college essay on culture

Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples

If you’ve started to research college application requirements for the schools on your list, you might have come across the “cultural diversity essay.” In this guide, we’ll explore the cultural diversity essay in depth. We will compare the cultural diversity essay to the community essay and discuss how to approach these kinds of supplements. We’ll also provide examples of diversity essays and community essay examples. But first, let’s discuss exactly what a cultural diversity essay is. 

The purpose of the cultural diversity essay in college applications is to show the admissions committee what makes you unique. The cultural diversity essay also lets you describe what type of “ diversity ” you would bring to campus.

We’ll also highlight a diversity essay sample for three college applications. These include the Georgetown application essay , Rice application essay , and Williams application essay . We’ll provide examples of diversity essays for each college. Then, for each of these college essays that worked, we will analyze their strengths to help you craft your own essays. 

Finally, we’ll give you some tips on how to write a cultural diversity essay that will make your applications shine. 

But first, let’s explore the types of college essays you might encounter on your college applications. 

Types of College Essays

College application requirements will differ among schools. However, you’ll submit one piece of writing to nearly every school on your list—the personal statement . A strong personal statement can help you stand out in the admissions process. 

So, how do you know what to write about? That depends on the type of college essay included in your college application requirements. 

There are a few main types of college essays that you might encounter in the college admissions process. Theese include the “Why School ” essay, the “Why Major ” essay, and the extracurricular activity essay. This also includes the type of essay we will focus on in this guide—the cultural diversity essay. 

“Why School” essay

The “Why School ” essay is exactly what it sounds like. For this type of college essay, you’ll need to underscore why you want to go to this particular school. 

However, don’t make the mistake of just listing off what you like about the school. Additionally, don’t just reiterate information you can find on their admissions website. Instead, you’ll want to make connections between what the school offers and how you are a great fit for that college community. 

“Why Major” essay

The idea behind the “Why Major ” essay is similar to that of the “Why School ” essay above. However, instead of writing about the school at large, this essay should highlight why you plan to study your chosen major.

There are plenty of directions you could take with this type of essay. For instance, you might describe how you chose this major, what career you plan to pursue upon graduation, or other details.

Extracurricular Activity essay

The extracurricular activity essay asks you to elaborate on one of the activities that you participated in outside of the classroom. 

For this type of college essay, you’ll need to select an extracurricular activity that you pursued while you were in high school. Bonus points if you can tie your extracurricular activity into your future major, career goals, or other extracurricular activities for college. Overall, your extracurricular activity essay should go beyond your activities list. In doing so, it should highlight why your chosen activity matters to you.

Cultural Diversity essay

The cultural diversity essay is your chance to expound upon diversity in all its forms. Before you write your cultural diversity essay, you should ask yourself some key questions. These questions can include: How will you bring diversity to your future college campus? What unique perspective do you bring to the table? 

Another sub-category of the cultural diversity essay is the gender diversity essay. As its name suggests, this essay would center around the author’s gender. This essay would highlight how gender shapes the way the writer understands the world around them. 

Later, we’ll look at examples of diversity essays and other college essays that worked. But before we do, let’s figure out how to identify a cultural diversity essay in the first place. 

How to identify a ‘cultural diversity’ essay

So, you’re wondering how you’ll be able to identify a cultural diversity essay as you review your college application requirements. 

Aside from the major giveaway of having the word “diversity” in the prompt, a cultural diversity essay will ask you to describe what makes you different from other applicants. In other words, what aspects of your unique culture(s) have influenced your perspective and shaped you into who you are today?

Diversity can refer to race, ethnicity, first-generation status, gender, or anything in between. You can write about a myriad of things in a cultural diversity essay. For instance, you might discuss your personal background, identity, values, experiences, or how you’ve overcome challenges in your life. 

However, don’t feel limited in what you can address in a cultural diversity essay. The words “culture” and “diversity” mean different things to different people. Above all, you’ll want your diversity essays for college to be personal and sincere. 

How is a ‘community’ essay different? 

A community essay can also be considered a cultural diversity essay. In fact, you can think of the community essay as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. However, there is a key difference between a community essay and a cultural diversity essay, which we will illustrate below. 

You might have already seen some community essay examples while you were researching college application requirements. But how exactly is a community essay different from a cultural diversity essay?

One way to tell the difference between community essay examples and cultural diversity essay examples is by the prompt. A community essay will highlight, well, community . This means it will focus on how your identity will shape your interactions on campus—not just how it informs your own experiences.

Two common forms to look out for

Community essay examples can take two forms. First, you’ll find community essay examples about your past experiences. These let you show the admissions team how you have positively influenced your own community. 

Other community essay examples, however, will focus on the future. These community essay examples will ask you to detail how you will contribute to your future college community. We refer to these as college community essay examples.

In college community essay examples, you’ll see applicants detail how they might interact with their fellow students. These essays may also discuss how students plan to positively contribute to the campus community. 

As we mentioned above, the community essay, along with community essay examples and college community essay examples, fit into the larger category of the cultural diversity essay. Although we do not have specific community essay examples or college community essay examples in this guide, we will continue to highlight the subtle differences between the two. 

Before we continue the discussion of community essay examples and college community essay examples, let’s start with some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts. For each of the cultural diversity essay prompts, we’ll name the institutions that include these diversity essays for college as part of their college application requirements. 

What are some examples of ‘cultural diversity’ essays? 

Now, you have a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the cultural diversity essay and the community essay. So, next, let’s look at some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts.

The prompts below are from the Georgetown application, Rice application, and Williams application, respectively. As we discuss the similarities and differences between prompts, remember the framework we provided above for what constitutes a cultural diversity essay and a community essay. 

Later in this guide, we’ll provide real examples of diversity essays, including Georgetown essay examples, Rice University essay examples, and Williams supplemental essays examples. These are all considered college essays that worked—meaning that the author was accepted into that particular institution. 

Georgetown Supplementals Essays

Later, we’ll look at Georgetown supplemental essay examples. Diversity essays for Georgetown are a product of this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you. 

You might have noticed two keywords in this prompt right away: “diverse” and “community.” These buzzwords indicate that this prompt is a cultural diversity essay. You could even argue that responses to this prompt would result in college community essay examples. After all, the prompt refers to the Georgetown community. 

For this prompt, you’ll want to produce a diversity essay sample that highlights who you are. In order to do that successfully, you’ll need to self-reflect before putting pen to paper. What aspects of your background, personality, or values best describe who you are? How might your presence at Georgetown influence or contribute to their diverse community? 

Additionally, this cultural diversity essay can be personal or creative. So, you have more flexibility with the Georgetown supplemental essays than with other similar diversity essay prompts. Depending on the direction you go, your response to this prompt could be considered a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or a college community essay. 

Rice University Essays

The current Rice acceptance rate is just 9% , making it a highly selective school. Because the Rice acceptance rate is so low, your personal statement and supplemental essays can make a huge difference. 

The Rice University essay examples we’ll provide below are based on this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? 

Breaking down the prompt.

Like the prompt above, this cultural diversity essay asks about your “life experiences,” “cultural traditions,” and personal “perspectives.” These phrases indicate a cultural diversity essay. Keep in mind this may not be the exact prompt you’ll have to answer in your own Rice application. However, future Rice prompts will likely follow a similar framework as this diversity essay sample.

Although this prompt is not as flexible as the Georgetown prompt, it does let you discuss aspects of Rice’s academic life and Residential College System that appeal to you. You can also highlight how your experiences have influenced your personal perspective. 

The prompt also asks about how you would contribute to life at Rice. So, your response could also fall in line with college community essay examples. Remember, college community essay examples are another sub-category of community essay examples. Successful college community essay examples will illustrate the ways in which students would contribute to their future campus community. 

Williams Supplemental Essays

Like the Rice acceptance rate, the Williams acceptance rate is also 9% . Because the Williams acceptance rate is so low, you’ll want to pay close attention to the Williams supplemental essays examples as you begin the writing process. 

The Williams supplemental essays examples below are based on this prompt: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry – a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives, and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an Entry? What perspective would you add to the conversation with your peer(s)?

Reflecting on the prompt.

Immediately, words like “diverse,” “backgrounds,” “perspectives,” “interests,” and “differentiate” should stand out to you. These keywords highlight the fact that this is a cultural diversity essay. Similar to the Rice essay, this may not be the exact prompt you’ll face on your Williams application. However, we can still learn from it.

Like the Georgetown essay, this prompt requires you to put in some self-reflection before you start writing. What aspects of your background differentiate you from other people? How would these differences impact your interactions with peers? 

This prompt also touches on the “student community” and how you would “add to the conversation with your peer(s).” By extension, any strong responses to this prompt could also be considered as college community essay examples. 

Community Essays

All of the prompts above mention campus community. So, you could argue that they are also examples of community essays. 

Like we mentioned above, you can think of community essays as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. If the prompt alludes to the campus community, or if your response is centered on how you would interact within that community, your essay likely falls into the world of college community essay examples. 

Regardless of what you would classify the essay as, all successful essays will be thoughtful, personal, and rich with details. We’ll show you examples of this in our “college essays that worked” section below. 

Which schools require a cultural diversity or community essay? 

Besides Georgetown, Rice, and Williams, many other college applications require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. In fact, from the Ivy League to HBCUs and state schools, the cultural diversity essay is a staple across college applications. 

Although we will not provide a diversity essay sample for each of the colleges below, it is helpful to read the prompts. This will build your familiarity with other college applications that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. Some schools that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay include New York University , Duke University , Harvard University , Johns Hopkins University , and University of Michigan . 

New York University

NYU listed a cultural diversity essay as part of its 2022-2023 college application requirements. Here is the prompt:

NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience. We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community.

Duke university.

Duke is well-known for its community essay: 

What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there’s something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well.

A top-ranked Ivy League institution, Harvard University also has a cultural diversity essay as part of its college application requirements: 

Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development, or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

Johns hopkins university.

The Johns Hopkins supplement is another example of a cultural diversity essay: 

Founded in the spirit of exploration and discovery, Johns Hopkins University encourages students to share their perspectives, develop their interests, and pursue new experiences. Use this space to share something you’d like the admissions committee to know about you (your interests, your background, your identity, or your community), and how it has shaped what you want to get out of your college experience at Hopkins. 

University of michigan.

The University of Michigan requires a community essay for its application: 

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong and describe that community and your place within it. 

Community essay examples.

The Duke and Michigan prompts are perfect illustrations of community essay examples. However, they have some critical differences. So, if you apply to both of these schools, you’ll have to change the way you approach either of these community essays. 

The Duke prompt asks you to highlight why you are a good match for the Duke community. You’ll also see this prompt in other community essay examples. To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to reference offerings specific to Duke (or whichever college requires this essay). In order to know what to reference, you’ll need to do your research before you start writing. 

Consider the following questions as you write your diversity essay sample if the prompt is similar to Duke University’s

• What values does this college community have? 
• How do these tie in with what you value? 
• Is there something that this college offers that matches your interests, personality, or background?  

On the other hand, the Michigan essay prompt asks you to describe a community that you belong to as well as your place within that community. This is another variation of the prompt for community essay examples. 

To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to identify a community that you belong to. Then, you’ll need to think critically about how you interact with that community. 

Below are some questions to consider as you write your diversity essay sample for colleges like Michigan: 

• Out of all the communities you belong to, which can you highlight in your response? 
• How have you impacted this community? 
• How has this community impacted you?

Now, in the next few sections, we’ll dive into the Georgetown supplemental essay examples, the Rice university essay examples, and the Williams supplemental essays examples. After each diversity essay sample, we’ll include a breakdown of why these are considered college essays that worked. 

Georgetown Essay Examples

As a reminder, the Georgetown essay examples respond to this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.

Here is the excerpt of the diversity essay sample from our Georgetown essay examples: 

Georgetown University Essay Example

The best thing I ever did was skip eight days of school in a row. Despite the protests of teachers over missed class time, I told them that the world is my classroom. The lessons I remember most are those that took place during my annual family vacation to coastal Maine. That rural world is the most authentic and incredible classroom where learning simply happens and becomes exponential. 

Years ago, as I hunted through the rocks and seaweed for seaglass and mussels, I befriended a Maine local hauling her battered kayak on the shore. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had found a kindred spirit in Jeanne. Jeanne is a year-round resident who is more than the hard working, rugged Mainer that meets the eye; reserved and humble in nature, she is a wealth of knowledge and is self-taught through necessity. With thoughtful attention to detail, I engineered a primitive ramp made of driftwood and a pulley system to haul her kayak up the cliff. We diligently figured out complex problems and developed solutions through trial and error.

After running out of conventional materials, I recycled and reimagined items that had washed ashore. We expected to succeed, but were not afraid to fail. Working with Jeanne has been the best classroom in the world; without textbooks or technology, she has made a difference in my life. Whether building a basic irrigation system for her organic garden or installing solar panels to harness the sun’s energy, every project has shown me the value of taking action and making an impact. Each year brings a different project with new excitement and unique challenges. My resourcefulness, problem solving ability, and innovative thinking have advanced under her tutelage. 

While exploring the rocky coast of Maine, I embrace every experience as an unparalleled educational opportunity that transcends any classroom environment. I discovered that firsthand experience and real-world application of science are my best teachers. In school, applications of complex calculations and abstract theories are sometimes obscured by grades and structure. In Maine, I expand my love of science and renourish my curious spirit. I am a highly independent, frugal, resilient Mainer living as a southern girl in NC. 

Why this essay worked

This is one of the Georgetown supplemental essay examples that works, and here’s why. The author starts the essay with an interesting hook, which makes the reader want to learn more about this person and their perspective. 

Throughout the essay, the author illustrates their intellectual curiosity. From befriending Jeanne and creating a pulley system to engineering other projects on the rocky coast of Maine, the author demonstrates how they welcome challenges and work to solve problems. 

Further, the author mentions values that matter to them—taking action and making an impact. Both facets are also part of Georgetown’s core values . By making these connections in their essay, the author shows the admissions committee exactly how they would be a great fit for the Georgetown community. 

Finally, the author uses their experience in Maine to showcase their love of science, which is likely the field they will study at Georgetown. Like this writer, you should try to include most important parts of your identity into your essay. This includes things like life experiences, passions, majors, extracurricular activities for college, and more. 

Rice University Essay Examples

The Rice University essay examples are from this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? (500-word limit)

Rice university essay example.

Like every applicant, I also have a story to share. A story that makes me who I am and consists of chapters about my life experiences and adventures. Having been born in a different country, my journey to America was one of the most difficult things I had ever experienced. Everything felt different. The atmosphere, the places, the food, and especially the people. Everywhere I looked, I saw something new. Although it was a bit overwhelming, one thing had not changed.

The caring nature of the people was still prevalent in everyday interactions. I was overwhelmed by how supportive and understanding people were of one another. Whether it is race, religion, or culture, everyone was accepted and appreciated. I knew that I could be whoever I wanted to be and that the only limitation was my imagination. Through hard work and persistence I put my all in everything that I did. I get this work ethic from my father since he is living proof that anything can be accomplished with continued determination. Listening to the childhood stories he told me, my dad would reminisce about how he was born in an impoverished area in a third world country during a turbulent and unpredictable time.

Even with a passion for learning, he had to work a laborious job in an attempt to help his parents make ends meet. He talked about how he would study under the street lights when the power went out at home. His parents wanted something better for him, as did he. Not living in America changed nothing about their work ethic. His parents continued to work hard daily, in an attempt to provide for their son. My dad worked and studied countless hours, paying his way through school with jobs and scholarships. His efforts paid off when he finally moved to America and opened his own business. None of it would have been possible without tremendous effort and dedication needed for a better life, values that are instilled within me as well, and this is the perspective that I wish to bring to Rice. 

This diversity essay sample references the author’s unique life experiences and personal perspective, which makes it one example of college essays that worked. The author begins the essay by alluding to their unique story—they were born in a different country and then came to America. Instead of facing this change as a challenge, the author shows how this new experience helped them to feel comfortable with all kinds of people. They also highlight how their diversity was accepted and appreciated. 

Additionally, the author incorporates information about their father’s story, which helps to frame their own values and where those values came from. The values that they chose to highlight also fall in line with the values of the Rice community. 

Williams Supplemental Essay Examples

Let’s read the prompt that inspired so many strong Williams supplemental essays examples again: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry—a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an entry? What perspective(s) would you add to the conversation with your peers?

Williams college essay example.

Through the flow in my head

See you clad in red

But not just the clothes

It’s your whole being

Covering in this sickening blanket

Of heat and pain

Are you in agony, I wonder?

Is this the hell they told me about?

Have we been condemned?

Reduced to nothing but pain

At least we have each other

In our envelopes of crimson

I try in vain

“Take my hands” I shriek

“Let’s protect each other, 

You and me, through this hell”

My body contorts

And deforms into nothingness

You remain the same

Clad in red

With faraway eyes

You, like a statue

Your eyes fixed somewhere else

You never see me

Just the red briefcase in your heart

We aren’t together

It’s always been me alone

While you stand there, aloof, with the briefcase in your heart.

I wrote this poem the day my prayer request for the Uighur Muslims got denied at school. At the time, I was stunned. I was taught to have empathy for those around me. Yet, that empathy disappears when told to extend it to someone different. I can’t comprehend this contradiction and I refuse to. 

At Williams, I hope to become a Community Engagement Fellow at the Davis Center. I hope to use Williams’ support for social justice and advocacy to educate my fellow classmates on social issues around the world. Williams students are not just scholars but also leaders and changemakers. Together, we can strive to better the world through advocacy.

Human’s capability for love is endless. We just need to open our hearts to everyone. 

It’s time to let the briefcase go and look at those around us with our real human eyes.

We see you now. Please forgive us.

As we mentioned above, the Williams acceptance rate is incredibly low. This makes the supplemental essay that much more important. 

This diversity essay sample works because it is personal and memorable. The author chooses to start the essay off with a poem. Which, if done right, will immediately grab the reader’s attention. 

Further, the author contextualizes the poem by explaining the circumstances surrounding it—they wrote it in response to a prayer request that was denied at school. In doing so, they also highlight their own values of empathy and embracing diversity. 

Finally, the author ends their cultural diversity essay by describing what excites them about Williams. They also discuss how they see themselves interacting within the Williams community. This is a key piece of the essay, as it helps the reader understand how the author would be a good fit for Williams. 

The examples provided within this essay also touch on issues that are important to the author, which provides a glimpse into the type of student the author would be on campus. Additionally, this response shows what potential extracurricular activities for college the author might be interested in pursuing while at Williams. 

How to Write a Cultural Diversity Essay

You want your diversity essay to stand out from any other diversity essay sample. But how do you write a successful cultural diversity essay? 

First, consider what pieces of your identity you want to highlight in your essay. Of course, race and ethnicity are important facets of diversity. However, there are plenty of other factors to consider. 

As you brainstorm, think outside the box to figure out what aspects of your identity help make up who you are. Because identity and diversity fall on a spectrum, there is no right or wrong answer here. 

Fit your ideas to the specific school

Once you’ve decided on what you want to represent in your cultural diversity essay, think about how that fits into the college of your choice. Use your cultural diversity essay to make connections to the school. If your college has specific values or programs that align with your identity, then include them in your cultural diversity essay! 

Above all, you should write about something that is important to you. Your cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will succeed if you are passionate about your topic and willing to get personal. 

Additional Tips for Community & Cultural Diversity Essays

1. Start Early

In order to create the strongest diversity essay possible, you’ll want to start early. Filling out college applications is already a time-consuming process. So, you can cut back on additional stress and anxiety by writing your cultural diversity essay as early as possible. 

2. Brainstorm

Writing a cultural diversity essay or community essay is a personal process. To set yourself up for success, take time to brainstorm and reflect on your topic. Overall, you want your cultural diversity essay to be a good indication of who you are and what makes you a unique applicant. 

3. Proofread

We can’t stress this final tip enough. Be sure to proofread your cultural diversity essay before you hit the submit button. Additionally, you can read your essay aloud to hear how it flows. You can also can ask someone you trust, like your college advisor or a teacher, to help proofread your essay as well.

Other CollegeAdvisor Essay Resources to Explore

Looking for additional resources on supplemental essays for the colleges we mentioned above? Do you need help with incorporating extracurricular activities for college into your essays or crafting a strong diversity essay sample? We’ve got you covered. 

Our how to get into Georgetown guide covers additional tips on how to approach the supplemental diversity essay. If you’re wondering how to write about community in your essay, check out our campus community article for an insider’s perspective on Williams College.

Want to learn strategies for writing compelling cultural diversity essays? Check out this Q&A webinar, featuring a former Georgetown admissions officer. And, if you’re still unsure of what to highlight in your community essay, try getting inspiration from a virtual college tour . 

Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Your supplemental essays are an important piece of the college application puzzle. With colleges becoming more competitive than ever, you’ll want to do everything you can to create a strong candidate profile. This includes writing well-crafted responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay. 

We hope our cultural diversity essay guide helped you learn more about this common type of supplemental essay. As you are writing your own cultural diversity essay or community essay, use the essay examples from Georgetown, Rice, and Williams above as your guide. 

Getting into top schools takes a lot more than a strong resume. Writing specific, thoughtful, and personal responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will put you one step closer to maximizing your chances of admission. Good luck!

CollegeAdvisor.com is here to help you with every aspect of the college admissions process. From taking a gap year to completing enrollment , we’re here to help. Register today to receive one-on-one support from an admissions expert as you begin your college application journey.

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Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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How to Write a College Diversity Essay – Examples & Tips

What is a diversity essay for college?

If you are preparing for your college application, you have probably heard that you sometimes need to submit a “diversity essay,” and you might be wondering how this is different from the usual admission essay. A diversity essay is a college admissions essay that focuses on the applicant’s background, identity, culture, beliefs, or relationship with a specific community, on what makes an applicant unique, and on how they might bring a fresh perspective or new insights to a school’s student body. Colleges let applicants write such essays to ensure diversity in their campus communities, to improve everyone’s learning experience, or to determine who might be eligible for scholarships that are offered to students from generally underrepresented backgrounds. 

Some colleges list the essay as one of their main requirements to apply, while others give you the option to add it to your application if you wish to do so. At other schools, it is simply your “personal statement”—but the prompts you are given can make it an essay on the topic of diversity in your life and how that has shaped who you are.

To write a diversity essay, you need to think about what makes you uniquely you: What significant experiences have you made, because of your background, that might separate you from other applicants? Sometimes that is obvious, but sometimes it is easy to assume our experiences are normal just because we are part of a community that shares the same circumstances, beliefs, or experiences. But if you look at your life from the perspective of someone who is not part of that community, such as an admissions officer, they can suddenly be not-so-common and help you stand out from the crowd.

Diversity Essay Examples and Topics

Diversity essays come in all shapes and formats, but what they need to do is highlight an important aspect of your identity, background, culture, viewpoints, beliefs, goals, etc. You could, for example, write about one of the following topics:

• Your home country/hometown
• Your cultural/immigration background
• Your race/ethnicity
• Your unique family circumstances
• Your religion/belief system
• Your socioeconomic background
• Your disability
• Your sex/gender
• Your sexual orientation
• Your gender identity
• Your values/opinions
• Your experiences
• Your extracurricular activities related to diversity

In the following, we ask some general questions to make you start reflecting on what diversity might mean for you and your life, and we present you with excerpts from several successful diversity-related application essays that will give you an idea about the range of topics you can write about.

How does diversity make you who you are as a person or student?

We usually want to fit in, especially when we are young, and you might not even realize that you and your life experiences could add to the diversity of a student campus. You might think that you are just like everyone around you. Or you might think that your background is nothing to brag about and are not really comfortable showcasing it. But looking at you and your life from the point of view of someone who is not part of your community, your background, culture, or family situation might actually be unique and interesting. 

What makes admission committees see the unique and interesting in your life is an authentic story, maybe even a bit vulnerable, about your lived experiences and the lessons you learned from them that other people who lived other lifes did not have the chance to learn. Don’t try to explain how you are different from others or how you have been more privileged or less fortunate than others—let your story do that. Keep the focus on yourself, your actions, thoughts, and feelings, and allow the reader a glimpse into your culture, upbringing, or community that gives them some intriguing insights. 

Have a look at the excerpt below from a diversity essay that got an applicant into Cornell University . This is just the introduction, but there is probably no admissions officer who would not want to keep reading after such a fascinating entry. 

