As upcoming early admissions come in for students, it also starts with the process of starting your college essay. Submitting this essay often comes with letting those who read it an insight of your life and what or who gave you the motivation to write about a certain topic. 

College essays can determine a part of your future and where you end up during the next step of your life. This begins with the choice of writing about a personal achievement,  meaning or impact you’ve had in your life and how it’s affected your growth as a person.

“I chose to write about my experience with cross country and how it impacted me as a person, how I view the world, and my experience,” Ben Coupaud (’25) said. 

Coupaud has plans to work in the science field for his major and hopefully compete in college level cross country as well. Coupaud wants the people reading his essay to know he can get his work and runs done during college without it taking a toll on his mental health 

“It shows the colleges I can commit to cross country. So in a college context it shows I can commit to the work at those colleges,” Coupaud said.

Commitment to students at AHS is a very important trait to have in their college essays. Many others chose to write about commitment in them, as well as their other traits within themselves and what they turned out to be.

“My essay showed my mindset, shows the type of person I am, and shows how determined I am,” Delaney Jenkins (’25) said. “Reflecting and writing about this moment with my colleague, then remembering it showed me how it shaped me as a person.”

Jenkins chose to write about a defining moment that she had had that affected her life and how she viewed herself and the life around her. Jenkins later used this essay for multiple applications to share her views to the people reading it how determined she has become in life.

Reese Baggen (’25) decided to write about not just one, but multiple experiences that have shaped and defined her as an individual in the last year. Mainly involving community work since she plans to involve that within her major.

“I wrote about my experiences in communities. I’m searching for a community when I go to college so I hope when they read my essay they see their community and realize it would be a great idea to bring me there,” Baggen said.