Why You Shouldn’t Read College Essay Examples

When most students set out to write their college essays, the first thing they do is search for “college essay examples,” “essays that worked,” and “sample essays.” They’re quickly inundated with examples, and they spend hours, sometimes days, poring over all the essays that supposedly got students into top schools around the country.

If you’re applying to college this year, it’s completely understandable you’d be tempted to read sample essays. The college application process is stressful, and, like everyone else, you have absolutely no background in writing personal essays. Surely you should read examples of what students wrote in previous years?

We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but reading college essay examples is one of the fastest way to make your writing sound like everyone else’s. The problem isn’t necessarily that these essays are bad. It’s that reading them pushes you to think in terms of patterns, structures, and “what works” — instead of reflecting on your own experience.

Here are the three reasons you should avoid reading college essay examples at all costs.

College essay examples create a false picture of how admissions decisions happen

The most obvious problem with these essays is you have absolutely no idea whether they actually did help get a student into college. Imagine someone posts their essay and says it got them into Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Sure, that sounds impressive, but it’s no guarantee the essay is strong. It’s entirely possible the person was admitted despite their essay, not because of it.

College admissions depend on a variety of factors. The person who got into three dream schools may be class valedictorian at a top high school with a perfect SAT and stellar extracurriculars, but their essay may be completely mediocre. Still, they’re a success story, so they post it proudly online and boast that they cracked the code for the college essay.

As experts in the field, we’ve found that some of these essays are good — but many are a lot weaker than students assume. We can differentiate between them because we’ve been doing it for years. High school students, on the other hand, have no background in personal essay writing, and reading essays just because they’re published online is highly misleading. The essays may sometimes be good, but they aren’t proof of what works.

Reading “essays that worked” pushes students to imitate instead of reflect

Let’s assume you somehow manage to pick out all the good college essay examples and put all the bad ones aside. Even in this case, reading sample essays will sabotage your chances of getting into a top school. Why? Because you’ll be tempted to imitate the topics, strategies, and turns of phrase you found in the sample essays rather than come up with a story of your own — and admissions officers will see right through it.

We see this year after year. Students tell us they read an essay about how the stickers on their laptop reflect their values — and they present us with an essay about their stuffed animals instead. Or they read a set of essays by “successful” students and then notice the tone of their own essays has become a lot more pretentious.    

A college essay only works if it reflects how you actually think. You don’t need to have led a unique life, but you do need to describe your experiences honestly and think about how they impacted you. If you read the Common App prompts and spend time reflecting on everything that’s happened to you — that is, if you take the process seriously — you’ll eventually come up with a topic that makes you stand out to admissions officers.

But if you read college essay examples, you’ll never get to the all-important question “What happened to me?” Instead, you’ll focus on a different type of question: “What kind of essay works?” This not only limits your thinking; it’s also bad college application strategy. Despite what you may hear, schools aren’t looking for a specific type of candidate when they read college essays. If they were, everyone would just write the same thing!

No, they’re looking for something harder to put their finger on: a breath of fresh air. A candidate who interprets their own experience in a way that doesn’t feel interchangeable with what they’ve seen before.

Reading college essay examples is a mistake because it pushes you away from this process. It leads you to copy strategies admissions officers have seen a hundred times before and to submit an essay that feels predictable and formulaic.

For example, many essays begin to sound like this: “Through this experience, I learned the importance of perseverance and stepping outside my comfort zone. It showed me that growth often comes from challenges, and I now approach obstacles with a more open mindset.”

This kind of reflection isn’t wrong, but it could appear in almost any essay. And when essays start to resemble each other, they become harder to distinguish — no matter how strong the student behind them is.

Publishing sample essays is easy marketing, not good teaching

There’s one more reason the internet abounds with “essays that worked”: they provide college essay companies with good marketing. If a student does an initial search, they’ll be bombarded with the same top hits every time: “27 Outstanding College Essay Examples From Top Universities,” “14 College Essay Examples from Top-25 Universities,” “201 College Essay Examples for 11 Schools.” Students write something deeply personal… and then the companies turn it into content.

To make matters worse, if you read any other content about college essays (online or in published books), you’ll see it’s all based on sample essays as well. How do you write about trauma? Here are some great examples. How do you brag about your extracurriculars? Check out these samples. How do you get into Stanford? Read these examples.

Amid all the noise, we were amazed to discover that virtually none of these college essay companies set out to write guides in their own words. They relied on the words of their students instead. That’s why we started this college misconceptions series: we wanted to address students directly — not intimidate them with “student success stories” — and tell them they could write a compelling college essay if only they trusted in their own voice.

We understand that’s easier said than done, and in the short term, you’ll probably still be tempted to search for sample essays. After all, you’ll have no trouble finding them, and you’ll tell yourself that people get better at a craft by paying attention to what others have done before them.

That’s true in most areas of writing, but college essays are different — and if you find that these sample essays are taking you away from your own thinking, stop for a moment and return to who you actually are. We’ve written this Common App essay guide to help you get started.

We know it’s tempting to read essay examples when you’re busy applying to college, but if there’s one piece of advice we could give you, it’s don’t do it. College essay examples don’t teach you how to think about your own experience. They teach you how to reproduce someone else’s.

This article is part of the College Essay Misconceptions Series, which examines the most common myths about college essay advice.