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How to Write a Personal Essay for Your College Application

admission essay review

What does it take to land in the “accept” (instead of “reject”) pile?

How can you write an essay that helps advance you in the eyes of the admissions officers and makes a real impression? Here are some tips to get you started.

  • Start early.  Do not leave it until the last minute. Give yourself time when you don’t have other homework or extracurriculars hanging over your head to work on the essay.
  • Keep the focus narrow.  Your essay does not have to cover a massive, earth-shattering event. Some people in their teens haven’t experienced a major life event. Some people have. Either way, it’s okay.
  • Be yourself.  Whether writing about a painful experience or a more simple experience, use the narrative to be vulnerable and honest about who you are. Use words you would normally use. Trust your voice and the fact that your story is interesting enough in that no one else has lived it.
  • Be creative.  “Show, don’t tell,” and that applies here — to an extent. The best essays typically do both. You can help your reader see and feel what you are describing by using some figurative language throughout your piece.
  • Make a point. As you finish your final body paragraphs ask yourself “So what?” This will help you hone in on how to end your essay in a way that elevates it into a story about an insight or discovery you made about yourself, rather than just being about an experience you had.

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We’ve all heard about the dreaded “college essay,” the bane of every high school senior’s existence. This daunting element of the college application is something that can create angst for even the most accomplished students.

  • AA Amy Allen is a writer, educator, and lifelong learner. Her freelance writing business,  All of the Write Words , focuses on providing high school students with one-on-one feedback to guide them through the college application process and with crafting a thoughtful personal essay. A dedicated poet, Amy’s work has also been published in several journals including  Pine Row Press ,  Months to Years,  and  Atlanta Review .

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College Admissions , College Essays

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The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked. After all, they must be among the most successful of this weird literary genre.

In this article, I'll go through general guidelines for what makes great college essays great. I've also compiled an enormous list of 100+ actual sample college essays from 11 different schools. Finally, I'll break down two of these published college essay examples and explain why and how they work. With links to 177 full essays and essay excerpts , this article is a great resource for learning how to craft your own personal college admissions essay!

What Excellent College Essays Have in Common

Even though in many ways these sample college essays are very different from one other, they do share some traits you should try to emulate as you write your own essay.

Visible Signs of Planning

Building out from a narrow, concrete focus. You'll see a similar structure in many of the essays. The author starts with a very detailed story of an event or description of a person or place. After this sense-heavy imagery, the essay expands out to make a broader point about the author, and connects this very memorable experience to the author's present situation, state of mind, newfound understanding, or maturity level.

Knowing how to tell a story. Some of the experiences in these essays are one-of-a-kind. But most deal with the stuff of everyday life. What sets them apart is the way the author approaches the topic: analyzing it for drama and humor, for its moving qualities, for what it says about the author's world, and for how it connects to the author's emotional life.

Stellar Execution

A killer first sentence. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: you have to suck the reader in, and the best place to do that is the first sentence. Great first sentences are punchy. They are like cliffhangers, setting up an exciting scene or an unusual situation with an unclear conclusion, in order to make the reader want to know more. Don't take my word for it—check out these 22 first sentences from Stanford applicants and tell me you don't want to read the rest of those essays to find out what happens!

A lively, individual voice. Writing is for readers. In this case, your reader is an admissions officer who has read thousands of essays before yours and will read thousands after. Your goal? Don't bore your reader. Use interesting descriptions, stay away from clichés, include your own offbeat observations—anything that makes this essay sounds like you and not like anyone else.

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Technical correctness. No spelling mistakes, no grammar weirdness, no syntax issues, no punctuation snafus—each of these sample college essays has been formatted and proofread perfectly. If this kind of exactness is not your strong suit, you're in luck! All colleges advise applicants to have their essays looked over several times by parents, teachers, mentors, and anyone else who can spot a comma splice. Your essay must be your own work, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help polishing it.

And if you need more guidance, connect with PrepScholar's expert admissions consultants . These expert writers know exactly what college admissions committees look for in an admissions essay and chan help you craft an essay that boosts your chances of getting into your dream school.

Check out PrepScholar's Essay Editing and Coaching progra m for more details!

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Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges.

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Links to Full College Essay Examples

Some colleges publish a selection of their favorite accepted college essays that worked, and I've put together a selection of over 100 of these.

Common App Essay Samples

Please note that some of these college essay examples may be responding to prompts that are no longer in use. The current Common App prompts are as follows:

1. 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. 2. 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? 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Now, let's get to the good stuff: the list of 177 college essay examples responding to current and past Common App essay prompts. 

Connecticut college.

  • 12 Common Application essays from the classes of 2022-2025

Hamilton College

  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2026
  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2022
  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2018
  • 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2012
  • 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2007

Johns Hopkins

These essays are answers to past prompts from either the Common Application or the Coalition Application (which Johns Hopkins used to accept).

  • 1 Common Application or Coalition Application essay from the class of 2026
  • 6 Common Application or Coalition Application essays from the class of 2025
  • 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2024
  • 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2023
  • 7 Common Application of Universal Application essays from the class of 2022
  • 5 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2021
  • 7 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2020

Essay Examples Published by Other Websites

  • 2 Common Application essays ( 1st essay , 2nd essay ) from applicants admitted to Columbia

Other Sample College Essays

Here is a collection of essays that are college-specific.

Babson College

  • 4 essays (and 1 video response) on "Why Babson" from the class of 2020

Emory University

  • 5 essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) from the class of 2020 along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on why the essays were exceptional
  • 5 more recent essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on what made these essays stand out

University of Georgia

  • 1 “strong essay” sample from 2019
  • 1 “strong essay” sample from 2018
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2023
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2022
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2021
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2020
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2019
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2018
  • 6 essays from admitted MIT students

Smith College

  • 6 "best gift" essays from the class of 2018

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Books of College Essays

If you're looking for even more sample college essays, consider purchasing a college essay book. The best of these include dozens of essays that worked and feedback from real admissions officers.

College Essays That Made a Difference —This detailed guide from Princeton Review includes not only successful essays, but also interviews with admissions officers and full student profiles.

50 Successful Harvard Application Essays by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson—A must for anyone aspiring to Harvard .

50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays and 50 Successful Stanford Application Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe—For essays from other top schools, check out this venerated series, which is regularly updated with new essays.

Heavenly Essays by Janine W. Robinson—This collection from the popular blogger behind Essay Hell includes a wider range of schools, as well as helpful tips on honing your own essay.

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Analyzing Great Common App Essays That Worked

I've picked two essays from the examples collected above to examine in more depth so that you can see exactly what makes a successful college essay work. Full credit for these essays goes to the original authors and the schools that published them.

Example 1: "Breaking Into Cars," by Stephen, Johns Hopkins Class of '19 (Common App Essay, 636 words long)

I had never broken into a car before.

We were in Laredo, having just finished our first day at a Habitat for Humanity work site. The Hotchkiss volunteers had already left, off to enjoy some Texas BBQ, leaving me behind with the college kids to clean up. Not until we were stranded did we realize we were locked out of the van.

Someone picked a coat hanger out of the dumpster, handed it to me, and took a few steps back.

"Can you do that thing with a coat hanger to unlock it?"

"Why me?" I thought.

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame. Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally. My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed. "The water's on fire! Clear a hole!" he shouted, tossing me in the lake without warning. While I'm still unconvinced about that particular lesson's practicality, my Dad's overarching message is unequivocally true: much of life is unexpected, and you have to deal with the twists and turns.

Living in my family, days rarely unfolded as planned. A bit overlooked, a little pushed around, I learned to roll with reality, negotiate a quick deal, and give the improbable a try. I don't sweat the small stuff, and I definitely don't expect perfect fairness. So what if our dining room table only has six chairs for seven people? Someone learns the importance of punctuality every night.

But more than punctuality and a special affinity for musical chairs, my family life has taught me to thrive in situations over which I have no power. Growing up, I never controlled my older siblings, but I learned how to thwart their attempts to control me. I forged alliances, and realigned them as necessary. Sometimes, I was the poor, defenseless little brother; sometimes I was the omniscient elder. Different things to different people, as the situation demanded. I learned to adapt.

Back then, these techniques were merely reactions undertaken to ensure my survival. But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The question caught me off guard, much like the question posed to me in Laredo. Then, I realized I knew the answer. I knew why the coat hanger had been handed to me.

Growing up as the middle child in my family, I was a vital participant in a thing I did not govern, in the company of people I did not choose. It's family. It's society. And often, it's chaos. You participate by letting go of the small stuff, not expecting order and perfection, and facing the unexpected with confidence, optimism, and preparedness. My family experience taught me to face a serendipitous world with confidence.

What Makes This Essay Tick?

It's very helpful to take writing apart in order to see just how it accomplishes its objectives. Stephen's essay is very effective. Let's find out why!

An Opening Line That Draws You In

In just eight words, we get: scene-setting (he is standing next to a car about to break in), the idea of crossing a boundary (he is maybe about to do an illegal thing for the first time), and a cliffhanger (we are thinking: is he going to get caught? Is he headed for a life of crime? Is he about to be scared straight?).

Great, Detailed Opening Story

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame.

It's the details that really make this small experience come alive. Notice how whenever he can, Stephen uses a more specific, descriptive word in place of a more generic one. The volunteers aren't going to get food or dinner; they're going for "Texas BBQ." The coat hanger comes from "a dumpster." Stephen doesn't just move the coat hanger—he "jiggles" it.

Details also help us visualize the emotions of the people in the scene. The person who hands Stephen the coat hanger isn't just uncomfortable or nervous; he "takes a few steps back"—a description of movement that conveys feelings. Finally, the detail of actual speech makes the scene pop. Instead of writing that the other guy asked him to unlock the van, Stephen has the guy actually say his own words in a way that sounds like a teenager talking.

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Turning a Specific Incident Into a Deeper Insight

Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

Stephen makes the locked car experience a meaningful illustration of how he has learned to be resourceful and ready for anything, and he also makes this turn from the specific to the broad through an elegant play on the two meanings of the word "click."

Using Concrete Examples When Making Abstract Claims

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally.

"Unpredictability and chaos" are very abstract, not easily visualized concepts. They could also mean any number of things—violence, abandonment, poverty, mental instability. By instantly following up with highly finite and unambiguous illustrations like "family of seven" and "siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing," Stephen grounds the abstraction in something that is easy to picture: a large, noisy family.

Using Small Bits of Humor and Casual Word Choice

My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed.

Obviously, knowing how to clean burning oil is not high on the list of things every 9-year-old needs to know. To emphasize this, Stephen uses sarcasm by bringing up a situation that is clearly over-the-top: "in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed."

The humor also feels relaxed. Part of this is because he introduces it with the colloquial phrase "you know," so it sounds like he is talking to us in person. This approach also diffuses the potential discomfort of the reader with his father's strictness—since he is making jokes about it, clearly he is OK. Notice, though, that this doesn't occur very much in the essay. This helps keep the tone meaningful and serious rather than flippant.

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An Ending That Stretches the Insight Into the Future

But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The ending of the essay reveals that Stephen's life has been one long preparation for the future. He has emerged from chaos and his dad's approach to parenting as a person who can thrive in a world that he can't control.

