Here are 10 excellent college/university application essays.

The way I prefer for these essays to stand out is through storytelling.

These stories below need a bit more detail to be a full college application essay – a little preface or part at the end with some generalities about why you want to go to such-and-such a school.

But I’ve deliberately taken that part out to make the point that that is very standard. That the focus should be on something that grabs your attention, that is specific, that is memorable and makes you stand out head and shoulders above other candidates.

Lots of essays are too general, vague, sentimental, and full of cliches.

The solution to that is to tell a specific, concrete story.

It’s better to use understated, subtle language, and not try to teach some grand lesson at the end of your story – that comes off sounding pretentious and a bit arrogant. Or even sentimental, like a Disney fairytale movie.

Keep it subtle to impress more: someone who brags a lot, doesn’t actually impress anyone.

But someone who shows they are good at a skill, impresses and persuades.

And that’s your goal with these essays: subtle persuasion.

Dave

1. The Ticking Stopwatch

I learned to measure time by the sound of my grandfather’s stopwatch. Click. I held my breath before my name was called. Click. Fierce seconds before I stepped onto the mat. Click. A flurry of muscle pushing until it meets bone and can’t push any further – then twisting and straining to gain leverage, to press my opponent down onto the floor.

My maternal grandfather was precision. He carried his stopwatch everywhere, clicking it open and shut like a metronome to the rhythm of his life, the way some people unconsciously finger a cigarette or roll and unroll their sleeves. He had been a wrestler in his youth, a man who believed in effort over outcome, process over product. “Seconds matter,” he would say, though he never meant it in the way I thought. To him, the act of counting was a reminder to be present, to make each second count—not to fear them, as I often did.

I signed up the wrestling team in eighth grade, following in his footsteps. My dad wasn’t around much then. I took to it right away. The weight of an opponent on my back, the sweat pooling at my temples, the echo of my own breath as I strained against the mat— overwhelming, disorienting. I was neither the strongest nor the fastest, and I lost just about every match my first year. But each time, my grandfather was in the stands, stopwatch in hand, clicking it at the start and stop of every round. This sort of response felt impersonal and constructive to me.

One day, after a particularly humiliating loss, I slumped onto the bleachers beside him. “You never win,” I muttered, fishing for sympathy. He simply clicked the stopwatch and said, “What did you learn in the last six minutes?”

I shrugged. “That I lose.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You learned where you were weak. Where you hesitated. Where you let fear take over.” He handed me the stopwatch. “Just count the seconds and don’t think about anything else.”

The next morning, I arrived at practice early. I set the stopwatch on the gym floor and timed my drills, not to rush through them but to see how long I could push myself before exhaustion. I started to think less about winning and more about endurance. When I finally won my first match—a narrow victory, a single point gained in the final seconds—I heard the click from the stands before the referee even raised my hand.

Years later, my grandfather’s stopwatch sits on my desk, its surface scratched from use. I quit wrestling my junior year, but I still hear its rhythm in my head. Click. The moment before I walk onto a stage to present. Click. The hesitation before submitting a college application. Click. Doubt. Click.

2. The Five-Dollar Bill

Every Sunday morning, my father gave me a five-dollar bill and told me to “make it count.” I never asked what that meant. He never explained. That was kind of our thing.

The first time, I spent it on a used book from a street vendor. It was missing pages, its spine cracked, but I carried it everywhere, filling in the missing words with my own. Another week, I gave the bill to a street musician, his violin case open at his feet. He nodded, kept playing. Most times, I filled a less altruistic craving – for junk food or a coffee. I’m lazy by nature.

Some weeks, I forgot about the bill until late Sunday night and ended up buying something meaningless—a nice drawing pen, a magazine I didn’t read. Those times, I felt like I had failed, as if there was an unspoken test I hadn’t passed, that someone marked me down and eventually I’d find out my GPA from an omniscient, disappointed observor.

One week, I saved the bill. Then another. And another. When I had fifty dollars, I walked into a bookstore and bought the most expensive journal they had. Heavy, bound in deep brown leather, permanent. I wrote in it every now and then, recording not what I did that day, but what I noticed—overheard conversations, the color of the sky before it rained, the way people’s faces changed when they thought no one was looking.

