100 Successful College Application Essays: Third Edition

This is an excellent reference book for high school students who are planning to apply for colleges (especially the exclusive / Ivy League schools), their parents and teachers. The essays are of great variety, including a range of topics, levels of writing ability, and far-flung backgrounds of students who wrote the essays. Often, students confronting the college essay task have this problem: "Can't think of anything to write about!". My suggestion to them is: browse through these essays, contemplate on how some of the essays may apply to your own situation. Then adapt a combination of styles and approaches, and jot down points for your own essay. That would provide some clues on: how get started, where to begin, what to write about and even, when to start preparing for the College Admission Essay task. Even for the general reader, the essays make for good - thought provoking, funny, relaxing - casual reading. The book is worth the price many times over.

Great

It was nice but their could have been a little more diversity in stories since many of them seemed alike. Overall, good.

Provides excellent insight and guidance on how to craft a personal story.

This book was a wonderful place to gain insight on essays that get applicants accepted, but it would be valuable to see a more comprehensive look on these selected students in order to understand the full picture. It is a good piece of literature to reference when crafting ones personal essays and statements, but for other application questions or advice, you may need to look further. I found the site AdmitSee.com to be helpful in all things application related- from personal profiles to success stories of accepted essays and applications.

Superior book everyone should own one

These essays are no where near what I expected to review for college admission essay ideas!!!! In fact, these essays are great to read to a child (age range 5 - 11) to inspire them to pursue a greater education!On a serious note, these essays are great for Liberal Arts majors and such, but not technical professionals seeking professional essays! These essays had taken a different approach to elaborate "why are you interested in this college"... From the standard "I want to pursue this college because..." to "High above the Earth in a starship from the Andromeda Galaxy, two aliens...." or some other story-telling opener. Definitely not an essay suited for an Engineering or any other technical admission, in my opinion.

I remember reading this book when applying to college. The collection of essays is quite vast, compared to other books. The essays are not too varied, though, at least in terms of style. Several of them just sound a little bit weird or stereotypical.

The introduction to this book is worth-it alone. It provides insight on how to approach essay writing which I found very inspiring, and helped me get started. The actual essays are separated by category which I really enjoyed. If you're interested in reading examples and getting a little inspiration, you would enjoy this book. I don't think it is entirely necessary to write a successful essay though.

Excellent book.worth buying.good and competitive essays.

My son who I bought it for says its very good and helpful to him

Covers a very wide range of essays, well written