This connection of past experience to current maturity and self-knowledge is a key element in all successful personal essays. Colleges are very much looking for mature, self-aware applicants. These are the qualities of successful college students, who will be able to navigate the independence college classes require and the responsibility and quasi-adulthood of college life.

What Could This Essay Do Even Better?

Even the best essays aren't perfect, and even the world's greatest writers will tell you that writing is never "finished"—just "due." So what would we tweak in this essay if we could?

Replace some of the clichéd language. Stephen uses handy phrases like "twists and turns" and "don't sweat the small stuff" as a kind of shorthand for explaining his relationship to chaos and unpredictability. But using too many of these ready-made expressions runs the risk of clouding out your own voice and replacing it with something expected and boring.

Use another example from recent life. Stephen's first example (breaking into the van in Laredo) is a great illustration of being resourceful in an unexpected situation. But his essay also emphasizes that he "learned to adapt" by being "different things to different people." It would be great to see how this plays out outside his family, either in the situation in Laredo or another context.

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Example 2: By Renner Kwittken, Tufts Class of '23 (Common App Essay, 645 words long)

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver. I saw it in my favorite book, Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," and for some reason, I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of driving a giant pickle. Much to the discontent of my younger sister, I insisted that my parents read us that book as many nights as possible so we could find goldbug, a small little golden bug, on every page. I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Then I discovered a real goldbug: gold nanoparticles that can reprogram macrophages to assist in killing tumors, produce clear images of them without sacrificing the subject, and heat them to obliteration.

Suddenly the destination of my pickle was clear.

I quickly became enveloped by the world of nanomedicine; I scoured articles about liposomes, polymeric micelles, dendrimers, targeting ligands, and self-assembling nanoparticles, all conquering cancer in some exotic way. Completely absorbed, I set out to find a mentor to dive even deeper into these topics. After several rejections, I was immensely grateful to receive an invitation to work alongside Dr. Sangeeta Ray at Johns Hopkins.

In the lab, Dr. Ray encouraged a great amount of autonomy to design and implement my own procedures. I chose to attack a problem that affects the entire field of nanomedicine: nanoparticles consistently fail to translate from animal studies into clinical trials. Jumping off recent literature, I set out to see if a pre-dose of a common chemotherapeutic could enhance nanoparticle delivery in aggressive prostate cancer, creating three novel constructs based on three different linear polymers, each using fluorescent dye (although no gold, sorry goldbug!). Though using radioactive isotopes like Gallium and Yttrium would have been incredible, as a 17-year-old, I unfortunately wasn't allowed in the same room as these radioactive materials (even though I took a Geiger counter to a pair of shoes and found them to be slightly dangerous).

I hadn't expected my hypothesis to work, as the research project would have ideally been led across two full years. Yet while there are still many optimizations and revisions to be done, I was thrilled to find -- with completely new nanoparticles that may one day mean future trials will use particles with the initials "RK-1" -- thatcyclophosphamide did indeed increase nanoparticle delivery to the tumor in a statistically significant way.

A secondary, unexpected research project was living alone in Baltimore, a new city to me, surrounded by people much older than I. Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research. Whether in a presentation or in a casual conversation, making others interested in science is perhaps more exciting to me than the research itself. This solidified a new pursuit to angle my love for writing towards illuminating science in ways people can understand, adding value to a society that can certainly benefit from more scientific literacy.

It seems fitting that my goals are still transforming: in Scarry's book, there is not just one goldbug, there is one on every page. With each new experience, I'm learning that it isn't the goldbug itself, but rather the act of searching for the goldbugs that will encourage, shape, and refine my ever-evolving passions. Regardless of the goldbug I seek -- I know my pickle truck has just begun its journey.

Renner takes a somewhat different approach than Stephen, but their essay is just as detailed and engaging. Let's go through some of the strengths of this essay.

One Clear Governing Metaphor

This essay is ultimately about two things: Renner’s dreams and future career goals, and Renner’s philosophy on goal-setting and achieving one’s dreams.

But instead of listing off all the amazing things they’ve done to pursue their dream of working in nanomedicine, Renner tells a powerful, unique story instead. To set up the narrative, Renner opens the essay by connecting their experiences with goal-setting and dream-chasing all the way back to a memorable childhood experience:

This lighthearted–but relevant!--story about the moment when Renner first developed a passion for a specific career (“finding the goldbug”) provides an anchor point for the rest of the essay. As Renner pivots to describing their current dreams and goals–working in nanomedicine–the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” is reflected in Renner’s experiments, rejections, and new discoveries.

Though Renner tells multiple stories about their quest to “find the goldbug,” or, in other words, pursue their passion, each story is connected by a unifying theme; namely, that as we search and grow over time, our goals will transform…and that’s okay! By the end of the essay, Renner uses the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” to reiterate the relevance of the opening story:

While the earlier parts of the essay convey Renner’s core message by showing, the final, concluding paragraph sums up Renner’s insights by telling. By briefly and clearly stating the relevance of the goldbug metaphor to their own philosophy on goals and dreams, Renner demonstrates their creativity, insight, and eagerness to grow and evolve as the journey continues into college.

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An Engaging, Individual Voice

This essay uses many techniques that make Renner sound genuine and make the reader feel like we already know them.

Technique #1: humor. Notice Renner's gentle and relaxed humor that lightly mocks their younger self's grand ambitions (this is different from the more sarcastic kind of humor used by Stephen in the first essay—you could never mistake one writer for the other).

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver.

I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Renner gives a great example of how to use humor to your advantage in college essays. You don’t want to come off as too self-deprecating or sarcastic, but telling a lightheartedly humorous story about your younger self that also showcases how you’ve grown and changed over time can set the right tone for your entire essay.

Technique #2: intentional, eye-catching structure. The second technique is the way Renner uses a unique structure to bolster the tone and themes of their essay . The structure of your essay can have a major impact on how your ideas come across…so it’s important to give it just as much thought as the content of your essay!

For instance, Renner does a great job of using one-line paragraphs to create dramatic emphasis and to make clear transitions from one phase of the story to the next:

Suddenly the destination of my pickle car was clear.

Not only does the one-liner above signal that Renner is moving into a new phase of the narrative (their nanoparticle research experiences), it also tells the reader that this is a big moment in Renner’s story. It’s clear that Renner made a major discovery that changed the course of their goal pursuit and dream-chasing. Through structure, Renner conveys excitement and entices the reader to keep pushing forward to the next part of the story.

Technique #3: playing with syntax. The third technique is to use sentences of varying length, syntax, and structure. Most of the essay's written in standard English and uses grammatically correct sentences. However, at key moments, Renner emphasizes that the reader needs to sit up and pay attention by switching to short, colloquial, differently punctuated, and sometimes fragmented sentences.

Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research.

In the examples above, Renner switches adeptly between long, flowing sentences and quippy, telegraphic ones. At the same time, Renner uses these different sentence lengths intentionally. As they describe their experiences in new places, they use longer sentences to immerse the reader in the sights, smells, and sounds of those experiences. And when it’s time to get a big, key idea across, Renner switches to a short, punchy sentence to stop the reader in their tracks.

The varying syntax and sentence lengths pull the reader into the narrative and set up crucial “aha” moments when it’s most important…which is a surefire way to make any college essay stand out.

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Renner's essay is very strong, but there are still a few little things that could be improved.

Connecting the research experiences to the theme of “finding the goldbug.”  The essay begins and ends with Renner’s connection to the idea of “finding the goldbug.” And while this metaphor is deftly tied into the essay’s intro and conclusion, it isn’t entirely clear what Renner’s big findings were during the research experiences that are described in the middle of the essay. It would be great to add a sentence or two stating what Renner’s big takeaways (or “goldbugs”) were from these experiences, which add more cohesion to the essay as a whole.

Give more details about discovering the world of nanomedicine. It makes sense that Renner wants to get into the details of their big research experiences as quickly as possible. After all, these are the details that show Renner’s dedication to nanomedicine! But a smoother transition from the opening pickle car/goldbug story to Renner’s “real goldbug” of nanoparticles would help the reader understand why nanoparticles became Renner’s goldbug. Finding out why Renner is so motivated to study nanomedicine–and perhaps what put them on to this field of study–would help readers fully understand why Renner chose this path in the first place.

4 Essential Tips for Writing Your Own Essay

How can you use this discussion to better your own college essay? Here are some suggestions for ways to use this resource effectively.

#1: Get Help From the Experts

Getting your college applications together takes a lot of work and can be pretty intimidatin g. Essays are even more important than ever now that admissions processes are changing and schools are going test-optional and removing diversity standards thanks to new Supreme Court rulings .  If you want certified expert help that really makes a difference, get started with  PrepScholar’s Essay Editing and Coaching program. Our program can help you put together an incredible essay from idea to completion so that your application stands out from the crowd. We've helped students get into the best colleges in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  If you're ready to take the next step and boost your odds of getting into your dream school, connect with our experts today .

#2: Read Other Essays to Get Ideas for Your Own

As you go through the essays we've compiled for you above, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Can you explain to yourself (or someone else!) why the opening sentence works well?
  • Look for the essay's detailed personal anecdote. What senses is the author describing? Can you easily picture the scene in your mind's eye?
  • Find the place where this anecdote bridges into a larger insight about the author. How does the essay connect the two? How does the anecdote work as an example of the author's characteristic, trait, or skill?
  • Check out the essay's tone. If it's funny, can you find the places where the humor comes from? If it's sad and moving, can you find the imagery and description of feelings that make you moved? If it's serious, can you see how word choice adds to this tone?

Make a note whenever you find an essay or part of an essay that you think was particularly well-written, and think about what you like about it . Is it funny? Does it help you really get to know the writer? Does it show what makes the writer unique? Once you have your list, keep it next to you while writing your essay to remind yourself to try and use those same techniques in your own essay.

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#3: Find Your "A-Ha!" Moment

All of these essays rely on connecting with the reader through a heartfelt, highly descriptive scene from the author's life. It can either be very dramatic (did you survive a plane crash?) or it can be completely mundane (did you finally beat your dad at Scrabble?). Either way, it should be personal and revealing about you, your personality, and the way you are now that you are entering the adult world.

Check out essays by authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan , Leslie Jamison , Hanif Abdurraqib , and Esmé Weijun Wang to get more examples of how to craft a compelling personal narrative.

#4: Start Early, Revise Often

Let me level with you: the best writing isn't writing at all. It's rewriting. And in order to have time to rewrite, you have to start way before the application deadline. My advice is to write your first draft at least two months before your applications are due.

Let it sit for a few days untouched. Then come back to it with fresh eyes and think critically about what you've written. What's extra? What's missing? What is in the wrong place? What doesn't make sense? Don't be afraid to take it apart and rearrange sections. Do this several times over, and your essay will be much better for it!

For more editing tips, check out a style guide like Dreyer's English or Eats, Shoots & Leaves .

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What's Next?

Still not sure which colleges you want to apply to? Our experts will show you how to make a college list that will help you choose a college that's right for you.

Interested in learning more about college essays? Check out our detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application , some suggestions on what to avoid when writing your essay , and our guide to writing about your extracurricular activities .

