r/CollegeEssays

I'm currently tackling my college admission essays and finding myself hitting a wall. While I've produced some initial drafts, after repeatedly reviewing them, they either come across as too simplistic or as if I'm forcing a particular tone.

My goal isn't to have someone else write the entirety of my essay or provide me with pre-written material. What I primarily require assistance with is refining the overall structure, enhancing clarity, and discerning if my writing conveys genuine personal insights rather than sounding like a generic admissions essay.

When I search for "help me write my paper," I'm met with numerous service providers, but it's challenging to distinguish between those that offer genuine assistance and those that simply rephrase content in a superficial manner. My preference is to connect with someone who can offer guidance through constructive feedback and editing, rather than someone who will fundamentally alter the voice and style of my writing.

Has anyone here utilized a writing or essay feedback service that proved genuinely beneficial for college application essays? I would be grateful for any recommendations, and conversely, any advisories regarding services to steer clear of would also be valuable.

So it's about that time where I need to start writing my college essay, and I have a few topics in mind, and I was wondering if anyone could be brutally honest if they're bad and also share some advice about how to go about writing on these topics

1. My struggle with ADHD - I only just got put on meds this year, and my grades have really improved compared to my other years. I think this is my strongest topic because I want to find a way to explain my GPA in my essay

2. Talk about my favorite artist and how he helped me through rough times - i discoved malcolm todd last year, and he has become my favorite artist. I listen to him every day when I study or when I just need to relax. His music really helps me relax and focus and just be present, and I think this is maybe a creative topic, but idk

3. Hyperhydrosis - I have hyperhydrosis, where basically my palms sweat uncontrollably, and because of this, I have been discouraged from doing work because every time I touch a pencil or paper, I just sweat all over it, and it gets damp. additonally i developed social anxiety as I'm often nervous when shaking people's hands or just hugging my friends.

Additionally, if anyone has any other good prompts, I would love to hear them as I'm really struggling on a starting point, and any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone hope you are well :)
I have been given this essay - the question is **what are the purposes of education.**
We have been given Harry Brighouse as framework but we have been told we can use other things.
Me being me I am now exploring the idea of using someone else.
But who…?
I want to definitely use personal flourishing, but I don’t know what others I could use with that, not Harry brighouse.
My problem is I am only first year, I’ve had health issues restricting me and I really wanna do my best!!!!
I can’t find a purpose that connects and has all the criteria needed 😩
I have copied and pasted some key information from it I think it’s the fact it’s using big words I’m not used to 🥲and the very end bit of ensuring it aligns ☹️

Key Guidance:
• Choose two to four purposes of education to focus your discussion (e.g., educating for autonomy, economic participation, citizenship, personal flourishing).
• Contrast your chosen purposes to highlight their differing priorities and implications.
• Structure:
• Introduction:
• Define "purpose of education" and outline the purposes you will examine.
• Main Body:
• Explore each purpose in depth, drawing on academic theories and historical or contemporary examples.
• Discuss the strengths and limitations of each purpose, drawing on relevant examples and perspectives.
• Conclusion:
• Summarise your findings and evaluate the competing claims of the different purposes.

The Brief's Wording:
\^
Students have flexibility in selecting purposes of education.
\* Choices must be supported by historical, sociological, and philosophical perspectives.
\* Brighouse's Aims as a Starting Point:
Brighouse's framework Work, Citizenship, Autonomy, and Flourishing) provides a strong foundation.
\* However, this is not restrictive-students may explore other educational purposes.
• Alternative choices must be. theoretically justified and critically analysed.
Tip: If selecting an alternative purpose, ensure
it aligns with the assignment's analytical approach and is supported by academic literature.

