essay on personal growth in school

Essays About Personal Growth: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

If you’re writing essays about personal growth, our guide’s article examples and prompts will help stimulate your creative thinking.

Personal growth is looking at ways to improve yourself mentally, socially, spiritually, emotionally or physically. It is a process where we envision a better version of ourselves and strive to realize that ideal self. Personal growth demands the setting of personal goals and ensuring routine progress. The work toward personal development involves a great deal of hard work and discipline as we push our existing skills and strengths to a higher boundary while reducing our underlying weaknesses.

Read our essay examples and prompts below to help you produce a rich and creative essay about personal growth.

5 Essay Examples About Personal Growth

1. is it really too late to learn new skills by margaret talbot, 2. i’ve completed hundreds of 30-day challenges. here’s what i’ve learned by tara nicholle-nelson, 3. i was a self-help guru. here’s why you shouldn’t listen to people like me by michelle goodman, 4. how to craft a personal development plan that inspires meaningful results by scott jeffrey, 5. personal development and the power of feedback by emily marsh, 10 prompts on essays about personal growth, 1. why is personal growth important, 2. take up a personal growth challenge, 3. your personal growth journey, 4. personal growth among successful people, 5. personal growth for leaders , 6. personal growth at work, 7. best personal growth books, 8. strong motivation for achieving personal growth.

“… [H]e decides to throw himself into acquiring five new skills. (That’s his term, though I started to think of these skills as “accomplishments” in the way that marriageable Jane Austen heroines have them, talents that make a long evening pass more agreeably, that can turn a person into more engaging company, for herself as much as for others.)

Learning new things may not be a cup of tea for those in their middle ages. To get out of established expertise, be looked down on as a novice, and push the brain to work double time may even be a dreary and intimidating process. , But Journalist Tom Vanderbilt, award-winning writers, and Nobel Prize recipients prove that satisfaction is worth it for personal growth and fulfillment.

“I think of Challenges as self-directed projects to change my behavior or spark some personal growth or development I’m clear that I’d like to have. Sometimes I want a mindset shift or want to make (or break) a habit, or I just have a sort of big project I want to sprint to finish…”

Why are we so drawn to self-imposed challenges? For one, it’s a competition only between you and yourself, giving room for flexibility in the rules you set. It provides structure to your goals, chunks your bigger long-term self-growth goals into gradual and doable daily tasks, provokes a sense of self-accountability, and helps you focus your energy on what matters most.

“Apparently, I learned, gurus are people too, even gurus lining the self-help shelves of friendly neighborhood bookstores. They aren’t infallible, all-knowing oracles above worrying about their generous muffin top or widening backside. They are businesspeople — businesspeople with books, keynotes, and openings in their consulting practice to peddle”

From abhorring gurus to becoming one and then hating the industry much more — this is the story of a self-help book author who realizes it was herself who needed the most advice for personal growth. But, as she creates a facade of a well-balanced life to establish her credibility, things turn dark, almost costing her life.

“When entertainment, distraction, and workaholism consume our attention, something doesn’t feel right within us… To have a full and meaningful life requires us to open to more dimensions of ourselves. And a Personal Development Plan can help us do just that.”

Everyone strives for personal growth. But once we jump at it, some wrong ingredients may spoil the sense of fulfillment we expect. The right process involves navigating your potential, creating a larger vision, selecting areas to focus on, setting your schedule, and monitoring your progress. You might also be interested in these essays about motivation .

“Without feedback, we would learn very little about ourselves, in or out of work. The feedback process is like holding a mirror up to yourself; that’s why it can be uncomfortable at times. You have to be prepared to listen to and acknowledge whatever reveals itself.”

Hearing feedback is critical to personal growth. Negative feedback is constructive in losing our bad habits. However, purely positive feedback is non-progressive and dangerous if we only seek to affirm how we regard ourselves.

We can never be perfect. But we can always progress. In your essay, explain why nurturing a growth mindset in life is essential. What long-term benefits can you reap daily from wanting to be a better person? How does it affect the mind, body, and overall wellness? Answer these while citing studies that outline the essence of personal growth.

Essays About Personal Growth: Take up a personal growth challenge

Take up any challenge you find exciting and feel up to. Then, write about your experience. If successful, offer tips to your readers on how one can prepare their body, mind, and discipline to stick to the goals. If you did not complete the challenge, don’t worry! Your failure can still be a learning experience that contributes to personal growth and is worth writing about. In addition, you can add what areas of yourself you would like to improve on if you ever take up the challenge again.

Talk about your goals and your daily efforts to reach this goal. It could relate to acing a test, your sports team winning or professional success. Of course, there will be a handful of challenges in any journey toward a goal. What were the obstacles and distractions that tried to keep you off track? Share these with your readers and how you strived or are striving to conquer them.

When you see people already at the height of their careers, you’ll find some continuing to walk out of their comfort zones and reach for the next higher mountain. For this essay, explain the connection between striving for personal growth and success. Then, provide a list of everyday habits among successful people that others could consider adopting.

Leaders must adapt and address problems efficiently and decisively as they move through a fast-changing landscape. Elaborate on how the pursuit of personal growth helps leaders deliver in their enormous role in organizations, companies, and communities.

If you firmly believe that growth at work translates to personal growth, it would be less hard for you to get by at work. But this gets a bit more complex if your feel that your work is no longer satisfying your self-actualization needs and even limiting you. For this prompt, help your readers determine if it’s time to quit their job and continue their journey for personal growth elsewhere. If you want to address companies, offer recommendations enabling their employees to grow and have a vision for themselves. You may also suggest how managers can keep an open line of communication so that personnel can relay their self-development needs.

Essays About Personal Growth: Best personal growth books

We all have that book that has given us a new kind of energy that made us feel and believe we can do anything if we put our heart into it. We keep these books close to our hearts, serving as a reminder of other bigger goals ahead of us when the going gets tough. Create a numbered list of the books that have captivated you and helped you realize your potential. Talk about the best quotes that struck the chord and the thought racing in your mind while reading them.

When you tap onto your inherent and external motivation for a much-needed push, it may be easier to turn bad moments into something that helps advance personal development plans. For your essay, explain how motivation can be a bridge to get you to your growth goals.

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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6 ways to writing an empowering personal growth essay

Did you know that personal growth essays are a common and popular prompt during college applications?

Like other essay prompts such as “ learning from obstacles ”, college admission essays are meant to help the college gain better insight into your character and personality.

A winning essay should be personal — one which showcases your uniqueness.

Some schools ask targeted questions like “What was the most challenging event you have ever faced, and how have you grown from it?”.

Or a more open-ended one like “Describe an event that has had great meaning for you. Explain why and how it has affected you.”

Knowing how to craft a strong essay can increase your admissions chances by ten times, according to a case study done on Harvard’s admission rates.

What’s more, college essays play a significant role in determining whether or not your application receives a second look or gets tossed aside.

Hence, knowing how to craft an impactful essay can make a world of a difference:

Here’s how to write a winning personal growth essay:

Elements of a good personal growth essay.

College admission essays are meant to help the college gain better insight into your character and personality. Source: Ina Fassbender/AFP

There are four main components of an excellent personal growth essay.

Apart from having zero spelling and grammar mistakes, it’s also essential to have an engaging narrative, convincing argumentation, a well-organised structure and relevant information.

Your essay should also emphasise your motivations, strengths, and accomplishments that make you the ideal candidate.

If you are confused as to what you just read, remember the following when writing your essay:

Craft a compelling narrative that highlights your experience and capabilities. A successful introduction usually begins with a story, anecdote, or personal experience.
A well-organised structure consists of at least three to four paragraphs, excluding the introduction and conclusion.
Place relevant information regarding your accomplishments and strengths.
Like any other essay, conclude with an “answer” that is direct to the question posed and avoid adding new information.

6 steps to writing the best personal growth essay

Craft the best personal growth essay with these six steps. Source: Ethan Miller/Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP

The standard format for these types of essays consists of three primary components: an introduction paragraph, a primary body composed of two to four paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph.

1. Create an outline

Creating an outline helps you determine the overall tone of the piece. A framework lets you lay out the main points you want to include.

These points can include a valuable lesson that had a personal impact on how you live your life.

2. Write a strong introduction

Think of your introduction as a “hook” to reel your readers in to make a solid first impression. A weak hook gives the impression that your content is dull.

Immediately give the reader an idea of what they can expect from the rest of the piece by explaining the topic from the get-go. This will encourage them to continue reading.

3. Crafting an impactful story with emotions

In the body paragraph, you flesh out what you’ve mentioned in the introduction.

When developing the body of your essay, keep your thesis statement in mind and build around it.

To keep your readers interested throughout your personal growth essay, you have to gradually take them on a visual journey across your essential points.

4. Be direct

One of the most important points when writing your essay is being concise and direct. It can be tempting to input extra information to hit the word count, but we don’t recommend that.

Remember, the essay’s purpose is to talk about a significant moment in your life. So, it’s essential that you get to the point quickly with ample details.

5. Conclude

Your conclusion should summarise and highlight the key takeaway from your essay.

6. Double-, triple-check for errors

Even the most famous writers proofread their work.

Since this personal growth essay is for your college application, paying attention to detail when reading your piece before submitting it can go a long way.

An excellent way to do this is by reading out loud; this helps highlight any errors you may have missed.

Apart from checking for grammar and spelling, check if your main message is conveyed accurately. Proofreading helps ensure that the narrative flows in the manner that you desire.

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Personal Growth Essay | A Winning Essay Writing Strategy

EssayEdge > Blog > Personal Growth Essay | A Winning Essay Writing Strategy

Personal Growth. Perhaps this topic is the most popular one since it delves into the heart of what the admissions essay is all about: helping the college gain better insight into an applicant’s personality and character. Some schools ask targeted questions — “What was the most challenging event you have ever faced, and how have you grown from it?” — while others leave the topic open: “Describe an event that has had great meaning for you. Explain why and how it has affected you.”

One of the most successful strategies is to use a past event as a lens through which you can assess who you were and the person you became, how you have grown and changed, your transformation. Most children are curious, but were you the one who asked your teacher what caused the change of seasons of the year and then created a solar system model and explained the concept to your classmates? Though you may think that your topic needs to be more grandiose, that is not necessary for an essay to be effective. Instead, success lies in painting an accurate and vivid picture of yourself — one that will show admissions officers that you have much to offer their school.

The most important advice we can give is to be honest, refrain from using clichés, and show maturity. College represents a radical change from high school, so you want your reader to realize that you are more than ready to take the next major step in your life.

Sample Essays And Comments

Well Done Personal Growth Essay
Poorly Done Personal Growth Essay

Next: Accomplishments

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Tips for Writing an Essay on an Event That Led to Personal Growth

Tips and Strategies for an Essay on an Event that Led to Personal Growth

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For the 2019-20 admissions cycle, the fifth essay option on the Common Application focuses on "personal growth":

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

We all have all had experiences that bring about growth and maturity, so essay option five will be a viable choice for all applicants. The big challenges with this essay prompt will be identifying the correct "accomplishment, event, or realization" and then making sure the discussion of your growth has enough depth and self-analysis to show that you are a strong and thoughtful college applicant. The tips below can help guide you as you tackle essay option five:

What Defines a "Period of Personal Growth"?

The heart of this essay prompt is the idea of "personal growth." It's a remarkably broad concept, and as a result this essay prompt gives you the freedom to talk about almost anything meaningful that has ever happened to you. Your job with this essay prompt is to identify a moment that is meaningful and that provides the admissions folks with a window into your interests and personality.

As you work to define an appropriate "period of personal growth," reflect on the last several years of your life. You shouldn't go back more than a few years since the admissions folks are trying to learn about who you are now and how you process and grow from the experiences in your life. A story from your early childhood won't accomplish this goal as well as a more recent event. As you reflect, try to identify moments that made you rethink your assumptions and worldview. Identify an event that has made you a more mature person who is now better prepared for the responsibilities and independence of college. These are the moments that can lead to an effective essay.

What Type of "Accomplishment, Event, or Realization" Is Best?

As you brainstorm ideas for this essay prompt, think broadly as you try to come up with a good choice for the "accomplishment, event, or realization." The best choices, of course, will be significant moments in your life. You want to introduce the admissions folks to something you value highly. Also keep in mind that these three words—accomplishment, event, realization—are interconnected. Both accomplishments and realizations stem from something that happened in your life; in other words, without some kind of event, you're unlikely to accomplish something meaningful or have a realization that leads to personal growth.