Working on the rest of your application? Read what admissions officers wish applicants knew before applying .

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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A Guide to College Application Essay Timelines

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Robert Crystal and Christopher Kilner in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered

Make a plan.

  • September and October

November and December

Anyone can write an excellent essay if they have enough time, and it’s important to prioritize writing a strong essay because it plays such an outsized role in the application process. With sufficient time and preparation, you can also decrease your word count and produce a piece of writing that is brief and high quality. “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter,” is a phrase often attributed to many famous scholars and statespeople. The best thing that you can do to set yourself up for success is to plan ahead, giving yourself plenty of time to engage in the writing process and produce multiple drafts of your essay.

It is most helpful to use the summer before your senior year of high school—or the year during which you are applying—to prepare your college application essays, with the goal of completing at least your personal statement by early September. The following timeline roughly outlines the steps of the writing process that you should take each month to achieve this goal.

For more guidance on writing your personal statement, read our article on how to write the Common Application essays for 2022-2023 .

Review the Common Application essay prompts for the most recent application season. These prompts often remain the same as the previous year. Pick a few essay prompts that resonate with you, and start to contemplate them as you go through your day. Maybe you can use your daily bus ride or afternoon stroll to brainstorm possible topics for the prompts that interest you. It is always helpful to have a journal, a note-taking app on your phone, or scratch paper on hand where you can record your ideas. 

In addition to journaling about potential material for your essays, it’s helpful to practice thinking about and articulating your responses to various questions about who you are and how you think and view the world. Here are a few examples:

  • What are your core values? How did you develop this system of values? 
  • What motivates you? How do you motivate yourself? 
  • What are you passionate about? If you could study anything, what would you want to learn more about? 
  • What issues in your local community or at the city, state, national, or global level are most concerning to you?
  • What are your short-term goals and long-term dreams and aspirations? Where would you like to see yourself in five or 10 years? What are lifetime goals that you have?

For more brainstorming questions, read “ 7 Questions to Help You Start Writing Your College Essays .”

Your goal for May is to outline and write a complete rough draft of your personal statement. The hardest part of writing your essay is committing something to paper, and the best draft is often a bad first draft. Everything becomes easier once you have words to edit. Your first draft does not need to be amazing or even passable; it can be completely awful, and it will still be better than a blank page.

Use June to edit the rough draft that you produced in May. This is where you will dive into the process of constructing your narrative. Then, you should aim to produce at least three or more additional drafts. These will likely be the most time-intensive drafts that you produce.

At this point in the process, you should work on developing your ideas mostly on your own. You do not need to share your essay with anyone else unless you feel confident that your draft is ready for others to review or that you cannot progress without outside input. 

You should continue producing new drafts of your personal statement. This means you should read aloud your essay from beginning to end and make changes to word choice, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and content. You should do this every three or so days. 

Now is a great time to share your drafts with a close family member, friend, teacher, or high school counselor. In addition to showing your essays to members of your inner circle, you should prioritize finding a neutral third party to review your essays and provide critical feedback. This third party should be someone familiar with the college admissions process, such as a current college student, a recent college graduate, or a college consultant, like a CollegeVine Advisor . 

Ask each person who reads your essay to provide written feedback, or have a conversation with them about their impressions, suggestions, and questions. Of course, too many cooks can spoil the broth, as the saying goes. Show your essay to enough people to get a broad range of opinions but not so many that you feel overwhelmed or confused.

This month should be devoted to incorporating feedback from people who have read your essay and doing the final polishing work that will take your essay to the next level. By the end of August, you should have a final draft of your personal statement that you would feel confident submitting.

September and October 

Work on and complete your supplemental essays in preparation for meeting the early action and early decision deadlines.

Work on and complete your supplemental essays in preparation for meeting the regular decision deadline.

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Christopher Null

The Write Stuff: 4 College Admissions Essay Editing Services Reviewed

Looking for good news about the college admissions process these days? You won't find much of it. Not only has the cost of attending college doubled on average since the 1980s, but also it's gotten considerably harder to get in. The majority of colleges in America have witnessed a plummeting acceptance rate as the number of student applications has exploded. Fifty years ago you had a 20 percent shot at getting into Harvard (all things equal, of course). Now the Crimson's acceptance rate is about 5 percent. In the last 10 years alone, the acceptance rate at many major universities has been cut in half . It's almost enough to make a kid consider trying out for the rowing team .

As if applicants didn't have enough to stress about, colleges have been making it more onerous to apply—requiring additional interviews, recommendations, and SAT Subject Tests. But the most burdensome of them all is an old standby: the application essay.

Essay requirements vary widely from school to school. The 150-plus members of the Coalition for College (which includes Harvard and Vanderbilt) requires a single 500-word essay selected from prompts such as "Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution." Those with eyes on the University of California system must write a whopping four essays, with prompts such as "Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced."

Students can reuse essays with other colleges if the prompts are similar enough—or if the schools happen to be members of the same application partnership—but you'd be surprised how seldom this occurs. My daughter found that out the hard way, when she learned that she'd have to write 12 separate essays to cover just five schools.

What's a kid to do who doesn't have parents who both work full-time as writers and editors? Just run their essay through Microsoft grammar check and hope for the best? Good luck. The acceptance rate at the University of Chicago has dropped 81 percent in the last 12 years. It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to know that if you don't put your best foot forward, you may as well not even bother.

All of this led me to the curious world of online editing services. While you can hire a consultant to help guide your child through this overwhelming maze, these consultants are expensive and much of their work involves managing the complex application process, figuring out which colleges are a good fit, and brainstorming essay topics. If you just need help whipping an already written essay into better shape, an online editor might be a better (and much cheaper) fit.

To be sure, some of these services are exorbitantly expensive. Services like EssayEdge and TopAdmit can run you close to $200 for editing a single essay of fewer than 400 words. I've seen prices as high as $379 after various upsells. Word for word, that's more than what my editor at WIRED makes. (Hi, Mike!)

The good news is there are plenty of more affordable options available. I tested four of them, all reasonably priced and seemingly legitimate. Most of these services charge based on a combination of the word count of the original essay and the turnaround time required. I used the same raw essay from my daughter as a test piece for each of the four services, and requested the slowest turnaround time each of them offered to minimize the cost. I submitted her 383-word raw essay at the same time to each of the services, on a Wednesday afternoon. I gave all the services minimal guidance with my submission, noting only (when prompted) that this was a college application essay. All four of the services allow you to upload a Microsoft Word document and receive a red-lined and comment-filled Word document in return.

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When I received the revised essays, I reviewed them along with my wife (also a professional writer) and my daughter, the author. The reviews were done blind, without indicating the source of any of the edits, and we all rated each essay on a 1 to 10 scale. I also threw in a copy that I roughly edited. For the sake of comparison, the raw essay scored an average of 4.8, while my edit garnered a 6.9.

Here's what the various services cost, and how well they performed.

Note: When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Read more about how this works.

Total price: $13.91, 48-hour turnaround promised. Edit received within 24 hours.

Scribendi offers seven different turnaround time tiers, but its 72-hour and one-week turnarounds were the same price as the 48-hour turnaround. A four-hour turnaround was quoted at $28.53. Scribendi returned both a changes-tracked version of the document and a "clean" version with all edits accepted. Scribendi's edit was not just the fastest, it was incredibly thorough—almost nitpicky—with 16 comments or prompts to the writer suggesting avenues for additional content or revisions that were beyond the scope of a simple edit. Oddly, the final edit didn't resonate with readers, who largely felt it was somewhat awkward and clunky in its overall flow. That said, the editor's notes and the service's overall speed were a big plusses.

Readers' rating: 5.0

Total price: $13.90, three-day turnaround promised. Edit received after two days.

Elite Editing has an Advanced Editing service for $40, but the $13.90 plan I chose offers only "basic editing," which doesn't include "suggested rewrites to eliminate awkward phrasing, repetition, passive voice, etc." and "taking into account your original assignment." Three days is the standard turnaround; one-day turnaround for the Basic Editing plan would have cost $19.90. The site crashed when I checked out, but my payment and submission both went through successfully. As promised, Elite's edit was indeed basic. Its editor made the fewest changes of any of the services and left only three comments, one of which was about whether the use of indentations and double-spacing was appropriate. While Elite's edits were correct, they weren't terribly deep—although that was enough to propel it to a second-place finish from the readers.

Readers' rating: 5.7

Total price: $15.32, five-day turnaround promised. Edit received after four days.

Wordvice has eight different pricing tiers, with rates as low as 4 cents per word for a seven-day turnaround, though that tier was limited to materials longer than 3,000 words. The five-day turnaround tier was only marginally more expensive. When I received Wordvice's edited document, I was offered an upsell for a "second look" (basically another edit) for 30 percent off. Wordvice's embedded commentary was nearly as thorough as Scribendi's, though Wordvice was less obsessive over grammar and more focused on overall clarity. Turns out that was the right move: Wordvice's edit was the overall favorite of the quartet, and the finished draft reads cleanly and clearly.

Readers' rating: 6.3

Total price: $31.33, seven-day turnaround promised. Edit received after four days.

Scribbr initially quoted a price of $25.36, but I shelled out an extra $6 for both the "structure check" and "clarity check" options, despite not really understanding what those were. Prices include a 2 percent surcharge for using a credit card. For those in a hurry, 24-hour turnaround doubles the price. Scribbr seems more focused on editing academic coursework essays than admissions essays, with a relatively formal structure applied to its edits (removing contractions completely, for example). Editor's commentary was sparse, though on target. This draft was the most divisive of the services, earning high marks from my wife but very low marks from my daughter, who thought it stripped the writing of her voice.

Readers' rating: 5.3

Any good college essay has to end with a conclusion, so here are a few takeaways. First, all of the services sent back essays that were, on average, felt to be an improvement over the original draft, with all of them catching numerous spelling and grammatical errors—so students with no professional editing help may do well to consider them, especially given how affordable these services are. That said, also remember that when you engage with an editing service, you're really engaging with a single (anonymous) editor who you won't ever meet or be able to interact with. That editor won't have any level of understanding of the writer's personality beyond what's on the page, and quality will necessarily vary from one editor to another, even within a given editing service.

Further still, remember that editing quality is always going to be subjective, just like any piece of writing. Except for this story, of course. It's amazing.

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The first draft is always the hardest. Work with an admissions essay coach who will give you practical, step-by-step guidance on how to develop your essay and make your story come alive.

Your coach will…

  • Read your profile
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  • Share feedback to help you refine your topic, structure, and voice
  • Leave in-text feedback and suggestions
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We’ll help you show your best traits to college admissions officers and prove that you’re college-ready! With help from our essay coaches, you’ll improve your chances of getting accepted – so what are you waiting for?

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At Scribbr, you can rest assured that only the best editors will work on your college essay.

All our 800+ editors have passed the challenging Scribbr Academy, which has a passing rate of only 2%.

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Janice Scribbr essay coach

Janice holds a PhD in German studies from Duke University. As a former professor, she has helped many students refine their application essays for competitive degree programs and study-abroad programs. Today, she helps students improve their writing skills at Scribbr. In her spare time, when she's not writing or editing, she enjoys working on the small family farm that she owns and operates.

