conclusion for essay on school

17 Essay Conclusion Examples (Copy and Paste)

Essay conclusions are not just extra filler. They are important because they tie together your arguments, then give you the chance to forcefully drive your point home.

I created the 5 Cs conclusion method to help you write essay conclusions:

I’ve previously produced the video below on how to write a conclusion that goes over the above image.

The video follows the 5 C’s method ( you can read about it in this post ), which doesn’t perfectly match each of the below copy-and-paste conclusion examples, but the principles are similar, and can help you to write your own strong conclusion:

💡 New! Try this AI Prompt to Generate a Sample 5Cs Conclusion This is my essay: [INSERT ESSAY WITHOUT THE CONCLUSION]. I want you to write a conclusion for this essay. In the first sentence of the conclusion, return to a statement I made in the introduction. In the second sentence, reiterate the thesis statement I have used. In the third sentence, clarify how my final position is relevant to the Essay Question, which is [ESSAY QUESTION]. In the fourth sentence, explain who should be interested in my findings. In the fifth sentence, end by noting in one final, engaging sentence why this topic is of such importance.

Remember: The prompt can help you generate samples but you can’t submit AI text for assessment. Make sure you write your conclusion in your own words.

Essay Conclusion Examples

Below is a range of copy-and-paste essay conclusions with gaps for you to fill-in your topic and key arguments. Browse through for one you like (there are 17 for argumentative, expository, compare and contrast, and critical essays). Once you’ve found one you like, copy it and add-in the key points to make it your own.

1. Argumentative Essay Conclusions

The arguments presented in this essay demonstrate the significant importance of _____________. While there are some strong counterarguments, such as ____________, it remains clear that the benefits/merits of _____________ far outweigh the potential downsides. The evidence presented throughout the essay strongly support _____________. In the coming years, _____________ will be increasingly important. Therefore, continual advocacy for the position presented in this essay will be necessary, especially due to its significant implications for _____________.

Version 1 Filled-In

The arguments presented in this essay demonstrate the significant importance of fighting climate change. While there are some strong counterarguments, such as the claim that it is too late to stop catastrophic change, it remains clear that the merits of taking drastic action far outweigh the potential downsides. The evidence presented throughout the essay strongly support the claim that we can at least mitigate the worst effects. In the coming years, intergovernmental worldwide agreements will be increasingly important. Therefore, continual advocacy for the position presented in this essay will be necessary, especially due to its significant implications for humankind.

As this essay has shown, it is clear that the debate surrounding _____________ is multifaceted and highly complex. While there are strong arguments opposing the position that _____________, there remains overwhelming evidence to support the claim that _____________. A careful analysis of the empirical evidence suggests that _____________ not only leads to ____________, but it may also be a necessity for _____________. Moving forward, _____________ should be a priority for all stakeholders involved, as it promises a better future for _____________. The focus should now shift towards how best to integrate _____________ more effectively into society.

Version 2 Filled-In

As this essay has shown, it is clear that the debate surrounding climate change is multifaceted and highly complex. While there are strong arguments opposing the position that we should fight climate change, there remains overwhelming evidence to support the claim that action can mitigate the worst effects. A careful analysis of the empirical evidence suggests that strong action not only leads to better economic outcomes in the long term, but it may also be a necessity for preventing climate-related deaths. Moving forward, carbon emission mitigation should be a priority for all stakeholders involved, as it promises a better future for all. The focus should now shift towards how best to integrate smart climate policies more effectively into society.

Based upon the preponderance of evidence, it is evident that _____________ holds the potential to significantly alter/improve _____________. The counterarguments, while noteworthy, fail to diminish the compelling case for _____________. Following an examination of both sides of the argument, it has become clear that _____________ presents the most effective solution/approach to _____________. Consequently, it is imperative that society acknowledge the value of _____________ for developing a better  _____________. Failing to address this topic could lead to negative outcomes, including _____________.

Version 3 Filled-In

Based upon the preponderance of evidence, it is evident that addressing climate change holds the potential to significantly improve the future of society. The counterarguments, while noteworthy, fail to diminish the compelling case for immediate climate action. Following an examination of both sides of the argument, it has become clear that widespread and urgent social action presents the most effective solution to this pressing problem. Consequently, it is imperative that society acknowledge the value of taking immediate action for developing a better environment for future generations. Failing to address this topic could lead to negative outcomes, including more extreme climate events and greater economic externalities.

See Also: Examples of Counterarguments

On the balance of evidence, there is an overwhelming case for _____________. While the counterarguments offer valid points that are worth examining, they do not outweigh or overcome the argument that _____________. An evaluation of both perspectives on this topic concludes that _____________ is the most sufficient option for  _____________. The implications of embracing _____________ do not only have immediate benefits, but they also pave the way for a more _____________. Therefore, the solution of _____________ should be actively pursued by _____________.

Version 4 Filled-In

On the balance of evidence, there is an overwhelming case for immediate tax-based action to mitigate the effects of climate change. While the counterarguments offer valid points that are worth examining, they do not outweigh or overcome the argument that action is urgently necessary. An evaluation of both perspectives on this topic concludes that taking societal-wide action is the most sufficient option for  achieving the best results. The implications of embracing a society-wide approach like a carbon tax do not only have immediate benefits, but they also pave the way for a more healthy future. Therefore, the solution of a carbon tax or equivalent policy should be actively pursued by governments.

2. Expository Essay Conclusions

Overall, it is evident that _____________ plays a crucial role in _____________. The analysis presented in this essay demonstrates the clear impact of _____________ on _____________. By understanding the key facts about _____________, practitioners/society are better equipped to navigate _____________. Moving forward, further exploration of _____________ will yield additional insights and information about _____________. As such, _____________ should remain a focal point for further discussions and studies on _____________.

Overall, it is evident that social media plays a crucial role in harming teenagers’ mental health. The analysis presented in this essay demonstrates the clear impact of social media on young people. By understanding the key facts about the ways social media cause young people to experience body dysmorphia, teachers and parents are better equipped to help young people navigate online spaces. Moving forward, further exploration of the ways social media cause harm will yield additional insights and information about how it can be more sufficiently regulated. As such, the effects of social media on youth should remain a focal point for further discussions and studies on youth mental health.

To conclude, this essay has explored the multi-faceted aspects of _____________. Through a careful examination of _____________, this essay has illuminated its significant influence on _____________. This understanding allows society to appreciate the idea that _____________. As research continues to emerge, the importance of _____________ will only continue to grow. Therefore, an understanding of _____________ is not merely desirable, but imperative for _____________.

To conclude, this essay has explored the multi-faceted aspects of globalization. Through a careful examination of globalization, this essay has illuminated its significant influence on the economy, cultures, and society. This understanding allows society to appreciate the idea that globalization has both positive and negative effects. As research continues to emerge, the importance of studying globalization will only continue to grow. Therefore, an understanding of globalization’s effects is not merely desirable, but imperative for judging whether it is good or bad.

Reflecting on the discussion, it is clear that _____________ serves a pivotal role in _____________. By delving into the intricacies of _____________, we have gained valuable insights into its impact and significance. This knowledge will undoubtedly serve as a guiding principle in _____________. Moving forward, it is paramount to remain open to further explorations and studies on _____________. In this way, our understanding and appreciation of _____________ can only deepen and expand.

Reflecting on the discussion, it is clear that mass media serves a pivotal role in shaping public opinion. By delving into the intricacies of mass media, we have gained valuable insights into its impact and significance. This knowledge will undoubtedly serve as a guiding principle in shaping the media landscape. Moving forward, it is paramount to remain open to further explorations and studies on how mass media impacts society. In this way, our understanding and appreciation of mass media’s impacts can only deepen and expand.

In conclusion, this essay has shed light on the importance of _____________ in the context of _____________. The evidence and analysis provided underscore the profound effect _____________ has on _____________. The knowledge gained from exploring _____________ will undoubtedly contribute to more informed and effective decisions in _____________. As we continue to progress, the significance of understanding _____________ will remain paramount. Hence, we should strive to deepen our knowledge of _____________ to better navigate and influence _____________.

In conclusion, this essay has shed light on the importance of bedside manner in the context of nursing. The evidence and analysis provided underscore the profound effect compassionate bedside manner has on patient outcome. The knowledge gained from exploring nurses’ bedside manner will undoubtedly contribute to more informed and effective decisions in nursing practice. As we continue to progress, the significance of understanding nurses’ bedside manner will remain paramount. Hence, we should strive to deepen our knowledge of this topic to better navigate and influence patient outcomes.

See More: How to Write an Expository Essay

3. Compare and Contrast Essay Conclusion

While both _____________ and _____________ have similarities such as _____________, they also have some very important differences in areas like _____________. Through this comparative analysis, a broader understanding of _____________ and _____________ has been attained. The choice between the two will largely depend on _____________. For example, as highlighted in the essay, ____________. Despite their differences, both _____________ and _____________ have value in different situations.

While both macrosociology and microsociology have similarities such as their foci on how society is structured, they also have some very important differences in areas like their differing approaches to research methodologies. Through this comparative analysis, a broader understanding of macrosociology and microsociology has been attained. The choice between the two will largely depend on the researcher’s perspective on how society works. For example, as highlighted in the essay, microsociology is much more concerned with individuals’ experiences while macrosociology is more concerned with social structures. Despite their differences, both macrosociology and microsociology have value in different situations.

It is clear that _____________ and _____________, while seeming to be different, have shared characteristics in _____________. On the other hand, their contrasts in _____________ shed light on their unique features. The analysis provides a more nuanced comprehension of these subjects. In choosing between the two, consideration should be given to _____________. Despite their disparities, it’s crucial to acknowledge the importance of both when it comes to _____________.

It is clear that behaviorism and consructivism, while seeming to be different, have shared characteristics in their foci on knowledge acquisition over time. On the other hand, their contrasts in ideas about the role of experience in learning shed light on their unique features. The analysis provides a more nuanced comprehension of these subjects. In choosing between the two, consideration should be given to which approach works best in which situation. Despite their disparities, it’s crucial to acknowledge the importance of both when it comes to student education.

Reflecting on the points discussed, it’s evident that _____________ and _____________ share similarities such as _____________, while also demonstrating unique differences, particularly in _____________. The preference for one over the other would typically depend on factors such as _____________. Yet, regardless of their distinctions, both _____________ and _____________ play integral roles in their respective areas, significantly contributing to _____________.

Reflecting on the points discussed, it’s evident that red and orange share similarities such as the fact they are both ‘hot colors’, while also demonstrating unique differences, particularly in their social meaning (red meaning danger and orange warmth). The preference for one over the other would typically depend on factors such as personal taste. Yet, regardless of their distinctions, both red and orange play integral roles in their respective areas, significantly contributing to color theory.

Ultimately, the comparison and contrast of _____________ and _____________ have revealed intriguing similarities and notable differences. Differences such as _____________ give deeper insights into their unique and shared qualities. When it comes to choosing between them, _____________ will likely be a deciding factor. Despite these differences, it is important to remember that both _____________ and _____________ hold significant value within the context of _____________, and each contributes to _____________ in its own unique way.

Ultimately, the comparison and contrast of driving and flying have revealed intriguing similarities and notable differences. Differences such as their differing speed to destination give deeper insights into their unique and shared qualities. When it comes to choosing between them, urgency to arrive at the destination will likely be a deciding factor. Despite these differences, it is important to remember that both driving and flying hold significant value within the context of air transit, and each contributes to facilitating movement in its own unique way.

See Here for More Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

4. Critical Essay Conclusion

In conclusion, the analysis of _____________ has unveiled critical aspects related to _____________. While there are strengths in _____________, its limitations are equally telling. This critique provides a more informed perspective on _____________, revealing that there is much more beneath the surface. Moving forward, the understanding of _____________ should evolve, considering both its merits and flaws.

In conclusion, the analysis of flow theory has unveiled critical aspects related to motivation and focus. While there are strengths in achieving a flow state, its limitations are equally telling. This critique provides a more informed perspective on how humans achieve motivation, revealing that there is much more beneath the surface. Moving forward, the understanding of flow theory of motivation should evolve, considering both its merits and flaws.

To conclude, this critical examination of _____________ sheds light on its multi-dimensional nature. While _____________ presents notable advantages, it is not without its drawbacks. This in-depth critique offers a comprehensive understanding of _____________. Therefore, future engagements with _____________ should involve a balanced consideration of its strengths and weaknesses.

To conclude, this critical examination of postmodern art sheds light on its multi-dimensional nature. While postmodernism presents notable advantages, it is not without its drawbacks. This in-depth critique offers a comprehensive understanding of how it has contributed to the arts over the past 50 years. Therefore, future engagements with postmodern art should involve a balanced consideration of its strengths and weaknesses.

Upon reflection, the critique of _____________ uncovers profound insights into its underlying intricacies. Despite its positive aspects such as ________, it’s impossible to overlook its shortcomings. This analysis provides a nuanced understanding of _____________, highlighting the necessity for a balanced approach in future interactions. Indeed, both the strengths and weaknesses of _____________ should be taken into account when considering ____________.

Upon reflection, the critique of marxism uncovers profound insights into its underlying intricacies. Despite its positive aspects such as its ability to critique exploitation of labor, it’s impossible to overlook its shortcomings. This analysis provides a nuanced understanding of marxism’s harmful effects when used as an economic theory, highlighting the necessity for a balanced approach in future interactions. Indeed, both the strengths and weaknesses of marxism should be taken into account when considering the use of its ideas in real life.

Ultimately, this critique of _____________ offers a detailed look into its advantages and disadvantages. The strengths of _____________ such as __________ are significant, yet its limitations such as _________ are not insignificant. This balanced analysis not only offers a deeper understanding of _____________ but also underscores the importance of critical evaluation. Hence, it’s crucial that future discussions around _____________ continue to embrace this balanced approach.

Ultimately, this critique of artificial intelligence offers a detailed look into its advantages and disadvantages. The strengths of artificial intelligence, such as its ability to improve productivity are significant, yet its limitations such as the possibility of mass job losses are not insignificant. This balanced analysis not only offers a deeper understanding of artificial intelligence but also underscores the importance of critical evaluation. Hence, it’s crucial that future discussions around the regulation of artificial intelligence continue to embrace this balanced approach.

This article promised 17 essay conclusions, and this one you are reading now is the twenty-first. This last conclusion demonstrates that the very best essay conclusions are written uniquely, from scratch, in order to perfectly cater the conclusion to the topic. A good conclusion will tie together all the key points you made in your essay and forcefully drive home the importance or relevance of your argument, thesis statement, or simply your topic so the reader is left with one strong final point to ponder.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 44 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social Exchange Theory: Definition and Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 10 Cognitive Dissonance Examples

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How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay

By the time you get to the final paragraph of your paper, you have already done so much work on your essay, so all you want to do is to wrap it up as quickly as possible. You’ve already made a stunning introduction, proven your argument, and structured the whole piece as supposed – who cares about making a good conclusion paragraph?

The only thing you need to remember is that the conclusion of an essay is not just the last paragraph of an academic paper where you restate your thesis and key arguments. A concluding paragraph is also your opportunity to have a final impact on your audience. 

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How to write a conclusion paragraph that leaves a lasting impression – In this guide, the team at EssayPro is going to walk you through the process of writing a perfect conclusion step by step. Additionally, we will share valuable tips and tricks to help students of all ages impress their readers at the last moment.

Instead of Intro: What Is a Conclusion?

Before we can move on, let’s take a moment here to define the conclusion itself. According to the standard conclusion definition, it is pretty much the last part of something, its result, or end. However, this term is rather broad and superficial.

When it comes to writing academic papers, a concluding statement refers to an opinion, judgment, suggestion, or position arrived at by logical reasoning (through the arguments provided in the body of the text). Therefore, if you are wondering “what is a good closing sentence like?” – keep on reading.

What Does a Good Conclusion Mean?

Writing a good conclusion for a paper isn’t easy. However, we are going to walk you through this process step by step. Although there are generally no strict rules on how to formulate one, there are some basic principles that everyone should keep in mind. In this section, we will share some core ideas for writing a good conclusion, and, later in the article, we will also provide you with more practical advice and examples.

Here are the core goals a good conclusion should complete:

• “Wrap up” the entire paper;
• Demonstrate to readers that the author accomplished what he/she set out to do;
• Show how you the author has proved their thesis statement;
• Give a sense of completeness and closure on the topic;
• Leave something extra for your reader to think about;
• Leave a powerful final impact on a reader.

Another key thing to remember is that you should not introduce any new ideas or arguments to your paper's conclusion. It should only sum up what you have already written, revisit your thesis statement, and end with a powerful final impression.

When considering how to write a conclusion that works, here are the key points to keep in mind:

• A concluding sentence should only revisit the thesis statement, not restate it;
• It should summarize the main ideas from the body of the paper;
• It should demonstrate the significance and relevance of your work;
• An essay’s conclusion should include a call for action and leave space for further study or development of the topic (if necessary).

How Long Should a Conclusion Be? 

Although there are no strict universal rules regarding the length of an essay’s final clause, both teachers and experienced writers recommend keeping it clear, concise, and straight to the point. There is an unspoken rule that the introduction and conclusion of an academic paper should both be about 10% of the overall paper’s volume. For example, if you were assigned a 1500 word essay, both the introductory and final clauses should be approximately 150 words long (300 together).

Why You Need to Know How to End an Essay:

A conclusion is what drives a paper to its logical end. It also drives the main points of your piece one last time. It is your last opportunity to impact and impress your audience. And, most importantly, it is your chance to demonstrate to readers why your work matters. Simply put, the final paragraph of your essay should answer the last important question a reader will have – “So what?”

If you do a concluding paragraph right, it can give your readers a sense of logical completeness. On the other hand, if you do not make it powerful enough, it can leave them hanging, and diminish the effect of the entire piece.

Strategies to Crafting a Proper Conclusion

Although there are no strict rules for what style to use to write your conclusion, there are several strategies that have been proven to be effective. In the list below, you can find some of the most effective strategies with some good conclusion paragraph examples to help you grasp the idea.

One effective way to emphasize the significance of your essay and give the audience some thought to ponder about is by taking a look into the future. The “When and If” technique is quite powerful when it comes to supporting your points in the essay’s conclusion.

Prediction essay conclusion example: “Taking care of a pet is quite hard, which is the reason why most parents refuse their children’s requests to get a pet. However, the refusal should be the last choice of parents. If we want to inculcate a deep sense of responsibility and organization in our kids, and, at the same time, sprout compassion in them, we must let our children take care of pets.”

Another effective strategy is to link your conclusion to your introductory paragraph. This will create a full-circle narration for your readers, create a better understanding of your topic, and emphasize your key point.

Echo conclusion paragraph example: Introduction: “I believe that all children should grow up with a pet. I still remember the exact day my parents brought my first puppy to our house. This was one of the happiest moments in my life and, at the same time, one of the most life-changing ones. Growing up with a pet taught me a lot, and most importantly, it taught me to be responsible.” Conclusion:. “I remember when I picked up my first puppy and how happy I was at that time. Growing up with a pet, I learned what it means to take care of someone, make sure that he always has water and food, teach him, and constantly keep an eye on my little companion. Having a child grow up with a pet teaches them responsibility and helps them acquire a variety of other life skills like leadership, love, compassion, and empathy. This is why I believe that every kid should grow up with a pet!”

Finally, one more trick that will help you create a flawless conclusion is to amplify your main idea or to present it in another perspective of a larger context. This technique will help your readers to look at the problem discussed from a different angle.

Step-up argumentative essay conclusion example: “Despite the obvious advantages of owning a pet in childhood, I feel that we cannot generalize whether all children should have a pet. Whereas some kids may benefit from such experiences, namely, by becoming more compassionate, organized, and responsible, it really depends on the situation, motivation, and enthusiasm of a particular child for owning a pet.”

What is a clincher in an essay? – The final part of an essay’s conclusion is often referred to as a clincher sentence. According to the clincher definition, it is a final sentence that reinforces the main idea or leaves the audience with an intriguing thought to ponder upon. In a nutshell, the clincher is very similar to the hook you would use in an introductory paragraph. Its core mission is to seize the audience’s attention until the end of the paper. At the same time, this statement is what creates a sense of completeness and helps the author leave a lasting impression on the reader.

Now, since you now know what a clincher is, you are probably wondering how to use one in your own paper. First of all, keep in mind that a good clincher should be intriguing, memorable, smooth, and straightforward.

Generally, there are several different tricks you can use for your clincher statement; it can be:

• A short, but memorable and attention-grabbing conclusion;
• A relevant and memorable quote (only if it brings actual value);
• A call to action;
• A rhetorical question;
• An illustrative story or provocative example;
• A warning against a possibility or suggestion about the consequences of a discussed problem;
• A joke (however, be careful with this as it may not always be deemed appropriate).

Regardless of the technique you choose, make sure that your clincher is memorable and aligns with your introduction and thesis.

Clincher examples: - While New York may not be the only place with the breathtaking views, it is definitely among my personal to 3… and that’s what definitely makes it worth visiting. - “Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars”, Divine Comedy - Don’t you think all these advantages sound like almost life-saving benefits of owning a pet? “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”, The Great Gatsby

Conclusion Writing Don'ts 

Now, when you know what tricks and techniques you should use to create a perfect conclusion, let’s look at some of the things you should not do with our online paper writing service :

• Starting with some cliché concluding sentence starters. Many students find common phrases like “In conclusion,” “Therefore,” “In summary,” or similar statements to be pretty good conclusion starters. However, though such conclusion sentence starters may work in certain cases – for example, in speeches – they are overused, so it is recommended not to use them in writing to introduce your conclusion.
• Putting the first mention of your thesis statement in the conclusion – it has to be presented in your introduction first.
• Providing new arguments, subtopics, or ideas in the conclusion paragraph.
• Including a slightly changed or unchanged thesis statement.
• Providing arguments and evidence that belong in the body of the work.
• Writing too long, hard to read, or confusing sentences.

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Conclusion Paragraph Outline

The total number of sentences in your final paragraph may vary depending on the number of points you discussed in your essay, as well as on the overall word count of your paper. However, the overall conclusion paragraph outline will remain the same and consists of the following elements:

• A conclusion starter:

The first part of your paragraph should drive readers back to your thesis statement. Thus, if you were wondering how to start a conclusion, the best way to do it is by rephrasing your thesis statement.

• Summary of the body paragraphs:

Right after revisiting your thesis, you should include several sentences that wrap up the key highlights and points from your body paragraphs. This part of your conclusion can consist of 2-3 sentences—depending on the number of arguments you’ve made. If necessary, you can also explain to the readers how your main points fit together.

• A concluding sentence:

Finally, you should end your paragraph with a last, powerful sentence that leaves a lasting impression, gives a sense of logical completeness, and connects readers back to the introduction of the paper.

