How to End a College Essay | Examples With Commentary
- Melchior Antoine
- Jan 13
- 10 min read
How you end your college admissions essay may well be as important as how you begin it. Of course, the introduction to your essay should hook college admission officers and convince them that you have the passion. However, by the end of the essay, you should consolidate that impression and wrap up the story that you tell to give a sense of completeness and wholeness.
When crafting your college essay or personal statement, always remember that although the format of the essay may not be as clear-cut as that of other formal types of writing, such as academic essays, there must be a method to the story you tell. You should always remember what the ultimate goal of a college essay is. It is to show that you are a unique individual capable of expansion and growth, and who can excel in an academic setting or discipline.
You don’t have to say these things out loud. You show and don’t tell. In short, these core values should exist and be expressed as the subtext to the story you tell. They should be implicit in the details you include, emphasize, repeat, and leave out. The conclusion or the end of your college essay should always come back to the beginning of the essay.
This means you should always reference the point, theme, or literary device that you mentioned in the introduction. In this article, we look at how you should write the end of your essay and provide examples of how to do so. Read on to learn more.
What to remember when writing the end of your college essay
It is somewhat difficult to provide guidelines on how to conclude a college application essay because the ending of an essay does not stand alone. A college essay should never be looked at as being made up of individual parts. Instead, it should be seen as a coherent whole. When concluding your college essay, there are three things to remember:
Your conclusion should be seen as part of a cogent whole
The seed of the ending should be planted at the start of your essay
Your conclusion should neatly wrap up the main point or theme of your essay
Let’s look briefly at each of these points. A conclusion can hardly perform well if the personal statement as a whole isn’t impressive. So make sure that you work toward creating an overall good essay that leaves a good impression on college admissions officers. The second point refers to the fact that many effective essays work by planting the seed of the conclusion in the introduction.
This means they use the first paragraph to introduce an idea, which they develop and complete in the concluding paragraph of the essay. Lastly, the last paragraph of the essay serves as a means of a safe landing. Your main point should be wrapped up in such a way that you reinforce the good impression that you hopefully made throughout the essay. Let’s see how the examples we have below meet this tentative criteria.
1. College essay example: Pack light, but be prepared
The first example is from Pablo and is taken from the university page of Johns Hopkins University titled “Pack Light, But Be Prepared.” Here is the introduction of the essay:
Friday night, September the 16th 2022 and I am packing for my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. It is a tradition at my school that all seniors begin their final year of school by embarking on the “Camino de Santiago” (the Way of St. James). Four days of walking a total of 135 kilometers to reach our destination. We have been told to pack light, a bulky and heavy backpack will hold you back, but to be prepared for: changing weather (lightweight clothes, a jacket, rain poncho) blisters and sore feet (plenty of socks, extra shoes, bandages, antiseptics) and physical exhaustion (dried fruits and nuts, cereal bars, extra water bottles). I look at my compact backpack and I think…it is going to be a long night.
The introduction sets the foundation for the impressive and poetic metaphor that the essay ends with. Pablo talks about preparing for the religious pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. The introduction is not metaphorical at all; instead, it provides vivid and careful details of the preparation for the pilgrimage.
This can be seen in the specific mention of the date and other information, such as the number of days and the distance that should be walked. In the body paragraphs, the writer goes on to explain how his experience has taught him always to be ready to travel for the purpose of growth. This reaches a culmination in the penultimate paragraph:
There came a time when I realized that something was missing. I was unable to put a name to it, but I would reach for it in certain situations, and it was not there. My decision to do ninth grade of high school abroad, in New Jersey, led me to discover what it was. I had to learn how to put myself out there for people, outside of my circle, to get to know me. I had to open myself up to making new connections and brace myself for possible rejection by stepping out of my comfort zone. This experience marked a before and after in my life for which I will be eternally grateful.
Here, Pablo is connecting the willingness to travel or take on a journey directly to personal growth and conquering their limitations. In this case, the limitation in question is making new connections with people by showing vulnerability. Now to the conclusion of the essay:
It is 1.00 a.m. and I have finally finished packing; a tight fit, but I have everything I will need. As for my other backpack, I do a quick mental check: a goal-oriented drive, actions coherent with my character, the ability to open myself up to and learn from new and enriching experiences and other items, carefully tucked in there. Am I prepared for what lies ahead? I believe so, and the best part is, I left room for so much more.
In this last paragraph, everything comes together. The detailed and vivid description that we saw planted as the seed in the beginning paragraph is echoed in Pablo mentioning the exact time in the very first sentence. We also see a checklist of items, as in the first paragraph. However, this time, the physical list of items has been replaced with something more intangible. Pablo talks about “goal-oriented drive, actions coherent with my character, the ability to open myself up to and learn from new and enriching experiences and other items.”
In short, the writer has written a coherent essay where preparation for a physical journey is turned into a metaphor for self-discovery and growth and the bravery to take on new challenges. This is a well-written essay because of all the thought that the writer put into it. The ending is simply the cherry on top.
It works because the writer ensures that there is continuity between the theme he mentions in the first paragraph and his conclusion. There was a serious risk of the essay becoming a cliche about life being a journey. However, the inclusion of details and vivid descriptions of setting and atmosphere saves it from that.
2. College essay example: Finding purpose in trivial projects
The second essay is also from a student from Johns Hopkins University named Anjali. You can read the whole essay here. In her personal statement, Anjali writes about how her hobby or interest in crafting dioramas has taught her the value of dedicating herself to a project and completing tasks with passion and the highest possible standards, even if this hobby is seen as trivial by others. Let’s begin with the first paragraph:
Occasionally, a wooden board that comes in as packaging makes me think, “That would make a great base for a diorama.” Then, there’s a concept that comes from a building, street, or room I’m frequenting, someplace that is brimming with interesting detail yet not overwhelming. The challenge of shrinking down detail in a scene excites me, and it’s also delightful to imagine what the scene would look like miniaturised.
Here in the introduction, the author introduces us to her passion for crafting doramas — that is, a replica of a scene, usually as a three-dimensional model, which can be rendered either full-sized or in miniature. She doesn’t just describe a passionate hobby or interest. She goes on to describe how this interest contributes to her growth and development as an individual. This is most clearly done in the third paragraph. where the author describes taking on even more projects, even when others ssaw it as trivial:
With every project I completed, I had to learn how to work with a new material or adhesive—sometimes, pieces fell apart or paint would flake off. The issues were what made projects fun; there were simple joys in solving these miniaturised problems, and I took special pride in subverting expectations of fragility by making pieces as sturdy and durable as I could.
Here she provides details of the diorama projects that she has taken on and their unique challenges or issues. She says in particular: “The issues were what made projects fun; there were simple joys in solving these miniaturised problems, and I took special pride in subverting expectations of fragility by making pieces as sturdy and durable as I could.”
This is a good example of making a point through literary subtext instead of outright preaching or bold statements. The value that she is describing here is dedicating herself to a difficult task and using her patience and creativity to come up with solutions.
When she talks about "subverting expectations of fragility," she appears to be making a subtle point about things and people being more resilient than they appear if enough work and care are put into them. Obviously, this kind of dedication is something that any college admissions committee would find admirable. She goes on to explicitly detail the lessons that she has learned from her passion and hobby in her last two paragraphs:
Most importantly, in painting individual bricks and sculpting rice-grain sized statues, I’ve realised what I’m capable of accomplishing out of determination. Each project I begin has no foreseeable end date, and intricate detail can become just as excruciating when things don’t seem to work out. When I gift a miniature to family or friends, it’s the patience and resilience involved that expresses how much I care.
My dioramas may be collecting dust on a shelf now, but each ‘trivial’ project is still the result of working hours—a testimony to patience, effort and everything else it has helped me achieve along the way.
This is a skillful way of writing. In literary writing, you often come across the concept of showing not telling, and this is what Anjali does by carefully describing the details of her craft in terms of making dioramas. She waits till the last two paragraphs to explicitly state how a seemingly trivial hobby has taught her the value of dedication to any given task.
You could say that the two concluding paragraphs neatly sum up the descriptive details and narrative of the whole essay with a clear statement of the personal or intrinsic values that Anjali highlights in her writing. College admissions committees value creativity. Just saying you are creative isn't enough. Instead, you have to demonstrate your creativity by skillfully writing about your experiences and interests in a way that gets the main idea or theme of your essay across.
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3. College essay example: Flowers against the grieving timber
Our last essay is by Katy, and it excels in the art of planting the seed of the ending in the introduction. Katy was accepted into Hamilton University after writing the essay, and you can read the whole thing here on the Hamilton University website. Let’s see how Katy starts the college essay:
I have never felt such palpable emotion, such profound grief emanating from a space, as I did while hiking through the forest fire scorch in Philmont, New Mexico. A universe had once existed under the protection of these Ponderosa Pine, now black and crusted, turning brittle in the wind. It was a landscape that didn’t sing its laments, but whispered of its loss through every pile of scalded timber and skinny, wavering shadow cast by the hollow towers of ash.
This is a powerful beginning that relies on the power of imagery and symbolism. It is also mysterious. Why would a college essay begin in such a dramatic manner? We are compelled to read on. Katy is the first female Boy Scout in her town, and she feels that these are big shoes for her to fill, which makes her anxious and even despairing. This partly explains the dramatic opening.
She later contrasts the recently burned patch of forest with another forest patch that was burned decades ago, but which was slowly experiencing regrowth. As she describes:
This forest, differing from the field of burnt pines we had seen prior, had burned several decades ago. The fire had cleared everything and had left its signature singed onto the bottom 10 feet of every tree. The forest floor was clean. Wild grasses with accents of purple and blue flowers blanketed the ground below the pines like snow, which had fallen while the world was asleep, completely untouched and extending to infinity. Above the burnt limbs of the trees, thick bundles of green needles soared into the sky.
A landscape that has been charred with fire represents her sense of anxiety and reprehension. However, her time as a scout soon reveals that she is made of tougher stuff, and her time as a scout has taught her the value of being resilient and positive personal growth, which is echoed in the second patch of pine forest recovering from the decades-old fire. In short, the author projects her own emotions and experience onto the landscape.
As she says of her time as a scout: “Though scars remain from my experience, new change and strength have flourished out of the damage.” She wraps up the essay by rewarding the initial powerful imagery that she begins the essay with:
As I think back on my experience in Philmont, the first forest we saw, this blackened graveyard, is what I picture. I remember the charcoaled ground so vividly, but more so, I remember the soft purple wildflowers hidden in the desert soil. Though few and far between, against the grieving timber, they were stars.
This is picturesque writing. With this type of writing, there is always the risk of losing the plot. This is where the writer focuses so much on pretty and poetic imagery, their message or meaning is lost. However, Katy plays her hand perfectly. She makes sure to introduce the symbolism of the forest fire in the beginning, middle, and end of the essay to tell a complete story of her own personal growth and transformation, and her own philosophy of leadership. This makes the personal statement coherent and compelling storytelling and adds weight to the powerful symbolism that she relies on to make her point.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2026, January 13). How to End a College Essay | Examples With Commentary. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/how-to-end-a-college-essay |
