Writing your grad school admission essay can be daunting since it has crucial importance. If you don’t know how to write it, the process can take even more time. That’s why checking the grad school essay examples can help you start.
Checking the examples that secured the admission for writers gives you a perspective of the best writing practices and tells you if there is anything that you need to avoid. In this article, we will look at some of the successful essay examples you can also take inspiration from. You will also learn the right steps to write your grad school essay.
Part 1. 5 Grad School Essay Examples
When writing your essay, one thing to keep your focus on is how you will stand out. Looking at the accepted grad school application essay example, you will instantly see what makes it stand out. So, here are the 5 essay examples you must look at.
1. Essay Example for Library Floors and Literature
Read the complete essay here.
This essay gives an in-depth connection with the intellectual development phases of the applicant. Since it keeps the reader engaged in reading the essay, the strong intellectual argument about the applicant's background confirms that this applicant is a good fit for the graduate program. So, always make sure to customize your essay with personalized information.
2. Essay Example for Law School
Read the complete essay here.
This essay grabs readers' attention with a humorous opening paragraph that keeps them tucked into the story. To keep the reader in the story, the writer beautifully explains how the journey of transitioning from chemistry to law was. This connection between chemistry and law also helps the writer state that the knowledge will be helpful in legal careers, and this career-oriented application helps them stand out.
3. Essay Example for USC
Read the complete essay here.
The essay stated the writer's enthusiasm even when life was challenging through all phases and how he used all those challenges to get ahead in every situation. It is a clear indication that the writer is a determined person ready to take on challenges. Customizing his answers around his life is also the reason that makes this essay stand out.
4. Essay Example Poor to Elite
Read the complete essay here.
The combination of academic exposition and personal information keeps the reader engaged in the essay. Meanwhile, the academic information and excelling from different stages in society tell the reader about the determination of the applicant. The essay beautifully explains different life turns and challenges that helped in growth.
5. Essay Example for Environmental Studies Student
Read the complete essay here.
The essay begins with a sentence that will immediately connect with the emotions of any environmentalist. The body of this essay circles the clear goal of using this field's study to play its part in improving this planet.
This applicant stood out because they mentioned the connection between economics and the environment multiple times in the essay, which is one of the biggest problems in the environment today.
Part 2. How to Write Your Grad School Application Essay?
When writing your essay, you must consider every factor so that you end up writing the best essay among all the applicants. Below is our step-by-step guide on how you can write an effective essay.
1. Always start with understanding the instructions.
Every school will have a different set of instructions for writing this essay, so the first step when writing your essay is understanding the instructions. Read the instructions prompt carefully, and you will get directions on writing your essay. Finding out what the reader wants to know from your end will make your essay stand out.
2. Brainstorm ideas
After you understand the instructions, your mind will have a set of boundaries to stay within. While staying within those boundaries, you need to brainstorm the best ideas. From choosing your topics to the information you want to include in your essay, you can brainstorm everything here.
Tip: Keep taking notes as you develop better ideas, and you can narrow them down in the next step.
3. Create your outline
Once you have all the ideas, you want to take this important step of creating the outline of your essay. The outline puts the difference in your essay since it determines how important and what priority you are giving to different sections. It is important to have attention-grabbing points in the body with an impactful introduction, which can be balanced perfectly with the right outline.
4. Know the point you want to make
Since you have decided to go with a topic, you need to know what point under that topic you will be making in your whole essay. Some students also call it a thesis statement since it tells the reader about the whole essay.
Know what point you will be getting across and design your whole essay around it since otherwise, the essay will be confusing, and the admissions officer may skip it just because it is unclear.
5. Grab the reader's attention.
When writing the essay, you will start with the introduction. It is among the most crucial sections of your essay since you can grab the reader’s attention here. So, write the introduction concisely, to the point, and have a clear roadmap of everything you discuss in the essay. Also, make sure that your introduction is according to the requirements.
6. Stay relevant and specific.
While writing this essay, you may find several opportunities to slip away from the essay's main topic since other points seem more attractive. However, the right way to write this essay is by staying relevant and specific to the topic of your essay. Make sure that everything you include in your essay has a purpose.
7. State all authentic things
Students often think that adding achievements they don’t have will make them stand out. However, their achievements do not play the biggest role in making the essay stand out. So, always stay concise by listing personal achievements and keeping the information authentic. Never include fabricated information since it will decrease your essay's credibility.
8. Write an impactful conclusion.
Every section of the essay is equally important. Still, the conclusion holds high importance since most readers will decide whether to continue with the application. A conclusion gives the essay's crux and gives the reader a solid reason why they should continue with the application.
So, try to get all their attention with a solid statement that makes the whole essay memorable and creates an emotional connection.
9. Review and edit when you are done.
Once you are done writing, do not submit it immediately; get feedback about your essay, review it yourself, and edit it accordingly. Proofread it multiple times before you submit your essay.
10. Things to stay away from
While knowing a lot about what to do, students often forget things they must refrain from. Including those in your essay can leave a negative impact on the reader. So, here is a list of the things that must not be a part of your grad school essay application:
- Personal experiences, including traumatic results
- Any idea or topic within the field that leads your essay toward a negative impression
- List of achievements that are too long and too good to be true.
- Personal values like politics and religion
Ensure that your essay does not include any of these.
Part 3. The Tool to Take Notes and Create Planner for Grad School
You will not take notes and create a planner with a pen and paper. In this era of technology, different tools can assist you across different activities. When planning your time, and taking notes while studying, you may come across different tools. However, UPDF is the only tool you will ever need during your student life.
It is because it is the best tool for taking notes and creating your planner for grad school. UPDF can deal with all your requirements since it is packed with features and pros, including:
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- PDF text editing.
- Annotations, text comments, and pencil comments in PDF.
- Organizing pages and bigger files into smaller ones.
- UPDF Cloud for centralized file management and easier sharing.
- Availability on all devices.
- Exporting files in different formats.
- OCR feature.
- PDF password protection.
- Adding images and stickers in PDF.
- Combining different PDF files and much more.
Along with all these features and benefits, UPDF has different templates for your daily planner to prepare you for grad school. Hence, it is the perfect tool for every student who wants to take notes and create daily planners.
Final Words
While all the documents and numbers stay standard for everyone applying, it is the application essay where you can present yourself. So, depending on how you write the essay, you can portray yourself as a strong candidate who is a perfect fit for the school or a student who does stand out among many other applicants.
This significant importance makes writing this essay a daunting task. However, seeing the grad school essay examples and following the correct steps will make things much simpler for you.
And when you attend grad school, you can use UPDF to take notes and create a planner to improve your study efficiency.
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