He’s in my arms, the newest addition to the family. I’m too overwhelmed. “That’s why I wanted you to go to Bishop Loughlin,” she says, preparing baby bottles. “But ma, I chose Tech because I wanted to be challenged.” “Well, you’re going to have to deal with it,” she replies, adding, “Your aunt watched you when she was in high school.” “But ma, there are three of them. It’s hard!” Returning home from a summer program that cemented intellectual and social independence to find a new baby was not exactly thrilling. Add him to the toddler and seven-year-old sister I have and there’s no wonder why I sing songs from Blue’s Clues and The Backyardigans instead of sane seventeen-year-old activities. It’s never been simple; as a female and the oldest, I’m to significantly rear the children and clean up the shabby apartment before an ounce of pseudo freedom reaches my hands. If I can manage to get my toddler brother onto the city bus and take him home from daycare without snot on my shoulder, and if I can manage to take off his coat and sneakers without demonic screaming for no apparent reason, then it’s a good day. Only, waking up at three in the morning to work, the only free time I have, is not my cup of Starbucks.  Excerpt from “All Worth It”, Anonymous, published in 50 Successful IVY LEAGUE Application Essays Fourth Edition, Gen & Kelly Tanabe, SuperCollege, 2017 .

How has your identity or background affected your life?

On top of sharing a relevant personal story, you also need to make sure that your essay illustrates how your lived experience has influenced your perspective, your life choices, or your goals. If you can explain how your background or experience led you to apply to the school you want to submit the essay to, and why you would be a great fit for that school, even better. 

You don’t need to fit all of that into one short essay, though. Just make sure to end your essay with some conclusions about the things your life has taught you that will give the admissions committee a better idea of who you now are—like the author of the following (winning) admissions essay submitted to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) .

[…] I always thought that I had it the worst out of all my family members because I was never allowed to get anything lower than what my brother or a cousin had gotten in a class. My parents figured if they could do it, so could I, and if not on my own then with a little of their help. It was not until recently that I realized the truth in this. In my short life I have seen my father go from speaking no English to excelling in it. I have heard countless stories about migrant farmers such as Cesar Chavez and my grandfather who had nearly nothing, yet persisted and succeeded. […] When I had trouble speaking Spanish and felt like abandoning my native tongue, I remembered my mother and how when she came to the United States she was forced to wash her mouth out with soap and endure beatings with a ruler by the nuns at her school for speaking it. When I couldn’t figure out tangents, sines, and cosines I thought about my father and how it took him nearly a year to learn long division because he was forced to teach it to himself after dropping out and starting to work in the 4th grade. […] All these people, just from my family, have been strong role models for me. I feel that being labeled “underprivileged” does not mean that I am limited in what I can do. There is no reason for me to fail or give up, and like my parents and grandparents have done, I’ve been able to pull through a great deal. My environment has made me determined, hard working, and high aiming. I would not like it any other way. From “Lessons From the Immigration Spectrum”, Anonymous, MIT, published in 50 Successful IVY LEAGUE Application Essays Fourth Edition, Gen & Kelly Tanabe, SuperCollege, 2017 .

How will your diversity contribute to the college campus and community?

The admissions committee would like to know how your identity or background will enrich the university’s existing student body. If you haven’t done so, researching the university’s organizations and groups and what specific courses the university offers might be a good idea. If you are applying to a large public school, you could mention that you are looking forward to broadening not just your horizon but also your community. Or maybe your college of choice has a specialized program or student organization that you feel you will fit right into and that you could contribute to with your unique background.

Tailoring your answer to the university you are applying to shows that you are serious and have done your research, and a university is obviously looking for such students. If you can’t find a way to make your essay “match” the university, then don’t despair—showing the admissions committee that you are someone who already made some important experiences, has reflected on them, and is eager to learn more and contribute to their community is often all that is needed. But you also don’t need to search for the most sophisticated outro or conclusion, as the following excerpt shows, from an admission essay written by an applicant named Angelica, who was accepted into the University of Chicago . Sometimes a simple conviction is convincing enough. 

[…] The knowledge that I have gained from these three schools is something I will take with me far beyond college. My roommate, across-the-hall mates, and classmates have influenced my life as much as I hope to have impacted theirs. It is evident to me that they have helped me develop into the very much visible person I am today. I have learned to step outside of my comfort zone, and I have learned that diversity is so much more than the tint of our skin. My small mustard-colored school taught me that opportunity and success only requires desire. I would be an asset to your college because as I continue on my journey to success, I will take advantage of every opportunity that is available to me and make sure to contribute as much as I can, too. Now I am visible. Now I am visible. Now I am visible, and I want to be seen. From “No Longer Invisible” by Angelica, University of Chicago, published in 50 Successful IVY LEAGUE Application Essays Fourth Edition, Gen & Kelly Tanabe, SuperCollege, 2017 .

Tell stories about your lived experience

You might wonder how exactly to go about writing stories about your “lived experience.” The first step, after getting drawing inspiration from other people’s stories, is to sit down and reflect on your own life and what might be interesting about it, from the point of view of someone outside of your direct environment or community.

Two straightforward approaches for a diversity-related essay are to either focus on your community or on your identity . The first one is more related to what you were born into (and what it taught you), and the second one focuses on how you see yourself, as an individual but also as part of society.

Take some time to sit down and reflect on which of these two approaches you relate to more and which one you think you have more to say about. And then we’d recommend you do what always helps when we sit in front of a blank page that needs to be filled: Make a list or draw a chart or create a map of keywords that can become the cornerstones of your story.

For example, if you choose the “community” approach, then start with a list of all the communities that you are a part of. These communities can be defined by different factors:

• A shared place: people live or work together
• Shared actions: People create something together or solve problems together
• Shared interests: People come together based on interests, hobbies, or goals
• Shared circumstances: people are brought together by chance or by events

Once you have that list, pick one of your communities and start asking yourself more specific questions. For example: 

• What did you do as a member of that community? 
• What kinds of problems did you solve , for your community or together?
• Did you feel like you had an impact ? What was it?
• What did you learn or realize ? 
• How are you going to apply what you learned outside of that community?

If, instead, you choose the “identity” approach, then think about different ways in which you think about yourself and make a list of those. For example:

My identity is as a… 

• boy scout leader
• hobby writer
• babysitter for my younger siblings
• speaker of different languages
• collector of insightful proverbs
• Japanese-American
• other roles in your family, community, or social sub-group

Feel free to list as many identities as you can. Then, think about what different sides of you these identities reveal and which ones you have not yet shown or addressed in your other application documents and essays. Think about whether one of these is more important to you than others if there is one that you’d rather like to hide (and why) and if there is any struggle, for example with reconciling all of these sides of yourself or with one of them not being accepted by your culture or environment.

Overall, the most important characteristic admissions committees are looking for in your diversity essay is authenticity . They want to know who you are, behind your SATs and grades, and how you got where you are now, and they want to see what makes you memorable (remember, they have to read thousands of essays to decide who to enroll). 

The admissions committee members likely also have a “sixth sense” about whose essay is authentic and whose is not. But if you go through a creative process like the one outlined here, you will automatically reflect on your background and experiences in a way that will bring out your authenticity and honesty and prevent you from just making up a “cool story.”

Diversity Essay Sample Prompts From Colleges

If you are still not sure how to write a diversity essay, let’s have a look at some of the actual diversity essay prompts that colleges include in their applications. 

Diversity Essay Sample #1: University of California

The University of California asks applicants to choose between eight prompts (they call them “ personal insight questions “) and submit four short essays of up to 350 words each that tell the admission committee what you would want them to know about you . These prompts ask about your creative side (#2), your greatest talent (#3), and other aspects of your personality, but two of them (#5 and #7) are what could be called “diversity essay prompts” that ask you to talk about the most significant challenge you have faced and what you have done to make your community a better place .

The University of California website also offers advice on how to use these prompts and how to write a compelling essay, so make sure you use all the guidance they give you if that is the school you are trying to get into!

UC Essay prompt #5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you’ve faced and what you’ve learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone?

UC Essay prompt #7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  

Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team, or place—like your high school, hometown, or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community? Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? 

Diversity Essay Sample #2: Duke University

Duke University asks for a one-page essay in response to either one of the Common Application prompts or one of the Coalition Application prompts, as well as a short essay that answers a question specific to Duke. 

In addition, you can (but do not have to) submit up to two short answers to four prompts that specifically ask about your unique experiences, your beliefs and values, and your background and identity. The maximum word count for each of these short essays on diversity topics is 250 words.

Essay prompt #1. We seek a diverse student body that embodies the wide range of human experience. In that context, we are interested in what you’d like to share about your lived experiences and how they’ve influenced how you think of yourself. Essay prompt #2. We believe there is benefit in sharing and sometimes questioning our beliefs or values; who do you agree with on the big important things, or who do you have your most interesting disagreements with? What are you agreeing or disagreeing about? Essay prompt #3. What has been your best academic experience in the last two years, and what made it so good? Essay prompt #4. Duke’s commitment to diversity and inclusion includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. If you’d like to share with us more about your identity in this context, feel free to do so here.

Duke University is looking for students with a variety of different experiences, backgrounds, interests, and opinions to make its campus community diverse and a place where ambition and curiosity, talent and persistence can grow, and the admissions committee will “consider what you have accomplished within the context of your opportunities and challenges so far”—make sure you tell them!

Diversity Essay Sample #3: University of Washington

The University of Washington asks students for a long essay (650 words) on a general experience that shaped your character, a short essay (300 words) that describes the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of your future university and allows you to submit additional information on potential hardships or limitations you have experienced in attaining your education so far. The University of Washington freshman writing website also offers some tips on how to (and how not to) write and format your essays.

Essay prompt [required] Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

Short response prompt [required] Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. “Community” might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW.

Additional information about yourself or your circumstances [optional] You are not required to write anything in this section, but you may include additional information if something has particular significance to you. For example, you may use this space if:

– You have experienced personal hardships in attaining your education

– Your activities have been limited because of work or family obligations

– You have experienced limitations/opportunities unique to the schools you attended

The University of Washington’s mission is to enroll undergraduates with outstanding intellectual abilities who bring different perspectives, backgrounds, and talents to the campus to create a “stimulating educational environment”. The diversity essay is your chance to let them know how you will contribute to that.

Diversity Essay Sample #4: University of Michigan

At the University of Michigan, a diversity college essay that describes one of the communities (defined by geography, religion, ethnicity, income, or other factors) you belong to is one of two required essays that need to be submitted by all applicants, on top of the Common Application essay. 

Diversity essay prompt. Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.

The University of Michigan prides itself in “looking at each student as a whole package” and recruiting the most dynamic students, with different backgrounds, interests, and passions, into their college, not just the ones with the highest test scores. They also give consideration to applicants from currently underrepresented groups to create diversity on campus and enrich the learning environment for all students—if that sounds like you, then here is your opportunity to tell your story!

Frequently Asked Questions about Diversity Essays

What topics should i avoid in my college diversity essay.

Since the point of a diversity essay is to show the admissions committee who you are (behind your grades and resume and general educational background), there are not many topics you need to avoid. In fact, you can address the issues, from your own perspective, that you are usually told not to mention in order not to offend anyone or create controversy. 

The only exception is any kind of criminal activity, especially child abuse and neglect. The University of Washington, for example, has a statement on its essay prompt website that “ any written materials that give admissions staff reasonable cause to believe abuse or neglect of someone under the age of 18 may have occurred must be reported to Child Protective Services or the police. ”

What is most important to focus on in my diversity essay?

In brief, to stand out while not giving the admissions committee any reason to believe that you are exaggerating or even making things up. Your story needs to be authentic, and admissions officers—who read thousands of applications—will probably see right through you if you are trying to make yourself sound cooler, more mature, or more interesting than you are. 

In addition, make sure you let someone, preferably a professional editor, read over your essays and make sure they are well-written and error-free. Even though you are telling your personal story, it needs to be presented in standard, formal, correct English.

How long should a diversity essay be?

Every school has different requirements for their version of a diversity essay, and you will find all the necessary details on their admissions or essay prompts website. Make sure you check the word limit and other guidelines before you start typing away!

Prepare your college diversity essay for admission

Now that you know what a diversity essay is and how you find the specific requirements for the essays you need to submit to your school of choice, make sure you plan in advance and give yourself enough time to put all your effort into it! Our article How to Write the Common App Essay can give you an idea about timelines and creative preparation methods. And as always, we can help you with our professional editing services , including Application Essay Editing Services and Admission Editing Services , to ensure that your entire application is error-free and showcases your potential to the admissions committee of your school of choice.

For more academic resources on writing the statement of purpose for grad school or on the college admission process in general, head over to our Admissions Resources website where we have many more articles and videos to help you improve your essay writing skills.

612 Culture Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

If you are writing a culture essay, topics are easy to find. However, their abundance can quickly become overwhelming – so we prepared this handy list of culture title ideas, along with writing tips and examples.

🤫 Culture Essays: Topics and Writing Tips

🏆 best culture topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics about culture, 🎓 simple & easy culture title ideas, 📌 cultural topics and writing prompts, 🥇 most interesting culture topics to write about, ❓ research questions about culture.

Describing culture is a challenging task. You have probably stumbled across the concept if you study sociology, media, or a variety of other subjects. There are many cultural differences across the Earth. Each nation, community, and subgroup of people have its own values, vocabulary, and customs. In the 21st century, we can document and share them thanks to cross-cultural communication.

Since there is an almost infinite number of things to consider about this broad topic, our team has collected 582 topics about culture. Check them out on this page!

Culture essays present excellent opportunities for conducting extensive research. They allow students to analyze acute global problems and investigate the topic of diversity, customs, and traditions, as well as the significance of individuals’ cultural backgrounds. You can choose one of the many topics for your culture essay. You can find culture essay ideas online or ask your professor.

We suggest the following culture essay topics and titles:

• The significance of cultural identity in an individual
• Culture as a political instrument in the modern world
• The differences between the Eastern and the Western culture
• The role of culture in people from mixed origins
• The impact of religious views on culture
• Cultural diversity in the workplace
• Are there similarities among different cultures?
• The link between culture and gender roles

After selecting culture essay questions for discussion, you can start working on your paper. Here are some secrets of the powerful paper on the topic:

• Conduct preliminary research on the selected issue. Remember that you should find as much relevant information as possible while presenting a multifaceted perspective on the issue. Ask your professor about the sources you can use and stick to the instructions. Avoid using personal blogs or Wikipedia as the primary sources of information. Do not make a statement if you cannot support it with evidence.
• If you are writing a paper about a particular culture, think about whether you can talk to someone coming from this background. Such an approach can help you to include all the relevant information in your paper and avoid possible crucial mistakes.
• Remember that a well-organized culture essay outline is key for your paper. Think of the main points you want to discuss and decide how you structure your paper. Remember that each topic or subtopic should be stated in a separate paragraph, if possible.
• If it is necessary, check out essay examples online to see how you can organize the information. In addition, this step can help you to evaluate the relevance of the issue you want to discuss. Remember to include an introductory and concluding paragraph in which you will state the main points and findings of your paper.
• Avoid discriminating against some cultures in your essay. Remember that even if you do not understand the causes of some behaviors or norms, you should not criticize them in your paper. Instead, help the reader to understand them better and provide insight into important differences between cultures.
• Be accepting and try to be as accurate as possible. Support your claims with evidence from your preliminary research.
• If relevant, include graphs and charts to represent significant information. For example, you can visualize the presence of diversity in the workplace in different countries.
• Remember that the reader should understand the goal and idea of your paper clearly. Define all terms and avoid using overly complex sentences. Be concise but provide enough relevant information on the topic.
• Make sure that you use correct grammar and sentence structures in your essay. Even an excellent essay can look bad with grammatical mistakes. Grammar-free papers allow the reader to see that your opinion is credible. Check the essay several times before sending it to your instructor.

Do not forget to find a free sample in our collection that will help you get the best ideas for your writing!

