Personal Essay Examples for College Application 2022 Updates

Filed in Education by on January 19, 2022

– Personal Essay Examples for College Application –

No college application is complete without a personal essay, which can be daunting for many students to write. Well, it’s no doubt that the best way to write an awesome essay for your college application; or admissions personal essay is by learning from real college essay samples that worked.

Personal Essay Examples for College Application

So I’ve compiled some great personal essay examples for college application for a variety of student experiences as well as tons of supplemental essay and personal statement topics.

Meaning of Essay

Before discussing the college essay example, note. An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author’s own argument but the definition is vague. Thus, it overlaps with those of a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story.

Also, essays have traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal. However, at this point, you may be wondering why you need an essay. please pay attention.

The Relevance of Essay to a College Student

Admissions are a human process. Also, while admissions committees look at grades, test scores, and extracurricular, there could be a lot of students that have great qualifications in those areas for every spot in a university’s class. This is where essays come in.

Essays are an opportunity for you to turn an admissions counsellor into an advocate for your application!

Also, essays help you to express why you deserve an award over the other student(s). An essay gives you the privilege to express yourself.

Personal Essay Examples for College Application

The essay’s below are some of the different personal essay examples for college application, carefully read through;

The “Burying Grandma” Example College Essay

Written for the Common App college application essays “Tell us your story” prompt. This essay could work for prompt’s 1 and 7 for the Common App.

The "Burying Grandma" Example College Essay

They covered the precious mahogany coffin with a brown amalgam of rocks, decomposed organisms, and weeds.

It was my turn to take the shovel, but I felt too ashamed to dutifully send her off when I had not properly said goodbye. I refused to throw dirt on her.

I refused to let go of my grandmother, to accept a death I had not seen coming, to believe that an illness could not only interrupt, but steal a beloved life.

When my parents finally revealed to me that my grandmother had been battling liver cancer, I was twelve and I was angry–mostly with myself.

They had wanted to protect me–only six years old at the time–from the complex and morose concept of death

 However, when the end inevitably arrived, I wasn’t trying to comprehend what dying was; I was trying to understand how I had been able to abandon my sick grandmother in favor of playing with friends and watching TV.

Hurt that my parents had deceived me and resentful of my own oblivion, I committed myself to preventing such blindness from resurfacing.

I became desperately devoted to my education because I saw knowledge as the key to freeing myself from the chains of ignorance.

While learning about cancer in school I promised myself that I would memorize every fact and absorb every detail in textbooks and online medical journals.

Also, as I began to consider my future, I realized that what I learned in school would allow me to silence that which had silenced my grandmother.

However, I was focused not with learning itself, but with good grades and high test scores. I started to believe that academic perfection would be the only way to redeem myself in her eyes–to make up for what I had not done as a granddaughter.  

Volunteering at a cancer treatment center has helped me discover my path. When I see patients trapped in not only the hospital but also a moment in time by their diseases, I talk to them.

For six hours a day, three times a week, Ivana is surrounded by IV stands, empty walls, and busy nurses that quietly yet constantly remind her of her breast cancer.

Her face is pale and tired, yet kind–not unlike my grandmother’s. I need only to smile and say hello to see her brighten up as life returns to her face.

Upon our first meeting, she opened up about her two sons, her hometown, and her knitting group–no mention of her disease. Without even standing up, the three of us—Ivana, me, and my grandmother–had taken a walk together.

Cancer, as powerful and invincible as it may seem, is a mere fraction of a person’s life. It’s easy to forget when one’s mind and body are so weak and vulnerable.

I want to be there as an oncologist to remind them to take a walk once in a while, to remember that there’s so much more to life than a disease.

While I physically treat their cancer, I want to lend patients emotional support and mental strength to escape the interruption and continue living. Through my work, I can accept the shovel without burying my grandmother’s memory.

The “Porcelain God” College Essay Example

The essay is written for the “topic of your choice” prompt for the 2012 Common Application college application essays.

Personal Essay Examples for College Application

Bowing down to the porcelain god, I emptied the contents of my stomach. Foaming at the mouth, I was ready to pass out. My body couldn’t stop shaking as I gasped for air, and the room started spinning.

Ten minutes prior, I had been eating dinner with my family at a Chinese restaurant, drinking chicken-feet soup.

My mom had specifically asked the waitress if there were peanuts in it, because when I was two we found out that I am deathly allergic to them.

When the waitress replied no, I went for it. Suddenly I started scratching my neck, feeling the hives that had started to form. I rushed to the restroom to throw up because my throat was itchy and I felt a weight on my chest.

So, I was experiencing anaphylactic shock, which prevented me from taking anything but shallow breaths. I was fighting the one thing that is meant to protect me and keep me alive – my own body.

At five years old, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. All I knew was that I felt sick, and I was waiting for my mom to give me something to make it better.

I thought my parents were superheroes; surely they would be able to make well again. But I became scared when I heard the fear in their voices as they rushed me to the ER.

After that incident, I began to fear. I became scared of death, eating, and even my own body.

As I grew older, I became paranoid about checking food labels and I avoided eating if I didn’t know what was in the food.

I knew what could happen if I ate one wrong thing, and I wasn’t willing to risk it for a snack. Ultimately, that fear turned into resentment; I resented my body for making me an outsider.

In the years that followed; this experience and my regular visits to my allergy specialist inspired me to become an allergy specialist.

Even though; I was probably only ten at the time, I wanted to find a way to help kids like me. I wanted to find a solution so that nobody would have to feel the way I did; nobody deserved to feel that pain, fear, and resentment.

As I learned more about the medical world, I became more fascinated with the body’s immune responses, specifically; how a body reacts to allergens.

This past summer, I took a month-long course on human immunology at Stanford University. I learned about the different mechanisms and cells that our bodies use in order to fight off pathogens.

My desire to major in biology in college has been stimulated by my fascination with the human body; its processes, and the desire to find a way to help people with allergies.

I hope that one day I can find a way to stop allergic reactions or at least lessen the symptoms. So that, children and adults don’t have to feel the same fear and bitterness that I felt.

Also, do well to share this link with all your friends and loved ones. That is on all your social media platforms.

CSN Team.

Comments are closed.

Hey Hi

Don't miss this opportunity

Enter Your Details