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Admission Essays - Purpose, How to Write, Examples

Admission Essays - Purpose, How to Write, Examples

Edited By M Anusha | Updated on Sep 01, 2023 04:18 PM IST

Study Abroad Admission Essays - The main purpose of college admission essays is to know the applicant, their resilience, and their curiosity to learn knowledge which can be called intellectual curiosity. At the same pace your writing abilities, voice, and perspective are also observed. The admission essays are the best way to communicate your thoughts to the admission counsellor and to outlay your voice, and passion, towards the course and institute. University applications to countries like the US, UK, Canada or Australia require students to write admission essays.

Well, every applicant submits an admission essay during the admission process but in order to stand out in the competition and grab the attention of the admission committee, there are a few insights in this article that help in creating compelling admission essays. Let's learn about them.

What is an Admission Essay?

An admission essay is a part of the admission process while applying to a university, college, or school for a particular course. Before we start, let's be clear that the admission essays, application essays, college essays, etc., are all the same which may change a bit in the format, word usage by the country you are applying to the course, and a few others. Firstly try to understand the term admission essays like what they are and their purpose.

It is not necessary that every college or university demands an essay for admission, while few say no and few say to prepare at least 2 college admission essays. The number of admission essays depends on the university, school, and college you are applying for. As long the admission essays are a part of your admission you can check this article for detailed information. You can check some detailed information regarding admission essay samples to get a better understanding before actually writing them.

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Types of Admission Essays

There are different types of admission essays for applications.

  • Undergraduate Admissions Essay - This is for admission to Bachelors programs at different universities.

  • MS Essay- This essay is required for admission to the master’s programs.

  • MBA Admission Essay- This admission essay is for admission to MBA programs at different universities.

  • Scholarship Essay- This essay acts as a request to the university for financial aid

  • Gap-year Essay- This essay is to explain the reasons for the gap in profile.

  • Failure Essay- This essay asks you to present a situation where you failed and what you learned from it.

  • Situation essay - This essay asks you to describe specific circumstances and write about it.

Admission Essays Format

In particular, there is no specific format for admission essays. Here, we will discuss the general admission essay format which all universities, colleges, and schools expect in common.

Admission essays word count-

On average the college essay format word count ranges from 400- 650 words. Yes, it's pretty much less. In limited words, place your essay which is right around your topic. Ignore the filler words which can make the essay lengthy.

Readable format -

Break your college admission essays paragraph-wise and provide spacing. Do not attempt to write in one single paragraph. Use double spacing or 1.5 spacing for every line.

Font -

Use the serif fonts like Times New Roman & Arial. The font for the admission essays is 12. No need to highlight the font using bold, italic, or underline.

How to Write an Admission Essay?

The following are the general guidelines that structure your admission essay easily and help you in writing. While preparing how to write an application essay for universities in the US, UK, Canada, or any other country, kindly check the concerned thumb rules which help you in preparing in an effective manner. You can also check some college essay examples to get an idea

Choose Your Topic

First understand the purpose of your essay and then choose your admission essays topic. The colleges look for students who bring value to their institute in terms of the academic and social environment. So choose a topic which makes you a suitable candidate for them.

You can choose any admission essay topics where you can personally share your opinions, views, or insights which connect with your experiences. There are no limitations in choosing an admission essay topic. Any topic you choose has to reflect your positivity, strengths, your life, passion, etc.

Choose the topic where you have expertise

There is no best admission essays topic until you can not provide your expertise in it. Suppose if you find others writing about their bad experiences or about their challenging office job it is not necessary for you to write the same. You have to pick a topic where you can place your strengths, unique aspects, and passion or motivation in it. Choose a topic that you are well aware of and can speak strongly about.

Admission Essays Introduction

Open the essay with a compelling introduction that grabs the reader's attention. It's mostly the starting part of the admission essays, the admission committee pays more attention. This intro must include the highlight points of the admission essays’ and showcase your uniqueness as a candidate.

Content in the Admission Essays

Never repeat the same strength, skills, and academic qualifications that your resume, letter of recommendation, and the rest of the application mentioned. The content you present must be unique but not weird. Mention your extracurricular activities, social contributions, or involvements like volunteering, campaigning, etc.

Goals and Aspirations

You can mention your goals, vision, and passion which can be presented in relation to the topic you choose for the admission essays. Connect how these points of yours relate with the course or career which you are applying for. For using these statements aptly in your essay, you can check the simple college essay examples in this article.

Description in Admission Essays

Maintains relation with the events you describe in the admission essays. Every paragraph must connect with its next paragraph and maintain the theme of the concept that you are writing about. Present your admission essays in storytelling form which reflects a lot about your personality. Finally, conclude the topic theme in the last paragraph.

Conclusion

Summarise the topic and end with a strong conclusion that leaves a great impression on the reader.

Proofreading

After writing, check your admission essay for grammar, errors, or any mistakes. You can use grammar tools available online for this work.

Feedback

After writing and grammar checks, ask your siblings or friends for a final review. Ask them to read the admission essay and know what impression it leaves on them at the end. Make changes accordingly if necessary.

College Admission Essay samples

Here we are providing you with simple college essay examples so that you can have a reference. Choose the topic where you can provide the best content in the essay.