TIA🤍

In an orchestra, there’s either first violin or second, or at least that’s what I thought until I became a third violinist.  I remember being a freshman in high school, sitting in the back of the second violin section with my long acrylic nails wrapped around my violin, the tips hitting every string as I played. My teacher used to ask me all the time, “Tyanna, when are those nails coming off?”  I always told her “Next time”, knowing I had another nail appointment scheduled to get them redone. I always knew as a violinist they had to come off, but was my instrument really worth it? Is something I always asked myself, and honestly, I didn’t think so. Being the last chair of the second violin section and now of the third, I told myself that it didn't make sense to commit to something that wasn’t committed to me. I barely knew how to sight read; I didn’t understand how to play my scales. And in a room filled with people who sounded so sure of their playing, I kept wondering what I was doing here.

hello r/collegeessays. i am about halfway through my third draft of my personal statement and i come bearing an introduction paragraph filled with namedrops to the brim.
are the big leagues gonna laugh and call me nerdy?? does this come off as unacademic?? are my questions. (the answer is probably no, but in the 6.7% chance that i need to renovate this baby, it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway.)

the paragraph in question:

“I try to live life somewhat like how a sports anime character would–struggling at times, but pushing through with the power of friendship and willpower (with a couple inspirational quotes and dramatic eureka moments on the side). 
Miraculously, it has worked–from sophomore year friend group drama to times when the marching band morale tanks, having the mindset of Hinata Shoyo from Haikyuu!!! is, sometimes, the only thing that gets you through hard times. However, sometimes it’s not Hinata Shoyo’s break-through-the-wall attitude that gets you through burnout, exhaustion, and mood drops. Sometimes, it’s one of the aforementioned eureka moments that is more reminiscent of the scene where Kageyama Tobio realizes that yes, there are not one, not two, but six people on your side of the court that twists up your entire view and makes you erase all the work you just did to restart the math problem with an enlightened view.”

see the other thing is that this is INCREDIBLY specific and the reader of my essay would probably have to have actually watched the actual scene that i referenced in order tog et my full point. and the essay isnt even about teamwork but if you KNEW kageyamas character arc you would realize that yes this is a eureka moment for him and thats the same style of moment that i was going for and honestly if you have the basic ability to read a sentence it should be understood that im just adding extra detail for clarity but im js worried theyre gonna think that its actually about teamwork and by the end of it be like “wtf was that for”

Hi all! I wrote an essay a few months ago on a crush I had that lasted for years and ruined my mental health, but is that something I should submit, or would it be better to write a new essay for my college submissions?

Edit: forgot to include that the person I am writing about is the one who helped me discover what I want to major in.

I’m working on my Common App essay this summer and trying to finalize my hook and topic before I start writing next week. I’d really appreciate feedback on clarity, flow, and whether the hook is engaging or if I should change direction. I’m still in the early stages, so any honest feedback helps a lot.

Draft Hook:

Beep. Beep. The sound of my cochlear implant batteries right before they gave out in the middle of a loud classroom. Instantly, the classroom went silent but only from my point of view. For a second, I just sat there, no sense of panic but instead a strange calm. I began to read everyone’s faces, examining each body movement and figuring out what they were saying. As I got older, I learned to use that same habit to read the room and understand happening around me.

im scared to start writing if these arent good so i want to check if these would be good to write about. im actually just scared to start period.. dont even know which prompts im using these are just topics ive floated. constructive critisis please

#1: summer camp - i went to this YMCA camp four times in my childhood and am going back for an internship position this summer. i had to interview for it but i am also paying, its not like a crazy feat. im going to do a lot of service which i thought i could tie in to being Vice President of Key Club and other leadership and community service experiences. i would also write about how camp has seen me in different eras of my life or something. camp does really mean a lot to me and it has since the start. i wouldnt be able to weite this until august though but i have time then kind of.

#2: dyeing my hair - i dyed my hair pink a hear ago. the process that led me to it shows that i am adventurous, curious, brave, etc etc. i hated it for a few days and grew to love it. also can say that it did change me a lot in how much i cars about what people think of me. this one feels weaker but im sure theres something. academically i could connect it to persistence or something.

Is a good topic to talk about adhd and how it contributed to my life?