We can still break down the three terms as we explore options for the essay, but keep in mind that your options include, but are not limited to:

You reach a goal that you have set for yourself such as earning a certain GPA or performing a difficult piece of music.
You do something independently for the first time such as preparing a meal for the family, flying across the country, or house-sitting for a neighbor.
You overcome or learn to appreciate a disability or handicap.
Working alone or with a team, you win an award or recognition (a gold medal in a music competition, a strong showing in Odyssey of the Mind, a successful fundraising campaign, etc.)
You successfully launch your own business (a lawn-mowing service, babysitting business, web company, etc.)
You successfully navigate or extricate yourself from a dangerous or challenging situation (an abusive family, a problematic peer group, etc.)
You do something challenging like winter camping, white-water kayaking, or running a marathon.
You complete a meaningful service project such as creating a public garden or helping build a house with Habitat for Humanity.
You pass a milestone in your life such as the first day of high school or your first time driving by yourself.
You have an interaction with someone (whether that be a friend, family member or stranger) that opens your awareness in a profound way.
You perform at an event such as a concert or competition in which your hard work and perseverance finally pay off.
You experience a traumatic event such as an accident or sudden loss that makes you reevaluate your behavior or beliefs.
You experience a moment of failure (much like option #2 ) that causes you to grapple with and grow from the experience.
You are moved by a world event that makes you reflect upon what you most value and what your role in the world might be.
You realize that you can accomplish something you hadn't thought possible.
You realize your limitations.
You realize that failure is as valuable as success.
You realize that your understanding of people who are different than you had been limited or faulty.
You experience something that makes you realize that you need to redefine your priorities.
You realize that relying on the help of others isn't a failure.
You come to understand how much a parent or mentor has to teach you.

Personal Growth Can Stem From Failure

Keep in mind that the "accomplishment, event, or realization" doesn't have to be a triumphant moment in your life. An accomplishment can be learning to deal with setbacks or failure, and the event could be a losing game or an embarrassing solo in which you missed that high C. Part of maturing is learning to accept our own shortcomings, and recognizing that failure is both inevitable and an opportunity to learn.

Most Important of All: "Discuss"

When you "discuss" your event or accomplishment, make sure you push yourself to think analytically. Don't spend too much time merely describing and summarizing the event or accomplishment. A strong essay needs to show off your ability to explore the significance of the event you have chosen. You need to look inward and analyze how and why the event caused you to grow and mature. When the prompt mentions "a new understanding," it is telling you that this is an exercise in self-reflection. If the essay doesn't reveal some solid self-analysis, then you haven't fully succeeded in responding to the prompt.

A Final Note for Common Application Option #5

Try to step back from your essay and ask yourself exactly what information it conveys to your reader. What will your reader learn about you? Does the essay succeed in revealing something that you care about deeply? Does it get at a central aspect of your personality? Remember, the application is asking for an essay because the college has holistic admissions —the school is evaluating you as a whole person, not as a bunch of test scores and grades. They essay, then, needs to paint a portrait of an applicant the school will want to invite to join the campus community. In your essay, do you come across as an intelligent, thoughtful person who will contribute to the community in a meaningful and positive way?

No matter which essay prompt you choose, pay attention to style , tone, and mechanics. The essay is first and foremost about you, but it also needs to demonstrate a strong writing ability. These 5 tips for a winning essay can also help guide you.

Finally, realize that many topics fit under multiple options on the Common Application. For example, option #3 asks about questioning or challenging a belief or idea. This can certainly connect with the idea of a "realization" in option #5. Also, option #2 on encountering obstacles could also overlap with some of the possibilities for option #5. Don't worry too much about which option is best if your topic fits in multiple places. Most important is that you write an effective and engaging essay. Be sure to check out this article for tips and samples for each of the Common Application essay options .

The 2021-22 Common Application Essay Prompts
Common Application Essay Option 2 Tips: Learning from Failure
Common Application Essay Option 4—Gratitude
Common Application Essay on a Meaningful Place
Sample Common Application Essay for Option #5
Tips for an Application Essay on a Significant Experience
Common Application Essay Option 3 Tips: Challenging a Belief
2020-21 Common Application Essay Option 4—Solving a Problem
"Gym Class Hero" - a Common Application Essay Sample for Option #3
A Sample Essay for Common Application Option #7: Topic of Your Choice
Tips for the Pre-2013 Personal Essay Options on the Common Application
Sample College Admissions Essay - Student Teacher
Common Application Essay, Option 1: Share Your Story
Topic of Your Choice: Common Application Essay Tips
"Handiwork" - Sample Common Application Essay for Option #1
Common Application Essay Option 6: Losing Track of Time

Essay on Personal Growth

Students are often asked to write an essay on Personal Growth in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Personal Growth

What is personal growth.

Personal growth means improving yourself, learning new things, and becoming a better person. It’s like when you play a video game and your character gets stronger and smarter. In real life, you grow by gaining new skills, being kind, and understanding others better.

Learning from Mistakes

Imagine you’re building a tower with blocks and it falls. You try again, but this time you use what you learned to make it stronger. That’s what happens when we make mistakes. We learn, and next time, we do better.

Setting Goals

Goals are like treasure maps for your life. They guide you to where you want to go. If you want to be good at math, you make a plan, study, and keep trying. Your goal helps you stay focused.

Being Brave

Growing often means trying things that scare you. It’s like the first time you ride a bike without training wheels. You might fall, but you get up and keep going. Being brave helps you grow a lot.

Helping Others

When you help friends, you grow too. You learn to be caring and to work with others. It’s like playing on a seesaw; it’s more fun when you’re both helping each other have a good time.

250 Words Essay on Personal Growth

Personal growth means getting better over time. It is like a plant that starts from a tiny seed and grows into a big tree. For people, it means learning new things, becoming stronger, and being a better person. It is not just about being smart in school, but also being kind, brave, and good at solving problems.

Why Personal Growth Matters

Growing as a person is important because it helps us face new challenges. Like when you learn to ride a bike, at first you fall, but you keep trying. Then one day, you can ride without help. This is personal growth. It helps you do things you couldn’t do before, like making friends or helping others.

How to Grow Personally

To grow, you need to try new things. It can be scary, but it’s like going on an adventure. When you read a new book, join a club, or play a new sport, you learn and become better. Also, when you make mistakes, don’t be sad. Mistakes are like clues that show you how to improve.

Personal Growth is a Journey

Remember, personal growth doesn’t happen in one day. It is a journey that takes time. Just like going on a long trip, you need to keep going even if it gets tough. Every day, try to be a little kinder, work a bit harder, and learn something new. This way, you will keep growing and one day, you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come.

500 Words Essay on Personal Growth

Personal growth is like a journey where you learn more about who you are and what you can do. It’s about becoming a better person, not just in one way, but in many parts of your life, such as your emotions, your mind, your skills, and how you get along with other people.

Learning New Things

One part of personal growth is learning new things. This could mean going to school and doing well in your classes, but it’s not just about books and homework. It’s also about learning from the world around you. You might learn how to play a sport, cook a meal, or even how to be a good friend. When you learn something new, your brain grows stronger, just like your muscles do when you exercise.

Overcoming Challenges

Another important part of growing as a person is facing challenges. Think of a video game where each level gets a bit harder. In life, when you face a problem, it’s like you’re on a tough level in the game. But when you find a way to solve that problem, you move up to the next level in your own life. You become braver and smarter each time you overcome a challenge.

Setting goals is like drawing a map for your journey. You decide where you want to go, and then you figure out how to get there. Your goals could be small, like finishing a book, or big, like becoming a doctor. When you set a goal and reach it, you feel proud and happy, and you’re ready to set a new goal.

Building Good Habits

Good habits are actions you do regularly that are good for you. Brushing your teeth, going to bed on time, and saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are all good habits. When you practice good habits, they help you grow without you even thinking about it. It’s like having a helper inside you that makes sure you’re always moving forward.

Being Kind to Yourself and Others

Personal growth isn’t just about what you can do; it’s also about how you treat yourself and others. Being kind means being friendly, caring, and helpful. When you’re kind to yourself, you feel good inside. When you’re kind to others, you make friends and spread happiness. Being kind helps everyone grow together.

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from them. When something goes wrong, it’s easy to feel sad or mad. But if you look at your mistakes and try to understand what went wrong, you can learn. This helps you do better next time. Learning from mistakes is a big part of growing up.

Personal growth is an adventure that never ends. As long as you keep learning, facing challenges, setting goals, building good habits, being kind, and learning from your mistakes, you’ll continue to grow. And the best part is, you can start right now, no matter how old you are or where you are in life. It’s never too late to grow!

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Personal Goals
Essay on Personal Experience In Art
Essay on Personal Culture

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Dr. Jennifer B. Bernstein

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Here’s one of the most popular Common Application essay topics that’s going to be used again in the 2020-2021 admissions cycle: “Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.”

According to the Common Application, in the 2018-2019 cycle, 23.7% of students opted to write about an experience of personal transformation that changed their perception of themselves and others.

What you’re about to read is a significantly updated version of my original article.

Since publishing this article back in 2017, more and more of my own students have written amazing Common App essays on this topic.

As such, I’ve decided to update this article to share more insights into what does and doesn’t work when crafting narratives about experiences of “personal growth.”

Read the whole article or click on one of the following links to jump ahead to any section that interests you:

What DON’T Admissions Officers Want to See in Your Common App Essay?

What DO Admissions Officers Want to Read About in Your “Sparked a Period of Personal Growth” Essay?

Why Are Colleges Interested in Essays on Personal Growth?

What Are Some Unique Ways of Approaching the “Sparked a Period of Personal Growth” Essay?

Stanford Student’s Common App Essay on an Experience that “Sparked a Period of Personal Growth”

What don’t admissions officers want to see in your common app essay .

Let’s start by stating the obvious.

Your track record—your record of past accomplishments—plays a significant role in the college admissions process.

Many students fixate on this part of how they’re going to be evaluated. Even the most talented students fall prey to this tendency because they want to emphasize all the amazing things they’ve done.

This urge is understandable.

Rest assured that there are plenty of places in your application to showcase your accomplishments.

However, your Common Application essay ISN’T the place to just focus on what you’ve done .

Admissions officers don’t just want to read an essay that’s all about the end result or the “high impact” of your project, accomplishment, or whatever event it is that you’ve chosen to write about.

Every year, I have myth-busting conversations with students who are suffering under the mistaken idea that the Common App essay needs to be first and foremost a demonstration of some very significant high-impact thing they’ve done.

Pay close attention to my phrasing.

I’m NOT saying you shouldn’t include significant accomplishments in your Common App essay on a “period of personal growth.”

I AM saying that your essay shouldn’t just be about the accomplishments.

Click here to a ccess all my tips, techniques, and case studies on writing great Common App essays.

What DO Admissions Officers Want to Read About in Your “Sparked a Period of Personal Growth” Essay?

The reality is that admissions officers are extremely curious about how YOU have been transformed by projects, experiences, and accomplishments .

Want to write a great Common App essay on something that “sparked a period of personal growth”?

Then, you need to share your process of transformation –your before, during , and after .

Just FYI, the best transformation narratives often feature both internal and external transformation.

Many students leap right over the “process” part of the essay. They want to jump from the “before” to the “after” because they feel the process–the “middle” or “during”–isn’t exciting or dramatic.

I know you want to dazzle the people reading your application essays.

However, mere “before and after” narratives aren’t as compelling to admissions officers as those that feature the “during.”

In addition to including the “during” part of your transformation, your “after” shouldn’t just focus on the external result (especially in the “sparked a period of personal growth” essay). Your “after” should include some philosophical contemplation of your transformation.

I strongly recommend that you read two articles:

“Two Elements of the Best Common Application Essays”

“Techniques Used in the Best College Application Essays”

These articles feature strategies to help you master the art of structuring your Common App essay and include analysis of actual student application essays.

Why Are Colleges Interested in Essays on Personal Growth?

The answer is simple and sometimes surprising.

Colleges aren’t just looking at your track record.

They’re also looking forward, out beyond what you’ve already accomplished. Admissions officers need to make what a former Yale president describes as a “hunchy judgement” about your potential.

When Stanford is reviewing your application, they’re looking for signs of your “intellectual vitality”–your “commitment, dedication and genuine interest in expanding your intellectual horizons” and “the initiative with which you seek out opportunities and expand your perspective.”

Harvard is considering some key questions when they’re reviewing your application: “Have you reached your maximum academic and personal potential?” Or “do you have reserve power to do more ?” “How open are you to new ideas and people ?” “Will you be able to stand up to the pressures and freedoms of College life?”

Yale is looking for a “desire and ability to stretch one’s limits.”

GROWTH. EXPANSION. POTENTIAL. OPENNESS.

College is a time of massive intellectual and overall personal growth.

Admissions officers at all colleges are looking for students who are open to this process of growth and have the underlying strategies for handling it .

The best, most memorable college experiences are often ones in which your mind is blow and your perspectives expanded in ways you never could have imagined in high school.

But how can you demonstrate your potential?

How can you demonstrate that you’re ready for the challenge?

Writing your Common App essay about an experience that “sparked a period of personal growth,” especially one that transformed your “understanding of yourself or others,” is an excellent way to show colleges you have the kind of qualities and capabilities described above.

Growth, expansion, openness, and transformation sound lovely. They sound positive. But anyone who has undergone a period of massive growth knows that it’s more complex than it sounds, and there are almost always setbacks and challenges along the way.

The “during” part of your essay is a great place to show that you’ve started cultivating the underlying skills that are essential for navigating your way through the growth process.

What Are Some Unique Ways of Approaching the “Sparked a Period of Personal Growth” Essay?

There are so many juicy possibilities for writing about an experience that “sparked a period of personal growth.”

Here are some things my students have written about. . .

Getting lost in a foreign city

Losing their passport

Changing a deeply held conviction based on the results of a research project or conversation

Getting called out by an employer for insufficient attention to details

Hurting someone’s feelings by acting in an ungrateful manner

Standing up to someone

Doing something way out of their comfort zone (e.g., working on a farm, going on a solo wilderness hike, etc.)

Taking charge of organizing a family holiday gathering due to a parent’s illness

Student Background: One of my students who is studying engineering at Stanford was originally planning to write her Common App essay on the time she felt like a failure because she couldn’t answer a judge’s question. ( Click here to read “How to Successfully Apply to Engineering Programs.” )

Problem: We both agreed that the first draft she wrote felt too stiff and formulaic.

She glossed over the experience with the judge. The experience just seemed like a gimmicky hook that led into a essay that was mainly about the impact her organization had on the young people in her community. That is, she was falling into the trap of trying to write a “LOOK AT WHAT I’VE DONE!!” essay that I mentioned earlier. Plus, the draft featured all the cliches guaranteed to make an admissions officer’s eyes glaze over in “I’ve read this same basic narrative a thousand times” boredom.

There wasn’t sufficient introspection. The juiciest parts of her experience–the ones that would probably matter most to college admissions committees–didn’t even make their way into her essay. The most interesting aspects of her experience had to do with the way she contemplated the implications of her inability to answer the judge’s question about how her project “could change children’s lives” and how this contemplation propelled her into a process of rethinking the nature of her engineering work and led to the development of her organization.

Solution: In our conversations, she shared how, up until that moment with the judge, she’d only really focused on pursuing her own intellectual interests. This experience of feeling dumfounded by the judge’s question was painful, but it set her off on a new journey that involved finding applications for her work that could benefit others. She started thinking about the needs of others, not just her own. As it turns out, this was an experience that “sparked a period of personal growth.”

As she worked through the details of this transformation in her goals and approach, she also began transitioning from always being the young person getting mentored to becoming a mentor for the next generation of budding scientists and engineers. One element of her “personal growth” had to do with this shift from always “taking” to being someone who does more “giving.” A fruit of this experience that “sparked a period of personal growth” was her development of what eventually became a high-impact and award-winning program for children in her city. This program was originally the narrative star of her essay (in terms of how much attention she gave it), but now it had even more impact because the whole personal backstory was there.

Our conversations focused on mapping out vivid anecdotes that helped admissions officers see her process of inner and outer transformation. She developed super specific “before, during, and after” anecdotes that also shed light on her family background and culture. She took readers on a journey that started with the seemingly simple question from a science fair judge that plunged her into a process of “personal growth” which ultimately resulted in a “new understanding” of herself and others.

Dr. Bernstein’s Commentary: This student’s essay was now far more psychologically and intellectually nuanced.

Her essay wasn’t filled with exaggerated external drama and didn’t have the light, whippy tone that many websites featuring sample application essays love to emphasize.

Once she let go of many of the common misunderstandings about what matters in this kind of essay, she wrote an essays that was true to her experience and style.

Her vivid “before, during, and after” anecdotes made it possible for readers to really see and feel her “aha” moment in action. It’s very satisfying when readers can feel the “aha”–when they can see your mind and heart in action.

Admissions officers aren’t just interested in the surface level of what your essay is about.

They’re also interested in your habits of mind–the way you make sense of your experiences, your level of self-awareness, and a whole host of other qualities.

Let’s end by connecting the student’s essay back to what I shared earlier about what Stanford, Harvard, and Yale are looking for in applicants.

Now her essay showed how she keeps “questing” and stretching herself. She’s demonstrating how she has “reserve power to do more” because each significant experience she has sparks more personal growth, contemplation, and action. She’s constantly deepening and expanding her perspectives to benefit not only herself but also others. So even though this essay started with what seemed like a moment of failure (not being able to answer the judge’s question), it was really about her own growth.

WAYS TO WORK WITH DR. BERNSTEIN!

Click here to learn how to schedule a private consultation with Dr. Bernstein.

Click here to learn more about Dr. Bernstein’s ongoing private college preparation and college admissions support .

Click here to learn about the online Get Yourself Into College® program .

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Great College Essay Advice for the Common App – The Personal Growth Prompt

Mark montgomery.

September 28, 2023

All the essay prompts for the Common Application ask you to provide evidence of your personal growth. One particular prompt–the personal growth prompt–makes this request more explicit. Here you are asked to look at your circumstances, point of view, and personal understanding, and then provide evidence of how these things might have changed due to some accomplishment, event, or realization. Then you go on to reflect on these changes.

The Personal Growth Prompt

Here’s how the prompt is worded on the Common App.

Discuss an accomplishment or event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Next we will got through the prompt word by word and phrase by phrase to help you respond to this prompt in the best way possible. The more you think about what the prompt is asking, the easier it will be to come up with an excellent idea for how to address it.

Discuss Your Story for the Personal Growth Prompt

At first glance, this prompt doesn’t seem to have a story at the heart of it. However, the focus is on a transition, which implies a description of “before” and “after” this event, accomplishment, or realization. So you should retell the story briefly to help your reader understand the transition. As with the other prompts, you should then go on to put this event, accomplishment, or realization into a larger context. You need to interpret this story for your reader through analysis and synthesis.

Your story must be brief. But it must also be interesting for the reader. You don’t need to think of a story that is heroic or grandiose. While an “accomplishment” might bring about personal growth, sometimes the most mundane events or off-handed conversations can lead us to reevaluate ourselves or the world around us.

Again, the story is not the heart of your essay–it is the pivot between how you thought or felt before the accomplishment, even, or realization, and how you thought or felt after it. You need to define the transitional moment so that your reader can visualize this change. But the real meat of your essay is the reflection you will make that is based on this brief anecdote from your life.

By reflecting upon what happened after this event, accomplishment, or realization, you can give your reader a sense of your increasing maturity and your priorities, values, and personality.

Personal Growth and Understanding

As we grow older, we find that in some situations we feel—or are treated—as children, while in other situations we feel more like adults. Sometimes this transition is subtle. For example, you may perceive ways in which other adults begin to treat you with greater seriousness in places like restaurants, at the post office, and in other public places. Sometimes, however, this transition can seem more abrupt, as in the day you get your driver’s license or register to vote for the first time. Religion often marks this transition (first communions, bar mitzvahs), as do particular cultures (quinceañeras, debutante balls).

This prompt asks you to more closely examine your own transition from childhood to adulthood. Granted, for all of us, this transition is slow and gradual (and frankly, sometimes even we are not sure we have completely transitioned to adulthood!). But no matter our age, religion, or culture, this transition is marked by some memorable stories–stories that you are being asked to share with your readers.

But here again, remember that the meat of the essay is not the story of the transition. Rather the focus of this prompt is you reflection upon how you changed and grew as a result of this accomplishment, event, or realization.

Accomplishments or Events

The transition to adulthood is marked by both accomplishments and events. An accomplishment is something that you achieved through hard work. An event, on the other hand, is a happening in which you may have been more passive. But nonetheless marks a very important milestone in your life. Some of these accomplishments and events are formal (e.g., learning Hebrew and reciting the Torah before your congregation in a ceremony before your friends and family).

Other accomplishments and events are informal (e.g., you finally look old enough that when you enter a restaurant with your parents, the hostess no longer gives you the kiddie menu). College admissions folks do not care so much about the exact nature of these accomplishments or events. Rather they care about how you tell an interesting story about your transition to adulthood.

Realization

Unlike an accomplishment or event, a realization can have no outward manifestation that others can see or experience. You may, instead, experience some sort of internal “Aha!” moment. Your understanding changes. You see yourself—or others—in a completely new light. Perhaps you shared this realization with others, or perhaps it is one that is intensely private. But the change or transition is real, because it leads to a new and different understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Summary: The Personal Growth Prompt

This Common Application prompt is a great opportunity for you to reflect on your own maturation. High school is a time in life when we make great strides on the road from childhood to adulthood. This road is punctuated with various moments that lead us to reflect on how we are growing and changing. The Personal Growth Prompt invites you to identify one of these important moments and then reflect upon this growth and change.

College admissions officers want to understand the “real you” underneath all the academic and other data on the application. This prompt is a great way to show them who you really are.

************** Need some help with your college application essay? Whether you’re aiming for the Ivy League or just want to look your best when applying to the school of your dreams, our expert advisors can help you brainstorm, structure, and edit a fantastic application essay. Give us a call or complete our contact form for a free, no-obligation consultation..

Mark Montgomery Educational consultant and admissions expert

VIEW THE COMPLETE SERIES OF POSTS ANALYZING THE COMMON APPLICATION PROMPTS Writing About A Belief or Idea Writing About A Place or Environment Writing About the Transition to Adulthood Writing About Your Background Story

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10 Personal Statement Essay Examples That Worked

What’s covered:, what is a personal statement.

Essay 1: Summer Program
Essay 2: Being Bangladeshi-American
Essay 3: Why Medicine
Essay 4: Love of Writing
Essay 5: Starting a Fire
Essay 6: Dedicating a Track
Essay 7: Body Image and Eating Disorders
Essay 8: Becoming a Coach
Essay 9: Eritrea
Essay 10: Journaling
Is Your Personal Statement Strong Enough?

Your personal statement is any essay that you must write for your main application, such as the Common App Essay , University of California Essays , or Coalition Application Essay . This type of essay focuses on your unique experiences, ideas, or beliefs that may not be discussed throughout the rest of your application. This essay should be an opportunity for the admissions officers to get to know you better and give them a glimpse into who you really are.

In this post, we will share 10 different personal statements that were all written by real students. We will also provide commentary on what each essay did well and where there is room for improvement, so you can make your personal statement as strong as possible!

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.

Personal Statement Examples

Essay example #1: exchange program.

The twisting roads, ornate mosaics, and fragrant scent of freshly ground spices had been so foreign at first. Now in my fifth week of the SNYI-L summer exchange program in Morocco, I felt more comfortable in the city. With a bag full of pastries from the market, I navigated to a bus stop, paid the fare, and began the trip back to my host family’s house. It was hard to believe that only a few years earlier my mom was worried about letting me travel around my home city on my own, let alone a place that I had only lived in for a few weeks. While I had been on a journey towards self-sufficiency and independence for a few years now, it was Morocco that pushed me to become the confident, self-reflective person that I am today.

As a child, my parents pressured me to achieve perfect grades, master my swim strokes, and discover interesting hobbies like playing the oboe and learning to pick locks. I felt compelled to live my life according to their wishes. Of course, this pressure was not a wholly negative factor in my life –– you might even call it support. However, the constant presence of my parents’ hopes for me overcame my own sense of desire and led me to become quite dependent on them. I pushed myself to get straight A’s, complied with years of oboe lessons, and dutifully attended hours of swim practice after school. Despite all these achievements, I felt like I had no sense of self beyond my drive for success. I had always been expected to succeed on the path they had defined. However, this path was interrupted seven years after my parents’ divorce when my dad moved across the country to Oregon.

I missed my dad’s close presence, but I loved my new sense of freedom. My parents’ separation allowed me the space to explore my own strengths and interests as each of them became individually busier. As early as middle school, I was riding the light rail train by myself, reading maps to get myself home, and applying to special academic programs without urging from my parents. Even as I took more initiatives on my own, my parents both continued to see me as somewhat immature. All of that changed three years ago, when I applied and was accepted to the SNYI-L summer exchange program in Morocco. I would be studying Arabic and learning my way around the city of Marrakesh. Although I think my parents were a little surprised when I told them my news, the addition of a fully-funded scholarship convinced them to let me go.

I lived with a host family in Marrakesh and learned that they, too, had high expectations for me. I didn’t know a word of Arabic, and although my host parents and one brother spoke good English, they knew I was there to learn. If I messed up, they patiently corrected me but refused to let me fall into the easy pattern of speaking English just as I did at home. Just as I had when I was younger, I felt pressured and stressed about meeting their expectations. However, one day, as I strolled through the bustling market square after successfully bargaining with one of the street vendors, I realized my mistake. My host family wasn’t being unfair by making me fumble through Arabic. I had applied for this trip, and I had committed to the intensive language study. My host family’s rules about speaking Arabic at home had not been to fulfill their expectations for me, but to help me fulfill my expectations for myself. Similarly, the pressure my parents had put on me as a child had come out of love and their hopes for me, not out of a desire to crush my individuality.

As my bus drove through the still-bustling market square and past the medieval Ben-Youssef madrasa, I realized that becoming independent was a process, not an event. I thought that my parents’ separation when I was ten had been the one experience that would transform me into a self-motivated and autonomous person. It did, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t still have room to grow. Now, although I am even more self-sufficient than I was three years ago, I try to approach every experience with the expectation that it will change me. It’s still difficult, but I understand that just because growth can be uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s not important.