When my father stopped giving me this weekly allowance in High School, because I had part-time work by then, I felt I had learned an important lesson.

The things I bought and used – the snacks and books and so on – didn’t create any lasting value for me. I used them up and often felt worse for it.

But the journal encouraged me to be active: to write and think and improve a skill.

This mindset has influenced other areas of my life and now I seek out experiences, purchases, and services that foster a more active life.

And I look at essential items like my phone as potential vehicles for action – and do my best to avoid the vulnerable parts of my psychology that look for a passive crevice to get lost in.

3. The Blue Sweater

It had a small hole near the cuff, a loose thread along the collar, and a scent I could never quite place. My mother called it worn out nearly every time she saw me throwing it on on my way out the door.

I found the sweater at a thrift store when I was twelve, buried beneath a stack of scratchy wool pullovers. It wasn’t the color that caught my attention—faded navy, gray in places—but the softness, the way it felt like it had passed through hands already, been the soft cushion against many hard benches. I paid three dollars and wore it home, sleeves bunched at my wrists, the hem falling just past the hips I was becoming more and more self-conscious of.

I wore it through the rest of middle school and into high school, through seasons it should have sat out – sharp autumns and sweaty summers. It followed me to bonfires, bus rides, late-night anxious walks when I needed air. In the winter, I stuffed my hands into the sleeves when my gloves weren’t enough defense. In the spring, I tied it around my waist, waiting for a cold enough breeze as an excuse to slip it back on.

People started to recognize me by it. “Still wearing that thing?” my friend Mark joked one afternoon, tugging at the sleeve. I don’t know how to explain that it has become part of my routine, like carrying my house keys or checking the sky before I step outside. It’s an anchor, a blanket I can wear out of the house. A self-soother.

One afternoon, I left it at school, stretched over the back of a chair. I didn’t notice until I got home, until the air felt different against my skin.

When I opened my closet the next morning, I felt the cool air rushing out, remembered it wasn’t there and rummaged through my clothes looking for it anyway.

I checked the lost-and-found at school, ran my hands over piles of forgotten scarves and mismatched mittens – it wasn’t there.

I went back to classroom and found it lying on the floor.

4. The Unfinished Puzzle

When I was eight, my mother bought a thousand-piece puzzle. It was an image of a lighthouse standing against a storm, waves crashing against the rocks below. We spread the pieces across the dining table and started sorting: edges first, then the sky, then the ocean.

We worked on it for weeks. After dinner, before school, late at night when I was supposed to be asleep. It became part of our rhythm, filling the quiet spaces between us. We never talked much while we worked, just the occasional “I think this one fits” or “Try turning it the other way.”

One day, we lost a piece. A single, small section of sky near the top. We searched the floor, checked under the rug, sifted through the box. Gone. My mother sighed, pressing her fingers to the empty space. “Sometimes things stay unfinished,” she said.

We never took the puzzle apart. It stayed on the table for months, the missing piece like a pause in a sentence that was never completed. It bothered me a lot more than it bothered her. She seemed to move on in a way that seemed heartless and inattentive to me at the time.

Years later, after we moved, I found the puzzle box in storage. I lifted the lid, half-expecting the missing piece to have reappeared. It hadn’t. But I ran my fingers over the image, remembering the hours spent stitching it together.

How important it seemed then to make it whole. How unimportant it seems now.

5. The Overturned Canoe

The first time I tipped a canoe, I hoped I might drown. One second, I was rolling across the lake, my paddle cutting through the placid surface, and the next, I was underwater, arms doing their utmost, lungs stressed out. When I finally kicked my way to the surface, the canoe was upside down, my life jacket scratching against my neck, and my uncle was laughing from his boat a few yards away. “Looks like you found the hard way to cool off,” he called out.

I was ten years old and spent every summer at my uncle’s cabin by the lake. Canoeing was supposed to be easy—a quiet glide over smiling water, the kind of thing I’d seen in postcards. But the lake wasn’t still that day, and I wasn’t graceful and the lake wore no expression at all. My paddle had skimmed the surface at the wrong angle, my weight had shifted too far left, and suddenly, the canoe had turned against me.