Hey guys, rising senior and I genuinely have no idea where to start with my college essay. I know I have the whole summer, but for my AP English Language class I have to create a college essay for my final and brainstorm beforehand and write it fully during that finals period, which is Wednesday. I feel like I’m not a very interesting person besides some unique hobbies but I don’t really have major scars/events that happened during my lifetime. Does anyone have any advice or documents that I can look at in order to get my brain churning? Sorry if this was a dumb question, I’m sure you guys get this a lot here.

Hi Reddit. I'm both a college essay coach and a technical product manager who has worked with AI models in production systems at various tech companies and startups. I wanted to share more on how AI ruins your essay for this community in case it's helpful.

tl;dr AI is built to strip your voice out of the essay and make it statistically average while fooling you into thinking it's something interesting or unique. That said, AI can be useful for journaling prompts (i.e. "Give me journaling prompts about the time I was dropped from choir") to help you reflect more deeply on the experiences you choose to write about.

What makes a winning essay?

In order to understand whether AI will help or hurt your essay, we first need to define what specifically makes a winning essay. That way, we know what we’re optimizing for and can assess whether AI helps or hurts. Luckily, admissions officers have already answered this question for us:

“I don’t want different. I don’t want unique. I just want to know what makes you the person you are. I want to know what matters to you. I want to know what you care about.” - Shawn Felton, Director of Admissions, Cornell University

“By the time the application comes to us, many have gone through so many hands that the essays are sanitized. I wish I saw more of a thoughtful voice of a 17-year old.” -Chistoph Guttentag, the Dean of Admissions for Duke University.

"Some of the worst college essays I've read were actually written quite well in terms of grammar, sentence structure, and organization, but the student's unique voice had been lost." — Azure Brown, former Senior Admissions Evaluator, University of California

If you pay close attention to the words that these admissions officers use to describe winning essays, you’ll notice a pattern: “who you are”, “unique voice”, “meaningful to you”. You’ll also notice other words that are either conspicuously absent or explicitly less emphasized: “well written”. 

The one important characteristic that winning essays have in common is realness. They reflect who the applicant genuinely is, and help the admissions staff understand how that person will fit into the campus community. Good writing is nice, but it is not the ultimate goal. Admissions officers know this, and are very good at discerning when a well written essay lacks realness.

So, will AI help you write a “real” essay?

How does AI work?

When an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude writes something, it uses a set of inputs and rules to choose its words.

First, every word is assigned a score based on all of the words that preceded it (your prompt, what it’s already written, any context you’ve given it, etc). These scores come from training. During training, the model read billions of text samples and learned statistical associations. For example, after the phrase "my sick Grandpa had spent the week ____," the words "resting at home" are far more likely to follow than "training for a UFC fight”. Therefore, those words get a higher score.

Then, through a process called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), models are refined by having human raters score their outputs on qualities like "helpfulness" and "quality." Over millions of these rating cycles, the model learns to produce text that the widest possible audience would rate as "good writing” (engaging, interesting, literary, etc). At this step, ChatGPT might decide that “bedridden” is a more specific, vivid word to finish the sentence about Grandpa than “resting at home”.

Finally, the output is shaped by a setting called "temperature," which controls how much randomness the model introduces when selecting words. At low temperature, the model almost always picks the most statistically probable next word, producing text that is coherent, predictable, and bland. At high temperature, it's more willing to reach further down its probability rankings and pick a less likely word, producing text that sounds more creative and surprising (“My grandfather's body had become a kind of anchor, pinning him to the mattress while his mind still wandered the garden outside his window"). 

But the critical nuance is that high temperature doesn't give the model new information, new experiences, or new ideas. It's still choosing from the same set of statistical associations it learned during training. It's the equivalent of shuffling a deck of cards. You'll get a different hand every time, but you're still drawing from the same 52 cards. None of them are really yours.