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• McDonald’s Cultural Issues in India Some of the issues which are discussed include Mcdonald’s historical background, the cultural and ethical issues at the organization’s operations, and the social responsibility issues in different regions where the organization has operations.
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• Coca-Cola Company’s Cross-Cultural Management The company also possesses a vision, which is a guiding factor to the units of the business, which is achieved by laying out whatever they need to achieve in order to sustain their progress and […]
• Food Habits and Culture: Factors Influence The food habits of a group of people/community can be described as the reasons for eating, the methods used while eating, the types of food eaten, and the mode of storage.
• Cultural Competence: Indian Culture and Healthcare They also believed that, the disease was heredity and that if one member of the family suffered from one of the diseases, chances that somebody from the same family would contract the disease are high.
• Four Types of Corporate Management Culture After studying such aspects of the work of large organizations as the relationship between employees, the subordination system in the company, and employees’ attitudes and views on the development of the MNCs, Trompenaars states that […]
• The Advantages of Living in a Multicultural City Living in a multicultural city provides one with multiple benefits such as having opportunities to learn about other cultures, developing a better understanding of different cultures, and having more chances to improve one’s personality.
• Amazon Corporate Culture Issues Term Paper Problem Scenario: Amazon’s employees report about multiple cases of workplace disregard, the lack of benefits and praise as well as unfair ranking system that creates the need to analyze the corporate culture of the organization […]
• Festivals and Their Importance for Modern Culture Thematic festivals are trendy and vital for today’s culture: different music festivals, art and design festivals, and even sex festivals. Modern-day festivals are widespread around the Earth, and they often combine the elements of local […]
• Zara: Corporate Structure and Culture In Luthans, due to the large size and diversity of the organization, Zara has departmentalized itself in terms of the services and products it offers in the market.
• Nok Culture’s Main Characteristic Features One of the most significant pieces of art is the Nok art, a testament of the Nok culture. Discovery of the sculptures in 1943 indicate the use of iron, the practice of smelting for tools […]
• Cultural Comparison: The United States of America and Japan First of all, it is important to note that both the United States of America and Japan have notable similarities as far as their cultures are concerned.
• History of Children’s Literature in Western Culture Plato, one of the most notable rulers of the time, held it that story-telling sessions should take the form of a play and he insisted that professional storytellers and poets be the ones in charge […]
• Birthing Traditions and Practices Among Russian-Speaking Cultural Group Many things about Russia, its people, and its traditions remain a mystery for the average American, as a history of geopolitical and military confrontation, as well as the distance between the two countries, cause many […]
• Comparison of US and Germany Cultural Differences Power distance is the degree to which power is shared evenly in a community as well as the extent in which the community recognize and accepts this variation in power distribution among itself; this is […]
• USA And Nigeria: Hofstede’s Six Cultural Dimensions Comparison Considering the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, the U.S.and Nigeria are similar in terms of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long- term orientation, the half of all the suggested factors by Baack.
• Intercultural Communication Essay: Differences in Cultural, Religious, and Ethnic Backgrounds Identity management theories are also a form of intercultural communication theory developed to explain the cross-cultural aspect of communication where intercultural communication under this theory is seen to originate from the intercultural and intracultural types […]
• The Mughal Empire: Culture and Heritage The combination of the regions’ economic independence, the tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and the penetration of the subcontinent by the European economic powers led to the decline of the Mughal Empire.
• Existential Therapy and Multicultural Perspective Paying attention to the entire idea of existential therapy, the exploring meaning and values of the issue will be considered referencing to the authenticity of the ideas, priorities, and values.
• Globalization and Food Culture Essay The interviewee gave the examples of France, America, and China in her description of how food can affect the culture of a place and vice versa.
• Ethnicity Essay: Cultural Background in the Daily Lives of Children and Young People The idea of a child according to Montgomery and Kellett refers to a representation of a whole category of young people that are identified by their age and intellectual development and also their social maturity […]
• The Literature of the Renaissance Period The main features of the Renaissance culture which also determine the elements of the Renaissance literature are the philosophy of humanism, the secular character of the art pieces, and the orientation on the antique patterns.
• Culture in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe I also kill a cock at the shrine of Ifejioku, the god of yams” Ibo culture is shown through the world look of the Western society that is why the aspect of behavioral brutality was […]
• The Importance of Organizational Culture Essay Organizational culture and change is most valuable to an aspiring manager because it they form the basis of organizational success. It is imperative for managers to introduce change in the organization to encourage innovation and […]
• Porsche’s Strategy, Structure, and Culture The change of the legal form of the company allowed other people who were not members of the Porsche family to become members of the Executive Board of the company.
• Cultural Diversity in the UAE: Social and Economic Development This view is in line with Rabah’s emphasis on the importance of respecting cultural diversity in the process of nation-building because the concept is useful in solving conflicts and developing solutions that are beneficial to […]
• The Effect of Globalization on a World Culture The net result is a global culture; the effect and extent that global culture has gone in the world varied among nations and continents; developed countries have their culture more diffused and uniformity can be […]
• Cultural Differences Between Turkey and USA Spanish, Polish and Greek languages are also part of the oral communication of the people in America. The use of suffixes in Turkish language is very important and we can feel the grammatical functions of […]
• Wal-Mart Company’s Cross Cultural Communication This system of operation has resulted in one of the labor activists called Wang Shishu led demonstrations in order to convince the management not to cut the pay of the employees.
• Japan vs. Germany: Cultural Differences The first aspect of the matter is people’s activity in Japan and Germany within businesses as determined by culture and their habits and preferences in terms of distinguishing their work time and families.
• Philippines Dressing Culture and Customs The country borders South China Sea to the North and West, the Sulu Sea and Celebs Sea to the southwest, and the Philippines Sea to the east.
• How to Avoid Ethnocentrism – Essay on Promoting Cultural Relativism In an effort to understand ethnocentrism which is defined as, the tendency to believe that one’s cultural beliefs and their culture’s ethnic values to be superior to others.
• Diverse Contexts and Intercultural Communication at Work As the world moves to the global environment, the modern workplace becomes more and more diverse. When individuals are educated about intercultural differences are more likely to alter their communication styles to suit the needs […]
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) Cultural Analysis And the root of the word Miller is Greek and means apple in Greek. Overall, the treatment of the Greek culture in the movie is inelegant.
• Heritage Tourism and Cultural Tourism In the preservation of the sites for tourism purposes, it is clear that what is termed as the “culture of today” becomes the heritage of the future. There is a need to unveil the complexity […]
• UAE and Culture UAE’s society is multicultural. UAE culture has been defined by the Islamic religion as it is the most dominant in the region.
• The United States of America’s Culture These are however just general views on what the American culture really is, the next section of this paper will go to the specifics, and zero in into the following factors that determine the true […]
• Threats of Globalization on Culture of Individual Countries The world has become a “global village” this is due to the expansion of communication networks, the rapid information exchange and the lifting of barriers of visas and passports.
• Cultural Identity Theory: “How to Be Chinese” by Celeste Ng Thus, while recognizing the role that the specified cultural signifiers have for Asian American people in their attempts to retain their cultural identity, Ng also demonstrates the urge to introduce immediate change to prevent the […]
• Culture and Development in Nigeria The following are some of the organizations that are concerned with cultural developments in Nigeria:- The African development bank is involved in major activities in the water sector and in sanitation projects across Nigeria.
• Chinese Traditional Festivals and Culture Of all the Chinese festivals, the Spring Festival has the greatest value to the Chinese people with its value equated to the value of the Westerners attachment to Christmas.
• Emerson’s, Whitman’s and Thoreau’s Cultural Impact This movement was based on the belief in the unity of the world and God. The doctrine of “self-confidence” and individualism was developed by convincing the reader that the human soul was connected with God […]
• Religion and Cultural Belonging: “The Flea Palace” by Elif Shafak The old and the new, the Christianity and Islam, the East and the West are shown closely interconnected for example in the description of the two ancient cemeteries in Istanbul and in the development of […]
• Ramen Culture as a Vital Part of the Traditions in Japan Studying the history of the transformation of ramen culture and the role it plays in modern Japanese popular culture helps to explore the uniqueness of the phenomenon and understand the origins of its immense popularity.
• The Preservation of Our Cultural Heritage: Music for Entertainment and Communication Similar to how music plays a significant role in the lives of many people, it is an important aspect of history and culture.
• Adolf Hitler’s Cultural Theories in “Mein Kampf” So, according to Adolf Hitler, the foreign Aryan spirit was the awakener of Japanese people hence the bore a culture that they did not create.
• Cultural Norms: Fair and Lovely and Advertising Is the advertising of Fair & Lovely demeaning to women or is it portraying a product not too similar to cosmetics in general?
• Japanese Animations’ Effects on the Japanese Economy and Their Cultural Influence on Foreign Countries These artists incorporate the characteristic anime stylizations, gags and methodology in their piece of work to produce animations that are a bit similar to Japanese anime. The growing interest among foreign artists in anime is […]
• Pashtun Culture: Cultural Presentation This presentation will overview one of such groups – the Pashtun culture and the challenges a nurse may face working with its representatives.
• The Cultural-Individual Dialectic and Social Nature of Intercultural Relationships This specific type of dialectics is based on the idea that communication of persons depends not only on cultural aspects and differences but also on their individual attributes and visions. Thus, the cultural-individual dialectic is […]
• The Luo Culture of Kenya The Luo people are the indigenous people of Kenya living around lake Victoria, which lies in the western part of the country.
• Celebrity Culture and Its Influence on Society Before discussing the way Angelina Jolie and other celebrities affect modern society, it is necessary to identify the origins of the celebrity culture.
• Cultural Analysis – China and the Us In a bid to survive in such a market, it is crucial for the American investors to conduct a broad analysis of the cultural differences between China and the United States.
• Toyota’s Culture and Leadership Strategy Toyota’s Leadership and Culture Irrespective of numerous difficulties, the company is still one of the leaders of the industry. To understand the essence of the lean leadership, it is crucial to consider some peculiarities of […]
• Importance of Cultural Diversity Campaigns such as the Black Lives Matter may be attributed to lack of inclusion and appreciation of different cultures. For instance, the discussion of inclusivity in the 1970s focused on primary and secondary dimensions of […]
• The Influence of Ramayana on the Indian Culture If one considers the image provided in the work with the work itself, one notices the detailed depiction of the life and activities of the protagonist.
• The Overall Effects of Cultural Diversity in the Hospitality Industry The report focuses on analyzing the overall effects of cultural diversity in the hospitality industry. The nature of the industry’s workplaces and the way they deal with the issues concerning management of cultural diversity.
• Material and Nonmaterial Culture of Middle East The cultural heritage of the Middle Eastern countries is rooted in the deep history of humanity. The states of this territory almost entirely belong to the countries of the eastern part of the Islamic world.
• The Role of Ethnocentrism in Intercultural Communication The only way to control ethnocentrism is to avoid biases as we find better ways to understand other people’s point of view.
• Chinese New Year Foods: Chinese Culture and Traditions This piece of work will give an in depth discussion of Chinese culture with the central focus being on the Chinese New Year Foods and its relationship with the changes that have been experienced in […]
• Apple’s Cross-Cultural Problems in China In the case of Apple, the main issues have to do with employee management issues mostly associated with working conditions and compliance to Chinese labor laws.
• Political and Cultural Impact of Alexander the Great’s Conquests Due to many territories that he conquered, the dominion that Alexander the Great had was regarded as one of the greatest in the history of the world.
• Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: Structuralism and Post-Structuralism In the fields of literature, and design, architecture, in addition to marketing business and the interpretation of culture, history and law are started to analyze on the basis of post-structuralism in the nineteen sixties of […]
• The Kikuyu Community: Religion and Culture The community speaks the Kikuyu language. Kenya’s Kikuyu people are the most popular and largest ethnic group.
• Cancel Culture: A Persuasive Speech Cancel culture is a phenomenon of modern society that has arisen thanks to the development of social media. However, in this situation, it is difficult to determine who sets the boundaries of the morally correct […]
• Cultural Assimilation: Benefits and Challenges The mass migration of people leads to the fact that the population of the country is constantly growing, new nations come, and cultures are mixed, forming the so-called “melting pot”.
• Egypt’s History, Culture, Religion, and Economy Over the next three millennia, Egypt would see the rise and fall of several civilizations, including the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom.
• The Impact of the Internet in Culture and Daily Habits The growth of the internet has greatly improved our culture and society today with services it offers in the enrichment of our lives at work and at home.
• Tolerance and Respect for Cultural Differences The author concludes the essay in the third section by revisiting the thesis statement and highlighting the various approaches used to develop attitudes that promote respect and tolerance.
• Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Styles Across Ethnic and Cultural Backgrounds In the essay, I discuss verbal and non-verbal communication styles across ethnic and cultural background, communication styles that a counselor may come across when dealing with culturally diverse clients and how a therapist can succeed […]
• How Does Culture Affect the Self Identity Personal Essay The economic background, family relations and ethnic distinctions have contributed significantly to the personality trait of being a low profile person who is considerate of others.
• Jamaican Family Cultural Practices The history of the Jamaicans in the United States began in 1619 when some blacks from Jamaica, as well as from the Caribbean islands migrated to the United States.
• Social Cultural Causes of Crime There is need to highlight the social cultural factors of crime and describe the necessary positive measures to prevent the occurrences of crime.
• The “Brave” Intercultural Film Analysis In their discourse in the forest, the princess and her mother realized the need for relationship rebuilding, mending the bond that led to a solution for the kingdom’s survival.
• Concept of Globalisation and Cultural Diversity The Concept of Globalisation Globalisation can be defined as the minimisation of the differences between people of the world and the maximisation of their similarities through interactions, cooperation and communication.
• Social and Cultural Aspects of Pre-Colonial Africa in Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart The novel emphasize on the encounters of the pre-colonial Africa and the effect of British colonialism during the 19th century. Gender disparity is clear in this village and the crimes are identified with gender where […]
• Culture Identity: Asian Culture Men on the other hand, are socialized to believe they should offer financial support to their families and ensure that the family is secure.
• Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism: Objections and Differences The key difference is that relativism relates the human experience to the influence of culture, while subjectivism states that right and wrong is a matter of personal opinion.
• Impact of Globalization on the Maasai Peoples` Culture This essay will therefore focus on the roles the aforementioned forces have played in changing the culture of the Maasai. Moreover, tourism has resulted in environmental degradation which is putting the Maasai on the brink […]
• The Fashion of the Hippie Culture Studying the fashion of the hippie culture is important because it illustrates the changes that society had undergone in the 1960s not only with regards to the style of clothing that people wore but also […]
• Saudi Arabian Culture In this view, observation of Islamic beliefs, norms, values, and traditions enables people to understand the Saudi Arabian culture and adopt it.
• Gang Culture in the USA: Symbols, Norms, Values The term culture refers to the norms and social behavior of a given community or group of people. Having the objects makes them feel brave and ready to act in the interest of the group […]
• Body Ritual Among the Nacirema: Cultural Study For instance, the research by Professor Linton is qualitative in the aspect that it tries to unearth the cultural practices and belief system of the Nacirema people.
• Cultural Assimilation, Acceptance and Identity in Julia Alvarez’s Poetry The girl from the new family reminded Alvarez of her own plight when she had moved to the United States and had not yet been accepted completely by the community.
• Importance of Cross-Cultural Management in International Business As earlier pointed out, a vital requirement for success in an international business setup is the ability of managers to comprehend and appreciate other cultures across the world.
• Cultural Pride and Cultural Baggage One of the articles that was written by Kincaid gives her experiences in England which portrays her cultural baggage as she finds it quite hard to fit in this society and to adopt a similar […]
• Cultural Competence: Jamaican Heritage Self-reflection as a way to improve one’s cultural competence Jamaican cultural ancestry Addressing social norms, cultural beliefs, behaviors, and the impact on health care Self-reflection has been regarded as an effective way to self-develop […]
• Diversity of Jamaican Culture The culture of Jamaica is a rich blend of the ways deriving from both Spanish and British eras which affected lives of the people on this small island.
• Communication Challenges in Intercultural Interactions This essay aims to show that communication in intercultural interactions is hindered by the communication style, body language, stereotypes, the tendency to evaluate, high anxiety, and differences in ways of completing tasks.
• Sustaining a Culture in Multinational Corporations The management has to deal with the diverse culture of the organizations to succeed in the global scene. The managers can pick employees from each of the countries in which the organization has operations or […]
• Cultural, Political, Economic and Legal Aspects of Doing Business in France The economy of this country is very strong, considered as the second largest in Europe, and fifth largest in the world.
• Impacts of Culture on Consumer Behaviour In addition, the impacts of the environment on the conduct of these consumers are made evident. For example, in the field of marketing, the phrase refers to acts and patterns of purchasing and buying.
• Culture Comparison Between China and Japan In Japan, it can be proved by the fact that the name Japan is written in the Chinese Kanji and not the Japanese Katakana or Hiragana.
• Influence of Political, Social, and Cultural Issues Political, social, and cultural factors in the world have significant influence on the economic and security status of a society. In the society, there are two types of poverty viz.the absolute poverty, and the relative […]
• Cultural Intelligence by Christopher and Elaine Mosakowski With this identification on how cultural intelligence affects or influences perceptions of people, and definition of the term, the authors continue exploring the major sources of cultural intelligence, the various cultural intelligence profiles, and ways […]
• Culture and Communication: Egypt Egypt is the origin of the earliest civilizations and has taken an important position in the Middle East as the connection between the Arab and Europe regions.
• Communication Culture: Hall’s High and Low-Context Model of Culture The differences in the modes and styles of communication are due to diverse cultures of the people from different countries. The aim of this report is to evaluate the concept of different communication cultures through […]
• Culture and Health Beliefs in Korea Buddhism and Confucianism have had the most profound impact on the spiritual world and the life of the Korean people, and more than half of the country’s cultural heritage is associated with these two religions.
• Socialization for the Transmission of Culture Cultural transmission is one of the basic constituents of recreating cultures and passing values from one person or group to others.
• Culture, Language and Influences on Development Therefore, mothers, as the main caregivers, have to understand what activities are more important for them and for their children regarding the peculiar features of the society they have to live in.
• Football Impact on England’s Culture This paper will study the various impacts of football both on the social life of people and on the economy of the country.
• Culturally Sensitive Care For Jehovah’s Witnesses They hold the belief that life is the representation of life and taking another human’s blood is equivalent to taking part in his life.
• Intercultural Relationships Importance However, this study does not mean that a person is born with a predetermined perception on things, only that genes can define the temperament of the person and can later suggest different preferences of beliefs […]
• Cultural Hybridization: The Beliefs, Language, and Social Habits The interaction between the Tai, Han and Zhuang was through conflicts between the majority group, the Han in the Northern regions and the minority Zhuang and the Tai in the southern regions of China.
• Cultural Belief System: Experiences and Traditions In most communities, the belief systems form the basis for validity of governance systems in the community as well as the acceptable laws governing behavior in the society.
• The Bhagavad Gita: The Role of Religion in Relation to the Hindu Culture From this point, it is important to focus on the Bhagavad Gita and its role for the Hindu culture in the context of the role of religion in the Hindu society because the scripture contains […]
• Italian Culture There is no post of the vice president in Italy and in the event that the president dies, elections will have to be held.
• Five Cultural Dimensions for Understanding the Values For instance, looking at Japan from the Hofstede five dimensional models will give the most significant drivers in the culture of the country in comparison to other countries across the world.
• Cultural Identity: Problems, Coping, and Outcomes The intensification of the processes of globalization, cultural integration, and expansion of contacts between representatives of different countries led to the gradual blurring of boundaries between national cultures and the loss of cultural identity.
• Managing Cultural Diversity: A Case Analysis of Hilton Hotels Corporation The hospitality industry, in particular, is at the core of recent developments in globalization and labor migration as can be witnessed by the increasing mobility of the workforce and attempts within the industry to expand […]
• Culture and Health Correlation People’s culture influences the type of food they purchase and the way they prepare it, which is a vital determinant of health.
• Hall Stuart: Questions of Cultural Identity Hall states that it is important to theorize the notion of identity to make it more applicable. However, Hall still claims that it is important to understand what identity is.
• Managing Cultural Diversity in the Hospitality Industry This is common due to confusion and the inability to interact with others in the society. This refers to the level of integration in the society.
• Cross Cultural Management and International Business In this essay we will focus on the role of culture in international business situations and also the strategies and frameworks that are appropriate in cross-cultural management.
• Principles of Effective Cross-Cultural Communication Essay Most disagreements in businesses can be attributed to lack of skills in intercultural communication, which is more common when the sender and the recipient are of different cultures.
• How Geography Has Impacted the Development of Ancient Cultures They include: the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts, the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, and The Himalayas. To the Egyptians, the Nile River was also a source of transport, facilitating the movements of the people up and […]
• Comparison of the Australian and Indonesian Culture On the other hand, Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest population in the world and it has over two hundred ethnic groups who use different languages. Marriage is also important in the […]
• Haiti History and Culture The Haitian culture features the Spanish, American as well as the French music. The salad is provided as a supplement in Haitian meals.
• Multicultural Education Benefits: Functioning in a Pluralistic and Egalitarian Society Students are thus required to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in a pluralistic and egalitarian society. The teacher is thus able to enhance socialization and transmission of culture while providing academic skills […]
• British and Brazilian People: Cultural Differences It is critical to make appointments in advance, not to begin business discussions before the host, and to be on time for a business meeting.
• Culture Influence on Intimacy and Human Relationships These intrigues emerge when understanding the influence of culture on human relationships by understanding the influence of collectivist and individualistic cultures on intimacy.
• Disneyland’s Cultural Dimension: USA v. France USA and France seem to be specific but in some instances, manifestation of a degree of difference is inevitable between the two countries.
• Culture and Identity: “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros The past is a driving force for the future and it is hard to erase that part of an individual’s life.
• Cultural Pollution:Traditions and Historical Concepts The cultures traditions and historical concepts of the Middle East have over the centuries been characterised as by a distinct sense of variety that stems from a whirlwind of customs and traditions.
• Heritage Tourism vs. Cultural Tourism Definition In contrast, cultural tourism fails to consider the experience of the past and is more concerned with the meeting the needs of the visitors.
• Western Culture Impacts on the UAE Local Lifestyle One of the countries that observe the impact of western culture on the life of the young generation in the United Arad Emirates.
• Servant Leadership in Indian Culture and Hindu Religion The basis of this approach is the reorientation of the values of the leader, who considers the empowerment of followers as a means and goal of his activity.
• Korean Culture: History and Principles Korean is one of the top 20 languages in the world in terms of the number of speakers. In brief, the Korean language is a synthesis of Chinese roots and modern developments.
• Tesco and Global Supermarket Chain in Hungary: Cultural Issues According to Radosevic and Yoruk, the authors of an article titled ‘International expansion and buyer-driven commodity chain: the case of Tesco,’ Tesco bought a 57% of supermarket chain in 1994, which included 41 stores in […]
• A Comparison Between Swedish and Australian Culture Impact of Culture on Life Experience and Belief System The interviewee explained that having been born in Sweden, where Lutheran is the main church, he followed the teachings of the Lutheran church.
• Society, Culture, and Civilization Thus, culture is a flexible feature of non-animal communities that penetrates their subsistence and helps to adjust to the surroundings. The last concept, civilization, is the consequence of the constant changes of the first two […]
• Building High Performance Culture: Zappos The peripheral goods and services are not essential, but they enhance the primary product and add value. However, creative telemarketers are the primary competitive advantage of the company and one of its most valued variants.
• The Erosion of Cultural Differences and Globalised Consumer Culture This paper looks into globalisation via cultural perspective whereby the mobility of people in the contemporary world has facilitated the understanding of new cultures and identities in a globalised world.
• Cultural Diffusion: Factors and Effects The process by which cultural traits and items are spread from one individual to another, either within a particular cultural setting or from one culture to another is known as cultural diffusion.
• IKEA Company’s Organizational Culture Thus, every worker is a carrier of the propagated IKEA culture, which in turn forms the basis for the success of the organization as a whole.
• Technology as a Form of Material Culture Typically, the advance in technology is necessitated by the desire of human beings to perform efficiently and to make life more comfortable.
• Cross-Cultural Management Major Theories The study of different languages helps one in comprehending what people have in common and also assist in comprehending the diversity that underlies languages, methods of creating and organizing knowledge and the several different realities […]
• The Impact of Fashion Marketing on Culture The primary aim of this study is to investigate the impact of fashion marketing, specifically in the clothing sector, on culture.
• Culture, Subculture, and Their Differences The different activities that people across the world engage in lead to the existence of different. When people develop negative impressions of the activities that their society undertakes they are said to be in a […]
• Cross Cultural Management Strategies: Brazil vs. America The failures in cross-cultural management mainly arise from the weaknesses of managers to consider the impact of cultural differences in their management practices.
• Hamlet’s Renaissance Culture Conflict The death of Hamlet as the play ends indicates that though he was the definite answer to all the questions before him as he faced death, he was not in any position to give any […]
• Reasons for Not Appreciating Different Cultural Point of View
• Leading a Culture of Excellence in Healthcare Industry
• Cultural Factors and Their Influence on Individuals
• Organizational Culture of Google Incorporation
• Convergence vs. Divergence of Culture and Literature – Examples
• The Culture Industry
• Cultural Identity and Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
• Music and Its Effects on Culture
• The Marriage Traditions of Wolof Culture
• The Beautiful Country of Kazakhstan: Kazakh Culture
• American Culture Pros & Cons
• Race Matters, Cancel Culture, and “Boys Go to Jupiter”
• ABC Manufacturing Company’s Organisational Structure and Culture
• Three Stages of Cultural Development
• The UAE Cultural Analysis: Adherence to Traditions, Cultural Beliefs, and Values
• Cultural Aspects in Different Societies
• How Cultural Beliefs, Values, Norms and Practices Influence Communication
• Exploring the Human Culture
• Hofstede and Trompenaars Theories of Culture Diversity
• Nacirema Culture
• Campinha-Bacote’s Model of Cultural Competence
• Taiwan and the U.S. Cultural Elements
• Intercultural Awareness and Multicultural Society in a Global Village
• Intercultural Relations: Physical, Economic, and Linguistic
• Differences in Culture between America and Sudan
• Cultural Differences Among Families in the “Hotel Rwanda” Film
• Cross Culture Management
• Multicultural Communication and Its Origin
• Racial and Cultural Identity Development Model
• History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki
• Culture and Agriculture: Nature and Significance Understanding
• Mass Society and Popular Culture Theories
• People and Culture in Morocco
• The Renaissance and Its Cultural, Political and Economic Influence
• Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality
• Paisà (1946) by Roberto Rossellini: Style, Theme, and Cultural Value
• Cross-Cultural Environment Negotiations: Japan and America
• Cultural Convergence: The Interactions Between Different Cultures
• Cultural, Legal, Economic, and Political Aspects of Doing Business in China
• Language and Culture Interaction in English Language Teaching
• Identity, Language, and Culture
• African and Western Culture in the “Touki Bouki” Film
• What Role Does Food Play in Cultural Identity?
• Irish Culture and Stereotypes in The Quiet Man
• Anglo-American Culture and Healthcare Standards
• History: Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Period
• Indian Custom and Culture Community
• Multicultural Diversity Conceptual Study
• The Depiction of Cultural Conformity and Moral Values in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
• Disney and Its Impact on Popular Culture and Society
• Celebrations in School Culture
• The Jarawa People and Their Culture
• Hotpot Concept and Cultural Value
• American Culture and Indian Culture Comparison
• Islamic Culture and Civilization
• Starbucks in China and Cross-Cultural Values
• Cultural Bias in Counseling Practices
• Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication
• Cultural Role of Crepes in France
• Colombia’s and the US’ Cultural Dimensions
• Muriel’s Wedding as a Representation of Australian Culture
• Dance Analysis: Social and Cultural Context
• Police Officers and Cultural Differences
• eBay in Japan, Its Strategic and Cultural Missteps
• Hospitality Industry: Coping with Culture Shock
• How Chinese Culture Influences Foreign Businesses
• The Zulu Nation’s History and Culture
• Cultural Values Embeded in Soccer
• African Cultural Traditions and Communication
• Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets
• Roman & Greek Mythology in Pop Culture: Examples, Referenses, & Allusions
• Appropriations, Prejudices and Cultural Cruise Control: Overview
• Adorno and Horkheimer ‘The Culture Industry’ Review
• John Donne’s Poetry Relate to the Culture
• Geography, Peoples and Culture Areas of Oceania
• Culture and Leadership in a Safe Industrial Environment
• Cultural Differences in Arranged Marriages
• Efficient Intercultural Interaction and Communication
• Cultural Traditions: Arranged vs. Autonomous Marriage
• Dubai’s Food, Dress Code and Culture
• Intercultural Communication Perspectives
• Youth Culture and Globalization
• Beauty and Culture
• Value and Meaning of Culture and Religion
• Sushi: History, Origin and the Cultural Landscape
• Cultural Differences in International Business
• Nike, Inc.: The Corporate Culture
• Impacts of Culture on Formulation of International Marketing Strategies
• Social and Cultural Diversity Statement
• HR Managers and Cultural Differences
• Cultural Revolution and Education in China During the 1960s-1970s
• Caribbean Rum: History and Culture
• Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective
• Kazakhstani Culture Through Hofstede’s Theory
• Cultures Are Eroded by Foreign Cultural Influences Including Media
• Cultural Influences on Big Five Personality Traits
• Matthew Arnold’s and Raymond Williams’ Ideas About Culture
• Distinct Lower Class Culture: An Impediment to Success
• IBM Company’s Multicultural Project Team Management
• The UK Cultural, Business and Political Environment
• The Role of Chinese Hats in Chinese Culture
• Cultural Diversity and Cultural Universals Relations: Anthropological Perspective
• Female Chauvinist Pigs: Raunch Culture and Feminism
• Ways to Improve Intercultural Communication
• Deaf in America: Voices From a Culture by Carol A. Padden, Tom L. Humphries
• Effect of Economy on Culture and Social Structure
• Cultural Diversity and Cultural Integration in Western Societies
• Cross-Cultural Sleeping Arrangements in Children
• Cross-Cultural Differences Between the US and Pakistan
• Vanilla: History, Culture and Production
• Cultural Diversity in the Play “Othello”
• Hofstede’s Cultural Model in Negotiations
• Cultural Linguistic Autobiography: An Experience of a Second Language
• Tourism & Cultural Change: A Critical Analysis
• Cultural Conformity: A Person’s Behavior and the Standard Determined by a Culture
• Discussion: Cultural Roots and Routes
• Intercultural Understanding in Hala Alyan’s Poems
• Bombas Firm’s Organizational Structure and Culture
• Ancient Greek Culture, Philosophy and Science
• Socio-Cultural Approach of Humanity Examination
• The Effect of Global Technology on Intercultural Communication
• Cultural Family Assessment in “Under the Same Moon” Film
• Culture and Public Administration Relationship in Canada
• The Egyptians and the Hindu Cultural Rites Comparison
• HP Company Internal Politics and Culture
• Heritage and Cultural Tourism
• The Effects of Diverse Culture of IKEA in UAE to Impact of Cultural Diversity on IKEA
• Intercultural Communication Patterns in the U.S. and UK
• Coping With Cultural Shock and Adaptation to a New Culture
• UK-Singapore Cultural Differences at Work
• Impact of Power on Organizational Culture
• Global Business Cultural Analysis: Japan
• Juno and Political, Social, and Cultural Ideology
• Food Culture and Obesity
• Culturally Informed Psychological Assessment
• The Cross-cultural Construct of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems
• Consumerism Culture: Challenges and Solutions
• Cultural Misunderstandings in Communication
• General Motors Company: Organizational Culture and Strengths
• Japanese Anime and Doujin Culture
• Greek Culture and Traditions
• The Influence of Heavy Metal on Japanese Culture
• The General Motors Firm’s Cultural Crisis
• Cultural Acceptance in Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets”
• Culture of Simping and Why One Should Stay Away From It
• Singapore’s Culture and Social Institutions
• Marriott International: Analyzing Culture
• Africans in Mexico: Influence on the Mexican Culture
• W.L. Gore Company’s Culture of Innovation
• Nissan Motors Company: Cultural Change
• Bahrain Fashion: Culture and Antiquities
• Conformity: Western Culture vs. Islamic Culture
• Ways in Which an Organization’s Culture is Transmitted to its Members
• Cross Cultural Impacts on the Non-Verbal Communication
• The White House as a Cultural Symbol in US
• Subculture Theories: Response to the Dominant Culture
• Pursuing Professional Accountability and Just Culture
• LGBTQ Co-Culture: The Key Aspects
• Scott Joplin vs. Louis Armstrong: Integration of African American Culture
• Qantas Airways: Cross Culture and Safety Management
• Gender Inequality: On the Influence of Culture and Religion
• The History of the Hippie Cultural Movement
• Columbia Under Hofstede’s Cultural Analysis
• Cultural Traditions. Quinceanera vs. Sweet 16
• Google Inc. Employees’ Intercultural Competencies
• Linguistic Repertoire: Language Identity and Culture
• Harry Potter Stories and Impact on Pop Culture
• Cultural Products in Strategic Plan Development
• Social and Cultural Influences in Nursing Practice
• Etihad Airways: Organizational Culture
• Paris City Cultural Pattern
• Cultural Diversity Management in the Workplace
• Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap
• All Forms of Culture are of Equal Value
• Globalization: Not a Threat to Cultural Diversity
• Cultural Diversity in Correctional Facilities
• Is Cultural Relativism a Viable Way to Live?
• Cultural Assimilation in the “Spanglish” Movie
• Cultural Context of the Play “Poker” by Zora Hurston
• Compare and Contrast the Political Culture of Australia and Saudi Arabia
• Cultural Diversity in Hotel Industry
• Cultural Identity in “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith
• Multicultural Society in “Onion Tears” by Diana Kidd
• Handy and Schein Models in Organizational Culture
• Cultural Heritage of Oyo Empire in Africa
• Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective by Brettell & Sargent
• Adopting Marketing Strategy Across Cultural and Religious Divides: McDonald’s Home Market and Turkey
• Food, Eating Behavior, and Culture in Chinese Society
• Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival
• Food and Culture Links
• Diverse Culture in the “Ongka’s Big Moka” Film
• Ethical, Legal and Multicultural Challenges in a Crisis
• Enron Company’s Organisational Culture Problem
• Pop Culture and Print Media: Trends Propagated by the Print Media
• The Effects of Modern Popular Culture on Personal Beliefs and Values
• African-American Cultural Group and the Provision of Services to African Americans
• Starbucks Corporation Organizational Culture
• Authenticity in Cultural Tourism Sites: A Critical Discussion
• An Academic Critique of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory
• The Challenge of Human Rights and Cultural Diversity
• The Impact of Cultural and Religious Tourism on Communities
• Billboard as an Element of the Popular Culture
• American Cultural Imperialism in the Film Industry Is Beneficial to the Canadian Society
• Complexity of Managing Multinational Corporations: MNC Culture
• Multicultural Psychology as a Subspecialty of Psychology
• Cultural Change: Mechanisms and Examples
• The Māori Culture of New Zealand
• Expanding Chinese Cultural Knowledge in Health Beliefs
• Xerox: Organizational Culture and Change
• Struggle to Retain Culture: McDonaldization in China
• Culture, Globalization and Intercultural Adaptation
• Korean Popular Culture: Attractiveness and Popularity
• Jazz Social Dance and Impact on American Culture
• School Climate and Student Culture
• Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Organizational Culture
• Consumer vs. Organizational Buying and Culture
• Stereotyping in the Human Culture
• American Work Culture
• Socialization in a Multicultural Framework
• Popular Culture in the History of the USA
• Hip-Hop and the Japanese Culture
• Catholic Culture: Traits, Norms, Traditions
• Christianity Social and Historical Impact on Western Culture
• Family and Culture: Major Problems Facing Families Around the World
• Barbecue as a Southern Cultural Icon
• Ecuador: A Country Study, Culture, People and History
• Cultural Diversity & Communication in the Workplace
• Leisure and Recreation in a Multicultural Society
• Workplace Culture in Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”
• The Culture of the Nacirema Society
• Cross-Cultural Management: Decision-Making
• Relations Between Homosexuality and Indian Culture
• Hofstede Labels the Chinese as a Collectivist Culture
• The Concept of Politeness in the Cross-Cultural Communication
• Acadian Culture in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia
• Cultural Adaptation Plan: Comparing Canada and the Philippines
• Sumerian and Mayan Cultural Similarities
• Culture, Emotions, and Psychology Relationships
• Culture Values Expression through Humanities
• Influence of African-American Culture on Rock n Roll Music
• Multicultural Orientation for Human Services Professionals
• Meaning of Culture and Its Importance
• Coffee in the Historical and Cultural Context
• Culture and Communication Problems in HRM
• Cultural Effects on Health Care Choices
• Culture of the Dominican Republic
• How Hutterites of Montana Maintain Their Culture and Effect It Has on State
• Organizational Culture & Leadership: Whirlpool Corporation
• American Pop Art Culture Review
• British Colonialism and Its Impact on Indian Culture
• Communication in a Cross-Cultural Project Team
• Philosophy of Multicultural Education
• Asian Community’s Cultural Values and Attitudes
• Soju Product: Socio-Cultural Environment Influence
• Porsche Brand’s Cultural Biography
• Effective Communication Strategies in a Culturally Diverse Workforce
• Cultural Traditions and Practices in the Novel the Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Concept of Cultural Differences in Society
• Weird Chinese Foods: Cultural Practices and Eating Culture
• The Myth of the Culture of Poverty
• Angels and Insects: The Issue of Incest in the Pop-Culture
• Singapore Geography and Culture
• “Food Colombusing” and Cultural Appropriation
• The Culture of Fast Food Consumption
• Purnell’s Model of Culturally Competent Care
• The “Friends” TV Show as a Cultural Artifact
• Cultural Appropriation: Christina Aguilera in Braids
• Cultural and Institutional Features: United Kingdom and China
• Cultural Competence: Purnell Model
• Comparison of 20th and 21st-Century Dress and Culture
• Anthropological Approach to Culture
• Traditional Korean Music and Culture
• Cultural Borrowing: Ethnic Fashion Obscures Cultural Identity
• Effects of the Language Barrier on Intercultural Communication
• Competitiveness and Intercultural Conflict in Qatar
• Printing Culture and the Chinese Society
• “High” and “Low” Culture in Design
• Popular Culture and Art Definition, Brief History and New Opportunities
• The Japanese and the US Cultural Dimensions
• The News Media Role in the Culture of Fear
• Food Culture in Mexican Cuisine
• Cross-Cultural Management in Multinational Corporations
• Customer Trends in the UK and Thailand
• Irish Culture in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia
• The Concepts of Culture
• Arab Music and Cinema Development: Western Culture Impact
• Cross-Culture Conflicts in the Corning-Vitro Venture
• Culture Jamming
• Fashion as an Integral Aspect of Modern Culture: Identity Importance
• Cultural Influences on Personality
• Cultural Artifacts and the Importance of Humanities
• “Cross-Cultural Servanthood” by Duan Elmer
• The Essence of Cultural Ecology: The Main Tenets
• Food Preferences and Nutrition Culture
• Material Culture: Pottery
• International Movements and Cultural Barriers
• Spain’s Geography and Culture
• Tribal Tattoos: Cultural Appropriation and Appreciation
• The Tumultuous 1960s-1970s and the Reshaping of American Popular Culture
• Makeup for African American Women and Its Cultural Perspective
• Market Culture Report on Singapore and Hong Kong
• The Role of Language in Cultural Studies
• Cultural Conduct of Negotiating with a Japanese Firm
• Indian Culture and Its Distinctive Qualities
• Researching of Rituals in Culture
• Japan After Globalization: Culture and Ethnocentrism
• Multicultural Roman Empire History
• Culture Lag and Conflict Theory of Change
• Cultural Immersion Project for Homeless Group
• The Importance of Understanding National Culture
• Cultural Anthropology, Gender and Kinship
• Elements in Cross-Cultural Communication Competence
• Understanding Culture and Tradition as an Effective Way of Teaching Indigenous History
• Intercultural Communication: Self-Awareness’ Importance
• Cultural Approaches to Healthcare Delivery in the US
• Cultural Property and Its Protection in Armed Conflicts
• Nursing Ethic: Personal, Cultural and Spiritual Values
• Cultural Diversity in Clinical Setups
• Implications of Korean Culture on Health
• Mountain Men and Their Economic, Social, and Cultural Importance
• Organizational Culture, Innovation, and Performance: A Test of Schein’s Model
• The Brexit Decision: Leadership and Culture
• “The Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong Kingston: Arguments About Prejudice, Gender, and Culture
• Corporate Culture: What Is Toyota Way?
• Cultural Artifact Advertisement of Makeup
• Jewish Family Cultural Perspective
• The Influence of American Popular Culture on the Heroes of “The Bluest Eye”
• Adorno’s Concept of Culture Industry
• Impact of Religion and Culture on Development
• The Macedonian Empire: Macedonian Culture
• Historical and Cultural Guide to Religion: “A History of God” by Karen Armstrong
• Race and Ethnicity in Three Pop Culture Artifacts
• Korean Popular Culture: Problem Statement
• “Christ and Culture” the Book by H. Richard Niebuhr
• Culture in the Medical Field
• Cultural Identity: the Position in Society
• Worship and Changes in Culture and Technology
• Cultural Issues in Healthcare
• Culturally Responsive Practices in Early Childhood Education
• Intercultural Communication in Contexts: Chapters Review
• Aging Ethical Issues and Cultural Differences
• Indigenous Australian Culture, History, Importance
• The Origin of Organizational Culture
• Superhero Movies in Contemporary Western Culture
• Orientalism: Asia in Australian Cultural Practices
• Marriott Hotel’s Promotion of Intercultural Synergy
• Science Integration Into Popular Culture: The Essence of Science in Popular Culture and Its Influence on Contemporary Society
• The Culture of Smartness in Education
• Jamaican Culture and Philosophy
• Pop Culture as a New Tool of Imperialism
• Cultural Assimilation of International Students
• St. John the Compassionate Company: Organizational Culture
• Culturally Responsive Teaching
• Social Work and Cultural Beliefs: Differences That Matter
• Multicultural Literacy: Patricia Polacco and Roald Dahl
• “The Value of Cultural Membership” by Will Kymlicka
• Austria’s Culture and Economic Analysis
• Farmer Definition and Culture
• Modern Art: A Cultural-Aesthetic Movement
• Leadership and Culturally Bound: Working and Communicating Together
• Cultural Diversity in Counseling: Multiculturalism as an Important Part of Our Lives
• Cross-Cultural Management in Emirates Airline
• A Discussion of Key Challenges Faced by MNCs in Developing a Cohesive & Inclusive Culture
• Cultural Background and First Language in Second Language Learners
• Australia: Being a Multicultural Society
• The Benefits of Cultural Diversity Management in a Hotel
• Cultural Theory: Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life
• The Key Cultural Clashes Between Disney and Its French Labor Force
• Cross-Cultural Management: Business With Customers From Different Cultural Backgrounds
• Cultural Diversity in Women and Sport Participation
• Managing Employees’ Cultural Values and Emotions
• Cultural Representation in Bollywood
• Cultural Differences: The Embracing Cultural Diversity
• Language and Culture: The Honorifics (Speech or System) of Japanese and Korean
• Popular or Mass Culture: Mimetic Analysis, Semiotics and Narrative
• Managing Cultural Diversity in International Business
• Culture of Nacirema People
• Cultural Relations: Impact on Global Human Cooperation
• Effects of Globalization on Native Non-Western Cultural Practices
• Bridging the Cultural Gap in a Medical Practice: Use of Body Language
• Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication in the UAE
• Primary Mode of Subsistence in the Zulu Culture
• The Hijab, Stereotyping and Cultural Differences Among American and Arab Muslim Women
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Cultural Significance of the Novella
• Jazz Music in American Culture
• Local Museums and Their Cultural Heritage
• High Culture and Low Culture: Disneyland Products
• Culture and Global Business
• Working Cross-Culturally: Forget “Business as Usual”
• Mexican vs. American Cultural Differences in Business
• The Western Cultural Narratives
• Socio-Cultural Issues and Health Assessment in Nursing
• The Role of Culture in Gospel Communication
• What Is the Relationship Between the Social Definition of Deviance and the Media’s Role in the Dissemination of Popular Culture?
• Disney Culture in China and United States
• Intercultural Research and Interview: Communication and the Approach
• Intercultural Communication in Business
• Bias and Cultural Competency in Health Care
• Portuguese Language and Cultural Facts
• “Beowulf” in Contemporary Culture
• The Cultural Context in Nursing and Healthcare
• Modern and Traditional Culture in the UAE
• The Parthenon and the Pantheon in Their Cultural Context
• IKEA’s and Home Depot’s Cross-Cultural Management
• Culture of Organizations. Twitter and LinkedIn
• Cross Cultural Issues in International Business
• Comprehensive Health Assessment Based on Developmental and Cultural Factors
• The Blackfoot Indians Culture and Historical Heritage
• About Counseling Cross-Culturally
• Integrity in Organizational Culture and Ethical Theories
• History of Pop Music in the World: Cultural and Social Changes
• History. A Coca-Cola Bottle as a Cultural Artifact
• Language & Cultural Impact on Sports Reporting
• Technological Progress, Mass Media and Loss of Emirati Culture
• Intercultural Communication: Paul Haggis’ “Crash”
• Ramadan as a Practice in Muslim Culture: Meaning and Importance
• The Igbo Culture: Use of Proverbs, Folktales and Song
• Cultural Prostitution: Okinawa, Japan, and Hawaii
• Intellectual, Scientific and Cultural Changes in Europe Towards the End of 19th Century
• Conflict Management in Japanese Culture
• Cultural Influences Affected the Interaction Between Officers and Residents
• Mathematics: Individual and Cultural Influences
• Why Does Popular Culture Affect Us?
• Why Does Culture Have a Prominent Position in I’m Research and Practice?
• Why Culture Alone Cannot Explain Morality, and Why It Matters?
• Who Was Right About Popular Culture?
• When Does Culture Generate Local Development?
• When Age and Culture Interact in an Easy and Yet Cognitively Demanding Task?
• What Do Virtual Culture and the Information Revolution Mean?
• What Would the Society Be Like Without Culture?
• What Role Does Culture Play in Influencing Human Health?
• How Has Globalization Affected Culture?
• What Role Does Culture Play in the Definition of Mental Illness?
• What Role Does Culture Play in the Development of an Effective Leader?
• What Was the Difference Between High and Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century?
• Whether Immigrants Should Adopt the Local Culture?
• Which Society and Culture Have the Greatest Impact on the World Past and Today, Chinese or Western?
• Why Does Culture Attract and Resists Economic Analysis?
• Why Do Eastern Culture Religions Appeal to the Western Culture?
• Why Whites Embrace Black Culture, History, and Other?
• Which Social Processes Are More Important in Shaping Individual Identity: Social Structures or Culture and Socialisation?
• Where, When, and How African Culture Became a Part of the Culture of the Americas?
• What May Culture Contribute to Urban Sustainability?
• How Does Culture Affects How Students Interact?
• How Has the Internet Changed World Culture?
• How Does Culture Shapes the Economy?
• How Harry Potter Changed the World?
• How Radio, Advertising, Automobiles, and Movies Affected the Consumer Culture of the 1920S?
• What Does History and Culture of a Civilization Shape?
• What Does the Word Culture Mean?
• What Do Epics Say About a Particular Culture?
• Why Was Florence Considered Important for Culture and Arts?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "612 Culture Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/culture-essay-examples/.

