How to Open a College Essay
Oliver Henry ’26
One of the hardest parts of writing is figuring out how to start! This is especially true of college essays. There’s so much pressure in those opening lines: can you grab the admissions officers’ attention in the few seconds they glance at your application, or will you bore them and get your file tossed straight onto the discard pile? The only way to definitely ensure that you might get a chance at being considered for that coveted acceptance letter is to grab your reader from the very beginning. Here we have several examples of college essay openings that really worked. Pay attention to them and you’ll learn how to make your own essay engaging enough to escape the shredder.
Essay 1: Discovering My Path by Anonymous Student (class of 2024)
I could feel the wind stinging my eyes as I trudged through the Himalayan snow. I could also feel the icy frigid moisture seeping into my boots from the exact same Himalayan snow. Knee deep in the Himalayan snow, my body was telling me to turn back, but my mind said the exact opposite: my mission of tutoring Nepalese orphans for the SAT was too important to abandon now. I nodded to the sherpa and we continued our ascent.
Essay 2: Discovering My Course by Anonymous Student (class of 2025)
I could feel the water stinging my eyes as I backstroked through the water. The frigid moisture covered my skin as if I was swimming in a swimming pool – but this was no pool. I was swimming in the Delaware River, the January cold stinging my skin as I navigated around chunks of ice and aggressive catfish, on my way to the nation’s first underwater robotics competition.
Essay 3: Charting My Course by Anonymous Student (class of 2024)
The last words my father said to me, as he was driving me to my robotics competition (East Coast division finals), before the freeway car crash that brutally killed him along with the rest of my family in the backseat and left me as the sole survivor, were muffled by the sound of cars colliding, broken glass, and airbags. But I understood the message, even though I couldn’t make out the words: ‘Make a difference in the world’. That’s why, in 11th grade, I founded a startup that gives blind children a chance to drive on the freeway.
Essay 4: Charting My Path by Anonymous Student (class of 2022)
The time: 11:00 PM. The place: my prestigious internship at NYU Langone’s cancer center. The problem: my violin performance at Carnegie Hall was curtains up in five minutes, and the executive director of UNICEF, Catherine (a family friend, I can use her first name), was in attendance. The one thing Cathy hates: (other than child mortality near the Equator and other humanitarian crises) tardiness. The second problem: my robotics competition (Nationals) was scheduled for the exact same time. The solution: send the robot across town with the violin. The lesson: with ingenuity and creativity, there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome.