The Essay That Worked
Writing a great personal statement is hard. To help with this, we’ve given advice on writing personal statements before, several times even, and have examples of excellent essays from past Ivy Scholars students that you can peruse as well. Today, however, we’ll be diving deeply into an essay that worked, and worked well.
The author of the essay, MS, got into Rice, Carnegie Mellon, and UT Austin. While their supplemental essays, grades, and activities certainly contributed to their success, their amazing personal statement was a key factor. Let’s explore why it works so well.
The Essay
Friendships and romances come and go. Grades and stock markets fluctuate. Beauty fades, and empires fall. But the bond between a boy and his dog is forever. At least, so it was with me and Lulu. No matter what happened during my day at school, or anywhere else in the outside world, as soon as I got home, I always knew there were paws to be shaken and sloppy, wet dog-kisses to be had.
Towards the end of my freshman year of high school, my growing interest in computer science led me to try my hand at creating a video game. After a year of practicing my skills in the GameMaker Studio engine, I decided to embark on the journey of creating a game for public, online release. Thus began “Lulu’s Happy Fun Time,” a game that combined my love of my dog with my aesthetic appreciation of classic video game platformers. The game followed its main character, Lulu (naturally), as she persevered through hordes of zombie dogs in a Wonderland-esque pixelated carnival.
That a broad, goofy grin never left Lulu’s face despite staring down waves of the living dead spoke to the childlike innocence with which I viewed my dog, as well as to my purpose in giving this digital version of Lulu to the world. Reflecting on my own life, I realized how hard life would be without my omnipresent companion to provide stability and comfort. In my small way, I tried my best to give the player the same sense of joyful canine companionship that was my emotional bedrock. Little did I know that I myself would need the comforts of this digital Lulu avatar before long.
In the summer of 2018, my family slowly, painfully awoke to the fact that Lulu’s age had caught up to her. I hoped that her increasing lethargy was nothing more than a temporary illness, but as weeks became excruciating months, her condition only got worse. Finally, the veterinarian gave us the news we had been dreading: her pain was becoming unbearable, and she wasn’t going to get better. I walked out of the room; the vet had suggested the unimaginable.
We left the house with Lulu that afternoon, and didn’t come back with her that evening.
Loneliness often devolves into a kind of listlessness, a desire not to engage. For weeks after, the game went untouched as I blankly scrolled through my phone’s myriad distractions. When my self-discipline dragged me back to coding, memories of the joy we shared rushed back. I had lost Lulu, but through GameMaker Studio, I had a chance to encode the joy we shared into a digital world. For me, that was enough to get out of bed and back to work. Making Lulu’s Happy Fun Time became therapeutic. My work paid off in 2019 when I had finished the first build of Lulu’s Happy Fun Time and published it to multiple game websites.
The whole experience has taught me important lessons about the connections between life and art. Life can be fleeting, bringing unpredictably euphoric victories and crushing losses. The creation of video games – and, by extension, all art – allows us to actualize a freedom that is not subject to the vicissitudes of loss and gain. Coding Lulu’s Happy Fun Time brought me hope in my darkest moments, and I’m sure that I am not the only one who stands to benefit from this particular artform. Whether an acrophobic working to conquer their fear in a mountain-climbing game, or a high school teacher using a “grand strategy” historical simulation to help students understand the decisions of political leaders, the power of video games to assist us in the solving of social problems is an untapped resource I am eager to examine. In college, I want to open up new horizons of possibility for others through video games.
Essay Analysis: Why it Works
The Hook
The essay begins with broad and sweeping language, describing universal axioms. This transfers suddenly into the narrow and specific, tying the grand statements to the more personal story which will form the emotional core of the essay.
The point of a hook is to engage the audience from the get-go, and invest them in the stakes and story of the essay. In this essay, the hook is the broad axiomatic statements which twist suddenly to the narrow tale of a boy and his dog. Like many sad novels and movies, merely the inclusion of a dog already hints at what is to come, though you can always hope for another outcome.
In your own essay, you can begin in the same way, or in myriad others. In media res, the middle of an action scene, before going back to explain who is who and what is what. With a quotation, or bold claim, staking some position which the essay will revolve around. However you begin your essay, it should grab the reader’s attention, and make them want to read the rest of what you have written.
