50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays

Highlighting an Activity
“For my main admissions essay for Penn, I wrote about my experience at 
the International Space Settlement finalist competition after my junior year. 
The reason I chose this was because it was something that I could tell in an 
interesting story format, and it wasn’t something that many people could say. 
Also it was my main activity outside of school curriculum.”
—Mark Su, University of Pennsylvania
Inspiration at All Times of the Day and Night
“My essay was for the ‘free theme’ section of the common application. As 
a child, I never did like to be told what to write, and I didn’t like even further 
to be told to write something that would ‘sell’ myself like a commodity to the 
reader. I imagined myself in the reader’s shoes: does he or she really want to 

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50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays
read a chronological tale of every award I have won since kindergarten no 
matter how cleverly disguised the tale is in the shape of an essay? If I was the 
college admissions officer, I would run away screaming after the fifth such 
essay.
“There was no constraint on the topic or style for the free essay, as long 
as I kept under 500 words. I found the freedom invigorating but at the same 
time a little scary. It was like being handed the wreckage of a typhoon and be-
ing told, ‘Here, sort this out.’ There were so many phrases, images, and ideas 
floating around that it felt like trying to catch water.
“The essay was written in four or five different installments. The theme 
was beauty, in my eyes. I always had a habit of collecting pictures and phrases 
I find particularly beautiful or inspiring in my journal. Using those as a basis, 
I carried my essay around in a notebook. Whenever I had time, felt particu-
larly happy, or just when inspiration hit, I sat down and scribbled something. 
I really wrote my essay in some bizarre places! I wrote while stargazing at the 
beach; I wrote at 3 a.m. after a school dance (late nights are very good for 
creative writing!); I wrote in AP Physics class; I even wrote after coming home 
from a drag race.
“I don’t feel, by any means, that because of my method, I wrote the most 
convincing or self-flattering essay ever. Even now, I don’t know if my essays 
were the reason I got into Wharton or the reason I DIDn’T get into MIT 
(dream school), but I know for sure, that my essays represented me (as I was 
then), as honestly as a mirror.”
—Susan Sun, University of Pennsylvania