How to end a college essay

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office watch most applicants go wrong in the same place, the last paragraph. Having held a reader for five hundred words, students climb the mountain and deliver a revelation, a mission statement or a lesson about life, and as the tone rises, the reader's eyebrows rise with it.

Strong essays do something quieter. In the best ones we have studied, the student who wrote about gratitude is not transformed, the young engineer's flying machine never leaves the ground, and the student fascinated by artificial intelligence admits she is unsure what it all means. Each still ends firmly, and that matters more than the length of an ending suggests, since it is the part of the essay a reader holds onto longest. What those endings do instead of preaching is one specific job.