Theme and Values
The theme of this essay is straightforward: that life can be brightened through connections, though they may be fleeting, and that life is better for having made them. Exploration of this theme allows the author to show off their values, the character traits that make a person stand out.
The author displays the following values in their essay:
- Diligence: The author creates a video game, and then shares it with the world.
- Resilience: While Lulu dies, the author does not let the death overwhelm them, and allows art to help them process the loss, and remember that which was warmly.
- Maturity: It takes time to process death, and to deal with it in a way that lets you move forward, and the author manages this well.
You can and should show off your own values in your personal statement, and tie them to the central theme. Perhaps you demonstrate your skills as a leader, or your compassion, or your passion for bettering the world. Whatever values you have should be clear to whoever reads the essay. Building an essay around your values shows colleges who you are, and lets them know what you will bring to campus.
When demonstrating your values, do so through actions you take, or changes which impact you. Show, don’t tell, is trite advice, but no less useful for that fact. Saying you are a good leader is unconvincing; instead describe a situation where you displayed the responsibility of leadership, and succeeded in spite of struggle.
A Narrative Arc
The essay above follows a narrative arc. Not all personal statements form a single narrative, but in this example the narrative serves to show how the author grew and changed over time, and how the events of the essay impacted them.
In the beginning, the author is carefree and happy, and filled with the joyous and simple love of a boy and his dog. This joy is expressed simply, in the form of a video game; a passion project with at the time only minor significance.
The story turns as the dog ages, the tragedy of pain introducing new elements to the story. The death of Lulu and its impact bring the low point of the essay, where the author is challenged and left adrift. Every narrative must have an obstacle to face and overcome, stakes that make the game worth playing. Here, the author’s joy is left shattered, and he is alone.
The narrative takes a turn back to the positive with the return of the video game, now with a deeper meaning. The author is able to find their love for Lulu again, now tinged with the pain of loss, but still beautiful. Now it is to share this love that they work on the video game; their former project given deeper purpose.
The essay concludes with the author matured, learning to grieve and process loss, and with a new understanding of the curative power of art and its creation. Now they hope to apply this newfound knowledge, and help others who are in similar straits.
The point of this arc is to show how the author changed as a person, along with their values, discussed above. Your own essay does not need to have a narrative arc, but if you are telling a single coherent narrative, then it should follow an arc. This unifies the essay into a coherent whole, making it easier and more enjoyable to read and process, and causing the message to stick more firmly in the mind.
Skills and Abilities
While the essay is primarily about love and loss and the beauty of friendship, it also demonstrates something key about the author: they programmed and published their own video game already. This is not the main thrust of the essay, merely another part of it, but it is important still.
Colleges only know what you tell them, and your essays are a great way to show off your competencies and accomplishments. This can be direct, in an essay delving deep into one of your extracurriculars, or more circumspect, as it is in the example above. The point either way is to show off your accomplishments, and let whoever reads your essay know what you’re capable of.
The Student’s Journey
Of course, this essay didn’t get MS into all those schools on its own. They also had stellar grades and amazing extracurriculars. Here’s the rest of their story:
Interested in computer science and game design from a young age, MS was a member of several extracurriculars devoted to programming, and volunteered to help teach girl scouts to code as well. Their strong academics got them inducted into the National Honors Society, and they were the president for their school’s branch.
Their academics were similarly impressive, including a full load of AP classes. On top of their extracurriculars, this left them incredibly busy; fortunately time management and organization were some of their greatest strengths.
MS knew that Computer Science was their ideal major, and they had the grades and extracurriculars to support that. They wanted to show a deeper side of themselves with their essays though, to demonstrate that there was more to their inner life than lines of code. We helped them craft an essay which would show off their values while also demonstrating their talent at coding.
Currently, MS is enrolled at UT Austin, where they were offered a major scholarship, and is studying computer science, with an eye towards an eventual career in game design. We’re glad that their essay was able to help them achieve their goals.
Final Thoughts
The personal statement is the most important essay you will write for your college applications. It goes out to every school, and is generally the first essay that admissions officers read. It tells them who you are, and gives them a window into who you could become.
This is a lot of pressure, and a lot to accomplish in only 650 words. We hope this example shows you how one student met this challenge. Of course, your own essay will and should be different from this example, but it can be constructed to meet the same goals. If you want to learn how we can help you craft your own personal statement, schedule a free consultation with us today. We have a depth of writing experience, and are always happy to hear from you.