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College Nut

The Best College Essays about Culture

The importance of writing about culture.

Culture is an essential element of a person’s identity, and writing about it can showcase a lot about a person. Writing about your culture in your college essay can demonstrate your unique background and experiences, which can help you stand out from other applicants. Moreover, it can give you an opportunity to share your perspective and values with the admissions committee, which can help them understand who you are as a person beyond your academic achievements.

The Importance of Being Authentic

When writing about your culture, it’s essential to be authentic and true to yourself. Don’t try to write about what you think the admissions committee wants to hear. Instead, write about what matters to you and what has shaped you into the person you are today. Being authentic and genuine can make your essay stand out and make a lasting impression on the admissions committee.

The Importance of Showing Rather than Telling

When writing about culture, it’s essential to show the admissions committee what your culture means to you rather than just telling them. Use vivid descriptions and anecdotes to bring your experiences to life. Show them how your culture has influenced your values, beliefs, and perspective on life. By doing so, you can paint a picture of who you are and what you can bring to the college community.

Examples of Inspiring College Essays about Culture

Essay example 1: “growing up in a bilingual household”.

Growing up in a bilingual household, I had the privilege of experiencing two different cultures simultaneously. My parents are both immigrants from different parts of the world, and their cultures have shaped me into the person I am today. In my essay, I shared anecdotes about the challenges and benefits of growing up in a bilingual household. I also discussed how my multicultural background has influenced my values and perspective on life. Overall, my essay demonstrated my unique background and experiences, which helped me stand out from other applicants.

Essay Example 2: “My Journey as a First-Generation College Student”

As a first-generation college student, I had to navigate the college application process on my own. In my essay, I shared my struggles and triumphs as a first-generation college student. I also discussed how my cultural background has influenced my academic and personal goals. By sharing my story, I was able to showcase my determination and resilience, which helped me stand out from other applicants.

Essay Example 3: “Celebrating Diversity on Campus”

As a member of the student government, I organized an event celebrating the diversity of our campus. In my essay, I shared my experience planning and executing the event. I also discussed the importance of celebrating diversity and creating an inclusive community on campus. By sharing my passion for creating a welcoming community, I was able to showcase my leadership skills and commitment to making a positive impact on campus.

Tips for Writing Your College Essay about Culture

Tip 1: start early.

Writing a compelling essay about your culture takes time and effort. Therefore, it’s essential to start early and give yourself enough time to brainstorm, write, and revise your essay. Starting early can also help you avoid procrastination and stress, which can negatively impact the quality of your essay.

Tip 2: Be Specific and Concrete

When writing about your culture, it’s essential to be specific and concrete. Use vivid descriptions and anecdotes to bring your experiences to life. Avoid generalizations and clichés, as they can make your essay sound generic and unoriginal.

Tip 3: Show, Don’t Tell

As mentioned earlier, it’s essential to show the admissions committee what your culture means to you rather than just telling them. Use specific examples and anecdotes to demonstrate how your culture has influenced your values, beliefs, and perspective on life.

Tip 4: Be Authentic and Genuine

Finally, it’s essential to be authentic and genuine when writing about your culture. Don’t try to write what you think the admissions committee wants to hear. Instead, write about what matters to you and what has shaped you into the person you are today. Being authentic and genuine can make your essay stand out and make a lasting impression on the admissions committee.

In conclusion, writing a college essay about culture can showcase your unique background and experiences, which can help you stand out from other applicants. By being authentic, specific, and concrete, you can demonstrate your perspective and values, which can help the admissions committee understand who you are as a person beyond your academic achievements.

1.3 College Culture and Expectations

Questions to Consider:

• What language and customs do you need to know to succeed in college?
• What is your responsibility for learning in college?
• What resources will you use to meet these expectations?
• What are the common challenges in the first year?

College Has Its Own Language and Customs

Going to college—even if you are not far from home—is a cultural experience. It comes with its own language and customs, some of which can be confusing or confounding at first. Just like traveling to a foreign country, it is best if you prepare by learning what words mean and what you are expected to say and do in certain situations.

Let’s first start with the language you may encounter. In most cases, there will be words that you have heard before, but they may have different meanings in a college setting. Take, for instance, “office hours.” If you are not in college, you would think that it means the hours of a day that an office is open. If it is your dentist’s office, it may mean Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. In college, “office hours” can refer to the specific hours a professor is in her office to meet with students, and those hours may be only a few each day: for example, Mondays and Wednesdays from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m.

“Syllabus” is another word that you may not have encountered, but it is one you will soon know very well. A syllabus is often called the “contract of the course” because it contains information about what to expect—from the professor and the student. It is meant to be a roadmap for succeeding in the class. Understanding that office hours are for you to ask your professor questions and the syllabus is the guide for what you will be doing in the class can make a big difference in your transition to college. The table on Common College Terms , has a brief list of other words that you will want to know when you hear them on campus.

The language that colleges and universities use can feel familiar but mean something different, as you learned in the section above, and it can also seem alien, especially when institutions use acronyms or abbreviations for buildings, offices, and locations on campus. Terms such as “quad” or “union” can denote a location or space for students. Then there may be terms such as “TLC” (The Learning Center, in this example) that designate a specific building or office. Describe a few of the new terms you have encountered so far and what they mean. If you are not sure, ask your professor or a fellow student to define it for you.

In addition to its own language, higher education has its own way of doing things. For example, you may be familiar with what a teacher did when you were in high school, but do you know what a professor does? It certainly seems like they fulfill a very similar role as teachers in high school, but in college professors’ roles are often much more diverse. In addition to teaching, they may also conduct research, mentor graduate students, write and review research articles, serve on and lead campus committees, serve in regional and national organizations in their disciplines, apply for and administer grants, advise students in their major, and serve as sponsors for student organizations. You can be assured that their days are far from routine. See the Table on Differences between High School Teachers and College Professors for just a few differences between high school teachers and college professors.

The relationships you build with your professors will be some of the most important ones you create during your college career. You will rely on them to help you find internships, write letters of recommendation, nominate you for honors or awards, and serve as references for jobs. You can develop those relationships by participating in class, visiting during office hours, asking for assistance with coursework, requesting recommendations for courses and majors, and getting to know the professor’s own academic interests. One way to think about the change in how your professors will relate to you is to think about the nature of relationships you have had growing up. In Figure 1.X: You and Your Relationships Before College you will see a representation of what your relationships probably looked like. Your family may have been the greatest influencer on you and your development.

“The relationships you build with your professors will be some of the most important ones during your college career.”

In college, your networks are going to expand in ways that will help you develop other aspects of yourself. As described above, the relationships you will have with your professors will be some of the most important. But they won’t be the only relationships you will be cultivating while in college. Consider the Figure on You and Your Relationships during College and think about how you will go about expanding your network while you are completing your degree.

Your relationships with authority figures, family, and friends may change while you are in college, and at the very least, your relationships will expand to peer networks—not friends, but near-age peers or situational peers (e.g., a first-year college student who is going back to school after being out for 20 years)—and to faculty and staff who may work alongside you, mentor you, or supervise your studies. These relationships are important because they will allow you to expand your network, especially as it relates to your career. As stated earlier, developing relationships with faculty can provide you with more than just the benefits of a mentor. Faculty often review applications for on-campus jobs or university scholarships and awards; they also have connections with graduate programs, companies, and organizations. They may recommend you to colleagues or former classmates for internships and even jobs.

Other differences between high school and college are included in the table about Differences between High School and College. Because it is not an exhaustive list of the differences, be mindful of other differences you may notice. Also, if your most recent experience has been the world of work or the military, you may find that there are more noticeable differences between those experiences and college.

Some of What You Will Learn Is “Hidden”

Many of the college expectations that have been outlined so far may not be considered common knowledge, which is one reason that so many colleges and universities have classes that help students learn what they need to know to succeed. The term, which was coined by sociologists, 7 describes unspoken, unwritten, or unacknowledged (hence, hidden ) rules that students are expected to follow that can affect their learning. To illustrate the concept, consider the situation in the following activity.

Situation: Your history syllabus indicates that, on Tuesday, your professor is lecturing on the chapter that covers the stock market crash of 1929.

This information sounds pretty straightforward. Your professor lectures on a topic and you will be there to hear it. However, there are some unwritten rules, or hidden curriculum , that are not likely to be communicated. Can you guess what they may be? Take a moment to write at least one potential unwritten rule.

• What is an unwritten rule about what you should be doing before attending class? _______________________________________________________________
• What is an unwritten rule about what you should be doing in class? _______________________________________________________________
• What is an unwritten rule about what you should be doing after class? _______________________________________________________________
• What is an unwritten rule if you are not able to attend that class? _______________________________________________________________

Some of your answers could have included the following:

Before class: Read the assigned chapter, take notes, record any questions you have about the reading.

During class: Take detailed notes, ask critical thinking or clarifying questions, avoid distractions, bring your book and your reading notes.

After class: Reorganize your notes in relation to your other notes, start the studying process by testing yourself on the material, make an appointment with your professor if you are not clear on a concept.

Absent: Communicate with the professor, get notes from a classmate, make sure you did not miss anything important in your notes.

The expectations before, during, and after class, as well as what you should do if you miss class, are often unspoken because many professors assume you already know and do these things or because they feel you should figure them out on your own. Nonetheless, some students struggle at first because they don’t know about these habits, behaviors, and strategies. But once they learn them, they are able to meet them with ease.

Learning Is Your Responsibility

As you may now realize by reviewing the differences between high school and college, learning in college is your responsibility. Before you read about the how and why of being responsible for your own learning, complete the Activity below.

For each statement, circle the number that best represents you, with 1 indicating that the statement is least like you, and 5 indicating that the statement is most like you.

Were you able to mark mostly 4s and 5s? If you were even able to mark at least one 4 or 5, then you are well on your way to taking responsibility for your own learning. Let’s break down each statement in the components of the ownership of learning:

• Motivation. Being able to stay motivated while studying and balancing all you have to do in your classes will be important for meeting the rest of the components.
• Deliberate, focused effort. Taking ownership of learning will hinge on the effort that you put into the work. Because most learning in college will take place outside of the classroom, you will need determination to get the work done. And there will be times that the work will be challenging and maybe even boring, but finding a way to get through it when it is not exciting will pay in the long run.
• Time and task management. You will learn more about strategies for managing your time and the tasks of college in a later chapter, but without the ability to control your calendar, it will be difficult to block out the time to study.
• Progress tracking. A commitment to learning must include monitoring your learning, knowing not only what you have completed ( this is where a good time management strategy can help you track your tasks ), but also the quality of the work you have done.

