforms, e-commerce, and social media have made it easier for individuals to start and grow businesses.
• Remote Work and Flexibility: Explore how the digital age has revolutionized the workplace, allowing for remote work and flexible schedules. Discuss the benefits and challenges of this shift.
• Digital Skills: Highlight the significance of acquiring digital skills in the modern world. Discuss how digital literacy, coding, data analysis, and other skills are in high demand and can enhance one’s career prospects.
• Online Education: Discuss the impact of online education and e-learning platforms. Explain how individuals can acquire knowledge and skills from anywhere in the world, leading to personal and professional growth.
• Innovation and Disruption: Address how the digital age has encouraged innovation and disruption across industries. Provide examples of companies that have disrupted traditional business models through technology.
• Data and Analytics: Explain the importance of data and analytics in decision-making. Discuss how businesses use data-driven insights to optimize operations and improve customer experiences.
• Challenges of the Digital Age: Acknowledge the challenges of the digital age, such as cybersecurity threats, privacy concerns, and information overload. Discuss the need for digital literacy in navigating these challenges.
• Work-Life Balance: Discuss the potential impact of the digital age on work-life balance. While technology offers flexibility, it can also blur the boundaries between work and personal life.
• Digital Divide: Address the digital divide, which refers to disparities in access to technology and digital resources. Discuss efforts to bridge this gap and ensure equal opportunities for success.
• Continuous Learning: Emphasize the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in the digital age. Success often requires staying updated with evolving technologies and trends.

In conclusion, Success is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It’s a personal journey that involves hard work, learning from failures, setting goals, and believing in oneself. It’s about finding what success means to you and pursuing it with dedication and resilience. Remember, success is not just about reaching a destination; it’s about the journey and the person you become along the way.

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Write an essay discussing the role of technology in modern education.

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✍️Essay on Success in 100,150 and 200 Words: The Power of Positive Mindset

• Updated on  
• Oct 26, 2023

The concept of success is very simple; if you invest your time wisely and work hard, you will achieve success in no time. But success is not as simple as it sounds; what might sound like success to one might not be the same for another person. It embodies the realization of one’s goals, aspirations, and desires, often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

Success is manifested in different aspects, such as career achievements, personal growth, or even the pursuit of happiness. It is a journey filled with determination, perseverance, and often a willingness to learn from both triumphs and setbacks. Ultimately, success is a subjective pursuit that reflects the unique path and definition of achievement for each person.

Table of Contents

• 1 What Makes a Person Successful?
• 2 Essay on Success in 100 Words
• 3 Essay on Success in 150 Words
• 4 Essay on Success in 200 Words

What Makes a Person Successful?

Being successful is very subjective and can vary from person to person. Therefore, here are some common factors which contribute to the success of a person.

• Hard Work and Persistence: Success requires effort and dedication and one has the ability to face challenges.
• Setting Clear Goals: It is very important for one to have specific and attainable goals which will provide direction and motivation. 
• Networking: The person should have the capability to build relations and at the same time be open to opportunities which strike. 
• Time Management: Managing time effectively and priorities is essential for productivity and progress. 
• Self-Discipline: One should be very focused and maintain self-control which will help them achieve long-term goals. 
• Management of Finances: Having a basic understanding of finances and managing them wisely is also very important for attaining financial success. 

Also Read: Essay on Water Conservation

Essay on Success in 100 Words

Success is the culmination of dedication, hard work, and determination. It is not merely the achievement of material wealth, but the fulfilment of one’s goals and aspirations. Success varies from person to person; for some, it’s a thriving career, while for others, it could be having a harmonious family life. 

To attain success, individuals must set clear objectives, persevere through challenges, and learn from failures. Success often involves learning, adapting, and embracing change. It’s the result of resilience and the willingness to keep pushing forward. Ultimately, success is a personal journey, and its definition is unique to each individual.

Essay on Success in 150 Words

Everybody wants to be successful in life, but are they willing to put in all their efforts? Success is not solely measured by wealth or fame but by achieving one’s goals and finding fulfilment. True success is often the result of determination, hard work, and resilience. Setting clear, achievable objectives and being persistent through challenges are crucial components.

Education is a common path to success, providing knowledge and skills that open doors to opportunities. Embracing failure as a stepping stone, learning from mistakes, and adapting to change are essential to achieving success. However, it’s important to recognize that success is subjective and can encompass a broader spectrum of achievements beyond material possessions.

Personal growth, happiness, and a sense of purpose are all part of success. Balancing personal and professional life is key to sustaining it. Ultimately, success is a journey, not a destination, and it’s about realizing your full potential and making a meaningful contribution to the world.