These three key elements make up a perfect essay conclusion. Now, to give you an even better idea of how to create a perfect conclusion, let us give you a sample conclusion paragraph outline with examples from an argumentative essay on the topic of “Every Child Should Own a Pet:

• Sentence 1: Starter
• ~ Thesis: "Though taking care of a pet may be a bit challenging for small children. Parents should not restrict their kids from having a pet as it helps them grow into more responsible and compassionate people."
• ~ Restated thesis for a conclusion: "I can say that taking care of a pet is good for every child."
• Sentences 2-4: Summary
• ~ "Studies have shown that pet owners generally have fewer health problems."
• ~ "Owning a pet teaches a child to be more responsible."
• ~ "Spending time with a pet reduces stress, feelings of loneliness, and anxiety."
• Sentence 5: A concluding sentence
• ~ "Pets can really change a child life for the better, so don't hesitate to endorse your kid's desire to own a pet."

This is a clear example of how you can shape your conclusion paragraph.

How to Conclude Various Types of Essays

Depending on the type of academic essay you are working on, your concluding paragraph's style, tone, and length may vary. In this part of our guide, we will tell you how to end different types of essays and other works.

How to End an Argumentative Essay

Persuasive or argumentative essays always have the single goal of convincing readers of something (an idea, stance, or viewpoint) by appealing to arguments, facts, logic, and even emotions. The conclusion for such an essay has to be persuasive as well. A good trick you can use is to illustrate a real-life scenario that proves your stance or encourages readers to take action. More about persuasive essay outline you can read in our article.

Here are a few more tips for making a perfect conclusion for an argumentative essay:

• Carefully read the whole essay before you begin;
• Re-emphasize your ideas;
• Discuss possible implications;
• Don’t be afraid to appeal to the reader’s emotions.

How to End a Compare and Contrast Essay

The purpose of a compare and contrast essay is to emphasize the differences or similarities between two or more objects, people, phenomena, etc. Therefore, a logical conclusion should highlight how the reviewed objects are different or similar. Basically, in such a paper, your conclusion should recall all of the key common and distinctive features discussed in the body of your essay and also give readers some food for thought after they finish reading it.

How to Conclude a Descriptive Essay

The key idea of a descriptive essay is to showcase your creativity and writing skills by painting a vivid picture with the help of words. This is one of the most creative types of essays as it requires you to show a story, not tell it. This kind of essay implies using a lot of vivid details. Respectively, the conclusion of such a paper should also use descriptive imagery and, at the same time, sum up the main ideas. A good strategy for ending a descriptive essay would be to begin with a short explanation of why you wrote the essay. Then, you should reflect on how your topic affects you. In the middle of the conclusion, you should cover the most critical moments of the story to smoothly lead the reader into a logical closing statement. The “clincher”, in this case, should be a thought-provoking final sentence that leaves a good and lasting impression on the audience. Do not lead the reader into the essay and then leave them with dwindling memories of it.

How to Conclude an Essay About Yourself

If you find yourself writing an essay about yourself, you need to tell a personal story. As a rule, such essays talk about the author’s experiences, which is why a conclusion should create a feeling of narrative closure. A good strategy is to end your story with a logical finale and the lessons you have learned, while, at the same time, linking it to the introductory paragraph and recalling key moments from the story.

How to End an Informative Essay

Unlike other types of papers, informative or expository essays load readers with a lot of information and facts. In this case, “Synthesize, don’t summarize” is the best technique you can use to end your paper. Simply put, instead of recalling all of the major facts, you should approach your conclusion from the “So what?” position by highlighting the significance of the information provided.

How to Conclude a Narrative Essay

In a nutshell, a narrative essay is based on simple storytelling. The purpose of this paper is to share a particular story in detail. Therefore, the conclusion for such a paper should wrap up the story and avoid finishing on an abrupt cliffhanger. It is vital to include the key takeaways and the lessons learned from the story.

How to Write a Conclusion for a Lab Report

Unlike an essay, a lab report is based on an experiment. This type of paper describes the flow of a particular experiment conducted by a student and its conclusion should reflect on the outcomes of this experiment.

In thinking of how to write a conclusion for a lab, here are the key things you should do to get it right:

• Restate the goals of your experiment
• Describe the methods you used
• Include the results of the experiment and analyze the final data
• End your conclusion with a clear statement on whether or not the experiment was successful (Did you reach the expected results?)

How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper

Writing a paper is probably the hardest task of all, even for experienced dissertation writer . Unlike an essay or even a lab report, a research paper is a much longer piece of work that requires a deeper investigation of the problem. Therefore, a conclusion for such a paper should be even more sophisticated and powerful. If you're feeling difficulty writing an essay, you can buy essay on our service.

However, given that a research paper is the second most popular kind of academic paper (after an essay), it is important to know how to conclude a research paper. Even if you have not yet been assigned to do this task, be sure that you will face it soon. So, here are the steps you should follow to create a great conclusion for a research paper:

• Restate the Topic

Start your final paragraph with a quick reminder of what the topic of the piece is about. Keep it one sentence long.

• Revisit the Thesis

Next, you should remind your readers what your thesis statement was. However, do not just copy and paste it from the introductory clause: paraphrase your thesis so that you deliver the same idea but with different words. Keep your paraphrased thesis narrow, specific, and topic-oriented.

• Summarise Your Key Ideas

Just like the case of a regular essay’s conclusion, a research paper’s final paragraph should also include a short summary of all of the key points stated in the body sections. We recommend reading the entire body part a few times to define all of your main arguments and ideas.

• Showcase the Significance of Your Work

In the research paper conclusion, it is vital to highlight the significance of your research problem and state how your solution could be helpful.

• Make Suggestions for Future Studies

Finally, at the end of your conclusion, you should define how your findings will contribute to the development of its particular field of science. Outline the perspectives of further research and, if necessary, explain what is yet to be discovered on the topic.

Then, end your conclusion with a powerful concluding sentence – it can be a rhetorical question, call to action, or another hook that will help you have a strong impact on the audience.

• Answer the Right Questions

To create a top-notch research paper conclusion, be sure to answer the following questions:

• What is the goal of a research paper?
• What are the possible solutions to the research question(s)?
• How can your results be implemented in real life? (Is your research paper helpful to the community?)
• Why is this study important and relevant?

Additionally, here are a few more handy tips to follow:

• Provide clear examples from real life to help readers better understand the further implementation of the stated solutions;
• Keep your conclusion fresh, original, and creative.

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So, What Is a Good Closing Sentence? See The Difference

One of the best ways to learn how to write a good conclusion is to look at several professional essay conclusion examples. In this section of our guide, we are going to look at two different final paragraphs shaped on the basis of the same template, but even so, they are very different – where one is weak and the other is strong. Below, we are going to compare them to help you understand the difference between a good and a bad conclusion.

Here is the template we used: College degrees are in decline. The price of receiving an education does not correlate with the quality of the education received. As a result, graduated students face underemployment, and the worth of college degrees appears to be in serious doubt. However, the potential social and economic benefits of educated students balance out the equation.

Strong Conclusion ‍

People either see college as an opportunity or an inconvenience; therefore, a degree can only hold as much value as its owner’s skillset. The underemployment of graduate students puts the worth of college degrees in serious doubt. Yet, with the multitude of benefits that educated students bring to society and the economy, the equation remains in balance. Perhaps the ordinary person should consider college as a wise financial investment, but only if they stay determined to study and do the hard work.

Why is this example good? There are several key points that prove its effectiveness:

• There is a bold opening statement that encompasses the two contrasting types of students we can see today.
• There are two sentences that recall the thesis statement and cover the key arguments from the body of the essay.
• Finally, the last sentence sums up the key message of the essay and leaves readers with something to think about.

Weak Conclusion

In conclusion, with the poor preparation of students in college and the subsequent underemployment after graduation from college, the worth associated with the college degree appears to be in serious doubt. However, these issues alone may not reasonably conclude beyond a doubt that investing in a college degree is a rewarding venture. When the full benefits that come with education are carefully put into consideration and evaluated, college education for children in any country still has good advantages, and society should continue to advocate for a college education. The ordinary person should consider this a wise financial decision that holds rewards in the end. Apart from the monetary gains associated with a college education, society will greatly benefit from students when they finish college. Their minds are going to be expanded, and their reasoning and decision making will be enhanced.

What makes this example bad? Here are a few points to consider:

• Unlike the first example, this paragraph is long and not specific enough. The author provides plenty of generalized phrases that are not backed up by actual arguments.
• This piece is hard to read and understand and sentences have a confusing structure. Also, there are lots of repetitions and too many uses of the word “college”.
• There is no summary of the key benefits.
• The last two sentences that highlight the value of education contradict with the initial statement.
• Finally, the last sentence doesn’t offer a strong conclusion and gives no thought to ponder upon.
• In the body of your essay, you have hopefully already provided your reader(s) with plenty of information. Therefore, it is not wise to present new arguments or ideas in your conclusion.
• To end your final paragraph right, find a clear and straightforward message that will have the most powerful impact on your audience.
• Don’t use more than one quote in the final clause of your paper – the information from external sources (including quotes) belongs in the body of a paper.
• Be authoritative when writing a conclusion. You should sound confident and convincing to leave a good impression. Sentences like “I’m not an expert, but…” will most likely make you seem less knowledgeable and/or credible.

Good Conclusion Examples

Now that we've learned what a conclusion is and how to write one let's take a look at some essay conclusion examples to strengthen our knowledge.

The ending ironically reveals that all was for nothing. (A short explanation of the thematic effect of the book’s end) Tom says that Miss Watson freed Jim in her final will.Jim told Huck that the dead man on the Island was pap. The entire adventure seemingly evaporated into nothingness. (How this effect was manifested into the minds of thereaders).

All in all, international schools hold the key to building a full future that students can achieve. (Thesis statement simplified) They help students develop their own character by learning from their mistakes, without having to face a dreadful penalty for failure. (Thesis statement elaborated)Although some say that kids emerged “spoiled” with this mentality, the results prove the contrary. (Possible counter-arguments are noted)

In conclusion, public workers should be allowed to strike since it will give them a chance to air their grievances. (Thesis statement) Public workers should be allowed to strike when their rights, safety, and regulations are compromised. The workers will get motivated when they strike, and their demands are met.

In summary, studies reveal some similarities in the nutrient contents between the organic and non-organic food substances. (Starts with similarities) However, others have revealed many considerable differences in the amounts of antioxidants as well as other minerals present in organic and non-organic foods. Generally, organic foods have higher levels of antioxidants than non-organic foods and therefore are more important in the prevention of chronic illnesses.

As time went by, my obsession grew into something bigger than art; (‘As time went by’ signals maturation) it grew into a dream of developing myself for the world. (Showing student’s interest of developing himself for the community) It is a dream of not only seeing the world from a different perspective but also changing the perspective of people who see my work. (Showing student’s determination to create moving pieces of art)

In conclusion, it is evident that technology is an integral part of our lives and without it, we become “lost” since we have increasingly become dependent on its use. (Thesis with main point)

You might also be interested in reading nursing essay examples from our service.

How To Write A Conclusion For An Essay?

How to write a good conclusion, how to write a conclusion for a college essay.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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How to Write a Conclusion Paragraph for an Essay

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• An effective conclusion paragraph is vital to writing a successful college essay.
• A strong conclusion restates the thesis, offers new insight, and forms a personal connection.
• Be sure the conclusion doesn't introduce new arguments or analyze points you didn't discuss.

The first steps for writing any college essay are coming up with a strong thesis statement and composing a rough introduction . Once you've done that, you can collect information that supports your thesis, outline your essay's main points, and start writing your body paragraphs . Before you can submit the essay, though, you'll also need to write a compelling conclusion paragraph.

Conclusions aren't especially difficult to write and can even be fun, but you still need to put in effort to make them work. Ultimately, a strong conclusion is just as important as an effective introduction for a successful paper.

Here, we explain the purpose of a conclusion and how to write a conclusion paragraph using a simple three-step process.

The Purpose of a Conclusion Paragraph

A conclusion paragraph does :

• Check Circle Summarize the essay's thesis and evidence to further convince the reader
• Check Circle Elevate your essay by adding new insight or something extra to impress the reader
• Check Circle Leave a personal impression that connects you more closely to the reader

A conclusion paragraph does not :

• X Circle Summarize something the paper does not discuss
• X Circle Introduce a new argument

How to Write a Conclusion in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: restate your thesis claim and evidence.

The conclusion's primary role is to convince the reader that your argument is valid. Whereas the introduction paragraph says, "Here's what I'll prove and how," the conclusion paragraph says, "Here's what I proved and how." In that sense, these two paragraphs should closely mirror each other, with the conclusion restating the thesis introduced at the beginning of the essay.

In order to restate your thesis effectively, you'll need to do the following:

• Check Circle Reread your introduction carefully to identify your paper's main claim
• Check Circle Pay attention to the evidence you used to support your thesis throughout the essay
• Check Circle In your conclusion, reword the thesis and summarize the supporting evidence
• Check Circle Use phrases in the past tense, like "as demonstrated" and "this paper established"

Here's an example of an introduction and a conclusion paragraph, with the conclusion restating the paper's primary claim and evidence:

Introduction

It is a known fact that archaic civilizations with clearly defined social classes often survived longer than those without. One anomaly is seventh-century Civilization X. Close analysis of the cultural artifacts of the Civilization X region reveals that a social system that operates on exploitation, rather than sharing, will always fail. This lack of inclusion actually leads to a society's downfall. Excavated military objects, remnants of tapestries and clay pots, and the poetry of the era all demonstrate the clash between exploitation and sharing, with the former leading to loss and the latter leading to success.

In the 600s C.E., Civilization X survived because it believed in inclusion and sharing rather than exploitation. As demonstrated, the civilization was often aware of the choice between sharing with others and taking from them. The cultural artifacts from the era, namely military items, household objects, and verbal art, all indicate that Civilization X believed sharing ensured survival for all, while taking allowed only a few to survive for a shorter time.

Step 2: Provide New and Interesting Insight

In addition to restating the thesis, a conclusion should emphasize the importance of the essay's argument by building upon it. In other words, you want to push your ideas one step beyond your thesis. One intriguing insight at the end can leave your professor pondering your paper well after they finish reading it — and that's a good sign you turned in a well-written essay.

Note that the conclusion paragraph must only mention that this new idea exists and deserves some focus in the future; it shouldn't discuss the idea in detail or try to propose a new argument.

The new insight you raise in your conclusion should ideally come from the research you already conducted. Should a new idea come to you while writing the body paragraphs, go ahead and make a note to remind you to allude to it in your conclusion.

Here are some typical starting points for these new insights:

• Check Circle A new idea that would have prompted you to redesign your thesis if you had the time
• Check Circle A new angle that would further prove your thesis
• Check Circle Evidence you found that refutes your claim but that you can justify anyway
• Check Circle A different topic to which you can apply the same thesis and/or angles

Step 3: Form a Personal Connection With the Reader

The final step when writing a conclusion paragraph is to include a small detail about yourself. This information will help you build a more intimate bond with your reader and help them remember you better. Think of this step as an opportunity to connect the academic research to your and your reader's personal lives — to forge a human bond between the lines.

Formal essay-writing typically avoids first- and second-person pronouns such as "I" and "you." There are, however, two exceptions to this rule, and these are the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.

In the conclusion, you may use first-person pronouns to attempt to establish an emotional connection with the reader.

In the introduction, you may use the words "I" or "me" just once to clarify that the essay's claim is your own. In the conclusion, you may use first-person pronouns to attempt to establish an emotional connection with the reader, as long as this connection is related in some way to the overarching claim.

Here's an example of a conclusion paragraph that uses both first- and second-person pronouns to connect the thesis statement (provided above) to the student's own perspective on stealing:

Civilization X believed that invading Civilization Y would help them survive long, hunger-inducing winters. But all people go through moments when they crave security, especially in times of scarcity. I would certainly never consider taking the belongings of a neighbor, nor, I expect, would you. Yet we must consider the Civilization X artifacts that justify "taking" as signs of more than simple bloodthirst — they are also revelations of the basic human need for security. Perhaps if we had lived during the 600s C.E., you and I would have also taken from others, even while commanding others not to take from us.

Feature Image: Ziga Plahutar / E+ / Getty Images

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In a short paper—even a research paper—you don’t need to provide an exhaustive summary as part of your conclusion. But you do need to make some kind of transition between your final body paragraph and your concluding paragraph. This may come in the form of a few sentences of summary. Or it may come in the form of a sentence that brings your readers back to your thesis or main idea and reminds your readers where you began and how far you have traveled.

So, for example, in a paper about the relationship between ADHD and rejection sensitivity, Vanessa Roser begins by introducing readers to the fact that researchers have studied the relationship between the two conditions and then provides her explanation of that relationship. Here’s her thesis: “While socialization may indeed be an important factor in RS, I argue that individuals with ADHD may also possess a neurological predisposition to RS that is exacerbated by the differing executive and emotional regulation characteristic of ADHD.”

In her final paragraph, Roser reminds us of where she started by echoing her thesis: “This literature demonstrates that, as with many other conditions, ADHD and RS share a delicately intertwined pattern of neurological similarities that is rooted in the innate biology of an individual’s mind, a connection that cannot be explained in full by the behavioral mediation hypothesis.”  

Highlight the “so what”  

At the beginning of your paper, you explain to your readers what’s at stake—why they should care about the argument you’re making. In your conclusion, you can bring readers back to those stakes by reminding them why your argument is important in the first place. You can also draft a few sentences that put those stakes into a new or broader context.

In the conclusion to her paper about ADHD and RS, Roser echoes the stakes she established in her introduction—that research into connections between ADHD and RS has led to contradictory results, raising questions about the “behavioral mediation hypothesis.”

She writes, “as with many other conditions, ADHD and RS share a delicately intertwined pattern of neurological similarities that is rooted in the innate biology of an individual’s mind, a connection that cannot be explained in full by the behavioral mediation hypothesis.”  

Leave your readers with the “now what”  

After the “what” and the “so what,” you should leave your reader with some final thoughts. If you have written a strong introduction, your readers will know why you have been arguing what you have been arguing—and why they should care. And if you’ve made a good case for your thesis, then your readers should be in a position to see things in a new way, understand new questions, or be ready for something that they weren’t ready for before they read your paper.

In her conclusion, Roser offers two “now what” statements. First, she explains that it is important to recognize that the flawed behavioral mediation hypothesis “seems to place a degree of fault on the individual. It implies that individuals with ADHD must have elicited such frequent or intense rejection by virtue of their inadequate social skills, erasing the possibility that they may simply possess a natural sensitivity to emotion.” She then highlights the broader implications for treatment of people with ADHD, noting that recognizing the actual connection between rejection sensitivity and ADHD “has profound implications for understanding how individuals with ADHD might best be treated in educational settings, by counselors, family, peers, or even society as a whole.”

To find your own “now what” for your essay’s conclusion, try asking yourself these questions:

• What can my readers now understand, see in a new light, or grapple with that they would not have understood in the same way before reading my paper? Are we a step closer to understanding a larger phenomenon or to understanding why what was at stake is so important?  
• What questions can I now raise that would not have made sense at the beginning of my paper? Questions for further research? Other ways that this topic could be approached?  
• Are there other applications for my research? Could my questions be asked about different data in a different context? Could I use my methods to answer a different question?  
• What action should be taken in light of this argument? What action do I predict will be taken or could lead to a solution?  
• What larger context might my argument be a part of?  

What to avoid in your conclusion  

• a complete restatement of all that you have said in your paper.  
• a substantial counterargument that you do not have space to refute; you should introduce counterarguments before your conclusion.  
• an apology for what you have not said. If you need to explain the scope of your paper, you should do this sooner—but don’t apologize for what you have not discussed in your paper.  
• fake transitions like “in conclusion” that are followed by sentences that aren’t actually conclusions. (“In conclusion, I have now demonstrated that my thesis is correct.”)
• picture_as_pdf Conclusions

How to write a Conclusion

What is a Conclusion?

Before we learn how to write a conclusion, we need to determine what a conclusion is.

A conclusion is the final sentences or paragraph in a piece of writing that signifies the end of a text, event or process.

We can find conclusions everywhere, from narratives, letters and reports to persuasive essays and speeches.

Conclusions perform many functions, which we will examine throughout this article. Fundamentally, they wrap everything up and finish a piece of writing or a presentation.

Unfortunately, conclusions are often the most challenging section of a paper to write. They are the final words of the writer on the topic and, as a result, play a crucial part in the lasting impression the writing leaves on the reader.

For this reason, our students must take time to understand clearly the functions of a conclusion and how they work. Time spent mastering the art of conclusion writing will be time well spent.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON HOW TO WRITE A CONCLUSION

Teach your students to write  POWERFUL   CONCLUSIONS  that put a bow on a great piece of writing. All too often, students struggle to conclude their writing. Stumbling, repeating themselves, or missing the opportunity to make a lasting impression.

This  COMPLETE UNIT OF WORK  will take your students from zero to hero over  FIVE STRATEGIC LESSONS  covered.

What is the Purpose of a Concluding Paragraph

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula we can teach our students that they can use to write any conclusion. Conclusions perform several functions, varying widely from paper to paper. Some of these functions include:

• Restates a paper’s thesis and explains why it’s important
• Synthesizes the essay’s arguments
• It opens up new questions
• Addresses limitations
• Makes a call to action.

Not all conclusions will perform each of these functions. How our students approach writing their conclusions will depend on several factors, including:

• The conventions of the writing genre
• The intended audience and their motivations
• The formality or informality of the paper
• The tone of the writing.

 Now, let’s look at each of the functions of a conclusion one by one, along with a practice activity for each to give our students some hands-on practice.

1. A Concluding Paragraph Restates the Thesis and Explains Why

One of the most common errors in writing a conclusion is to use it to simply restate the thesis. Though this is widely taught, it isn’t enough.

The student should also explain why the argument made in their thesis is important. This involves considering the more widespread impact of the thesis and its supporting arguments.

  The conclusion should inform the reader why the thesis matters by answering questions similar to the following:

• What are the wider societal implications of the thesis?
• Does the thesis challenge a widely accepted idea or belief?
• Does the thesis have significance for how things could be done in the future?

To write a conclusion in this vein, it is helpful for students to compose similar type questions relevant to their thesis, which they can then set out to answer.

These questions will vary widely according to the subject being written about and the genre being written in. Still, regardless, the conclusion should highlight the thesis’s significance to the wider world. This will bring context to the writing as a whole.

Example: In conclusion, this paper has argued that increasing access to education is essential for reducing poverty and promoting economic development. We have presented evidence from various studies showing the positive correlation between education and income and the role of education in fostering other developmental goals, such as improved health and reduced inequality. Restating the thesis, we can say that access to education is a fundamental human right and should be prioritized as a key development strategy to reduce poverty and promote sustainable economic growth. The evidence presented in this paper supports this argument, making a case for the importance of increasing access to education for the well-being of individuals and societies.