What the Essay Did Well

This is a nice essay because it delves into particular character trait of the student and how it has been shaped and matured over time. Although it doesn’t focus the essay around a specific anecdote, the essay is still successful because it is centered around this student’s independence. This is a nice approach for a personal statement: highlight a particular trait of yours and explore how it has grown with you.

The ideas in this essay are universal to growing up—living up to parents’ expectations, yearning for freedom, and coming to terms with reality—but it feels unique to the student because of the inclusion of details specific to them. Including their oboe lessons, the experience of riding the light rail by themselves, and the negotiations with a street vendor helps show the reader what these common tropes of growing up looked like for them personally.

Another strength of the essay is the level of self-reflection included throughout the piece. Since there is no central anecdote tying everything together, an essay about a character trait is only successful when you deeply reflect on how you felt, where you made mistakes, and how that trait impacts your life. The author includes reflection in sentences like “ I felt like I had no sense of self beyond my drive for success, ” and “ I understand that just because growth can be uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s not important. ” These sentences help us see how the student was impacted and what their point of view is.

What Could Be Improved

The largest change this essay would benefit from is to show not tell. The platitude you have heard a million times no doubt, but for good reason. This essay heavily relies on telling the reader what occurred, making us less engaged as the entire reading experience feels more passive. If the student had shown us what happens though, it keeps the reader tied to the action and makes them feel like they are there with the student, making it much more enjoyable to read.

For example, they tell us about the pressure to succeed their parents placed on them: “ I pushed myself to get straight A’s, complied with years of oboe lessons, and dutifully attended hours of swim practice after school.” They could have shown us what that pressure looked like with a sentence like this: “ My stomach turned somersaults as my rattling knee thumped against the desk before every test, scared to get anything less than a 95. For five years the painful squawk of the oboe only reminded me of my parents’ claps and whistles at my concerts. I mastered the butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle, fighting against the anchor of their expectations threatening to pull me down.”

If the student had gone through their essay and applied this exercise of bringing more detail and colorful language to sentences that tell the reader what happened, the essay would be really great.

Table of Contents

Essay Example #2: Being Bangladeshi-American

Life before was good: verdant forests, sumptuous curries, and a devoted family.

Then, my family abandoned our comfortable life in Bangladesh for a chance at the American dream in Los Angeles. Within our first year, my father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He lost his battle three weeks before my sixth birthday. Facing a new country without the steady presence of my father, we were vulnerable — prisoners of hardship in the land of the free. We resettled in the Bronx, in my uncle’s renovated basement. It was meant to be our refuge, but I felt more displaced than ever. Gone were the high-rise condos of West L.A.; instead, government projects towered over the neighborhood. Pedestrians no longer smiled and greeted me; the atmosphere was hostile, even toxic. Schoolkids were quick to pick on those they saw as weak or foreign, hurling harsh words I’d never heard before.

Meanwhile, my family began integrating into the local Bangladeshi community. I struggled to understand those who shared my heritage. Bangladeshi mothers stayed home while fathers drove cabs and sold fruit by the roadside — painful societal positions. Riding on crosstown buses or walking home from school, I began to internalize these disparities. During my fleeting encounters with affluent Upper East Siders, I saw kids my age with nannies, parents who wore suits to work, and luxurious apartments with spectacular views. Most took cabs to their destinations: cabs that Bangladeshis drove. I watched the mundane moments of their lives with longing, aching to plant myself in their shoes. Shame prickled down my spine. I distanced myself from my heritage, rejecting the traditional panjabis worn on Eid and refusing the torkari we ate for dinner every day.

As I grappled with my relationship with the Bangladeshi community, I turned my attention to helping my Bronx community by pursuing an internship with Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda. I handled desk work and took calls, spending the bulk of my time actively listening to the hardships constituents faced — everything from a veteran stripped of his benefits to a grandmother unable to support her bedridden grandchild.

I’d never exposed myself to stories like these, and now I was the first to hear them. As an intern, I could only assist in what felt like the small ways — pointing out local job offerings, printing information on free ESL classes, reaching out to non-profits. But to a community facing an onslaught of intense struggles, I realized that something as small as these actions could have vast impacts. Seeing the immediate consequences of my actions inspired me. Throughout that summer, I internalized my community’s daily challenges in a new light. I began to stop seeing the prevalent underemployment and cramped living quarters less as sources of shame. Instead, I saw them as realities that had to be acknowledged, but could ultimately be remedied. I also realized the benefits of the Bangladeshi culture I had been so ashamed of. My Bangla language skills were an asset to the office, and my understanding of Bangladeshi etiquette allowed for smooth communication between office staff and its constituents. As I helped my neighbors navigate city services, I saw my heritage with pride — a perspective I never expected to have.

I can now appreciate the value of my unique culture and background, and of living with less. This perspective offers room for progress, community integration, and a future worth fighting for. My time with Assemblyman Sepulveda’s office taught me that I can be a change agent in enabling this progression. Far from being ashamed of my community, I want to someday return to local politics in the Bronx to continue helping others access the American Dream. I hope to help my community appreciate the opportunity to make progress together. By embracing reality, I learned to live it. Along the way, I discovered one thing: life is good, but we can make it better.

This student’s passion for social justice and civic duty shines through in this essay because of how honest it is. Sharing their personal experience with immigrating, moving around, being an outsider, and finding a community allows us to see the hardships this student has faced and builds empathy towards their situation. However, what really makes it strong is that they go beyond describing the difficulties they faced and explain the mental impact it had on them as a child: Shame prickled down my spine. I distanced myself from my heritage, rejecting the traditional panjabis worn on Eid and refusing the torkari we ate for dinner every day.

The rejection of their culture presented at the beginning of the essay creates a nice juxtaposition with the student’s view in the latter half of the essay and helps demonstrate how they have matured. They use their experience interning as a way to delve into a change in their thought process about their culture and show how their passion for social justice began. Using this experience as a mechanism to explore their thoughts and feelings is an excellent example of how items that are included elsewhere on your application should be incorporated into your essay.

This essay prioritizes emotions and personal views over specific anecdotes. Although there are details and certain moments incorporated throughout to emphasize the author’s points, the main focus remains on the student and how they grapple with their culture and identity.

One area for improvement is the conclusion. Although the forward-looking approach is a nice way to end an essay focused on social justice, it would be nice to include more details and imagery in the conclusion. How does the student want to help their community? What government position do they see themselves holding one day?

A more impactful ending might look like the student walking into their office at the New York City Housing Authority in 15 years and looking at the plans to build a new development in the Bronx just blocks away from where the grew up that would provide quality housing to people in their Bangladeshi community. They would smile while thinking about how far they have come from that young kid who used to be ashamed of their culture.

Essay Example #3: Why Medicine

I took my first trip to China to visit my cousin Anna in July of 2014. Distance had kept us apart, but when we were together, we fell into all of our old inside jokes and caught up on each other’s lives. Her sparkling personality and optimistic attitude always brought a smile to my face. This time, however, my heart broke when I saw the effects of her brain cancer; she had suffered from a stroke that paralyzed her left side. She was still herself in many ways, but I could see that the damage to her brain made things difficult for her. I stayed by her every day, providing the support she needed, whether assisting her with eating and drinking, reading to her, or just watching “Friends.” During my flight back home, sorrow and helplessness overwhelmed me. Would I ever see Anna again? Could I have done more to make Anna comfortable? I wished I could stay in China longer to care for her. As I deplaned, I wondered if I could transform my grief to help other children and teenagers in the US who suffered as Anna did.

The day after I got home, as jet lag dragged me awake a few minutes after midnight, I remembered hearing about the Family Reach Foundation (FRF) and its work with children going through treatments at the local hospital and their families. I began volunteering in the FRF’s Children’s Activity Room, where I play with children battling cancer. Volunteering has both made me appreciate my own health and also cherish the new relationships I build with the children and families. We play sports, make figures out of playdoh, and dress up. When they take on the roles of firefighters or fairies, we all get caught up in the game; for that time, they forget the sanitized, stark, impersonal walls of the pediatric oncology ward. Building close relationships with them and seeing them giggle and laugh is so rewarding — I love watching them grow and get better throughout their course of treatment.

Hearing from the parents about their children’s condition and seeing the children recover inspired me to consider medical research. To get started, I enrolled in a summer collegelevel course in Abnormal Psychology. There I worked with Catelyn, a rising college senior, on a data analysis project regarding Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Together, we examined the neurological etiology of DID by studying four fMRI and PET cases. I fell in love with gathering data and analyzing the results and was amazed by our final product: several stunning brain images showcasing the areas of hyper and hypoactivity in brains affected by DID. Desire quickly followed my amazement — I want to continue this project and study more brains. Their complexity, delicacy, and importance to every aspect of life fascinate me. Successfully completing this research project gave me a sense of hope; I know I am capable of participating in a large scale research project and potentially making a difference in someone else’s life through my research.

Anna’s diagnosis inspired me to begin volunteering at FRF; from there, I discovered my desire to help people further by contributing to medical research. As my research interest blossomed, I realized that it’s no coincidence that I want to study brains—after all, Anna suffered from brain cancer. Reflecting on these experiences this past year and a half, I see that everything I’ve done is connected. Sadly, a few months after I returned from China, Anna passed away. I am still sad, but as I run a toy truck across the floor and watch one of the little patients’ eyes light up, I imagine that she would be proud of my commitment to pursue medicine and study the brain.

This essay has a very strong emotional core that tugs at the heart strings and makes the reader feel invested. Writing about sickness can be difficult and doesn’t always belong in a personal statement, but in this case it works well because the focus is on how this student cared for her cousin and dealt with the grief and emotions surrounding her condition. Writing about the compassion she showed and the doubts and concerns that filled her mind keeps the focus on the author and her personality.

This continues when she again discusses the activities she did with the kids at FRF and the personal reflection this experience allowed her to have. For example, she writes: Volunteering has both made me appreciate my own health and also cherish the new relationships I build with the children and families. We play sports, make figures out of playdoh, and dress up.

Concluding the essay with the sad story of her cousin’s passing brings the essay full circle and returns to the emotional heart of the piece to once again build a connection with the reader. However, it finishes on a hopeful note and demonstrates how this student has been able to turn a tragic experience into a source of lifelong inspiration.

One thing this essay should be cognizant of is that personal statements should not read as summaries of your extracurricular resume. Although this essay doesn’t fully fall into that trap, it does describe two key extracurriculars the student participated in. However, the inclusion of such a strong emotional core running throughout the essay helps keep the focus on the student and her thoughts and feelings during these activities.

To avoid making this mistake, make sure you have a common thread running through your essay and the extracurriculars provide support to the story you are trying to tell, rather than crafting a story around your activities. And, as this essay does, make sure there is lots of personal reflection and feelings weaved throughout to focus attention to you rather than your extracurriculars.

Essay Example #4: Love of Writing

“I want to be a writer.” This had been my answer to every youthful discussion with the adults in my life about what I would do when I grew up. As early as elementary school, I remember reading my writing pieces aloud to an audience at “Author of the Month” ceremonies. Bearing this goal in mind, and hoping to gain some valuable experience, I signed up for a journalism class during my freshman year. Despite my love for writing, I initially found myself uninterested in the subject and I struggled to enjoy the class. When I thought of writing, I imagined lyrical prose, profound poetry, and thrilling plot lines. Journalism required a laconic style and orderly structure, and I found my teacher’s assignments formulaic and dull. That class shook my confidence as a writer. I was uncertain if I should continue in it for the rest of my high school career.

Despite my misgivings, I decided that I couldn’t make a final decision on whether to quit journalism until I had some experience working for a paper outside of the classroom. The following year, I applied to be a staff reporter on our school newspaper. I hoped this would help me become more self-driven and creative, rather than merely writing articles that my teacher assigned. To my surprise, my time on staff was worlds away from what I experienced in the journalism class. Although I was unaccustomed to working in a fast-paced environment and initially found it burdensome to research and complete high-quality stories in a relatively short amount of time, I also found it exciting. I enjoyed learning more about topics and events on campus that I did not know much about; some of my stories that I covered in my first semester concerned a chess tournament, a food drive, and a Spanish immersion party. I relished in the freedom I had to explore and learn, and to write more independently than I could in a classroom.

Although I enjoyed many aspects of working for the paper immediately, reporting also pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I am a shy person, and speaking with people I did not know intimidated me. During my first interview, I met with the basketball coach to prepare for a story about the team’s winning streak. As I approached his office, I felt everything from my toes to my tongue freeze into a solid block, and I could hardly get out my opening questions. Fortunately, the coach was very kind and helped me through the conversation. Encouraged, I prepared for my next interview with more confidence. After a few weeks of practice, I even started to look forward to interviewing people on campus. That first journalism class may have bored me, but even if journalism in practice was challenging, it was anything but tedious.

