How to Craft an Amazing Ending for Your College Essay
Your college essay is the most important part of the college admissions process, a chance to showcase who you are to admissions officers and tell your story. Arguably, the ending is the most important aspect of it, as it’s your last chance to impact those judging your application. If you need assistance in generating ideas for your supplemental or Common Application essays, consider consulting our AI Counseling Assistant for expert guidance and brainstorming support.
While there are college essays that are great without a strong ending (meaning YOU don’t need to stress about your application any more than necessary), a strong conclusion can make a great essay amazing.
In this article, we will look over some do’s and don’ts and 2 easily implementable writing scenarios that can leave admission officers wowed.
3 College Essay Endings to Avoid
- Repetition: All those AP Lang and APUSH essays may have hammered a formula into your brain: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.” Repeating yourself to a tired and bored admission officer does not spell good tides but rather a disaster of redundancy.
- Please don’t be Cheesy: The ages of basic, broad quotes have gone long past us, and you need something more personal and impactful toward who YOU are. We’re talking about quotes like “Who’s gonna lift the boats” or “Be the change you that you wish to see.” Rather, explore the very essence of your character, explore through literature and poems if your heart remains set on ending with a quote, and most of all, BE MEMORABLE.
- Introducing New Information: This may confuse readers, so think clearly about how your ideas will affect the recipient before drawing conclusions with new information.
So, What Makes a Great Ending?
Before we get there, let's take a step back to understand the mentality and situation of an admissions officer. Highly selective institutions have about 30 officers, scanning over 40,000 applications per admissions cycle. Simple math gives us 1333 applications per officer, which must be evaluated in under 3 months. Reading through this daunting stack of applications, your application needs two things to stick out compared to the rest: surprise AND inevitability.
Think about a great show that keeps us captivated through the seasons — especially near the end of seasons when you’re either hit with “Woah; I had no idea that was going to happen” or in combination with a realization, “Oh, that needs to happen to keep the story going.”
Think about the greatest show ever made: Suits. We all knew Mike would end up in prison; it was an inevitable detail and an opportunity for character development that the writers couldn’t pass up. Not only that, the details were dropped at the very end of Season 5. However, we’re also met with a sense of surprise when he decides to drop his junior partner position and move to Seattle.
The combination of surprise and suspense, growth and potential of change are tools often utilized in literature and cinema to keep the audience hooked and offer a conclusive ending, allowing the audience to walk away satisfied. To instill this feeling within admission officers should be your conclusion’s priority.
Option 1: Tying Back to Your Introduction
A common archetype of college essays is a “sandwich” method, meaning they start with a captivating hook at the beginning, a story about growth or change, and finally, an allusion to your hook towards the end.
This methodology offers natural closure, creates a base for a humorous or insightful connection towards prior points, and helps your admission officer (AO) remember your application with the theme you’ve created around yourself and your application.
Example Tieback Essay
- Introduction: Saw a car hanging off a flyover
- Flashback to an EMS Rideout
- Demonstrate how spontaneous life is
- Detail what you felt during the accident, how you grew
- How you decided to help your community
- Conclusion: Life is short and can change at any moment; the next day is never guaranteed as you could drive off a flyover on a normal commute, do good, and make a positive impact on the world.
Option 2: Connecting to a Career
Although elite colleges aren’t a conveyor belt toward careers, and colleges definitely don’t look at themselves that way, a goal or idea toward a future career can definitely help out in supplemental essays like “Why Us” and "Common App Essay."
- This method places AOs in the position of a mentor or empower, someone who chooses to fight for you and your path forward in life. As readers imagine you on a quest to solve a problem or to grow, they find themselves rooting for you.
- Mentioning a future career path also aids with the construction of a “Why Us” essay where your personal statement sets up your supplemental. To elaborate, your supplemental helps your AO understand the WHY of your passion, while your supplemental discusses how you plan on expanding and growing.
Conclusion
A strong conclusion adds dimension and drives your point home, engaging readers throughout your application and giving them a reason to remember you. To refine your essay and craft a memorable ending, explore Kollegio’s free AI Essay Writing tool. Scanning through thousands of essays scattered through the Internet, our AI offers ideas on how to start, develop, and end your essays.
If you’re confused about how to answer one of the most common supplemental essays, “Why Us,” check out this blog: Cool blog you got to check out.
By Tarun Vijay & Frederick Arne Goh