Also Read: Essay on Nature: In 100 Words, 200 Words, 300 Words

Essay on Success in 200 Words

Success is a multifaceted concept, often defined by achieving one’s goals and aspirations. It is a subjective and deeply personal notion, as what constitutes success varies from person to person. However, a common thread in success is the continuous pursuit of one’s ambitions, combined with determination and hard work.

Success is not solely measured by material wealth, but rather by the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes from reaching one’s objectives. It is the result of setting clear goals, developing a plan, and facing all the challenges. The road to success is rarely smooth; it is often marked by setbacks and failures. These obstacles are crucial for personal growth, teaching valuable lessons that contribute to success in the long run.

Moreover, success is not an endpoint; it is a continuous journey. It requires adaptability and the willingness to learn and evolve. Success can be found in various aspects of life, from career achievements to personal relationships and self-fulfilment. It is the balance and harmony between these different facets that lead to a truly successful and meaningful life.

In conclusion, success is a complex and individualized concept, rooted in determination, hard work, resilience, and personal growth. It is not defined solely by external markers but by the fulfilment and happiness, one derives from their accomplishments and the journey to achieve them.

Related Articles

Writing an essay on success requires you to describe this multifaceted concept. Success is achieved when one’s goal and objective is attained. Those who are successful, have fulfilled their highest ambitions in life and work, or are actively striving towards doing so. 

Happiness does not follow success. Contrary to popular belief, living a life that makes you happy can help you achieve your goals and be content. 

You gain from success because it gives you the things you want or need. Setting and achieving attainable goals results in a feeling of well-being. 

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Essay on Success

List of essays on success in english, short essay on success – essay 1 (100 words), essay on success: definition and how to achieve success – essay 2 (250 words), essay on success: parameters, qualities for achieving success and conclusion – essay 3 (300 words), essay on success: what is real success – essay 4 (500 words), essay on success: success and hard work – essay 5 (500 words), essay on success: education is the road to success – essay 6 (650 words), long essay on success – essay 7 (1000 words), essay on success: intro, success in life and success for students  – essay 8 (2500 words).

The students should be able to distinguish between true success and success of ill deeds. The short essays for students shall enlighten them with the true meaning of success. The essays written in simple language are very informative and shall prove to be beneficial for students of all classes.

Success is much more than riches, power or fame. Success is simply the feeling of satisfaction and happiness one gets from leading a particular way of life or carrying out a particular activity. Success in any field or aspect of life can only be achieved through serious hard work and a little bit of opportunity. One of the most important recipes of success is determination and it might as well be the most important secret of success. To become successful, it is necessary to never give up until the aim of happiness and satisfaction in life is fully met. The happiness and satisfaction can be found in very different things in different people.

‘Success’ is a very powerful word. Many of us run behind it; most of us want to conquer it. So, what is success all about? Does this mean acquiring money or fame? Success means different things to different people.

Definition of Success

The Oxford dictionary defines success as “ The accomplishment of an aim or purpose ”.

This is the definition of success in theory, but in reality it differs according to people’s interests and goals.

It is very important for every individual to define their own concept of success rather than following someone else’s footsteps. We must analyze what makes us happy, what gives us contentment, and what motivates us . No one can list out our needs better than us.

True success means understanding our dreams and working joyfully to make those dreams come true.

How to Achieve Success

Many great people have suggested various ways to achieve success. But the real secret ingredient to nail success is to believe that we are already successful . With this strong affirmative thought, success can be easily achieved if we follow these three success factors:-

• We should follow our passion because that is where our heart and soul is. When we follow our passion there is no need for us to put any extra effort.
• The path to success is always challenging. We should build confidence to face any challenging situations.
• The third and most important success factor is discipline . When we work in a disciplined manner, things will automatically fall in place.

If we stick to these three factors, nothing can stop us from tasting success. Success is a journey which continues even after the goal is achieved.

Success is perhaps the most desired feeling that all of us want to experience in the pursuit of our goals and also in day to day life. Apparently, every individual has his or her own definition of success.

Parameters of Success

None can deny that the world blindly respects and trusts wealthy people. Money is the prime dynamic force that drives this world. The sooner we acknowledge and appreciate this fact the better. Academic success is a prime concern for all in the initial part of life, especially in the school days. For those who continue perusing studies, academic success is the epitome of everything. It is mostly observed that success in personal life becomes a tough task for those who have all the riches. Here is where the common people feel successful to have a happy personal life.

Qualities for Achieving Success

One should not regret their decisions taken in the past and must refrain dwelling in the past. We must give deep thought before taking any decisions and uttering words from the mouth. For making a successful decision one must ask questions to oneself like: What Do I Need To Do? What Will Be The Outcome? Will It Be Worth Doing? One must keep the emotions for success and failures intact and should not showcase it to others. Successful people never wait for applause or acknowledgement of their work as they eventually get it. To become successful one must keep friends close and enemies closer. A successful person never demeans the weak and never underestimates anyone.