I gripped the side of the boat, my fingers slipping on the wet aluminum. My uncle rowed over and showed me how to flip it back over, how to hoist myself up without sending it toppling over again. “Try again,” he said. I didn’t want to. My arms ached, my throat was raw from swallowing lake water, and my heart was still humming. But I climbed back in, because I didn’t want to sit in the boat with him, listening to him tell self-congratulatory stories about how he used to flip his canoe “on purpose” just to practice getting back in.

I paddled slower after that. I let the water tell me how it moved before I moved with it. The next time I wobbled, I adjusted my balance without thinking. I stayed dry.

Years later, my uncle and I took the same canoe out again, but this time, the lake was calm. I was sixteen. He sat in the back, letting me steer. We didn’t talk much (thankfully), just moved through the water, the dip and pull of our paddles the only sound.

Pausing, he asked, “Still afraid of tipping?”

I pretended to think about it. “Not really.”

“Then let’s see how fast you can go.”

I dug my paddle into the lake, the canoe following, cutting open the clear sky. The old fear wasn’t there anymore. Just the rhythm. Just the movement.

Just the water, just shadowing it.

6. The Grocery List

When my mother first handed me a grocery list, I was seven. “Just the essentials,” she said, placing a ten-dollar bill in my palm. I took the list like a treasure map, the handwriting looping and precise, the corners of the paper softened from being folded and unfolded for convenience.

At the small store down the block, I wandered the aisles, squinting at the list. Bread. Milk. Eggs. Cliche. I picked out each item self-consciously, afraid I’d reveal an undiscerning eye. At the checkout, cradling the carton of eggs in both hands, sure one would crack through an act of God, I counted out the money slowly, making sure I had enough before sliding the bills across the counter. When I returned home, my mother nodded: “You did good.”

Over time, the lists got longer, the instructions more complicated. Sometimes, my mother added notes in the margins—“Get the ripe avocados, not the hard ones, no black spots, no soft (squishy) spots” or “The yogurt your dad likes, blue and white brand.” I learned the way a ripe avocado should feel, how to check eggs for cracks before putting them in the cart. I honed my ability to choose a checkout line – to spot the most disaffected teenage cashier, to seek out the ones with lightning quick hands and half-liffed eyes.

By the time I was twelve, I could have stocked the shelves. I knew which products were just out of reach, which ones a growth spurt would propel me towards soon enough, where they kept the extra bags of rice when the main aisle was empty. I no longer needed to ask for help.

Then, one evening, my mother handed me the list with a different look in her eyes. “I need you to get everything,” she said. “Not just the essentials.” She gave me a longer list, a twenty-dollar bill instead of ten. I nodded like it was no big deal, but as I walked to the store, I read over the list twice, then again. There were things on there I’d never had to pick before—seasonings, a specific brand of rice, something called shallots. I pushed the cart slowly, reading labels, second-guessing myself. The store was louder that day, the lights brighter, the aisles longer.

I made it home with everything except the shallots. “They were out,” I said quickly, not wanting her to know I hadn’t known what they looked like.

She nodded, unpacking the bags. “Good.”

That night, I looked up shallots. The next time they were on the list, I got them.

I was happy I’d have nothing to hide this time.

7. The Sound of Typing

The first thing I hear every morning is the sound of my father’s keyboard. Before the sun rises, before anyone else grits themself awake, he’s away at his desk, typing. The rhythm is steady, concrete. A few words, a pause. More words. A longer pause. Some mornings, he sighs, leans back, cracks, and starts again.

I used to think he was writing stories. When I was little, I’d climb onto his lap and ask what the words meant, imagining characters coming to life behind the glowing screen. Fairy tales and children’s stories like Peter Pan and Dr. Seuss. He never corrected me. He’d just smile and read a sentence aloud, letting me believe it was something magical.

It wasn’t until I was older that I realized my father wasn’t writing fiction—he was writing emails. Reports. Plans. Things that made the house run, that kept the lights on, that made sure there was always food on the table. It’s disappointing. I had wanted him to be a storyteller. I noticed the way his fingers moved, the same secret rhythm every morning, like a pianist practicing scales.

When I started writing my own stories, I tried to match that rhythm. Type. Pause. Adjust. Type again. I learned that writing, no matter the kind, requires the same patience, the same doggedness to erase and begin again.

