5 Marvelous MIT Essay Examples
What’s Covered:
- Essay Example #1 – Simply for the Pleasure of It
- Essay Example #2 – Overcoming Challenges
- Essay Example #3 – Dreams and Aspirations
- Essay Example #4 – Community at a New School
- Essay Example #5 – Community in Soccer
- Where to Get Feedback on Your MIT Essay
Sophie Alina, an expert advisor on CollegeVine, provided commentary on this post. Advisors offer one-on-one guidance on everything from essays to test prep to financial aid. If you want help writing your essays or feedback on drafts, book a consultation with Sophie Alina or another skilled advisor.
MIT is a difficult school to be admitted into; a strong essay is key to a successful application. In this post, we will discuss a few essays that real students submitted to MIT, and outline the essays’ strengths and areas of improvement. (Names and identifying information have been changed, but all other details are preserved).
Read our MIT essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.
Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.
Essay Example #1 – Simply for the Pleasure of It
Prompt: We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.
After devouring Lewis Carrolls’ masterpiece, my world shifted off its axis. I transformed into Alice, and my favorite place, the playground, became Wonderland. I would gallivant around, marveling at flowers and pestering my parents with questions, murmuring, “Curiouser and curiouser.” If Alice’s “Drink Me” potion was made out of curiosity, I drank liters of it. Alice, along with fairytale retellings like the Land of Stories by Chris Colfer, kickstarted my lifelong love of reading.
Especially when I was younger, reading brought me solace when the surrounding world was filled with madness (and sadly, not like the fun kind in Alice in Wonderland). There are so many nonsensical things that happen in the world, from shootings at a movie theater not thirty minutes from my home, to hate crimes targeted towards elderly Asians. Reading can be a magical escape from these problems, an opportunity to clear one’s mind from chaos.
As I got older, reading remained an escape, but also became a way to see the world and people from a new perspective. I can step into so many different people’s shoes, from a cyborg mechanic (Cinder), to a blind girl in WWII’s France (Marie-Laure, All the Light We Cannot See). Sure, madness is often prevalent in these worlds too, but reading about how these characters deal with it helps me deal with our world’s madness, too.
Reading also transcends generational gaps, allowing me to connect to my younger siblings through periodic storytimes. Reading is timeless — something I’ll never tire of.
What the Essay Did Well
This essay is highly detailed and, while it plays off a common idea that reading is an escape, the writer brings in personal examples of why this is so, making the essay more their own. These personal examples often include strong language (e.g. “devoured,” “gallivant,” “pestering”), which make the imagery more vivid, the writing more interesting. More advanced language can add more nuance to an essay– instead of “ate,” the writer chooses to say “devoured,” and you can almost see the writer taking the book in almost as quickly as they might polish off a tray of cookies.
The writer also discusses how reading can not only be a solace from events that seem nonsensical, but a way to understand the madness in these events. By giving two different examples of how this can be so, that seem so varied from each other (the cyborg mechanic and the girl in WWII’s France), the writer creates more depth to this idea.
What Could Be Improved
At the beginning, the writer should consider cutting the introduction paragraph by a line to leave more room for the two major points of the essay in the following paragraphs. Instead of a long sentence about a love of reading being kickstarted, the writer could create a short, powerful sentence to kick off the next two paragraphs. “I was in love with reading.”
The detail at the end about how reading also transcends generational gaps seems like an add-on that doesn’t connect to the past two ideas– instead, I would suggest that this author expand a little more on the prior two ideas and tie them together at the end. “In this timeless world of reading, I can keep drinking from the well of curiosity. In the pages of a book, I have a space to find out more about the world around me, process its events, and more deeply understand others.”
Essay Example #2 – Overcoming Challenges
Prompt: Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?
“It’s… unique,” they say.
I sag, my younger sister’s koala drawing staring at me from the wall. It always seemed like her art ended up praised and framed, while mine ended up in the trash can when I wasn’t looking. In contrast to my sister, art always came as a bit of a struggle for me. My bowls were lopsided and my portraits looked like demons. Many times, I’ve wanted to scream and quit art once and for all. I craved my parents’ validation, a nod of approval or a frame on the wall.