To become successful one has to understand what is important in that instant, recognize and work on the weaknesses, take criticism and hold on to the strengths. From a broader perspective Success defines the contentment, peace of mind and sheer happiness that is achieved. One should remember that only perseverance can lead the path to success.

Introduction

Real success is something we should all strive to attain. Real success can simply be said to be achieving a higher position or very high position in our chosen field or area; it can be politics or business or even education. In the world we live in today, we have equated success to riches, prosperity, fortunes, cars, houses and so many mundane things. We believe that once a person has enough money to be able to afford what he or she wants, the person is successful. This is a total and complete misconception that will be discussed here.

Money isn’t a measure of success?

While it is important to note that having money is a part of being successful and you can classify as rich person as being successful, money is not all that success is about and we have a lot of people around us that are seemingly rich but still count themselves as not successful. In fact, sometimes we see wealthy people and conclude that they aren’t successful. If this is true then we can safely conclude that success is deeper that money or other superficial and physical things can we might acquire or own. Money is very important to success in life but it is not a necessity and neither is it the only key to success in life.

What is real success?

Real success is way beyond the physical things we can see, real success is all about the feeling of satisfaction we get when we accomplish a task or do something, it is the happiness we get just by remembering what we have achieved and how we did it, real success has to do with a lot of positive feelings about ourselves and pride in what we have been able to do. As we can see, real success can only be achieved within one’s self and that is why a lot of people who we think are successful still believe they aren’t just because they aren’t happy with what they are doing or they feel they can get so much more out of life. From this, we can see that it is very important to attain true success in life.

How one can attain real success

For one to be successful, the first and most important thing one needs to do is to set goals and objectives. Only through the setting of goals can one really have something to pursue and claim success when we got those things or meet the set goals and target. A very important ingredient in achieving real success is determination. If one is going to get real success, one has to be determined to never give up no matter what the situation might be. Another very important ingredient is hard work as we can’t expect to be successful if we don’t work hard and do all it takes to meet all of our set goals. It is important that we get all the skills that are required for us to be successful in our chosen field.

The yardstick of success varies from people to people. The success story of an individual begins from the moment of his/her birth. A human child begins the winning streak by challenging every obstacle from the moment of conception to delivery. So no human is ever a failure, and hence confidently we can say that the very existence of every human in this word bear an element of success.

At the primary level, success lies within the parameters of cracking competitive exams and identifying one’s aptitude as to which profession the individual can flourish. On broader terms, a successful life is indeed a happy life reflecting upon how far one has reached. Success is not just related to material success.

How to become successful in life?

Nobody has ever become successful within a split of a moment. It is not an arduous task either. Strong determination coupled with hard work is the key to success. The first step to any attempt is to set the goal. There can be short-term goals, and long-term goals and both play a significant role on your road to success. Once the target set, then you have to do strategic planning. It is advisable to set a time frame as well. It will enable you to evaluate yourself on a regular basis. Fixing a time frame can also check into our procrastinating nature.

The next most important factor to become successful in life is hard work. It is the key to success. The adage rightly says that ‘no pain, no gain.’ You need to keep in mind that nobody else is going to do what we ought to do. If we put little effort and saw the seeds of hard work and perseverance, then we are sure to reap success and bounty. If you have strong willpower and the fire to ignite your dreams, then nothing can pull you back.

Stay focused on your objectives rather than hoping:

You can inspire yourself by being a self-motivator and critic. It opens room for self-improvement and appreciation. As it is said that ‘well begun is half done,’ do not hesitate to sparkle a start. Once we get a push, the rest will fall right in place. Even if we stumble down a couple of times, do not let go of our dreams. Failures are part and parcel of any successful entity. Mistakes are quite common and what needs to do is that we acknowledge them, and bear them in our mind. It ensures that we learn from the mistakes and in turn do not repeat them.

Nobody has ever been successful overnight. Patience is yet another golden rule. Just convince your mind that you are strong enough to be successful, though not today, at least some day. Never be disappointed if you lose. Trust in yourself and believe that you will reach there and you deserve to reach there. Your strength and weakness define the person you are, and the realization of it is rather important. Selfless dedication and hard work will definitely get you there.

Once you achieve your goals, you can be a strong inspiration to others. There is a warrior in you and never shut it down. You are capable of climbing higher and boom into a fantastic personality. Whatsoever, live a humble life, spread positivity and bear the torch to others’ road to success.

Saying education is the road to success is just another way of saying education is very important for all of us in life, without education there would not be a lot of progression in both our individual and collective lives as human. It is very important that we get education in order to get success in life. Most times, people generally limit education to the four walls of a classroom or a school.