2. A CONCLUSION SYNTHESIZES THE PAPER’S ARGUMENTS

This is another very common function performed by the conclusion. While each body paragraph in the paper may correspond to a single specific argument in support of the central thesis, in the conclusion, the various strands of supporting arguments are woven into a coherent whole.

The conclusion is not the place to introduce new arguments or to simply list the arguments made in the body paragraphs. Instead, it provides a final opportunity for your students to drive home their main arguments one last time and make connections between them to reveal a coherent whole.

Often, a conclusion will combine functions of functions 1 and 2 by restating the thesis, synthesizing the arguments, and explaining the wider significance of the thesis.

When considering how to write a conclusion for an argumentative essay, remember to synthesize it.

Example: In conclusion, this paper has presented a thorough examination of the current state of renewable energy sources and their potential to combat climate change. Through an analysis of the economic and technical feasibility of various renewable energy options, we have shown that renewable energy is a viable and necessary solution to reducing carbon emissions. Additionally, we have highlighted the importance of government policies and investment in research and development to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy. Overall, this paper argues that renewable energy is a crucial step in the fight against climate change and must be prioritized to secure a sustainable future.

3. A CONCLUSION CAN OPEN UP NEW QUESTIONS

We often think of conclusions as drawing things to a close. But there’s another way of looking at things. Often, through the process of making various arguments in a piece of writing, new questions will emerge naturally.

This method is commonly encountered when exploring how to write a conclusion for a thesis.

This often occurs when the central thesis is set in a broader context. We can think of the progression of an essay as moving from a thesis statement through evermore specific arguments that support that initial thesis statement.

To open up new questions in the conclusion, the student should move from the specific to the more general, generating further possible lines of inquiry on the topic as they go. The effect of this type of conclusion is to spark the reader’s curiosity and further interest in the subject.

Example: In conclusion, our research has provided an in-depth examination of the effects of climate change on biodiversity. Our findings indicate that climate change is having a significant impact on the distribution and abundance of species. However, our research has also revealed that there are still many unanswered questions about the mechanisms driving these changes. For example, more research is needed to understand the role of different species interactions and the effects of climate change on specific ecosystem functions. We hope our research will serve as a foundation for further studies and inspire other researchers to continue investigating the complex relationship between climate change and biodiversity.

4. A CONCLUSION PARAGRAPH ADDRESSES THE LIMITATIONS

This method is often used in academic or scientific writing when considering how to write a conclusion for a report. In it, the student writer directly explores the weaknesses of their arguments.

It’s perhaps the bravest type of conclusion there is! Students need to be careful not to destroy their own thesis in the process. A sentence mentioning the limitation, quickly followed by a sentence or two addressing the problem, should be enough.

When done well, this strategy strengthens the impact of a paper by dealing head-on with potential criticisms and making strong counter-arguments in the process.

Example: In conclusion, our research provides valuable insights into the relationship between environmental factors and academic performance. However, it is important to note that our study has limitations. Firstly, the sample size was relatively small, and our results may not be generalizable to a larger population. Additionally, our study only considered one specific type of environmental factor and did not take into account other factors that may impact academic performance. Despite these limitations, our research provides a starting point for future studies in this area.

5. A CONCLUSION CAN OFFER A CALL TO ACTION

In a call-to-action type conclusion, the writer compels the reader to take a desired action or perform a particular task. This type of conclusion aims to persuade the reader or listener to do something.

Call-to-action conclusions work in various genres, including presentations, speeches, advertisements, and persuasive essays .

There are various techniques students can use to inspire action in their conclusions, such as appeals to emotions, the use of strong imperatives, or appeals to the reader’s or the listener’s self-interest.

Example: In conclusion, our research highlights the importance of access to clean drinking water in developing countries. Our findings show that a lack of access to clean water can lead to serious health issues and negatively impact the economy. However, it is not enough to simply acknowledge this problem – action must be taken. We call on governments, non-profit organizations, and individuals to take action by investing in infrastructure and providing education on sanitation and hygiene. Together, we can work towards providing access to clean water for all, and, ultimately, improve the quality of life for people living in developing countries.

Tips for Writing a Strong Conclusion

As young writers, crafting a solid conclusion for your essay is essential to communicate your ideas effectively. A well-written conclusion can help to summarize your main points, provide closure to your argument, and leave a lasting impression on your reader. Here are ten tips for writing a strong conclusion to an essay for high school students:

• Restate the main idea of your essay. A good conclusion should summarize the main points of your essay and reiterate the main idea or thesis statement.
• Provide closure to your argument. Your conclusion should provide a sense of closure to your argument and tie up any loose ends.
• Emphasize the importance of your topic. Your conclusion should also emphasize the importance of the topic you have discussed and why it matters to your reader.
• Offer a call to action. Encourage your reader to take action or think more deeply about the issues you have discussed in your essay.
• Avoid introducing new information. Your conclusion should be a summary of your main points, not a place to introduce new information or ideas.
• Keep it simple. Avoid using complex phrases or convoluted language in your conclusion.
• Use a strong concluding sentence. Your last sentence should be a powerful statement that leaves a lasting impression on your reader.
• Avoid summarizing every point. You don’t have to summarize every point you made in the essay; pick the main and most important ones.
• Reflect on your essay’s meaning. Take a step back and reflect on the overall meaning of your essay and the message you want to convey to your reader.
• Revise and proofread . Revise and proofread your conclusion carefully to ensure it is clear, concise, and error-free.

By following these tips, you can write a strong conclusion that effectively communicates your ideas and leaves a lasting impression on your reader.

What shouldn’t a conclusion do?

So far, we’ve discussed some conclusion writing strategies by discussing things a good conclusion should do. Now, it’s time to look at some things a conclusion shouldn’t do.

The following list contains some of the most common mistakes students must avoid making in their conclusions. This list can help students troubleshoot their conclusions when they get stuck or run into problems.

1. Uses a Vague Thesis Statement

If the student struggles to make a powerful impact in their conclusion, it may be because their thesis statement is too vague.

If this is the case, they messed up long ago.

The first time the reader sees the thesis statement should be in the introduction. Because all arguments stem from that statement, a comprehensive rewrite of the entire paper will most likely be needed.

2. Opens with a Clichéd Phrase

When students begin to learn to write conclusions, they often learn some stock phrases to help kickstart their writing. Phrases such as ‘in conclusion’ or ‘to conclude’ can be useful as prompts to get students quickly into the meat of their writing. However, overuse of such stock phrases can leave the writing feeling mechanical.

Ultimately, we want more for our students. If one of the purposes of a conclusion is to make a powerful impact on the reader, we must encourage our students to be creative and bold in their writing.

3. Doubts the Thesis

In the first part of this article, we briefly discussed the idea of addressing the limitations of the thesis and supporting arguments. This can be an effective strategy for students, but it can also be risky. The student needs to ensure they don’t undermine their stance.

When students use this strategy, ensure they understand that addressing limitations is not the same thing as apologizing for the position held. A good conclusion is impossible without the writer actually concluding something; conclusions should end with a strong statement.

4. Contains Irrelevancies

Students must ensure that every piece of information in their essay or article is relevant to the topic and thesis.

One of the most common mistakes students make is failing to ‘kill their babies’. That is, they go off on a tangent in their writing but are reluctant to remove the offending sentences in the editing process.

Often this happens because the student doesn’t want to throw out something they spent time writing, even if it’s utterly irrelevant to the topic they’re writing about.

At other times, students fail to be merciless in their editing because they’re waffling to reach an assigned word count.

In this case, it’s important to remind students that to the seasoned eye of a teacher or examiner, any puff and padding in their writing is obvious.

5. Fails to Address the Why?

As an article or a paper draws to a close, it’s essential that the reader feels the time they spent reading was time well invested. To achieve this, the student must answer the why? question satisfactorily. Students should make sure their readers leave their writing feeling like they have learned something of value, are inspired to take action or have new questions to research and answer.

Drawing the Curtains on Our Work on Conclusions

We’ve covered a lot of ground in our article on conclusions. We’ve looked at strategies and techniques our students can use to hone their conclusion-writing skills.

Now, it’s up to us as teachers to create opportunities for our students to perfect their understanding and ability to use these strategies and techniques in their writing.

While the ideas above will go a long way to ensuring your students are capable of composing well-written conclusions, with time and practice, they’ll develop their own style and approach to the conclusion conundrum – and surely there can be no more fitting conclusion than that!

Conclusion Writing Teaching Strategies and Activities

Practice Activity: Connect to the Wider World : To practice this, provide the students with a copy of a well-written essay suited to their level but with the concluding paragraph snipped out. Challenge the students to first identify the thesis statement, it should be in the essay’s introduction, and then to write a conclusion that connects that thesis to the wider world by explaining why it matters.

Practice Activity: Write the Conclusion First : Sometimes, it’s helpful for students to think of the conclusion as the destination their writing is headed for. The next time your students have completed an outline for an essay , instruct them to write the conclusion first. In it, they should explore the reasons for their thesis and its wider significance and synthesize their arguments. This gives the students a clear focus for the preceding introduction and body paragraphs and gives their writing a clear direction to work towards.

Practice Activity: Shift Perspective : For many students, writing this style of conclusion will require a shift in their understanding of the purpose of a conclusion. One good way to begin to shift that perspective is to encourage students to rewrite conclusions they’ve written previously in old essays. For example, they might shift the focus of a conclusion from a local significance to global significance or from historical significance to contemporary significance.

Practice Activity: Poke the Weak Points

Students take a conclusion they have written already, such as one written for a previous activity. Then, set the students the task of rewriting the conclusion to address any limitations of the supporting arguments. To do this, students need to ask themselves:

• What aspects of my arguments are open to contradiction?
• How can I address those contradictions?

Practice Activity: Blog It! : Blogs often use calls to action in the conclusions of their informational articles. Set your students the task of identifying several blogs on subjects that interest them. Students may benefit from doing this activity in groups.

Once they’ve identified some suitable websites, instruct the students to look at the conclusion of some of the articles.

• Can they identify any calls to action there?
• How do the writers introduce their calls to action?
• What techniques does the writer use to motivate the reader?

Challenge students to identify as many different motivational techniques and strategies as possible and then make a list that they can then share with the class.

When students have become good at identifying calls to action and the various motivational techniques and strategies, they can then write a blog article on a subject that interests them, making sure to include a call to action in their conclusion.

A COMPLETE TEACHING UNIT ON PERSUASIVE WRITING SKILLS

Teach your students to produce writing that  PERSUADES  and  INFLUENCES  thinking with this  HUGE  writing guide bundle covering: ⭐ Persuasive Texts / Essays ⭐ Expository Essays⭐ Argumentative Essays⭐ Discussions.

A complete 140 PAGE unit of work on persuasive texts for teachers and students. No preparation is required.

CONCLUSION WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL

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The Writing Process

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Writing a Paper: Conclusions

Writing a conclusion.

A conclusion is an important part of the paper; it provides closure for the reader while reminding the reader of the contents and importance of the paper. It accomplishes this by stepping back from the specifics in order to view the bigger picture of the document. In other words, it is reminding the reader of the main argument. For most course papers, it is usually one paragraph that simply and succinctly restates the main ideas and arguments, pulling everything together to help clarify the thesis of the paper. A conclusion does not introduce new ideas; instead, it should clarify the intent and importance of the paper. It can also suggest possible future research on the topic.

An Easy Checklist for Writing a Conclusion

It is important to remind the reader of the thesis of the paper so he is reminded of the argument and solutions you proposed.

Think of the main points as puzzle pieces, and the conclusion is where they all fit together to create a bigger picture. The reader should walk away with the bigger picture in mind.

Make sure that the paper places its findings in the context of real social change.

Make sure the reader has a distinct sense that the paper has come to an end. It is important to not leave the reader hanging. (You don’t want her to have flip-the-page syndrome, where the reader turns the page, expecting the paper to continue. The paper should naturally come to an end.)

No new ideas should be introduced in the conclusion. It is simply a review of the material that is already present in the paper. The only new idea would be the suggesting of a direction for future research.

Conclusion Example

As addressed in my analysis of recent research, the advantages of a later starting time for high school students significantly outweigh the disadvantages. A later starting time would allow teens more time to sleep--something that is important for their physical and mental health--and ultimately improve their academic performance and behavior. The added transportation costs that result from this change can be absorbed through energy savings. The beneficial effects on the students’ academic performance and behavior validate this decision, but its effect on student motivation is still unknown. I would encourage an in-depth look at the reactions of students to such a change. This sort of study would help determine the actual effects of a later start time on the time management and sleep habits of students.

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How to Write a Conclusion

Last Updated: July 15, 2023

Template and Sample Conclusion

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Danielle Blinka, MA, MPA . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. This article has been viewed 480,760 times.

Writing the introduction and body of a paper is a big accomplishment. Now you need to write your conclusion. Writing a conclusion can feel difficult, but it's easier if you plan ahead. First, format your conclusion by revisiting your thesis, summarizing your arguments, and making a final statement. Then, re-read and revise your conclusion to make it effective.

• Let’s say your thesis reads, “Allowing students to visit the library during lunch improves campus life and supports academic achievement because it encourages reading, allows students to start assignments early, and provides a refuge for students who eat alone.”
• You might restate it as, “Evidence shows students who have access to their school’s library during lunch check out more books and are more likely to complete their homework; additionally, students aren’t forced to eat alone.”

• You might write, “According to data, students checked out more books when they were allowed to visit their library during lunch, used that time to do research and ask for help with homework, and reported feeling less alone at lunch time. This shows that opening up the library during lunch can improve student life and academic performance."
• If you’re writing an argument essay, address the opposing argument, as well. You might write, “Although administrators worry that students will walk the halls instead of going to the library, schools that allow students into the library during lunch reported less behavioral issues during lunch than schools that don’t allow students in the library. Data show that students were spending that time checking out more books and working on homework assignments.” [3] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• Call your reader to action . For example, “By working with school administrators, Greenlawn ISD can increase academic achievement by letting students use the library during lunch.”
• End with a warning . You might write, “If students aren’t allowed to use the library during lunch, they are missing out on a valuable learning opportunity they’ll never get back.”
• Evoke an image . Write, “Next year, students at Greenlawn could be gathered around a table in the library reading or broadening their minds.”
• Compare your topic to something universal to help your reader relate . You might write, “Everyone knows how stressful it is to have a planner full of assignments, so having extra time to work on them during lunch would be a great relief to many students.”
• Show why the issue is significant. Write, "Giving students more time to spend in the library will help them become more comfortable spending time there, which also helps the library's mission."
• Predict what would happen if your ideas are implemented . Say, “Next year, students at Greenlawn could increase their academic achievements, but results will only happen if they can use the library during lunch.”
• End with a compelling quote . For instance, "As author Roald Dahl once said, 'If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.'"

• You could also ask your instructor if you can see an example of a well-written conclusion to give you an idea about what they expect you to write.

• If you want to use an introductory phrase, use a stronger one like “based on the evidence” or “ultimately.” You might also begin your first sentence with a word like “although,” “while,” or “since.” [6] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source
• Additionally, avoid “to conclude,” “in summary,” or “in closing.”

• For example, you may have opened your introduction with an anecdote, quote, or image. Bring it back up in your conclusion. Similarly, if you opened with a rhetorical question, you might offer a potential answer in your conclusion.

• For example, you wouldn’t want to end your essay about allowing students to use the library during lunch by stating, “As the evidence shows, using the library at lunch is a great way to improve student performance because they are more likely to do their homework. On a survey, students reported using the library to do research, ask homework questions, and finish their assignments early.” This leaves out your points about students reading more and having a place to spend their lunch period if they don’t like eating in the cafeteria.

• If you have introduced something you think is really important for your paper, go back through the body paragraphs and look for somewhere to add it. It’s better to leave it out of the paper than to include it in the conclusion.

• If something doesn’t make sense or your conclusion seems incomplete, revise your conclusion so that your ideas are clear.
• It’s helpful to read your entire paper as a whole to make sure it all comes together.

Community Q&A

• Don’t put any evidence or statistics in your conclusion. This information belongs in the body of your paper. [11] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Make sure you aren’t simply repeating what you’ve written earlier. While you want to restate your ideas, present them in a new way for the reader. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don’t write your conclusion until you’ve written the entire paper. It’ll be much easier to come up with your concluding thoughts after the body of the paper is written. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Never copy someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit, as this is plagiarism. If you are caught plagiarizing part of your paper, even just the conclusion, you’ll likely face severe academic penalties. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 2
• Don’t express any doubts you may have about your ideas or arguments. Whenever you share your ideas, assume the role of expert. [12] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/conclude.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conclusions/
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/argument_papers/conclusions.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions

About This Article

Writing a conclusion can seem difficult, but it’s easier if you think of it as a place to sum up the point of your paper. Begin your conclusion by restating your thesis, but don’t repeat it word-for-word. Then, use 1-2 sentences to summarize your argument, pulling together all of your points to explain how your evidence supports the thesis. End the paper with a statement that makes the reader think, like evoking a strong image or concluding with a call to action. Keep reading for tips on how to avoid cliches in your conclusion! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

This content is licensed by Khan Academy and is available for free at www.khanacademy.org.

Essay on My School for Students and Children

500+ words essay on my school.

Education is an essential part of our lives. We are nothing without knowledge, and education is what separates us from others. The main step to acquiring education is enrolling oneself in a school. School serves as the first learning place for most of the people. Similarly, it is the first spark in receiving an education. In this essay on my school, I will tell you why I love my school and what my school has taught me.

We have all been to school and we have loved each and every moment we have spent over there as those were the building blocks of our lives. A school is a place where students are taught the fundamentals of life, as well as how to grow and survive in life. It instils in us values and principles that serve as the foundation for a child’s development.

My school is my second home where I spend most of my time. Above all, it gives me a platform to do better in life and also builds my personality. I feel blessed to study in one of the most prestigious and esteemed schools in the city. In addition, my school has a lot of assets which makes me feel fortunate to be a part of it. Let us look at the essay on my school written below.

Why I Love My School?

From kindergarten through primary and secondary school, and subsequently, to faculty, school is a place where we always study, grow, and establish ourselves, socialize, be a friend, help others, and love and be loved. School is a buddy that will accompany us from the beginning of our youth till the conclusion of our lives. At school, we share all of our pleasures and sorrows, and we constantly rely on one another. This is made possible through the friendships we share. They assist us in effortlessly overcoming difficulties, sharing moments of enjoyment together, and looking forward to new paths.

My school strikes the perfect balance between modern education and vintage architecture. The vintage buildings of my school never fail to mesmerize me with their glorious beauty. However, their vintage architecture does not mean it is outdated, as it is well-equipped with all the contemporary gadgets. I see my school as a lighthouse of education bestowing knowledge as well as ethical conduct upon us.

Teachers have the power to make or break a school. The teaching staff is regarded as the foundation of any educational society. It is their efforts to help kids learn and understand things that instil good habits and values in their students. While some concepts are simple to grasp, others necessitate the use of a skilled teacher to drive the home the idea with each pupil.

In contrast to other schools, my school does not solely focus on academic performance. In other words, it emphasizes on the overall development of their students. Along with our academics, extra-curricular activities are also organized at our school. This is one of the main reasons why I love my school as it does not measure everyone on the same scale. Our hardworking staff gives time to each child to grow at their own pace which instils confidence in them. My school has all the facilities of a library , computer room, playground, basketball court and more, to ensure we have it all at our disposal.

For me, my school is more than simply an educational institution; it is also my second family, which I established during my childhood. A family of wonderful friends, outstanding teachers, and fond school memories. I adore my school because it is where I learn how to be a good citizen and how to reach my goals. School is the only place where we make friends without judging them. We feel comfortable spending time with those close friends no matter what the situation.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

What has My School Taught Me?

If someone asked me what I have learned from my school, I won’t be able to answer it in one sentence. For the lessons are irreplaceable and I can never be thankful enough for them. I learned to share because of my school. The power of sharing and sympathy was taught to me by my school. I learned how to be considerate towards animals and it is also one of the main reasons why I adopted a pet.

School is an excellent place to learn how to be an adult before entering the real world. Those abilities pay dividends whether you choose to be the bigger person in an argument or simply complete your domestic tasks. When you open your mind to new ideas, you gain a lot of influence in society. Picking up unexpected hobbies on your own will teach you more about what you like to do than simply completing things for a grade.

A school is a place where I developed my artistic skills which were further enhanced by my teachers. Subsequently, it led me to participate in inter-school completions through which I earned various awards. Most importantly, my school taught me how to face failures with grace and never give up on my ambitions, no matter what happens.

Schools also offer a variety of extracurricular activities such as Scouts and Guides, sports, N.C.C., skating, school band, acting, dancing, singing, and so on. Our principal also used to give us a short lecture every day for about 10 minutes about etiquette, character development, moral education, respecting others, and gaining excellent values. As a result, I can claim that what I am today is solely due to my school, which is the best institution in my opinion.

Teamwork is an important ability that schools teach. Schools are frequently the first places where youngsters have the opportunity to collaborate with children who are different from them. Collaboration is essential for the team and individual success. Students are taught that the success of a team depends on each individual component functioning together.

To sum it up, studying in one of the respected schools has helped me a lot personally. I will always be indebted to my school for shaping my personality and teaching me invaluable lessons. It has given me friends for life and teachers that I will always look up to. I aspire to carry on the values imbibed by my school to do well in life and make it proud.

Here is the list of Top Schools in India! Does Your School Tops the List?

FAQs on School

Q.1 Why must every child go to school?

A.1 It is essential for every child to go to school as the school teaches us lessons that cannot be acquired anywhere else. The experience is one a kind and along with education, we learn many other things like socializing, extra-curricular activities and more.

Q.2 What does school teach us?

A.2 School teaches us some of the great things like first of all, it gives us basic education. It teaches us to develop our skills like art, dance, public speaking and more. Most importantly, it teaches us discipline.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 3 strong argumentative essay examples, analyzed.

General Education

Need to defend your opinion on an issue? Argumentative essays are one of the most popular types of essays you’ll write in school. They combine persuasive arguments with fact-based research, and, when done well, can be powerful tools for making someone agree with your point of view. If you’re struggling to write an argumentative essay or just want to learn more about them, seeing examples can be a big help.

After giving an overview of this type of essay, we provide three argumentative essay examples. After each essay, we explain in-depth how the essay was structured, what worked, and where the essay could be improved. We end with tips for making your own argumentative essay as strong as possible.

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is an essay that uses evidence and facts to support the claim it’s making. Its purpose is to persuade the reader to agree with the argument being made.

A good argumentative essay will use facts and evidence to support the argument, rather than just the author’s thoughts and opinions. For example, say you wanted to write an argumentative essay stating that Charleston, SC is a great destination for families. You couldn’t just say that it’s a great place because you took your family there and enjoyed it. For it to be an argumentative essay, you need to have facts and data to support your argument, such as the number of child-friendly attractions in Charleston, special deals you can get with kids, and surveys of people who visited Charleston as a family and enjoyed it. The first argument is based entirely on feelings, whereas the second is based on evidence that can be proven.