Eventually, my art improved, and I made some of my favorite projects, from a ceramic haunted house to mushroom salt-and-pepper shakers. Even then, I didn’t get much praise from my parents, but I realized I genuinely loved art. It wasn’t something I enjoyed because of others’ praise; I just liked creating things of my own and the inexplicable thrill of chasing a challenge. Art has taught me to love failing miserably at something to continue it again the next day. If I never endured countless Bob Ross tutorials, I never would’ve made the mountain painting that I hang in my room today; if I never made pottery that blew up (just once!), I wouldn’t have my giant ceramic pie.
I’m still light years from being an expert, but I’ll never tire of the kick of a challenge.
What the Essay Did Well
The detail about the sister’s koala drawing being framed and praised while this writer’s portraits look like “demons” and bowls “lopsided” draws a nice contrast between the skills of the sister versus those of the writer. In response to this “Overcoming Challenges” prompt, the author justifies that this is a significant challenge by saying that they “wanted to scream and quit art once and for all” and that they still desired their parents’ approval.
The writer’s response to the situation—taking more tutorials online, creating many different pots before getting it right–is nicely framed. Many times, students forget to include examples that demonstrate how they respond to the situation, and this writer does a good job of including some of those details.
What Could Be Improved
The writer seems to emphasize the parents’ approval piece in the first paragraph, but then moves away from that point more to focus on the “thrill of chasing a challenge.” This essay could be improved by focusing a little more on how the writer emotionally moved past not getting that approval “Even then, I didn’t get much praise from my parents, but I finally realized I didn’t need to focus on that. I could focus on my love of art, on the inexplicable thrill of chasing the challenge…”
Additionally, the sentence that starts with “Eventually, my art improved…” leaves the reader with the question– how? Saying something like “Eventually, after many YouTube tutorials and a few destroyed pots, my art improved” would add detail, without taking away from the sentence about the Bob Ross tutorials and the pot blowing up.
Essay Example #3 – Dreams and Aspirations
Prompt: Describe the world you come from (for example, your family, school, community, city, or town). How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (225 words)
When the school bell rang, I jumped on my bike and sped home to watch the Tom and Jerry cartoon. I took off my school uniform and sat in the living room, pressing the remote’s power button. I pressed it again frantically, feeling another heart drop as the screen remained black. “Oh my God,” I sobbed as I rushed up to ensure that all wires were properly plugged into their respective sockets, but the screen was still black.
I unplugged the television, disassembled it, and examined every component, starting with the power switch. I’ve been tinkering with old radios for a long time, so I easily realized that a power surge had destroyed its capacitor. I replaced it with one from my radio, and the TV turned on immediately. While I couldn’t watch the cartoon, fixing the TV not only made me happy, but it also piqued my interest in the digital world. I began looking into technical opportunities in my community, starting with a nearby repairing shop, where I became acquainted with electronic devices: smart phones, laptops, televisions, and printers. Today, if I’m not repairing people’s electronics, I’m amazed by integrating broken gadgets.
What the Essay Did Well
This writer does an excellent job of addressing the “dreams and aspirations” line of this prompt. They clearly describe how their interest in technology emerged, in a well-paced, energetic way that makes us readers vicariously feel their passion and excitement.
Additionally, introducing us to their love of repairing electronics through the seemingly mundane event of their TV not working is a smart choice, for two reasons:
- Everyone has experienced their TV, phone, laptop, etc. not working, so this story helps readers relate to the student
- They go on to talk about how they used their newfound skill to help others, and thus portray themselves as someone who views even the simplest occurrence as an opportunity to make the world better
Obviously, one of the main goals of the college essay is to connect with admissions officers, to get them personally invested in your story and, by extension, excited about your potential as an MIT student. Being relatable is one of the best ways to build that connection.
And, of course, MIT wants to accept students who are going “to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century” (per MIT’s mission statement). At such a selective school, grades and test scores alone won’t set you apart–aligning your values with theirs is critical, and this student does so in a natural, authentic way.
What Could Be Improved
While this essay is well-written, there’s one major issue: the student doesn’t fully answer the prompt. As noted above, they focus primarily on the “dreams and aspirations” line, and while they do tell a compelling story, we don’t learn anything about their “family, school, community, city, or town,” beyond a brief mention of a repair shop where they live.
Especially at highly selective schools like MIT, admissions officers choose their essay questions carefully, based on the information they feel they need to properly evaluate your candidacy. So, if you fail to answer part of a prompt, in a certain sense your application is incomplete. As you work towards the final draft of your essay, make sure you reread the prompt and confirm you’ve responded to it thoroughly.