Taking responsibility for your learning will take some time if you are not used to being in the driver’s seat. However, if you have any difficulty making this adjustment, you can and should reach out for help along the way.

What to Expect During the First Year

While you may not experience every transition within your first year, there are rhythms to each semester of the first year and each year you are in college. Knowing what to expect each month or week can better prepare you to take advantage of the times that you have more confidence and weather through the times that seem challenging. Review the table on First-Year College Student Milestones. There will be milestones each semester you are in college, but these will serve as an introduction to what you should expect in terms of the rhythms of the semester.

The first few weeks will be pretty exhilarating. You will meet new people, including classmates, college staff, and professors. You may also be living in a different environment, which may mean that a roommate is another new person to get to know. Overall, you will most likely feel both excited and nervous. You can be assured that even if the beginning of the semester goes smoothly, your classes will get more challenging each week. You will be making friends, learning who in your classes seem to know what is going on, and figuring your way around campus. You may even walk into the wrong building, go to the wrong class, or have trouble finding what you need during this time. But those first-week jitters will end soon. Students who are living away from home for the first time can feel homesick in the first few weeks, and others can feel what is called “imposter syndrome,” which is a fear some students have that they don’t belong in college because they don’t have the necessary skills for success. Those first few weeks sound pretty stressful, but the stress is temporary.

After the newness of college wears off, reality will set in. You may find that the courses and assignments do not seem much different than they did in high school (more on that later), but you may be in for a shock when you get your graded tests and papers. Many new college students find that their first grades are lower than they expected. For some students, this may mean they have earned a B when they are used to earning As, but for many students, it means they may experience their first failing or almost-failing grades in college because they have not used active, effective study strategies; instead, they studied how they did in high school, which is often insufficient. This can be a shock if you are not prepared, but it doesn’t have to devastate you if you are willing to use it as a wake-up call to do something different.

By the middle of the semester, you’ll likely feel much more confident and a little more relaxed. Your grades are improving because you started going to tutoring and using better study strategies. You are looking ahead, even beyond the first semester, to start planning your courses for the next term. If you are working while in college, you may also find that you have a rhythm down for balancing it all; additionally, your time management skills have likely improved.

By the last few weeks of the semester, you will be focused on the increasing importance of your assignments and upcoming finals and trying to figure out how to juggle that with the family obligations of the impending holidays. You may feel a little more pressure to prepare for finals, as this time is often viewed as the most stressful period of the semester. All of this additional workload and need to plan for the next semester can seem overwhelming, but if you plan ahead and use what you learn from this chapter and the rest of the course, you will be able to get through it more easily.

Don’t Do It Alone

Think about our earlier descriptions of two students, Reginald and Madison. What if they found that the first few weeks were a little harder than they had anticipated? Should they have given up and dropped out? Or should they have talked to someone about their struggles? Here is a secret about college success that not many people know: successful students seek help. They use resources. And they do that as often as necessary to get what they need. Your professors and advisors will expect the same from you, and your college will have all kinds of offices, staff, and programs that are designed to help. This bears calling out again: you need to use those resources . These are called “help-seeking behaviors,” and along with self-advocacy, which is speaking up for your needs, they are essential to your success. As you get more comfortable adjusting to life in college, you will find that asking for help is easier. In fact, you may become really good at it by the time you graduate, just in time for you to ask for help finding a job! Review the table on Issues, Campus Resources, and Potential Outcomes for a few examples of times you may need to ask for help. See if you can identify where on campus you can find the same or a similar resource.

Application

Using a blank sheet of paper, write your name in the center of the page and circle it. Then, draw six lines from the center (see example in the figure below) and label each for the six areas of adjustment that were discussed earlier. Identify a campus resource or strategy for making a smooth adjustment for each area.

Common Challenges in the First Year

It seems fitting to follow up the expectations for the first year with a list of common challenges that college students encounter along the way to a degree. If you experience any—or even all—of these, the important point here is that you are not alone and that you can overcome them by using your resources. Many college students have felt like this before, and they have survived—even thrived—despite them because they were able to identify a strategy or resource that they could use to help themselves. At some point in your academic career, you may do one or more of the following:

• Feel like an imposter. There is actually a name for this condition: imposter syndrome . Students who feel like an imposter are worried that they don’t belong, that someone will “expose them for being a fake.” This feeling is pretty common for anyone who finds themselves in a new environment and is not sure if they have what it takes to succeed. Trust the professionals who work with first-year college students: you do have what it takes, and you will succeed. Just give yourself time to get adjusted to everything.
• Worry about making a mistake. This concern often goes with imposter syndrome. Students who worry about making a mistake don’t like to answer questions in class, volunteer for a challenging assignment, and even ask for help from others. Instead of avoiding situations where you may fail, embrace the process of learning, which includes—is even dependent on—making mistakes. The more you practice courage in these situations and focus on what you are going to learn from failing, the more confident you become about your abilities.
• Try to manage everything yourself. Even superheroes need help from sidekicks and mere mortals. Trying to handle everything on your own every time an issue arises is a recipe for getting stressed out. There will be times when you are overwhelmed by all you have to do. This is when you will need to ask for and allow others to help you.
• Ignore your mental and physical health needs. If you feel you are on an emotional rollercoaster and you cannot find time to take care of yourself, then you have most likely ignored some part of your mental and physical well-being. What you need to do to stay healthy should be non-negotiable. In other words, your sleep, eating habits, exercise, and stress-reducing activities should be your highest priorities.
• Forget to enjoy the experience. Whether you are 18 years old and living on campus or 48 years old starting back to college after taking a break to work and raise a family, be sure to take the time to remind yourself of the joy that learning can bring.

Get Connected

Which apps help you meet the expectations of college? Will you be able to meet the expectations of being responsible for your schedule and assignments?

• My Study Life understands how college works and provides you with a calendar, to-do list, and reminders that will help you keep track of the work you have to do.

How can you set goals and work toward them while in college?

• The Strides app provides you with the opportunity to create SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time bound) goals and track daily habits. These daily habits will add up over time toward your goals.

What can you do to develop your learning skills?

• Lumosity is a brain-training app that can help you build the thinking and learning skills you will need to meet learning challenges in college. If you want to test your memory and attention—and build your skills—take the fit test and then play different games to improve your fitness.

How can you develop networks with people in college?

• LinkedIn is a professional networking app that allows you to create a profile and network with others. Creating a LinkedIn account as a first-year college student will help you create a professional profile that you can use to find others with similar interests.
• Internships.com provides information, connections, and support to help your career planning and activities. Even if you are not planning an internship right away, you may find some useful and surprising ideas and strategies to motivate your approach.
• 7 P.P. Bilbao, P. I. Lucido, T. C. Iringan and R. B. Javier. (2008). Curriculum Development .

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US College Essay Tips for International Students

Published on September 21, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on December 8, 2023.

Beyond your test scores and grades, the college essay is your opportunity to express your academic and personal character, writing skills, and ability to self-reflect.

You should use your unique culture and individual perspective to write a compelling essay with specific stories, a conversational tone, and correct grammar. Here are some basic guidelines on how to write a memorable college essay as an international student.

Table of contents

Research: how applying to us colleges is different, stories: show your strengths, tone: be conversational, but respectful, culture: write about what you know, language: use correct grammar, word choices, and sentence structures, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

The US college experience offers not only academic growth, but also campus community. While admissions officers use your grades and test scores as a baseline, they also use the college essay to further evaluate if you can add value to the academic community, student body, and campus culture.

The college essay, or personal statement, is a creative, personal piece of writing in its own genre. Rather than providing a broad overview of your life, personal essays are often centered around a specific narrative or theme.

The college essay may be the deciding factor in a student’s application, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars. Many students spend weeks一even months一brainstorming, workshopping, writing, and revising their essays to produce an original, compelling story.

Before starting your essay, you should take time to brainstorm topics and research your desired schools’ academic programs and campus cultures. Then, you can start outlining why you’re a good fit for a particular university.

Some colleges also require supplemental essays (e.g. diversity essays , “Why this college?” essays ), which must be submitted along with the college application. Scholarship essays are also worth writing, as many students overlook this opportunity. Research deadlines early, and create a college application timeline and checklist . Or check out our guide to writing fast if you’re running low on time.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Just being an international student isn’t enough to be competitive in a pool of both US and international applicants. To write a memorable essay, share specific stories that illustrate your strengths not only as an international student, but also as an individual within your culture. You should add details about your life that aren’t apparent in your application.

In South Korea, school is war. Similar to Battle Royale , students viciously compete, not for their life, but for their futures. From 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., I study either in school, an after-school academy, or my room. With no time to spare, I eat my meals over my textbooks while memorizing chemical compounds or geometry theorems. My bathroom breaks are like short breaths before I dive back underwater into the vast sea of knowledge that I must conquer before it drowns me. Among this chaos, I find solace twice a week with my online English tutor, Catherine. Her stories of college in Boston help me to imagine a reality where classmates can be collaborators, not competitors. Rather than memorization drills and one-sided lectures, I imagine a lively discussion between pupil and professor. As we converse in English about my future dreams, I get a taste of what it’s like to be not a prisoner to knowledge, but a friend.

American student-teacher relationships are much less formal than those in many other countries. US universities value student-professor discussion, debate, and collaboration.

Similarly, college application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing. You should use a conversational yet respectful tone, as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be honest about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the admissions officer. To improve the tone of your essay you can use a paraphrasing tool .

• Firstly, I would like to elaborate on how my family moved from Xizhou to Beijing.
• When I was just five, my family and I left behind our tranquil village in southwest China to make a new home in the vast, bustling capital of Beijing.

As an international student, you have a wealth of culture that you can share with admissions officers. Instead of potentially using American idioms and cultural references awkwardly, write in detail about yourself within your own culture.

Make sure to explain any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might not be familiar with. Provide context to help your reader understand the significance of what you’re writing about.

While drowsiness still clouds my thoughts and vision, I trudge over to the bathroom to wash before Fajr , the Islamic dawn prayer. While my mouth still reeks of last night’s kabsa , a Saudi dish of rice and meat, my older sister prances out of the bathroom with sleek, long hair, flawless makeup, and a TikTok-ready outfit. While softly humming BTS’s “DNA,” she picks up a comb and begins to skillfully tackle the labyrinth that has taken over my head. Twenty minutes later, she manages to tame my wild, frizzy mane into an elegant French braid. Sara always knows how to make beauty out of chaos.

Admissions officers don’t expect your English writing skills to be perfect, but your essay should demonstrate a strong command of grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures. Remember to use US English rather than UK English .

Choose your words carefully. You can be creative in your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers; focus on language that you know well so that your writing sounds natural and genuine. Prioritize simple sentence structures for clarity.

If English is not your first language, it’s a good idea to have a native speaker check your essay. You can also use our essay checker .

If you want 100% accuracy, you may want to consider working with a qualified editor or essay coach who can check your grammar, tone, cultural references, and content. Scribbr’s college essay editors can help.

Explore the essay editing service

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

Admissions officers use college admissions essays to evaluate your character, writing skills , and ability to self-reflect . The essay is your chance to show what you will add to the academic community.

The college essay may be the deciding factor in your application , especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

Some colleges also require supplemental essays about specific topics, such as why you chose that specific college . Scholarship essays are often required to obtain financial aid .

College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.

Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.

If you’re an international student applying to a US college and you’re comfortable using American idioms or cultural references , you can. But instead of potentially using them incorrectly, don’t be afraid to write in detail about yourself within your own culture.

Provide context for any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might be unfamiliar with.

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

This content is licensed by Khan Academy and is available for free at www.khanacademy.org.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 177 college essay examples for 11 schools + expert analysis.

College Admissions , College Essays

The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked. After all, they must be among the most successful of this weird literary genre.

In this article, I'll go through general guidelines for what makes great college essays great. I've also compiled an enormous list of 100+ actual sample college essays from 11 different schools. Finally, I'll break down two of these published college essay examples and explain why and how they work. With links to 177 full essays and essay excerpts , this article is a great resource for learning how to craft your own personal college admissions essay!

What Excellent College Essays Have in Common

Even though in many ways these sample college essays are very different from one other, they do share some traits you should try to emulate as you write your own essay.

Visible Signs of Planning

Building out from a narrow, concrete focus. You'll see a similar structure in many of the essays. The author starts with a very detailed story of an event or description of a person or place. After this sense-heavy imagery, the essay expands out to make a broader point about the author, and connects this very memorable experience to the author's present situation, state of mind, newfound understanding, or maturity level.

Knowing how to tell a story. Some of the experiences in these essays are one-of-a-kind. But most deal with the stuff of everyday life. What sets them apart is the way the author approaches the topic: analyzing it for drama and humor, for its moving qualities, for what it says about the author's world, and for how it connects to the author's emotional life.

Stellar Execution

A killer first sentence. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: you have to suck the reader in, and the best place to do that is the first sentence. Great first sentences are punchy. They are like cliffhangers, setting up an exciting scene or an unusual situation with an unclear conclusion, in order to make the reader want to know more. Don't take my word for it—check out these 22 first sentences from Stanford applicants and tell me you don't want to read the rest of those essays to find out what happens!

A lively, individual voice. Writing is for readers. In this case, your reader is an admissions officer who has read thousands of essays before yours and will read thousands after. Your goal? Don't bore your reader. Use interesting descriptions, stay away from clichés, include your own offbeat observations—anything that makes this essay sounds like you and not like anyone else.

Technical correctness. No spelling mistakes, no grammar weirdness, no syntax issues, no punctuation snafus—each of these sample college essays has been formatted and proofread perfectly. If this kind of exactness is not your strong suit, you're in luck! All colleges advise applicants to have their essays looked over several times by parents, teachers, mentors, and anyone else who can spot a comma splice. Your essay must be your own work, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help polishing it.

And if you need more guidance, connect with PrepScholar's expert admissions consultants . These expert writers know exactly what college admissions committees look for in an admissions essay and chan help you craft an essay that boosts your chances of getting into your dream school.

Check out PrepScholar's Essay Editing and Coaching progra m for more details!

Links to Full College Essay Examples

Some colleges publish a selection of their favorite accepted college essays that worked, and I've put together a selection of over 100 of these.

Common App Essay Samples

Please note that some of these college essay examples may be responding to prompts that are no longer in use. The current Common App prompts are as follows:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Now, let's get to the good stuff: the list of 177 college essay examples responding to current and past Common App essay prompts. 

Connecticut college.

• 12 Common Application essays from the classes of 2022-2025

Hamilton College

• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2026
• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2022
• 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2018
• 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2012
• 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2007

Johns Hopkins

These essays are answers to past prompts from either the Common Application or the Coalition Application (which Johns Hopkins used to accept).

• 1 Common Application or Coalition Application essay from the class of 2026
• 6 Common Application or Coalition Application essays from the class of 2025
• 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2024
• 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2023
• 7 Common Application of Universal Application essays from the class of 2022
• 5 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2021
• 7 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2020

Essay Examples Published by Other Websites

• 2 Common Application essays ( 1st essay , 2nd essay ) from applicants admitted to Columbia

Other Sample College Essays

Here is a collection of essays that are college-specific.

Babson College

• 4 essays (and 1 video response) on "Why Babson" from the class of 2020

Emory University

• 5 essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) from the class of 2020 along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on why the essays were exceptional
• 5 more recent essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on what made these essays stand out

University of Georgia

• 1 “strong essay” sample from 2019
• 1 “strong essay” sample from 2018
• 10 Harvard essays from 2023
• 10 Harvard essays from 2022
• 10 Harvard essays from 2021
• 10 Harvard essays from 2020
• 10 Harvard essays from 2019
• 10 Harvard essays from 2018
• 6 essays from admitted MIT students

Smith College

• 6 "best gift" essays from the class of 2018

Books of College Essays

If you're looking for even more sample college essays, consider purchasing a college essay book. The best of these include dozens of essays that worked and feedback from real admissions officers.

College Essays That Made a Difference —This detailed guide from Princeton Review includes not only successful essays, but also interviews with admissions officers and full student profiles.

50 Successful Harvard Application Essays by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson—A must for anyone aspiring to Harvard .

50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays and 50 Successful Stanford Application Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe—For essays from other top schools, check out this venerated series, which is regularly updated with new essays.

Heavenly Essays by Janine W. Robinson—This collection from the popular blogger behind Essay Hell includes a wider range of schools, as well as helpful tips on honing your own essay.

Analyzing Great Common App Essays That Worked

I've picked two essays from the examples collected above to examine in more depth so that you can see exactly what makes a successful college essay work. Full credit for these essays goes to the original authors and the schools that published them.

Example 1: "Breaking Into Cars," by Stephen, Johns Hopkins Class of '19 (Common App Essay, 636 words long)

I had never broken into a car before.

We were in Laredo, having just finished our first day at a Habitat for Humanity work site. The Hotchkiss volunteers had already left, off to enjoy some Texas BBQ, leaving me behind with the college kids to clean up. Not until we were stranded did we realize we were locked out of the van.

Someone picked a coat hanger out of the dumpster, handed it to me, and took a few steps back.

"Can you do that thing with a coat hanger to unlock it?"

"Why me?" I thought.

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame. Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally. My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed. "The water's on fire! Clear a hole!" he shouted, tossing me in the lake without warning. While I'm still unconvinced about that particular lesson's practicality, my Dad's overarching message is unequivocally true: much of life is unexpected, and you have to deal with the twists and turns.

Living in my family, days rarely unfolded as planned. A bit overlooked, a little pushed around, I learned to roll with reality, negotiate a quick deal, and give the improbable a try. I don't sweat the small stuff, and I definitely don't expect perfect fairness. So what if our dining room table only has six chairs for seven people? Someone learns the importance of punctuality every night.

But more than punctuality and a special affinity for musical chairs, my family life has taught me to thrive in situations over which I have no power. Growing up, I never controlled my older siblings, but I learned how to thwart their attempts to control me. I forged alliances, and realigned them as necessary. Sometimes, I was the poor, defenseless little brother; sometimes I was the omniscient elder. Different things to different people, as the situation demanded. I learned to adapt.

Back then, these techniques were merely reactions undertaken to ensure my survival. But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The question caught me off guard, much like the question posed to me in Laredo. Then, I realized I knew the answer. I knew why the coat hanger had been handed to me.

Growing up as the middle child in my family, I was a vital participant in a thing I did not govern, in the company of people I did not choose. It's family. It's society. And often, it's chaos. You participate by letting go of the small stuff, not expecting order and perfection, and facing the unexpected with confidence, optimism, and preparedness. My family experience taught me to face a serendipitous world with confidence.

What Makes This Essay Tick?

It's very helpful to take writing apart in order to see just how it accomplishes its objectives. Stephen's essay is very effective. Let's find out why!

An Opening Line That Draws You In

In just eight words, we get: scene-setting (he is standing next to a car about to break in), the idea of crossing a boundary (he is maybe about to do an illegal thing for the first time), and a cliffhanger (we are thinking: is he going to get caught? Is he headed for a life of crime? Is he about to be scared straight?).

Great, Detailed Opening Story

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame.

It's the details that really make this small experience come alive. Notice how whenever he can, Stephen uses a more specific, descriptive word in place of a more generic one. The volunteers aren't going to get food or dinner; they're going for "Texas BBQ." The coat hanger comes from "a dumpster." Stephen doesn't just move the coat hanger—he "jiggles" it.

Details also help us visualize the emotions of the people in the scene. The person who hands Stephen the coat hanger isn't just uncomfortable or nervous; he "takes a few steps back"—a description of movement that conveys feelings. Finally, the detail of actual speech makes the scene pop. Instead of writing that the other guy asked him to unlock the van, Stephen has the guy actually say his own words in a way that sounds like a teenager talking.

Turning a Specific Incident Into a Deeper Insight

Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

Stephen makes the locked car experience a meaningful illustration of how he has learned to be resourceful and ready for anything, and he also makes this turn from the specific to the broad through an elegant play on the two meanings of the word "click."

Using Concrete Examples When Making Abstract Claims

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally.

"Unpredictability and chaos" are very abstract, not easily visualized concepts. They could also mean any number of things—violence, abandonment, poverty, mental instability. By instantly following up with highly finite and unambiguous illustrations like "family of seven" and "siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing," Stephen grounds the abstraction in something that is easy to picture: a large, noisy family.

Using Small Bits of Humor and Casual Word Choice

My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed.

Obviously, knowing how to clean burning oil is not high on the list of things every 9-year-old needs to know. To emphasize this, Stephen uses sarcasm by bringing up a situation that is clearly over-the-top: "in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed."

The humor also feels relaxed. Part of this is because he introduces it with the colloquial phrase "you know," so it sounds like he is talking to us in person. This approach also diffuses the potential discomfort of the reader with his father's strictness—since he is making jokes about it, clearly he is OK. Notice, though, that this doesn't occur very much in the essay. This helps keep the tone meaningful and serious rather than flippant.

An Ending That Stretches the Insight Into the Future

But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The ending of the essay reveals that Stephen's life has been one long preparation for the future. He has emerged from chaos and his dad's approach to parenting as a person who can thrive in a world that he can't control.

This connection of past experience to current maturity and self-knowledge is a key element in all successful personal essays. Colleges are very much looking for mature, self-aware applicants. These are the qualities of successful college students, who will be able to navigate the independence college classes require and the responsibility and quasi-adulthood of college life.

What Could This Essay Do Even Better?

Even the best essays aren't perfect, and even the world's greatest writers will tell you that writing is never "finished"—just "due." So what would we tweak in this essay if we could?

Replace some of the clichéd language. Stephen uses handy phrases like "twists and turns" and "don't sweat the small stuff" as a kind of shorthand for explaining his relationship to chaos and unpredictability. But using too many of these ready-made expressions runs the risk of clouding out your own voice and replacing it with something expected and boring.

Use another example from recent life. Stephen's first example (breaking into the van in Laredo) is a great illustration of being resourceful in an unexpected situation. But his essay also emphasizes that he "learned to adapt" by being "different things to different people." It would be great to see how this plays out outside his family, either in the situation in Laredo or another context.

Example 2: By Renner Kwittken, Tufts Class of '23 (Common App Essay, 645 words long)

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver. I saw it in my favorite book, Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," and for some reason, I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of driving a giant pickle. Much to the discontent of my younger sister, I insisted that my parents read us that book as many nights as possible so we could find goldbug, a small little golden bug, on every page. I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Then I discovered a real goldbug: gold nanoparticles that can reprogram macrophages to assist in killing tumors, produce clear images of them without sacrificing the subject, and heat them to obliteration.

Suddenly the destination of my pickle was clear.

I quickly became enveloped by the world of nanomedicine; I scoured articles about liposomes, polymeric micelles, dendrimers, targeting ligands, and self-assembling nanoparticles, all conquering cancer in some exotic way. Completely absorbed, I set out to find a mentor to dive even deeper into these topics. After several rejections, I was immensely grateful to receive an invitation to work alongside Dr. Sangeeta Ray at Johns Hopkins.

In the lab, Dr. Ray encouraged a great amount of autonomy to design and implement my own procedures. I chose to attack a problem that affects the entire field of nanomedicine: nanoparticles consistently fail to translate from animal studies into clinical trials. Jumping off recent literature, I set out to see if a pre-dose of a common chemotherapeutic could enhance nanoparticle delivery in aggressive prostate cancer, creating three novel constructs based on three different linear polymers, each using fluorescent dye (although no gold, sorry goldbug!). Though using radioactive isotopes like Gallium and Yttrium would have been incredible, as a 17-year-old, I unfortunately wasn't allowed in the same room as these radioactive materials (even though I took a Geiger counter to a pair of shoes and found them to be slightly dangerous).

I hadn't expected my hypothesis to work, as the research project would have ideally been led across two full years. Yet while there are still many optimizations and revisions to be done, I was thrilled to find -- with completely new nanoparticles that may one day mean future trials will use particles with the initials "RK-1" -- thatcyclophosphamide did indeed increase nanoparticle delivery to the tumor in a statistically significant way.

A secondary, unexpected research project was living alone in Baltimore, a new city to me, surrounded by people much older than I. Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research. Whether in a presentation or in a casual conversation, making others interested in science is perhaps more exciting to me than the research itself. This solidified a new pursuit to angle my love for writing towards illuminating science in ways people can understand, adding value to a society that can certainly benefit from more scientific literacy.