The standard five paragraph format is common, but not required, for argumentative essays. These essays typically follow one of two formats: the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model.

• The Toulmin model is the most common. It begins with an introduction, follows with a thesis/claim, and gives data and evidence to support that claim. This style of essay also includes rebuttals of counterarguments.
• The Rogerian model analyzes two sides of an argument and reaches a conclusion after weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

3 Good Argumentative Essay Examples + Analysis

Below are three examples of argumentative essays, written by yours truly in my school days, as well as analysis of what each did well and where it could be improved.

Argumentative Essay Example 1

Proponents of this idea state that it will save local cities and towns money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won’t have to travel to a library to get a book; they can simply click on what they want to read and read it from wherever they are. They could also access more materials because libraries won’t have to buy physical copies of books; they can simply rent out as many digital copies as they need.

However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems than print resources. A study done on tablet vs book reading found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, retain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause numerous health problems, including blurred vision, dizziness, dry eyes, headaches, and eye strain, at much higher instances than reading print does. People who use tablets and mobile devices excessively also have a higher incidence of more serious health issues such as fibromyalgia, shoulder and back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and muscle strain. I know that whenever I read from my e-reader for too long, my eyes begin to feel tired and my neck hurts. We should not add to these problems by giving people, especially young people, more reasons to look at screens.

Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have a multitude of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to converse with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering patron questions, and keeping the community connected. One neighborhood found that, after a local library instituted community events such as play times for toddlers and parents, job fairs for teenagers, and meeting spaces for senior citizens, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community. Similarly, a Pew survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others and get their questions answered, benefits tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.

While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens, despite the myriad issues surrounding them. It would also end access to many of the benefits of libraries that people have come to rely on. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.

The author begins by giving an overview of the counter-argument, then the thesis appears as the first sentence in the third paragraph. The essay then spends the rest of the paper dismantling the counter argument and showing why readers should believe the other side.

What this essay does well:

• Although it’s a bit unusual to have the thesis appear fairly far into the essay, it works because, once the thesis is stated, the rest of the essay focuses on supporting it since the counter-argument has already been discussed earlier in the paper.
• This essay includes numerous facts and cites studies to support its case. By having specific data to rely on, the author’s argument is stronger and readers will be more inclined to agree with it.
• For every argument the other side makes, the author makes sure to refute it and follow up with why her opinion is the stronger one. In order to make a strong argument, it’s important to dismantle the other side, which this essay does this by making the author's view appear stronger.
• This is a shorter paper, and if it needed to be expanded to meet length requirements, it could include more examples and go more into depth with them, such as by explaining specific cases where people benefited from local libraries.
• Additionally, while the paper uses lots of data, the author also mentions their own experience with using tablets. This should be removed since argumentative essays focus on facts and data to support an argument, not the author’s own opinion or experiences. Replacing that with more data on health issues associated with screen time would strengthen the essay.
• Some of the points made aren't completely accurate , particularly the one about digital books being cheaper. It actually often costs a library more money to rent out numerous digital copies of a book compared to buying a single physical copy. Make sure in your own essay you thoroughly research each of the points and rebuttals you make, otherwise you'll look like you don't know the issue that well.

Argumentative Essay Example 2

There are multiple drugs available to treat malaria, and many of them work well and save lives, but malaria eradication programs that focus too much on them and not enough on prevention haven’t seen long-term success in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major program to combat malaria was WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Started in 1955, it had a goal of eliminating malaria in Africa within the next ten years. Based upon previously successful programs in Brazil and the United States, the program focused mainly on vector control. This included widely distributing chloroquine and spraying large amounts of DDT. More than one billion dollars was spent trying to abolish malaria. However, the program suffered from many problems and in 1969, WHO was forced to admit that the program had not succeeded in eradicating malaria. The number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa who contracted malaria as well as the number of malaria deaths had actually increased over 10% during the time the program was active.

One of the major reasons for the failure of the project was that it set uniform strategies and policies. By failing to consider variations between governments, geography, and infrastructure, the program was not nearly as successful as it could have been. Sub-Saharan Africa has neither the money nor the infrastructure to support such an elaborate program, and it couldn’t be run the way it was meant to. Most African countries don't have the resources to send all their people to doctors and get shots, nor can they afford to clear wetlands or other malaria prone areas. The continent’s spending per person for eradicating malaria was just a quarter of what Brazil spent. Sub-Saharan Africa simply can’t rely on a plan that requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise than they have to spare.

Additionally, the widespread use of chloroquine has created drug resistant parasites which are now plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa. Because chloroquine was used widely but inconsistently, mosquitoes developed resistance, and chloroquine is now nearly completely ineffective in Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 95% of mosquitoes resistant to it. As a result, newer, more expensive drugs need to be used to prevent and treat malaria, which further drives up the cost of malaria treatment for a region that can ill afford it.

Instead of developing plans to treat malaria after the infection has incurred, programs should focus on preventing infection from occurring in the first place. Not only is this plan cheaper and more effective, reducing the number of people who contract malaria also reduces loss of work/school days which can further bring down the productivity of the region.

One of the cheapest and most effective ways of preventing malaria is to implement insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs).  These nets provide a protective barrier around the person or people using them. While untreated bed nets are still helpful, those treated with insecticides are much more useful because they stop mosquitoes from biting people through the nets, and they help reduce mosquito populations in a community, thus helping people who don’t even own bed nets.  Bed nets are also very effective because most mosquito bites occur while the person is sleeping, so bed nets would be able to drastically reduce the number of transmissions during the night. In fact, transmission of malaria can be reduced by as much as 90% in areas where the use of ITNs is widespread. Because money is so scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa, the low cost is a great benefit and a major reason why the program is so successful. Bed nets cost roughly 2 USD to make, last several years, and can protect two adults. Studies have shown that, for every 100-1000 more nets are being used, one less child dies of malaria. With an estimated 300 million people in Africa not being protected by mosquito nets, there’s the potential to save three million lives by spending just a few dollars per person.

Reducing the number of people who contract malaria would also reduce poverty levels in Africa significantly, thus improving other aspects of society like education levels and the economy. Vector control is more effective than treatment strategies because it means fewer people are getting sick. When fewer people get sick, the working population is stronger as a whole because people are not put out of work from malaria, nor are they caring for sick relatives. Malaria-afflicted families can typically only harvest 40% of the crops that healthy families can harvest. Additionally, a family with members who have malaria spends roughly a quarter of its income treatment, not including the loss of work they also must deal with due to the illness. It’s estimated that malaria costs Africa 12 billion USD in lost income every year. A strong working population creates a stronger economy, which Sub-Saharan Africa is in desperate need of.  

This essay begins with an introduction, which ends with the thesis (that malaria eradication plans in Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on prevention rather than treatment). The first part of the essay lays out why the counter argument (treatment rather than prevention) is not as effective, and the second part of the essay focuses on why prevention of malaria is the better path to take.

• The thesis appears early, is stated clearly, and is supported throughout the rest of the essay. This makes the argument clear for readers to understand and follow throughout the essay.
• There’s lots of solid research in this essay, including specific programs that were conducted and how successful they were, as well as specific data mentioned throughout. This evidence helps strengthen the author’s argument.
• The author makes a case for using expanding bed net use over waiting until malaria occurs and beginning treatment, but not much of a plan is given for how the bed nets would be distributed or how to ensure they’re being used properly. By going more into detail of what she believes should be done, the author would be making a stronger argument.
• The introduction of the essay does a good job of laying out the seriousness of the problem, but the conclusion is short and abrupt. Expanding it into its own paragraph would give the author a final way to convince readers of her side of the argument.

Argumentative Essay Example 3

There are many ways payments could work. They could be in the form of a free-market approach, where athletes are able to earn whatever the market is willing to pay them, it could be a set amount of money per athlete, or student athletes could earn income from endorsements, autographs, and control of their likeness, similar to the way top Olympians earn money.

Proponents of the idea believe that, because college athletes are the ones who are training, participating in games, and bringing in audiences, they should receive some sort of compensation for their work. If there were no college athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist, college coaches wouldn’t receive there (sometimes very high) salaries, and brands like Nike couldn’t profit from college sports. In fact, the NCAA brings in roughly $1 billion in revenue a year, but college athletes don’t receive any of that money in the form of a paycheck. Additionally, people who believe college athletes should be paid state that paying college athletes will actually encourage them to remain in college longer and not turn pro as quickly, either by giving them a way to begin earning money in college or requiring them to sign a contract stating they’ll stay at the university for a certain number of years while making an agreed-upon salary.  

Supporters of this idea point to Zion Williamson, the Duke basketball superstar, who, during his freshman year, sustained a serious knee injury. Many argued that, even if he enjoyed playing for Duke, it wasn’t worth risking another injury and ending his professional career before it even began for a program that wasn’t paying him. Williamson seems to have agreed with them and declared his eligibility for the NCAA draft later that year. If he was being paid, he may have stayed at Duke longer. In fact, roughly a third of student athletes surveyed stated that receiving a salary while in college would make them “strongly consider” remaining collegiate athletes longer before turning pro.

Paying athletes could also stop the recruitment scandals that have plagued the NCAA. In 2018, the NCAA stripped the University of Louisville's men's basketball team of its 2013 national championship title because it was discovered coaches were using sex workers to entice recruits to join the team. There have been dozens of other recruitment scandals where college athletes and recruits have been bribed with anything from having their grades changed, to getting free cars, to being straight out bribed. By paying college athletes and putting their salaries out in the open, the NCAA could end the illegal and underhanded ways some schools and coaches try to entice athletes to join.

People who argue against the idea of paying college athletes believe the practice could be disastrous for college sports. By paying athletes, they argue, they’d turn college sports into a bidding war, where only the richest schools could afford top athletes, and the majority of schools would be shut out from developing a talented team (though some argue this already happens because the best players often go to the most established college sports programs, who typically pay their coaches millions of dollars per year). It could also ruin the tight camaraderie of many college teams if players become jealous that certain teammates are making more money than they are.

They also argue that paying college athletes actually means only a small fraction would make significant money. Out of the 350 Division I athletic departments, fewer than a dozen earn any money. Nearly all the money the NCAA makes comes from men’s football and basketball, so paying college athletes would make a small group of men--who likely will be signed to pro teams and begin making millions immediately out of college--rich at the expense of other players.

Those against paying college athletes also believe that the athletes are receiving enough benefits already. The top athletes already receive scholarships that are worth tens of thousands per year, they receive free food/housing/textbooks, have access to top medical care if they are injured, receive top coaching, get travel perks and free gear, and can use their time in college as a way to capture the attention of professional recruiters. No other college students receive anywhere near as much from their schools.

People on this side also point out that, while the NCAA brings in a massive amount of money each year, it is still a non-profit organization. How? Because over 95% of those profits are redistributed to its members’ institutions in the form of scholarships, grants, conferences, support for Division II and Division III teams, and educational programs. Taking away a significant part of that revenue would hurt smaller programs that rely on that money to keep running.

While both sides have good points, it’s clear that the negatives of paying college athletes far outweigh the positives. College athletes spend a significant amount of time and energy playing for their school, but they are compensated for it by the scholarships and perks they receive. Adding a salary to that would result in a college athletic system where only a small handful of athletes (those likely to become millionaires in the professional leagues) are paid by a handful of schools who enter bidding wars to recruit them, while the majority of student athletics and college athletic programs suffer or even shut down for lack of money. Continuing to offer the current level of benefits to student athletes makes it possible for as many people to benefit from and enjoy college sports as possible.

This argumentative essay follows the Rogerian model. It discusses each side, first laying out multiple reasons people believe student athletes should be paid, then discussing reasons why the athletes shouldn’t be paid. It ends by stating that college athletes shouldn’t be paid by arguing that paying them would destroy college athletics programs and cause them to have many of the issues professional sports leagues have.

• Both sides of the argument are well developed, with multiple reasons why people agree with each side. It allows readers to get a full view of the argument and its nuances.
• Certain statements on both sides are directly rebuffed in order to show where the strengths and weaknesses of each side lie and give a more complete and sophisticated look at the argument.
• Using the Rogerian model can be tricky because oftentimes you don’t explicitly state your argument until the end of the paper. Here, the thesis doesn’t appear until the first sentence of the final paragraph. That doesn’t give readers a lot of time to be convinced that your argument is the right one, compared to a paper where the thesis is stated in the beginning and then supported throughout the paper. This paper could be strengthened if the final paragraph was expanded to more fully explain why the author supports the view, or if the paper had made it clearer that paying athletes was the weaker argument throughout.

3 Tips for Writing a Good Argumentative Essay

Now that you’ve seen examples of what good argumentative essay samples look like, follow these three tips when crafting your own essay.

#1: Make Your Thesis Crystal Clear

The thesis is the key to your argumentative essay; if it isn’t clear or readers can’t find it easily, your entire essay will be weak as a result. Always make sure that your thesis statement is easy to find. The typical spot for it is the final sentence of the introduction paragraph, but if it doesn’t fit in that spot for your essay, try to at least put it as the first or last sentence of a different paragraph so it stands out more.

Also make sure that your thesis makes clear what side of the argument you’re on. After you’ve written it, it’s a great idea to show your thesis to a couple different people--classmates are great for this. Just by reading your thesis they should be able to understand what point you’ll be trying to make with the rest of your essay.

#2: Show Why the Other Side Is Weak

When writing your essay, you may be tempted to ignore the other side of the argument and just focus on your side, but don’t do this. The best argumentative essays really tear apart the other side to show why readers shouldn’t believe it. Before you begin writing your essay, research what the other side believes, and what their strongest points are. Then, in your essay, be sure to mention each of these and use evidence to explain why they’re incorrect/weak arguments. That’ll make your essay much more effective than if you only focused on your side of the argument.

#3: Use Evidence to Support Your Side

Remember, an essay can’t be an argumentative essay if it doesn’t support its argument with evidence. For every point you make, make sure you have facts to back it up. Some examples are previous studies done on the topic, surveys of large groups of people, data points, etc. There should be lots of numbers in your argumentative essay that support your side of the argument. This will make your essay much stronger compared to only relying on your own opinions to support your argument.

Summary: Argumentative Essay Sample

Argumentative essays are persuasive essays that use facts and evidence to support their side of the argument. Most argumentative essays follow either the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model. By reading good argumentative essay examples, you can learn how to develop your essay and provide enough support to make readers agree with your opinion. When writing your essay, remember to always make your thesis clear, show where the other side is weak, and back up your opinion with data and evidence.

What's Next?

Do you need to write an argumentative essay as well? Check out our guide on the best argumentative essay topics for ideas!

You'll probably also need to write research papers for school. We've got you covered with 113 potential topics for research papers.

Your college admissions essay may end up being one of the most important essays you write. Follow our step-by-step guide on writing a personal statement to have an essay that'll impress colleges.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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The School that Ruby Bridges Attended: a Milestone in Civil Rights History

This essay about Ruby Bridges highlights her significant role in the civil rights movement when she became the first African American student to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in 1960. At just six years old, Ruby’s courage, amidst intense resistance and threats, symbolized the fight against segregation and the enforcement of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Her story underscores the impact of individual bravery in challenging racial barriers and promoting equality in education.

How it works

In the complex and often turbulent narrative of American history, Ruby Bridges’ story emerges as a poignant milestone in the quest for civil rights. In 1960, at the tender age of six, she became the first African American student to attend the previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. This was not merely a local event but a profound symbol on the national stage, encapsulating both the promise of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and the fierce resistance to desegregation.

Ruby Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. When she was four, her family moved to New Orleans, driven by hopes for better opportunities. Her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, were part of a larger movement of African Americans who relocated from rural areas to cities, seeking economic improvement and civil rights. In New Orleans, the Bridges family lived in modest circumstances, and Ruby attended a segregated kindergarten.

The same year Ruby was born, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. This decision aimed to dismantle the legal framework supporting segregation, yet its implementation faced significant resistance, particularly in the South. Ruby’s story unfolded against this backdrop of legal progress and social defiance.

In early 1960, the NAACP sought to challenge the New Orleans school system’s compliance with the Brown decision by selecting African American children to enroll in all-white schools. Ruby was one of six children chosen to take the entrance exam, and her high scores qualified her for William Frantz Elementary School. Her parents were divided on the issue; her father feared for her safety, while her mother saw it as a crucial step toward a better future for Ruby and other African American children.

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges made history. Accompanied by four federal marshals due to threats and violent mobs opposing integration, Ruby walked into William Frantz Elementary. The image of this small girl in a white dress, surrounded by towering marshals, became an iconic symbol of the civil rights movement. Norman Rockwell’s painting, “The Problem We All Live With,” immortalizes this moment, capturing the tense atmosphere and the extraordinary courage of a child who unwittingly became a pioneer.

Ruby’s first day at school was chaotic. White parents pulled their children out of the school in protest, and all but one teacher, Barbara Henry from Boston, refused to teach her. For an entire year, Ruby was the only student in Henry’s class, and their close bond became a cornerstone of Ruby’s resilience and success during this tumultuous period. Despite the isolation and hostility, Ruby attended school every day, showing remarkable bravery and determination.

The experience was incredibly challenging for Ruby and her family. Her father lost his job, her grandparents were evicted from their land, and the local grocery store refused to serve them. Despite these hardships, the Bridges family remained resolute, bolstered by the support of the local African American community and various civil rights organizations.

Ruby’s presence at William Frantz Elementary forced the gradual integration of the school. Her actions, and the support she received, underscored the broader civil rights struggle and highlighted the complexities of implementing desegregation in deeply segregated societies. Ruby’s journey also emphasized the federal government’s crucial role in enforcing civil rights legislation, showcasing the necessity of federal intervention in the face of local resistance.

Ruby Bridges’ story is not just about a single event but about the long-term impact on American society. Her courage inspired other African American families to enroll their children in previously all-white schools, gradually breaking down racial barriers in education. Ruby’s experience profoundly affected her own life. She continued her education and later became a civil rights activist, working to ensure that her story and the lessons of the civil rights movement are remembered and honored.

In later years, Ruby Bridges founded the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which seeks to promote tolerance and create change through education. Her work emphasizes understanding and appreciating differences among people, continuing the legacy she began as a child. The foundation provides educational resources, promotes community engagement, and fosters dialogue about race and equality.

Ruby’s journey through William Frantz Elementary School remains a powerful reminder of the sacrifices and struggles required to achieve social justice. It illustrates how a single act of courage can ripple through society, challenging entrenched systems of discrimination and inspiring future generations to continue the fight for equality.

The legacy of Ruby Bridges and her milestone in civil rights history continues to be celebrated and remembered. Schools, books, and films have chronicled her story, ensuring that her contribution to the civil rights movement is recognized and that the importance of fighting for equality is passed on to future generations. The school she attended, William Frantz Elementary, is now a historical site, serving as a symbol of the progress made and the ongoing efforts needed to achieve true equality in education and beyond.

In conclusion, the school that Ruby Bridges attended is more than a building; it is a landmark in the journey toward civil rights in the United States. Ruby’s bravery and the federal enforcement of desegregation at William Frantz Elementary School marked a critical point in the struggle for educational equity and civil rights. Her story is a testament to the power of individual courage and the enduring fight for justice and equality.

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2024 Medical School Personal Statement Ultimate Guide (220+ Examples)

220+ medical school personal statement examples, plus a step-by-step guide to writing a unique essay and an analysis of a top-5 medical school personal statement.

Part 1: Introduction to the medical school personal statement

Part 2: a step-by-step approach to writing an amazing medical school personal statement, part 3: in-depth analysis of a top-5 medical school personal statement, part 4: unique vs. clichéd medical school personal statements: 10 key differences, appendix: medical school personal statement examples.

You probably know someone who achieved a solid GPA and MCAT score , conducted research, shadowed physicians, engaged in meaningful volunteer work, and met all the other medical school requirements , yet still got rejected by every school they applied to.

You may have even heard of someone who was rejected by over 30 medical schools or who was shut out by every program two years in a row, despite doing “all the right things.”

It’s also common to come across people who have incredibly high stats (e.g., a 3.8 GPA and a 518 MCAT score) but didn’t get into a top-10 or top-20 medical school.

With stories like these and the scary statistic that over 60% of medical school applicants do not matriculate into medical school in any given year , it’s hard not to be anxious about the admissions process and wonder how you’ll ever get into medical school .

We bet you’ve puzzled over why so many qualified applicants are rejected beyond the fact that there are too few spots. After all, you’ve noticed how some applicants receive many interview invitations and acceptances, whereas others receive few or none.

The main reason why many qualified applicants are rejected from every med school—or significantly underperform expectations based on their admissions profile—is that they do not stand out on their application essays.

While the need to stand out holds true for every piece of written material on your applications, your personal statement is the single most important essay you will have to write during your admissions process. It’s especially important to get right because it allows you to show admissions committees how your story sets you apart among other qualified candidates (i.e., your competition). Moreover, the quality of your personal statement has a significant influence on your admissions success.

Of course, this means that writing a great medical school personal statement comes with a lot of pressure.

Gain instant access to the most in-depth personal statement resources available so you can write an essay that stands out. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will soon increase for new subscribers. (Note: You can end your subscription at any time and retain access to the content through the end of the period for which you signed up.)

Medical school personal statement challenges and opportunities

As you prepare to write, you’re probably concerned about:

Choosing the “right” topic

Making sure your essay is unique and not clichéd

Your essay clearly highlighting why you want to go into medicine

Whether it’s what admissions committees are looking for

The good news is that the AMCAS personal statement prompt—“Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school”—is intentionally vague and gives you the opportunity to write about anything you want in up to 5,300 characters (including spaces). If you’re wondering how many words 5,300 characters comes out to, it roughly corresponds to 500 words or 1.5 single-spaced pages.

In other words, you have complete control over how you show admissions committees the following:

Who you are beyond your numbers and your resume (i.e., why you? )

The reasons you want to go into medicine (i.e., why medicine? )

Struggling to write your med school personal statement?

Get our  free  102-page guide to help you with every step, including additional exclusive personal statement examples .

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Thank you! Your guide is on its way. In the meantime,  please let us know how we can help you crack the the medical school admissions code . You can also learn more about our 1-on-1 medical school admissions support  here .

Medical school personal statement character limits

Remember that admissions committees want to accept people , not just a collection of GPAs, MCAT scores, and premed extracurricular activities. Your personal statement and other written materials must therefore clearly highlight the specific qualities and experiences that would make you an excellent physician.

If your essay does this, you’ll have a leg up on other applicants. On the other hand, a clichéd personal statement will bore admissions readers and consequently make them less interested in admitting you.

Put another way, your personal statement is your best opportunity to stand out—or to look like everyone else who reads tons of sample essays, tries to “play it safe” with boring anecdotes, and ends up in the rejection pile.

What this personal statement guide covers

As you begin drafting your essay, you might find yourself perusing countless medical school personal statement examples online, at your college’s premed counseling office, or from friends who applied to med school a year or two ago. But remember that the sample personal statements you find on Student Doctor Network, Reddit , premed blogs, or at your college’s pre-health advising center are the same ones that everyone else is looking at and attempting to imitate!

