Creative Connections Essays

College Essay Writing Guide

Continue reading to see an sample college essay and an interview with a student!

Welcome back to Creative Connections Essays “Try To” Guide! 

Now that you’ve gotten started, I thought that another resource that could be helpful was looking at one’s student essay—and hearing from the student themself—to learn more about the writing process.

This is just one essay (mutually agreed to be included here unedited) to show that admission doesn’t always require perfect grammar, and that, of course, your ideas and style are always the most important part of the essay—though we all agree we strive to make our writing the most perfect we can make it under the circumstances at the time of submission. There may be one or two typos in this guide, too! We’re all human!

This essay checks a lot of boxes for a great college essay: we see what the writer is passionate about, we know the writer’s academic and extracurricular interests, we see how the writer is connected to their community, we see how the writer has grown over their high school experience. 

But, what’s unique about this essay in particular (other than it’s a beautiful piece of writing) is that it meanders a little, it doesn’t have as strict a structure as other college essays you may have read (there are some great ones here or here or here).

Because of this, I believe, it does the most important thing that an essay can do (as I wrote in Part I)... it shows how the writer thinks.

This essay thinks beautifully. The writer connects themes and phrases from beginning to end, as the essay tries to arrive at an answer. 

I look forward to finding out more from the writer about how they tried to accomplish this. So read on below!*

In seventh-grade Physics class, I remember learning that 99.9% of the atoms that make up our world (and ourselves) consist of empty space. I wondered how humans ever truly touched, how every hug suddenly evaporated into the air. Closeness I measured in inches became miles. 

I first filled these empty spaces with words, and then stories. When I was ten, my dad bought me a pocket-sized etymology book called Word Power Made Easy. English words - before, merely twenty-six letters randomly assembled - now each contained a history and a story. Finishing the book in weeks, I realized that I’d found what I was subconsciously searching for: meaning. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in my imagination. Growing up in China, I felt disconnected, but stories like Narnia helped me find homes in new spaces. Suddenly, tucked behind every corner was a magic wardrobe. And underneath, I found beauty and grief, friendship and loss. 

Looking back, I realize that there was no reason for me to feel disconnected in China - I had a loving family, great friends - no reason other than a glimpse of something more when reading stories. So, I stepped inside my own magical wardrobe, one that brought me to a boarding school in Alabama, where I was left alone with two suitcases half my height, a belief that my disconnection to the world would be remedied, and my search complete. I believed that the English I’d learned would help me connect with other people, but didn’t anticipate cultural barriers that pushed me apart. Little things like tooth brushing techniques and American jokes created distance between myself and my classmates. As the months grew by, I felt increasingly isolated and more aware of the distance between China and the States. Like before, I turned to stories to lessen the gap. Only this time, I began writing my own.

I wrote stories about a single mother in New York trying to reach out to her teenage daughter, about a college grad who secretly wishes to make her father proud, about a girl who writes words on the wall to communicate with her brother. In retrospect, I realize I’ve always been writing about connection. And in Alabama, I’ve found new ways to connect: whether it’s sitting outside talking about an episode of Fleabag; in my dorm as part of ResLife; or through The Mire, our literary magazine. Through experiencing the lives of fictional characters, I’ve become better at identifying the meaning in my own, better at navigating the 99.9% of empty space, and more able to be present in the moments of the 0.01%: when walking at night with my friend, talking about the stories that make us feel noticed; when I geek out about Harry Potter with writers from all around the world through my online writing workshop; when I feel closest with my mom on nights when we make plans for the future. Words have helped me find moments of connection, but people have helped me live them: my dad who gave me a dictionary, my friend who tells me about musicals he loves, even the Physics teacher who taught me the fact that had scared me years ago. 

Now my fourth year in the States, I’m fluent in toothbrushing and American humor, but I’m still writing stories about finding connections. I write to provide moments for myself to make meaning, but also for others to find it. Next year, I can’t wait to meet new people and become a part of new communities. To fill spaces. To find meaning. To listen to their stories and share my own. 

Even now, my mind still occasionally wanders back to that Physics lecture, but when the class ends and the bell rings, I nudge my imagination gently to the side, and look towards the corner, where, standing next to the wardrobe, are my family, teachers, friends.  