It seems fitting that my goals are still transforming: in Scarry's book, there is not just one goldbug, there is one on every page. With each new experience, I'm learning that it isn't the goldbug itself, but rather the act of searching for the goldbugs that will encourage, shape, and refine my ever-evolving passions. Regardless of the goldbug I seek -- I know my pickle truck has just begun its journey.

Renner takes a somewhat different approach than Stephen, but their essay is just as detailed and engaging. Let's go through some of the strengths of this essay.

One Clear Governing Metaphor

This essay is ultimately about two things: Renner’s dreams and future career goals, and Renner’s philosophy on goal-setting and achieving one’s dreams.

But instead of listing off all the amazing things they’ve done to pursue their dream of working in nanomedicine, Renner tells a powerful, unique story instead. To set up the narrative, Renner opens the essay by connecting their experiences with goal-setting and dream-chasing all the way back to a memorable childhood experience:

This lighthearted–but relevant!--story about the moment when Renner first developed a passion for a specific career (“finding the goldbug”) provides an anchor point for the rest of the essay. As Renner pivots to describing their current dreams and goals–working in nanomedicine–the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” is reflected in Renner’s experiments, rejections, and new discoveries.

Though Renner tells multiple stories about their quest to “find the goldbug,” or, in other words, pursue their passion, each story is connected by a unifying theme; namely, that as we search and grow over time, our goals will transform…and that’s okay! By the end of the essay, Renner uses the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” to reiterate the relevance of the opening story:

While the earlier parts of the essay convey Renner’s core message by showing, the final, concluding paragraph sums up Renner’s insights by telling. By briefly and clearly stating the relevance of the goldbug metaphor to their own philosophy on goals and dreams, Renner demonstrates their creativity, insight, and eagerness to grow and evolve as the journey continues into college.

An Engaging, Individual Voice

This essay uses many techniques that make Renner sound genuine and make the reader feel like we already know them.

Technique #1: humor. Notice Renner's gentle and relaxed humor that lightly mocks their younger self's grand ambitions (this is different from the more sarcastic kind of humor used by Stephen in the first essay—you could never mistake one writer for the other).

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver.

I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Renner gives a great example of how to use humor to your advantage in college essays. You don’t want to come off as too self-deprecating or sarcastic, but telling a lightheartedly humorous story about your younger self that also showcases how you’ve grown and changed over time can set the right tone for your entire essay.

Technique #2: intentional, eye-catching structure. The second technique is the way Renner uses a unique structure to bolster the tone and themes of their essay . The structure of your essay can have a major impact on how your ideas come across…so it’s important to give it just as much thought as the content of your essay!

For instance, Renner does a great job of using one-line paragraphs to create dramatic emphasis and to make clear transitions from one phase of the story to the next:

Suddenly the destination of my pickle car was clear.

Not only does the one-liner above signal that Renner is moving into a new phase of the narrative (their nanoparticle research experiences), it also tells the reader that this is a big moment in Renner’s story. It’s clear that Renner made a major discovery that changed the course of their goal pursuit and dream-chasing. Through structure, Renner conveys excitement and entices the reader to keep pushing forward to the next part of the story.

Technique #3: playing with syntax. The third technique is to use sentences of varying length, syntax, and structure. Most of the essay's written in standard English and uses grammatically correct sentences. However, at key moments, Renner emphasizes that the reader needs to sit up and pay attention by switching to short, colloquial, differently punctuated, and sometimes fragmented sentences.

Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research.

In the examples above, Renner switches adeptly between long, flowing sentences and quippy, telegraphic ones. At the same time, Renner uses these different sentence lengths intentionally. As they describe their experiences in new places, they use longer sentences to immerse the reader in the sights, smells, and sounds of those experiences. And when it’s time to get a big, key idea across, Renner switches to a short, punchy sentence to stop the reader in their tracks.

The varying syntax and sentence lengths pull the reader into the narrative and set up crucial “aha” moments when it’s most important…which is a surefire way to make any college essay stand out.

Renner's essay is very strong, but there are still a few little things that could be improved.

Connecting the research experiences to the theme of “finding the goldbug.”  The essay begins and ends with Renner’s connection to the idea of “finding the goldbug.” And while this metaphor is deftly tied into the essay’s intro and conclusion, it isn’t entirely clear what Renner’s big findings were during the research experiences that are described in the middle of the essay. It would be great to add a sentence or two stating what Renner’s big takeaways (or “goldbugs”) were from these experiences, which add more cohesion to the essay as a whole.

Give more details about discovering the world of nanomedicine. It makes sense that Renner wants to get into the details of their big research experiences as quickly as possible. After all, these are the details that show Renner’s dedication to nanomedicine! But a smoother transition from the opening pickle car/goldbug story to Renner’s “real goldbug” of nanoparticles would help the reader understand why nanoparticles became Renner’s goldbug. Finding out why Renner is so motivated to study nanomedicine–and perhaps what put them on to this field of study–would help readers fully understand why Renner chose this path in the first place.

4 Essential Tips for Writing Your Own Essay

How can you use this discussion to better your own college essay? Here are some suggestions for ways to use this resource effectively.

#1: Get Help From the Experts

Getting your college applications together takes a lot of work and can be pretty intimidatin g. Essays are even more important than ever now that admissions processes are changing and schools are going test-optional and removing diversity standards thanks to new Supreme Court rulings .  If you want certified expert help that really makes a difference, get started with  PrepScholar’s Essay Editing and Coaching program. Our program can help you put together an incredible essay from idea to completion so that your application stands out from the crowd. We've helped students get into the best colleges in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  If you're ready to take the next step and boost your odds of getting into your dream school, connect with our experts today .

#2: Read Other Essays to Get Ideas for Your Own

As you go through the essays we've compiled for you above, ask yourself the following questions:

• Can you explain to yourself (or someone else!) why the opening sentence works well?
• Look for the essay's detailed personal anecdote. What senses is the author describing? Can you easily picture the scene in your mind's eye?
• Find the place where this anecdote bridges into a larger insight about the author. How does the essay connect the two? How does the anecdote work as an example of the author's characteristic, trait, or skill?
• Check out the essay's tone. If it's funny, can you find the places where the humor comes from? If it's sad and moving, can you find the imagery and description of feelings that make you moved? If it's serious, can you see how word choice adds to this tone?

Make a note whenever you find an essay or part of an essay that you think was particularly well-written, and think about what you like about it . Is it funny? Does it help you really get to know the writer? Does it show what makes the writer unique? Once you have your list, keep it next to you while writing your essay to remind yourself to try and use those same techniques in your own essay.

#3: Find Your "A-Ha!" Moment

All of these essays rely on connecting with the reader through a heartfelt, highly descriptive scene from the author's life. It can either be very dramatic (did you survive a plane crash?) or it can be completely mundane (did you finally beat your dad at Scrabble?). Either way, it should be personal and revealing about you, your personality, and the way you are now that you are entering the adult world.

Check out essays by authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan , Leslie Jamison , Hanif Abdurraqib , and Esmé Weijun Wang to get more examples of how to craft a compelling personal narrative.

#4: Start Early, Revise Often

Let me level with you: the best writing isn't writing at all. It's rewriting. And in order to have time to rewrite, you have to start way before the application deadline. My advice is to write your first draft at least two months before your applications are due.

Let it sit for a few days untouched. Then come back to it with fresh eyes and think critically about what you've written. What's extra? What's missing? What is in the wrong place? What doesn't make sense? Don't be afraid to take it apart and rearrange sections. Do this several times over, and your essay will be much better for it!

For more editing tips, check out a style guide like Dreyer's English or Eats, Shoots & Leaves .

What's Next?

Still not sure which colleges you want to apply to? Our experts will show you how to make a college list that will help you choose a college that's right for you.

Interested in learning more about college essays? Check out our detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application , some suggestions on what to avoid when writing your essay , and our guide to writing about your extracurricular activities .

Working on the rest of your application? Read what admissions officers wish applicants knew before applying .

The recommendations in this post are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Home — Application Essay — Liberal Arts Schools — A Narrative about Cultural Identity and My Irish-Nicaraguan Roots

A Narrative about Cultural Identity and My Irish-Nicaraguan Roots

• University: Yale University

About this sample

Words: 505 |

Updated: Nov 30, 2023

Words: 505 | Pages: 1 | 3 min read

At a strange intersection of customs exists my cultural essence; I am the product of an infinitely improbable arrangement of DNA. Seemingly, Fate threw darts at a board to select my parents from the world’s population, and just this once they landed on a Nicaraguan war refugee that I affectionately refer to as “mom” and an nth generation Irish naval corpsman from the suburbs known to me as “dad.” Such is life, and Austin came to be a child of divided culture: a child of two languages, two families, two coexisting and yet so vastly different identities. So in this essay I want to talk about cultural identity and its fromation in my life.

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Mom’s dancing in the living room to her favorite Zumba workout tape, and Dad’s sitting in the kitchen, screening some Discovery special as he diligently finishes his paperwork; I exist as the fusion thereof.

My Nicaraguan heritage is a subtle presence in the otherwise culturally homogenous sphere of vanilla blandness that is Fairview, Pennsylvania. However, upon visiting my family in Miami, I’m treated to the cultural variety that is the essence of what it means to be Hispanic. Two springs ago, my family and I found ourselves at the Calle Ocho festival, in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. It was an awakening to the heritage I had yet to fully acknowledge; my integration into the Hispanic community transcends nationality and embraces the commonality of its members. The Cuban espresso shots I enjoyed served as my impromptu induction into my mother’s cultural community. It’s fitting I would rediscover myself in city my mother spent her teenage years; I found my heritage hiding in the festival’s rhythmic bongo beats.

The Hispanic community is warmly welcoming, passionate and energetic, and I am proud to be a part of it. To be Hispanic in the United States is to denounce divisive nationalities and embrace newfound ethnic commonality. My mother has given me more than just a heritage language, she’s served as my liaison to a vibrant community full of el duende, a passionate energy whose variable and untranslatable meaning is yet another demonstration of the bonding nature of being Hispanic. When I speak to my Dominican friend, our connection extends beyond the superficial fact that we’re usually speaking Spanish. Our upbringings in a predominately Caucasian environment have been subtly interwoven with our mothers’ past heritage. There’s nothing better than having a dancing mother who chastises me in Spanglish to make my bed.

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I am an Irish-Nicaraguan who wishes to make the best of what his mother has given him. She’s connected me to a vibrant, welcoming community, and her dedication has allowed me to live without the poverty and disadvantage she had to withstand as an unfortunate byproduct of her community. I’m advantaged with a mother who has overcome obstacles far greater than those that I must face. My cultural experience has driven me to achieve through my duality: to succeed not just as Austin, but to succeed for the sake of validating my mother’s continuing efforts and for the diverse, energetic Hispanic connection she’s given me.

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College Essay: A Mix of Two Cultures

When I was nine years old, my mom encouraged me to learn Vietnamese. She did not want me to be like my peers who can’t read, write, or for some even speak the language fluently. They have assimilated into American culture completely.

Every Sunday morning after church, I lingered over to the small school building next to the church, my hands shoved in my pockets. As I entered the classroom my classmates were throwing a football around, chasing each other, yelling, and drawing on the whiteboard. The Vietnamese culture and language lessons were sluggish, the teacher having to explain the lesson in English, because most of us did not understand the lesson and Vietnamese language well enough, even though we spoke it at home with our parents.

At the end of the school day we had free time, either in the sun-soaked front yard or in the enormous cold basement in the winter. All you could hear spoken was English, no Vietnamese at all by the children. One by one, many kids gave up the school simply because it was too hard. Their culture was a blend of American and Vietnamese, but they slowly drifted away from their Vietnamese culture.

My life, too, is a mix of American and Vietnamese cultures. My mom cooks both Vietnamese and American dishes for us, and we speak both English and Vietnamese. In trying to connect with my heritage, I’ve learned more about my culture and its traditions. I know about the new year celebrations and traditional dance, for example. I watched the dragon dance, where two to five people put on a long dragon costume and dance around, and people gift the dancers money by putting it into the dragon’s mouth!

I feel it’s important to know both American and Vietnamese culture because it is large part of my identity, and as I discovered more about my culture and heritage I was able to better connect with my relatives. It was personally important to me to learn some of the Vietnamese language so I could easily communicate with my grandparents and relatives who can’t speak English.

This knowledge will help me as I move into college and beyond, because my experiences in exploring my culture and heritage helped me gain a new view of the world and younger generations. I now understand why the newer generations are mostly American with some areas of Vietnamese culture mixed in. Trying to learn the Vietnamese language also taught me that I have to be dedicated to learn and be willing to learn from my mistakes. From my experiences I’ve learned to explore a subject, any subject, deeply if I’m passionate about it.

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16 Strong College Essay Examples from Top Schools

What’s Covered:

• Common App Essays
• Why This College Essays
• Why This Major Essays
• Extracurricular Essays
• Overcoming Challenges Essays
• Community Service Essays
• Diversity Essays
• Political/Global Issues Essays
• Where to Get Feedback on Your Essays

Most high school students don’t get a lot of experience with creative writing, so the college essay can be especially daunting. Reading examples of successful essays, however, can help you understand what admissions officers are looking for.

In this post, we’ll share 16 college essay examples of many different topics. Most of the essay prompts fall into 8 different archetypes, and you can approach each prompt under that archetype in a similar way. We’ve grouped these examples by archetype so you can better structure your approach to college essays.

If you’re looking for school-specific guides, check out our 2022-2023 essay breakdowns .

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. 

Note: the essays are titled in this post for navigation purposes, but they were not originally titled. We also include the original prompt where possible.

The Common App essay goes to all of the schools on your list, unless those schools use a separate application platform. Because of this, it’s the most important essay in your portfolio, and likely the longest essay you’ll need to write (you get up to 650 words). 

The goal of this essay is to share a glimpse into who you are, what matters to you, and what you hope to achieve. It’s a chance to share your story. 

Learn more about how to write the Common App essay in our complete guide.

The Multiple Meanings of Point

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. (250-650 words)

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

The first obvious strength of this essay is the introduction—it is interesting and snappy and uses enough technical language that we want to figure out what the student is discussing. When writing introductions, students tend to walk the line between intriguing and confusing. It is important that your essay ends up on the intentionally intriguing side of that line—like this student does! We are a little confused at first, but by then introducing the idea of “sparring,” the student grounds their essay.

People often advise young writers to “show, not tell.” This student takes that advice a step further and makes the reader do a bit of work to figure out what they are telling us. Nowhere in this essay does it say “After years of Taekwondo, I made the difficult decision to switch over to ballet.” Rather, the student says “It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers.” How powerful! 

After a lot of emotional language and imagery, this student finishes off their essay with very valuable (and necessary!) reflection. They show admissions officers that they are more than just a good writer—they are a mature and self-aware individual who would be beneficial to a college campus. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values: “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.”

Sparking Self-Awareness

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (250-650 words)

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.

First things first, this Common App essay is well-written. This student is definitely showing the admissions officers her ability to articulate her points beautifully and creatively. It starts with vivid images like that of the “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.” And because the prose is flowery (and beautiful!), the writer can get away with metaphors like “I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms” that might sound cheesy without the clear command of the English language that the writer quickly establishes.

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.

While dialogue often comes off as cliche or trite, this student effectively incorporates her family members saying “Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” This is achieved through the apt use of the verb “taunted” to characterize the questioning and through the question’s thematic connection to the earlier image of the student as a rustic princess. Similarly, rhetorical questions can feel randomly placed in essays, but this student’s inclusion of the questions “Was I so dainty?” and “Was I that incapable?” feel perfectly justified after she establishes that she was pondering her failure.

Quite simply, this essay shows how quality writing can make a simple story outstandingly compelling. 

Why This College?

“Why This College?” is one of the most common essay prompts, likely because schools want to understand whether you’d be a good fit and how you’d use their resources.

This essay is one of the more straightforward ones you’ll write for college applications, but you still can and should allow your voice to shine through.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This College?” essay in our guide.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

This prompt from Penn asks students to tailor their answer to their specific field of study. One great thing that this student does is identify their undergraduate school early, by mentioning “Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics.” You don’t want readers confused or searching through other parts of your application to figure out your major.

With a longer essay like this, it is important to establish structure. Some students organize their essay in a narrative form, using an anecdote from their past or predicting their future at a school. This student uses Roach’s 5 C’s of Caring as a framing device that organizes their essay around values. This works well!

While this essay occasionally loses voice, there are distinct moments where the student’s personality shines through. We see this with phrases like “felt like drinking from a fire hose in the best possible way” and “All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence.” It is important to show off your personality to make your essay stand out. 

Finally, this student does a great job of referencing specific resources about Penn. It’s clear that they have done their research (they’ve even talked to current Quakers). They have dreams and ambitions that can only exist at Penn.

Prompt: What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Coin collector and swimmer. Hungarian and Romanian. Critical and creative thinker. I was drawn to Yale because they don’t limit one’s mind with “or” but rather embrace unison with “and.” 

Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone about the correlation between hedonism and climate change, making it my goal to find implications in environmental sociology. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arielle Baskin-Sommers, I explore the emotional deficits of depression, utilizing neuroimaging to scrutinize my favorite branch of psychology: human perception. At Walden Peer Counseling, I integrate my peer support and active listening skills to foster an empathetic environment for the Yale community. Combining my interests in psychological and environmental studies is why I’m proud to be a Bulldog. 

This answer to the “Why This College” question is great because 1) the student shows their excitement about attending Yale 2) we learn the ways in which attending Yale will help them achieve their goals and 3) we learn their interests and identities.

In this response, you can find a prime example of the “Image of the Future” approach, as the student flashes forward and envisions their life at Yale, using present tense (“I explore,” “I integrate,” “I’m proud”). This approach is valuable if you are trying to emphasize your dedication to a specific school. Readers get the feeling that this student is constantly imagining themselves on campus—it feels like Yale really matters to them.

Starting this image with the Beinecke Library is great because the Beinecke Library only exists at Yale. It is important to tailor “Why This College” responses to each specific school. This student references a program of study, a professor, and an extracurricular that only exist at Yale. Additionally, they connect these unique resources to their interests—psychological and environmental studies.

Finally, we learn about the student (independent of academics) through this response. By the end of their 125 words, we know their hobbies, ethnicities, and social desires, in addition to their academic interests. It can be hard to tackle a 125-word response, but this student shows that it’s possible.

Why This Major?

The goal of this prompt is to understand how you came to be interested in your major and what you plan to do with it. For competitive programs like engineering, this essay helps admissions officers distinguish students who have a genuine passion and are most likely to succeed in the program. This is another more straightforward essay, but you do have a bit more freedom to include relevant anecdotes.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This Major?” essay in our guide.

Why Duke Engineering

Prompt: If you are applying to the Pratt School of Engineering as a first year applicant, please discuss why you want to study engineering and why you would like to study at Duke (250 words).

One Christmas morning, when I was nine, I opened a snap circuit set from my grandmother. Although I had always loved math and science, I didn’t realize my passion for engineering until I spent the rest of winter break creating different circuits to power various lights, alarms, and sensors. Even after I outgrew the toy, I kept the set in my bedroom at home and knew I wanted to study engineering. Later, in a high school biology class, I learned that engineering didn’t only apply to circuits, but also to medical devices that could improve people’s quality of life. Biomedical engineering allows me to pursue my academic passions and help people at the same time.

Just as biology and engineering interact in biomedical engineering, I am fascinated by interdisciplinary research in my chosen career path. Duke offers unmatched resources, such as DUhatch and The Foundry, that will enrich my engineering education and help me practice creative problem-solving skills. The emphasis on entrepreneurship within these resources will also help me to make a helpful product. Duke’s Bass Connections program also interests me; I firmly believe that the most creative and necessary problem-solving comes by bringing people together from different backgrounds. Through this program, I can use my engineering education to solve complicated societal problems such as creating sustainable surgical tools for low-income countries. Along the way, I can learn alongside experts in the field. Duke’s openness and collaborative culture span across its academic disciplines, making Duke the best place for me to grow both as an engineer and as a social advocate.

This prompt calls for a complex answer. Students must explain both why they want to study engineering and why Duke is the best place for them to study engineering.

This student begins with a nice hook—a simple anecdote about a simple present with profound consequences. They do not fluff up their anecdote with flowery images or emotionally-loaded language; it is what it is, and it is compelling and sweet. As their response continues, they express a particular interest in problem-solving. They position problem-solving as a fundamental part of their interest in engineering (and a fundamental part of their fascination with their childhood toy). This helps readers to learn about the student!

Problem-solving is also the avenue by which they introduce Duke’s resources—DUhatch, The Foundry, and Duke’s Bass Connections program. It is important to notice that the student explains how these resources can help them achieve their future goals—it is not enough to simply identify the resources!

This response is interesting and focused. It clearly answers the prompt, and it feels honest and authentic.

Why Georgia Tech CompSci

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words max)

I held my breath and hit RUN. Yes! A plump white cat jumped out and began to catch the falling pizzas. Although my Fat Cat project seems simple now, it was the beginning of an enthusiastic passion for computer science. Four years and thousands of hours of programming later, that passion has grown into an intense desire to explore how computer science can serve society. Every day, surrounded by technology that can recognize my face and recommend scarily-specific ads, I’m reminded of Uncle Ben’s advice to a young Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility”. Likewise, the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed with AI’s far-reaching presence in society; and I believe that digital fairness starts with equality in education.

The unique use of threads at the College of Computing perfectly matches my interests in AI and its potential use in education; the path of combined threads on Intelligence and People gives me the rare opportunity to delve deep into both areas. I’m particularly intrigued by the rich sets of both knowledge-based and data-driven intelligence courses, as I believe AI should not only show correlation of events, but also provide insight for why they occur.

In my four years as an enthusiastic online English tutor, I’ve worked hard to help students overcome both financial and technological obstacles in hopes of bringing quality education to people from diverse backgrounds. For this reason, I’m extremely excited by the many courses in the People thread that focus on education and human-centered technology. I’d love to explore how to integrate AI technology into the teaching process to make education more available, affordable, and effective for people everywhere. And with the innumerable opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know that I will be able to go further here than anywhere else.

With a “Why This Major” essay, you want to avoid using all of your words to tell a story. That being said, stories are a great way to show your personality and make your essay stand out. This student’s story takes up only their first 21 words, but it positions the student as fun and funny and provides an endearing image of cats and pizzas—who doesn’t love cats and pizzas? There are other moments when the student’s personality shines through also, like the Spiderman reference.

While this pop culture reference adds color, it also is important for what the student is getting at: their passion. They want to go into computer science to address the issues of security and equity that are on the industry’s mind, and they acknowledge these concerns with their comments about “scarily-specific ads” and their statement that “the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed.” This student is self-aware and aware of the state of the industry. This aptitude will be appealing for admissions officers.

The conversation around “threads” is essential for this student’s response because the prompt asks specifically about the major at Georgia Tech and it is the only thing they reference that is specific to Georgia Tech. Threads are great, but this student would have benefitted from expanding on other opportunities specific to Georgia Tech later in the essay, instead of simply inserting “innumerable opportunities.”

Overall, this student shows personality, passion, and aptitude—precisely what admissions officers want to see!

Extracurricular Essay

You’re asked to describe your activities on the Common App, but chances are, you have at least one extracurricular that’s impacted you in a way you can’t explain in 150 characters.

This essay archetype allows you to share how your most important activity shaped you and how you might use those lessons learned in the future. You are definitely welcome to share anecdotes and use a narrative approach, but remember to include some reflection. A common mistake students make is to only describe the activity without sharing how it impacted them.

Learn more about how to write the Extracurricular Essay in our guide.

A Dedicated Musician

My fingers raced across the keys, rapidly striking one after another. My body swayed with the music as my hands raced across the piano. Crashing onto the final chord, it was over as quickly as it had begun. My shoulders relaxed and I couldn’t help but break into a satisfied grin. I had just played the Moonlight Sonata’s third movement, a longtime dream of mine. 

Four short months ago, though, I had considered it impossible. The piece’s tempo was impossibly fast, its notes stretching between each end of the piano, forcing me to reach farther than I had ever dared. It was 17 pages of the most fragile and intricate melodies I had ever encountered. 

But that summer, I found myself ready to take on the challenge. With the end of the school year, I was released from my commitment to practicing for band and solo performances. I was now free to determine my own musical path: either succeed in learning the piece, or let it defeat me for the third summer in a row. 