To help you avoid common pitfalls and write a memorable personal statement, we wrote a comprehensive guide to help you get one step closer to earning your white coat rather than having to reapply to med school .

At a high level, this guide covers the following:

A step-by-step approach to producing a standout personal statement (Part 2)

A paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of a top-5 personal statement (Part 3)

Key differences that separate unique vs. clichéd personal statements (Part 4)

Medical school personal statement examples (Appendix)

Upon reviewing this guide, you’ll have all the information you need to go from having no topic ideas to producing a personal, meaningful, and polished essay. Throughout the guide, you’ll also come across various “special sections” that address common questions and concerns we’ve received from applicants over the years.

And if you’re left with lingering questions about how to write a personal statement for medical school, just submit them in the comments section at the end of the guide so we can answer them, usually within 24 hours.

Without further ado, it’s time to begin the writing process.

When should I begin to write my med school personal statement?

The earliest we recommend you begin working on your personal statement is fall of your junior year. That way, even if you decide to go to med school straight through (i.e., without taking a gap year or two), you will have completed a bulk of the extracurriculars that you will cover on your application and will also have an essay that describes your current thoughts and feelings about medicine. But regardless of whether you apply straight through or apply post-undergrad, it’s a good idea to begin working on your personal statement during the fall or winter preceding your application cycle (e.g., start writing your essay between September 2023 and January 2024 if you intend to apply during the 2024-2025 application cycle) so that you have plenty of time to write a great essay and can take full advantage of rolling admissions by submitting your primary application early.

Before writing, the typical applicant does two things:

Pulls up their resume and attempts to identify the experience that is “most unique” or “most authentic”

Searches for essay sample after essay sample, hoping to be inspired by someone else’s writing

Eventually, students begin to read every sample essay they can get their hands on, hoping that consuming countless examples will give them the “aha moment” they need to produce their own personal statement.

Here’s the problem: Without understanding why an essay is strong, you risk producing a cliché essay based on some “template” you came across.

With this “template approach,” you’ll risk making your essay sound like someone else’s, which is a sure-fire way of producing a clunky or clichéd essay. This is precisely why we included the numerous sample medical school personal statement essays at the end of this guide.

We also don’t believe that reviewing your CV or thinking through your personal experiences to identify the “most unique” topic ideas is a valuable approach to brainstorming your personal statement. This “resume-first” approach tends to lead to writing an introduction that may not communicate your intended message, especially because it might not flow with the remainder of your experiences.

So, what should your personal statement include? Over the years, our students have found the most success by taking our “qualities-first” approach—thinking through the impression they want to leave on adcoms and then selecting the experiences that best highlight those qualities.

The myth of the "perfect topic"

Every topic can lead to a standout or average personal statement, depending on how compellingly you write it. In other words, there's no such thing as a "good" or "bad" essay topic, only strong or weak execution. Many students delay working on their personal statement until they discover the “perfect topic,” but no such topic exists. We’ve read incredible essays and weak essays on pretty much every topic. What mattered was how the writer linked the topic with their personal path to medicine. We should reinforce a point mentioned in passing in the previous paragraph: pretty much every medical school personal statement topic has been used at this point. You can stand out by sharing your personal stories, unique insights, and eye-opening experiences, not by writing about a brand-new topic, as so few exist.

How to write a great personal statement introduction (Goal: Engage the reader)

Before you begin to write, we recommend that you:

Develop a list of qualities you want to demonstrate; and

Think of events or situations that highlight these qualities.

Then , you should write about one of these events or situations in a way that demonstrates these qualities and captures the reader’s attention.

Does my personal statement need to have a "hook"?

The short answer: Yes. But as with most things related to medical school admissions, the answer is more complicated. A "hook" is a sentence or story, typically presented in the opening paragraph, intended to grab the reader's attention. Because adcoms read tons of applications each year, it's important that they're engaged from the start. Otherwise, it's very likely that they will discount the remainder of your personal statement and your odds of getting into their school will drop precipitously. Unfortunately, many medical school applicants go overboard and force a dramatic story in hopes of presenting a hook—a trauma they observed in the ER, an emotional moment with a patient, and so on. The story might be marginally associated with the rest of their essay but will largely be viewed as a cheap way to capture attention. To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with discussing a difficult medical counter, personal difficulty, or any other particular type of story. However, your selection must be associated with the qualities you want to demonstrate across your entire essay and serve as its foundation. In addition, your hook need not be your opening sentence. It could be the entire first paragraph, a cliffhanger at the end of your opening paragraph, or even a second paragraph that was set up by the first. The goal is simply to ensure that you're engaging your reader early and setting the tone for the remainder of your essay.

Step 1: List your greatest qualities.

To answer the personal statement prompt more easily, focus again on the question of what you want admissions committees to know about you beyond your numbers and achievements.

We’re not talking about your hobbies (e.g., “I followed Taylor Swift to every concert she performed in the U.S. during this past year”), although you could certainly point to aspects of your lifestyle in your essay to make your point.

Instead, we’re talking about which of your qualities –character, personality traits, attitudes–you want to demonstrate. Examples include:

Extraordinary compassion

Willingness to learn

Great listening skills

Knowledge-seeking

Persistence

And so on. If you have difficulty thinking of your great qualities (many students do), ask family members or close friends what you’re good at and why they like you. It might be awkward, but this exercise really helps because others tend to view us very differently from how we view ourselves.

Finally, choose the two or three qualities that you want to focus on in your personal statement. Let’s use compassion and knowledge-seeking as the foundational qualities of an original example for this guide.

We cannot overstate how important it is to think of the qualities you want to demonstrate in your personal statement before choosing a situation or event to write about. Students who decide on an event or situation first usually struggle to fit in their qualities within the confines of their story. This is one of the biggest medical school personal statement mistakes we see students make.

On the other hand, students who choose the qualities they want to convey first are easily able to demonstrate them because the event or situation they settle on naturally highlights these qualities.

I listed several qualities I can demonstrate, but I'm not sure which to choose. Can you say more?

Your personal statement represents just one part of your much larger application. You'll have opportunities to demonstrate several of your great qualities through your AMCAS Work and Activities section, your secondary essays, and even your interviews. Therefore, any two or three qualities you want to convey through your personal statement will work; don't stress about figuring out the "perfect" ones, as no such thing exists. And when in doubt, ask family members and friends.

Step 2: When or where have you demonstrated these qualities?

Now that we’re off our soapbox and you’ve chosen qualities to highlight, it’s time to list any event(s) or setting(s) where you’ve demonstrated them.

We should explicitly mention that this event or setting doesn't need to come from a clinical experience (e.g., shadowing a physician , interacting with a young adult patient at a cancer center, working with children in an international clinic) or a research experience (e.g., making a major finding in cancer research during your gap year ), although it’s okay if it involves an extracurricular activity directly related to medicine.

In fact, since most students start their essays by describing clinical or research experiences, starting off with something else–travel (e.g., a camping trip in Yellowstone), volunteering (e.g., building homes in New Orleans), family (e.g., spending time with and learning from your elderly and ill grandmother back home in New Hampshire), work (e.g., helping out at your parents’ donut shop)–can help you immediately stand out.

Let’s start with the example of building homes in New Orleans. Why? Because we could easily demonstrate compassion and knowledge-seeking through this experience. Notice how the qualities we select can choose the story for us?

Step 3: Describe your event as a story.

Here’s where the art of writing a great personal statement really comes in.

Admissions officers read thousands of essays, most of which are very clichéd or dry. Therefore, it’s critical that you stand out by engaging the reader from the very beginning. The best way by far to capture admissions officers’ attention early is by developing a story about the event or situation you chose in Step 2 at the start of your essay.

Keep in mind, however, that the same event can be written about in a boring or engaging way. Therefore, the story or topic you choose is less important than how you pull it off.

Let’s look at an actual example of how the same event can be described in a routine vs. compelling manner:

One of my most eye-opening experiences came when I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans during the summer months of 2014. Up to that point, I had only heard about the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina nine years earlier. Although pictures and stories of the aftermath compelled me to volunteer, it was not until I observed the emotional pounding the people of New Orleans had experienced that I developed a greater sense of compassion for their plight.

Compelling:

New Orleans was hot and humid during the summer months of 2014–no surprise there. However, for a native Oregonian like me, waking up to 90-degree and 85%-humidity days initially seemed like too much to bear. That was until I reflected on the fact that my temporary discomfort was minute in contrast to the destruction of communities and emotional pounding experienced by the people of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina nine years earlier. Although pictures and stories of the aftermath compelled me to understand its effects on the community and volunteer, actually building homes and interacting with the locals, like nine-year-old Jermaine, who cried as I held his hand while we unveiled his rebuilt home, taught me that caring for people was as much about lifting spirits as making physical improvements.

Many people may feel the routine example is pretty good. Upon closer look, however, it seems that:

The focus is as much on New Orleanians as the applicant

The story is not particularly relatable (unless the reader had also volunteered there)

There isn’t much support for the writer actually being touched by the people there

On the other hand, the compelling example:

Keeps the spotlight on the applicant throughout (e.g., references being from Oregon, discusses her reflections, interacting with Jermaine)

Has a relatable plot (e.g., temporary discomfort, changing perspectives)

Is authentic (e.g., provides an example of how she lifted spirits)

Does my essay need to have an “aha moment,” that is, the moment when I decided to become a doctor? I’ve noticed that so many medical school personal statement examples include one.

Your essay does not need to include an “aha moment.” In fact, many of the best med school personal statements we’ve read do not include such a moment. Students who believe they need to mention an “aha moment” in their personal statement are typically falling into the trap of writing what they believe the reader wants. But frankly, the reader simply wants to learn about your personal and professional path to medicine. We’ve polled many students over the years about whether they had an experience that immediately switched them on to medicine. Our findings indicate that only 10 percent of students have experienced a moment where they knew they wanted to become a doctor and never looked back. The other 90 percent either knew they wanted to become a physician since childhood, had a growing interest in medicine over years, or came to the realization during or after college.

Step 4: Demonstrate your qualities.

(Note: This section applies to all aspects of your essay.)

“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most common pieces of advice given for writing personal statements, but further guidance or examples are rarely provided to demonstrate what it looks like when done well.

This is unfortunate because the best way to understand how standout personal statements demonstrate qualities through an engaging story is by reading two examples of the same situation: one that “tells” about a quality, and another that “shows” a quality.

Let’s revisit the last sentence of each story example we provided in the previous section to better understand this distinction.

Telling (from the routine story):

…it was not until I observed the emotional pounding the people of New Orleans had experienced that I developed a greater sense of compassion for their plight.

Showing (from the compelling story):

…actually building homes and interacting with the locals, like 9 year-old Jermaine, who cried as I held his hand while we unveiled his rebuilt home, taught me that caring for people…

Notice how the second example demonstrates compassion without ever mentioning the word “compassion” (hence no bolded words)? Moreover, the same sentence demonstrates knowledge-seeking:

Although pictures and stories of the aftermath compelled me to understand its effects on the community and volunteer, actually building homes and interacting with the locals ...

That’s what you’re going for.

Think about it. Whom do you consider to be more kind:

A person who says, “I’m really nice!”; or

A person who you've observed doing nice things for others?

Clearly, the second person will be viewed as more kind, even if there's no real-world difference between their levels of kindness. Therefore, by demonstrating your qualities, you will come across as more impressive and authentic to admissions committees.

Is it ever okay to tell in a medical school personal statement?

Telling, rather than showing, is okay in your first couple of drafts so that you get something on paper. The purpose of engaging in a robust revision process is to help you chisel out the main ideas you wish to convey and communicate them in the most effective way possible. Furthermore, telling is sometimes the most efficient way to convey certain information. For example, background information about people or situations in your essay can be told as this will move the narrative along and save valuable characters. However, if your final draft is full of instances of telling instead of showing, you likely haven’t thought through your experiences enough. Showing demonstrates a robust thought process that the writer has gone through and signals to adcoms this is an intelligent and thoughtful applicant who can bring a substantial amount of value to their institution, not to mention the profession of medicine itself. Further, showing generally makes for a more engaging and memorable reading experience. Sensory details and personal anecdotes will be more memorable for adcoms than general statements.

Over 90% of our students get into med school—the first time.

Get our  free  102-page guide to help you with every step of the admissions process, from writing great essays and choosing the right schools to acing interviews.

How to write strong personal statement body paragraphs (Goal: Describe your path to medicine)

After writing your opening paragraph to engage the reader, it’s time to write the meat and potatoes of your personal statement. Specifically, it’s time to discuss experiences that helped you grow and led to you to pursue medicine.

What should be avoided in a medical school personal statement?

Put differently, "What should you not talk about in your personal statement?" There are no specific topics that you should definitely avoid in your essay. Unfortunately, you will hear many people tell you not to bring up certain things—a parent who is a physician, a physical health or mental health condition, sports participation, volunteering abroad, etc. However, all of these anecdotes or topics can be the foundation for strong personal statements as well as weak ones; what matters is your writing approach.

Step 5: Discuss your most formative experiences that led you to medicine.

Return to your list from Step 2 (When or where have you demonstrated these qualities?)   and choose one to three more experiences/areas (e.g., research, clinical work) that led you to medicine.

Why choose no more than four experiences total?

Because you should be aiming for depth over breadth (remember, you’re working with a 5,300-character limit for both AMCAS (MD application) and AACOMAS (DO application). Rather than discuss everything you’ve done, apply the following five-step formula to expand on key experiences in the body paragraphs of your personal statement:

Discuss why you pursued the experience

Mention how you felt during the experience

Describe what you accomplished and learned

Discuss how your experience affected you and the world around you

Describe how the experience influenced your decision to pursue medicine

Does the guidance in this resource apply to DO personal statements as well?

Yes, for the most part. We cover similarities and differences between AMCAS and AACOMAS personal statements in detail in our MD vs. DO guide . The general themes and writing styles of your personal statement can be similar if you’re applying to both types of schools. Also, since 2019, AACOMAS increased the length of personal statements they will accept to match AMCAS at 5,300 characters. The biggest difference between the two will be how you target the underlying philosophies of the practice of medicine in your essay. You know that osteopathic medicine uses a more holistic approach, so you’ll have to rethink your essay to better appeal to adcoms at a DO school.

Below are two examples–one routine and one compelling–to demonstrate how to achieve this:

Shadowing the neurosurgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital and witnessing their unwavering dedication to their patients and patients’ families helped me realize that I wanted to make a similar impact on people's lives.

This sentence doesn't answer the “Why medicine?” question (for example, you could greatly impact people's lives through law or teaching), nor does it demonstrate your qualities (although it makes the neurosurgeons look really good).

I was initially frustrated while shadowing neurosurgeons and caring for patients (e.g., conversing with them during downtime and providing anything in my power to make them comfortable, such as extra pillows, water, or snacks) at Massachusetts General Hospital because many patients recovered very slowly–and sometimes not at all. I wondered whether these experiences would deter me from pursuing medicine. Therefore, I was surprised when the opposite occurred. The physicians’ unwavering dedication to their patients and families' expressed gratitude–even in their saddest days–provided more than enough confirmation that medicine was the path I should pursue to make a similar physical and emotional impact on people's lives.

By going deeper about an experience, this example allowed the student to convey:

How they felt (“I was initially frustrated while shadowing…”)

How they were affected (“…the opposite [of determent] occurred”)

How they were influenced to pursue medicine specifically

Collectively, the student demonstrated their compassion, personal growth, and desire to pursue medicine.

(Note: Discuss your formative experiences in the body paragraphs in chronological order, as long as it doesn’t disrupt your essay’s flow. For example, if you choose to write about one experience in 2014 and another in 2013, write about your 2013 experience first, even if you wrote about the 2014 experience in your introductory paragraph. Having a clear timeline makes it easier for the reader to follow along.) 

How many experiences should I cover in my personal statement?

If you’re like most students, you should cover somewhere between three and four personal or professional experiences in your personal statement. Beyond four, and you risk covering too much and not achieving sufficient depth; your essay might read like a narrative. Fewer than three, and your experience descriptions might get too wordy. That said, every essay is different, so you might be able to write a fantastic personal statement with fewer than three experiences or more than four. In fact, one of the best personal statements we’ve ever helped a student produce focused on a single 24-hour time period that spanned two separate experiences.

How to write a memorable medical school personal statement conclusion (Goal: Tie it all together)

It’s (almost) time to end your personal statement and move on!

The concluding paragraph should highlight three things:

Your positive qualities (you can mention them explicitly here rather than “show” them)

Perspectives gained from your formative experiences

Your passion for medicine

Additionally, the best essays somehow refer to their introductory paragraph’s story to “close the loop.”

Step 6: Reemphasize your qualities, perspectives, and passions.

Focusing on experiences in your introduction and body paragraphs that convey your greatest qualities helps you develop a consistent theme throughout your essay. It also makes closing your essay much easier.

To demonstrate this, we’ll show you how New Orleans volunteering and neurosurgery shadowing can be tied together to reemphasize compassion and knowledge-seeking, highlight perspectives gained, and communicate a strong desire to pursue medicine.

The consistent theme throughout my extracurricular work is that, whereas I initially pursue experiences–clinical, volunteer, or otherwise–to learn, what sticks with me even more than newfound knowledge is the compassion I develop for the people I serve. Furthermore, I have realized that there is a multitude of ways to serve, such as treating people’s physical ailments, offering empathy for anxious family members, or leaving my comfort zone to help a struggling community. These perspectives, coupled with my lifelong fascination with the human body’s complexities, leave no doubt that medicine is the path through which I want to use my abilities to make a positive holistic impact on people’s lives. I hope 9-year-old Jermaine knows that I was equally touched by his gratitude for a rebuilt home, and how his reaction was partly responsible for me devoting my career to help others feel the way he did on that hot and muggy summer day.

Let’s see whether this concluding paragraph checks all three boxes:

Positive qualities (“knowledge-seeking” and “compassion,”): check

Perspectives gained from formative experiences (“…realized that there is a multitude of ways to serve”): check

Passion for medicine (“medicine is the path through which I want to use my abilities to make a positive holistic impact on people’s lives”): check

This paragraph also gets bonus points for looping Jermaine in one final time.

Essay conquered.

Does the guidance in this resource apply to TMDSAS personal statements as well?

Yes, though the TMDSAS personal statement offers a 5000-character limit vs. 5300 characters for AMCAS and AACOMAS. You can learn more about the Texas medical school application by reading our TMDSAS guide , which includes examples of a successful personal statement, personal characteristics essay, and optional essay.

Final thoughts

Your medical school personal statement offers a unique opportunity to share your story and describe your path to medicine–however you want to.

Rather than dive right in and list the extracurricular experiences that you think will most impress admissions committees, consider what impression you want to leave them with. In other words, which of your qualities do you want to be remembered for?

Once you've identified your defining qualities, the task of communicating why you  are specifically fit for medicine  becomes much easier. Through engaging stories, you can leave no doubt in readers' minds that you're not only qualified for this field, but also the right person for the job.

If you've ever read an article or forum post offering “tips” on how to write a great medical school personal statement, you've probably been given clichéd advice with very little supporting information, like:

“Be yourself”

“Offer a unique angle”

“Show, don’t tell”

“Get personal”

“Don’t use clichés”

“Be interesting”

“Check for grammar and spelling errors”

And so on. Here’s what usually happens when you read tips like these: You understand the information, but you’re still stuck in the same place you were before reading the article. You continue to stare at the blank document on your computer, hoping you’ll have an “aha moment.”

Unfortunately, “aha moments” rarely, if ever, come. Much more typically, students procrastinate and/or end up writing about extracurricular and personal experiences that they think admissions committees (adcoms) will be impressed by.

The problem is that if you don’t get your personal statement right, you can compromise your entire application.

If you’re a high-achieving applicant with a strong GPA , MCAT score , and rich extracurricular activities , you may get into less desirable schools than you’d hoped. If you’re an applicant on the borderline, you may not get in at all.

On the other hand, writing a powerful medical school personal statement provides adcoms insights into who you are as a person and as a budding physician. More importantly, it helps maximize your odds of admission in an increasingly competitive process.

We want you to be part of this latter group so that you can get into the best schools possible. Therefore, we figured it would be valuable to share a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of a medical school personal statement that helped one of our students get into their dream school, which also happens to be ranked in the top 5 of the U.S. News & World Report Best Medical Schools rankings.

Throughout the analysis, we apply our internal essay evaluation framework, QPUD , which stands for the following:

You can apply the QPUD framework to analyze your own writing. You’ll soon learn that the best personal statements aren’t produced by accident, but rather through multiple thoughtful iterations.

Struggling to write your med school application essays?

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Full-length medical school personal statement with analysis

Before we get into the weeds with our analysis, we encourage you to read the personal statement example in its entirety. As you go through it, you should keep the following questions in mind:

Does the applicant demonstrate qualities that are desirable in a physician? If so, which ones?

Is the personal statement mostly about the applicant, or other people?

Could anyone else have written this personal statement, or is it unique to the applicant?

Does the personal statement cover too much, or is there real depth ?

Here’s the personal statement sample:

Sure, it was a little more crowded, cluttered, and low-tech, but Mr. Jackson’s biology classroom at David Starr Jordan High School in South Los Angeles seemed a lot like the one in which I first learned about intermolecular forces and equilibrium constants. Subconsciously, I just assumed teaching the 11th graders about the workings of the cardiovascular system would go smoothly. Therefore, I was shocked when in my four-student group, I could only get Nate’s attention; Cameron kept texting, Mercedes wouldn’t end her FaceTime call, and Juanita was repeatedly distracted by her friends. After unsuccessfully pleading for the group’s attention a few times, I realized the students weren’t wholly responsible for the disconnect. Perhaps the problem was one of engagement rather than a lack of interest since their focus waned when I started using terminology—like vena cava—that was probably gibberish to them. So, I drew a basic square diagram broken into quarters for the heart and a smiley face for the body’s cells that needed oxygen and nutrients. I left out structure names to focus on how four distinct chambers kept the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood separate, prompting my students with questions like, “What happens after the smiley face takes the oxygen?” This approach enabled my students to draw conclusions themselves. We spent much of class time going through the figure-8 loop, but their leaning over the table to see the diagram more clearly and blurting out answers demonstrated their engagement and fundamental understanding of the heart as a machine. My elation was obvious when they remembered it the following week.

Ever since my middle school robotics days when a surgeon invited us to LAC+USC Medical Center to unwrap Tootsie rolls with the da Vinci surgical system, I’ve felt that a physician’s role goes beyond serving patients and families. I feel an additional responsibility to serve as a role model to younger students—especially teenagers—who may be intrigued by STEM fields and medicine. Furthermore, my experience in Mr. Jackson’s classroom demonstrated the substantial benefits of assessing specific individuals’ needs even when it requires diverging slightly from the structured plan. Being flexible to discover how to best engage my students, in some ways, parallels the problem-solving aspect I love about medicine.