Education has roots in every area of our existence; education can be said to begin from the home, parents and family members educate and train the children on good characters that they should imbibe and teach them to remove some habits and characters. All of these good characters imbibed by the child through education at home can help the child become very successful in future.

We all know that without good characters and morals, it is extremely hard to become successful or make it in life as people would not want to be associated with such person. We are also educated on good communication and interpersonal skills that are very necessary for us to make it and become successful in life.

Importance of education to success

We need to know the true value and worth of education. Education helps to facilitate our skill, knowledge and learning; it gives us a different view of the world and refines our personality, helping us to build very positive attitudes. Education is a totally essential tool in ensuring a bright future.

Education can serve as a tool in achieving anything and everything good about life. When we get a high level and degree of education, we earn respect and recognition from our family and the society at large.

Education can go a very long way in changing our thoughts and level of reasoning; it broadens our worldview and provides us with the opportunity to get knowledge and technical skills that are highly needed in life. We can improve our knowledge level and skill by watching educational documentaries and programmes on the TV, reading the news and keeping up to date with all of the happenings all over the world, reading a lot of books that can educate us. Education can go a long way to make us into more rational and civilised people. Education guarantees our place among people in the society and can help us achieve all of our dreams and aspirations in life.

Education and success

Success is the goal of all of us and it is our mission. Life can sometimes be full of different opportunities and challenges. Success can only be attained if we have all of the required and needed tools.

The most important tool for success is education because without education, we wouldn’t be able to have a wide view of the world and be able to innovate and develop. A lot of youths and children today cite the examples of the successful people that didn’t graduate from school and still went ahead to be successful in life. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook famously did not graduate from Harvard university but still went ahead to become very successful. The truth is even though Mark didn’t graduate, he was well educated and wouldn’t have been able to start Facebook if he had no knowledge of coding and wasn’t enrolled in Harvard at all. From him, we can learn that education isn’t limited and can basically be any way of widening our knowledge and improving ourselves. We should never confuse education with getting a diploma or a degree. Only education in or out of school can make us be successful in life and give us the true career we want.

Without education, life would be totally meaningless without education. The only path to true success in life is education, every one that has been, is and would be successful in life needs education to do that.

The modern world has a way of doing things, that is, modern man has his own particular view on how things should look. That view is completely different from the perspectives upheld by those who came before us, so to say. Like the ancient Greeks were obsessed with performing heroic deeds, or medieval European Christians with martyrdom and upholding saintly principles, we can argue that modern man has an obsession with success. Or more precisely, one aspect of that new worldview is to compare people between each other through the notion of success.

In a way, the beginning of the 21 st century is preoccupied with the concept of success more than ever before, both individual and collective. That fact can is seen in many aspects of our daily lives, people are not just oppressed with celebrities and successful people they want to live that lifestyle or achieve some sort of greatness. Looking at the current state of things one is encouraged to analyze the situation further and to find the reason behind these phenomena, or at least to offer a new perspective on worldwide trend.

What Makes a Person Successful?

There are many ways a person can be successful. Most people will think of celebrities, politicians, artists, entrepreneurs, etc. They will think of someone who is known the world over because of the thing they do, the thing they are good at. That’s all fine, but there are successful people who do not like to be celebrities and there are, most definitely, celebrities who cannot count as successful people.

What then makes a successful person? Is it how they do things? Is it what they get in return? Is it in the number of things they can amass in their life? Most of those things can count as some part of our overall image of such a person. But, how can we define it? What is it actually?

What I like is simple answers, they are usually correct and the most practical at the same time. Even though not all answers can be simple, this one is. When you look up the word success in any dictionary you will find that it is considered an accomplishment of an aim or a purpose.

Surely people were able to accomplish an aim or a pulpous in their lifetimes, even several, before the 21 st century. Why is it that this noun has such relevance for the classification of people in this age?

History of Success

If we take a look at history, as I mentioned before, we can see that every age has a different occupation. When we talk about the ancient Egyptians, we do not talk about single individuals who made this country so great we talk about the collective in general. But also, we do not know the names of the people who actually accomplished the construction of the pyramid we remember the person who ordered it and did nothing to build it.

Sometimes when I think about all the great artists whose names I do not know, that built humanity in the name of kings, it seems as if it was forbidden for individuals to be famous if they were not born into some sort of noble family.

That drastically changed with the return of democracy to Europe and the liberation from the old-world view that separated people into casts, genders, and races. The new perspective born from revolutions gave every man the right to control their destiny and therefore the right to become successful, to achieve one’s dreams and ideals. Celebrating success can be seen as a collective celebration of the boundless human potential to do incredible things. Is it always so shiny? Or is there a dark side to the story?