Over those few months, I spent countless hours practicing the same notes until they burned a permanent place in my memory, creating a soundtrack for even my dreams. Some would say I’ve mastered the piece, but as a musician I know better. Now that I can play it, I am eager to take the next step and add in layers of musicality and expression to make the once-impossible piece even more beautiful.

In this response, the student uses their extracurricular, piano, as a way to emphasize their positive qualities. At the beginning, readers are invited on a journey with the student where we feel their struggle, their intensity, and ultimately their satisfaction. With this descriptive image, we form a valuable connection with the student.

Then, we get to learn about what makes this student special: their dedication and work ethic. The fact that this student describes their desire to be productive during the summer shows an intensity that is appealing to admissions officers. Additionally, the growth mindset that this student emphasizes in their conclusion is appealing to admissions officers.

The Extracurricular Essay can be seen as an opportunity to characterize yourself. This student clearly identified their positive qualities, then used the Extracurricular Essay as a way to articulate them.

A Complicated Relationship with the School Newspaper

My school’s newspaper and I have a typical love-hate relationship; some days I want nothing more than to pass two hours writing and formatting articles, while on others the mere thought of student journalism makes me shiver. Still, as we’re entering our fourth year together, you could consider us relatively stable. We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences; at this point I’ve become comfortable spending an entire Friday night preparing for an upcoming issue, and I hardly even notice the snail-like speed of our computers. I’ve even benefitted from the polygamous nature of our relationship—with twelve other editors, there’s a lot of cooperation involved. Perverse as it may be, from that teamwork I’ve both gained some of my closest friends and improved my organizational and time-management skills. And though leaving it in the hands of new editors next year will be difficult, I know our time together has only better prepared me for future relationships.

This response is great. It’s cute and endearing and, importantly, tells readers a lot about the student who wrote it. Framing this essay in the context of a “love-hate relationship,” then supplementing with comments like “We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences” allows this student to advertise their maturity in a unique and engaging way. 

While Extracurricular Essays can be a place to show how you’ve grown within an activity, they can also be a place to show how you’ve grown through an activity. At the end of this essay, readers think that this student is mature and enjoyable, and we think that their experience with the school newspaper helped make them that way.

Participating in Democracy

Prompt: Research shows that an ability to learn from experiences outside the classroom correlates with success in college. What was your greatest learning experience over the past 4 years that took place outside of the traditional classroom? (250 words) 

The cool, white halls of the Rayburn House office building contrasted with the bustling energy of interns entertaining tourists, staffers rushing to cover committee meetings, and my fellow conference attendees separating to meet with our respective congresspeople. Through civics and US history classes, I had learned about our government, but simply hearing the legislative process outlined didn’t prepare me to navigate it. It was my first political conference, and, after learning about congressional mechanics during breakout sessions, I was lobbying my representative about an upcoming vote crucial to the US-Middle East relationship. As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents.

As I sat down with my congresswoman’s chief of staff, I truly felt like a participant in democracy; I was exercising my right to be heard as a young American. Through this educational conference, I developed a plan of action to raise my voice. When I returned home, I signed up to volunteer with the state chapter of the Democratic Party. I sponsored letter-writing campaigns, canvassed for local elections, and even pursued an internship with a state senate campaign. I know that I don’t need to be old enough to vote to effect change. Most importantly, I also know that I want to study government—I want to make a difference for my communities in the United States and the Middle East throughout my career. 

While this prompt is about extracurricular activities, it specifically references the idea that the extracurricular should support the curricular. It is focused on experiential learning for future career success. This student wants to study government, so they chose to describe an experience of hands-on learning within their field—an apt choice!

As this student discusses their extracurricular experience, they also clue readers into their future goals—they want to help Middle Eastern communities. Admissions officers love when students mention concrete plans with a solid foundation. Here, the foundation comes from this student’s ethnicity. With lines like “my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents,” the student assures admissions officers of their emotional connection to their future field.

The strength of this essay comes from its connections. It connects the student’s extracurricular activity to their studies and connects theirs studies to their personal history.

Overcoming Challenges

You’re going to face a lot of setbacks in college, so admissions officers want to make you’re you have the resilience and resolve to overcome them. This essay is your chance to be vulnerable and connect to admissions officers on an emotional level.

Learn more about how to write the Overcoming Challenges Essay in our guide.

The Student Becomes the Master

”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 is great because it has a strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction is notably suspenseful and draws readers into the story. Because we know it is a college essay, we can assume that the student is one of the competitors, but at the same time, this introduction feels intentionally ambiguous as if the writer could be a competitor, a coach, a sibling of a competitor, or anyone else in the situation.

As we continue reading the essay, we learn that the writer is, in fact, the competitor. Readers also learn a lot about the student’s values as we hear their thoughts: “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was.” Ultimately, the conflict and inner and outer turmoil is resolved through the “Same, but Different” ending technique as the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiencing it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is a very compelling strategy!

Growing Sensitivity to Struggles

Prompt: The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (650 words)

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here you can find a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

Community Service/Impact on the Community

Colleges want students who will positively impact the campus community and go on to make change in the world after they graduate. This essay is similar to the Extracurricular Essay, but you need to focus on a situation where you impacted others. 

Learn more about how to write the Community Service Essay in our guide.

Academic Signing Day

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me.     

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, every time I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This essay answers the prompt nicely because the student describes a contribution with a lasting legacy. Academic Signing Day will affect this high school in the future and it affected this student’s self-development—an idea summed up nicely with their last phrase “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With Community Service essays, students sometimes take small contributions and stretch them. And, oftentimes, the stretch is very obvious. Here, the student shows us that Academic Signing Day actually mattered by mentioning four months of planning and hundreds of students and parents. They also make their involvement in Academic Signing Day clear—it was their idea and they were in charge, and that’s why they gave the introductory speech.

Use this response as an example of the type of focused contribution that makes for a convincing Community Service Essay.

Climate Change Rally

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (technically not community service, but the response works)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day.  

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

Like with the last example, this student describes a focused event with a lasting legacy. That’s a perfect place to start! By the end of this essay, we have an image of the cause of this student’s passion and the effect of this student’s passion. There are no unanswered questions.

This student supplements their focused topic with engaging and exciting writing to make for an easy-to-read and enjoyable essay. One of the largest strengths of this response is its pace. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we center ourselves in real-time, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” Community Service essays run the risk of turning boring, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Having a diverse class provides a richness of different perspectives and encourages open-mindedness among the student body. The Diversity Essay is also somewhat similar to the Extracurricular and Community Service Essays, but it focuses more on what you might bring to the campus community because of your unique experiences or identities.

Learn more about how to write the Diversity Essay in our guide.

A Story of a Young Skater

​​“Everyone follow me!” I smiled at five wide-eyed skaters before pushing off into a spiral. I glanced behind me hopefully, only to see my students standing frozen like statues, the fear in their eyes as clear as the ice they swayed on. “Come on!” I said encouragingly, but the only response I elicited was the slow shake of their heads. My first day as a Learn-to-Skate coach was not going as planned. 

But amid my frustration, I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater. At seven, I had been fascinated by Olympic performers who executed thrilling high jumps and dizzying spins with apparent ease, and I dreamed to one day do the same. My first few months on skates, however, sent these hopes crashing down: my attempts at slaloms and toe-loops were shadowed by a stubborn fear of falling, which even the helmet, elbow pads, and two pairs of mittens I had armed myself with couldn’t mitigate. Nonetheless, my coach remained unfailingly optimistic, motivating me through my worst spills and teaching me to find opportunities in failures. With his encouragement, I learned to push aside my fears and attack each jump with calm and confidence; it’s the hope that I can help others do the same that now inspires me to coach.

I remember the day a frustrated staff member directed Oliver, a particularly hesitant young skater, toward me, hoping that my patience and steady encouragement might help him improve. Having stood in Oliver’s skates not much earlier myself, I completely empathized with his worries but also saw within him the potential to overcome his fears and succeed. 

To alleviate his anxiety, I held Oliver’s hand as we inched around the rink, cheering him on at every turn. I soon found though, that this only increased his fear of gliding on his own, so I changed my approach, making lessons as exciting as possible in hopes that he would catch the skating bug and take off. In the weeks that followed, we held relay races, played “freeze-skate” and “ice-potato”, and raced through obstacle courses; gradually, with each slip and subsequent success, his fear began to abate. I watched Oliver’s eyes widen in excitement with every skill he learned, and not long after, he earned his first skating badge. Together we celebrated this milestone, his ecstasy fueling my excitement and his pride mirroring my own. At that moment, I was both teacher and student, his progress instilling in me the importance of patience and a positive attitude. 

It’s been more than ten years since I bundled up and stepped onto the ice for the first time. Since then, my tolerance for the cold has remained stubbornly low, but the rest of me has certainly changed. In sharing my passion for skating, I have found a wonderful community of eager athletes, loving parents, and dedicated coaches from whom I have learned invaluable lessons and wisdom. My fellow staffers have been with me, both as friends and colleagues, and the relationships I’ve formed have given me far more poise, confidence, and appreciation for others. Likewise, my relationships with parents have given me an even greater gratitude for the role they play: no one goes to the rink without a parent behind the wheel! 

Since that first lesson, I have mentored dozens of children, and over the years, witnessed tentative steps transform into powerful glides and tears give way to delighted grins. What I have shared with my students has been among the greatest joys of my life, something I will cherish forever. It’s funny: when I began skating, what pushed me through the early morning practices was the prospect of winning an Olympic medal. Now, what excites me is the chance to work with my students, to help them grow, and to give back to the sport that has brought me so much happiness. 

This response is a great example of how Diversity doesn’t have to mean race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, or ability. Diversity can mean whatever you want it to mean—whatever unique experience(s) you have to bring to the table!

A major strength of this essay comes in its narrative organization. When reading this first paragraph, we feel for the young skaters and understand their fear—skating sounds scary! Then, because the writer sets us up to feel this empathy, the transition to the second paragraph where the student describes their empathy for the young skaters is particularly powerful. It’s like we are all in it together! The student’s empathy for the young skaters also serves as an outstanding, seamless transition to the applicant discussing their personal journey with skating: “I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater.”

This essay positions the applicant as a grounded and caring individual. They are caring towards the young skaters—changing their teaching style to try to help the young skaters and feeling the young skaters’ emotions with them—but they are also appreciative to those who helped them as they reference their fellow staffers and parents. This shows great maturity—a favorable quality in the eyes of an admissions officer.

At the end of the essay, we know a lot about this student and are convinced that they would be a good addition to a college campus!

Finding Community in the Rainforest

Prompt: Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke (250 words).

I never understood the power of community until I left home to join seven strangers in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Although we flew in from distant corners of the U.S., we shared a common purpose: immersing ourselves in our passion for protecting the natural world.

Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns. My classmates debated the feasibility of Trump’s wall, not the deteriorating state of our planet. Contrastingly, these seven strangers delighted in bird-watching, brightened at the mention of medicinal tree sap, and understood why I once ran across a four-lane highway to retrieve discarded beer cans. Their histories barely resembled mine, yet our values aligned intimately. We did not hesitate to joke about bullet ants, gush about the versatility of tree bark, or discuss the destructive consequences of materialism. Together, we let our inner tree huggers run free.

In the short life of our little community, we did what we thought was impossible. By feeding on each other’s infectious tenacity, we cultivated an atmosphere that deepened our commitment to our values and empowered us to speak out on behalf of the environment. After a week of stimulating conversations and introspective revelations about engaging people from our hometowns in environmental advocacy, we developed a shared determination to devote our lives to this cause.

As we shared a goodbye hug, my new friend whispered, “The world needs saving. Someone’s gotta do it.” For the first time, I believed that someone could be me.

This response is so wholesome and relatable. We all have things that we just need to geek out over and this student expresses the joy that came when they found a community where they could geek out about the environment. Passion is fundamental to university life and should find its way into successful applications.

Like the last response, this essay finds strength in the fact that readers feel for the student. We get a little bit of backstory about where they come from and how they felt silenced—“Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns”—, so it’s easy to feel joy for them when they get set free.

This student displays clear values: community, ecoconsciousness, dedication, and compassion. An admissions officer who reads Diversity essays is looking for students with strong values and a desire to contribute to a university community—sounds like this student!  

Political/Global Issues

Colleges want to build engaged citizens, and the Political/Global Issues Essay allows them to better understand what you care about and whether your values align with theirs. In this essay, you’re most commonly asked to describe an issue, why you care about it, and what you’ve done or hope to do to address it. 

Learn more about how to write the Political/Global Issues Essay in our guide.

Note: this prompt is not a typical political/global issues essay, but the essay itself would be a strong response to a political/global issues prompt.

Fighting Violence Against Women

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. (250-650 words)

“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” 

– Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University. 

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus. 

My feet stride quickly down the sidewalk, my hand grasps on to the pepper spray my parents gifted me for my sixteenth birthday. My eyes ignore the surrounding city life, focusing instead on a pair of tall figures walking in my direction. I mentally ask myself if they turned with me on the last street corner. I do not remember, so I pick up the pace again. All the while, my mind runs over stories of young women being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped on the street. I remember my mother’s voice reminding me to keep my chin up, back straight, eyes and ears alert. 

At a young age, I learned that harassment is a part of daily life for women. I fell victim to period-shaming when I was thirteen, received my first catcall when I was fourteen, and was nonconsensually grabbed by a man soliciting on the street when I was fifteen. For women, assault does not just happen to us— its gory details leave an imprint in our lives, infecting the way we perceive the world. And while movements such as the Women’s March and #MeToo have given victims of sexual violence a voice, harassment still manifests itself in the lives of millions of women across the nation. Symbolic gestures are important in spreading awareness but, upon learning that a surprising number of men are oblivious to the frequent harassment that women experience, I now realize that addressing this complex issue requires a deeper level of activism within our local communities. 

Frustrated with incessant cases of harassment against women, I understood at sixteen years old that change necessitates action. During my junior year, I became an intern with a judge whose campaign for office focused on a need for domestic violence reform. This experience enabled me to engage in constructive dialogue with middle and high school students on how to prevent domestic violence. As I listened to young men uneasily admit their ignorance and young women bravely share their experiences in an effort to spread awareness, I learned that breaking down systems of inequity requires changing an entire culture. I once believed that the problem of harassment would dissipate after politicians and celebrities denounce inappropriate behavior to their global audience. But today, I see that effecting large-scale change comes from the “small” lessons we teach at home and in schools. Concerning women’s empowerment, the effects of Hollywood activism do not trickle down enough. Activism must also trickle up and it depends on our willingness to fight complacency. 

Finding the solution to the long-lasting problem of violence against women is a work-in-progress, but it is a process that is persistently moving. In my life, for every uncomfortable conversation that I bridge, I make the world a bit more sensitive to the unspoken struggle that it is to be a woman. I am no longer passively waiting for others to let me live in a world where I can stand alone under the expanse of darkness on a city street, utterly alone and at peace. I, too, deserve the night sky.

As this student addresses an important social issue, she makes the reasons for her passion clear—personal experiences. Because she begins with an extended anecdote, readers are able to feel connected to the student and become invested in what she has to say.

Additionally, through her powerful ending—“I, too, deserve the night sky”—which connects back to her beginning— “as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky”—this student illustrates a mastery of language. Her engagement with other writing techniques that further her argument, like the emphasis on time—“gifted to me for my sixteenth birthday,” “when I was thirteen,” “when I was fourteen,” etc.—also illustrates her mastery of language.

While this student proves herself a good writer, she also positions herself as motivated and ambitious. She turns her passions into action and fights for them. That is just what admissions officers want to see in a Political/Global issues essay!

Where to Get Feedback on Your College Essays

Once you’ve written your college essays, you’ll want to get feedback on them. Since these essays are important to your chances of acceptance, you should prepare to go through several rounds of edits. 

Not sure who to ask for feedback? That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review resource. You can get comments from another student going through the process and also edit other students’ essays to improve your own writing. 

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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College Culture is a Unique Phenomenon

In general, the term “culture” refers to the behavior, attitudes, practices and norms of a given group of people in a localized geographic area. In particular, the culture of students attending a college together is a unique phenomenon. (Person, 1990)  Student culture in a college setting is established and passed on through the classes. Members of this culture experience learning of values, behaviors and norms through a cultural system of punishment and reward, social interactions and expressed values. (Person, 1990)

  As the individual student craves acceptance into the new culture of their college, the culture influences student behavior from the moment they arrive in the new environment. This element of learning is prevalent from the beginning of the educational experience. (Person, 1990)   Educators tend to overlook this aspect of student learning. They tend to dismiss the importance of peer group influences on learning. (Person, 1990)

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 The peer group defines the problems, norms and behaviors of the students therein. They further serve as models for new students as they arrive in the environment. The culture of a college sets standards for behaviors and norms. (Person, 1990)  It can also influence specific conduct, such as organization membership. Cultural contact provides a context in which students learn the proper ways of communicating and interacting socially, which are valuable life and business skills. (Person, 1990)  The culture itself is in a constant state of transition as the demographic make-up of the college changes over time.

Essential to the understanding of culture in the college setting is the notion that it is not homogeneous. There exists in college culture, like any other culture, a series of subcultures. (Kuh, ) Within these subcultures are several recognized levels. (Kuh, ) The first of these levels is “artifacts”. This refers to the tangible elements of culture that can be further divided into physical, verbal and behavioral categories. (Kuh, )

Physical artifacts are those elements of environment that exist around a population n as they express and shape their cultural behavior. Examples include the architecture, geography and art of the setting, technology, and regional characteristics of the college’s location. (Kuh, ) Verbal artifacts include language, stories or myths associated with the college culture. Often, institutions have specific words or phrases, which Kuh refers to as “terms of endearment”, that  are unique to the college. Behavioral artifacts are rituals and rites associated with the college. There are hundreds of examples of behavioral artifacts in a college setting. (Kuh,)

The second level of culture is referred to as “perspectives”. (Kuh, ) These are socially shared rules of behavior for a given situation. (Kuh, ) Styles of cress are a common example of perspective in college culture. Others include public discussion taboos, procedures at faculty meetings and other behavioral standards. (Kuh, )

”Values”, the third level of subcultures is the group’s impression of the ideal in circumstances, the way things “aught to be”. (Kuh, ) many colleges express values in the form of mission statements and/or policy/conduct guidebooks. (Kuh,) Values may be espoused or enacted. If they are merely espoused, they make the claim of being a value without reflecting the reality of attempting to fulfil the value. If they are enacted, the culture is making a real effort to have cultural behavior conform to the stated values.

The final level of subculture is “Assumptions”. These are tacit beliefs used by members of the culture to define their roles and behaviors. (Kuh, ) These are implicit tenets upon which artifacts, perspectives and values are based. (Kuh, ) These assumptions can be further divided into five subsets. One of these is humanity’s relationship to nature. A second is ***These pages of the KUH article have been omitted from the copy you uploaded***(pg 8-9).

In the culture of a college setting, it is rare that a single culture dominates. The fabric of the culture of a college consists of numerous subcultures. These subcultures define themselves similarly to general cultures, using language, behavior and other cues to differentiate from the “rest of the group”. (Kuh, ) Subcultures can exist among both students and faculty. A typical division of the culture of faculty is by department of study. (Kuh, ) The interactions between students, their culture and their subculture define a key element of their learning and development at college.

The elements of culture described above can be understood through a method of inquiry known as the Cultural Audit. (Whitt, ) The Cultural Audit is a journey to understand the culture of a particular location, such as a college, and the process is guided by eight principles. (Whitt, ) The first of these is that the auditor must identify and acknowledge the underlying assumptions of the subject as to what culture is. The second principle is to respect the uniqueness of the institution being audited. (Whitt, )

The third principle is that the Auditor recognizes the need to explore the perspectives of both the insiders and the outsiders. The fourth principle is that a full engagement requires a lengthy interaction. (Whitt, ) Fifth is the principle that the Auditor should get as much information as possible before formulating conclusions.

The sixth principle is acknowledging the fact that the institution may resist the audit. (Whitt, ) The seventh principle that an Auditor should recognize is the necessity of multiple forms of data collection. The final principle of the Culture Audit is that the Auditor should obtain insider feedback on their observations and conclusions to ensure accuracy. (Whitt, )

The use of the Culture Audit should be an effective way to examine culture at Queens College in Flushing, Queens. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), Queens College boasts nearly 18,500 students. It maintains a good reputation for academic achievement, and is classified as a commuter college, since 40% of the undergraduates and 90% of the graduate students are part-time. The school sponsors 20 men’s and women’s Division II sports teams. The school boasts students from 120 different nations, who speak 66 different languages.

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Should college essays touch on race? Some feel the affirmative action ruling leaves them no choice

CHICAGO — When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some of her classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

“For a lot of students, there’s a feeling of, like, having to go through something so horrible to feel worthy of going to school, which is kind of sad,” said Amofa, the daughter of a hospital technician and an Uber driver.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action . The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

“A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,” he wrote.

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds. Brown University asked applicants how “an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you.” Rice University asked students how their perspectives were shaped by their “background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity.”

WONDERING IF SCHOOLS 'EXPECT A SOB STORY'

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, he knew the stakes were higher than ever because of the court’s decision. His first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child.

Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “And if you don’t provide that, then maybe they’re not going to feel like you went through enough to deserve having a spot at the university. I wrestled with that a lot.”

He wrote drafts focusing on his childhood, but it never amounted to more than a collection of memories. Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. The essay had humor — it centered on a water gun fight where he had victory in sight but, in a comedic twist, slipped and fell. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to write this for me, and we’re just going to see how it goes,’” he said. “It just felt real, and it felt like an honest story.”

The essay describes a breakthrough as he learned “to take ownership of myself and my future by sharing my true personality with the people I encounter. ... I realized that the first chapter of my own story had just been written.”

A RULING PROMPTS PIVOTS ON ESSAY TOPICS

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Oregon, had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Decker wrote he constantly felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” he wrote.

As a first-generation college student, Decker thought about the subtle ways his peers seemed to know more about navigating the admissions process . They made sure to get into advanced classes at the start of high school, and they knew how to secure glowing letters of recommendation.

If writing about race would give him a slight edge and show admissions officers a fuller picture of his achievements, he wanted to take that small advantage.

His first memory about race, Decker said, was when he went to get a haircut in elementary school and the barber made rude comments about his curly hair. Until recently, the insecurity that moment created led him to keep his hair buzzed short.

Through Word is Bond, Decker said he found a space to explore his identity as a Black man. It was one of the first times he was surrounded by Black peers and saw Black role models. It filled him with a sense of pride in his identity. No more buzzcut.

The pressure to write about race involved a tradeoff with other important things in his life, Decker said. That included his passion for journalism, like the piece he wrote on efforts to revive a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Portland. In the end, he squeezed in 100 characters about his journalism under the application’s activities section.

“My final essay, it felt true to myself. But the difference between that and my other essay was the fact that it wasn’t the truth that I necessarily wanted to share,” said Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane, in New Orleans, because of the region’s diversity. “It felt like I just had to limit the truth I was sharing to what I feel like the world is expecting of me.”

SPELLING OUT THE IMPACT OF RACE

Before the Supreme Court ruling, it seemed a given to Imani Laird that colleges would consider the ways that race had touched her life. But now, she felt like she had to spell it out.

As she started her essay, she reflected on how she had faced bias or felt overlooked as a Black student in predominantly white spaces.

There was the year in math class when the teacher kept calling her by the name of another Black student. There were the comments that she’d have an easier time getting into college because she was Black .

“I didn’t have it easier because of my race,” said Laird, a senior at Newton South High School in the Boston suburbs who was accepted at Wellesley and Howard University, and is waiting to hear from several Ivy League colleges. “I had stuff I had to overcome.”

In her final essays, she wrote about her grandfather, who served in the military but was denied access to GI Bill benefits because of his race.

She described how discrimination fueled her ambition to excel and pursue a career in public policy.

“So, I never settled for mediocrity,” she wrote. “Regardless of the subject, my goal in class was not just to participate but to excel. Beyond academics, I wanted to excel while remembering what started this motivation in the first place.”

WILL SCHOOLS LOSE RACIAL DIVERSITY?

Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at some public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

The first drafts of her essay focused on growing up in a low-income family, sharing a bedroom with her brother and grandmother. But it didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said.

Her final essay tells how she came to embrace her natural hair . She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro. When her grandmother sent her back with braids or cornrows, they made fun of those too.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“I stopped seeing myself through the lens of the European traditional beauty standards and started seeing myself through the lens that I created,” Amofa wrote.

“Criticism will persist, but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

Ma reported from Portland, Oregon.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

The War at Stanford

I didn’t know that college would be a factory of unreason.