LLMs have been trained, at a fundamental level, to write the kinds of things that other people tend to write and approve of. If you ask it to generate writing about an experience at summer camp, it'll write about the statistically average experience at summer camp, with some temperature “flair” to fool you into thinking it’s unique and interesting, which is exactly the essay that hundreds of other applicants also might be submitting, and exactly the essay admissions officers have learned to recognize.

The solution

AI is an excellent tool for writing and sharpening thinking in domains where convention, clarity, mass appeal, synthesis, or factual depth are the goals. Examples include professional emails, legal copy, marketing copy, technical documentation, research reports, strategy briefs, etc. because there are established patterns for success in each of those domains that can be captured by the training data and optimized for by the models.

AI can also be a helpful tool for writing the admissions essay if it’s used in a way that supports rather than replaces the process of looking inward and expressing what feels true and meaningful. For example...

Continue reading the rest of the blog post here: http://essaylaunch.com/blog/ai-essay-guide

Such a lame thing to ask,
but this is my first time Doing such thing and all I am already so much nervous.
I just need help with my grammar, spelling checking and sentence formation.
I feel my English is not that strong .

I feel like that It will be much more impactful, if there is good wording, so I need help with that also.

HELP! I just submitted my 5 page research essay for English 1302 regarding August Wilson's play Fences and my teacher emailed back that it was flagged as 50% AI. I did write it myself, but did let her know that I used copilot to help with synonyms for single words and 2 or 3 word phrases to help make sure things made more since and I was not using repetitive words, but not whole sentences. This was her response:

"I would strongly recommend (as I have all semester) that you consider going back to the original draft (before using CoPilot) and work with that as your essay. You should stay away from any tool that generates ideas that you use verbatim or directly in your work. If you use a tool for help with editing, be careful that it does not revise, rewrite, rephrase your sentences (words, structure). Your essay should be in your own words and should present your own ideas."

Problem is I didn't save drafts. I just worked on the paper and then saved the final document. So I have no idea what was flagged as she wouldn't share it with me, no idea what to change because it was all my own ideas, and I'm now completely lost and will get a 0 on the assignment dropping my grade from an A to a D if I can't turn a new paper in by the 15th!

Hi All,

I am currently applying to a masters in UCLA engineering.

Got two 500 word essays I'm hoping to get feedback on. One Statement of Purpose and one Personal Statement. Please let me know if you can help. Thanks.

Hi! I'm currently brainstorming college essays and I wanted to ask for other people's opinion. As a kid, I was extremely shy, but during elementary school, I ended up breaking my arm 3 times. I remember part of me loving the sense of identity it gave me, i loved seeing that I was not invisible (people writing on the casts, asking me how I broke it ext.), and each time I broke my arm it almost became a gateway into me talking and being social at school

I was thinking about using this idea to talk about how over time, I developed confidence in myself and no longer relied external validation to feel valuable or connected to others. These are just my initial thoughts, so I’m not sure if this is the best direction to take it, or if I should start from a completely different or new approach

I am attempting the 2026 John Locke Global Essay prize. I just finished my essay, it is kind of long, has repeating words and has fancy language. My language and usage of words is decently good. I read lots of books. So, i have picked words and word usage across the reading of many books. Many words in my essay like "Transactional bluntness" repeat like 5-6 times in my essay, because i dont wanna use a new term each time i try to imply it (also, there arent many ways i can frame that intent). Will my essay be flagged as AI? Please help.

Currently a Junior in hs, gna give a rough draft of my essay pls give me tips and how to improve or if it’s totally trash pls tell me so i can start over. (ending isn’t done)

