50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays

A Business to Help People
“My admissions essay was about a computer repair business that I had 
started while in high school. While this business was not especially success-
ful by any stretch of the imagination, when I worked on it I really enjoyed it, 
and I felt it showed how much I wanted to help people. I focused a lot of my 
application about how I would like to use my knowledge to help people, so it 
only seemed reasonable I talk about how I have helped people.”
—Mathew Griffin, Brown University
On Diversity
“I applied using the Common Application. I picked the essay on diversity 
because I thought that would be the one I would be able to say the most on. 
I talked about my experience as an Indian American. I thought that would be 
the most effective thing to write on and would demonstrate what I’d be able 
to bring to the university community.”
—Aditya Kumar, Brown University
Leadership
“I selected my own topic for my essay for University of Chicago. My topic 
was, ‘All I know about leadership I learned from...’ I was having a lot of trou-
ble expressing myself with the suggestions the university gave so I decided 
to create my own to highlight my strengths. I had been in student council 
all four years of high school and have held leadership roles, so I thought this 
would be perfect to write about. The idea was actually given to me by one of 
my student council advisors as a joke. But after seeing that leadership could 
be compared to almost anything, I saw this as a perfect topic to demonstrate 
my creative ability and my student council experience.”
—Victoria Tomaka, University of Chicago