50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays

A Crime-Scene Report
“I applied with the Common Application, and I chose to write on a topic 
of my choice. I spent weeks last year trying to come up with a good essay. My 
junior English teacher told us that we needed to make our essays stand out. 

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Chapter 21: Advice on Topics from Ivy League Students
The admissions officers read hundreds of applications every day, and our es-
says needed to be unique. I wasn’t sure how to do this. I wrote one about a car 
wreck, but my English teacher quickly rejected it as bland and uninteresting 
(lots of people write about car wrecks apparently). A friend advised me to write 
my essay about something I enjoy doing. At the time, I was taking a forensics 
class which fascinated me. So, for my admissions essay, I wrote a crime-scene 
report in which I am searching for my future self at Duke University.”
—Lauren Sanders, Duke University