You are super-determined to get a spot in a fancy Ivy League school in the US, and you have all the documents ready, but there’s one more step: the application essay. You may be wondering, “How big a deal is my college essay?”
The Ivy League Essay is usually regarded as a fundamental part of college admissions. It lets the people who decide who gets in see more about you than just your grades and the activities you do outside of class. It's a special chance for you to show what makes you unique - your personality, what you believe in, and your own special way of seeing things. It gives you a unique opportunity to showcase your personality, values, and original perspective and to explain why you would be a good fit for the university.
Many Ivy League colleges and universities receive thousands of applications each year, and the essay is one way for you to stand out from the crowd and prove your potential for doing great in college. Plus, the essay can give more information about other parts of your application, such as your test scores and extracurricular activities, and it can explain any gaps or unclear information from your academic record.
Understanding the Ivy League College Essay
If you get to understand the main role of your essay in the admission process, you stand a good chance of writing an exceptional one and finally getting admitted! The Ivy League admissions committees really want to understand why you want to be a part of their university. They need to see how your dreams and your goals align with the mission, values, and opportunities offered by their institution.
Before starting to write your first words, you have to understand what the requirements are: the outline and the key topics you need to touch in your essay. Most (if not all) universities provide lists of such key topics you must cover, they are called prompts. Essay prompts are designed to provide a broad range of topics, allowing you to share your unique experiences. Ivy League school ones are updated each year. Let’s have a look over what to expect.
College Essay prompts Examples used by Ivy League schools
To get an idea of the most common essay prompts, take a look at the full set of Common App essay prompts for 2022-2023. On top of all that, every Ivy League school lets you write an extra essay if you feel like the college application forms don't give you enough room to talk about all the important things about you and your achievements. Now, we're going to give you a list of the most important essay questions for each Ivy League school (except for Cornell University, where the essay questions are different for each program):
1. Harvard University essay prompts:
- What would you want your future college roommate to know about you?
- An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper, poetry, or research topic in engineering, mathematics, science or other modes of inquiry) that has meant the most to you.
2. Princeton University essay prompts:
- List a few words or phrases that describe your ideal college community.(150 words or less)
- List the titles of the films, concerts, shows, exhibits, lectures and other entertainments you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)
3. Yale University essay prompts
Please choose two of the following topics and respond to each in 250 words or fewer.
- Think about an idea or topic that has been intellectually exciting for you. Why are you drawn to it?
- Reflect on your engagement with a community to which you belong. How do you feel you have contributed to this community?
4. Pennsylvania University essay prompts
- How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying. (400-650 words)
5. Dartmouth University essay prompts
- You can’t use up creativity,” Maya Angelou mused. “The more you use, the more you have.” Share a creative moment or impulse—in any form—that inspires creativity in your life.
- In the aftermath of World War II, Dartmouth President John Sloane Dickey, Class of 1929, proclaimed, “The world’s troubles are your troubles…and there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.” Which of the world’s “troubles” inspires you to act? How might your course of study at Dartmouth prepare you to address it?
6. Columbia University essay prompts
- List the titles of the films, concerts, shows, exhibits, lectures and other entertainments you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)
- Please tell us what you value most about Columbia and why. (300 words or less)
7. Brown University essay prompts
- Why are you drawn to the area(s) of study you indicated earlier in this application? (You may share with us a skill or concept that you found challenging and rewarding to learn, or any experiences beyond course work that may have broadened your interest.) (250 word limit)
- What do you hope to experience at Brown through the Open Curriculum, and what do you hope to contribute to the Brown community? (250 word limit)

What admission committees look for in an Ivy League Essay
All Ivy League college essays require authenticity, passion and self-reflection, and they must have your personality embedded. Being authentic in your essay means, first of all, that you should avoid listing your qualities and why you are unique, and instead show how they make you unique. Authenticity also means adding personality to your application in order to prove that you are more than just good grades, test scores and extracurricular activities.
Your passion should burst out in each row you write, so be enthusiastic and creative, even when it comes to recounting bad experiences. It lets the admission committee see that you're really determined to reach your dreams, no matter what, and that you're really excited about learning new things.
You are likely to find the words ‘reflect’ or ‘discuss’ in most of the essay prompts, which proves that self-reflection is a must: it shows you are able to reflect on a new situation (or a common situation from which something novel appears). Choosing the right topic is also a self-reflection skill, which is carefully considered by the admissions committees.
Step-by-Step Guide to Writing an Outstanding Ivy League Essay
Seeing how important the Ivy League Essay is for getting into college, our goal in the next part is to help you through the seven most important steps you need to think about. This will help you write a really good Ivy League essay that sets you apart from the rest of the applicants.
Step 1: Understanding what they require of you is already solving part of the problem.
There are a few types of prompts you receive leading to different types of essays: narrative, persuasive, reflective, analytical, or open-ended. Let’s take them in turn:
- Narrative prompts ask you to write a story about a specific event (see the prompts selected for the University of Harvard). Your goal is to focus on the details of the event, to describe how it impacted you and finally, what you learned from it.