*Upon publishing this guide, the writer has accepted admission at Stanford University for the Fall of 2020.

Creative Connections Essays: So, can I ask, how did you start thinking about your essay? Did you brainstorm? Did you write a lot of drafts? Did this always exist in this version? 

Writer: I always knew I was going to write about writing because it’s been such a big part of my life since I was a kid. But I didn’t know what the essay was going to be about “about” until later on. From the start, the essay was always about writing—but it wasn’t always about me. 

One idea was about writing as an interest, another was about who I was as a writer, but it took a few drafts to get to writing as an expression of who I am. The point of a college essay is to show who you are as a person and not necessarily what you do. 

I did a lot of brainstorming and drafting. Though the topics were different, the themes were similar, but I had to find the right way in— one started as a story of me seeing a man fishing and the difference between the Chinese and English language, another about fantasy novels. Through these versions, I was able to discover that each had strains of elements of importance for the final draft.

CCE: I like the idea that you mentioned what an essay is about “about”— can you explain what you mean by that?

W: Sometimes we don’t know what the essay is truly about until we’ve finished it, sometimes even long after we’ve finished it. On the surface, my essay was about my writing and my words, on another level, it’s about my attempt to find meaning in the “empty spaces” that I find in life. I didn’t arrive at this resolution until the final draft. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we often don’t know what we are trying to say until we have said it.

CCE: YES! Or until we have written it (as Joan Didion famously said). Also, I think that’s a great building point to the previous tips— the topic of your essay, what you’re passionate about or interested in, is linked to this larger “aboutness,” the “why” you may be trying to address in your essay. Something that you may not have the answer to before you start. And by drafting different essays, the writer of this essay was able to find patterns and connections, narrowing what they wanted to say until they got to their final draft.

Writer’s Tip: Drafts Are Your Friend!

It’s okay to have a lot of ideas and a lot of drafts. Go through your notes and underline phrases that stand out to see if you have any patterns. Can you connect what you want to say? What are you actually writing “about?” 

The answer to that question is your essay, which will be the next draft you write (like I did).

CCE: I just want to chime in because I think that is so key to this… you may not have the answer when you start drafting, but that essential question: “what are you actually writing about?” or, in the writer’s case, “how do these ideas connect?” is the question you’re trying to answer in your essay.

CCE: (I’m cheating a bit here because I know the writer worked really hard to get to this final version, knowing they explained the process above). One thing that works really well is your hook. How did you arrive at your hook?

W: I knew I wanted to write about connection, and I remembered taking this nuclear physics class where we learned that inside of the nucleus are protons and neutrons, and they repel each other, but nuclear force keeps these particles together. 

We also learned that an atom consists of 99.9% of empty space, which terrified me. This fact became a metaphor for what I ultimately discovered as the “aboutness” of the essay, the connection for the themes I wanted to write about in all those drafts: the space between languages, fantasy worlds, countries, people.

I didn’t start here, but it became how I brought everything I wanted to say together.

Try Tip #1: Hook, Line, and Sinker 🎣

Hooks are the catchy first lines that draw or “hook” us into the essay– they make the reader want to keep reading. There are so many ways to craft a great hook.

Starting with a scene is a common one, but I think the writer has hit on something key: start specific, and start where the topic interests YOU. The opening has to hold YOUR attention as a writer if you want to hold the attention of a reader.

If you’re starting with something like a definition from dictionary… that’s probably not what you’re interested in, and it won’t interest your reader either (unless it’s a brilliant definition and you’re a glorious word nerd, and the hook becomes something that speaks to the “aboutness” of your essay…again, no hard and fast rules here, just tips to try—anything can be an essay!)

W: If it’s a fact that still haunts you years later, maybe it’s a good place to start.

CCE: That’s definitely something specific AND holds interest. 

Or… like, the writer, you may not find the perfect hook on your first draft. So, don’t start with a hook. Sometimes, you’ll find the perfect start only when you’ve written your last sentence. Then you’ll have the thematic connections to grab the reader at the beginning of your essay.

CCE: How did you go about threading your thought process throughout this essay? How did you provide all these connections throughout?

W: At first, I had a lot of trouble connecting all the strands. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t possibly talk about everything I wanted to in 650 words. I was constantly juggling between writing about several things at once, including my relationship with English, my writing, the physics fact, etc. 