Alexandra Scribbr essay coach

Alexandra earned an Erasmus Mundus MA in cultural narratives and a BA in English from Emory University. As a teacher, editor, and writing coach, she has spent nearly a decade helping students find their voice and express their ideas.

Amy Scribbr essay coach

Originally from Maryland, Amy headed west to attend Scripps College in California, where she earned a bachelor's degree in music and gender studies. In 2009, she began working for the admissions office of her alma mater, where she focused on reviewing applications and interviewing prospective students.

“Extremely professional and timely”

Extremely professional and timely! Regis did an amazing job bringing my admission essay to life. It went from overly wordy and unclear to very professional and concise. If I don’t get into my desired program, it won’t be because of my essay.

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Get quality feedback in 4 easy steps, upload your college essay.

Upload your college essay , and tell us a little about yourself. We’ll match you with a certified college essay coach.

Sit back and relax

Your coach will edit your essay and share in-depth advice to help you strengthen your structure, content, and narrative.

Receive your feedback

We’ll send back your fully edited essay. Applying to college is nerve-racking, but at Scribbr you never have to wait for long.

Revise and submit your essay

Thanks to your coach’s feedback, you’ll feel clear about the next steps and confident when you hit “send” on your application.

Scribbr & academic integrity

Scribbr is committed to protecting academic integrity. Our proofreading service, our AI writing tools ( plagiarism checker , paraphrasing tool , grammar checker , summarizer,  Citation Generator ) as well as our free Knowledge Base content are designed to help students produce quality academic papers.

We make every effort to prevent our software from being used for fraudulent or manipulative purposes.

Your questions, answered.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your personal statement editor in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays. 

We never engage in rewriting or adding text at Scribbr. Our personal statement editors will make grammatical corrections and leave suggestions using Word’s track changes and commenting feature. However, we always make sure that your perspective and voice remain front and center in your essay.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your college essay coach in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays.

Yes. All our college essay coaches are subject-matter experts and can help you make decisions regarding the content of your essay. Your coach will help you make a strong case for your admission.

Our essay coaches will provide feedback on…

  • Whether your topic is appropriate and how to strengthen it
  • Whether your essay demonstrates positive traits and authenticity
  • Whether the narrative flows smoothly and grabs the reader’s attention
  • How to dig deeper and show self-reflection and insight
  • What content is missing and should be added
  • What content is weak and should be removed
  • How to shorten your essay to meet a word count limit

However, we will never…

  • Write or rewrite content for you
  • Research or fact-check your essay’s content

If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected].

Yes! Our essay coaches can help you reduce your word count by up to 25%. You can choose to receive this feedback through direct edits or suggestions in comments – just select your choice when you upload your essay.

When you submit your essay to our College Essay Editing & Coaching service, you’ll be asked to indicate what type of content feedback you would like to receive. You can choose from three options:

Dig deep and challenge me

Give me the standard treatment

Tread lightly

Whichever option you choose, you’ll receive in-depth content feedback from your essay coach. However, the type of feedback your essay coach provides may differ, and the option you should choose depends on what outcome you want from the review. You can always elaborate on what type of feedback you want in your note to your essay coach.

Learn more about the three options below.

Choose from three options

If you choose this option, we’ll challenge you to write the best possible essay – no content suggestions are off-limits, including reorienting your topic or reframing your story. Students who choose this option aren’t afraid to go back to the drawing board if it’ll increase their chances of getting accepted. You may have to roll up your sleeves and do some more work on your essay, but your essay will be much stronger because of it.

Select this option if your priority is to have the best possible essay, even if it requires some extra work on your side.

We’ll strike a balance between “dig deep and challenge me” and “tread lightly.” We may suggest changes to your structure and narrative, including removing weak content, elaborating on certain sections, and adding content to strengthen your arguments. You may have to rework sentences and paragraphs, but we won’t suggest major content changes.

With this option, we’ll focus on improving your essay in a way that requires little additional work from you. We’ll provide you with targeted suggestions for how to refine your essay’s structure and narrative, but we will work within your current structure and topic. While you may have to make a few tweaks here and there, we’ll aim to return you a polished draft that’s ready to be submitted to your chosen colleges.

Select this option if you are fairly satisfied with your essay and don’t want to make major changes or if you have limited time to revise.

At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.

Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most, whether that’s a free new edit or a refund for the service.

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How to Write a College Essay

What colleges look for in an essay, choosing your college essay topic, college essay format & structure.

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College Essay Review Services: Why You Need Them

College Essay Review Services

Many students consider using college essay review services every year, but they aren't sure if their services are worth it. The short answer is yes; they are more than worth the cost. Whether you're trying to get into one of the  Ivy League Schools , a small college in your community, or one of the  best undergraduate business schools , you will likely be required to write at least one college admissions essay, and it will be an essential part of your application. This blog will talk about the different types of college essays, how important they are, and how college essay review services are your best bet for beating the competition and doing well with this application component. 

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 7 min read

What exactly is a college essay.

There are several different types of college essays, but the most common college admissions essay is the personal statement or  common app essay . This is a short document that is supposed to tell the admissions board about who you are as a candidate and why you are a good fit for their college or university. 

Some schools provide a specific word count for the essays, but it should be between 400 and 650 words unless otherwise stated. It also doesn't follow the same structure as an academic essay. Even though it has an introduction, body, and conclusion, it is not about presenting and supporting an argument. Rather, it is supposed to tell a story that illustrates who you are as a person.

You can think of it as a cover letter for your college application. When you are applying for a job, your resume shows your work history and academic background in the same way that your school transcript and other application components show your GPA and grades for your college application. Your cover letter ( and personal statement) is a bit more personal. They communicate the soft skills and strengths that can't be easily quantified.

College essays also give you a chance to humanize your application and tell the admissions board about the person behind the grades and GPA. Many colleges, like  Columbia University  for example, have a holistic admissions process. This means that they care about your academic background and who are outside of your studies. Your personal statement allows them to learn more about your interests and what you could  contribute to your future campus community.  

College essays are an essential part of the college application process. According to the  National Association for college admission counseling , college essays are an important part of the decision-making process for most institutions in the united states. This information is not surprising considering the amount of information that the admission board can learn about a student from their personal statement and other supplemental essays.

Additionally, it is important to remember that college essays also give students an opportunity to talk to the admissions board. You get to share your story and tell the admissions board why you are a good fit for their school in your own words. You also get to address some of the weaker points of your overall application. For example, if you are trying to  get into college with a low GPA , you can use your college essay to explain the circumstances that led to your subpar grades and the steps you have taken to improve your grades.

College essay review services do a lot more than highlight grammatical inconsistencies in your writing (although this is one of the many things they can help with). They are actual human experts who can have a significant impact on the overall quality of applicants' college essays, thus increasing their chances of getting into college. College essay review services are typically offered by admission experts, such as  college essay advisors , who know the college application process inside and out. They review students' college essays and use their knowledge and training to provide personalized feedback and guidance to help students edit and polish their essays. The aim is to draft a final essay that will be more compelling, making the student a more attractive candidate to colleges.

Your college essays are a representation of you to the admission board. Except for college interviews, this is your only chance to talk to the admission board in your own words. This means that is also the first impression they will have of you. If you submit an essay with grammatical errors and typos, it tells the board that you either did not care enough to review your work or that you did not notice those errors when you did. Either way, it is not a good look for you.

This is where college essay review services come in. College essay advisors can thoroughly verify the grammatical syntax of your sentences, check that your essay is coherent and easy to follow and that it is free of grammatical or spelling errors. 

Highlighting relevant skills

Since college essay review services are run by admission experts, they have an in-depth understanding of the world of college admissions. These essay advisors have not only gone through the process themselves, but they have also helped other students go through it multiple times. Additionally, they are also trained to decipher all the "admissions talk" on college websites so they can actually help you figure out what values and traits specific colleges are looking for.

Furthermore, because they are an objective third party looking at the details of your academic background and experiences, they can easily see which activities and skills can make you a better candidate. For example, if you are applying for a philosophy major, you might think that your love for nature or hiking is irrelevant information to your application. College essay review services can help you understand how you can showcase your experience as a hiker in a way that will appeal to your chosen faculty.

Writing strategies

Writing college essays is not an easy task, and the truth is that most applicants aren't aware that their essay writing skills may be lacking. Unfortunately, high school classes rarely include lessons about writing academic admission essays or personal statements, so even gifted writers or A+ English students don't have the tools needed to write an essay that will impress the college admissions committee.

Without guidance, students often end up writing very generic essays that do not add to their overall application, or they simply go through the details of their high school resume without providing any new information. By working with college essay review services, students have someone at their disposal who can give them the tools and strategies necessary to brainstorm and write great, original college essays.

Developing skills

Most college students start improving their research and writing skills as they write essays in college. However, when you work with a college essay review service, you start with stronger skills than most in that department. Good college essay review services have advisors who will not write the students' essays for them. Instead, they will guide them through the entire process – from brainstorming to drafting and editing- and teach them how to research, write and edit. 

In other words, working with college essay review services allows students to not only improve the quality of their college essays, but also improve their research, writing, and critical thinking skills. All of which are skills that will serve them well during college and beyond.

Preparing college applications is a stressful process, and one of the most anxiety-inducing aspects of it for students is writing college essays. Not only is it time-consuming, but it can get quickly get overwhelming for applicants and those around them. Furthermore, because students do not have access to as much information about the college admissions process, they simply have to trust that the topic they chose and the tips they found online are not leading them astray. 

Working with a professional college essay review service can remove that extra layer of anxiety. Because you are working with an expert, you can rely on the tips and advice they give you because you know it comes from a good source.

Not sure where to start with your common app essay? This video can help:

College essays are a crucial part of the college application process, so if you want to maximize your chances of getting into a top college in this increasingly competitive climate, you need to do everything you can to ensure that you are submitting top-notch essays. The key to doing that is working with college essay review services. The college advisors who run these services can help you highlight your strengths and address any potential red flags in a way that still makes you look good. Furthermore, working with them will help you improve your research and writing skills, which you will definitely need when you get into college.

There are several types of college admission essays, and usually, at least one of them is compulsory. If you are applying to college through common app, for example, you will definitely need to write common app essay.

That will depend on the school you're applying to. Most colleges require one personal statement and one or more secondary essays. You should verify the admission requirements of the schools that you're interested in to find out how many college essays you will be required to write.

Not every Canadian university requires an admissions essay, but quite a few request one.  The University of Toronto , for example, is one of them.

You should stay away from advisors who will write your essay for you. This practice is unethical, and it can have severe consequences for both you, the applicant, and the person who wrote the essay for you.

We recommend that you spend at least six weeks on your college essay. That is enough time to brainstorm, write, review, edit and polish the essay before it is ready for submission.

These services are offered by admission experts who will review your essays and guide you through the process of editing and polishing them. The aim is for the essays you submit with your application to be as compelling as possible, thus increasing your chances of success.

Yes, there are. Not all college essay review services work with international students, but we here at BeMo certainly do. Schedule your free initial consultation to find out how our consultants can help you.

