Wellesley College Essay Example by an Accepted Student
Wellesley College is a pretty selective school, so it’s important to write strong essays to help your application stand out. In this post, we’ll share an essay a real student has submitted to Wellesley College. (Names and identifying information have been changed, but all other details are preserved). 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. Read our Wellesley College essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts. Prompt: When choosing a college community, you are choosing an intellectual community and a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but it’s a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 and select two items that attract, inspire, or energize you. Have fun with this and use this opportunity to reflect personally on what items appeal to you most and why. Please limit your response to the Wellesley College essay to two well-developed paragraphs (minimum 250 words, maximum 400 words). In my sophomore year, I was the only Hispanic person in my IB HL Math 1 course and one of the few Latinas who took IB English Literature, IB Chem 2, and more. As an IB student, looking different from my peers and teachers, it is easy to feel alone in my core classes. To combat this, I’ve strived to find a sense of community in my extracurriculars and electives—primarily art and culture-based. I am eager to attend Wellesley for this same sense of community. Wellesley’s vast multicultural organizations, particularly Mezcla, listed in reason #8: Culture shows, excite me. It is comforting to know I will have a community of peers to bond with over a shared Latinx identity. I know Mezcla will be a second family to me. I also look forward to the first-year seminars, listed in reason #13. Introspective, seminar-style courses are something I am already familiar with as my Theory of Knowledge class is structured the same way. It is my favorite class because I can interact with my peers in a setting where we learn from one another and contemplate how we know what we claim to know. It differs from traditional classroom lessons as there is an element of trust involved; students need to feel like our discussions are safe spaces where everyone’s ideas are heard. It has allowed me to know my peers and teachers on a deeper level. I knew I wanted to go to a school that would allow me to experience this again with seminars that fit my interests. I would love to take Can We Have An Argument? to develop the communicative skills that will benefit me for the rest of my life, and 21st Century Cinema, to expand on my love of the visual arts and explore film.
What really makes this essay strong is the personal reflection. This student picked two aspects of the Wellesley 100 that she had a genuine connection with, so she was able to focus her essay on why each item is important to her and how it will help her grow. We learn a lot about the student’s previous experiences that have shaped her and about her aspirations because this essay is so focused on reflection. Although the prompt specifically asks for two paragraphs to address two items on the list, this essay still made a good use of the space and evenly split up the essay between the two items. Both of the items the student chose to discuss are fully fleshed out and given appropriate context for why they stood out to her. Neither item feels more or less important to her, which is important to show the multifaceted personality this student has—different aspects of her personality are excited by different offerings at Wellesley. One thing this essay could work on is adding more creativity to the essay. It’s currently well-written and effectively answers the prompt, but it lacks some creativity. Especially since the prompt said to “Have fun with this”, adding some playfulness, humor, or imagination to the essay would make it stronger. Maybe the essay is structured like a bucket list and this student is crossing off reason #8 and reason #13 on their list. Or perhaps she chose to include quotes from class or her internal monologue while sitting in a seminar to show what she finds so engaging about these types of classes. Admissions officers read so many essays that look identical to this one, so getting creative with the structure or language would help set the essay apart from the rest. Do you want feedback on your Wellesley College 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!
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What the Essay Does Well
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