by Marie Todd
Best Personal Essay Themes for College Applications: Real Examples That Work
The central theme of your essay doesn’t have to be something earth-shattering or particularly amazing, but it does need to be something that genuinely matters to you and will therefore convey key aspects of your character. Your theme might be something that engages you, something you’re interested in describing, or something you want to explore further. You will need to describe any related experiences with specifics, colorful language, and emotional truth.
Let’s consider the case of a candidate we’ll call Anna, who aspires to become a fashion editor for a national magazine. Anna worked on her school’s yearbook for two years in a row, first as assistant editor and then as editor in chief. She also helped organize a long-distance bicycle ride to raise funds for medical research on a disease that had taken the life of a young boy in her community. What is the link between these two activities?
Anna considered two outcomes of her efforts. One was that her classmates had responded enthusiastically to her redesign ideas for the yearbook, inspiring students to join the yearbook club in record numbers. Second, more than 1,000 people in her town had supported the bike riders who were raising money for research. After some thought, Anna realized what both outcomes had in common: her ability to mobilize people and have an impact. This realization helped her think about editing for a fashion magazine as a way of reaching even greater numbers of people and working toward goals that are profoundly meaningful to her – fostering green manufacturing, developing industries in impoverished areas, and strengthening global child labor laws.
Having made these connections, Anna was able to view her high school experiences as a kind of training for joining relevant clubs in college and for pursuing internships that would help her connect with the publishing and fashion industry, ultimately allowing her to make a difference in the world by using her talents and interests. After preparing to write her essay, Anna saw herself as directed, purposeful, and ready for new challenges.
Another candidate, Mason, really enjoyed his part-time job at an early childhood education center. Although he didn’t want to become a teacher himself, Mason was learning a lot about education from the teacher for whom he was working as an aid. He was also learning a great deal directly from watching how the children learned. Mason hadn’t yet developed a vision for his career, but he was able to harness this experience and the insights he had gained about learning to discuss in his essay how he would approach his higher education journey – with joy and appreciation, helping his peers along the way, and extending what he learned in one area into other areas. He drew a compelling portrait of himself as a student who was excited to learn and who would contribute to the education of those around him.
A third candidate, Kayla, had a father from India and a mother who was an American Jew from the Midwest. The family had recently visited the father’s extended family in India. It was the first time Kayla had traveled to India; when she was growing up, her father had always gone alone. Although Kayla had attended a Jewish high school and had never actively identified with her Indian heritage, after meeting her father’s family, including many of her cousins, she realized that many of her traits originated from her father’s upbringing and had merged with the traits she’d inherited from her mother’s family and gained from their traditions. Kayla was excited to recognize this unique combination and eager to bring what she had learned about her background to college. Although she still planned to major in Jewish studies, she also intended to now join some East Asian clubs and possibly take some East Asian elective courses.
Another applicant, Jasmine, was the middle of three sisters. Her older sister suffered from manic depression, and it fell to Jasmine to tell her parents that her sister had been cutting herself, despite receiving psychiatric help. While Jasmine’s sister was hospitalized, her parents spent much of their time visiting her, which left Jasmine in charge of her little sister, tending to house chores, doing homework, and studying for tests. At the same time, she was extremely worried about her older sister and felt guilty about having informed her parents about her sister’s self-harm. Jasmine began freewriting about these experiences and realized how much she had learned about her own need for close friends and mentors during this time, a time when she felt like hiding her family’s truth. The theme of her essay was a moving testimonial to the way that peers, teachers, and bosses help individuals maintain a life of their own when family problems threaten to overwhelm them.
Writing down everything that comes to mind when you are brainstorming and freewriting will lead you on a path to discover your essay theme or topic. You’ll learn more about yourself, what you want out of life, and how you can contribute to others. Demonstrating this kind of self-knowledge and supporting your claims with specific experiences will reveal your abilities, talents, and interests, and let the adcoms see what kind of person you are.
Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.
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