Princeton University Common App Essay Admitted (With Analysis) Sarah O'Neill Coatesville Chester County

 Sarah O’Neill Coatesville, Chester County, Supreme Editing

Remember that the Common Application Essay is still important despite CHATGPT’s generic editing and rewriting! Just a reminder to write your OWN story and not rely on a bot to do it. Below, I start with a real example admitted to this school, and below it an analysis explaining what made it resonate.

Common Application Essay Admitted by Princeton University

Scrolling through the lines of G-code iterations, I rubbed my eyes as my cursor hovered over the “Run” button on the monitor. The image of a minuscule Arc de Triomphe taunted me. My finger rested on the mouse in anticipation, but the high stakes furthered my anxiety.

I toiled endlessly to develop a printing system that would construct three-dimensional objects using gels instead of plastics. I had been working out the kinks to my prototype, a high-resolution 3D-printer, whose center was a labyrinth of rainbow-colored wires.

I clicked my mouse and retreated, unsure of what to expect. The machine emitted a cacophony of beeps and boops. Gears clattered. Motors screeched. My smile faded. Sparks and crackles confirmed that something was wrong. I knit my eyebrows and reluctantly hit the red “Emergency STOP” button. The machine froze mid-print, and the lab went silent.

Perseverance and I have a lengthy history. As a boy who yearned for tangible challenges, I gravitated towards LEGOs. I disregarded others’ designs, preferring to construct my mind’s fabrications. My resolve to find the perfect piece meant spending hours rummaging through my ten-gallon tub. Years later, Zumba posed a greater challenge to my determination. The fast-tempo Latin dance program was merciless to novices like me. Initially, I was afraid of humiliation and struggled to keep up with the instructors. But after dozens of embarrassing attempts, I finally found my groove.

I owe much of my resolve to saber fencing. I began as a “speed demon,” recklessly rushing onto the bout strip and hoping to slash my way to victory. With my lack of technique, I won a few matches, but I eventually started losing consistently. Practice after practice, I learned technique and tweaked my tactics. The sweat stains on my mask and the nicks on my lamé were tally marks of my improvement. I stopped rushing for victory and waited for my opponents to strike. A shift of their eyes indicated an imminent attack, but the tip of my saber was there waiting. After months of tedious training, my win-loss ratio grew exponentially.

The 3D-printer provided the most important test of my perseverance. Working as a summer intern in the lab of Dr. Chenfeng Ke, an organic chemistry professor at Dartmouth College, I was assigned a project that was gathering dust. Previously attempted by doctorates and undergraduates, the 3D-printer represented the kind of challenge I hoped for.

From day one, the tenacity learned from LEGOs, Zumba, and fencing, were put to a reality test building a 3D-printer that would transform blobs of gel into anything from chess pieces to human ears. I remained confident and enthusiastic throughout my nine-to-five shifts, during which I familiarized myself with fabricating custom parts, soldering wires, and experimenting with various hydrogel formulations.

From time to time, my mentor would stop by. The sight of his precious machine, now dismantled and inoperable, frightened him. One of Dr. Ke’s visits coincided with one of my tests. With him was a group of other scientists. They all watched as my sweaty hands deftly loaded gel

filled syringes into the contraption. I turned toward the Arc de Triomphe on the monitor, which presented an abundance of structural challenges. I moved the cursor over “Run” and paused.

Questions inundated my mind. What if I fry the motherboard? What if the Arc collapses? What if I embarrass myself?

I clicked, and the machine hummed. The printer extruded a shimmering line of gel 250-micrometers wide. The professor looked ecstatic. His colleagues began to chatter. Their expressions confirmed the success of the printer. But I wanted to do better.

I returned to fine-tuning the printer, spending hour-after-hour in an endless loop of trial-and-error. After three weeks, I once again clicked “Run,” and the printer hummed. Minutes later, I beheld the build plate and a fitting sign that my perseverance would serve me in years to come: a miniature gel Arc de Triomphe.

Counselor’s Notes

The writer of the Princeton University admission’s essay above clearly demonstrates three strengths: repetition, cause and effect device, and wrap-around ending.

First, this writer identified a concept, a talent for perseverance that he holds, and continues to prove that it exists as his personal quality throughout the essay. Perseverance, in itself, is a type of self-discipline towards a goal that admission officers admire in candidates. The choice to elaborate on how it has driven this student in many different areas of his life is effective. This applicant even uses a transitional sentence with the word perseverance.

in it to clarify his intentions in a creative way. The sentence is “Perseverance and I have a lengthy history.” The personification of this concept brings it to life. His intentions are that he is clearly going to be providing examples of his perseverance through various examples such as G-code, LEGOS, Zumba, and fencing. The several examples of this personal trait further solidify that it is real, and that he utilizes it. If college admissions’ officers know this, they can be rest assured that this perseverance will serve the student well in the future in their colleges since it has long been a pattern in his life.

Second, through this writer’s clear writing and clarity of transitioning examples, it is also evident that the rhetorical device of cause and effect is surfacing. As an admission’s officer reads this piece, it becomes clear that there were causes for this student’s success. Those causes are that he “toiled endlessly” with endeavors, that he “practiced and practiced”, and that he cared about his mentors. In turn, the effects of these causes become apparent in that he learns quite a bit about himself and about his talents in many areas of his life. Admission’s officers love to see how a student has built a foundation for himself/herself. Tracing the causes in this essay is not boring to read or in list form. It is all necessary to, as was mentioned earlier, to trace the causes of success through perseverance, and meant to give tangible examples (or effects) of those causes.

Third, this essay begins with a very animated endeavor to solve a problem, and, in the end, it closes with the success of that problem. The issue at hand is the 3D printer and the writer’s experience with “trial and error” as he says. This is an efficient technique for telling many stories, and the wrap-around ending here, beginning and ending with the same story or example, works especially well. It works so well because the readers anticipate knowing what the outcome of that particular activity is since they have invested in it at the beginning. They are not disappointed in the end to find that this perseverance has served and continues to serve the applicant well. This technique is useful, but just be certain it makes sense for your essay in terms of content.