When I read back my work, it’s often disappointing too. I often read and reread it over and over again until it becomes good from familiarity.

The way I feel when I hear a pop song I’ve heard a hundred times before in cafes and restaurants. I might not like the song, but when it comes on, I recognize it and feel hyped up to listen to it for the first minute or so until I remember I don’t even like that song.

8. The Bus Ride

The bus ride home from school was always loud. Kids shouted across the aisles, backpacks unstuck from seats, the windows fogged up to reflect the snow. But my seat was almost always the same—third row from the back, by the window. Assigned to me by me.

Most days, I watched the houses blur past, counting mailboxes, wondering about the people inside. Back then I didn’t know I was near-sighted so sometimes I’d look at the scenery and wonder what it would be like to have bad vision. On rainy days, I traced shapes and words into the condensation on the glass. Once, I saw my reflection in the window and hardly recognized myself—the world outside moving so fast, my face still and bloated.

One afternoon, the bus hit a pothole, and a kid in front of me spilled his bag. I helped him gather his things. But the next day, he sat next to me. We never really talked, just watched the houses go by together.

9. The Old Piano

The piano in the corner of our living room was never quite in tune. Some keys stuck, a few let out muted thuds instead of clear notes, and the sustain pedal wobbled under my foot. But it got us by.

I grew up watching my older sister play it. She sat straight-backed and haughty, fingers moving across the keys, never looking down. I envied how arrogantly the music seemed to flow from her hands, how she could play without stopping to fumble or restart. When I turned eight, my mother signed me up for lessons too.

I didn’t take to it the way my sister had. The scales felt stiff, the sheet music unreadable. My fingers tripped over the keys. I was clumsy in a way I’ve never been playing sports. I wanted to quit. “Just practice,” mom said. “It’ll come.”

I did. Every afternoon, I sat on the wooden bench, forcing every lesson. I played the same songs over and over, each mistake like a pebble in my shoe. My sister, passing by and catching on, would hum the tune I was struggling with, effortlessly on pitch.

One day, disporportionately frustrated, I slammed the lid shut. “I don’t have a musical bone in my body,” I muttered.

My mother looked up from the couch. “Not everything comes easy.”

I didn’t respond to her platitude, just lifted the lid again.

The next time my sister passed, she stopped. Instead of humming, she sat beside me. “Try this,” she said, demonstrating a passage slowly. I mimicked her movements, and for once, the notes fell into place. She nodded condescendingly. “See?”

The piano is still out of tune today. Some keys still stick. But sometimes I’ll play when no one else is home. Now that those skills have had some time to simmer, I’m really not all that bad at it I think.

10. The Garden Hose

The garden hose was always tangled. No matter how carefully we coiled it, by the next afternoon, it had twisted itself into impossible knots. My grandfather never seemed to mind. He just shook his head, untangled it with the patient steady energy of a retired person, and turned the water on.

In the summers, I followed him around the yard, barefoot on the warm concrete, watching as he watered the plants. He never rushed. He moved the hose slowly from one flower bed to the next, letting the soil soak in the water before moving on. “No use drowning them,” he’d say. Make sure you water all around so all the roots get some. Some plants don’t want too much water. Better to water in the early morning or early evening for some reason I forget. Pat the soil to see how wet it is. Check for budding bugs and prune the leaves on the more delicate ones.

When he let me hold the hose, I always got carried away, sending arcs of water high into the air, drenching my feet. He never scolded me for wasting water. He just chuckled, then showed me how to angle the spray lower, closer to the roots.

One evening, after he had finished watering, he handed me the hose. “Your turn,” he said, and went inside.

I stood there, alone in the quiet yard, the hose heavy in my hands. I walked slowly from plant to plant, squinting to see water disappear into the soil. When I turned the spigot off, I coiled the hose carefully, pulling it into a neat loop. It had still tangled itself up by the next afternoon.

I don’t live in that house anymore, but sometimes, when I water the plants on our new balcony, I think about the way he moved the hose, the way he never rushed.

And I take my time too.

Practice

If you want to write your own essays based on these basic prompts, you can start with the summaries below and write them in your own style.