Can Success Harm us?

We all know that being successful has its price and the people on the top can often be alone, because of the many sacrifices they had to make to get there. There are also countless examples of people who have achieved success professionally but their health and social lives fail because they cannot handle the strain that comes with maintaining that image of perfection that is expected of them.

Then there is also the psychological pressure any person can experience when they become obsessed with succeeding in the things they do. This emotion can cause such discomfort for people that they can freeze in key moments when they should be at the top of their game. Not to mention the depression some people experience when they come in contact with the images of people that exist on social media. There is a lot in being successful that we put under the carpet, or we just consider it as part of the game, something that we should bear. It does not have to be that way.

Sharing Success

People are made to be in a group and therefore everything they do they should do for each other; however, this fact of human existence has also been a breeding ground for nationalism and other group-oriented ideologies that made the 20 th century so dark. The striving to be successful, the best, the most dominant will make people perform incredible and inspiring things but it will also make them give legitimacy to the worst monstrosities. How do we draw the line between the good and bad aspect of wanting individual and collective success?

Maybe we should stop looking at success as part of domination and make it part of what makes us authentic as human beings. What do I mean? If we start celebrating everyday people when they express themselves or make something that is fulfilling for them and makes other people grow we will support others to develop this aspect of their humanity and not concentrate on domination and subordination. We should support the celebration of collective endeavors that strive to enhance the human race as a whole and not adore individual examples as if they were the meaning of life.

The secret to success is not in money and fame, but in reaching that feeling of fulfillment when you know you have accomplished something that truly matters to you and other people around you. Dreaming big and then having it, it’s not impossible.

If you’ve been feeling a little low lately, this essay on success is sure to boost your motivation levels and set the goals right for you! We hear about so many successful people from all the areas. Some of them may be our favorite singers, actors, scientists, writers, social workers, politicians, and what not. Their achievements inspire the hearts of many and urge them to do better.

While we tend to focus on the sensation of the final outcome, the journey toward the goal is what matters the most. Sadly, human nature forces us to look at everything through the eyes of instant gratification. But the stories of success are not created overnight. In real life, any small big achievement demands tons of efforts and sacrifices.

If success is a building, consider each effort to be a brick, that has to be put in day and night tirelessly. Dreaming about achieving a goal in life is a lovely idea. Nonetheless, working on it every day is more than just a fantasy. You have to make it happen.

Do you pray or meditate? What happens at that moment? You sit quietly and focus all your attention and energy into the prayer or in watching those thoughts. Prayer commands sincerity. True worshipping is when the heart is pure and honest.

In the same way, success is a conscientious phenomenon. It asks for dedication and ethical diligence. For a real success, there are no shortcuts and there is no quitting too! Yes, we all get tired and hopeless. That doesn’t mean we have to give in to those feelings and quit. Keep working no matter what!

At times, when you feel that you can’t go on anymore, take a break. Rejuvenate yourself, talk to your loved ones, rest a lot, create a fresh perspective. And come back again with a greater force and zeal. You never know when the efforts will turn into the sweet fruits of success. One thing common in all the great personalities was that they never quit!

Personal Definition of Success

There is no fixed definition of success. You see, success is quite a relative term and its meaning changes from one person to another. However, it is sure to say that being able to feel content with your life and achieve what you dreamed of, is what makes you a successful person!

A prosperous life is not strictly about having all the materialistic comforts around. To some extent, this may be true. But, all in all, it’s only a microscopic way to measure someone’s success.

Let us introduce you to some of the most powerful quotes on success given by the different eminent personalities.

Everybody’s favorite, the great feminist and poetess, Maya Angelou says, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”

Winston Churchill quotes it as, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Not to mention, America’s former first lady, Michelle Obama who expresses her own views on success. According to her, “Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”

In the words of Albert Einstein, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

Anne Sweeney, who remained the president of the Disney Channel from 1996 to 2014. In her words, “Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.”

It is evident enough how these miraculous and charismatic visionaries have described success in various terms and that there is no particular way to define it. The only authentic parameter should be your own satisfaction and happiness.

What is Success

We have understood that success is an abstract notion. Now, it is time to get to the bottom and explore some basic questions about it. Have you ever tried to inquire into what success means to you? What are the things that would make you convinced that you are a successful person now? Does your heart yearn for fame, money, peace, joy, love, or something else?

These questions are crucial. They make your mind clear and set your priorities more effectively. Always remember that a virtue that appeals to you may not mean the same to another person. Everybody has their own preferences and goals in life.

The bottom line is regardless of what the goal is, we can each be successful in our lives as long as the achievement makes us happy and content. It could be your education, a well-paying job, having a loving family, social security, or freedom to live the way you want to.