Over the course of that year, I grew to love writing for our school newspaper. Reporting made me aware of my surroundings, and made me want to know more about current events on campus and in the town where I grew up. By interacting with people all over campus, I came to understand the breadth of individuals and communities that make up my high school. I felt far more connected to diverse parts of my school through my work as a journalist, and I realized that journalism gave me a window into seeing beyond my own experiences. The style of news writing may be different from what I used to think “writing” meant, but I learned that I can still derive exciting plots from events that may have gone unnoticed if not for my stories. I no longer struggle to approach others, and truly enjoy getting to know people and recognizing their accomplishments through my writing. Becoming a writer may be a difficult path, but it is as rewarding as I hoped when I was young.

This essay is clearly structured in a manner that makes it flow very nicely and contributes to its success. It starts with a quote to draw in the reader and show this student’s life-long passion for writing. Then it addresses the challenges of facing new, unfamiliar territory and how this student overcame it. Finally, it concludes by reflecting on this eye-opening experience and a nod to their younger self from the introduction. Having a well-thought out and sequential structure with clear transitions makes it extremely easy for the reader to follow along and take away the main idea.

Another positive aspect of the essay is the use of strong and expressive language. Sentences like “ When I thought of writing, I imagined lyrical prose, profound poetry, and thrilling plot lines ” stand out because of the intentional use of words like “lyrical”, “profound”, and “thrilling” to convey the student’s love of writing. The author also uses an active voice to capture the readers’ attention and keep us engaged. They rely on their language and diction to reveal details to the reader, for instance saying “ I felt everything from my toes to my tongue freeze into a solid block ” to describe feeling nervous.

This essay is already very strong, so there isn’t much that needs to be changed. One thing that could take the essay from great to outstanding would be to throw in more quotes, internal dialogue, and sensory descriptors.

It would be nice to see the nerves they felt interviewing the coach by including dialogue like “ Um…I want to interview you about…uh…”. They could have shown their original distaste for journalism by narrating the thoughts running through their head. The fast-paced environment of their newspaper could have come to life with descriptions about the clacking of keyboards and the whirl of people running around laying out articles.

Essay Example #5: Starting a Fire

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire.

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family.

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt.

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him.

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses.

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This student is an excellent writer, which allows a simple story to be outstandingly compelling. The author articulates her points beautifully and creatively through her immense use of details and figurative language. Lines like “a rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees,” and “rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers,” create vivid images that draw the reader in.

The flowery and descriptive prose also contributes to the nice juxtaposition between the old Clara and the new Clara. The latter half of the essay contrasts elements of nature with music and writing to demonstrate how natural these interests are for her now. This sentence perfectly encapsulates the contrast she is trying to build: “It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive.”

In addition to being well-written, this essay is thematically cohesive. It begins with the simple introduction “Fire!” and ends with the following image: “When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.” This full-circle approach leaves readers satisfied and impressed.

There is very little this essay should change, however one thing to be cautious about is having an essay that is overly-descriptive. We know from the essay that this student likes to read and write, and depending on other elements of her application, it might make total sense to have such a flowery and ornate writing style. However, your personal statement needs to reflect your voice as well as your personality. If you would never use language like this in conversation or your writing, don’t put it in your personal statement. Make sure there is a balance between eloquence and your personal voice.

Essay Example #6: Dedicating a Track

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite.

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin.

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

This essay effectively conveys this student’s compassion for others, initiative, and determination—all great qualities to exemplify in a personal statement!

Although they rely on telling us a lot of what happened up until the board meeting, the use of running a race (their passion) as a metaphor for public speaking provides a lot of insight into the fear that this student overcame to work towards something bigger than themself. Comparing a podium to the starting line, the audience to the track, and silence to the gunshot is a nice way of demonstrating this student’s passion for cross country running without making that the focus of the story.

The essay does a nice job of coming full circle at the end by explaining what the quote from the beginning meant to them after this experience. Without explicitly saying “ I now know that what Stark actually meant is…” they rely on the strength of their argument above to make it obvious to the reader what it means to get beat but not lose.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

Essay Example #7: Body Image and Eating Disorders

I press the “discover” button on my Instagram app, hoping to find enticing pictures to satisfy my boredom. Scrolling through, I see funny videos and mouth-watering pictures of food. However, one image stops me immediately. A fit teenage girl with a “perfect body” relaxes in a bikini on a beach. Beneath it, I see a slew of flattering comments. I shake with disapproval over the image’s unrealistic quality. However, part of me still wants to have a body like hers so that others will make similar comments to me.

I would like to resolve a silent issue that harms many teenagers and adults: negative self image and low self-esteem in a world where social media shapes how people view each other. When people see the façades others wear to create an “ideal” image, they can develop poor thought patterns rooted in negative self-talk. The constant comparisons to “perfect” others make people feel small. In this new digital age, it is hard to distinguish authentic from artificial representations.

When I was 11, I developed anorexia nervosa. Though I was already thin, I wanted to be skinny like the models that I saw on the magazine covers on the grocery store stands. Little did I know that those models probably also suffered from disorders, and that photoshop erased their flaws. I preferred being underweight to being healthy. No matter how little I ate or how thin I was, I always thought that I was too fat. I became obsessed with the number on the scale and would try to eat the least that I could without my parents urging me to take more. Fortunately, I stopped engaging in anorexic behaviors before middle school. However, my underlying mental habits did not change. The images that had provoked my disorder in the first place were still a constant presence in my life.

By age 15, I was in recovery from anorexia, but suffered from depression. While I used to only compare myself to models, the growth of social media meant I also compared myself to my friends and acquaintances. I felt left out when I saw my friends’ excitement about lake trips they had taken without me. As I scrolled past endless photos of my flawless, thin classmates with hundreds of likes and affirming comments, I felt my jealousy spiral. I wanted to be admired and loved by other people too. However, I felt that I could never be enough. I began to hate the way that I looked, and felt nothing in my life was good enough. I wanted to be called “perfect” and “body goals,” so I tried to only post at certain times of day to maximize my “likes.” When that didn’t work, I started to feel too anxious to post anything at all.

Body image insecurities and social media comparisons affect thousands of people – men, women, children, and adults – every day. I am lucky – after a few months of my destructive social media habits, I came across a video that pointed out the illusory nature of social media; many Instagram posts only show off good things while people hide their flaws. I began going to therapy, and recovered from my depression. To address the problem of self-image and social media, we can all focus on what matters on the inside and not what is on the surface. As an effort to become healthy internally, I started a club at my school to promote clean eating and radiating beauty from within. It has helped me grow in my confidence, and today I’m not afraid to show others my struggles by sharing my experience with eating disorders. Someday, I hope to make this club a national organization to help teenagers and adults across the country. I support the idea of body positivity and embracing difference, not “perfection.” After all, how can we be ourselves if we all look the same?

This essay covers the difficult topics of eating disorders and mental health. If you’re thinking about covering similar topics in your essay, we recommend reading our post Should You Talk About Mental Health in College Essays?

The short answer is that, yes, you can talk about mental health, but it can be risky. If you do go that route, it’s important to focus on what you learned from the experience.

The strength of this essay is the student’s vulnerability, in excerpts such as this: I wanted to be admired and loved by other people too. However, I felt that I could never be enough. I began to hate the way that I looked, and felt nothing in my life was good enough. I wanted to be called “perfect” and “body goals,” so I tried to only post at certain times of day to maximize my “likes.”

The student goes on to share how they recovered from their depression through an eye-opening video and therapy sessions, and they’re now helping others find their self-worth as well. It’s great that this essay looks towards the future and shares the writer’s goals of making their club a national organization; we can see their ambition and compassion.

The main weakness of this essay is that it doesn’t focus enough on their recovery process, which is arguably the most important part. They could’ve told us more about the video they watched or the process of starting their club and the interactions they’ve had with other members. Especially when sharing such a vulnerable topic, there should be vulnerability in the recovery process too. That way, the reader can fully appreciate all that this student has overcome.

Essay Example #8: Becoming a Coach

”Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one.

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay begins with an in-the-moment narrative that really illustrates the chaos of looking for a coach last-minute. We feel the writer’s emotions, particularly her dejectedness, at not being able to compete. Starting an essay in media res is a great way to capture the attention of your readers and build anticipation for what comes next.

Through this essay, we can see how gutsy and determined the student is in deciding to become a coach themselves. She shows us these characteristics through their actions, rather than explicitly telling us: To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. Also, by discussing the opposition she faced and how it affected her, the student is open and vulnerable about the reality of the situation.

The essay comes full circle as the author recalls the frantic situations in seeking out a coach, but this is no longer a concern for them and their team. Overall, this essay is extremely effective in painting this student as mature, bold, and compassionate.

The biggest thing this essay needs to work on is showing not telling. Throughout the essay, the student tells us that she “emerged with new knowledge and confidence,” she “grew unsure of her own abilities,” and she “refused to give up”. What we really want to know is what this looks like.

Instead of saying she “emerged with new knowledge and confidence” she should have shared how she taught a new move to a fellow team-member without hesitation. Rather than telling us she “grew unsure of her own abilities” she should have shown what that looked like by including her internal dialogue and rhetorical questions that ran through her mind. She could have demonstrated what “refusing to give up” looks like by explaining how she kept learning coaching techniques on her own, turned to a mentor for advice, or devised a plan to win over the trust of parents.

Essay Example #9: Eritrea

No one knows where Eritrea is.

On the first day of school, for the past nine years, I would pensively stand in front of a class, a teacher, a stranger waiting for the inevitable question: Where are you from?

I smile politely, my dimples accentuating my ambiguous features. “Eritrea,” I answer promptly and proudly. But I am always prepared. Before their expression can deepen into confusion, ready to ask “where is that,” I elaborate, perhaps with a fleeting hint of exasperation, “East Africa, near Ethiopia.”

Sometimes, I single out the key-shaped hermit nation on a map, stunning teachers who have “never had a student from there!” Grinning, I resist the urge to remark, “You didn’t even know it existed until two minutes ago!”

Eritrea is to the East of Ethiopia, its arid coastline clutches the lucrative Red Sea. Battle scars litter the ancient streets – the colonial Italian architecture lathered with bullet holes, the mosques mangled with mortar shells. Originally part of the world’s first Christian kingdom, Eritrea passed through the hands of colonial Italy, Britain, and Ethiopia for over a century, until a bloody thirty year war of Independence liberated us.

But these are facts that anyone can know with a quick Google search. These are facts that I have memorised and compounded, first from my Grandmother and now from pristine books borrowed from the library.

No historical narrative, however, can adequately capture what Eritrea is. No one knows the aroma of bushels of potatoes, tomatoes, and garlic – still covered in dirt – that leads you to the open-air market. No one knows the poignant scent of spices, arranged in orange piles reminiscent of compacted dunes. No one knows how to haggle stubborn herders for sheep and roosters for Christmas celebrations as deliberately as my mother. No one can replicate the perfect balance of spices in dorho and tsebhi as well as my grandmother, her gnarly hands stirring the pot with ancient precision (chastising my clumsy knife work with the potatoes). It’s impossible to learn when the injera is ready – the exact moment you have to lift the lid of the mogogo. Do it too early (or too late) and the flatbread becomes mangled and gross. It is a sixth sense passed through matriarchal lineages.

There are no sources that catalogue the scent of incense that wafts through the sunlit porch on St. Michael’s; no films that can capture the luminescence of hundreds of flaming bonfires that fluoresce the sidewalks on Kudus Yohannes, as excited children chant Ge’ez proverbs whose origin has been lost to time. You cannot learn the familiarity of walking beneath the towering Gothic figure of the Enda Mariam Cathedral, the crowds undulating to the ringing of the archaic bells. I have memorized the sound of the rains hounding the metal roof during kiremti , the heat of the sun pounding against the Toyota’s window as we sped down towards Ghinda , the opulent brilliance of the stars twinkling in a sky untainted by light pollution, the scent of warm rolls of bani wafting through the streets at precisely 6 o’clock each day…

I fill my flimsy sketchbook with pictures from my memory. My hand remembers the shapes of the hibiscus drifting in the wind, the outline of my grandmother (affectionately nicknamed a’abaye ) leaning over the garden, the bizarre architecture of the Fiat Tagliero . I dice the vegetables with movements handed down from generations. My nose remembers the scent of frying garlic, the sourness of the warm tayta , the sharpness of the mit’mt’a …

This knowledge is intrinsic. “I am Eritrean,” I repeat. “I am proud.” Within me is an encyclopedia of history, culture, and idealism.

Eritrea is the coffee made from scratch, the spices drying in the sun, the priests and nuns. Eritrea is wise, filled with ambition, and unseen potential. Eritrea isn’t a place, it’s an identity.

This is an exceptional essay that provides a window into this student’s culture that really makes their love for their country and heritage leap off the page. The sheer level of details and sensory descriptors this student is able to fit in this space makes the essay stand out. From the smells, to the traditions, sounds, and sights, the author encapsulates all the glory of Eritrea for the reader.

The vivid images this student is able to create for the reader, whether it is having the tedious conversation with every teacher or cooking in their grandmother’s kitchen, transports us into the story and makes us feel like we are there in the moment with the student. This is a prime example of an essay that shows , not tells.

Besides the amazing imagery, the use of shorter paragraphs also contributes to how engaging this essay is. Employing this tactic helps break up the text to make it more readable and it isolates ideas so they stick out more than if they were enveloped in a large paragraph.