Good college essay review services have qualified advisors who care about helping students, good independent reviews, and a high success rate. Make sure you take the time to peruse the websites of the companies that you are considering.

Yes, they do. College essays are the only application component that tells the admissions committee how you see yourself. They give you a chance to show the admissions board the person behind the extracurriculars and the GPA and remind them that your application is a lot more than just a number.

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I have draft my colleage essay for common app(650 words). I would like to get your review services.

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Reviewer: Great use of details—it shows that you’re interested in THIS program! Consider another transition to your conclusion here; be more clear!

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What are families saying about CollegeVine?

“Sophie clearly went above and beyond, taking the time to absorb and reflect upon an essay that was complex in form.”

“Aja was extremely well-versed about the application process and UPenn's requirements. She also was patient to answer our random college questions.”

“Olga was terrific, she’s very knowledgeable and her response time was amazingly quick! She was a plaesure to work with!”

Where is CollegeVine available?

CollegeVine is available to students and families all over the world, though our focus is on colleges and universities located in the United States. Advisors are required to live within the United States in order to list services on CollegeVine.

What kind of services do advisors on CollegeVine offer?

Advisors on CollegeVine offer a wide range of services focused on helping students and families navigate the college admissions process. You can get help with building a school list, planning out college visits, crafting a resume, improving your extracurriculars, writing essays, preparing for interviews, creating a plan to pay for college, and so much more! To learn more about the services each advisor offers, visit their profile.

Can I work with multiple advisors?

Yes! You’re welcome to work with as many advisors as you like—thanks to CollegeVine’s collaboration tools, each advisor you work with will be able to access your profile and school list to help you make the best decisions on your journey to college.

I'm an IEC looking to expand my business—can I start advising on CollegeVine?

We're always looking for more advisors to join the network. You can apply to start advising on CollegeVine here!

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The college essay is one of the most critical parts of your application. It goes beyond your grades and test scores to give schools a sense of your personality and potential—qualities that numbers alone cannot show. A compelling piece that exudes intellectual vitality, vulnerability, and humor can tip the admissions odds in your favor. We'll review your college essay to ensure it's one that admissions officers won't forget.

I Replace adverbs with strong verbs when possible. love really like throwing out the garbage. Most teens dread the exhausting, two-minute trek to the curb, but I find solace "Solace in" is more idiomatic. in on my daily dumpster walk. Every night at 10 PM Every day , I hear my mother lock the entrance, cueing entrance. She cues me to empty out the garbage cans on the main floor. As I lug carry pounds of many losing lotto tickets, candy wrappers, and crushed coffee cups Use stronger imagery to paint a picture of your duties. drinks on my back, I take took a sigh of relief knowing that we’ve survived This is wordy. managed to make it through yet another night shift See extended comment. at the family business.

I’ve worked The tone here is a bit formal compared to the rest of your writing. laboured at the family business since I was being ten years old. Of course, Focus on what you did, not on what you didn't do. I wasn’t a fifth-grade student ringing up customers or reciting the day’s winning lotto numbers like my parents were. I spent Here, the simple past works best. The modal verb is unnecessary. I would've spent most of my time either restocking or eating from the candy aisle—to my parents’ parent's pride and disappointment, respectively. Not until my freshman year did they give me permission to man the cash register, which had mesmerized me for years.

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Hi John! This essay does a great job showcasing not only your knack for software development, but also how your family’s business allowed you to mature a bit quicker than others. However, I'd consider reconstructing the first two paragraphs. The opening of your essay leads me to believe that you'll go on to discuss your experiences at the family business, but from the third paragraph on, you mostly focus on software development. By the end of the essay, the introduction feels distant and irrelevant.

We'll check for errors like dangling modifiers, comma splices, and ambiguous pronouns.

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We'll ensure your writing is easy to read, compelling, and reflects your authentic voice.

We'll suggest ways to optimize the structure of your essay to best reflect your narrative.

We'll point out areas your essay falls short and suggest ways to improve your writing.

We'll provide a 2–3 paragraph evaluation of the overall strength of your essay.

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I ended up doing a writing session with Mahad, which was beyond helpful. He answered all of my questions about my Common App essay and even took a look at my supplemental essays for the other schools I was applying to. Next Admit stuck with me as I sent essay after essay for review with such a small amount of turnaround time and I could never be more grateful for all the work they do. The feedback is both fair and kind, and I felt better trusting consultants that had just gone through the whole college admissions ordeal and gotten in rather than consultants who hadn’t been through the process in decades.

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At Harvard, Hana is involved with the Institute of Politics, Model Congress, and Women in Business. In high school, Hana spent her time getting involved in education policy work, winning a seat on her Board of Education.

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At Harvard, Julia served as the President of the Undergraduate Women in Law Association and provides mentorship to students as a Peer Concentration Advisor. In high school, Julia spent much of her time engaging in community service.

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Mikaylah

At Princeton, Mikaylah is a Visiting Scholar at the Nation's Service Initiative Fellow, where she is obtaining her master's degree in Public Affairs and specializing in Domestic Politics. She is a former Visiting Scholar at the U.S. Department of State.

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Justine was amazing. Her feedback and detailed comments were very helpful. She not only pointed out what could be better, but she also provided solutions and tips to make my writing better. I'm glad she edited two of my essays, and I wish she had reviewed them all. She was outstanding and made my experience with Next Admit worth it.

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Very constructive and in-depth feedback! I really appreciate the positive comments alongside the corrections; it gives me confidence knowing that I can write a "decent" essay by myself. Thank you so much Natalia for polishing up my essay and for relieving my anxiety during this application cycle.

Lauren gave very insightful advice on how to improve the communication of my ideas and tweak the structure of my essay to focus on depth rather than breadth. Her comments were extremely detailed and thorough as well. She also returned her feedback on my essay a few days before the one-week deadline which was great!

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Lauren was really helpful in giving detailed feedback! I was really surprised to see how she went through each and every one of my sentences and gave me direct feedback on how to expand my ideas. I feel really confident about submitting my application now thanks to her comments!

I absolutely loved the feedback I received! I had actually worked with another college essay service for my personal statement, and they didn't provide me nearly as much feedback. The suggestions were thorough, and I gained a great understanding of how my essay is perceived.

Fred did a great job of putting himself into the shoes of an admissions officer and offering constructive criticism. He not only pointed out flaws, but also provided great suggestions for fixing them. Thanks for such a comprehensive edit.

Mahad thoroughly edited my essay, and his extensive comment inspired me to completely revamp my essay to make it more unique. I really appreciate his help, and would definitely recommend him.

As usual, these essay edits are incredibly thorough, understandable, and beneficial. I am able to fix mistakes that I would otherwise overlook. Thank you so, so much for the detailed insight and advice!

Super valuable feedback. The edits were very helpful and provided me insight into the parts of my essay that had potential for improvement. I definitely feel much more confident in my essay and more ready to submit my application!

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Frequently asked questions.

The college essay is one of the most important parts of your application. Put your best foot forward by having one of our consultants polish your piece, ensuring it reflects your story in the best light possible while maintaining your true voice.

No, but we are here to help you put your best foot forward. Since the admissions process is holistic and unpredictable, a strong essay alone is not enough to guarantee acceptance. However, our consultants will help you feel confident in your writing and tell an engaging story, all while keeping your voice intact.

Yes. We will not share your essay with any third parties or publish it online. Your essay will remain secure in our system.

Because of high order volume, you cannot choose a specific consultant for your essay review. However, our algorithm will match your essay to the optimal consultant based on availability and the schools you're applying to.

No. We will not write your essay for you. We will, however, provide advice to help you write the best essay you can.

After you receive your essay review, you can order a second revision through the Next Admit Portal for 10% off.

Yes. If, for example, you order a three-day review on Friday, you will receive your edits on Monday.

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14 Best College Essay Services for 2024 (40 Services Reviewed)

Not sure which college application essay coaching and editing service is the best? We compared the top 40 services, created in-depth reviews for 14 of them, and narrowed it down to the 4 best that will help guide you through the process of writing amazing college application essays.

What is the Best College Essay Service?

  • PrepMaven  – best college application essay service overall
  • College Essay Mentor  – best for individual consultants
  • The College Essay Guy  – best for unlimited essay assistance
  • College Vine  – best of the big platforms

The best of the rest:

Individual essay consultants:

  • College Essay Editor  – small editing team
  • Allison Karpf  – former English teacher helping students
  • Your College Vision  – former journalist with more affordable rates
  • The College Guru  – good on paper but unresponsive
  • Sofia Zapiola – budget-friendly application assistance

Mid-size teams:

  • Lotus Learning  – focus on health sciences

Large platforms:

  • Study Point  – larger platform with mystery editors
  • Ivy Select  – larger platform with mystery editors
  • Empowerly  – larger platform with mystery editors
  • BeMo  – expensive and aggressive with wrong expertise

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Best College Application Essay Services in 2024

#1 – prepmaven.

Our Verdict — Best College Essay Assistance Overall Price: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package) PrepMaven’s one-on-one college essay assistance is the best option overall. Founded by brothers and Princeton grads Greg and Kevin, almost all of PrepMaven’s essay coaches have Ivy-League experience, primarily from Princeton and Harvard. All essay coaches also undergo a thorough training program in PrepMaven’s methods, developed by professional writers with deep understanding of the college admissions process, for helping students to discover the most compelling stories for their essays. Unlike other services, PrepMaven offers college essay assistance at several different price points. At the most accessible rate, students can work with current Ivy-League undergraduates who specialize in writing and have recently aced the college application process. At higher rates, students can work with coaches who are both Ivy-League grads and professional writers (screenwriters, journalists, editors) with many years of experience helping students to craft compelling essays. Interested students can even work directly with founders Greg and Kevin, who have over 15 years of experience helping students through the entire essay-writing process. PrepMaven’s services combine many of the best features of other good options into one, and it’s hard to beat their experience.

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help now

Any student wanting college essay help, at any point in the process, with a range of budgets.

At a glance:

  • Cost: $85–349/hour (minimum $510 package)
  • Writing coach qualifications: Princeton graduates and professional writers (or current Princeton students); all trained

What we like:

  • Ivy League experience —most of their writing coaches are Princeton grads or current students, with some from Harvard and other Ivies
  • Different pricing options to meet different families’ circumstances
  • More flexible and greater capacity to take on new students compared to individual consultants

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Princeton University

#2 – College Essay Mentor

Our Verdict — Best of the Individual Consultants Price: unknown but high Some college essay consulting services consist of just one expert. Of these individual essay consultants, Chris Hunt at College Essay Mentor is our favorite. He combines writing experience as a journalist for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal with personal experience as a graduate of Dartmouth. However, he only works with a small number of students each year, and students need to apply to work with him — he only accepts students with top grades and test scores who are already strong applicants for top schools. Chris offers the option for one-time written feedback, but this only gives big-picture generalizations. (And written-only feedback is always limited.) In order for help with the essay process, students need to purchase a complete essay package.

Students with top grades and test scores who want to work with a one-person business, who have a sizable budget, and who are ready to get started early.