- Persuasive prompts (see the second prompt presented above at the University of Columbia), are all about arguing of a specific point of view. The main idea is to find arguments for and against it, by developing a clear thesis.
- Reflective prompts, (see Yale University examples) ask you to reflect on a particular experience and show how it shaped your thinking and your character.
- In analytical prompts, what matters most is the quality of the analysis made and your unique understanding of the text or idea.
- Finally, the open-ended prompts (see the ones proposed by the University of Dartmouth) are aiming at testing your creativity most, giving you the freedom to choose your own topic and your own approach.
Step 2: Don't Repeat Your Resume.
Your essay is a chance to share something new about yourself that isn't already in your application. When selecting the right topic to write about, you would be tempted to choose something related to your extracurricular activities and academic performances. Avoid doing this, and instead pay more attention to your genuine interests, the ones that are not so obvious and aren’t reflected (that much) in your application form. You really need to surprise the admission committees, not offering them something that is too on-the-nose but giving them an insight into your individuality.
Step 3: Organize your thoughts.
The structure of your essay is the skeleton you dress up with your individuality, your story and your ideas. Its structure must therefore be strong, clear and coherent. The introduction should grab the reader’s attention, and your main thesis should be clearly formulated, preparing the ground for the key arguments to be presented in the following paragraphs. When writing those paragraphs, don’t forget to use evidence and examples to support your points. The conclusion should be a summary of the main points of the essay, presented in a new compelling way.
Step 4: Start strong.
Starting your essay can be challenging in itself. There are some strategies you can use here to grab the reader’s attention from the very beginning. A good technique is to include a `hook`, such as something out of the ordinary or a personal story, meant to set the tone for the essay. Starting your Ivy League essay by talking about something that's not just about you can also be a really good idea. It pulls the reader in, without telling them what your essay is about right from the get-go.
Step 5: Keep the reader interested.
Once you have captured the readers’ attention in the introduction of your Ivy League college essay, you need to keep them interested in what comes next. Here, a good strategy would be to bring into play a larger significance of your text. The essay is indeed about an exciting topic you love to talk about, but in the end is all about you and your uniqueness. In this case, using informal language (mixed with formal language) can humanise you, and give the essay your unique voice. Another valuable strategy is to be as descriptive as possible about the moment or situation you are writing about in your essay. This will allow readers to put themselves in your shoes and see the world through your eyes.
Step 6: Showcase your strengths.
Throughout the essay, you have enough space to shed light on your strengths. Anyway, you should be doing this without emphatically asserting the qualities that you consider to be yours and that individualise you. The ‘show don’t tell principle’ should guide you constantly. Reflecting on and analysing your personal growth can be the perfect occasion to highlight your strengths, your qualities and your maturity. Using sensory details and vivid examples to describe situations will help you as well to demonstrate your skills and your character.
Step 7: Edit and polish your text.
This may be a never ending story given that a truly Ivy League Essay is never a one-and-done deal. But luckily for you, the admissions committee is not looking for perfection. This is not to say that your text doesn’t need to be properly proofread. The first thing you need to do before you start revising is to take a break. This will give you a fresh perspective in order to see your essay with new eyes. Reading your essay out loud is advisable as well, because in this way you will be able to catch typos and bad phrasing that you might not notice when reading silently. Finally, ask someone you trust to give feedback. The more varied the feedback, the easier it is to spot errors.
Dos and Don’ts for Ivy League college essays
Let's start with the good stuff, the Do's:
- Being humble and honest: It's okay to talk about your mistakes and things you're still figuring out, without worrying about it hurting your chances. Just don’t focus overly much on the downsides. Also, don't make up stories or exaggerate your achievements. The people reading your essay value honesty and can usually tell when something doesn't sound right.
- Tell a Story: Instead of just listing your achievements, try to tell a story. This can make your essay more interesting and memorable.
- Ask for Feedback: Don't be afraid to ask your teachers, friends, or family to read your essay and give you their thoughts. They might have helpful suggestions that you hadn't thought of.
- Researching and carefully reading college essay examples from Ivy League Universities is good because it helps you write your own outstanding and unique essay.
When crafting your essay, you should avoid the following pitfalls:
- It is about you, not about them. Don't write what you think the admission committee wants to hear. Instead of trying to guess what the people reading your essay want, just be honest and write about what's important to you.
- Don't Rush: Take your time to think about what you want to say in your essay. Rushing can lead to mistakes or a poorly thought out essay.
- Don't Forget to Answer the Prompt: Make sure your essay actually answers the question or prompt that was given. It can be easy to get off track when you're writing.
In conclusion...
A well-crafted Ivy League essay has a lot of hard work and dedication behind it. Even if it’s only a piece in the admissions puzzle, it engages all your personal and academic resources. There is no recipe with clear instructions for securing a place at Ivy League universities, but by following the seven steps above closely, you can significantly increase your chances. Knowing your skills and knowing in which your uniqueness resides has always been the territory of successful people. Maybe this Ivy League college essay is a chance for both you and for the admission committees to know yourself better.