In this essay, for example, the writer could have reworked the opening paragraph slightly, to include details about who they typically watch TV with, whether that’s their friends, siblings, parents, or someone else. They also could have gone into more detail about the repair shop, by describing what their boss was like, if they had any coworkers, and so on. These additions would make the student’s “world” come alive in a way it currently doesn’t.
Of course, fully responding to a prompt while staying under the word count can be hard, but this student actually has 31 extra words at their disposal. And even if they had to make cuts elsewhere, answering all parts of a prompt takes priority over including every single detail in your story.
Finally, on a linguistic level, the ending of this essay is quite abrupt. In a relatively short supplement like this, you don’t need (or even want) a lengthy conclusion, but you should have a quick line or phrase to wrap up the story.
For example, say the last line read something like “Today, if I’m not repairing people’s electronics, I’m amazed by integrating broken gadgets, and dreaming of all the fixes I have yet to learn.” With just a few extra words, this version not only brings things full circle by connecting back to the prompt, but also subtly builds a bridge between the student’s current passions and their potential future at MIT.
Essay Example #4 – Community at a New School
Prompt: MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds and experiences together to better the lives of others. Our students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community. (225 words)
Embarking in a new environment can be challenging, but when everyone is new, it can be disastrous. After completing grade 9, every Rwandan student is transferred to a new school to pursue advanced secondary schooling. When I transferred to a new school, people only talked to those who had previously attended the same school, resulting in fierce competition and people being unable to interact together.
In an effort to solve this problem, I brainstormed ways to bring the entire class together, and “The caremate game” came to mind. I assigned each student a caretaker, another student with whom they were unfamiliar, and required them to look after him / her for the entire week, which included telling stories, buying snacks in the canteen, jogging together, and so on. However, because some people would not accept this game in the first place, I spoke to the tastemakers in the class before introducing it so that they could persuade others.
Everything went as planned; some students who couldn’t even interact before ended up in relationships. Everyone wanted to play it again, and we ended up doing so three times. Today, we are no longer divided; rather, we are a family of brothers and sisters.
What the Essay Did Well
In this essay, which is responding to a creative take on the classic “Community” prompt, the student does a great job of showcasing several qualities that MIT prizes in its students: problem-solving, imagination, and empathy, as well as an ability to make a difference in their everyday life.
We also want to highlight that the same student actually wrote both this essay and Example #4. We point this out because these two essays work in tandem, to present the student as simultaneously inventive and altruistic, even in quite ordinary situations. This picture would not be as clear if the student has chosen to highlight one set of qualities in Example #4, and a different set here.
Because college applications are inherently limiting in how much information they allow you to share about yourself–nobody can pack their entire personality into a transcript, an activities list, a 650-word personal statement, and a handful of supplements–some students are tempted to pack as much about themselves into their supplements as possible. However, that approach typically ends up being counterproductive.
Of course, we are all multifaceted, but if you choose to present yourself in three different ways in three different essays, MIT admissions officers may be unclear on who exactly they’d be admitting to their school. Remember, they’re trying to determine not just how well you’d do at MIT yourself, but also how you’d fit into the broader freshman class they’re assembling.
For example, if you were to talk about your love of fixing electronics above and then, say, your Taylor Swift fandom here, admissions officers may have a hard time determining how those two pieces of your personality fit together. After all, they have no additional background context on you, and they also have no choice but to read applications quickly, because they have so many to get through.
So, while having different, seemingly conflicting sides to your personality is part of being human, in the context of college applications specifically your goal should be to emphasize the same points in each essay, like this student. Cohesive applications are more memorable to admissions officers, as they clearly and directly show what that student has to offer that nobody else in the applicant pool does.
What Could Be Improved
Just like there is some overlap between the strengths of this student’s essays, this essay’s biggest fault is a disconnect with the prompt, which asks applicants to “Describe one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community.”
Remember, MIT admissions officers choose their prompts carefully. Including the bolded line, rather than having the prompt be just “Describe one way you have contributed to your community” means they want to see collaboration highlighted in your response.
While this student briefly mentions speaking “to the tastemakers in the class before introducing it so that they could persuade others,” this is the only mention of collaboration in the essay, and we get no detail about what their conversations with these other students looked like, or the specific actions the other students took to ensure the success of the project. When a topic features so prominently in the prompt, you want to make sure you give it more than a passing glance in your response.