If you need any help or feedback, contact me on Facebook.com/howtodoielts

1. The Ticking Stopwatch
I learned to measure time by the sound of my grandfather’s stopwatch. Click. The moment I held my breath before my name was called. Click. The silent seconds before I stepped onto the mat. Click. The instant I realized winning wasn’t everything, but learning to fight for something was.

2. The Five-Dollar Bill
Every Sunday morning, my father gave me a five-dollar bill and told me to “make it count.” One week, I bought a used book. Another, I gave it to a street musician. Once, I left it on a bench with a note: “This is yours now.” It was a small experiment in agency, in generosity, in meaning.

3. A Crack in the Sidewalk
Walking home, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. It was a reminder of the time I refused to read aloud in class. Of the missed soccer goal. Of the fear of failing a calculus test. But I stepped forward. The crack stayed behind me.

4. The Radio in My Grandmother’s Kitchen
The same station played every morning—classical music, though she never called it that. “It’s just music,” she’d say, stirring soup, humming. I learned that some things don’t need labels to be understood.

5. The Worn Deck of Cards
My uncle taught me poker at age eight. Not just the game, but the way to read people, the patience of waiting for the right hand, the art of folding even when I wanted to play.

6. The Paper Swan on My Desk
I spent a summer perfecting origami. My first swan was lopsided, the second worse. By the end, my fingers folded paper with precision. My desk held a fleet of swans, each one a lesson in quiet perseverance.

7. The Library Basement
I found solace in a basement filled with dusty books, in the company of stories older than my grandparents. There, I learned to listen, to observe, to piece together history from yellowed pages.

8. The Echo in the Empty Pool
I swam before I could walk. Then the pool closed, and my strokes became memories. But echoes in empty places remind me that what we lose often lingers.

9. The Recipe Card Stained with Vanilla
My mother’s handwriting, smudged with flour and vanilla, held secrets. “A pinch of patience. A dash of courage.” I learned that recipes, like stories, are meant to be passed down.

10. The Chessboard in My Backpack
Each piece had a name, a purpose. The knight moved in L-shapes, the bishop cut diagonally. I found comfort in the logic, the certainty, until I learned that the best players embrace the unpredictable.

11. The Bus Ride with Strangers
An old man spoke of his youth. A woman shared a poem. A child laughed at the raindrops. We were strangers, but for thirty minutes, we were a story in motion.

12. The Dictionary with Torn Pages
I kept a list of words I loved: petrichor, serendipity, susurrus. Words that held weight, even when whispered.

13. The Kite That Never Flew
I built it with my brother, but the wind wasn’t strong enough. We ran anyway, dragging it behind us, laughing. Failure never felt so light.

14. The Concert I Couldn’t Afford
I stood outside, listening through the cracks in the walls. Music has no barriers; neither does passion.

15. The Letter I Never Sent
I wrote it on a cold night, filled with words I was too afraid to say. I never sent it, but I never threw it away either. Some truths are meant to be held, not given.

16. The Blinking Cursor
The essay began as a blank screen, a blinking cursor. One word, then another. That’s how all stories begin.

17. The Night Without Electricity
No screens, no distractions—just candlelight and conversation. I learned that silence isn’t empty; it’s full of meaning.

18. The First Snowfall
I was five when I first saw snow. I caught flakes on my tongue, convinced I was tasting the sky.

19. The Sea Glass on the Shore
Waves tumbled sharp glass into smooth gems. I wondered if time could do the same for people.

20. The Morning I Forgot My Name
For ten minutes, I was nobody. Then I remembered. And in that remembering, I realized identity is both fragile and unshakable.

21. The Polaroid of a Stranger
I found it at a flea market. A frozen moment from someone else’s life, a story untold but deeply felt.

22. The Clock That Ticked Too Fast
I raced time for years, until I learned to walk instead, to savor each second rather than chase it.

23. The House That Stood Empty
My childhood home, abandoned. I peered through the windows and saw ghosts of my past selves.

24. The Whisper in the Wind
Somewhere in the mountains, the wind carried a whisper. Maybe it was my own voice, learning to listen.

25. The Unfinished Puzzle
One piece was missing, but the picture still made sense. Imperfection doesn’t always mean incompleteness.