Growing up I was always envious of the picture perfect families, the kind that sent out
holiday cards in matching pajamas every year, the families that didn’t yell at each other and
always agreed. If my family were a piece of paper we wouldn’t be smooth and crisp. We would
have creases and folded over edges. Although imperfect we were still functioning.
Growing up in my home there was always a daily argument, always something new. My
parents were constantly fighting. My first memory of this was when I was 4 sitting on the couch
with my sister watching TV , and my parents screaming and my dad grabbing a bag and
threatening to walk out. I can still remember the exact bag to this day. At this age I never really
understood these fights. I just pitied myself and tried to drown it out by either watching TV or
locking myself in my room and reading a book. This brought on my love for reading. I immersed
myself in many novels, but it didn't erase the feeling of a lingering sadness that made me think
that our piece of paper would just tear right in half. At this age the fighting rocked my world, I
couldn't comprehend it. All I wanted was for my mommy and daddy to stop fighting and love
each other. But the more of this I experienced I learned how to read a room. I knew when to
speak and when to stay silent, I believed by doing this it was protecting myself.
As I grew older the creases began to make sense. I understood why my parents argued,
they both worked a lot, my dad works 2 jobs and my mom 1 both with very different hours. They
had to work out who would take my sister and I off the bus in the afternoon, who would make us
dinner, and who would take us to our activities. Growing up meant understanding. I realized that
these arguments weren’t out of hatred for each other, but rather caring and doing their best for
my sister and I. There is one particular memory that really changed my perspective. We were in
Puerto Rico, and had missed our flight. We were put on standby and only one seat had opened
up. My parents had to make the tough decision as to who would go back to work, and who wouldstay back with my sister and I. I realized their true motives, not just what the arguments appeared
to be. I realized that the creases we had on our paper didn’t mean tears.
Instead of focusing on the storms, I found rainbows after them. School, work, and the
relationships I built through them. I met the most caring friends that I wouldn't trade for the
world. The kind who listen to my problems no matter how big or small. I pushed myself in
school not for that feeling of validation, but for the focus. Something as small as doing
homework, or a facetime call with friends grounded me, even if home felt unstable that didn’t
mean I had to be.
The creases in my family also taught me empathy. I don't see things as black and white as
I did in the past, I see the many shades of grey in between. I understand that everyone and
everything has a complicated backstory. I learned that because of my imperfected, folded,
creased family.
I no longer hope for that smooth piece of paper, but rather I am grateful for what I’ve
learned

I have an college acceptance argumentative essay coming up in about a month. I need to write it on the spot using 2-3 articles.

I've been practicing for 2 months and I am just so frustrated, I feel like I have made zero progress... I get caught up in the planning stage, trying to form solid arguments and plan the logical flow of arguments. It ends up taking me WAY too long and it's soo exhausting.

I tried planning by hand with a spider chart, on a pc... I take on simple questions, without articles. But I try to get to the bottom of an argument so much that I end up tripping over myself, running in circles... If I don't get to the bottom of an argument, they are too similar/ don't make sense.

Any tips? Should I get a professional to help me?

Here is my college application essay for UTD. I dont feel very confident in it. What do you guys suggest I change.

I have never been able to leave a problem alone without trying to solve it. By the age of eighteen I had already refinished hardwood floors, installed kitchen backsplash tiles, fixed minor plumbing problems, and even replaced toilets. I had built chicken cages from scratch with only some wood and meshed wire. Nobody ever taught me how to do these things; all I had was a drive in me that was hungry to learn and to solve whatever stood in my way. Growing up with a father who is a doctor and a mother who is a nutritionist, I was raised by people who dedicated their lives to solving problems and helping others. I always admired that, but I was interested in finding solutions to the physical world rather than the human body. 

Nothing I ever did left as deep a mark on who I wanted to become as building the shed. Over the brutal Texas summer and the frigid winters our outdoor cats were struggling with the intense climate, and it seemed like there would be no relief from their suffering. They needed an insulated, sturdy shelter that provided them refuge from the extremes of the weather. After some thoughts and some pleading from my sister I decided to take on the challenge. 

I did not expect the project to drain me both mentally and physically as much as it did. The roof was the first real test I had to overcome. I had to calculate the slope of the roof for proper structural integrity, then cut every rafter to the exact angle, then fit the gussets so the entire frame would bear its own weight without shifting. There was no instruction manual; all I had to help me was the Pythagorean theorem. I became very frustrated with the roof, but I worked it out piece by piece, adjusting, recalculating and assembling. This was the hardest thing I have ever built in my life, but I never gave up until I completed it. I then tracked down every nook and cranny to make sure that the structure was tightly insulated and provided a barrier between the cats and the outside world. 

