How to Write a Winning Introduction for Your College Essay
- Melchior Antoine
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
The introduction of your college essay may well give you the edge over the competition in a crowded field. College admission officers have to go through hundreds of college application essays. By making sure you stand out in the first paragraph, you may greatly increase your chances of making a good impression on tired college admission officers faced with a massive pile of college applications to review. To stand out with your college essay, you need to make an impression.
And how do you do so? This is done by showing your personality, passion, and suitability for a position in your dream school. Of course, you also need a hook. A dramatic one-line sentence that can capture the attention of admission officers would be ideal. However, if your introductory paragraph as a whole is interesting enough, you don’t need an all-powerful dramatic hook. In this article, we look at a few examples of introductory paragraphs from winning admission essays and see how you can be inspired to write your own winning essay to land in the school of your dreams.
A college essay isn’t an academic assignment: Show your passion
One mistake you shouldn’t make is to treat your college essay like an academic essay. The point of an academic essay is to prove that you can be an objective and dispassionate writer. By contrast, a college essay is supposed to highlight your passion for the field of study that you are interested in or applying for. I have already written about how to write an academic essay, but let’s have a quick recap. In the introductory paragraph of an academic essay, you should begin with a thesis statement that clearly states the main idea of the whole essay.
Then, this thesis statement should be broken down into three or more points that will be further explained in detail in the following paragraphs. If done well, such a style would ensure that you succeed or consistently score As, but that’s only after you get into college. For a college application essay, a different approach is required. Many successful college essays rely heavily on creative storytelling. In particular, there is an emphasis on writing strategies that transport the reader emotionally into the story you tell. This approach can be described as being more literary than academic.
Successful college essay writers tend to rely heavily on imagery, appealing to curiosity, and skillful storytelling. You shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by this if you’re not a natural writer. Even the best writers take a great deal of time crafting, drafting, rewriting, and self-editing their work before it becomes something that they are satisfied with. With similar effort, you can end up with a college essay and an introductory paragraph that highlights your passion. But first, let’s look at examples from Johns Hopkins University to learn from.
1. Getting right into it
The example below is from a student from Johns Hopkins University. You can read the full essay here:
Just outlining the coastlines took a month. On the solid, 22-inch by 30-inch sheet of white paper I was working on, I couldn’t just press the “undo” button if my highlighter happened to slip. I had spent two months creating a rough draft, and an additional month transferring that onto the final copy with a pencil. I then outlined that with a pen, which I was now going over with a highlighter. Messing up at this point meant losing four months of hard work. The stakes were high, but I was enjoying the process. I was already thinking about other details I could expand upon next. A steampunk society experiencing rapid technological advancements, I’d decided, would be the setting of this fantasy world. I imagined the technologies I could introduce in this setting. I thought about the economic and cultural indications these technologies would have on civilizations in this world. Meanwhile I continued to carefully move my highlighter.
In this case, the student here is applying for an interdisciplinary field of study. He sought to highlight his suitability for the program by showing how he relied on real-world geography concepts to create fantasy worlds of the sort one can encounter in literature. The first sentence of the introductory paragraph is short and a perfect hook. “Just outlining the coastlines took a month.” What is he talking about? You don’t know, but you are compelled to read on because it arouses curiosity.
This is an excellent storytelling device. The student drops us right into the action — that is, his sketching of the geography of his imaginary steampunk society. In the remainder of the paragraph, he shows how passionate he is by talking about how he has spent “two months creating a rough draft.” He also later mentions how he has considered the technological advancements, as well as the various economic and cultural aspects of that world.
The introduction of the essay works on both a technical and personal level. From a technical perspective, his storytelling technique piques the curiosity of the admissions officers, encouraging them to read more. In terms of the personal impression he leaves, he comes across as dedicated and interesting: an individual who has interests outside of boring academia.
