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One of the best ways to learn how to write a college admissions essay is to read one that worked. Keep in mind that there are countless ways to write a great essay and yours does not have to look like the example below. In fact, your essay should reflect your unique personality, style, and experience. I used the following essay to get accepted to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, and Pomona. Dad’s Pancakes In spite of the various extracurricular activities I’ve done and interesting people I’ve met, not one event or person has been more meaningful to me than my father’s preparation of breakfast. Every morning I wake up to the sounds of my father cooking breakfast. While lying in bed, I try to guess if the clank of a pan means scrambled eggs or maybe his specialty, banana pancakes. Waking up to nearly 7,000 such mornings, I have grown to admire my father’s dedication, a dedication which never falters even after hours of late night work. I readily applied this value of dedication when I was elected Vice-Chairman of the State Student Council. With the tremendous amount of work related to this position, there were numerous occasions when I found myself having to choose between reviewing Board of Education policies and going to the beach with friends. And whenever I felt myself beginning to vacillate, I was always reminded of my father’s unwavering dedication. I knew that the students who elected me depended on my dedication, and like my father’s daily commitment, I would not let them down. Whenever I hear my father making breakfast I always hope that he is preparing his piece dé résistance, banana pancakes. My father’s pancakes are not generic “Bisquickies,” but one-of-a-kind masterpieces. He uses scratch ingredients from hand sifted flour to homegrown bananas. As I grew older I noticed that I also began to assume the same ambition toward life as my father has toward his pursuit of the perfect pancake. In my freshman year I took an interest in film making and soon my goal was to own a video camera and recorder. To accomplish this goal I could either wait six months until Christmas and hope Santa could afford a new VCR, or I could earn the money and buy it myself. My ambitious yearning took over and for the next three months of summer vacation I held a brush in one hand and a can of latex in the other as the hired painter of my grandmother’s house. Although the work was hard and tiring, by the end of the summer, I was able to earn the money to fulfill my goal. Having learned from my father to strive for success, I have since worked fervently but patiently to attain my goals in life. After my father has flipped the last pancake, the best part of breakfast has arrived—consumption. As I devour the stack of scrumptious pancakes, I notice that my father has a bright smile across his face; I am not the only one to savor this moment. My father truly enjoys making my breakfast. His joy from even the simplest things has been the model which I have tried to apply to my life every single day. Failure to heed my father’s lesson was disastrous in my sophomore year when I decided it would be impressive to become a cross country runner. As I was running the three mile course, I began to realize around the second mile that I did not particularly enjoy running. In fact I hated running. This painful experience reminded me of my father’s overarching aim to enjoy what he is doing. Since then I have chosen to excel in tennis and other activities, not for the prestige or status, but simply because I enjoy them. My father completes the tradition of preparing breakfast by soaking the dirty pans in the sink. As he does, I think of how fortunate I am. Some people only have one meaningful event in their lives, but I have one every single morning. Comments On “Dad’s Pancakes” The “My Dad Is My Hero” essay is very popular and for it to work you need to insure that it is unlike any of the thousands of others which will be written. For example, many essays will talk about a father’s commitment to his child’s happiness by always “being there.” But how many will explain how a father’s making of breakfast has changed a life? Finding an original angle takes a lot of time, but if you can do it you will have won half the battle. This essay is also effective because it weaves the events of Gen’s life into the narrative. We learn some very interesting things about him, and while this essay is ostensibly about his father, we come away knowing more about Gen. Remember, it is always to your advantage to make sure your essay says something about you even if your topic is about someone else. If you would like more successful and unsuccessful essays, our book Get Into Any College: Secrets Of Harvard Students has an entire chapter with 23 actual college admissions essays.
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