Clinical experiences go even further by beautifully merging this curiosity-satisfying side of medicine with what I feel is most fulfilling: the human side of care provision. My experience with a tiny three-year-old boy and his mother in genetics clinic confirmed the importance of the latter. Not only was I excited to meet him because he presented with a rare condition, but also because he and his chromosomal deletion had been the focus of my recent clinical case report, published in Genetics in Medicine. While researching his dysmorphic features and disabilities, other patients with similar deletions, and the possible genes contributing to his symptoms, I stayed up until 4 AM for several weeks, too engrossed to sleep. What was more exciting than learning about the underlying science, however, was learning about the opportunity to meet the boy and his mother in person and share my findings with them.

As soon as I walked into the examination room, I noticed the mother avoiding eye contact with the genetic counselor while clutching her son to her chest. I sensed her anxiety and disinterest in hearing about my research conclusions. The impact of her son’s condition on their daily lives probably transcended the scientific details in my report. So despite my desire to get into the science, I restrained myself from overwhelming her. Instead, I asked her to share details about the wonderful interventions she had procured for her son—speech and physical therapy, sign language lessons, special feeds, etc. Through our conversations, I realized that she was really looking for reassurance—for doing a great job caring for her son. I validated her efforts and offered relief that there were other families navigating similar difficulties. As the appointment progressed, I observed her gradually relaxing. Rather than feel weighed down by the research findings I was eager to get off my chest, I felt light as well.

At the end of the appointment, the mom offered to let me hold her son, who gazed back at me with his bright blue eyes. While cradling the little boy humanized the medical details, the mother’s gesture displayed profound trust. Above all, this experience allowed me to recognize that interactions between a patient plus family and their doctor are more than intermediary vehicles to treatment; they are critical and beneficial in their own right. Learning this affirmed my longstanding desire and eagerness to become a physician. While research is essential and will surely always trigger my curiosity, I want my work to transcend the lab bench. Specifically, I want to continue engaging with patients and helping them through life’s difficult moments—with physical treatment and genuine support. And since working with each patient constitutes an entirely different experience, I know my medical career will never cease to be fulfilling.

(Word count: 835; Character count: 5,223)

What if some of the experiences I choose to write about in my essay aren't directly related to medicine?

No worries. Medical school admissions committees look to admit individuals with qualities befitting good doctors. These qualities can be demonstrated through experiences directly related to medicine, as well as through experiences that seemingly have little to do with medicine but cast a very positive light on you. That said, your personal statement should include at least one experience directly related to medicine. In your essay, you'll want to briefly describe how your interest in medicine developed, followed by how you consistently pursued that interest.

Now, let’s analyze the entire personal statement paragraph by paragraph and answer the questions posed above.

Paragraph 1

The applicant does a great job of engaging the reader. While reading the paragraph, it’s easy to get transported to the classroom setting they describe due to the level of detail provided. (e.g., “crowded, cluttered, and low-tech,” “Cameron kept texting, Mercedes wouldn’t end her FaceTime call…,” “leaning over the table”) The applicant also highlights their service work in the community, and hints that the school may be in an underserved part of town.

The applicant contrasts the chaotic, distracted classroom with the attention and enthusiasm students exhibit after their educational intervention. This “transformation” reflects positively on the applicant because it demonstrates that they can get creative in addressing a difficult situation.

At this point, we don’t yet know about the applicant’s passion for medicine, but we learn about their interest in biology, teaching, serving, and working directly with people. All of these activities can be pursued through medicine, so the transition to medicine later in their personal statement can be seamless.

Q: Does the applicant demonstrate qualities that are desirable in a physician? If so, which ones?

Patient, assumes responsibility, flexible (e.g., “I realized the students weren’t wholly responsible for the disconnect. Perhaps the problem was one of engagement rather than a lack of interest since their focus waned when I started using terminology—like vena cava—that was probably gibberish to them. So, I drew a basic square diagram…”)

Commitment to helping students/people learn and understand (e.g., “prompting my students with questions…,” “My elation was obvious when they remembered it the following week.”)

P: Is the paragraph mostly about the applicant, or other people?

While the applicant discusses others in the introduction (e.g., the 11th graders, Nate, Juanita), there’s no question that they are the primary and most interesting character in the paragraph.

U: Could anyone else have written this paragraph, or is it unique to the applicant?

Although all competitive applicants participate in service work—many within schools—the writer makes this paragraph their own by doing the following:

Including highly specific details about the setting, environment, and students

Describing their thoughts, insights, and emotions whenever possible

D: Does the paragraph cover too much, or is there real depth?

This paragraph is a model of depth. The applicant describes how they taught a single biology lesson during a single class period at a single school. It doesn’t get much more focused than that.

Does my personal statement's introduction paragraph story have to be about an experience during college or beyond?

Not necessarily. That said, if you write your introduction about an earlier-than-college experience, you'll want to quickly transition to your college and post-college years. While medical schools want to learn about your most formative experiences, they really want to know about who you are today.

Paragraph 2

The applicant effectively uses the second paragraph to provide context, about their early interest in medicine and in mentoring youth. It becomes clear, therefore, why the applicant started off their essay writing about a teaching experience in an 11th-grade classroom.

In addition, the applicant quickly transitions from a non-medical service experience to introduce reasons behind their interest in medicine. For example, the applicant describes how they intend to serve patients and families through the field, as well as scratch their own problem-solving itch to help people.

Another important piece to highlight is how the applicant uses showing vs. telling differently across the first two paragraphs. Whereas the introductory paragraph primarily shows qualities (e.g., “So, I drew a basic square diagram…”), the second paragraph primarily tells (e.g., “Being flexible to discover how to best engage my students…”).

Because the applicant proved their flexibility in the introduction (i.e., by showing it), they can claim to be flexible here (i.e., by telling it). On the other hand, if the applicant called themselves flexible from the outset without providing evidence, they may have come across as arrogant or unobservant.

Beyond describing their early interest in medicine (i.e., “Ever since my middle school robotics days when a surgeon invited us to LAC+USC Medical Center…” there is little demonstration of qualities here. Nevertheless, the goals for this paragraph—transition to medicine, describe at a high level what draws them to medicine, set up later stories about problem solving—are clearly achieved.

The second paragraph highlights hypothetical individuals (e.g., patients and families, specific individuals) to describe the applicant’s medical interests.

Between the early experience observing the da Vinci surgical system and continuing the discussion of Mr. Jackson’s classroom, it would be very difficult for another applicant to convincingly replicate this paragraph.

The applicant certainly covers more experiences here than in the intro, but they do so to bridge the service discussion with the upcoming discussion of medical experiences. Notice also how this paragraph is intentionally kept short. The goal isn’t to get too deep into their middle school experiences, or to do more telling than necessary. Make the transition and move on so you can achieve more depth later.

Does my med school personal statement need to discuss a challenge I experienced?

It’s a common misconception to think that you have to highlight some major adversity to sound impressive. It’s true that some students have experienced greater challenges than others and their process of overcoming those challenges has led them to develop qualities befitting a great doctor. But what matters is your ability to discuss your commitment to becoming a physician and the insights you developed about your place in the medical field via personal and extracurricular experiences.

Paragraph 3

The third paragraph immediately builds off of the preceding one by letting the reader know that even more fulfilling than satisfying their own curiosity (and problem solving) is providing care to real people. This is a very important disclosure because the reader may be wondering what the applicant’s primary motivation is. As a medical school applicant, you must convey a “people first” attitude.

The applicant then dives right into what sounds like a fascinating research experience that not only results in a publication (to be discussed further in their AMCAS Work and Activities section ), but also leads to actually meeting the patient with the rare genetic condition. The applicant’s approach clearly integrates their passion for research and clinical work.

The paragraph also ends with a strong “hook.” The admissions reader is left wondering how the meeting with the boy and his mother went, so they will continue to read attentively.

Curious and hard-working (e.g., “While researching his dysmorphic features and disabilities, other patients with similar deletions, and the possible genes contributing to his symptoms, I stayed up until 4 AM for several weeks, too engrossed to sleep”)

Accomplished (e.g., “my recent clinical case report, published in Genetics in Medicine .”)

Once again, the applicant does a masterful job of incorporating storytelling and other characters (i.e., the boy and his mother) to convey the qualities that will make them a great doctor. In other words, this paragraph isn’t really about the boy and his mother, but rather how the applicant prepped for their meeting with them.

Between the upcoming meeting with the three-year-old boy and his mother, researching the boy’s genetic condition, and getting published in a specific journal, it’s basically impossible to replicate this paragraph.

The applicant maintains focus on how their interest in service and research can be applied to help real people. They take it one step further by highlighting a specific time when they did just that. There is no additional fluff, tangential information, or competing storylines.

How do you write a hook for a medical school personal statement?

Tomes could be written discussing this very topic. The best way to hook a reader in your personal statement is to open with something interesting and engaging. A good hook will leave an emotional impression on them, thereby implanting your narrative in their memory. Of course, this is easier said than done. Writing a good hook is tricky because you want to strike the right balance between intriguing and naturally engaging. You can leave an emotional impression without being overly dramatic. Too much drama and your hook risks sounding forced which will diminish your essay’s effectiveness. You may end up “standing out” but for the wrong reasons. To write a hook for a medical school personal statement, you’ll want to think backwards. You can do this in multiple ways. First, think about the overall arc of your story. What point are you trying to convey about your experience and journey to medicine? Visualize the story in your mind and consider different points of entry to your personal statement for the reader. Write a few different opening sentences, then roughly outline what path each version of the essay would take by jotting down the main ideas for each subsequent paragraph. Personal anecdotes (true stories from your own life that demonstrate a concept or illustrate a point you want to make) can be a great point of entry. They make an essay feel unique and authentic without venturing into the overdramatic or cliche. Don’t worry about the sentences being expertly crafted at this point; you can refine them later. Then, change your perspective. Read your sentences from the reader’s point of view. Would the reader think your journey to medicine is as captivating as you do? What grabs you, if anything, about your potential hooks? Take notes about what you think and draw connections. Aim for something compelling that you can expand on later in your essay. Keep in mind that this is an iterative process. The idea is to draw your reader in to learn more about your interest in medicine, not to shock them and hope they see you as interesting enough to be admitted. Overly dramatic openers are like a sugar high for your personal statement—a quick boost of interest that quickly dissipates. We cover this in more detail with examples below in part four.

Paragraph 4

As soon as I walked into the examination room, I noticed the mother avoiding eye contact with the genetic counselor while clutching her son to her chest. I sensed her anxiety and disinterest in hearing about my research conclusions. The impact of her son’s condition on their daily lives probably transcended the scientific details in my report. So, despite my desire to get into the science, I restrained myself from overwhelming her. Instead, I asked her to share details about the wonderful interventions she had procured for her son—speech and physical therapy, sign language lessons, special feeds, etc. Through our conversations, I realized that she was really looking for reassurance—for doing a great job caring for her son. I validated her efforts and offered relief that there were other families navigating similar difficulties. As the appointment progressed, I observed her gradually relaxing. Rather than feel weighed down by the research findings I was eager to get off my chest, I felt light as well.

The applicant right away begins to describe their meeting with the boy and his mother. We understand that while the applicant was ready to share their research with the family, the mother appears anxious and is more interested in understanding how she can help her son.

It should also be noted that the applicant does not judge the mother in any way and offers supporting evidence for their conclusions about what the mother must’ve been thinking and feeling. For example, rather than just call the mother “anxious,” the applicant first describes how she avoided eye contact and clutched her son tightly.

The applicant once again demonstrates their flexibility by showing how they modified their talking points to fit the family’s needs rather than satisfy their own curiosity and self-interest. Moreover, they highlight not only the approach they took with this family, but also the impact on their care. For example, after discussing how they validated the mother’s care efforts, the applicant mentions how the mother relaxed.

Socially aware (e.g., “I noticed the mother avoiding eye contact with the genetic counselor while clutching her son to her chest. I sensed her anxiety and disinterest in hearing about my research conclusions. The impact of her son’s condition on their daily lives probably transcended the scientific details in my report.”)

Flexible (e.g., “So despite my desire to get into the science, I restrained myself from overwhelming her. Instead, I asked her to share details about the wonderful interventions she had procured for her son—speech and physical therapy, sign language lessons, special feeds, etc.”)

Socially skilled and validating (e.g., “Through our conversations, I realized that she was really looking for reassurance—for doing a great job caring for her son. I validated her efforts and offered relief that there were other families navigating similar difficulties.”)

At first glance, it may appear that this paragraph is as much about the mother as it is about the applicant. After all, the mother procured various services for her son and has done a marvelous job of caring for him.

Nevertheless, the applicant is not competing in any way with the mother. By demonstrating their flexibility and social skills, the applicant reinforces great qualities they’ve demonstrated elsewhere and remains at the top of our minds.

In isolation, perhaps. However, at this point in the personal statement, along with the loads of insights, thoughts, and feelings, there’s no question that this story is unique to the applicant.

This paragraph is another model of depth. The applicant goes into highly specific details about a memorable experience with a specific family. There’s significant showing vs. telling, which continues to maintain the reader’s engagement.

Paragraph 5

How many people should i ask to review my personal statement.

Typically, we recommend that no matter than two people—people who have experience evaluating med school personal statements—review your essay. Everyone you show your essay to will have an opinion and suggest changes, but trying to appease everyone usually leads to diluting your own voice. And even if your personal statement is great, someone will eventually identify something they perceive to be an issue, which will only exacerbate your anxiety. Two people is a good number because you can receive more than one opinion but avoid the problem of having too many cooks in the kitchen.

The final paragraph accomplishes three key goals:

Concluding the story about meeting the boy and his mother;

Bringing the applicant’s insights full circle; and

Restating their interest in medicine while offering a preview of what type of physician they intend to be.

By describing how they built a trusting relationship with the patient and his mother, the applicant deliberately continues the theme of patient-centered care ultimately being more important to them—and to medicine—than underlying pathologies and interestingness of various medical scenarios.

Although the applicant does not circle back to the classroom story in the introduction, they close the loop with the personal statement’s central and most important story. In addition, they end on a high note by mentioning how enthusiastic they are about their medical career.

Trustworthy (e.g., “At the end of the appointment, the mom offered to let me hold her son, who gazed back at me with his bright blue eyes.”)

Insightful (e.g., “Above all, this experience allowed me to recognize that interactions between a patient plus family and their doctor are more than intermediary vehicles to treatment; they are critical and beneficial in their own right.”)

Patient-centered and caring (e.g., “While research is essential and will surely always trigger my curiosity, I want my work to transcend the lab bench. Specifically, I want to continue engaging with patients and helping them through life’s difficult moments—with physical treatment and genuine support.”)

This paragraph is all about the applicant. Even the detail about cradling the boy highlights their earlier efforts in building trust with the family. After this brief conclusion to the story, the applicant explores their own developing insights about the field and how they intend to practice medicine in the future.

In combination with the insights shared in this paragraph, the story and details up to this point round out the personal statement uniquely.

Conclusion paragraphs should summarize insights and information presented earlier in the personal statement. The applicant does a fine job of solidifying their longstanding interest in medicine without adding significant new details, knowing they can cover additional stories throughout their secondary applications  and during interviews .

Can you say a little more about how I can write my essay so that it's clear I want to go into medicine and not another health care field?

• A long-term commitment to medically-relevant experiences
• A clear understanding of what medicine entails that other fields don't

At various points while writing your personal statement, you may wonder whether your essay is “good enough.”

The goal of this guide isn’t to allow you to compare your personal statement to the sample we’ve provided. Rather, we want you to have a framework for evaluating your work to ensure that it conveys your outstanding qualities, engages the reader, and describes your authentic journey to medicine.

If you’re like most applicants, you’re worried about choosing a clichéd medical school personal statement topic . You fear that your application may be thrown into the rejection pile if you fail to present yourself in a unique way.

To help you avoid common pitfalls and write a memorable personal statement, we’ve highlighted eight different ways that unique personal statements differ from clichéd ones.

We’ll first describe the clichéd approach and describe why it’s problematic. Then we’ll provide specific writing techniques you can use to make your essay truly stand out.

Clichéd Approach 1: Only discussing experiences that you think make you seem the most impressive.

Most applicants begin writing their essays by choosing the experience(s) that they think will help them stand out to admissions committees. By focusing on specific experiences that applicants think will impress the admissions committee (e.g. clinical shadowing, research, and volunteering), students often forget to demonstrate their unique qualities.

Let’s see how this becomes a problem.

In your AMCAS Work and Activities section, you may have included your experience conducting chemistry research for three years, shadowing in a clinic for two years, volunteering as an English tutor for underserved youth in Chicago for six years, volunteering with a medical mission trip to Haiti for two summers, and serving as president of a premed organization for one year.

Given these choices, most students would choose to write about clinical volunteering in Chicago or their medical mission trip to Haiti because they think these experiences were most impressive. If you take one of these two approaches, you would probably start the essay by describing an interaction with a very ill patient or one with whom you experienced a language barrier.

An essay about clinical shadowing could start something like this:

Clichéd introduction

I used to eat lunch with Felipa on Wednesdays. She was always very nervous when she came in to get her blood drawn, and she liked to speak with me beforehand. Although she was suffering from breast cancer, she had a positive attitude that made the doctors and the nurses feel like one big family. Her positive attitude helped lift the spirits of other patients in the room. Throughout my lunches with Felipa, she would tell me how she still cooked dinner every day for her husband and two young kids. She brought that same compassion to the hospital, always with a contagious smile. I endeavored to give her the best care by offering her water and chatting with her on her chemo days. However, I was always bothered that I could not treat Felipa’s cancer myself. This powerlessness I felt inspired me to pursue medicine to help future patients battle this horrible illness by discovering new treatments.

While we gain some information about the applicant’s motivations to study medicine (e.g., to help future patients…by discovering new treatments ), it explores a common topic (i.e., a realization that came during clinical shadowing) with a typical delivery (i.e., written broadly about interactions with a specific patient).

The paragraph does not do a good job of painting a picture of the applicant, as we don’t learn about her standout qualities or other aspects of her identity.

Moreover, if we replace “Felipa” with another name, it becomes clear that any applicant who engaged in a similar shadowing experience could have written this paragraph. This is not to say that an essay that includes shadowing will always be clichéd. After all, the topic is only one aspect of your personal statement.

Remember, there are no good or bad topics. Rather, there are strong ways—and poor ways—to write about these topics.

Instead of asking if your topic is “good” or “bad,” you should be asking yourself whether your essay has a “typical” or “standout” delivery.

You want your personal statement to be written so engagingly that it serves as a pleasant interruption to the admissions committee member’s routine. Surprise them when they rarely expect to be surprised.

Unique Alternative 1: Demonstrating the qualities that make you distinct by choosing experiences that highlight your best characteristics.

The best personal statement writers decide which qualities they want to emphasize to admissions committees before choosing a certain experience. Then, they focus on a specific event or situation that captures the admissions committees’ attention by telling a detailed story—oftentimes a story that does not overtly involve medicine.

By deciding on your qualities beforehand, you will choose a story that authentically delivers your intended message.

Don’t be afraid to select an experience or story that strays from the typical, “impressive” premed extracurricular activity. After all, med schools want to accept applicants because of their wonderful qualities and unique attributes, not because of a specific experience or extracurricular activity.

Let’s imagine that the same applicant from the previous example chose to write about her community involvement outside of medicine.

From her list of extracurricular activities, she could choose to write about volunteering as an English tutor or being the lead saxophone player in a campus jazz ensemble. By picking one of these options, this student could write an entirely unique personal statement introduction.

Let’s see how an effective essay might begin with her volunteer work as an English tutor:

Unique introduction

I could feel the sweat rolling down my back as twenty first graders stared at me. It was July in Chicago, and the building where I volunteered as an English teacher twice a week did not have air conditioning. I had volunteered as a one-on-one tutor for the past six years, but this was my first time teaching a large group. The students, largely from working-class, Spanish-speaking households, reminded me of myself, as I grew up as the daughter of two Mexican emigrants. I personally understood the challenges the students faced, and I wanted to use my own experience and knowledge to help set them on the path to academic success.

This introduction would likely stand out to an admissions committee member not only because it discusses something other than clinical shadowing but also because it demonstrates the writer’s commitment to her community, and it reveals something about the applicant’s personal background.

Should I mention bad grades in my personal statement?

In most cases, no. With limited characters, your primary goal for your personal statement should be to tell medical school admissions committees why you will be an excellent doctor. Admissions committees will already see your grades. If you use too much space discussing your poor grades during freshman year or some other time, you'll draw even more attention to the red flags on your application and lose a golden opportunity to demonstrate your impressive qualities. One exception is if you received poor grades due to some extraordinary circumstance, such as recovering from a significant accident or illness. Even then, you might want to discuss your poor grades in another section of your application, such as a secondary essay.

Clichéd Approach 2: Listing your qualities and accomplishments like you are explaining your resume.

When many students begin writing their personal statements, they “tell” and don’t “show”.

Even though the advice to “show, don’t tell” is commonly given, students rarely know what it actually means to demonstrate or “show” their qualities rather than simply listing them.

We’ll provide an overly simple example to highlight why “telling” your qualities is such a problem:

Ever since I was a kid, I have received excellent grades and have excelled at all things related to science. My success in conducting chemistry research and my numerous presentations at biochemistry conferences is testament to my ability to succeed as a doctor. In fact, my family and friends have encouraged me to pursue this route because of my academic success.

While we learn that the applicant thinks that he is a great student who is excellent at science, and we learn that his family believes that he should pursue medicine because of his academic success, we do not actually see any evidence of these qualities. Sure, he tells us that his family thinks that he is brilliant, but we do not know why they think he is brilliant.

Unique Alternative 2: Showing, and not telling, the applicant’s qualities.

When you demonstrate your best qualities through examples, you provide a more authentic glimpse about the type of person you really are.

For instance, if you read the following sentences from two different applicants, who would you think was more caring?

Applicant 1: I am very empathic.

Applicant 2: Volunteering with elderly Japanese women has taught me how aging immigrants face cultural barriers while also navigating health problems, from diabetes to cancer.

Even though Applicant 1 says that they are empathic, you probably picked Applicant 2, even though she never uses the word “empathic” (or a synonym) in her sentence. As the reader, you were able to extrapolate how empathic that applicant is by seeing what they do.

Returning to the introductory paragraph with Felipa from example 1, we can see that the typical introduction “tells” about the applicant’s qualities, whereas the standout paragraph “shows” the applicant’s qualities. Let’s look at some examples to clarify:

I endeavored to give her the best care… (giving)

This powerlessness I felt inspired me to pursue medicine to help future patients… (inspired)

I had volunteered as one-on-one tutor for the past six years, but this was my first time teaching a large group. (dedicated, risk-taking)

I personally understood the challenges the students faced, and I wanted to use my own experience and knowledge to help set them on the path to academic success (giving, empowering, empathetic)

Is it OK to discuss a mental health condition in my med school personal statement?