We also don’t get any explanation of what made these students different from the author. We can infer that they didn’t go to the same school before, but you never want to leave a key detail up to inference, as it’s always possible your reader doesn’t read you the way you intend.
Additionally, going to a different school doesn’t tell us what made these students different on a deeper level. MIT wants to see that you’re prepared to thrive at a school with students from all corners of the world, some of whom will have drastically different life experiences from you. Because we don’t know what made this student different from their peers in terms of personality, background, etc., nor how they worked across that difference, we can’t envision how they’d navigate MIT’s diverse student body.
Overall, the takeaway here is that choosing a topic for a college essay is a two-fold process. First, you need to have a strong story, which this student does. But secondly, and just as importantly, you want to cater the details of that story to the specific prompt you’re responding to, so that admissions officers will have all the information they need to make a well-informed decision about your candidacy.
Essay Example #5 – Community in Soccer
Prompt: At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)
“Orange throw!”
As I extended my arm to signal properly, the smallest girl on the orange team picked up the ball to throw it back into play. In AYSO, U10 players often lift their back foot when throwing the ball, so I focused my attention there.
Don’t lift it. Keep it down.
It shot straight up.
My instincts blew the whistle to stop the game. The rulebook is simple: the rule was broken, give it to the other team. But the way she tried, eager to play, eager to learn and try again— I couldn’t punish that. So I made my way over to the sideline to try it myself.
“When we’re throwing it in, we wanna keep our back foot down. Try again!” After demonstrating, I backpedaled a bit and watched her throw again.
Don’t lift it. Keep it down… Ah, it stayed down.
“Nice throw!”
And just like that, we were off again. These short, educational encounters happen multiple times a game. And while they may not be prescribed, they provide so many learning opportunities. These kids, they’re the future of soccer. If they learn the basics, they can achieve greatness.
Every time I step out onto the pitch, that’s what I see: potential. Little Alex may not throw correctly now, but with work, she could become the next Alex Morgan. That’s why, in every soccer game I referee, every new situation I’m thrust into, I strive to see what’s more; I strive to see the potential.
What the Essay Did Well
There is so much imagery in this essay! It’s easy to see the scene in your mind. Through details such as “smallest girl” and describing the team as the “orange,” the reader can more easily picture the scene in their mind. Giving color, size, and other details such as these can make the imagery stronger and the picture clearer in the reader’s mind.
The writer narrates their thought process through their use of italics, bringing the reader into the mind of the writer. The space for each line of dialogue separates each thought, so that the reader can feel the full emphasis of each line. The mingling of cognitive narration and details about the setting keep the momentum of the essay.
Through this essay, we learn that this referee is supportive to the members of the youth soccer teams that they are refereeing; instead of seeing the role of referee as punitive (punishing), this writer sees it as a coaching experience. This idea of creating educational encounters as one’s contribution to the community is definitely a great idea to build upon for this essay prompt.
What Could Be Improved
The contribution to the community is clear because of the emphasis on the coaching aspect of refereeing. However, especially thinking about structure, the author spends about half the essay on a single situation. Limiting this story to a third of the essay could give the writer more space to provide examples of other ways that the author has coached others. The author could have also connected this coaching experience to a mentoring experience in a different context, such as mentoring students at the YMCA, to create more connections between other extracurriculars and give more weight to this author’s contributions to the community.
The second to last paragraph (“And just like that, we were off again…”) could benefit from another example or two about showing, not telling. The sentence “And while they might not be prescribed, they provide so many learning opportunities” is already clear from the situation that the author has given; the author has already called these “educational encounters” in the prior sentence. Instead of that sentence, the writer could have given another example about a child thanking the writer for a coaching tip, or the expression on a different player’s face when they learned a new skill.
Additionally, the role of the writer is not immediately clear at the beginning, although it’s suspected that this student is most likely the referee. The writer also provides details about “AYSO” (American Youth Soccer Organization) and “U10,” where they could have simply referred to the games as “youth soccer games” to get the point across that the players are still learning basic skills about throwing the ball in.
To make all of this clear, the writer could have said “As a referee for youth soccer games, I have seen that players often lift their back foot when throwing the ball, so I focused my attention there.” Acronyms are usually best to be avoided in essays- they can take the reader’s attention away from what is actually happening and lead them to wonder about what the letters in the acronym stand for.
Where to Get Feedback on Your MIT Essay
Do you want feedback on your MIT essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.
If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!
