Catchy Personal Essay Introductions

At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges. Find out more about Prep Scholar Admissions now: Here’s a weird secret that’s true for most written work: just because it'll end up at the beginning doesn’t mean you have to write it first.For example, in this case, you can’t know what your killer first sentence will be until you’ve figured out the following details: So my suggestion is to work in reverse order!

At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges. Find out more about Prep Scholar Admissions now: Here’s a weird secret that’s true for most written work: just because it'll end up at the beginning doesn’t mean you have to write it first.

A good introduction presents a broad overview of your topic and your thesis, and should convince the reader that it is worth their time to actually read the rest of your essay.

Below are some tips that will make writing an introduction a little less daunting, and help us all to write essays that don’t make our professors want to bang their heads against the wall.

Now, let’s zero in on the first part of the college essay.

What are the ingredients of a great personal statement introduction?

Like all attempts at charm, you must be slightly bold and out of the ordinary—but you must also stay away from crossing the line into offensiveness or bad taste.

The personal statement introduction is basically the wriggly worm that baits the hook to catch your reader.Successful introductions don’t rely on clichés or irrelevant information to demonstrate their point. If you’ve been sitting in front of a blank screen, unsure of exactly how to start a personal statement for college, then believe me—I feel your pain.This person is disposed to be friendly and curious, but if she hasn’t already seen it all she's probably seen a good portion of it.Your essay's job is to entertain and impress this person, and to make you memorable so you don't merely blend into the sea of other personal statements.We'll also look at several great examples of essay beginnings and explain why they work, how they work, and what you can learn from them.Before we talk about how to start a college essay, let's discuss the role of the introduction.Just as your college essay is your chance to introduce yourself to the admissions office of your target college, your essay's beginning is your chance to introduce your writing.In general, college essays make it easier to get to know the parts of you in your transcript—these include your personality, outlook on life, passions, and experiences.Even though they’re called essays, personal statements are really more like a mix of a short story and a philosophy or psychology class that's all about you.Usually, how this translates is that you start with a really good (and very short) story about something arresting, unusual, or important that happened to you.