You might have heard that, given the stigma surrounding many mental health conditions, that you should avoid discussing them in your personal statement, no matter what. However, as with many things related to med school essays, the answer depends on the specific condition, severity, and reason behind sharing it. Certain conditions have more stigma associated with them than others and are therefore more difficult to sensitively incorporate in your personal statement. But regardless of your specific mental health condition or its severity, it’s important to ask yourself why you would share it. For instance, if the primary reason for sharing your mental health condition is to show adcoms how much adversity you have overcome, then you should probably leave out your condition or reconsider why you would share it. However, if your reason is to describe the insights you developed about people and about medicine, or how your condition served as a springboard for you to pursue certain activities, then it might be worthwhile to share. Writing about mental health conditions in your personal statement should be approached delicately, so make sure to work with someone who has experience doing so.

Clichéd Approach 3: Stating that you want to be a physician to help people or talking about how being a doctor is such an honor.

When you ask medical school applicants why they want to be a doctor, they usually say that they want to help people. While you should include this fact in your personal statement, it can be difficult to articulate why you want to help people or how you will help them in a way that is not clichéd. 

Most applicants will probably write some version of the following in their personal statement:

I want to be a physician because I want to help people who are sick. It would be an honor to serve people in need.

The problem with these statements is that any applicant could have written them. Every doctor wants to help patients who are sick or in need.

Failing to offer a specific reason for your motivation to become a doctor or a specific way in which you plan to help your patients will make it hard for the admissions committee to see what unique approaches and insights you will bring to medicine.

Unique Alternative 3: Explaining specific ways that you intend to help patients or specific reasons why you want to help patients.

To make your statement more convincing, you could add a specific method that you will use to help patients. Consider the following example:

I want to become a physician to provide reassurance to a patient awaiting their lab results, and laughter to a patient who needs an uplift after a week of chemotherapy.

Whereas any medical school applicant could have written the statement in the clichéd example, the statement in the unique example demonstrates specific qualities about the applicant. By explaining that certain patients might need reassurance while others might want laughter, the applicant shows us that they are empathic and sensitive to the needs of individual patients.

To make your statement more authentic, you can also explain why you are drawn to a specific aspect of medicine or a certain demographic of patients. Let’s look at another example:

As a woman with PCOS, I want to improve the field of women’s health so that I can provide other young women comfort and reassurance as they come to terms with their bodies.

This applicant shows that she is passionate about women’s health by connecting her desire to enter medicine to her own health condition. This statement suggests that she will use her own experience to empathize with patients when she becomes a physician.

Should I mention my desired specialty in my med school personal statement?

Probably not. Admissions committees want to recruit students who are incredibly curious and open to different training opportunities. Highlighting a desire to enter a specific specialty might make you seem closed off. That said, it's perfectly fine to express a commitment to serving certain communities or a desire to address specific issues so long as you don't inadvertently box yourself in.

Clichéd Approach 4: Focusing too much on characters who are not you.

The previous two approaches focus on how your personal statement introduction should tell a story. And what do we need for a great story? A character!

Applicants often make another character (e.g. a family member, patient, a physician they shadowed or worked under) the most compelling and interesting character. But when you give or share the limelight with another character, you make it easy for the admissions committee to forget the most important person in the story: YOU. You should be the star of your own personal statement.

We are not saying that you should avoid including another character in your personal statement. In fact, including other characters in your statement reminds the admission committee that you have had a positive impact on other people.

However, these other characters must be used to demonstrate your qualities. These qualities can come from an insight you had while interacting or observing them.

We see how this becomes a problem in the clichéd paragraph from example 1. Felipa and the applicant are both main characters. Indeed, we don’t even read about the applicant or their insights until the seventh sentence. Who knows? Admissions committees might even offer Felipa an interview instead of you. 

Unique Alternative 4: Maintaining the focus on the main character—you!

In contrast, the unique paragraph from example 1 about the English tutor in Chicago tells us about the applicant’s passions, commitments, and initiative. Let’s revisit the example:

I personally understood the challenges the students faced, and I wanted to use my own experience and knowledge to help set them on the path to academic success.

Even though she writes about tutoring first-grade students in Chicago, their role in the story is to highlight how she is dedicated to helping her community and empowering students from backgrounds like hers. The students never get in the way of us learning about the applicant.

Now, you may be worried that focusing on you and your qualities will make you come off as arrogant or cocky to the admissions committee. By letting the stories do the talking for you, your personal statement will avoid making you appear egoistical. On the other hand, saying that you are a “good person” or “brilliant” without telling a story can make you seem arrogant.

With only 5,300 characters, you should aim to keep the emphasis almost entirely on you.

Clichéd Approach 5: Focusing too much on describing the activity itself.

Many applicants will write about clinical shadowing, volunteering, or research at some point in their personal statements. Sometimes, however, applicants are so excited by the activity that they forget to include themselves in the experience.

For instance, an applicant looking to highlight their work in a prestigious lab might write:

Working in Dr. Carpenter’s lab, an endowed professor at Harvard Medical School, was exhilarating. The main research project was an experiment that explored how rats responded to various stimulant medications. Our results demonstrated that one of the drugs we tested on the rats may have significant promise for treating Alzheimer’s disease.

While this paragraph demonstrates the student’s familiarity with and excitement about original research, it does not tell us much about the applicant’s specific characteristics or contributions. We learn about the research project in Dr. Carpenter’s lab, but we don’t know what qualities or insights the applicant has gained from conducting the research.

Unique Alternative 5: Unique statements explain how you made an impact through an activity and how the activity impacted you.

While you may think that highlighting a research experience with a famous doctor or in a prestigious lab will bolster your application, writing about it in your personal statement may actually harm you if you do not highlight your own accomplishments and traits.

Focus on activities where you had an impact, even if the activity itself does not seem impressive. Consider the following examples:

Applicant 1: While working in Dr. Smith’s lab, I managed five interns. To make the lab a more congenial environment, I started a weekly lunch hour where we could all discuss our different research projects. This opportunity gave the interns more confidence to talk about their individual lab work, which made it easier for the entire research staff to collaborate on different experiments.

Applicant 2: Working in Dr. Martin’s lab with five other interns taught me the importance of serving on a team. When one of our experiments failed, I made sure that the group met to discuss the results. I offered advice to my lab mates on how they could obtain better results on the next trial. This experience taught me the importance of learning new research methods from my peers to achieve the best results possible.

We do not know whether Applicant 1 or Applicant 2 are working in prestigious labs or with prestigious PIs. However, we do learn that Applicant 1 has shown leadership skills and initiative by working to make the lab a more collaborative space.

Similarly, even though Applicant 2 highlights her lab’s failures, we nevertheless discover that she is a team player, eager to learn from her fellow researchers, and does not let failure stop her. She sounds like someone you might want to have in your medical school study group.

I feel like I don’t have enough space to write everything I want. What should I do?

You shouldn't try to fit everything into your personal statement. In fact, if you try to cover everything within the 5,300-character limit, you'll end up covering nothing well. Remember that your complete application includes multiple written sections: your personal statement, Work and Activities section, and secondary application essays. You should aim to provide admissions committees with a holistic view of who you are across your entire application, not solely through your personal statement. Your personal statement should be used to offer a bird's eye view of who you are and your path to medicine, whereas your AMCAS Work and Activities section and secondary essays should cover the finer details.

Clichéd Approach 6: Articulating an idea without explaining how it relates to your qualities or insights.

Even when some applicants pick unusual topics, they forget to relate those experiences to why they want to be a doctor. Consider the following applicant who has a passion for running.

Applicant 1: I am passionate about running and encouraging others to run because it is good for everyone’s health. That is why I have spent years running marathons and coaching cross country in my free time.

While the applicant says that he is excited about running because it is “good for everyone’s health,” we do not exactly see what the applicant means. Most people believe that exercise is good for your health already, so this applicant would need to explain why he believes running is important, and how his passion for running relates to medicine.

Unique Alternative 6: Explaining your thought process, critical thinking, and decision-making abilities.

When you make an obvious claim (e.g., exercise is good for your health), you should explain why you personally believe this. By drawing on specific evidence and observations, you can show the admissions committee what unique and specific insights you have about a so-called obvious idea.

Applicant 2: After my sister started to run, she began to lose weight. I also noticed that her depression waned and that she regained energy, which manifested in her eagerness to socialize with family and friends. While I always knew that exercise was important, I never believed that it could entirely change a person. This experience led me to believe that exercising can serve as a form of medicine.   

Whereas Applicant 1 makes a general claim about running, Applicant 2 draws on a specific, personal example by connecting his sister’s running habit to her holistic health. He mentions her weight loss, improvements in mental health, and increase in energy. In other words, we see why the applicant believes that running provides a health benefit.  

Clichéd Approach 7: Writing an overly dramatic first sentence.

Recalling writing courses from high school and college, applicants often try to “hook” the reader’s attention by beginning with a dramatic first sentence. Because of this, applicants sometimes begin their essays with a dramatic moment that fails to offer insight into the applicant’s motivations for studying medicine.

Let’s look at the following first sentence by an applicant who worked in the ER.

It felt as if the world was going to end on that faithful day in the ER when I first witnessed someone die.

This introduction is typical of students writing about clinical shadowing. Rather than showing how he is unique, this statement simply demonstrates that the applicant has had a challenging experience during clinical shadowing.

Unique Alternative 7: Introducing your personal statement with a unique observation or idea that you will further develop in subsequent paragraphs.

Instead of dramatizing or hyperbolizing an experience, you can make your introduction truly unique by making a claim about an idea, insight, or observation that tells the admissions committee why you are excited by medicine. Let’s see how the applicant who wrote about running in example 6 might begin their statement in this way:

For my sister and me, running is a form of medicine.

Even though this example is not as dramatic as the previous one, it catches the reader’s attention by making a unique claim that the reader will want to know more about. The reader will see that the applicant is thinking critically and creatively about what medicine means to him.

Clichéd Approach 8: Writing about various experiences without showing how they are connected.

Even when applicants have thoughtfully selected a few experiences that demonstrate their personal qualities, they sometimes fail to create a “bigger picture” in their personal statement and, consequently, in their entire medical school application. In other words, the experiences described in their essay do not connect or cohere around a central theme.

A personal statement without a theme will come across as unfocused and, most likely, unmemorable. Even if each section of your essay is well-written, if they don’t together add up to highlight something larger, admissions officers will be left without a clear takeaway of who you are and what your goals and motivations are for entering medicine.  

Unique Alternative 8: Connecting the experiences in your essay through a common theme.

A theme will serve as the connective tissue that holds everything in your personal statement together. What’s more, it provides a lens through which adcoms will remember you.  

For example, if your personal statement discusses playing jazz saxophone, volunteering with children at a community garden, and scribing in an emergency room, you might begin by writing about how studying jazz taught you the value of improvisation, a quality you then brought to the fore while volunteering with children and working as an ER scribe. With a central theme of improvisation, your essay will provide a clear takeaway of you as flexible, adaptable, and creative (i.e., the qualities you decided to highlight).

Alternatively, some applicants choose more concrete themes that focus their essays around a central interest. For instance, perhaps your personal statement describes growing up in a rural community without access to adequate primary care, which led you to eventually volunteer with a mobile clinic for agricultural workers and intern in the public health department of your state. You’ll likely be remembered as “the applicant who’s passionate about improving rural health.”   

Just as your personal statement is the foundation of your medical school application, your theme is the foundation of your personal statement. Therefore, it’s important that your personal statement’s theme is reflected throughout your medical school application, including in your Work and Activities section and secondary essays.

Clichéd Approach 9: Moving abruptly from one section of your personal statement to the next.

A theme isn’t the only tool that’s important for connecting the different components of your personal statement; you also want to ensure that you’re using effective transition sentences when moving from one idea to the next.

You can think of theme as the macro glue and transitions as the micro glue that make your personal statement cohere. Without smooth transitions, your personal statement will come across as choppy and your ideas may appear unlinked, making your theme seem illogical or unclear.

Unique Alternative 9: Using effective transitions to smoothly link different experiences and ideas.

There are a number of ways to transition from one experience or idea to the next. Here are a few, along with examples of transitional phrases that can help you build bridges between different parts of your personal statement:

You can show logical consequence or how one event led to another (e.g., “As a result,” “For this reason,” “Therefore”)

You can describe experiences in chronological order (e.g., “Next,” “Since then,” “After”)

You can point out the similarity between two things (e.g., “Similarly,” “Additionally,” “Furthermore”)

You can highlight the contrast between two things (e.g., “Even though,” “Despite,” “However”)

You can give an example (“For instance,” “By doing X,” “When I embarked on Y”)

However (no pun intended!), it isn’t strictly necessary to use transitional phrases or sentences between every section of your personal statement. Sometimes, the logic between ideas will be obvious through simple description, and excessive transitions may get in the way of smoothness and flow.

To learn more, we recommend this resource on transitions from the University of Wisconsin.

When should I aim to have my personal statement finalized by?

We recommend having a final version of your personal statement completed by May 15 of your application year so you can take full advantage of the rolling admissions process. To learn more about writing and submission deadlines, you’re encouraged you to review the ideal medical school application timeline .

Clichéd Approach 10: Writing in a way that can be replicated by other applicants.

Admissions committees are eager to learn about what makes you distinct from your peers, why you want to pursue a career as a physician, and what you will contribute to their school and the larger medical community.

If your personal statement reads like a completely different applicant could have written it, admissions committees will struggle to differentiate you from your competition.

Our earlier example of the applicant who describes her shadowing experience with Felipa does not offer any information specific to her. We do not learn about her physical appearance, town of origin, culture, country of origin, hometown, etc. There simply are not enough details or unique insights that paint a portrait of the applicant.

Unique Alternative 10: Writing a personal statement that could have only been written by you.

At any point while writing the draft of your personal statement, asks yourself whether another applicant could have written it. If the answer is “yes,” you have two options:

You can return to the first few paragraphs of your essay and add distinct details about yourself, such as your town of origin, physical appearance, etc., to help the reader visualize who you are better.

Start over. If you find that it is too difficult to add details about your life story and standout qualities in your original essay, then you may need to start over by including different stories and experiences that show how you are unique.  

Let’s look at how you might revise a clichéd sentence to come across as more unique:

Applicant 1: I developed a passion for helping people by volunteering at the local soup kitchen.

Applicant 2: Growing up in rural Idaho, I had no idea how many people in my community lived in poverty until I started to volunteer at the local soup kitchen.

Whereas any applicant who has volunteered at a soup kitchen could have written the first sentence, only someone who grew up in rural Idaho could have written the second sentence.

As a bonus, the second statement also shows us a realization that the applicant has about her hometown, which suggests that she is thinking critically about her environment.

In your essay, you can include several unique details, including state of origin, country of origin, religion, hobbies, studies and research outside of medicine, creative pursuits, family’s culture, physical appearance, health history, special talents, language abilities, etc. Admissions committees look for candidates that can bring unique insights and different perspectives to their programs.

While certain details can help paint a meaningful portrait of you, it is important to remember that the personal statement is not a work of creative writing.

For example, including details about the color of your shirt and the type of shoe you were wearing may help make the story in your personal statement more vivid, but these details fail to offer insights about your unique qualities or your life experiences. Admissions committees will be interested by your unique traits, not the look of your clothes.

Clichéd Approach 11: Building your personal statement around an inspiring quote

When many students struggle to craft a compelling introduction to their personal statements, they’ll often look to inspiring quotes from famous individuals to use as a framework for the theme of their essay.

These quotes may even have directly inspired the applicant to take action or seemingly relate to the applicant’s personal experience. A good quote can appear like a connecting thread between abstract ideas such as your desire to become a doctor and real-world challenges you face in choosing that path. This is an attractive option since one of the most difficult parts of writing a personal statement is effectively condensing difficult abstract ideas into a memorable narrative.

Using quotes by themselves is not necessarily going to kill your essay, but it’s tricky to use them as scaffolding for the main idea.

Essentially, an inspiring quote risks taking the focus off of you, your qualities, thoughts, and experiences while placing the focus within the sphere of an idea thought by someone else.

Unique Alternative 11: Employing the use of quotes to enhance your point rather than build your point

There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a quote, but it should be used to reinforce your point or theme, rather than being your point itself.

The placement of a quote within your essay is key. Place it near the beginning and it’s a feature of your essay, in the middle and it could signal a turning point, or at the end and it may just wrap things up nicely.

Let’s look at an example using a quote from Charles Kettering.

"No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm." My dad loved to remind me of this Charles Kettering quote whenever I was struggling with a new task or activity. From my difficulties preparing for my piano recital in seventh grade to applying to college, every obstacle seemed like a ship I couldn’t get off of. However, I didn’t understand the depth of its true meaning until volunteering to help addicts in the Kensington neighborhood of my hometown of Philadelphia.

Opening with this quote has set up the entire essay to revolve around the quote’s idea. The reader doesn’t even get to your experience of volunteering (and likely your true entry point into medicine) until the final sentence of the introduction. There’s nothing wrong with the idea the quote conveys, but how the writer is featuring it in their essay is problematic.

Instead, let’s see what happens when the quote is moved to another section of the essay.

My heart swelled as I watched Steven walk in through the door of our therapeutic community grinning from ear to ear and proudly announcing he’d been hired as a dishwasher. I recalled how just three months prior, I daily cleaned the necrotizing fasciitis on his legs caused by his tranq use and participated in counseling sessions with the coaching team. I thought of what our head counselor would often remind him, “No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm,” and I knew I wanted to spend my life helping others through their storms.

At this point, the reader has followed you through your journey in your essay before they encounter the quote. Rather than the quote’s idea of perseverance being the main focus, your encounter with Steven (and the ultimate realization that you want to spend your life helping others persevere and heal) is the focus—encapsulated in the quote itself.

Wherever you decide to place a quote, you want it to be an interesting addition that enhances your qualities and your experience. Ask yourself how the quote is directly relevant to you and your essay and make sure using it adds something meaningful to your writing.

How can I know when my personal statement is ready to submit?

• It highlights your great qualities;
• It clearly describes your path to medicine—or discusses experiences that led you to develop key insights about the field;
• It tells the actual story of your desire to become a physician and not what you believe someone wants to hear;
• It is highly personal and could have only been written by you; and
• It is devoid of spelling or grammatical errors.

By following these instructions on how to avoid clichés, you can write a memorable personal statement that stands out to admissions committees.

Whereas writing a clichéd personal statement will likely cause your application to end up in the rejection pile, crafting an authentic, unique personal statement will help lead you to your white coat ceremony.

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.

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I partly grew up in Bangkok, a city in which there are more shopping malls than there are psychiatrists. I did this math as soon as I found out that my older sister had attempted suicide outside of a shopping mall. The stigmatization of mental illness is still widespread in Thailand and as a result, the hospital and my family treated her case as anything but an attempt on her own life. At the time, I was reading “The Yellow Wall Paper” in school, a story about inadequately treated postpartum depression in the 1890s. I saw parallels, as my sister had begun to look gray after the birth of her daughter. I repeatedly voiced my concerns, but no one listened to me. No one was addressing her health from a broader perspective, and as a result, she was left to fend for her own mental health. She was powerless, and I felt powerless too.

This blindness for mental wellbeing in my society confounded me, so I chose to study it further at UT Austin. When I began working at the Dell Seton Medical Center, however, my idealism about patient-centered care was quickly put to the test when I was regarded with cynicism due to my own identity. One afternoon, a diabetic patient approached me for assistance in applying for food stamps. Although he was visibly in discomfort, he refused the chair I pulled out for him. While we gathered information, he gruffly asked me where I was from. “America,” I answered. Unsatisfied with my answer, he repeated his question eight more times until I caved and answered with my ethnicity. Following this, he grew impatient and kept insisting he could complete the process with another shift. But I knew arranging transport would be difficult and costly. Determined to turn the interaction around, I soldiered on with the application process. I discovered that he had a daughter, and I asked about her interests. He grew animated as he talked lovingly about her, and I completed my work. Commuting home in the dark, I beamed; I was able to build rapport and assist someone who did not initially believe in me.

I strove to supplement my education with parallel experiences in research and volunteer work. In a course about stigma and prejudice, I discovered that minority status was a marker for increased IL-6 inflammation, and that individuals primed with stereotypes about race, sex, or disease suffer greatly, but often invisibly. Walking out of lecture, I planned out how I could implement these findings in my own work. During data collection for a community sleep study, I applied my renewed perspective on the phone with a participant. I sensed exasperation in her voice, so I sincerely thanked her for her time. Suddenly, she began to wail into the phone. As her personal story unraveled, I found out that experiences of racial discrimination had breached every area of her life, including her healthcare—as a result, she felt alienated and left with inadequate treatment. When she expressed thoughts of suicide, I began to panic. But I kept my voice composed, reinforced her resilience, and gained a verbal confirmation that we would speak the next day. The disempowering marginalization she felt mirrored my sister’s situation years ago. But this time, I was equipped with my education.

The more I learned about the social determinants of health, the clearer it became that healthcare was inherently social. This solidified my interest in medicine and motivated me to pursue research in social psychology. As I trained on how to code facial expressions for my honors thesis, I shadowed Dr. Sekhon, a geriatric psychiatrist, at an assisted living facility. One of his patients was an injured former athlete who was having trouble standing. His wife held back tears as he grimaced and repeatedly referred to “passing on.” Dr. Sekhon studied his patients’ face intently, and then, instead of altering medications or suggesting tests, he encouraged his patient to stand for 10 seconds longer each day. There was a shift in the room, and I could measure it by the expressions on their faces. The man’s eyes wrinkled in a genuine smile and his wife’s enthusiastic agreement reflected Dr. Sekhon’s success. The way a physician could read facial expressions to address what the patient did not verbalize was incredibly powerful—I was awestruck.

Inspired by this observation, I wrote my honors thesis on the relationship between power and health outcomes. Experiences of disempowerment and of illness magnify one another, but a doctor can empower someone in their most vulnerable moments by connecting with them. Much like my sister, many patients need clinicians that address both physical and invisible hardships. I am eager to be part of a new generation of healthcare providers with sensitivity to the diverse ways that people communicate distress and wellbeing. One patient at a time, we can shift archaic mindsets deeply rooted in our communities, and ensure that every life we touch receives socially and culturally competent care. For me, studying medicine means being part of something bigger by empowering others—and myself—along the way.

Paragraph 1 Analysis

The applicant begins their essay by immediately (and effectively) putting their unique upbringing in conversation with their family-inspired interest in medicine. Even though they do not say anything directly about an interest in medicine in this paragraph, we can see that the applicant is clearly passionate about doing the right thing, and about helping people in general. We can also see that they are aware of a gap that needs filling and a stigma that needs addressing.