Once I realized that the topics weren’t fighting with one another, but were digressions of the different expressions of why I love fiction, I embraced the different threads.

So, the result was starting with the void, the 99.9% of emptiness, and how I filled this with English words, then with stories. I was searching for meaning and connection in each thing, but then I realized that like fiction, the people in my life actually help me fulfill these connections.

CCE: What you’re saying is really powerful in itself...the realization in finding the patterns of how you think ended up providing the thematic connection for the essay. 

On a line level, the writer echoes this realization by repeating vivid, specific details (which makes readers remember the essay!) to provide thematic linkages throughout the essay.

Try Tip #2: Build Your Essay’s Dictionary

Like the writer does in this essay, build a vocabulary of your vivid, specific examples and details, and call back to them. This is your essay’s dictionary—it’s unique to YOU and YOUR essay alone. It creates threads for the reader to track your experience and how you have changed throughout the journey of your essay AND makes transitions, links, and connections between your thoughts and observations.

CCE: Building on how you transitioned in your essay, how did you plan to talk about more than just the subject of writing in this essay? How did you plan to highlight all of your interests and passions within this one topic?

W: I wanted to use fiction to talk about other interests and parts of my life–participating in ResLife as an international student, taking STEM classes, working with other students on a school literary magazine. Using these specific details, I was able to talk about a lot of different things in my essay through my passion for writing.

CCE: I love how you did that! I think what I’d love to know, ultimately, is how do you think this essay shows how you think, and how were you able to connect that to other aspects of your life?

W: I think I’ve always been a rather sensitive person. I’ve found that small things (i.e. the physics class) can easily dismantle me, and bring down my notion of the world. Being a writer, or an artist of any kind, I think, is to take a closer look at the world in different ways than the objective. Therefore, the subjective and the perceived becomes the meaning that fills the “void.” This writer-ly mission colors the way I see everything in life, whether for good or for bad. And because everything is too much to include in my college essay, I stuck to the basics: how this view influenced my extracurriculars, my relationships with friends and family, and what I look for in college.

CCE: I think you’ve captured that you realized something about how you see the world, which is what college essays are supposed to do–whether you’re talking about writing or soccer or baking. This is beautifully said! Thank you for sharing! 

Try Tip #3: Conclude with Confidence

If you start, like the writer, by investigating a part of yourself that you may not have the answer to but feels essential to who you are and how you think, the topic is going to connect to other aspects of your life (i.e. Part I of this guide, jk, lol, but srsly).

If you do this, you can use your topic, like the writer does above, as a lens to show who you are as a person and as a student… and more specifically as a student on campus next year. 

This is a great way to end your essay because you leave this awesome final image in the mind of the admissions officer reading your work. So, what do you want the reader to know about you as a person and a student?

Brainstorm by listing a couple of adjectives and activities. Then think about how your topic can act as a container to express this. What connections do you see? What patterns can you make? Refer back to Part I for help!

CCE: What do you wish you had known before you’d started writing? What do you think about this essay reading it now? What do you want other students to know about the essay writing process? 

W: One thing that I needed to know was that I can’t write about everything. Trying so only ended up in a lot of drafts. In 650 words I had to be direct. Especially as a writer, I wanted to make my prose beautiful and make the essay work as an essay. But it’s not just an essay. It’s a college essay, which is a genre in itself.

Writer’s Tip: Genre Matters

A college essay has to get to the point really fast (which is: accept me!), it has to be easy to follow and read, it has to hold the reader’s interest, and it has to show who you are. Knowing this before you start helps.

CCE: What’s the most helpful thing that you learned from us working together? 

W: It’s really hard to know what isn’t working when you’re in the middle of writing, and when you work with someone else you get perspective, and you can see how things tie together and get suggestions about how to make the essay work. Anabel also helped me highlight the more important ideas in a way that was both clear and concise. She is a truly great writer/person to work with.

Thank you so much to the writer for these insights! I think hearing from someone who has gone through the process is an incredible resource, especially someone who has considered this as thoughtfully as the writer has above. 

If you’d like more guidance, please visit Creative Connections Essays or email me!

I look forward to connecting, 

Anabel

Anabel Graff

Creative Connections Essays