Lastly, his interest aptly demonstrates his aptitude for applying practical skills to abstract concepts in interdisciplinary research. What can you take from this example? Choose an interest or passion that you have and think about how it connects uniquely to the field of study that you are applying for.
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2. The extended metaphor
The second example is from a student who uses balance as a metaphor to describe their passion for figure skating. The full essay can be found here:
The concept of balance guides me through life. At heart I am a figure skater. Since early childhood I’ve learned how to balance on and off the ice rink; to glide through skating routines and busy schedules. While I’m skating, time moves differently. I put my soul into each moment. I morph into the embodiment of my emotion and determination. I practice until it is perfect. I pass into a different state of mind, where I’m able to focus fully. I devote hours, and yet it feels as if no time is passing. I bring this pattern of dedication to all of the commitments in my life, and use my sense of balance to handle it all.
Of our three examples, this essay comes the closest to having a traditional thesis statement that we expect from an academic assignment. It is, in fact, a perfect balance between academic formality and literary storytelling technique. The student begins the introductory paragraph with a direct and bold statement of his thesis, which can be described as his outlook on life, study, and work. There must be balance in our passions and school and work routines.
In the process, they succeed in demonstrating that they have an intense interest in a specific sport, as well as their ability to be disciplined and excel in the various areas of life. Their interest in figure skating is the passion and center of the essay, and the student expands that concept into their life philosophy. Most impressively, they do so with an apt metaphor, that of balance, as figure skating is a sport that relies heavily on your ability to achieve physical balance.
This is an extended metaphor that does not end in the first paragraph, but spans the entire essay. If you can think of a unique interest and passion that can be extended into an outlook of life, study, and work in this way, think of applying this storytelling technique.
3. Telling a vivid story
As mentioned earlier, writing a good college essay boils down to your ability to tell a good story, with you being the protagonist of the story. This is why a college essay can never be as objective as an essay in academic writing. You need to be biased in favor of portraying yourself as passionate, capable, and interesting. This is what happens here in the introduction of the following essay. The full essay can be found here:
I remember being surprised at how weak my arm felt, as if I was holding a dumbbell instead of a microphone. Standing in front of all of my high school classmates at our weekly Monday Meeting, I could feel my heartbeat in my ears as I studied the small silver holes in the head of the microphone and momentarily wished I was small enough to fit into one of them and disappear. I looked down at the short Women’s History month fact I had prepared and began to read. It wasn’t until I felt someone come up next to me and gently push the microphone closer to my face that I realized that no one could hear me. I finished a few seconds later and fought tears as I returned to my seat amid a smattering of polite applause.
Now, I know I said that you should be biased in favor of yourself. But this doesn’t mean you should come across as arrogant or too full of yourself. That would be likely to turn off many college admissions officers. There is no chance of this happening in this case, as the student leads with a weakness or failure. She describes an example of failing at a public speaking event, and she does so in vivid detail.
This example is so far away from a traditional academic essay. It is storytelling where you just jump right into the inciting incident. The details in the first paragraph are so vivid. For example, "I remember being surprised at how weak my arm felt, as if I was holding a dumbbell instead of a microphone." This could be the beginning scene from a movie, where we see our hero get traumatized by being embarrassed on stage. But we know that this is the lowest point of her character arc. We know that she is going to learn, improve, and transform into a better and more confident human being who can speak confidently in front of a crowd.
Whereas the other two examples begin by emphasizing a passion or interest and how it relates to life and study, this example highlights a traumatic experience that the author learned from. It demonstrates her ability to learn from failure and to grow, which any university would appreciate. Now, this doesn’t mean you should rely too heavily on traumatic experiences. The trauma described here is relatively mild. The most important thing is ensuring that you illustrate what you have learned from your passion or experience (traumatic or otherwise) and how this makes you an interesting person who can excel in your area of interest.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2026, January 02). How to Write a Winning Introduction for Your College Essay. EminentEdit.https://www.eminentediting.com/post/writing-a-college-essay-introduction |