Overall, this is a really strong essay that brings to life this student’s heritage through its use of vivid imagery. This essay exemplifies what it means to show not tell in your writing, and it is a great example of how you can write an intimate personal statement without making yourself the primary focus of your essay.

There is very little this essay should improve upon, but one thing the student might consider would be to inject more personal reflection into their response. Although we can clearly take away their deep love and passion for their homeland and culture, the essay would be a bit more personal if they included the emotions and feelings they associate with the various aspects of Eritrea. For example, the way their heart swells with pride when their grandmother praises their ability to cook a flatbread or the feeling of serenity when they hear the bells ring out from the cathedral. Including personal details as well as sensory ones would create a wonderful balance of imagery and reflection.

Essay Example #10: Journaling

Flipping past dozens of colorful entries in my journal, I arrive at the final blank sheet. I press my pen lightly to the page, barely scratching its surface to create a series of loops stringing together into sentences. Emotions spill out, and with their release, I feel lightness in my chest. The stream of thoughts slows as I reach the bottom of the page, and I gently close the cover of the worn book: another journal finished.

I add the journal to the stack of eleven books on my nightstand. Struck by the bittersweet sensation of closing a chapter of my life, I grab the notebook at the bottom of the pile to reminisce.

“I want to make a flying mushen to fly in space and your in it” – October 2008

Pulling back the cover of my first Tinkerbell-themed diary, the prompt “My Hopes and Dreams” captures my attention. Though “machine” is misspelled in my scribbled response, I see the beginnings of my past obsession with outer space. At the age of five, I tore through novels about the solar system, experimented with rockets built from plastic straws, and rented Space Shuttle films from Blockbuster to satisfy my curiosities. While I chased down answers to questions as limitless as the universe, I fell in love with learning. Eight journals later, the same relentless curiosity brought me to an airplane descending on San Francisco Bay.

“I wish I had infinite sunsets” – July 2019

I reach for the charcoal notepad near the top of the pile and open to the first page: my flight to the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes. While I was excited to explore bioengineering, anxiety twisted in my stomach as I imagined my destination, unsure of whether I could overcome my shyness and connect with others.

With each new conversation, the sweat on my palms became less noticeable, and I met students from 23 different countries. Many of the moments where I challenged myself socially revolved around the third story deck of the Jerry house. A strange medley of English, Arabic, and Mandarin filled the summer air as my friends and I gathered there every evening, and dialogues at sunset soon became moments of bliss. In our conversations about cultural differences, the possibility of an afterlife, and the plausibility of far-fetched conspiracy theories, I learned to voice my opinion. As I was introduced to different viewpoints, these moments challenged my understanding of the world around me. In my final entries from California, I find excitement to learn from others and increased confidence, a tool that would later allow me to impact my community.

“The beauty in a tower of cans” – June 2020

Returning my gaze to the stack of journals, I stretch to take the floral-patterned book sitting on top. I flip through, eventually finding the beginnings of the organization I created during the outbreak of COVID-19. Since then, Door-to-Door Deliveries has woven its way through my entries and into reality, allowing me to aid high-risk populations through free grocery delivery.

With the confidence I gained the summer before, I took action when seeing others in need rather than letting my shyness hold me back. I reached out to local churches and senior centers to spread word of our services and interacted with customers through our website and social media pages. To further expand our impact, we held two food drives, and I mustered the courage to ask for donations door-to-door. In a tower of canned donations, I saw the value of reaching out to help others and realized my own potential to impact the world around me.

I delicately close the journal in my hands, smiling softly as the memories reappear, one after another. Reaching under my bed, I pull out a fresh notebook and open to its first sheet. I lightly press my pen to the page, “And so begins the next chapter…”

The structuring of this essay makes it easy and enjoyable to read. The student effectively organizes their various life experiences around their tower of journals, which centers the reader and makes the different stories easy to follow. Additionally, the student engages quotes from their journals—and unique formatting of the quotes—to signal that they are moving in time and show us which memory we should follow them to.

Thematically, the student uses the idea of shyness to connect the different memories they draw out of their journals. As the student describes their experiences overcoming shyness at the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes and Door-to-Door Deliveries, this essay can be read as an Overcoming Obstacles essay.

At the end of this essay, readers are fully convinced that this student is dedicated (they have committed to journaling every day), thoughtful (journaling is a thoughtful process and, in the essay, the student reflects thoughtfully on the past), and motivated (they flew across the country for a summer program and started a business). These are definitely qualities admissions officers are looking for in applicants!

Although this essay is already exceptionally strong as it’s written, the first journal entry feels out of place compared to the other two entries that discuss the author’s shyness and determination. It works well for the essay to have an entry from when the student was younger to add some humor (with misspelled words) and nostalgia, but if the student had either connected the quote they chose to the idea of overcoming a fear present in the other two anecdotes or if they had picked a different quote all together related to their shyness, it would have made the entire essay feel more cohesive.

Where to Get Your Personal Statement Edited

Do you want feedback on your personal statement? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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101 Personal Growth Examples

personal growth examples and definition, explained below

Personal growth is the process in which an individual recognizes and maximizes their own potential.

For instance, a person may seek to improve their communication skills (a facet of personal growth) by participating in public speaking workshops over a period of time.

Personal growth is a continuous and lifelong process, often marked by periods of rapid personal development followed by periods of slower growth, much like the physical growth from infancy to adulthood (Johnson & Swanson, 2016).

The personal growth process entails the development and enhancement of various aspects of life, including but not limited to:

Career Growth: Career growth pertains to the progression and advancement in one’s professional life. It entails acquiring new skills, achieving high performance in current roles, and moving upward in professional responsibilities (Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2010). An example of career growth could be a junior software developer who hones their coding expertise over time, eventually leading a team of developers. Career growth is not just about upward mobility; it’s about doing work that is fulfilling, challenging, and aligned with personal interests and values.
Intellectual Growth: Intellectual growth involves the expansion of knowledge, critical thinking abilities, and cognitive skills . It can occur formally through education or informally through self-directed learning and reasoned experience (Ramsden, 2015). For example, you might take online courses on philosophy, triggering deeper questioning and critical examination of life’s profound questions.
Emotional Growth: Emotional growth refers to the maturation of emotional responses and the strengthening of emotional intelligence (Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2011). A person growing emotionally might learn how to manage anger more effectively or become better at expressing feelings in a healthy manner. Emotional growth fosters better interpersonal relationships, self-awareness, and psychological resilience.
Moral Growth : Moral growth signifies the development of your ethical understanding, values, and behavior (Nucci, 2014). It includes the cultivation of virtues such as honesty, integrity, and empathy. For instance, an individual might reflect on an unfair action they have taken and decide to apologize and rectify the mistake, demonstrating moral growth. By refining our moral compass, you may enhance your sense of justice, empathy, and social responsibility.

Personal Growth Examples

1. Cultivating a Growth Mindset : When you cultivate a growth mindset, you’re building the inner belief that your abilities and intelligence can be developed over time (Dweck, 2010). Embracing such a mindset provides a pathway for maximum self-improvement . It also promotes lifelong learning , with the recognition that you can always improve and become a better you. This means embracing the thought, “I can’t do it…yet,” rather than “I can’t do it.”

2. Developing Leadership Skills : Leadership skills can include the ability to guide, inspire, and influence others toward achieving a common goal (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008). They might be important indicators of personal growth if you’re going for a promotion. These skills include abilities like decision-making, communication, delegating tasks, and fostering team spirit.

3. Engaging in Volunteer Work: Volunteering allows you to contribute to your communities while fostering empathy and understanding (Wilson, 2012). Doing volunteer work, such as serving food in a soup kitchen, can allow you to connect with diverse backgrounds, widens their perspective, and therefore nourish your empathy and social conscience.

4. Nurtiring Self-Compassion: Self-compassion involves acknowledging your own shortcomings and treating yourself with kindness despite failures (Neff, 2011). Instead of harsh self-criticism, self-compassion offers a balanced approach to dealing with personal flaws and failures. For instance, if you fail at a job interview, self-compassion would entail understanding that failure is part of human experience and does not reflect your overall worth. This, obviously, is good for your mental health.

5. Overcoming Fears: Fear often deters us from exploring our full capabilities (Öhman, 2008). Overcoming fears means confronting what scares us, be it fear of heights, public speaking, or failure. Overcoming fear is a telltale sign of personal growth To overcome fear, you might intentionally and gradually expose yourself to the fearful situation in a process called systematic desensitization . For example, someone afraid of heights might start by climbing a short ladder, then moving to a two-story building, and so forth. Such bravery encourages psychological resilience and enables exploration of unknown territories, hence fostering personal growth.

6. Improving Time Management: If you’re trying to demonstrate personal growth to an employer, this one’s perfect. When done successfully, time management enhances productivity, mitigates stress, and unveils avenues for growth – all things your employer loves to see. An example of improved time management could be an individual employing a systematized daily planner or a digital application. This system aids in organizing tasks, creates reminders for deadlines, and consequently opens up time for self-development, relaxation, and recreation.

7. Adopting Healthy Habits: Healthy habits can totally change your life, leading to huge personal growth (Lippke, Nigg, & Maddock, 2012). They may help you lose weight, sleep better, have more energy, wake earlier, and so on. For instance, an individual might opt to consume five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. By doing this, the individual improves their physical health, enhances their immune system, and acquires necessary energy for undertaking other personal growth initiatives.

8. Cultivating Humility: Humility, a vital attribute of personal growth, involves acknowledging our limitations and displaying a lessened level of arrogance (Exline & Hill, 2012). The development of humility occurs through the getting of wisdom and growing as a person. In real-world terms, a humble person acknowledges errors or mistakes, an act that catalyzes learning and cultivates interpersonal relationships.

9. Pursuing Passions: Passionate engagement in activities increases joy, reduces stress, and augments motivation, thereby contributing to personal growth (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2019). Allocating time to pursue hobbies or other passions can lead to the acquisition of new abilities and experiences. For instance, a person with a zeal for painting can foster creativity, hone focus, and derive deep satisfaction—elements imperative for personal growth.

10. Developing a Sense of Purpose: The possession of a life-purpose instills a sense of direction, and fortifies motivation, resilience, and satisfaction (Steger, 2012). Identifying this purpose—be it nurturing a family, building a career, or serving the community— gives life meaning and direction. An illustration of this can be an individual who discerns their purpose in educating and empowering others. This realized purpose provides both fulfillment and the impetus for continued personal growth.

11. Understanding Personal Values : Personal values are profound beliefs that shape behavior and provide a guide for decision-making (Hitlin & Piliavin, 2019). Having a true understanding of personal values, whether they be honesty, integrity, or kindness, helps an individual align their actions with their beliefs. For example, a person who values honesty might prioritize transparent communication, improving their relationships with others. Thus, by understanding personal values, individuals can lead a more authentic and fulfilling life.

12. Understanding Personal Biases: Personal biases, conscious or unconscious, can significantly distort our perspectives (Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). Developing an understanding of these biases allows us to challenge their influence over our decisions and actions. If someone identifies a bias against a particular group, they might purposefully educate themselves about that group and interact more with its members. Therefore, recognizing and addressing personal biases fertilifies our dealings with others, advancing personal growth.

13. Learning About Mental Health: Mental health awareness is a cornerstone of personal development (Kutcher, Wei, & Coniglio, 2016). By learning about mental health, people can better understand their emotional experiences, recognize signs of mental distress and seek appropriate help, either for themselves or others. For instance, a person studying about the symptoms of depression might realize a friend’s struggles and suggest they seek professional help. In this way, learning about mental health promotes not only self-growth but also the welfare of others.

14. Learning to Deal with Rejection: Life presents instances of rejection in various forms, such as not getting a job or a breakup (Buckley, Winkel, & Leary, 2004). Knowing how to cope with rejection in a healthy way reduces its negative impact and promotes resilience. After a job rejection, one might evaluate their application process for possible improvements, providing a growth opportunity for future applications. This demonstrates how dealing with rejection rather than avoiding it leads to self-improvement.

15. Encouraging a Work-Life Balance : Achieving the right balance between work and personal life positively affects mental health and satisfaction (Michel, Kotrba, Mitchelson, Clark, & Baltes, 2011). Striking a fruitful equilibrium could involve setting boundaries to disconnect from work during personal time, such as turning off work notifications after office hours. Encouraging a work-life balance nurtures personal well-being and enhances productivity, ultimately leading to substantial personal growth.

16. Building Conflict Resolution Skills: Conflict is inherent in all spheres of life. Therefore, developing skills to resolve conflicts amicably is a significant element of personal growth (Deutsch, Coleman, & Marcus, 2011). Conflict resolution skills involve active listening , empathy, problem-solving, and negotiation. For instance, during a heated disagreement, someone might employ active listening, aiming to understand the other party’s perspective, before proposing a solution. This practice encourages a positive outcome, which not only preserves the relationship but also expands an individual’s emotional intelligence and communication skills .