  • Cost: $210 for a one-time written essay feedback (big picture only), then $110 per draft feedback; pricing for essay process packages unknown
  • Essay coach qualifications: professional journalist, Dartmouth grad
  • Professional writing experience as a journalist
  • Extensive experience working with college applicants
  • Partners with Debra Felix, former Director of Admissions at Columbia, for full application review

What we don’t like:

  • One-on-one work is limited to very high-achieving students, who need to apply with a resume : “I limit my one-on-one work to students who I believe will be strong applicants to elite universities. As a rule, this means having high grades in challenging classes, a test score of ACT 34+ or SAT 1500+, and substantial activities outside of the classroom.”
  • Works with a limited number of students (60 per year), so often no availability
  • All-or-nothing packages don’t allow students to work with Chris for just a few hours or for part of the essay-writing process
  • Secretive about pricing (he’ll only give pricing details once he’s reviewed the student’s resume and agreed to work with them), but we expect the minimum cost of working one-on-one to be several thousand dollars

#3 – The College Essay Guy

Our Verdict — Best for Unlimited Essay Assistance Price: $7400 for application for 10 schools We’re fans of Ethan Sawyer, the original “college essay guy”— his book, College Essay Essentials , is a great guide to the essay-writing process. Ethan doesn’t work directly with many students these days, but he now has a team of consultants who help students follow his principles. Their assistance is really all-or-nothing — they prefer to work with students from the very beginning of the process, and their minimum package is $4900, which includes assistance with essays for three schools. If students are applying to ten schools (a more realistic number for students aiming at competitive colleges), the fee is a hefty $7400.

Students who want unlimited help through the entire process, who have a sizable budget.

  • Cost: $4900 (supplemental essays for 3 schools) – $7400 (supplemental essays for 10 schools)
  • Essay coach qualifications: mix of Ivy grads and former teachers, some writers/screenwriters; all trained
  • Great free resources about the essay-writing process
  • Their Matchlighters Scholars Program gives back to the community by providing admissions consulting for select qualifying students
  • All-or-nothing packages have a high minimum fee and don’t work for students who want just a few hours of feedback or help with just part of the process

#4 – College Vine

Our Verdict — Best of the Big Platforms Price: $170–190/hour There are plenty of large platforms with large stables of part-time tutors and coaches available to work with students. Of these big platforms, we think CollegeVine has the best offerings. Compared to other large companies, CollegeVine provides more information about their tutors, and students can pick individual tutors to work with from their roster. However, this model is really just a way of finding individual tutors to hire. Tutors don’t receive any training and don’t share a common approach, so it’s a mixed bag. Their rates are fairly high for part-time tutors who don’t have specific expertise and training in college essay consulting. We also recommend working with college essay consultants with a clear code of ethics stating that they will not make edits directly on the essay documents for the students. It’s unclear to what degree the editors with CollegeVine follow these principles.

Students who want to work with a big company.

  • Cost: $170–190/hour
  • Essay coach qualifications: no specific qualifications, but a few are Ivy League graduates
  • Possible to select individual editors to work with from their roster
  • No training or common approach for tutors
  • Editors are part-time , with no option to work with full-time college admissions experts
  • Relatively expensive for this level of expertise

College Essay Editing Alternatives (that Didn’t Make the Cut)

Individual essay consultants, #5 – college essay editor.

Our Verdict — Small Editing Team Price: Roughly $5,950 for application to 10 schools College Essay Editor comprises two graduates of Stanford. This means that they have personal experience applying to highly competitive schools. One member of the team also has a college counseling certification, which is a good background for college essays. Based on their website, they appear to focus on the editing and proofreading phase of the essay-writing process. This can be helpful to students, but we recommend working with a service who can help students to uncover their values and brainstorm really great material that allows them to really shine—and if this doesn’t happen at the beginning of the process, it’s much harder to add in later on.

  • Cost: $195/1000 words for proofreading, $495/1000 words for 3 rounds of editing and proofreading, or $595/1000 words for unlimited rounds of editing and proofreading; for the purposes of comparison, complete applications to 10 competitive colleges would be around 9,650 words, or $5950.
  • Writing coach qualifications: Stanford graduates, one of which has college counseling certification
  • Editors are graduates of Stanford University , and one is a member of NACAC, the national association of college counselors
  • They focus on editing and proofreading only , not on the crucial earlier steps of brainstorming and strategy
  • Small team with very limited availability

#6 – Allison Karpf

Our Verdict — Former English Teacher Helping Students Price: $300/hour or $3000 package for application to one school Another option for students looking to hire an individual consultant is Allison Karpf. Allison is a former high school English teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley who also holds a Masters of Education from Stanford. Her rates are definitely on the higher side, especially for someone who doesn’t have a professional writing background, but she does have extensive experience working with students to craft their essays.

  • Cost:  $300/hour or $3000 unlimited counseling (includes supplemental essays for one college)
  • Essay coach qualifications: former high school English teacher; Berkeley grad, Stanford MEd
  • Lots of experience helping students improve their college essays
  • Very quick to respond to client requests
  • No professional writing experience or Ivy-Plus undergraduate experience
  • High rates relative to other options
  • Limited availability , since she works alone

#7 – Your College Vision

Our Verdict: Former Journalist with More Affordable Rates Price: $150/hour (minimum 10 hours), or $3800 package for application to seven schools Laurie Lande is another individual consultant who helps students through the essay-writing process. She comes recommended by other consultants like Chris from College Essay Mentor . Laurie did not herself attend a highly competitive school, so she doesn’t have that personal experience of going through the selective admissions process, but she does have a professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

  • Cost: $150/hour (for 10 hours), or $3800 package for application to seven schools
  • Essay coach qualifications: journalism background
  • Affordable pricing , relative to other options
  • Professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal
  • Not a graduate of a highly selective school

#8 – The College Guru

Our Verdict — Good on Paper but Unresponsive Price: unknown Yet another individual essay consultant is Geanine Thompson from The College Guru. Geanine attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate and also holds an MBA from Duke. She also has a professional writing background as an assistant book editor at Berkley Publishing Group. Like Greg and Kevin at PrepMaven , she combines experience in the business world and at Wall Street firms with experience in education.

  • Cost: unknown
  • Essay coach qualifications: former assistant book editor; Dartmouth grad, Duke MBA
  • Dartmouth graduate and former book editor
  • Not responsive to emails and client requests

#9 – Sofia Zapiola

Our Verdict — A budget-friendly, personal essay editor. Price: From $65/hour Yet another individual essay consultant is Sofia Zapiola, who offers a mix of essay editing and college application counseling services.

  • Cost: From $65/hour
  • Essay coach qualifications: M.A. from Harvard; certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego.
  • Individual approach, budget-friendly rates, commitment to working within families’ budgets.
  • Very few testimonials, so it’s difficult to evaluate how effective she is.

student writing college essay on laptop

Mid-size Teams

#10 – lotus learning.

Our Verdict — Focus on Health Sciences Price: $165/hour Founded by a Harvard grad who is a former teacher and veteran of the publishing industry, Lotus learning offers college essay help in the Boston area. They have a small team of tutors, mostly recent grads from good but not Ivy-Plus colleges, and mostly with focus in health sciences.

  • Cost: $165/hour (minimum 8 hours)
  • Essay coach qualifications: tutors are recent grads, but not Ivy-Plus schools
  • Reasonable pricing with flexible packages
  • Essay editors aren’t graduates of Ivy-Plus schools and don’t have professional writing experience

Large platforms

#11 – study point.

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Study Point is a larger essay editing service. They claim to have several decades of experience helping students to craft their college essays, but they do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

  • Essay coach qualifications: unknown
  • Larger company with several decades of experience
  • Unclear who the essay coaches are
  • Secretive about pricing

#12 – Ivy Select

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Ivy Select is another larger essay editing service. They do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

  • Long list of impressive (but anonymous) testimonials
  • Only work with “top students”
  • No information on their website about who the editors are
  • No professional writing experience

#13 – Empowerly

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Empowerly has over 60 college counselors who each work with an average of 5 students per year, in order to have more time to devote to each student. Their counselors come from “different educational backgrounds,” and while they do not provide specific biographical details we can assume that most of their essay coaches did not attend highly selective schools.

  • Cost: $3550 minimum package
  • Essay coach qualifications: college counselors
  • Counselors work with just a few students per year
  • You have to upgrade to “Empowerly Elite” to guarantee a counselor with a more selective educational background

#14 – BeMo

Our Verdict — Expensive and Aggressive with Wrong Expertise Price: $2997–12797 BeMo is a large admissions company based in Toronto, Canada. They focus primarily on admissions to medical schools and science graduate programs in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. Their rates are expensive, and they justify these by pointing out potential high earnings decades later as a doctor. Past customers have commented that their “school selection consultation” doesn’t provide any information specific to the individual student or schools. They do provide a training process for their essay consultants, but their essay consultants do not have training as college counselors, do not have experience as professional writers, and did not attend Ivy-Plus schools . They have been known to be very aggressive with their marketing emails, and have included some strange language in their sales pitches that seems inappropriate for high school students.

  • Cost: €2997/silver (one hour consultation and then unlimited written essay review for one application, no supplemental essays), €4797/gold (one hour consultation and then unlimited written essay review, incl. supplemental essays for up to 10 schools; waitlist letter, scholarship applications), €8797/platinum (unlimited consults), €12797/titanium (unlimited consults)
  • They have more of an international scope
  • High prices
  • Not focused on undergrad admissions

Top 40 College Essay Services Considered

  • College Essay Editor
  • The College Essay Guy
  • College Vine
  • College Essay Mentor
  • Study Point
  • Allison Karpf
  • The College Guru
  • Lotus Learning
  • Summit Prep
  • Sofia Zapiola
  • Ivy Global / New Summits
  • College Essay Solutions
  • Your College Vision
  • Essay Edge*
  • ServicEscape*
  • PapersForge*
  • QuickWriter*
  • JustEditMyEssay*
  • JustDoMyEsssay*
  • ExpertWriting*
  • SpeedyPaper*
  • GradeMiners*

* A number of services will edit essays directly for students, or even write portions of the essay for students. We do not condone this. Admissions officers can tell when essays have been written or edited by adults and this can have severe consequences. We have excluded these services from our reviews.

student writing college essay

Why are college application essays important?

Can a great college essay alone get you into Harvard?

No. You’ll need your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities (as well as letters of recommendation and interview) to be outstanding.

But can a mediocre essay be the reason you didn’t get into Harvard?

Yes. There are thousands of amazingly-qualified students who graduate from high school each year. Great grades and test scores might be a prerequisite for admission to a competitive college, but they alone aren’t enough.

Harvard University

College essays are a key component of a student’s application . When done well, they transform a collection of numbers—GPA, class rank, SAT or ACT scores , number of AP classes taken, AP scores—into a glimpse of a real, individual person.

Essays do many things. Good college essays can highlight extracurricular achievements which otherwise would be overlooked in a sterile list. Strong essays often indicate the student’s future plans —how they plan to leave a mark on their college campus and on the world. They can shine a light on unique challenges that a student may have had to face on their journey.

College admissions officers only have a few minutes to spend on each application. College essays need to be original, interesting, and memorable . They need to grab the attention of the admissions officer and persuade them that this is the student out of hundreds or thousands of other similarly-qualified applicants who should be admitted.