When I finished, I stood back and looked at what I had built from nothing but my own hands and determination. At that moment something clicked in my mind, and I discovered what I wanted to do withthe rest of my life. If I could design and build something that solved a problem, then I wanted to spend my life doing that but at a bigger scale. That project taught me something I will carry with me into any problem I face; that every problem has a solution if you analyze it and take it step by step. Engineering is simply that mindset applied to the world's biggest problems. Since completing the shed, I have taught myself how to make websites, further developing my ability to find a problem, and figure out how to overcome it. My dream in engineering goes far beyond building sheds and websites. The world is running on energy that is damaging the atmosphere, and I believe that is one of the biggest unsolved problems of our time. While there are other energy sources such as solar and hydropower,they still cannot match the reliability of fossil fuels. My goal is to be part of the generation that finds a cleaner and more reliable alternative to fossil fuels. While I may be dreaming big and this problem may seem vast, my mindset will always be the same: stand in front of the problem, think it through, get frustrated and never give up until the problem is resolved. 

Dear USC Admissions Committee,

While I understand the selectivity of your admissions process, I believe my application did not fully convey the context of my background nor allow the committee to fully understand the limited access to resources that shaped my academic and personal journey.
  Growing up in Norwalk, I lacked substantial access to academic and professional resources that many students had early on. As a first-generation student, I found myself navigating these experiences without much support. This difference became even more apparent when I later attended school in Fullerton. I remember sitting in my classes hearing classmates casually talk about private tutors, summer programs, and academic pathways they had been preparing for years. In that moment, I realized I was navigating a system that others already understood, while I was still trying to figure out where to begin. I felt like I was already behind, not because I lacked ability, but because I lacked the guidance and exposure that many of my peers had. That realization was overwhelming, but ultimately became my strongest turning point. Without the same access to support, I had to create my own structure. I helped care for my younger sister so my mom could provide additional income to our family, balancing those responsibilities with my own academic growth. I began seeking out opportunities independently and holding myself accountable without external guidance, whether that meant reaching out to teachers for help, putting myself in environments where I initially felt unsure of myself, or staying disciplined without the same level of support.
Over time, what once felt like a disadvantage became the foundation of my resilience and independence. At the same time, this experience opened my eyes to a broader reality. I began to recognize that the gaps I experienced were not specific to just my situation, but instead they reflected larger patterns of inequality across different communities. Instead of feeling discouraged by what I lacked, I developed a mindset centered around persistence, adaptability, and self-direction. I became more comfortable stepping into unfamiliar situations and learned how to grow without relying on external structure, which pushed me to become more independent and intentional in the opportunities I pursued. At USC, I would continue to seek out opportunities, contributing through initiative while also using my experiences to support others who may feel unsure of where they belong, just as I once did. 
What stands out to me about USC is its connection to the surrounding community and the opportunities it provides to engage with people beyond the classroom. Being located in Los Angeles, USC exists within a diverse environment that reflects many of the communities I feel connected to and hope to support in the future. I am drawn to a university that not only encourages academic growth, but also emphasizes involvement and impact within the community, and I can see myself continuing to grow while contributing meaningfully to the communities around me. Coming from an environment where access to resources was not always guaranteed, I value spaces that actively work to include and support a wide range of student experiences. Because of this, I am drawn to institutions that prioritize connection and engagement beyond the classroom. Through exploring student initiatives, such as the work done within the student government to incorporate both student and community voices, I have seen how USC reflects those values, and if admitted, I hope to contribute to that same sense of connection by using my own experiences to support and uplift others.
My experiences have taught me how to create opportunities rather than wait for them, and I would bring this same initiative to every space I am part of at USC. 
Thank you for your time and consideration & Fight On ✌️!