Anything, no matter how small or big, that fills us with a sense of purpose and gratifies the heart leads to success. If you are a happy person and love your life, then success is yours! For a long time, our minds have been trained to believe that money is the greatest source of joy. However, it’s not true!

Undoubtedly, wealth is a strong means to create comfort and security for us. But if it was the only thing needed for success, why do the richest people still deal with depression, anxiety, fears, and failures? Have you ever thought about it?

Physical wealth does not guarantee an insusceptibility to dissatisfaction and failure. Thinking otherwise would only create a bottomless void within you. People madly run after money and career. And yet when they are well-established, they still may not feel the joy and peace within. What is the missing piece in their lives?

Success in Life

Life is a rollercoaster, isn’t it! We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Overcoming your flaws and frailty is a victory in itself. If you are thinking of coming out as a winner in life, don’t confine yourself to monetary values. With money, you may feel “technically” rich and yet have no access to the truest joy.

There are many dimensions to success. But everything depends upon our ability to recognize them. What are these dimensions, by the way! Let us explore a few of them.

You must have heard the famous quote, “Health is Wealth”. We need to understand the hidden value of this quote today more than ever. Ask yourself, if you would be able to enjoy anything in the same way if you were suffering from an acute or chronic illness? No, but such physical ailments are a bitter truth to many. To these people, achieving a partial or full recovery, having a long and respectful life is a success.

For the emotional souls, having their loved ones around, giving them a quality life, and taking care of them is what counts as the real victory. A person who cares about the whole society, for him/ her the true meaning of succeeding would be providing the basic amenities to the underprivileged, fighting for human rights, or creating awareness.

And yes, the biggest of the aims could be as simple and meaningful as leading a peaceful life. It could be about not having regrets and ill feelings toward others. They could also be as big as winning a gold medal in the Olympics, breaking the stereotypes, getting out of a toxic relationship and having a stable life.

The point is, success cannot be put into a singular category. And comparing one’s goal with the other person would be like comparing apple to an orange, or fruits to vegetables. Each person is unique. Their journey of life is different and so are their goals and parameters of success.

Success for Students

The keys to successful academic life are open secrets. As a student, your progress depends on the level of self-discipline, dedication, and hard work. If you are able to pull off these habits in long-term success would never leave you. Right? Nonetheless, the matter is not so simple.

In today’s time, students are looking for “success” more desperately than ever! Considering the cut-throat competitions, it is quite understandable also. The pressure of family’s expectations makes things even more complicated. The students have no option except to excel in their studies, but at what costs?

First of all, academic success is dependent on a limited number of subjects. The true potential of a child or a young one cannot be fairly measured based on such a narrow line. Moreover, somehow we have come to believe that excellent grades are a must for a student’s survival in this world. Fortunately, that’s not completely correct.

The practical life is much more than a few subjects. Most of the things we learn at school and colleges are plain theories. The bookish knowledge hardly proves to be of any help in the real world. What makes you rich is the experiences you gain on a daily basis.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that grades and books shouldn’t be taken seriously at all. You need to understand that these things play a partial role in forming the ladder of success. The better word to focus on would be ‘growth’.

If winning the race and grabbing a seat in some reputed college takes a toll on your mental, physical, and psychological health, then, we are seriously doing something wrong here. After all, these are the same factors leading to the rising number of suicides among the youths.

Not getting good marks doesn’t mean that you are not good enough for anything. It just means that you haven’t explored everything yet. There are many great personalities like Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, J.K. Rowling, who were a failure on the scales of conventional methods. But they proved everyone wrong.

All you need to remember is that never lose faith in yourself. If you really love what you do and consistently pour all of your energy into that task, then, definitely success is waiting for you! Make a routine of your choice and follow it religiously. Stay punctual. Fix your eyes on the goal and keep working.

Success and Hard Work

You can only work hard when you are fit overall. A good health is not just about having a strong body but also a strong mind and willpower. For all these things, you need energy. So, pay attention to things that you are feeding to your sensory organs. This includes from the proper diet to releasing stress, stay positive, working out, having those around who believe in you.

Don’t just work hard on your curriculum only. Take charge of other aspects too. As much as possible, include healthy foods in the diet. Staying positive induces good hormones in the body and the effect clearly shows in your performance. To strengthen your mental health, meditate every day.

Sitting around greenery, talking to your loved ones, reading positive books, are some of the other ways to replenish your energy levels. Make sure to work out every day, or at least go for a 30-minutes walk. Keep yourself hydrated. Drink plenty of water and other fluids.

Apart from focusing on the positive steps, be careful of the negative factors too. For instance, any negative conversation or toxic people in your life may suck away all your energy and charm. Try your best to avoid these triggers. Not only that, distractions like television, online chats, social media, parties, etc. should not be underestimated.