College admissions essays are usually unlike any other kind of writing that students have done before. They’re a combination of memoir and marketing pitch, and they need to be creative but also highly strategic. That’s a tough assignment!

What’s more, students are left to figure this assignment out on their own. A thoughtful and generous high school English teacher may provide guidance or offer to read essays and give feedback, but these teachers are responsible for many students, and they’re (usually) not experts in admissions strategies.

Princeton University

Why work with a college essay service?

You may want to consider a college essay service if:

  • You have no idea where to start in order to write your college application essays
  • You feel overwhelmed by all of the different ideas you have and don’t know what would be the most strategic for college admissions—and what topics to definitely avoid for college essays
  • You don’t know how to craft a compelling story
  • You’re not sure how to edit and refine what you’ve written
  • You have a hard time keeping yourself on track and want an external structure to hold you accountable
  • You’re tired of conflict between students and parents about college essays
  • You’re aiming at a competitive college (not just the Ivy League!) and know that you need your essays to be outstanding
  • Your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars aren’t exceptional, so you need your essay to make your essay stand out from the pack
  • You’re unfamiliar with the US college admissions process (a common situation for international students and first-generation families in the US)

Any of these are strong reasons to consider working with a college essay service!

It’s important to note that a good college essay service will not write your college application essays for you . This is unethical and illegal. 

A good college essay service will guide you through each step of the process , teaching you how to self-reflect and write well while sharing insider insight about admissions strategy .

Yale University

What makes a good college essay service?

We strongly believe that students need to write their own college essays , and we do not condone plagiarism or “buying” a college essay.

However, writing college application essays requires a completely new set of skills that is rarely taught in high school!

Writing a personal essay is much more creative than simply writing a good paper for English class. It requires a compelling narrative and a great deal of writing craft . A good essay service will teach how to do this kind of writing.

There are many college essay services that will provide only written feedback to students, usually in the form of comments added to an essay draft. (Remember, it’s important that students write their own essays, so avoid any college essay service that will make edits directly to an essay document .)

Written comments can be an effective component of good essay coaching. However, writing college essays is a deeply personal process , and it’s incredibly difficult to guide a student through the process of self-reflection, brainstorming, and planning purely through written comments.

In addition, a great college essay coach will teach students how to do this entire process of brainstorming, planning, outlining, writing, and revising . It’s difficult to learn why an essay coach is advising certain changes through written comments alone.

For these reasons, look for a college essay service with live, one-on-one services , not just written feedback. These days, it’s easy to work with the best college essay consultants in the country over Zoom!

college essay coaching service online

Students need to reflect on their goals, their passions, and what drives them to be the person they are. This requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-analysis . An experienced college essay coach can help draw these ideas out of students through tested introspection techniques and brainstorming exercises .

On top of all of that, students need to be cognizant of which traits and accomplishments will be most appealing to colleges , and which stories will be cliche and boring. Personal statements and supplementary essays need to fit together to tell a cohesive story, and they need to work together with the rest of the student’s application (extracurriculars, grades, and other accomplishments).

In other words, there’s a great deal of strategy here! An experienced college essay service can help students decide how to present themselves in the best possible light .

Furthermore, most students don’t know how to edit effectively . A really top-notch college essay service will also teach students how to edit their own writing —how to reorder sections for better flow, cut unnecessary words to meet a word count, eliminate passive verbs, and make their writing vivid and exciting. Our students are routinely amazed by how transformative this step can be, and how much they learn by doing it together with the essay coach.

Finally, the best college essay services can also help students to make a writing plan and keep them on track , so that parents don’t have to be involved directly.

Ready to work on your college essays? Schedule a free 15- to 30-minute consultation with Jessica or one of our founders.

Best overall: PrepMaven’s

Best for individual consultants: College Essay Mentor

Best for unlimited essay assistance: The College Essay Guy

Best of the big platforms: College Vine

Ready to work on college essays with one of our experienced writing coaches? Schedule a free test prep consultation with Jessica (Director of Tutoring) or one of our founders to see what would be the best fit for your family.

It’s always best to start early and not wait until the last minute to write your college essays! Remember that essays can be used to earn scholarships as well as college admission, so a few months of writing now can pay off with up to $300,000 in tuition saved later. 

We work with students at all stages of the writing process, from I-have-no-idea-what-to-write to final edits. To start working with an Ivy-League writing coach today, set up a quick free consultation with our team.

Schedule a free college essay consultation

Ivy League schools

Related College Essay Posts

  • 14 Best College Essay Services for 2023 (40 Services Reviewed)
  • How to Get into Harvard 2023-2024
  • Hot to Get into Princeton 2023-2024
  • How to Get into Yale 2023-2024
  • How to Answer the UC Personal Insight Questions
  • 11 College Essays That Worked
  • How to Start a College Essay
  • The Diamond Strategy: How We Help Students Write College Essays that Get Them Into Princeton (And Other Ivy League Schools)
  • What is the College Essay? Your Complete Guide for 2023
  • College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start
  • How to Write a ‘Why This College’ Essay + Examples that Worked for the Ivy League
  • 9 Ways to (Quickly) Improve Your College Essay

admission essay review

Emily graduated  summa cum laude  from Princeton University and holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame. She was a National Merit Scholar and has won numerous academic prizes and fellowships. A veteran of the publishing industry, she has helped professors at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton revise their books and articles. Over the last decade, Emily 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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We specialize in college admission essays, scholarship application essays, and more!

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What we offer

Multiple reviews.

Your essay will go through a two-round panel review process. Our review panel is composed of college admission consultants, scholarship essay reviewers from top schools, and professional editors. We

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We don't just review and edit your essay. We help develop your essay strategy and provide constructive recommendations to improve your essay. Your essay will be

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We offer a 48-hour turnaround time for each round of the review. Our turnaround time policy enables us to create high quality reviews that meet your expectations. We strive to create an experience that is

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Simple and flexible plans.

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  • Up to 600 word count
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  • Up to 1200 word count (per essay)
  • 72-hour turnaround time

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admission essay review

  • High-quality, plagiarism-free papers.
  • Stress-free money-back guarantee.
  • Possibility to track your order.
  • Free plagiarism report and 10% first-time discount with the code LWS10.
  • Quick price calculator.
  • Support agents can sometimes be slow.
  • Free revisions are limited.

PaperHelp is a trusted essay writing service with many professional writers and academics ready to help you with any college task. Prices start from $13.00  per page, and there is a price calculator available on their website so that you can have an idea of the cost of your paper before ordering it.

The order process is quite simple; you only need to fill out the order form with your assignment details. What’s cool about PaperHelp is that this college writing service doesn’t require you to provide any personal information you’re not willing to share – only your email is required to place an order.

After placing an order, the system will match it with a professional in 10 to 15 minutes, and the online paper writer will start working on your order immediately.

With PaperHelp’s academic writing service, you can get updates on your order status by email, SMS, or simply by checking your account control panel. Their support team is available 24/7, ready to answer any questions or concerns.

You can try their services at a discounted price, as they offer a 10% discount for first-time users (use the LWS10 code during checkout). This way, you can better understand whether this is the solution for you without spending big bucks.

Lastly, their loyalty program allows you to accumulate credits on each order, which can later be used toward future assignments.

#2. BBQPapers  — Best for Research Papers and Dissertations

BBQPapers  Best for Research Papers and Dissertations

  • Excellent paper quality.
  • Absolute best essay writers in the industry.
  • 10% first order discount with the code HELLOBBQ.
  • Active and responsive support team.
  • Direct communication with a paper writer is possible.
  • Free revisions.
  • A loyalty program offers generous lifetime discounts.
  • No price calculator to get an instant quote.

BBQPapers is the best college essay writing service in the USA in terms of quality and professionalism. It has a team of over 500 professional essay writers who have delivered over 100,000 papers to tens of thousands of customers over the years.

This company has been especially recognized for its papers’ quality and great customer service. While this isn’t the cheapest service, the quality output is well worth it. For this reason, we think this is the top choice for papers that require rigorous research and extensive analysis.

To order a paper, you must sign up and calculate the price while filling out the order form, which is less convenient than using a price calculator. After receiving the final version of your paper, you will have ten days to request revisions and send your comments on how the college essay writer could improve their work.

Prices start at $9.94 for proofreading, $11.70 for editing, and $17.55  for writing. You can get a 15% lifetime discount on all your future papers if you buy more than ten essays from BBQPapers.

BBQPapers offers a 10% first-order discount for new customers, so be sure to use the code HELLOBBQ to claim it.

#3. EssayPro  — Best for Balance Between Quality and Affordability

EssayPro  Best for Balance Between Quality and Affordability

  • Ability to pick your own writer.
  • Direct communication with a professional writer is possible.
  • Unlimited revisions.
  • Free plagiarism report.
  • No price calculator.
  • Reports of typos and grammar errors in final drafts.

EssayPro is a legit essay writing service that connects professional writers with college students who need an excellent assignment on short notice. Their primary services include writing, rewriting, editing, and proofreading.

The ordering process is easy. All you need to do is complete a form detailing your assignment details and upload the necessary files. Professional college essay writers will then bid on your assignment, and you can pick one based on pricing, rating, number of completed orders, job completion rate, and customer reviews. Writers will also provide a free plagiarism report at your request.

Once your paper is ready, download it and request revisions if necessary. EssayPro can help you with a research paper, admission essay, lab report, thesis, or academic dissertation. This site covers all high school, college, and university writing assignments.

Their prices start at $11.40 , but there is no price calculator to quickly estimate the cost. EssayPro operates as a bidding-based platform, and professional paper writers offer the final price. The most prominent standout feature of EssayPro is that their prices don’t dramatically scale depending on the urgency of your paper and stay roughly the same across all deadlines.

For this reason, EssayPro is the top pick for students who need their papers written urgently and are looking for a good balance between price and quality.

#4. ExtraEssay  — Best for Last-minute College Papers

ExtraEssay  Best for Last-minute College Papers

  • Great quality.
  • On-time delivery guarantee.
  • 15% discount for first-time customers.
  • Urgent turnaround time available (1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours).
  • Price calculator to get a quick cost estimate.
  • Decent reputation, lots of positive essay writing service reviews.
  • Slightly more expensive than other services.
  • Documented negative experiences with some support agents.
  • Plagiarism report costs $15.

ExtraEssay has been writing college papers since 2016. During this time, they have amassed a large team of over 3,500 experts who can help you with all writing emergencies.

They offer a wide range of college essay services and do not only focus on academic assignments. You can use this service for some non-conventional tasks like PowerPoint presentations, retyping (handwriting to word), rewriting, paraphrasing, equation solving, and more.

Similarly to EssayPro and PaperHelp, ExtraEssay has a cost estimator for your convenience. The prices are on par with BBQPapers, with basic essays starting at $13.00  per page. Choose the type of paper you want, and select your academic level, deadline, and preferred word count to receive the total cost of your order. If you need to reach them, their team is available 24/7.

One of the unique features of ExtraEssay is that it’s the only website that offers a 1-hour delivery. However, this urgency level only applies to short essays of up to three pages.