Thoughtful/empathetic/high moral principles - Despite cultural resistance to mental healthcare, the applicant understands the value of protecting one’s mental wellbeing, and that it is an essential aspect of a healthy life. They take the initiative to listen to their sister, to carefully watch for signs of illness, and to advocate for her even in the face of a society pushing against them.

The paragraph is about how much the applicant cares for their sister, and that makes it personal. Even though the sister is a huge part of this paragraph, and even though Bangkok itself almost reads like a character on its own, the applicant’s careful reflections connect all of these outside sources to who they are and what they value.

The geographical, cultural, and familial details make this paragraph unique. Also notice how the applicant is able to discuss their sister’s suicide attempt without it feeling appropriative or self-serving, since they connect the trauma to a larger cultural issue that the applicant wants to address.

Even in the first paragraph, there is depth that will be fleshed out in the rest of the essay: The applicant sees something wrong in their culture, and is determined to fix it. The applicant is also showing an awareness of just how complicated and imperfect the healthcare system can be, demonstrating a perspective that is nuanced, mature, and compelling.

Paragraph 2 Analysis

Notice how the applicant takes the essay in a different direction than we expected after reading the first paragraph. We move from an anecdote about their sister nearly committing suicide to a seemingly unrelated anecdote about a prejudiced patient. The connecting thread between these two stories, of course, is the applicant. Their reflections on and reactions to both situations highlight their character, which is what the personal statement is all about. We also see another take on how it feels to encounter someone’s resistance to your own voice and perspective, just as the applicant encountered resistance in the face of their efforts to advocate for their sister.

Gumptious/perseverant - Most people would have a hard time helping the patient described in the above paragraph. Prejudiced, unkind, and ungrateful, he seems like a nightmare to work with. And yet the applicant shows us that, despite his rude, racist behavior, they remained strong, patient, and helpful, turning the situation into something more positive for both of them. This ability to face adversity and overcome it is a very desirable quality for any physician to possess. It also shows that the applicant knows how to adapt and problem solve in a high stress situation, putting the needs of the patient before their own, albeit justified, frustration.

As always, although the paragraph tells us the story of a particular patient, it is truly about the applicant’s interaction with that patient.

The specificity of this story makes it utterly unique to the applicant. Also, the applicant is demonstrating a nuanced and unique ability to transition between seemingly disparate experiences in paragraph one versus two.

The depth of this paragraph is rooted in the qualities it highlights in the applicant, as outlined above. As such, the strategy here is doubly effective: Not only are we reading an engaging moment of narrative, we’re also gaining some insight into why this was particularly meaningful for the patient.

Paragraph 3 Analysis

The process of personal growth. This essay does a fantastic job of highlighting the applicant’s personal growth through potent anecdotes and life experiences. This allows the applicant to show how they've changed and brings the personal statement to life. Notice how they set this up in the first paragraph when writing about their sister’s mental health. “She was powerless, and I felt powerless, too.” Later, when the applicant speaks to a patient over the phone and realizes the “disempowering marginalization” she felt, they remark, “But this time, I was equipped with my education.” Adcoms realize that the path to an MD doesn’t start and end at clearly defined points. The process of “becoming” a doctor is a road you will travel even after you’ve earned your white coat. Learning will continue as you grow in your career. You may not have a story of discrimination to tell, but we’ve all experienced moments of personal growth. Positively highlighting your growth is a great way to show your resilience and determination to succeed in medicine.

After detouring from the first paragraph’s anecdote to share with us the prejudice they’ve experienced directly, the applicant returns to the story of their sister’s attempted suicide, but this time the story has a comparative function. By juxtaposing the helplessness they felt in regards to their sister with the empowering experience on the phone, we can see that the applicant has not only grown, they’ve also shown real initiative in taking on a societal problem head on.

Determined/collected/resilient - Despite the emotional impact of being reminded of their sister’s near-death, the applicant pushes forward, collecting themselves and utilizing their education to make a real impact.

Empathetic - The applicant is able to stay calm in a high stakes situation because they are unconditionally empathetic towards the caller.

The paragraph is about the applicant’s genuine desire to help other people. We see a real passion in their desire to make an impact in regards to high-stakes issues, which allows us to get to know who they are not only as a potential physician, but as an advocate as well.

The connection to the first paragraph makes this paragraph unique both narratively and structurally.

The depth of this paragraph can be seen in its comparison to the first paragraph. Where the applicant initially felt powerless in the face of suicide, now they have matured and become better equipped to tackle such a high-stakes situation.

Paragraph 4 Analysis

The applicant provides us with three important details in this paragraph: First, that they trained to code facial expressions, second, that they shadowed Dr. Sekhon, and third, that they were inspired by the shadowing experience. Notice how their education immediately comes into play in discussing the expressions on the patients, and how the interest in the depth of facial complexity speaks both to their interest in mental health and their empathy.

Observant - Although an important aspect of your pre-med career, shadowing is sometimes a difficult experience to write about, for obvious reasons. What about the experience is interesting, if you were merely a shadow? How do you personalize work that nearly every applicant is going to have done? This applicant makes themselves stand out by telling the story of Dr. Sekhon and the retired athlete in such detail that they are indirectly showing us how careful and observant they are.

Although the narrative in this paragraph is entirely focused on other people, the thematic core belongs to the applicant, because the paragraph is about their observation of and reaction to this incident, more so than the incident itself.

The details of this office visit, combined with the hard skills the applicant is displaying and the awareness of a physician whose values they will want to embrace in their own way, make this paragraph unique.

This paragraph has depth in an indirect sense—the way the applicant was inspired is the most important point that the writing gets across.

Paragraph 5 Analysis

To conclude their essay, the applicant employs a tried and true formula: connecting the introduction to the conclusion. By reintroducing their sister into the narrative, we as readers come full circle. We remember where the applicant began, what influenced them, and how they have evolved over the course of their life, an evolution mirrored in the way the essay itself has developed.

Ambitious - This applicant has big dreams. They want to make an authentic change in the healthcare system, and since we’ve seen them mature throughout the essay, we believe that they’re capable of enacting such changes. Since they outlined this desire to make change from the very beginning, we also get a sense of how enduring and consistent it truly is, furthering our respect for the applicant’s goals.

Humble/social - Despite their ambition, the applicant is clearly aware that in order to make a real change, they will have to team up with others.

This concluding paragraph is quite clearly all about the applicant—their goals, ambitions, and values.

Although some of the sentences are broad, the paragraph remains unique due to the references to the sister, as well as the details about the applicant’s honors thesis. Connecting broad goals with specific details helps this conclusion feel more concrete, and less generalized and abstract.

The depth here is in what the applicant tells us directly, speaking to their desire as reiterated throughout the essay: “We can shift archaic mindsets deeply rooted in our communities, and ensure that every life we touch receives socially and culturally competent care.”

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Elks hosts Award Banquet for Americanism, Drug Awareness essays entrants

The Waterbury Elks Lodge #265 hosted an Award Banquet for students from Catholic Academy, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Walkee School for families who entered the Americanism Essay contest and the Drug Awareness Essay/Poster contest.

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Dover middle school students nominate their heroes, tell them why in their own words

Dover Area Middle School students invited their heroes to school on May 22 to hear, in their own words, why they were chosen. Parents, teachers, coaches and soldiers were among those chosen by students.

Students wrote the essays ahead of time and then invited their heroes to the assembly where students sat at long tables with their heroes to hear why they were chosen.

"My hero is Miguel Rosado, his friends and family call him Mikey. He is my dad," Mikalyn Rosado read to her father, "He changed his life for me and that is why he is my hero..."

Rosado, wearing an XPO logistics company work shirt and cap, said he was a little bit choked up by the nomination, unaware that his daughter had named him her hero before he had arrived to meet her at school.

Several essays were chosen to read in front of the whole room.

Brody Wise took to the podium to read his nomination of his father Andrew Wise, "Have you ever heard of a hero without a cape? Well I have one… He might have some mental scars from serving, but there isn’t anything in the world that I would be grateful for more than him," citing his service to the Marine Corps. “He put his life on the line to give us the freedom of walking the earth.” 

Andrew Wise served with the Marines between 2000-2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Brody goes on to tell the audience how his father has “influenced my life to make me a clean and trustworthy person and make me stronger so when it comes time for me to face.”

Andrew Wise gave his son a strong hug after his reading.

Justin Rowand, a Dover middle school football coach, wore two name tags that said “Justin” because he was nominated by two different students. He sat at the end of the table with his head slightly tilted to the ceiling as he listened to what the two boys were saying on either side of him

More photos: Dover log house through the years in photos.

“He was a good impact on me and he helped me so much and made me into the young man I was today…,” Josh Alexander said, sitting to the right.

“He is a mentor to me and helps me every single day whether it comes to being better in life or being better in football,” Broden Greener said to his left.

Park City High School Latinos in Action student awarded scholarship for ‘stronger together’ essays

A Park City High School Latinos in Action student recently won a big scholarship at the organization’s regional conference. Here's more on one student’s story.

Latinos in Action is a national group meant to empower Latino youth and prepare them for college and careers. LIA programs are year-long elective courses at the middle school, junior high or high school level. The program also hosts conferences with workshops and competitions.

At this year’s LIA Conference for Central and Northern Utah, Park City High School LIA advisor Jake Jobe said students received multiple scholarships and awards.

“It was probably like the most successful year we've ever had at the at the conference,” he said.

Leslie Juarez, Anneliese Carreto and Melani Juarez won first place in the short film competition. Katy Munoz won third place in the writing competition. Eimee Meneses won one of four general scholarships.

Park City High School LIA president Jessica Loya won the writing competition and got the top Jose Cebellos Scholarship award at the conference. Both of her essays followed the conference’s theme: stronger together.

For her scholarship essay, Loya wrote about how her cultural values have influenced who she is as a student and person and the value of the LIA program.

“I looked up to peers when I was younger, and they tutored us at the elementary level," she said. "Now at the high school level, I'm one of the tutors.”

Loya said she has enjoyed being part of LIA because it opens doors to different opportunities, like the conference, and it allows students to be surrounded by others with similar backgrounds and goals. However, Loya said LIA also taught her to be a leader. In her essay, she wrote about participating in district board meetings to help adopt an equity policy and going to the Park City Council to advocate for affordable housing.

For the writing competition, Loya wrote about how unifying language can be.

“I wrote about Spanish, and how it's my first language," she said. "Yet, sometimes I felt like my English dominance or fluency was greater.”

In the essay, Loya wrote her dad once said to her, “Hablan mejor los misioneros mormones,” meaning Mormon missionaries speak better. She was embarrassed, but Loya said it was true and many Hispanic kids have heard something similar. The comment pushed her to work on her Spanish and she became an LIA tutor. With progress, she connected the language with film, music, food, art, traditions and culture.

At the end of the writing competition essay, Loya wrote there are 486 million Spanish speakers in this world, and they are all stronger together.

Loya will be attending the University of Utah this fall. While she is unsure what career path she wants to pursue, she wrote in her scholarship essay she does know who she wants to be: “a good daughter who can share new experiences with her parents,” “a good sister who can guide her little sister through challenges her parents are unfamiliar with and can support her older brother toward a lifestyle he can thrive in,” and “a good student who seeks learning opportunities outside the classroom.” Loya also wrote she wants to be financially independent to “support her family and give back to her community.”

Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Does School Choice ‘Work’?

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In “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal,” Harvard University’s Jal Mehta and I examine the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what’s being proposed and what it means for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and we will frequently disagree, but we’ll try to be candid and ensure that you don’t need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us.

Today’s topic is educational choice and whether it “works.”

Rick: It’s been another busy spring for educational choice, so let’s dig into the heated debate about whether choice “works.” Here’s where I’m coming from: I’ve supported full-spectrum educational choice since the last century, including intradistrict choice, charter schooling, school vouchers, education savings accounts (ESA), and the rest. That said, regular readers also know that I’m critical of the absolutist rhetoric favored by some choice advocates, over-the-top claims for choice, and the insistence that choice works. As I see it, educational choice is part of the answer to our challenges, but it isn’t the answer. Choice enables more parents to find options that are right for their child, creates more room for the emergence of promising new options, and offers educators more say as to where they’ll work. These are all very good things.

But educational choice programs are no one thing. They vary dramatically, from relatively restricted open-enrollment programs that give students some choice among district schools to ambitious ESA programs that radically reimagine how schooling works. Just within charter schooling, there are vast differences from state to state in who is permitted to authorize schools, how they are authorized, the goals they are required to meet, and so forth. Broadly asserting that choice is “good” (or “bad”) ignores that it means many different things depending on context, policy, and practice.

In short, choice isn’t a bag of magic beans. Worse, suggesting it is makes it less likely that anyone will do the hard work necessary to make choice programs deliver. Ultimately, the how of choice matters mightily. How tough is it for good new schools or programs to emerge? How do we ensure that scam artists aren’t ripping off families and taxpayers? How do parents find out what the options are? How does the financing work? The answers to questions like these determine whether a school choice program works for the families that participate or not.

Anyway, that’s how I tend to approach all this. Curious to hear your take, especially given how much you’ve thought about these issues in the context of your scholarship on institutions and deeper learning.

Jal: Yet again, there is a surprising amount of agreement here. Choice can mean very different things depending on the context and the nature of the regulations. In some states, even fairly proven providers can’t open new schools, whereas in others, licenses are offered to schools that have no track record or plan. As I’ve talked with graduate students coming from all over the nation, their views of choice often vary significantly depending on what state they are coming from.

From an innovation perspective, I think the hopes of the choice movement have not been realized. Charter schools, in particular, were created based on the idea that they would use the freedoms they had been granted to try out new possibilities, which might, over time, influence traditional public schools. But in practice, most charter schools, including a number of the most well-known ones, have mostly just done the same old thing—the same seven-period days, same subjects, same teaching methods. Even Nina Rees, the former head of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, acknowledges that charter schools frequently haven’t been as innovative as their advocates have hoped. The reasons for this are almost overdetermined: Teachers teach as they were taught, parents expect school to look the same as what they experienced, external measures like state tests and college admissions reward conformity, etc.

If we wanted to take advantage of some of the benefits of choice to generate more genuine innovation, we would need to make some changes. For instance, we would have to alter the external ecosystem: If we want schools to be organized around students doing more authentic work, then schools have to be evaluated on the basis of students doing that kind of authentic work. These evaluations might include performance assessments or balanced scorecard-style dashboards. Or it might look like the state getting out of the business of measuring outcomes entirely and trusting that parents will be able to select the schools that work for their kids, without having one set of measures that standardizes everything. (Ted Sizer advocated market over state accountability for this reason in The Red Pencil .) A more split-the-middle option would be to have the state perform periodic accreditation reviews, such as those that are used in England. This would allow schools to experiment as they like but offer some protections that public institutions are meeting a certain floor of public goals.

What do you think, Rick? Has choice produced “innovation”? How do we create quality without standardization?

Rick: You know, it’s almost disturbing how much common ground we find in these exchanges, even surrounded by frenzied hyperbole (with Kentucky’s lieutenant governor recently thundering that “‘school choice’ is nothing more than welfare for the well-to-do”). I’m always struck how crazy it is that we’ve ceded so much ground to the self-interested industry of outrage-peddling politicos and culture-war grifters.

But that’s a sermon I’ve preached many times, so I’ll get back to the point. I agree with you both that choice works largely by creating room for better solutions to emerge . . . and that it mostly hasn’t. As you note, this is due to the failure (of even its supporters) to embrace the kind of ecosystem that fuels rethinking. For me, it’s useful to think of this as a humane, organic vision of school improvement. Now, talk of choice as “humane” and “organic” can sound odd when the debate is filled with talk of “wars on public education” and “failing public schools.” But all this wild-eyed rhetoric misses the mark. The promise of choice is not that, tomorrow, schools will magically be “better.” The promise of choice-based systems is that, over time, they create room for educators and families to build better solutions.

This should all be intuitive to anyone who’s spent much time talking school improvement with principals or district leaders. Conversations are peppered with phrases like, “I’d like to do this, but the contract requires . . . ,” “I’d like to pay them more, but HR says . . . ,” or “I’d love to move those dollars, but we’re not allowed. . . .” Educators wrestle with layers of rules, regulations, and contract provisions. That’s why choice can be so appealing: It can make it easier for educators to pioneer promising new school models. School vouchers and ESAs make it feasible to offer alternatives to low-income families who’ve long felt trapped in local schools. Charter schooling enables educators to get a new school approved by a charter authorizer without having to spend years pleading with district officials for flexibility, facilities, and approval.

This kind of inertia is hardly unique to education. Older organizations are rarely good at managing change. They tend to grow rigid, routinized, and hierarchical with time, making it tougher to leverage new technologies or meet changing needs. That’s why the average life span of a Fortune 500 company is just 50 years. When we tell educators they’ve no path other than “fixing” aged systems or schools, we put them in a nearly impossible position.

That’s one reason I’m optimistic about choice today, in the wake of the pandemic. As I noted in The Great School Rethink , the emergence of microschools, learning pods, and hybrid home schools; the adoption of large-scale ESA programs; and the explosion of home schooling have together changed the choice landscape. Choice is no longer mostly about a handful of broadly similar urban charter school networks; today, it’s far more decentralized, dynamic, and geographically dispersed. Of course, these new changes have also surfaced new challenges, ranging from accountability for public funds to questions of staffing and logistics. Our ability to thoughtfully navigate these will determine the success of this next era of educational choice.

Wondering what you make of this changing landscape and what it means going forward, pal.

Jal: Embracing a “humane and organic” approach to school reform? If you don’t watch out, you’re going to get kicked out of the GOP, Rick.

I agree with your idea that the emerging choice landscape—particularly the growth of home schooling, learning pods, and microschools—is much more varied in its goals, means, and approaches than the charter schools that dominated the dialogue in the aughts and 2010s. There also seems to be a much more fundamental willingness to rethink what is taken for granted. This can range from parents who want to resist the standardizing pressures of schools to those whose kids aren’t being served well by the peer or racial dynamics of such schools.

There isn’t yet much research about these efforts, so what I know about them is pretty partial. But still, there is a sense that these folks are motivated by a much more human focus than past reformers. Rather than being committed to grand ideals like social mobility for other people’s children, these are people who are looking at their own kids not as abstractions but as real human beings who are not being served well by school. We can hope that what they generate is much more varied and authentic and that it serves the wide diversity of interests that young people bring to the table.

At the same time, the idea of unschooling and escaping the conformity of public education is not a new one, nor is it a surefire way to educate children successfully. Experience suggests that there are certain Romantic ideas that will turn out to be not entirely true. While intrinsic motivation and self-directed learning are important (and in much too short supply in regular public schools), for most kids, they won’t be sufficient without some structure, community, and routine. Some kids listen better to other adults than they do to their own parents. Thus, there is a lot to be figured out in this emerging world: Who should “teach”; what sorts of structures, communities, and routines should replace the ones previously provided by school; and what models work and for which kids.

To make this a bit more personal, we were home schoolers for most of one year during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had a bright 6-year-old who was bored by virtual school and would click “leave meeting” rather than partake in the community-building activities his school had designed for 1st graders. We enrolled him and his best friend in a little school in our living room. We used some materials for science and social studies that my wife found on a home-schooling site and signed up for Beast Academy , a virtual math program for bright kids who like math. Beast Academy was a hit and lasted well past the pandemic. The home-schooling materials we got were more mixed: Some landed and some didn’t. For ELA, we had him read (what he wanted) and write (what he wanted). This was good, but only worked because his kindergarten teacher had already taught him to read. Eventually, the friend had to go back to school, and our son got sad and lonely without him, and so he went back to school. The lesson here is that what we call “school” is really a bundle of things—curriculum in different subjects, teachers, friends, specials—all of which have to be replaced in ways that work. This is much easier said than done.

One obvious question is what the role of the state is in this process. When we home schooled, we just had to fill out a form with the district at the beginning of the year saying what we were going to do and then one at the end saying what we had done. This seems a little light to me. I think some kind of performance of understanding in different domains is important to ensure that real learning has taken place. But the trick, as is always the case with any alternative arrangement, is that if we put too tight strictures on what counts, we are going to lose the innovation that choice can potentially unleash. Finding a way to manage this balance is the key to making the new choice movement more innovative than the old.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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School of Government launches budget officer certification course

The three-week program is a partnership between the school and the state budget office.

Through a partnership with the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management , the UNC School of Government is launching a  new certification program  for state budget professionals in May. With consultation from an advisory board composed of chief financial officers, budget directors and other state budget professionals, the  N.C. Certified State Government Budget Professional Program  offers a first-of-its-kind in the state certification, awarded by the state budget office, to students upon successful completion of the program and final examination.

Segmented into a three-week curriculum, the program addresses budget officers’ needs as identified and curated by state budget office staff, state agency leadership, school faculty and career-long state budget professionals.

“This innovative partnership between our School of Government and the Office of State Budget and Management offers wonderful opportunity for professionals to gain expert education from leaders in their field. As a former state budget director, I know first-hand the promise of a program like this one and its value to the people of our great state,” said Interim Chancellor Lee H. Roberts.

In collaborating with the state budget office to design the curriculum, lead school faculty member  Whitney Afonso found an equally determined partner.

“This is a really exciting undertaking and I have been extremely fortunate to have a great team,” she said. Among the skillsets she hopes the certification will develop are “data analysis, a better understanding of the law, governmental accounting and much more.”

State budget office project lead Hallee Haygood, found collaborating with the school similarly enriching.

“Working with the School of Government has been a fantastic experience,” said Haygood, a Carolina Master of Public Administration alumna. “From the start, they have been communicative and ready for all stages of the planning and implementation processes.”

The three-week program provides, she said, “a set of courses packed with skills and knowledge budget professionals across the state will find valuable.”

• Week 1 (May 20-24) foundational introduction to the state budget process.
• Week 2 (June 24-28) applied data analysis.
• Week 3 (Oct. 14-18) systems and language of budgeting. 

When planning the curriculum, Afonso worked with the state budget office to design a training that could meet budget professionals wherever they are on the spectrum of career progression.

“This course is going to provide a critical toolkit for both seasoned budget professionals and those just starting out in their careers,” she said. “The breadth of the course covers everything from how to read and apply the relevant laws to performance management to state and federal grants management. It will be helpful for all in the field.”

While North Carolina will not require completion of the program to determine eligibility for state budget positions, its creators aim for it to serve as a preferred credential and benefit career progression for graduates.

“Certification serves as tangible proof of an employee’s skill and knowledge, positioning them as a beneficial part of any agency. For managers, a Certified State Government Budget Professional becomes a trusted resource in their agency,” said Kristin Walker, state budget director. “Hiring managers gain confidence in certified applicants, knowing they possess requisite skills and knowledge. This program empowers graduates to stand out in their field, which will help advance their careers.”

Afonso wants to see participants improving both their career trajectories as budget professionals and the good of the state’s public sphere.

“These weeks will cover high level concepts and get into how you can actually apply them and use them in your work.  It is really exciting, and I am confident that this program is going to serve our mission and state.”

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