17. Cultivating the Habit of Reading: Reading is a powerful conduit of personal growth that can stimulate intellect, broaden horizons, and encourage empathy (Mol & Bus, 2011). By inculcating a routine reading habit, an individual can immerse themselves in varied thoughts, cultures, and experiences. An avid reader might dedicate a specific time each day for reading, working through different genres. Over time, this steady commitment to literature can bolster verbal abilities, critical thinking skills, and provide a more profound understanding of the world, thereby driving personal growth.

Full List of 101 Personal Growth and Development Examples

I’ve categorized the following examples into the four categories for you. Although, it’s worth noting that the categorizations overlap a lot, and can span multiple categories simultaneously (Mruk, 2013).

The courage to change your mind (Moral, Intellectual)
Embracing change (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Becoming self-aware (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Setting personal goals (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Developing emotional intelligence (Career, Emotional)
Pursuing lifelong learning (Career, Intellectual)
Improving communication skills (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Building resilience (Career, Emotional)
Learning new languages (Career, Intellectual)
Cultivating a growth mindset (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Taking up meditation (Emotional)
Practicing gratitude (Emotional, Moral)
Improving physical health (Career, Emotional)
Cultivating positive relationships (Career, Emotional)
Learning to listen actively (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Becoming financially literate (Career, Intellectual)
Developing leadership skills (Career, Emotional)
Fostering creativity (Career, Intellectual)
Engaging in volunteer work (Career, Moral)
Strengthening problem-solving skills (Career, Intellectual)
Learning stress management (Career, Emotional)
Nurturing self-compassion (Emotional, Moral)
Pursuing spirituality (Emotional, Moral)
Developing a healthy self-image (Career, Emotional)
Cultivating mindfulness (Emotional)
Overcoming fears (Career, Emotional) (like speaking in public)
Honing negotiation skills (Career, Intellectual)
Seeking therapy (Emotional)
Practicing patience (Emotional, Moral)
Cultivating optimism (Career, Emotional)
Improving time management (Career, Intellectual)
Adopting healthy habits (Career, Emotional)
Learning to forgive (Emotional, Moral)
Building confidence (Career, Emotional)
Developing a strong work ethic (Career, Moral)
Cultivating discipline (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Establishing boundaries (Career, Emotional)
Adopting sustainable living practices (Moral)
Cultivating curiosity (Intellectual, Emotional)
Strengthening decision-making skills (Career, Intellectual)
Cultivating humility (Emotional, Moral)
Nurturing an appreciation for diversity (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Taking self-defense classes (Career, Emotional)
Encouraging self-expression (Career, Emotional)
Developing assertiveness (Career, Emotional)
Engaging in professional development (Career, Intellectual)
Pursuing passions (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Nurturing empathy (Career, Emotional, Moral)
Improving body language (Career, Emotional)
Learning to say no (Career, Emotional)
Gaining cultural competency (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Learning cooking skills (Career, Emotional)
Developing a sense of purpose (Career, Emotional, Moral)
Understanding personal values (Career, Emotional, Moral)
Developing public speaking skills (Career, Intellectual)
Recognizing personal strengths and weaknesses
Maintaining a personal journal (Emotional)
Improving social skills (Career, Emotional)
Developing IT skills (Career, Intellectual)
Cultivating adaptability (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Understanding personal biases (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Exploring personal identity (Intellectual, Emotional)
Encouraging personal reflection (Intellectual, Emotional)
Building a personal brand (Career, Emotional)
Developing listening skills (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Cultivating self-love (Emotional)
Learning about mental health (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Improving networking skills (Career, Emotional)
Developing critical thinking skills (Career, Intellectual)
Learning to deal with rejection (Career, Emotional)
Cultivating courage (Career, Emotional)
Understanding and respecting differences (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Developing environmental consciousness (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Understanding personal rights and responsibilities (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Taking care of personal grooming (Career, Emotional)
Improving personal organization (Career, Intellectual)
Encouraging a work-life balance (Career, Emotional)
Encouraging diversity in thought (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Engaging in self-care activities (Career, Emotional)
Learning personal finance management (Career, Intellectual)
Building a supportive network (Career, Emotional)
Building conflict resolution skills (Career, Emotional)
Practicing active citizenship (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Seeking continuous feedback (Career, Emotional)
Enhancing customer service skills (Career, Emotional)
Building a personal library (Intellectual)
Developing an understanding of politics (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Practicing self-advocacy (Career, Emotional)
Improving personal presentation skills (Career, Emotional)
Encouraging the love of nature (Emotional, Moral)
Developing a hobby (Career, Intellectual, Emotional) (like model trains)
Enhancing writing skills (Career, Intellectual)
Gaining awareness of global issues (Career, Intellectual, Moral)
Cultivating the habit of reading (Intellectual)
Encouraging fitness activities (Career, Emotional)
Pursuing a healthy diet (Career, Emotional)
Taking up music or art (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)
Developing etiquette (Career, Emotional)
Pursuing self-directed learning (Career, Intellectual)
Strengthening emotional regulation skills (Career, Emotional)
Encouraging exploration (Career, Intellectual, Emotional)

These myriad examples of personal growth represent not only opportunities for self-improvement but also crucial assets that can enhance our professional lives. Whether preparing for a meeting with a boss, designing a personal development plan, or simply reflecting on one’s journey, each of these areas can significantly contribute to our abilities, resilience, and well-being. They enable us to be more effective leaders, collaborators, and innovators , fostering better relationships and a more fulfilling life. Therefore, it’s vital to continuously strive for growth, leveraging these examples as stepping stones on the path towards our personal and professional objectives.

Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., & Salovey, P. (2011). Emotional intelligence: Implications for personal, social, academic, and workplace success. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5 (1), 88-103. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00334.x

Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. T., & Marcus, E. C. (2011). The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice . New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success . United States: Random House Incorporated.

Exline, J. J., & Hill, P. C. (2012). Humility: A consistent and robust predictor of generosity. The Journal of Positive Psychology , 7 (3), 208-218. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.671348

Greenhaus, J. H., & Allen, T. D. (2011). Work–family balance: A review and extension of the literature. In Handbook of occupational health psychology . American Psychological Association.

Johnson, B., & Swanson, E. (2016). Personal Growth in Adults: A Literature Review. Journal of Adult Development, 33 (4), 274-285.

Leary, M. R. (2001). Interpersonal rejection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. G. (2011). To read or not to read: a meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological bulletin, 137 (2), 267. doi: https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0021890

Mruk, C. (2013). Self-Esteem and Positive Psychology: Research, Theory, and Practice . Springer Publishing Company.

Neff, K. D. (2011). Self‐compassion, self‐esteem, and well‐being. Social and Personality Psychology Compass.

Ng, T. W., Eby, L. T., Sorensen, K. L., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). Predictors of objective and subjective career success: A meta‐analysis. Personnel psychology, 58 (2), 367-408.

Nucci, L. (2014). Handbook of moral and character education . New York: Routledge.

Ramsden, P. (2015). Learning to teach in higher education . London: Routledge.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

The Lasting Value of the Personal Essay

This writing form has a value that goes beyond the college application as it nurtures self-reflection and inspires creativity.

Teenager working on a laptop while looking out a window

I still remember my own personal essay that I wrote decades ago during my college admissions process. My essay focused on movies and how movies were a conduit of curiosity. It was also about the death of my father and how movies, in part, had provided a common ground for us—a connection. Although my essay, of course, was not the sole determining factor in my admission, it’s a predominant memory from that time of my life. To this day, I feel it had a persuasive effect on my admittance.

In fact, now looking back, I can’t recall my grade point average or my class rank or the final grade that my English teacher gave me on my literary analysis of Heart of Darkness. Even my exact SAT score, back then a real measure of academic aptitude, remains fuzzy to me all these years later, “shaded in wistful half-lights,” as described by Norman Maclean. I can, however, remember nearly every sentence, if not quite every word, of the personal essay I submitted to my first-choice college, which has undoubtedly, for me, over the years remained one of the most important pieces of writing I have ever produced.

The personal essay is an enduring literary genre and an art form that provides often-challenging material in English classes. In my Advanced Placement Language and Composition course, we frequently read works from an array of authors from various eras, including Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Joan Didion, André Aciman, Brian Doyle, Dr. Oliver Sacks. These writers function as exemplars for my students to both analyze and model not only for their rhetorical value but also for their stylistic technique and philosophical ruminations.

Power of Personalization

One of the most predominant rhetorical strategies we recognize in these texts is personalization. And so Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth” has impacted my students throughout the years with its frank depiction of psychological tension, addressing philosophical themes on an existential level that never fail to capture their attention—so much so, that a group of students painted a mural on the wall outside my classroom, a visual interpretation of Woolf’s essay that they titled Memento Mori .

The candor and intimacy of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s depiction of his final days before his death from cancer have engendered numerous touching and insightful comments from my students during our Socratic seminars analyzing his almost unendurably moving personal essay, “My Periodic Table.”

Students respond viscerally, it seems, to the personal. Sadly, many students have been touched by some of the same tragic subject matter that we analyze through these texts. During our seminars and journal assignments, my students have revealed their own personal connections to some of the personal essays we read in class, connecting, I think, to the shared experiences that we have all had throughout human history.

Our students often find themselves facing a vortex of standardized tests, AP exams, and benchmarks throughout the school year, which often emphasize the formulaic. The active process of personal choice on topic and subject seems lost. So often my students ask me questions when writing an essay, seeking a particular answer, as if literary analysis were calculus. Missing is the creativity, the exploration of writing free from academic constraints like rubrics and scoring guides. Writer-editor Steve Moyer asserts in Edsitement , “Nuanced thought... requires a greater gestation period than the nearly instant gratification made possible on Twitter.” I have witnessed this impatience from my own students.

There can be a restlessness in the writing process, a hesitancy for revision or drafting. Personal essays require self-reflection and a free-flowing freedom from rigid form that my students embrace in a way that they don’t with an argument or research-based essay. On more than one occasion during parent-teacher conferences, I have had parents tell me that their child used to love creative writing, but somewhere along the way, the rigor of school seemed to have killed it.

Personal essays, then, restore that creativity, since they encourage a freedom from form. Students can experiment with style and figurative language and syntax in ways that the traditional academic five-paragraph essay often thwarts.

Personal essays also allow teachers to really get to know our students, too. The inherent intimacy of a personal essay, the connection between the writer and the reader—in this case, a student and a teacher—provides insight into the concerns, the dreams, the emotions of our students in addition to allowing us to assess how they exercise their compositional skills, including imagery, syntax, diction, and figurative language. Here, then, a teacher has the best of both worlds. We’re able to both connect to our students on an emotional level and evaluate their learning on an academic level. Personal essays also serve as an emotional outlet.

There seems to be a common assumption that personal essays for high school students serve only the college application process, so the process begins during their senior year. Personal writing, however, should occur throughout a student’s academic experience. The narrative essays that most elementary school students encounter evolve into the more ruminative, philosophical, and reflective personal writing they will encounter during their senior year from many of Common App essay prompts.

Many teachers implement journal writing in their classrooms that provides a firm foundation for the type of personal writing that the college admissions essay requires. In my own class of juniors, the last assignment we complete for the year is a personal essay. My intent is to help prepare them for the college essay they will write, hopefully, during the summer so that they will have a solid draft before the application process begins.

Teaching our students this strategy in their own writing benefits them in their futures, not only for the imminent college application process but also for job interviews. For example, I was mentoring a student, a senior who had no desire to go to college, about the job interview process he would soon face after graduation. We rehearsed and practiced the types of questions he might encounter from a future employer. I encouraged him to remember the personal details of his experience, personalizing everything in a way that would allow him to ideally stand out as a job candidate.

Through personal essay writing, my overarching, grand ambition is to instill in my students ultimately a love of reflection, looking back on their experience, reminiscing on significant memories that linger, carefully considering the seemingly little moments that, only upon reflection, have an enormous impact on us.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, seeking personal growth college essay examples.

Hi, I'm planning on writing my college essay about my personal growth throughout high school. Can anyone recommend any essays that showcase personal growth well? I want to get a sense of how to frame my story and effectively convey how I've changed over the years. TIA!

Hi there! I understand that you're looking for examples of personal growth essays to help you effectively frame your story. One way to find essays like this is to search for successful college essays published online. You can do this by typing keywords like "personal growth college essay examples" or "college essays about personal growth" on Google or other search engines.

Another option is to go to Collegevine and look at their essay examples page ( https://www.collegevine.com/category/essays/essay-examples). I'm not positive that they have an entire post dedicated to essays that demonstrate growth, but if you read through some personal statement or Common App examples, I'm sure you will find examples that show how to discuss growth in an essay!

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Personal Growth and Development — My Autobiography: A Journey of Personal Growth and Aspirations

My Autobiography: a Journey of Personal Growth and Aspirations

Categories: About Myself Personal Growth and Development

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

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Adolescence and high school, college life, personal growth, future aspirations.

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How to Deal With Medical School Rejection

Students who don't get accepted to med school can develop a growth mindset to improve and overcome the setback.