Admission Essays Examples -

Here the examples can be categorised into types which are usually picked by most of the candidates for different universities and admissions. Take these admission essays examples for your reference.

College Essay Examples -

Topics regarding life, society problems, education, social media, technology, sports, science, etc are a few of the concepts where students can write admission essays. Choose the topic where you find your strength in possessing deep thoughts, analysis, strategies, and opinions.

The following are a few trending and unique topics for college essay examples-

  • The power of mind

  • Plastic utility in the World

  • Strategic choices of the print media

  • Updation requirement in the education system

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Simple College essay examples -

Not necessarily everyone have to choose a specific topic for writing a college essay, you can just choose a few simple college essay examples concepts where you can provide the best content for the essay. These simple concepts can be related to your life, challenges, struggles, memories, goals & vision, and many more.

Below are a few simple college essay examples as follows -

  • Your life story/journey
  • Learning from life experience
  • A random essay topic that relates to your life experience
  • A person you admire
  • Your growth in rough situations
  • Challenging life experiences

Admission essays Sample

Going through a sample helps you to understand clearly regarding the admission essays. Here we are providing the college application essay examples 500 words for your better understanding. This content mentioned here is fictional. Use it just as a reference purpose. Use your personal way of approach, analysis, and views in preparing actual admission essays.

A Sample College Application Essay Examples 500 words

An example of the college-level admission essays sample is provided below. This sample is a 500-word essay on a discipline topic.

Admission essays - The Power of Discipline

Travelling back to my past, considering my schooling and college age, education, sports, hobbies, etc., are the prime concept to further explore my life. Chilling in the days of summer and diving into my deep thoughts of the brain, I have realised that there has been a significant motive to undergo all these actions of myself with my own will and gladness. I’ve noticed something common but different in terms of perspective and commitment when compared to others. This motive encouraged me to take action for my thoughts, created spaces for my goals and gave me hope for the achievements. To narrate to you simply it's my discipline which I was following throughout my childhood made to think and create wonders of this beautiful life.

Well, how can a normal regime like discipline affect this lot of my whole life? It just felt unrealistic. Everyone’s childhood involves going to school, following the routine and coming back home and looking for another specific work, and continuing the same. Similarly every work professional moves to the office and try to complete the day's target and reach their homes to get on to the other half of their life in the evenings. When everyone travels at the same pace and follows their own specific time for their responsibilities, I was caught between the strings of confusion of why people are divided into experts, professionals, and losers and called out with differences. These biassed thoughts kept me clinging onto some rough unanswered doubts with my inner self and finally got answered with amazing analysis.

I believe more than every institution before preaching education, they all exhibited the vitality of discipline for any given activity. The morning routine to reach on time, periodic scheduling of the classes with sufficient breaks, involving a balanced quantity of other learnings like sports, hobbies, trips, etc, and a lot more other creative tasks are fused with discipline in terms of time, commitment and recurring habits like routine, etc.

To acquire a mere understanding of how these small things have made a bigger impact on my life, I compared my everyday success goals with discipline and found that every process towards my success involved a lot of discipline flowing through it. Right from the beginning step of the journey in preparation for a certain goal requires a plan with a schedule with respect to time. Once the planning is finished it requires an enormous series of commitment to continuing the routine schedule. Witnessing my failures and learning from the drawbacks I understood consistency is the prime key to reaching expertise for a certain skill. This consistency is acquired through a regular practice of routine in the context of time, and commitment are all practised in the discipline.

Strongly believing my analysis, I agree with the power of following a discipline in every task of my life and continue to maintain it every day. Through this, I feel my actions and emotions are balanced and heading in the right direction of my purpose in life.

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We hope this article has helped you to better understand the role of admission essays in the study abroad application process and the samples will help you write the essay when you make your application.

Frequently Asked Question (FAQs)

1. How to write an admission essay?

There is no specific format for admission essays but in general, you can follow some guidelines which are discussed in the article above.

2. What will be included in an admission essays description?

The admission essays must showcase your strengths, skills, positive attitude, etc and which are not mentioned in the rest of the application. While the description of this content can be mentioned in a storytelling manner, where all the sentences you include in the essay must be connected to each other.

3. How to write a killing introduction in the admission essays?

For a specific chosen topic - In the introduction paragraph highlight the reasons like 

  • Why did you choose this topic? 

  • How is it connected or important to you?

For an essay without the title/ yourself - Highlight your uniqueness, strengths, and skills which are not mentioned in the other forms of the application.

4. How to write a great admission essay?

A great admission essay is a simple essay that speaks about you and gives an idea to the admission committee to choose your application or not. No matter what topic you choose and what content you include in it, the admission essays must tell about your self like your personality, your thoughts, your vision or goals, your experiences, etc. Even if you choose to describe some other person, the essay must clearly relate your zeal, connection, or reason why you wanted to choose him in your essay.

5. How many paragraphs should be in an admission essay?

There are no specific limits on the paragraphs you write in admission essays. The paragraphs must be created based on your content. Generally based on the previous admission essay samples people prefer to complete it in 4-6 paragraphs. However, the admission essay should last 1 or 1.5 pages.

6. How to write an essay about yourself?

When you choose to write an essay about yourself, the best content to describe is your life. You can describe your challenging situations, learnings, motivation, goals, growth, challenging works accomplished, etc.

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