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ne of the section leaders for my computer-science class, Hamza El Boudali, believes that President Joe Biden should be killed. “I’m not calling for a civilian to do it, but I think a military should,” the 23-year-old Stanford University student told a small group of protesters last month. “I’d be happy if Biden was dead.” He thinks that Stanford is complicit in what he calls the genocide of Palestinians, and that Biden is not only complicit but responsible for it. “I’m not calling for a vigilante to do it,” he later clarified, “but I’m saying he is guilty of mass murder and should be treated in the same way that a terrorist with darker skin would be (and we all know terrorists with dark skin are typically bombed and drone striked by American planes).” El Boudali has also said that he believes that Hamas’s October 7 attack was a justifiable act of resistance, and that he would actually prefer Hamas rule America in place of its current government (though he clarified later that he “doesn’t mean Hamas is perfect”). When you ask him what his cause is, he answers: “Peace.”

I switched to a different computer-science section.

Israel is 7,500 miles away from Stanford’s campus, where I am a sophomore. But the Hamas invasion and the Israeli counterinvasion have fractured my university, a place typically less focused on geopolitics than on venture-capital funding for the latest dorm-based tech start-up. Few students would call for Biden’s head—I think—but many of the same young people who say they want peace in Gaza don’t seem to realize that they are in fact advocating for violence. Extremism has swept through classrooms and dorms, and it is becoming normal for students to be harassed and intimidated for their faith, heritage, or appearance—they have been called perpetrators of genocide for wearing kippahs, and accused of supporting terrorism for wearing keffiyehs. The extremism and anti-Semitism at Ivy League universities on the East Coast have attracted so much media and congressional attention that two Ivy presidents have lost their jobs. But few people seem to have noticed the culture war that has taken over our California campus.

For four months, two rival groups of protesters, separated by a narrow bike path, faced off on Stanford’s palm-covered grounds. The “Sit-In to Stop Genocide” encampment was erected by students in mid-October, even before Israeli troops had crossed into Gaza, to demand that the university divest from Israel and condemn its behavior. Posters were hung equating Hamas with Ukraine and Nelson Mandela. Across from the sit-in, a rival group of pro-Israel students eventually set up the “Blue and White Tent” to provide, as one activist put it, a “safe space” to “be a proud Jew on campus.” Soon it became the center of its own cluster of tents, with photos of Hamas’s victims sitting opposite the rubble-ridden images of Gaza and a long (and incomplete) list of the names of slain Palestinians displayed by the students at the sit-in.

Some days the dueling encampments would host only a few people each, but on a sunny weekday afternoon, there could be dozens. Most of the time, the groups tolerated each other. But not always. Students on both sides were reportedly spit on and yelled at, and had their belongings destroyed. (The perpetrators in many cases seemed to be adults who weren’t affiliated with Stanford, a security guard told me.) The university put in place round-the-clock security, but when something actually happened, no one quite knew what to do.

Conor Friedersdorf: How October 7 changed America’s free speech culture

Stanford has a policy barring overnight camping, but for months didn’t enforce it, “out of a desire to support the peaceful expression of free speech in the ways that students choose to exercise that expression”—and, the administration told alumni, because the university feared that confronting the students would only make the conflict worse. When the school finally said the tents had to go last month, enormous protests against the university administration, and against Israel, followed.

“We don’t want no two states! We want all of ’48!” students chanted, a slogan advocating that Israel be dismantled and replaced by a single Arab nation. Palestinian flags flew alongside bright “Welcome!” banners left over from new-student orientation. A young woman gave a speech that seemed to capture the sense of urgency and power that so many students here feel. “We are Stanford University!” she shouted. “We control things!”

“W e’ve had protests in the past,” Richard Saller, the university’s interim president, told me in November—about the environment, and apartheid, and Vietnam. But they didn’t pit “students against each other” the way that this conflict has.

I’ve spoken with Saller, a scholar of Roman history, a few times over the past six months in my capacity as a student journalist. We first met in September, a few weeks into his tenure. His predecessor, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, had resigned as president after my reporting for The Stanford Daily exposed misconduct in his academic research. (Tessier-Lavigne had failed to retract papers with faked data over the course of 20 years. In his resignation statement , he denied allegations of fraud and misconduct; a Stanford investigation determined that he had not personally manipulated data or ordered any manipulation but that he had repeatedly “failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes” from his lab.)

In that first conversation, Saller told me that everyone was “eager to move on” from the Tessier-Lavigne scandal. He was cheerful and upbeat. He knew he wasn’t staying in the job long; he hadn’t even bothered to move into the recently vacated presidential manor. In any case, campus, at that time, was serene. Then, a week later, came October 7.

The attack was as clear a litmus test as one could imagine for the Middle East conflict. Hamas insurgents raided homes and a music festival with the goal of slaughtering as many civilians as possible. Some victims were raped and mutilated, several independent investigations found. Hundreds of hostages were taken into Gaza and many have been tortured.

This, of course, was bad. Saying this was bad does not negate or marginalize the abuses and suffering Palestinians have experienced in Gaza and elsewhere. Everyone, of every ideology, should be able to say that this was bad. But much of this campus failed that simple test.

Two days after the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Stanford released milquetoast statements marking the “moment of intense emotion” and declaring “deep concern” over “the crisis in Israel and Palestine.” The official statements did not use the words Hamas or violence .

The absence of a clear institutional response led some teachers to take matters into their own hands. During a mandatory freshman seminar on October 10, a lecturer named Ameer Loggins tossed out his lesson plan to tell students that the actions of the Palestinian “military force” had been justified, that Israelis were colonizers, and that the Holocaust had been overemphasized, according to interviews I conducted with students in the class. Loggins then asked the Jewish students to identify themselves. He instructed one of them to “stand up, face the window, and he kind of kicked away his chair,” a witness told me. Loggins described this as an effort to demonstrate Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. (Loggins did not reply to a request for comment; a spokesperson for Stanford said that there were “different recollections of the details regarding what happened” in the class.)

“We’re only in our third week of college, and we’re afraid to be here,” three students in the class wrote in an email that night to administrators. “This isn’t what Stanford was supposed to be.” The class Loggins taught is called COLLEGE, short for “Civic, Liberal, and Global Education,” and it is billed as an effort to develop “the skills that empower and enable us to live together.”

Loggins was suspended from teaching duties and an investigation was opened; this angered pro-Palestine activists, who organized a petition that garnered more than 1,700 signatures contesting the suspension. A pamphlet from the petitioners argued that Loggins’s behavior had not been out of bounds.

The day after the class, Stanford put out a statement written by Saller and Jenny Martinez, the university provost, more forcefully condemning the Hamas attack. Immediately, this new statement generated backlash.

Pro-Palestine activists complained about it during an event held the same day, the first of several “teach-ins” about the conflict. Students gathered in one of Stanford’s dorms to “bear witness to the struggles of decolonization.” The grievances and pain shared by Palestinian students were real. They told of discrimination and violence, of frightened family members subjected to harsh conditions. But the most raucous reaction from the crowd was in response to a young woman who said, “You ask us, do we condemn Hamas? Fuck you!” She added that she was “so proud of my resistance.”

David Palumbo-Liu, a professor of comparative literature with a focus on postcolonial studies, also spoke at the teach-in, explaining to the crowd that “European settlers” had come to “replace” Palestine’s “native population.”

Palumbo-Liu is known as an intelligent and supportive professor, and is popular among students, who call him by his initials, DPL. I wanted to ask him about his involvement in the teach-in, so we met one day in a café a few hundred feet away from the tents. I asked if he could elaborate on what he’d said at the event about Palestine’s native population. He was happy to expand: This was “one of those discussions that could go on forever. Like, who is actually native? At what point does nativism lapse, right? Well, you haven’t been native for X number of years, so …” In the end, he said, “you have two people who both feel they have a claim to the land,” and “they have to live together. Both sides have to cede something.”

The struggle at Stanford, he told me, “is to find a way in which open discussions can be had that allow people to disagree.” It’s true that Stanford has utterly failed in its efforts to encourage productive dialogue. But I still found it hard to reconcile DPL’s words with his public statements on Israel, which he’d recently said on Facebook should be “the most hated nation in the world.” He also wrote: “When Zionists say they don’t feel ‘safe’ on campus, I’ve come to see that as they no longer feel immune to criticism of Israel.” He continued: “Well as the saying goes, get used to it.”

Z ionists, and indeed Jewish students of all political beliefs, have been given good reason to fear for their safety. They’ve been followed, harassed, and called derogatory racial epithets. At least one was told he was a “dirty Jew.” At least twice, mezuzahs have been ripped from students’ doors, and swastikas have been drawn in dorms. Arab and Muslim students also face alarming threats. The computer-science section leader, El Boudali, a pro-Palestine activist, told me he felt “safe personally,” but knew others who did not: “Some people have reported feeling like they’re followed, especially women who wear the hijab.”

In a remarkably short period of time, aggression and abuse have become commonplace, an accepted part of campus activism. In January, Jewish students organized an event dedicated to ameliorating anti-Semitism. It marked one of Saller’s first public appearances in the new year. Its topic seemed uncontroversial, and I thought it would generate little backlash.

Protests began before the panel discussion even started, with activists lining the stairs leading to the auditorium. During the event they drowned out the panelists, one of whom was Israel’s special envoy for combatting anti-Semitism, by demanding a cease-fire. After participants began cycling out into the dark, things got ugly.

Activists, their faces covered by keffiyehs or medical masks, confronted attendees. “Go back to Brooklyn!” a young woman shouted at Jewish students. One protester, who emerged as the leader of the group, said that she and her compatriots would “take all of your places and ensure Israel falls.” She told attendees to get “off our fucking campus” and launched into conspiracy theories about Jews being involved in “child trafficking.” As a rabbi tried to leave the event, protesters pursued him, chanting, “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!”

At one point, some members of the group turned on a few Stanford employees, including another rabbi, an imam, and a chaplain, telling them, “We know your names and we know where you work.” The ringleader added: “And we’ll soon find out where you live.” The religious leaders formed a protective barrier in front of the Jewish students. The rabbi and the imam appeared to be crying.

S aller avoided the protest by leaving through another door. Early that morning, his private residence had been vandalized. Protesters frequently tell him he “can’t hide” and shout him down. “We charge you with genocide!” they chant, demanding that Stanford divest from Israel. (When asked whether Stanford actually invested in Israel, a spokesperson replied that, beyond small exposures from passive funds that track indexes such as the S&P 500, the university’s endowment “has no direct holdings in Israeli companies, or direct holdings in defense contractors.”)

When the university finally said the protest tents had to be removed, students responded by accusing Saller of suppressing their right to free speech. This is probably the last charge he expected to face. Saller once served as provost at the University of Chicago, which is known for holding itself to a position of strict institutional neutrality so that its students can freely explore ideas for themselves. Saller has a lifelong belief in First Amendment rights. But that conviction in impartial college governance does not align with Stanford’s behavior in recent years. Despite the fact that many students seemed largely uninterested in the headlines before this year, Stanford’s administrative leadership has often taken positions on political issues and events, such as the Paris climate conference and the murder of George Floyd. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Stanford’s Hoover Tower was lit up in blue and yellow, and the school released a statement in solidarity.

Thomas Chatterton Williams: Let the activists have their loathsome rallies

When we first met, a week before October 7, I asked Saller about this. Did Stanford have a moral duty to denounce the war in Ukraine, for example, or the ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims in China? “On international political issues, no,” he said. “That’s not a responsibility for the university as a whole, as an institution.”

But when Saller tried to apply his convictions on neutrality for the first time as president, dozens of faculty members condemned the response, many pro-Israel alumni were outraged, donors had private discussions about pulling funding, and an Israeli university sent an open letter to Saller and Martinez saying, “Stanford’s administration has failed us.” The initial statement had tried to make clear that the school’s policy was not Israel-specific: It noted that the university would not take a position on the turmoil in Nagorno-Karabakh (where Armenians are undergoing ethnic cleansing) either. But the message didn’t get through.

Saller had to beat an awkward retreat or risk the exact sort of public humiliation that he, as caretaker president, had presumably been hired to avoid. He came up with a compromise that landed somewhere in the middle: an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’s “intolerable atrocities” paired with a statement making clear that Stanford would commit to institutional neutrality going forward.

“The events in Israel and Gaza this week have affected and engaged large numbers of students on our campus in ways that many other events have not,” the statement read. “This is why we feel compelled to both address the impact of these events on our campus and to explain why our general policy of not issuing statements about news events not directly connected to campus has limited the breadth of our comments thus far, and why you should not expect frequent commentary from us in the future.”

I asked Saller why he had changed tack on Israel and not on Nagorno-Karabakh. “We don’t feel as if we should be making statements on every war crime and atrocity,” he told me. This felt like a statement in and of itself.

In making such decisions, Saller works closely with Martinez, Stanford’s provost. I happened to interview her, too, a few days before October 7, not long after she’d been appointed. When I asked about her hopes for the job, she said that a “priority is ensuring an environment in which free speech and academic freedom are preserved.”

We talked about the so-called Leonard Law—a provision unique to California that requires private universities to be governed by the same First Amendment protections as public ones. This restricts what Stanford can do in terms of penalizing speech, putting it in a stricter bind than Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, or any of the other elite private institutions that have more latitude to set the standards for their campus (whether or not they have done so).

So I was surprised when, in December, the university announced that abstract calls for genocide “clearly violate Stanford’s Fundamental Standard, the code of conduct for all students at the university.” The statement was a response to the outrage following the congressional testimony of three university presidents—outrage that eventually led to the resignation of two of them, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill. Gay and Magill, who had both previously held positions at Stanford, did not commit to punishing calls for the genocide of Jews.

Experts told me that Stanford’s policy is impossible to enforce—and Saller himself acknowledged as much in our March interview.

“Liz Magill is a good friend,” Saller told me, adding, “Having watched what happened at Harvard and Penn, it seemed prudent” to publicly state that Stanford rejected calls for genocide. But saying that those calls violate the code of conduct “is not the same thing as to say that we could actually punish it.”

Stanford’s leaders seem to be trying their best while adapting to the situation in real time. But the muddled messaging has created a policy of neutrality that does not feel neutral at all.

When we met back in November, I tried to get Saller to open up about his experience running an institution in turmoil. What’s it like to know that so many students seem to believe that he—a mild-mannered 71-year-old classicist who swing-dances with his anthropologist wife—is a warmonger? Saller was more candid than I expected—perhaps more candid than any prominent university president has been yet. We sat in the same conference room as we had in September. The weather hadn’t really changed. Yet I felt like I was sitting in front of a different person. He was hunched over and looked exhausted, and his voice broke when he talked about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel and “the fact that we’re caught up in it.” A capable administrator with decades of experience, Saller seemed almost at a loss. “It’s been a kind of roller coaster, to be honest.”

He said he hadn’t anticipated the deluge of the emails “blaming me for lack of moral courage.” Anything the university says seems bound to be wrong: “If I say that our position is that we grieve over the loss of innocent lives, that in itself will draw some hostile reactions.”

“I find that really difficult to navigate,” he said with a sigh.

By March, it seemed that his views had solidified. He said he knew he was “a target,” but he was not going to be pushed into issuing any more statements. The continuing crisis seems to have granted him new insight. “I am certain that whatever I say will not have any material effect on the war in Gaza.” It’s hard to argue with that.

P eople tend to blame the campus wars on two villains: dithering administrators and radical student activists. But colleges have always had dithering administrators and radical student activists. To my mind, it’s the average students who have changed.

Elite universities attract a certain kind of student: the overachieving striver who has won all the right accolades for all the right activities. Is it such a surprise that the kids who are trained in the constant pursuit of perfect scores think they have to look at the world like a series of multiple-choice questions, with clearly right or wrong answers? Or that they think they can gamify a political cause in the same way they ace a standardized test?

Everyone knows that the only reliable way to get into a school like Stanford is to be really good at looking really good. Now that they’re here, students know that one easy way to keep looking good is to side with the majority of protesters, and condemn Israel.

It’s not that there isn’t real anger and anxiety over what is happening in Gaza—there is, and justifiably so. I know that among the protesters are many people who are deeply connected to this issue. But they are not the majority. What really activates the crowds now seems less a principled devotion to Palestine or to pacifism than a desire for collective action, to fit in by embracing the fashionable cause of the moment—as if a centuries-old conflict in which both sides have stolen and killed could ever be a simple matter of right and wrong. In their haste to exhibit moral righteousness, many of the least informed protesters end up being the loudest and most uncompromising.

Today’s students grew up in the Trump era, in which violent rhetoric has become a normal part of political discourse and activism is as easy as reposting an infographic. Many young people have come to feel that being angry is enough to foment change. Furious at the world’s injustices and desperate for a simple way to express that fury, they don’t seem interested in any form of engagement more nuanced than backing a pure protagonist and denouncing an evil enemy. They don’t, always, seem that concerned with the truth.

At the protest last month to prevent the removal of the sit-in, an activist in a pink Women’s March “pussy hat” shouted that no rape was committed by Hamas on October 7. “There hasn’t been proof of these rape accusations,” a student told me in a separate conversation, criticizing the Blue and White Tent for spreading what he considered to be misinformation about sexual violence. (In March, a United Nations report found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence,” including “rape and gang rape,” occurred in multiple locations on October 7, as well as “clear and convincing information” on the “rape and sexualized torture” of hostages.) “The level of propaganda” surrounding Hamas, he told me, “is just unbelievable.”

The real story at Stanford is not about the malicious actors who endorse sexual assault and murder as forms of resistance, but about those who passively enable them because they believe their side can do no wrong. You don’t have to understand what you’re arguing for in order to argue for it. You don’t have to be able to name the river or the sea under discussion to chant “From the river to the sea.” This kind of obliviousness explains how one of my friends, a gay activist, can justify Hamas’s actions, even though it would have the two of us—an outspoken queer person and a Jewish reporter—killed in a heartbeat. A similar mentality can exist on the other side: I have heard students insist on the absolute righteousness of Israel yet seem uninterested in learning anything about what life is like in Gaza.

I’m familiar with the pull of achievement culture—after all, I’m a product of the same system. I fell in love with Stanford as a 7-year-old, lying on the floor of an East Coast library and picturing all the cool technology those West Coast geniuses were dreaming up. I cried when I was accepted; I spent the next few months scrolling through the course catalog, giddy with anticipation. I wanted to learn everything.

I learned more than I expected. Within my first week here, someone asked me: “Why are all Jews so rich?” In 2016, when Stanford’s undergraduate senate had debated a resolution against anti-Semitism, one of its members argued that the idea of “Jews controlling the media, economy, government, and other societal institutions” represented “a very valid discussion.” (He apologized, and the resolution passed.) In my dorm last year, a student discussed being Jewish and awoke the next day to swastikas and a portrait of Hitler affixed to his door.

David Frum: There is no right to bully and harass

I grew up secularly, with no strong affiliation to Jewish culture. When I found out as a teenager that some of my ancestors had hidden their identity from their children and that dozens of my relatives had died in the Holocaust (something no living member of my family had known), I felt the barest tremor of identity. After I saw so many people I know cheering after October 7, I felt something stronger stir. I know others have experienced something similar. Even a professor texted me to say that she felt Jewish in a way she never had before.

But my frustration with the conflict on campus has little to do with my own identity. Across the many conversations and hours of formal interviews I conducted for this article, I’ve encountered a persistent anti-intellectual streak. I’ve watched many of my classmates treat death so cavalierly that they can protest as a pregame to a party. Indeed, two parties at Stanford were reported to the university this fall for allegedly making people say “Fuck Israel” or “Free Palestine” to get in the door. A spokesperson for the university said it was “unable to confirm the facts of what occurred,” but that it had “met with students involved in both parties to make clear that Stanford’s nondiscrimination policy applies to parties.” As a friend emailed me not long ago: “A place that was supposed to be a sanctuary from such unreason has become a factory for it.”

Readers may be tempted to discount the conduct displayed at Stanford. After all, the thinking goes, these are privileged kids doing what they always do: embracing faux-radicalism in college before taking jobs in fintech or consulting. These students, some might say, aren’t representative of America.

And yet they are representative of something: of the conduct many of the most accomplished students in my generation have accepted as tolerable, and what that means for the future of our country. I admire activism. We need people willing to protest what they see as wrong and take on entrenched systems of repression. But we also need to read, learn, discuss, accept the existence of nuance, embrace diversity of thought, and hold our own allies to high standards. More than ever, we need universities to teach young people how to do all of this.

F or so long , Stanford’s physical standoff seemed intractable. Then, in early February, a storm swept in, and the natural world dictated its own conclusion.

Heavy rains flooded campus. For hours, the students battled to save their tents. The sit-in activists used sandbags and anything else they could find to hold back the water—at one point, David Palumbo-Liu, the professor, told me he stood in the lashing downpour to anchor one of the sit-in’s tents with his own body. When the storm hit, many of the Jewish activists had been attending a discussion on anti-Semitism. They raced back and struggled to salvage the Blue and White Tent, but it was too late—the wind had ripped it out of the ground.

The next day, the weary Jewish protesters returned to discover that their space had been taken.

A new collection of tents had been set up by El Boudali, the pro-Palestine activist, and a dozen friends. He said they were there to protest Islamophobia and to teach about Islam and jihad, and that they were a separate entity from the Sit-In to Stop Genocide, though I observed students cycling between the tents. Palestinian flags now flew from the bookstore to the quad.

Administrators told me they’d quickly informed El Boudali and his allies that the space had been reserved by the Jewish advocates, and offered to help move them to a different location. But the protesters told me they had no intention of going. (El Boudali later said that they did not take over the entire space, and would have been “happy to exist side by side, but they wanted to kick us off entirely from that lawn.”)

When it was clear that the area where they’d set up their tents would not be ceded back to the pro-Israel group willingly, Stanford changed course and decided to clear everyone out in one fell swoop. On February 8, school officials ordered all students to vacate the plaza overnight. The university was finally going to enforce its rule prohibiting people from sleeping outside on campus and requiring the removal of belongings from the plaza between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. The order cited the danger posed by the storm as a justification for changing course and, probably hoping to avoid allegations of bias, described the decision as “viewpoint-neutral.”

That didn’t work.

About a week of protests, led by the sit-in organizers, followed. Chants were chanted. More demands for a “river to the sea” solution to the Israel problem were made. A friend boasted to me about her willingness to be arrested. Stanford sent a handful of staff members, who stood near balloons left over from an event earlier in the day. They were there, one of them told me, to “make students feel supported and safe.”

In the end, Saller and Martinez agreed to talk with the leaders of the sit-in about their demands to divest the university and condemn Israel, under the proviso that the activists comply with Stanford’s anti-camping guidelines “regardless of the outcome of discussions.” Eight days after they were first instructed to leave, 120 days after setting up camp, the sit-in protesters slept in their own beds. In defiance of the university’s instructions, they left behind their tents. But sometime in the very early hours of the morning, law-enforcement officers confiscated the structures. The area was cordoned off without any violence and the plaza filled once more with electric skateboards and farmers’ markets.

The conflict continues in its own way. Saller was just shouted down by protesters chanting “No peace on stolen land” at a Family Weekend event, and protesters later displayed an effigy of him covered in blood. Students still feel tense; Saller still seems worried. He told me that the university is planning to change all manner of things—residential-assistant training, new-student orientation, even the acceptance letters that students receive—in hopes of fostering a culture of greater tolerance. But no campus edict or panel discussion can address a problem that is so much bigger than our university.

At one rally last fall, a speaker expressed disillusionment about the power of “peaceful resistance” on college campuses. “What is there left to do but to take up arms?” The crowd cheered as he said Israel must be destroyed. But what would happen to its citizens? I’d prefer to believe that most protesters chanting “Palestine is Arab” and shouting that we must “smash the Zionist settler state” don’t actually think Jews should be killed en masse. But can one truly be so ignorant as to advocate widespread violence in the name of peace?

When the world is rendered in black-and-white—portrayed as a simple fight between colonizer and colonized—the answer is yes. Solutions, by this logic, are absolute: Israel or Palestine, nothing in between. Either you support liberation of the oppressed or you support genocide. Either Stanford is all good or all bad; all in favor of free speech or all authoritarian; all anti-Semitic or all Islamophobic.

At January’s anti-anti-Semitism event, I watched an exchange between a Jewish attendee and a protester from a few feet away. “Are you pro-Palestine?” the protester asked.

“Yes,” the attendee responded, and he went on to describe his disgust with the human-rights abuses Palestinians have faced for years.

“But are you a Zionist?”

“Then we are enemies.”