Dealing With Medical School Rejection

Worried girl checking smart phone at home

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If you did not get into your top pick for medical school, wait to see what opportunities come your way.

Spring is when medical schools wind down their interview season and send letters of rejection to students who were not placed on an alternate list. This is distressing to good students who are used to achieving their goals and don’t understand why they were not accepted.

There are many ways unaccepted students can deal with this disappointing news. Some give up when they should not, but simply feel too discouraged. What they should do is look for the keys to improvement.

Check Your Mindset

There is a great TED Talk by Carol Dweck, a psychologist and college professor who speaks about the two ways students react to failure. The first way is disastrous and ruinous, having what Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” Typically, these are students for whom success has become an expectation.

The other type of students have what Dweck calls a “growth mindset.” They know that they’re on a learning curve and have confidence that they can develop their abilities – they just don’t have the abilities now.

This “not yet” attitude, as Dweck calls it, is part of the growth mindset. If students with this attitude fail a test, for example, they wouldn’t describe themselves as a failure and run from future challenges. Rather they would say they are not yet successful and embrace the opportunity to try again.

We can all understand the difficulty people with a fixed mindset face when they perform poorly on an exam or fail at mastering a second language. But unless they can transform their fixed mindset into a growth mindset, they will be devastated by rejection, and that includes rejection from medical schools.

The good news is that they can change.

If you feel you have a fixed mindset, you can work toward developing a growth mindset. First, know that every time you tackle a difficult challenge, as Dweck pointed out, you’re creating newer, stronger neurons, which will boost your intellect and abilities. Second, be honest with yourself in terms of getting into medical school. Take an honest look at your application and any interviews you had.

Check Your Essays

If you didn’t get any interviews, why did that happen? Was it grades , MCAT , little volunteering, lack of shadowing or essays that were not helpful? Remember, fewer than half of applicants get into medical school. You need to have all the important ducks in a row. Yes, screeners very carefully read your essays.

Recently, a student approached me for advice to consider why he might not have received an interview at his dream school. Although there is no certainty, I suggested we look at his essays since everything else seemed to be excellent.

When we looked at his essays, he picked out the secondary essay that was likely a concern. It sounded overconfident and a little elitist. He looked at it and said, "It doesn’t sound very humble, does it?” Perhaps if he had read it with a scrutinizing eye before the submission, he might have seen a different outcome.

Since most secondary essays are written for a specific school, oversight in one may not affect other applications.

Think about how well your essays and activity descriptions are written . Have advisers and colleagues critique them, and not with kid gloves. If you didn’t do well in a particular class or on the MCAT, is there enough to indicate how you have improved since then? Does the humility and willingness to learn from others come out in your essays?

Seek Feedback and Examine Yourself

If you were fortunate to have interviews but still didn’t get in medical school, scrutinize what might have gone wrong. After looking at the process, ask others for their input. This might include your premed adviser, staff in the medical admissions office and others who might be able to comment on your interpersonal and communication skills.

Last month, I was asked to help some students who had not matched. I asked them separately to write down as many questions as they could recall from their interviews. Each student wrote how they answered the questions and then individually reviewed them with me.

The exercise was very revealing. One student had a way of turning conversations toward his gym workouts, where he was passionate. His answers about people came across as matter of fact or rather flat. It is not that he is a bad candidate, but he really needs a lot of coaching and practice interviews before the next round.

The other student began to see his mistakes as soon as he began writing down what he had answered. He could even see through the progression of interviews that he had not learned from his mistakes in earlier ones and could have prepared much better than he did. This exercise alone seemed to help him, and I would recommend it for anyone whose interviews did not bring them success.

Examine everything about yourself, from how well you interact verbally with others to how well you show interest in everyone you meet.

There are many applicants who request advice and many have used it. Examples include a student who actively began a course in public speaking, others who sought treatment for anxiety, some who studied and retook the MCAT , some who practiced interviews with various faculty and some who took a gap year to allow for more science courses, volunteering or shadowing.

I once spoke with a prospective student who demonstrated a fixed mindset. He wanted to talk with me about why he wasn’t admitted to multiple medical schools . In reviewing his application and interview notes, I identified multiple points where I believed he had opportunity to improve his chances for the next year.

He argued on each point, and that was when I realized he wasn’t really asking for help. He was attempting to prove that the admissions committees were wrong about him. He simply could not accept that he was not yet ready for medical school.

If an applicant isn’t ready to learn from what didn’t work and try a new approach, they might not be ready to become a physician. I will never be as good as I can be, but I will continue to learn from my mistakes. If applicants choose not to do this, it might be a time to reflect on other career options.

In medicine, we are always trying to improve individually and as a group. Lifelong learning is a true joy once you embrace it.

Another student was advised to take a course to improve his interpersonal communication . He knew he had to learn to be a better listener, how to explain his ideas clearly and how to demonstrate passion for what truly mattered to him.

He was accepted to medical school the following year. But more important than that was his determination to get better in this area. He realized his patients didn’t just want a diagnosis and treatment, but also sincere communication. This is a great example of growth mindset. As he continued to improve his skills, he became a chief resident and later a faculty leader.

Keep in mind that opportunity abounds, even for those who get rejected by one, two or even three or more medical schools. If I were applying to medical school, I would approach rewriting an application and interviewing in the next cycle, being grateful for the opportunity to try again.

As an aside, "What will you do if you don’t get into medical school this year?” is a frequently asked question. I was asked that many years ago, and some still use it today. Classic questions about your strengths and weaknesses are ways to show your resilience . Be thoughtful, humble – not fake humility – hopeful and enthusiastic during interviews.

People with a growth mindset are able to see opportunities, while those with a fixed mindset see defeat. Those with a growth mindset are eager to try again and will try even harder. To them, a missed opportunity isn’t a reflection on their ability or intelligence. Rather, it’s an invitation to embrace effort, hard work and perseverance.

Medical School Application Mistakes

A diverse group of female medical students listen attentively while seated for a lecture.

Tags: medical school , graduate schools , education , students

About Medical School Admissions Doctor

Need a guide through the murky medical school admissions process? Medical School Admissions Doctor offers a roundup of expert and student voices in the field to guide prospective students in their pursuit of a medical education. The blog is currently authored by Dr. Ali Loftizadeh, Dr. Azadeh Salek and Zach Grimmett at Admissions Helpers , a provider of medical school application services; Dr. Renee Marinelli at MedSchoolCoach , a premed and med school admissions consultancy; Dr. Rachel Rizal, co-founder and CEO of the Cracking Med School Admissions consultancy; Dr. Cassie Kosarec at Varsity Tutors , an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report; Dr. Kathleen Franco, a med school emeritus professor and psychiatrist; and Liana Meffert, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and a writer for Admissions Helpers. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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How to Write a Personal Growth Essay
Central to the personal growth essay is the emphasis on the transformative journey of an individual. It's not just a compilation of events or a simple chronological tale. This essay highlights your understanding, maturity, and moments of self-discovery. It narrates how experiences, both monumental and subtle, mold perspectives and guide ...
Essays About Personal Growth: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts
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1 page / 577 words. As a student, I play a crucial role in my own education and development. I am responsible for my own learning, growth, and success. My role as a student extends beyond simply attending classes and completing assignments; it involves actively engaging with the material, seeking... Personal Growth and Development Education System.
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Personal Growth. Perhaps this topic is the most popular one since it delves into the heart of what the admissions essay is all about: helping the college gain better insight into an applicant's personality and character. Some schools ask targeted questions — "What was the most challenging event you have ever faced, and how have you grown from it?" — while others leave the topic open ...
Common Application Essay Option 5 Tips—Personal Growth
For the 2019-20 admissions cycle, the fifth essay option on the Common Application focuses on "personal growth": Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. We all have all had experiences that bring about growth and maturity, so essay option five will ...
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Common App Essay Prompt 5 asks you to "discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.". If you're looking to highlight your transformative journey, consider crafting a Common App essay on personal growth. The best Common Application essays show how ...
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Hello! It's great that you're focusing on personal growth for your Common App essay. Personal growth essays can be powerful and memorable ways to share your experiences with the admissions officers. Here are a few ideas and examples to get you started: 1. Overcoming a personal challenge: You could write about a time you faced a significant personal challenge, such as moving to a new city ...
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Writing a meaningful essay on personal growth is a great idea, as it can provide colleges with insight into who you are as a person and your capacity for self-reflection and growth. Here are some suggestions to help you craft a compelling essay: 1. Identify a specific experience or challenge: Start your essay by pinpointing a specific experience or challenge that led to your personal growth.
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Focus on a specific moment, and describe the scene using your five senses. Mention objects that have special significance to you. Instead of following a common story arc, include a surprising twist or insight. Your unique voice can shed new perspective on a common human experience while also revealing your personality.
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When writing about an accomplishment that led to personal growth, it's essential to focus on several key aspects to create an engaging and relatable essay: 1. Establish context: Begin your essay by providing some context for your accomplishment. Briefly explain the situation, the challenge you faced, and what motivated you to succeed. This helps the reader understand the significance of your ...
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Personal growth means getting better over time. It is like a plant that starts from a tiny seed and grows into a big tree. For people, it means learning new things, becoming stronger, and being a better person. It is not just about being smart in school, but also being kind, brave, and good at solving problems.
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Personal growth, in the context of college education, is the process of self-improvement and self-discovery that occurs during your college years. It's about developing your skills, expanding your horizons, and becoming a well-rounded individual. It's about learning to navigate the world independently, making informed decisions, and growing ...
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Here's one of the most popular Common Application essay topics that's going to be used again in the 2020-2021 admissions cycle: "Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others." According to the Common Application, in the 2018-2019 cycle, 23.7% of students opted to write about an experience of ...
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Personal development is the process of improving oneself in various aspects of life through self-reflection, learning, and growth. It is an ongoing journey that requires continuous effort and dedication to achieve one's full potential. The purpose of this reflective essay is to identify and analyze key experiences, strengths and weaknesses ...
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All the essay prompts for the Common Application ask you to provide evidence of your personal growth. One particular prompt-the personal growth prompt-makes this request more explicit. Here you are asked to look at your circumstances, point of view, and personal understanding, and then provide evidence of how these things might have changed due to some accomplishment, event, or realization.
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Personal Statement Examples. Essay 1: Summer Program. Essay 2: Being Bangladeshi-American. Essay 3: Why Medicine. Essay 4: Love of Writing. Essay 5: Starting a Fire. Essay 6: Dedicating a Track. Essay 7: Body Image and Eating Disorders. Essay 8: Becoming a Coach.
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Personal Growth Examples. 1. Cultivating a Growth Mindset: When you cultivate a growth mindset, you're building the inner belief that your abilities and intelligence can be developed over time (Dweck, 2010).Embracing such a mindset provides a pathway for maximum self-improvement.It also promotes lifelong learning, with the recognition that you can always improve and become a better you.
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The personal essay is an enduring literary genre and an art form that provides often-challenging material in English classes. In my Advanced Placement Language and Composition course, we frequently read works from an array of authors from various eras, including Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Joan Didion, André Aciman, Brian Doyle, Dr. Oliver Sacks.
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Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Sep 9, 2021 • 3 min read. People write personal essays for a number of reasons. High school students write them for college admissions and writers use them to share personal stories with others. A personal narrative essay can enlighten and inspire an audience with information gained from real life ...
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A personal statement is a short essay of around 500-1,000 words, in which you tell a compelling story about who you are, what drives you, and why you're applying. To write a successful personal statement for a graduate school application, don't just summarize your experience; instead, craft a focused narrative in your own voice. Aim to ...
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Through this essay, I intend to share my life experiences, highlighting significant events and people who have shaped me into the person I am today. My autobiography aims to provide readers with insight into my early life, adolescence and high school experiences, college life, personal growth, and future aspirations.
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2 Medical School Personal Statements That Admissions Officers Loved. Seek Feedback and Examine Yourself If you were fortunate to have interviews but still didn't get in medical school ...

Essays About Personal Growth: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

5 Essay Examples About Personal Growth

6 ways to writing an empowering personal growth essay

Here’s how to write a winning personal growth essay:

6 steps to writing the best personal growth essay

1. Create an outline

2. Write a strong introduction

3. Crafting an impactful story with emotions

4. Be direct

5. Conclude

6. Double-, triple-check for errors

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Great College Essay Advice for the Common App – The Personal Growth Prompt

The Personal Growth Prompt

Discuss an accomplishment or event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Discuss Your Story for the Personal Growth Prompt

Personal Growth and Understanding

Accomplishments or Events

Realization

Summary: The Personal Growth Prompt

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10 Personal Statement Essay Examples That Worked

Personal Statement Examples

What the Essay Did Well

What Could Be Improved

Essay Example #2: Being Bangladeshi-American

Essay Example #3: Why Medicine

Essay Example #4: Love of Writing

Essay Example #5: Starting a Fire

Essay Example #6: Dedicating a Track

Essay Example #7: Body Image and Eating Disorders

Essay Example #8: Becoming a Coach

Essay Example #9: Eritrea

Essay Example #10: Journaling

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