Although they can deliver your work quickly, we found that some writers at ExtraEssay can struggle to provide complex, university-level assignments on short deadlines. It might be better only to use their urgent academic writing services if you find yourself in a pickle and need a simple assignment produced on very short notice.

Overall, even though this academic writing company sits in fourth place in our list of the best paper writing services, ExtraEssay is a relatively good choice for anyone who’s looking for good quality at a fair price.

#5. WritePaperForMe  — Best Cheap Essay Writing Service

WritePaperForMe  Best Cheap Essay Writing Service

  • Cheap services, good quality.
  • Quick & timely delivery.
  • Installment payments for big orders.
  • College essay writers are available 24/7.
  • Free unlimited revision.
  • Price calculator.
  • Slow customer support.
  • Plagiarism reports are offered for a fee.
  • Sometimes, you have to copy-edit your paper to adapt it to your writing style and language.

When it comes to cheap essay writing services online, you have to be extra cautious. Writing is a complex activity, so the lower the price, the higher the chance that you will get a carelessly written, maybe even plagiarized, paper that you won’t be able to submit to your instructor.

However, this isn’t the case with WritePaperForMe, as this is one of the few legit essay writing services that provide well-written, original papers at a low price. If your budget is tight, this is the perfect option to choose. The company mostly works with knowledgeable ESL writers from Kenya to offer a quality service at a low price. Prices here start at only $6.99  per page.

They will blow you away with the range of services they offer. So, whether you need a case study, a PowerPoint presentation, college essay help or assistance with mathematical assignments, WritePaperForMe will accommodate you.

To make their professional essay writing services even more accessible, they offer customers to pay in installments for expensive papers, as they understand that you might not be able to provide the lump sum right away.

FAQs: College Essay Writing Service Explained

You’re probably desperate to write your paper if you found yourself typing ‘write my college essay’ into Google search.

This can indeed be a challenging task. For this reason, we answered some of the most common questions that students seek answers to when choosing an essay writing service.

What if I am not satisfied with my paper?

This is a common concern when ordering essays online, and it is entirely justified. Thankfully, all the paper writing services presented in this article offer a free revision service. If you are not satisfied, you can send detailed comments to the writer, and they will make the necessary adjustments to your paper.

The least flexible college essay service on this aspect is PaperHelp, which only allows three revisions. All the other services will offer unlimited revisions, at least for some time after product delivery.

If revisions don’t help, you can ask for a full refund. However, in most cases, you must explain why you did not find the work satisfactory.

How far in advance do I need to order?

It is important to try your best to request an assignment as early as possible. Most of the essay writing websites featured in this article have a very short deadline of three hours, except for WritePaperForMe, which has a minimum deadline of six.

However, even the best and fastest writers cannot produce a well-researched 30-page assignment in under three hours. But the best essay writing services will undoubtedly deliver if you need a short assignment done at the last minute.

Will a native English speaker write my essay?

Most websites allow you to choose between a native English speaker or an ESL online essay writer. An ESL writer is usually cheaper and sometimes better if you’re not a native speaker of English yourself.

If you choose PaperHelp, for instance, you must select a writer from the TOP category to guarantee a native English speaker from the U.S., Canada or the U.K. However, a writer from the TOP category will cost up to 50% more.

Is buying essays online confidential and safe?

When using a paper writing service, confidentiality is a must. EssayPro and PaperHelp provide complete anonymity, even when using their services and speaking to their writers and representatives.

Other than that, these websites take the highest precautions to protect your financial information by offering secure payment options. Lastly, none of the featured companies will ever share your personal information with third parties unless you provide them with written permission.

Are essay writing services legit?

Yes, legitimate essay writing services exist, but it may take some time to find a trustworthy service if you’re ordering for the first time. If you read Reddit threads dedicated to college paper writing services, you will see hundreds of positive reviews about companies that write essays for you.

Besides, some reputable websites are dedicated to helping students find reliable essay writing help online by collecting customer reviews on assignment writing services.

Where do essay writing companies find their professional essay writers?

Every essay writing company is different, therefore the approach to hiring writers can differ from one company to another. Most companies hire freelancers all across the globe to be able to provide essay writing services round the clock and in any timezone.

Successful candidates usually hold at least a bachelor’s degree in a field that they apply to and successfully pass a few grammar tests to be able to get access to students’ orders.

Some other companies also have in-house teams of writers. These professionals typically proofread and copy-edit all the academic writing assignments done by freelancers and improve the content if it lacks depth, research, or has any stylistic flaws.

Will my paper be plagiarism-free?

If you turn to a reliable essay writing service for help, you can rest assured that the content you will receive is original. A professional essay writer will craft a paper tailored to your requirements. Besides, you will remain its sole owner because reputable companies never resell the academic papers they write.

Some academic writing companies like BBQPapers and EssayPro provide originality reports free of charge to give you peace of mind that your essay is unique and free from plagiarism.

Are essay writing services legal?

One aspect that many students ponder over is whether it is legal to use a professional essay writing service. Plenty of misinformation is spreading, leading some students to think that purchasing a paper from an essay writing website could be illegal.

Let’s make one thing absolutely clear. It can never be illegal to purchase a written piece of work. The student simply requests a paper, and an expert essay writer provides a written piece of content that matches the requirements.

This is a transaction between a company and an individual, and nothing could imply a breach of legality. You can be sure it is safe and legal to use online essay writing services. No laws exist against using such services, regardless of what you may have been told.

Moreover, any trustworthy essay writing site has a clear disclaimer and a terms/conditions page that outlines the terms of use. It shows that these services are acting within the law and are not breaking any regulations.

A custom essay writing service is a third party that provides assignments, reports, and essays for personal private use. Therefore, the website is not liable for what happens with its content.

Reliable Essay Writing Services: Summing Up

Hopefully, this article gave you a better understanding of the topic and helped you find an essay writer service that could perfectly match you. Getting qualified college paper help  is easy if you know what to look for.

Each college paper service is unique, with its advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to you to pick the one that will help you achieve the best result possible. Life gets busy, and sometimes, we just do not have the time to dedicate hours and hours to writing essays. These services can be true lifesavers and free up some time for you to focus your energy on other important goals.

We will leave you with this final tip: if you ever request a writing service, provide detailed instructions. This information will help writers produce high-quality papers that match your expectations.

Article paid for by: Ocasio Media The news and editorial staffs of the Bay Area News Group had no role in this post’s preparation.

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Will Students for Fair Admissions End Affirmative Action?

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Scholars predict that colleges may continue affirmative action practices despite contrary Supreme Court decision.

A student “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.” So wrote U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts last June in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ( SFFA ), a case that functionally overturned decades of precedent permitting schools to consider race in college admissions.

But will SFFA stop schools from engaging in race-based affirmative action?

It may not, argue Guha Krishnamurthi , professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law , and Peter N. Salib , professor at the University of Houston Law Center , in a recent article .

Krishnamurthi and Salib assert that SFFA could have little practical effect on admissions policies because of other, older Supreme Court cases, such as Washington v. Davis and McCleskey v. Kemp . The Court held in these cases that only direct evidence of an intent to discriminate can establish a claim for unlawful discrimination. Under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Krishnamurthi and Salib emphasize , plaintiffs must show more than a statistical overrepresentation in admitted students from any one racial group to prove discrimination. They contend that only schools that admit to engaging in affirmative action would be liable under existing precedent.

In SFFA, the Court held that the race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard College and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI. Although the Court stopped short of expressly overruling precedents that authorized race-conscious admissions policies, Krishnamurthi and Salib explain that both the majority and dissenting opinions “strongly suggest that the holding functionally accomplishes exactly that.”

The decision’s critics assert that SFFA will spell the end of affirmative action and undermine racial equality in education. Krishnamurthi and Salib, however, predict that SFFA is unlikely to eliminate—or even decrease—the use of race-conscious admissions programs.

Although after SFFA affirmative action is now illegal, the decision permits schools to admit students according to what Krishnamurthi and Salib call “multifactorial, discretionary, and ultimately obscure criteria.” In addition, schools may still invite an applicant to discuss how “race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” Indeed, Harvard has announced plans to do exactly that, Krishnamurthi and Salib point out .

Despite the Court’s insistence that schools may not use application essays to circumvent SFFA’s ruling, furthermore, Krishnamurthi and Salib predict that schools that engage in affirmative action in this way may avoid liability. Krishnamurthi and Salib explain that because admissions decisions are based on holistic assessments of applicants, schools easily can obscure the use of race in a particular admissions decision. In fact, Krishnamurthi and Salib note that the multi-year SFFA litigation failed to uncover that schools made any individual admissions decision on the basis of race.

Although Krishnamurthi and Salib concede that statistical evidence may demonstrate that a school has systemically used affirmative action, they assert that any such demonstration is legally irrelevant.

Under Davis and McCleskey , Krishnamurthi and Salib explain , statistical evidence that a challenged practice resulted in a racially disparate impact alone cannot establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. A plaintiff alleging such a violation must provide direct evidence of an intent to discriminate.

In Davis, two Black applicants to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia alleged that the Department’s application exam was racially discriminatory because four times as many Black applicants failed the verbal exam as did white applicants. The Court held that evidence of a racially disparate impact could not on its own establish a constitutional violation, Krishnamurthi and Salib explained . Rather, the plaintiffs needed to demonstrate that the Department had acted with an intent to discriminate.

In McCleskey, the Court rejected a Black death row inmate’s claim that statistical evidence demonstrated that Black defendants were sentenced to death more frequently than white defendants. Krishnamurthi and Salib note that the Court in McCleskey reinforced Davis by holding that a party alleging an equal protection violation must demonstrate that “the decision-makers … acted with discriminatory purpose.” The Court also emphasized that statistical evidence alone cannot support an inference that the decision-makers in a particular case acted with discriminatory purpose.

Krishnamurthi and Salib describe how later cases have applied the same principles announced in Davis and McCleskey to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination by any program or activity receiving federal funding and, unlike the Equal Protection Clause, applies to private schools. Accordingly, a plaintiff alleging that a school’s admissions policy violates Title VI must provide “direct proof of discriminatory intent,” just as if they were alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, Krishnamurthi and Salib clarify .

Krishnamurthi and Salib note that progressives have long condemned Davis and McCleskey as roadblocks to racial equality—precedents that have allowed government officials to carry out systemic racial discrimination.

But Krishnamurthi and Salib contend that SFFA has turned the tables. They predict that even though Davis and McCleskey may have been once “a thorn in the side of progressive impact litigators,” the cases may soon “be a curse on conservative opponents of affirmative action” by opening the door broadly to legal challenges of racially unequal programs, including traditionally progressive targets like criminal punishment.

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    Revised on December 8, 2023. Revision and editing are essential to make your college essay the best it can be. When you've finished your draft, first focus on big-picture issues like the overall narrative and clarity of your essay. Then, check your style and tone. You can do this for free with a paraphrasing tool.

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    For more guidance on writing your personal statement, read our article on how to write the Common Application essays for 2022-2023. April Review the Common Application essay prompts for the most recent application season. These prompts often remain the same as the previous year. Pick a few essay prompts that resonate with you, and start to ...

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