Verified Introductory Paragraphs of Personal Statement Essays ADMITTED to Ivy League Schools Sarah ONeill

 Sarah ONeill 

Sarah ONeill Supreme Editing Coatesville

One of the key elements of a successful admissions essay to Ivy League schools, or any schools for that matter, depends on how well you pull admissions officers into YOU through that first paragraph. Officers can read up to fifty essays a day! So, you want yours to stand out instantly. You want them to keep reading, and as the narrative flows, it should reveal more and more about you on more than surface levels. It is certainly a PLUS (+) if you write with softness, clarity, smoothness, authority, strong verbs, and even humor if it works. Don’t you want to entertain them and make it less strenuous for them?

Below are authentic common application essay introductions of essays admitted to major schools. Read them carefully, ask yourself what pulled you into them, and see how the topic was introduced. You will find that the TOPIC rarely matters as long as you veer away from politics or religion or anything else that can cause the AO to worry or even become offended. If you CARE ABOUT the topic, own it, and give enough details that it is all your own (not BOT generated), then others will care just as much. 

Happy Reading! 

Intro Sample #1: UPenn

Before Cambodia, I built robots with my brother on our living room floor, sitting cross-legged on a Yasmine rug. Beside the cuckoo clock (for the first time), we had been inspecting the innards of a kit mom got for us while the aroma from her Christmas crumpets greeted our noses. As we tinkered loudly with the pegs, beams, and axles, my father would stretch his neck out from over his newspaper to get a closer look at our concoction. I remember the awe of the first click that came from connecting our cable to the motor. Or the satisfaction that came with a sense of accomplishment of putting something in the world that had not been there before. 

Intro Sample #2: UPenn

My ritual for making yoghurt has finally been perfected. I scoop two generous tablespoons of culture with milk, blending until there are no clumps. In the nook above the radiator, I keep a bowl overnight to ferment and wake up to the perfect blend of milk, cheese, and probiotics. Like my yoghurt, when I first moved from China to the US for school, I wanted to blend into everything: jumping right into Halloween, embracing gourds filled with candy with my friends while learning how to high-five. I tried all the pizza I could and ventured to a speciality ice-cream parlour to try every kind of cone. It all tasted so good and novel. 

Intro Sample #3: Stanford

As I struck the first few chords of Bach’s Sonata in G Minor, Fuga, my bow glistened under the warm lights. It was demanding intonation and purity, but I retaliated, sculpting the passages like clay, contrasting the dynamics of the ascending and descending arpeggios. Unlike Vivaldi and Haydn, Bach was focused on the intellectual pursuit of his music rather than what was pleasing to the ear. Composing melodic lines according to the rules of counterpoint, he wrote complex sonatas with a brilliant, polyphonic texture. Even so…I resisted. 

Intro Sample #4: Harvard

“Where are you?” 

As I shifted my gaze from the Great Wave poster in my dorm to my grandmother on video chat, she asked again, “Where are you?”, and I replied (again): in Boston at school. At first, I shrugged off her repeated question. Soon, however, it became clear that those 3 words absorbed all of our conversations. I remember asking myself, Why did I have to move to the other side of the earth for school? And COVID…I just wanted to fly to Chengdu to be with her.

Intro Sample #5: Harvard

Idling by the entrance of Wind Cave in South Dakota, Lucy, our ranger, showed my family and the rest of our tour group how the cave got its name. She placed a string near the two-foot-wide mouth, and it immediately began to quiver as if by some transcendental force, eliciting oohs and ahhs. As alluring as the natural entrance was, we had to use the manmade path and an elevator to access the cave. Once inside, we walked a single file bordered with metal rails. I was captivated by the limestone. 

Intro Sample #6: Harvard

Twirling around my kitchen, confidently gathering items, I am preparing Krusteaz Meyer Lemon Bars Box Mix dessert for the umpteenth time. It only takes brief glances at the box instructions to confirm what’s already ingrained in my mind: 

8×8-inch pan, rigorously scrubbed and pre-sprayed,

1/3 cup water, measured so precisely that the concave meniscus aligns exactly with the dash,

3 eggs, picked free of eggshell bits. 

I glide through the steps with unmatched prowess and on a cloud far removed from the variability of life. I find comfort in such conclusiveness. While preparing delicious lemon bars, I never have to construct my own procedures.

Intro Sample #7: Princeton

On bus rides home from school, I could always be seen with a Geronimo Stilton detective book in my palms. Despite vertigo, I never looked up. The satisfaction of finishing an entire mystery in one sitting was invigorating. For my whole life, in fact, I had felt the best when I finished something: a detective novel, a film shoot, a golf game. This all changed last summer, however, when I conducted archival research at the MacLeish Scholars program.

Sarah ONeill Supreme Editing Coatesville