Keep your body and mind clean like a temple. It will help you work harder and with more effectiveness. There are no shortcuts to success. However, prefer to work smart rather than work hard. Never ever neglect the amount of sleep you get. There is no substitute for proper sleep.

Lack of sleep makes you cranky. Your concentration and memory become poorer. The learning becomes slower. So, a million dollar advice would be to get sufficient sleep, that means up to 8-10 hours. A few hours may be up and down depending on the person’s body requirements.

It is okay if the hard work makes you tired. However, the whole idea of hard work should not suffocate you. They say that if you love what you do, you don’t have to work a day in your life! If the set goals don’t well-align with your heart, explore something that does. Your goals should be set by you and not anyone else.

Success and Failure

Do you fear failure? What is the definition of failure according to you? How important is a failure for success? Let us find some answers to these amazing questions and doubts that we all face within us. To make things easier, here are a few great quotes for you!

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy

“Giving up is the only sure way to fail.” – Gena Showalter

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Must have changed your perspective a bit! Well, it won’t be wrong to say that failure is a part of success. It is an inevitable part of that process. Like two sides of a coin. You cannot expect to taste success until you have learned to embrace the failures.

There is an interesting story about it with a strong message. There used to live a guy who owned a grand and luxurious car. That car always stayed inside the house. The man never drove it. One day, one of his friends visited him and asked the reason for not taking the car out on the road.

Do you know what the man replied? He said that he would take the car out when all the traffic lights are green. He was waiting for an impossible thing to happen! Can you believe that? It’s ironic but yes, we all do the same metaphorically.

When we don’t take steps due to the fear of failure, subconsciously, we are waiting for everything to be perfect. So perfect that there would be no tiny scope for failing. That means there would be no red lights at all. How is that even possible!

Leave the fear of failure behind. The only thing you should be scared of is not making efforts. Because that kills even the slightest chance of success. Be humble and embrace failure. Learn from your mistakes. These lessons are valuable. No book would teach you the way your experiences will.

Success is a cumulative and relative term. Without peace and love, money and fame don’t count as success. True success would satiate your soul. It would fill your life with joy. Shrug off the idea of comparing your life with someone else’s. Every person follows a different path and journey. That is why the meaning of success also varies from one individual to another.

No matter how difficult or impossible seems the goal, never quit. Keep working and one day you would succeed. Don’t confine your ambitions to just making money. Listen to your heart and follow it. The voices within us are our guiding lights!

Try to be a good person before becoming a successful person. Only an individual who has earned the love and respect of all has achieved the truest success.

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Definition of Success

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Published: Jun 13, 2024

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Components of success business Essay

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Why is database technology so important for a business?

Database technology is essential for most businesses; as they need to understand better their customers, suppliers and competitors. Thus, collecting, storing and processing information inform of databases offers businesses with advantage.

Majority of businesses lack time or resources to collect and process large amounts of information. Therefore, they may not have information concerning how their enterprises are performing, determining profitability of their product lines, determining whether clients are making repeat purchases, and others.

This information can assist businesses deal with specific problems of operational nature or shape future strategy. Businesses need to gather as much information as possible, as it is not predictable what information could be important in the future (Stockport, 2000).

Database technology is also important for businesses as it ensures compliance with data protection law on any personal data gathered and held on clients. Furthermore, disciplines needed to gather, enter and process such information assist to ensure that businesses are managed in a regulated manner.

Typical advantages of using database technology in businesses include; minimizes the quantity of time spent in managing data, enhances capacity to analyze data in a variety of ways, promotes a disciplined framework to management of data, converts disparate information into important resource, and enhances quality and consistency of information (Weill, 2009).

Database technology benefits businesses immensely in terms of its ability to handle large volumes of data. For instance, relational database management system can handle millions of records and is tailored to cope with large processing needs.

Most important, relational database management systems can allow several people access and update individual records at the same time. The data store is made more of a shared resource. Most important, database technology has ability to build applications specifically designed for business requirements (Stockport, 2000)

How do enterprise systems help business achieve operational excellence?

Enterprise systems are software systems packaged in large-scale used to streamline and integrate organizational business processes and improve information and knowledge levels within the organization as well as its supply chain partners and other stakeholders.

An Enterprise system includes a number of systems such as; Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and others (Stockport, 2000).

How do enterprise systems provide value for a business?

Enterprise systems largely assist organizations in reducing errors, processing transactions faster, and timely access good quality information when effectively implemented. These systems are information technology tools that assist organizations create business value.

As information technology platforms, enterprise systems enable businesses realize intended benefits after adoption. The focus on enterprise systems has been reinforced by dynamic and aggressive business environments of current world.

Current business environments demand managers to fortify their enterprises on one hand and acknowledge weaknesses of their competitors to realize new opportunities. Managers create business value and gain competitive advantage through opportunity cost of offering goods and services, and willingness by customers to pay for these goods and services (Seddon, 2005).

For enterprise systems to create business value, organizations need to minimize opportunity cost of offering goods and services and or maximize customers’ willingness to pay for goods and services.

These factors have caused business transformations to align human resources, processes and technology closely to organizational strategy, and to create new strategies. It involves constant reinvention causing emergence of new strategy, processes and practices.

This enables organizations guarantee long term survival and establish business value by substantial changes in markets and clients organizations cater for and goods and services they provide, as well as internal aspects such as structures and systems (Stockport, 2000).

Adoption of enterprise systems enables business value creation which has led to growth of multi-national blue chip consulting organizations that carry out business transformations for their clients made possible by adoption of enterprise systems. Seddon (2005) noted that vendors of enterprise systems claimed to improve and equip their software to realize business objectives.

Furthermore, make these systems play strategic part to help adopting companies compete better in the market. According to Weill (2009), enterprise systems create business value in three ways; innovation, operational excellence and harnessing new strategic opportunities.

Generally information technology opens up business opportunities in ways such as: improvement of business performance, enhanced product or service innovation, merger integration and acquisition and reorganizations tailored towards meeting customer needs.

Operational success is realized by enterprises through benefits that include: reduction in cycle period, reduction in costs, improvement of quality, satisfaction of clients, lower stock levels; reduction in information technology maintenance costs, minimized data entry errors, flexible information technology infrastructure, and affordable upgrades; and effective control on operating processes for better decision making (Stockport, 2000).

What are the objectives of project management and why is it so essential in developing information systems?

A project is a series of related activities planned to realize a specific business objective. Projects that involve information systems involve creation of new information systems, improving existing systems or upgrading organization’s infrastructure.

Project management involves the application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques to fulfill specific targets within specified budget and time limits.

The main objective of project management is to facilitate its activities which include; work planning, risk assessment, resource estimation needed to accomplish tasks, acquisition of human and material resources, task assignments, directing activities, controlling project execution, reporting progress and analyzing results (Schwalbe, 2010).

Project management for information systems also deal with variables such as; scope, time, cost, quality and risk. Project scope determines what work should or should not be included in a project.

All the tasks necessary to complete the project efficiently are defined precisely by project management. Project management ensures that the scope of intended project does not expand beyond what was originally designed (Schwalbe, 2010).

Project time is the quantity of time needed to accomplish a project. Typically, project management creates the amount time needed to accomplish main components of a project. Normally, each of these elements are broken down into activities and tasks.

The objective of project management is to try to find the time needed to complete each task and determine a schedule for completing the work (Schwalbe, 2010).

Project cost is based on time needed to accomplish a project multiplied by cost of human capital needed to complete the project.

The costs involved in information systems project include; costs of hardware, software, and work space. The objective of project management is to establish a project budget and monitor ongoing project expenses (Schwalbe, 2010).

Quality indicates how well the end result of a project fulfills the objectives established by management. The quality of projects of information systems nature leads to improved organizational performance and decision making. Project quality also considers timeliness and accuracy of produced information by the new system (Schwalbe, 2010).

Risks involve the potential challenges that might affect project success. These potential challenges may prevent attainment of projects objectives by; raising time and costs, reducing quality of project output, or even preventing outright completion of the project. The objective of project management is to manage all project risks for successful completion of the project (Schwalbe, 2010).

Reference List

Schwalbe, K. (2010). Information Technology: Project Management. New York: Cengage Publishers.

Seddon, P. (2005). Are ERP System a Source of Competitive Advantage. Information Systems Journal 14, 283-293.

Stockport, G. (2000). Developing Skills in Strategic Transformation Measuring Business. European Journal of innovation Management vol 3, no. 1.

Weill, P., & Ross, J. (2009). IT Savvy. Sydney: McGraw-Hill.

• ARAMARK’s Database Marketing Project
• Future Databases and Performance Tuning
• The History of Relational Database Technology
• Supporting Organization Strategies
• International and Cooperative Strategies
• Boeing Strategic Plan
• Strategic Innovation and Technology Management
• The Organization: DigiTex Communication
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, March 26). Components of success business. https://ivypanda.com/essays/components-of-success-business/

"Components of success business." IvyPanda , 26 Mar. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/components-of-success-business/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Components of success business'. 26 March.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Components of success business." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/components-of-success-business/.

1. IvyPanda . "Components of success business." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/components-of-success-business/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Components of success business." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/components-of-success-business/.