We have selected several successful application essays from Harvard, and have organized them into four categories from which to glean insight into techniques to write a good application essay. The four types of essays we found most common were: essays that show an applicant overcoming adversity, essays which present the uniqueness of an applicant, essays which tell a particular story, and essays that emulate an influential person/people through the applicant’s eyes.
Essay Topics
Today’s essay comes from the unique applicant category. This type of essay presents the student’s unique qualities in many ways. It is a more free-form type of essay and differs from applicant to applicant.
Some essays of this type demonstrate a quality, such as ones verbose-ness, one’s affinity for numbers, or one’s obsession with a certain question or area of research. It is not advisable for everyone to write this type of essay. However, you will know, during the brainstorming process if you can pull off this type of essay.
The unique applicant essay are among the most memorable, because they all present exceptional candidates in unconventional ways. Noah Hoch’s essay entitled ‘Bus Window Revelations’ is an excellent case of this type of essay. It cannot be thought of a template, but perhaps some inspiration for applicants who intend to write this type of essay.
‘Bus Window Revelations’
By Noah Hoch
Tree…tree…speed limit…tree…Exit 46 next left…tree…tree…light pole…tree…
That’s pretty much how it goes on the bus rides to away games. I sit alone next to the window with my knees pressed up against the seat back in front of me. With one hand, I pick at the green duct tape that the bus driver used to cover the slice some delinquent cut into the strange material. With the other, I scroll through playlists on my iPod. Looking out the window, the trees just passing by, I can see the ghost of my face in the glass and I’m always reminded of those movies that begin with shots from inside a car, staring out at the fields of autumn trees, nature’s memorial to the wilderness that once existed where the roads are now. As the credits fade in and fade out on the screen, always avoiding the direct center, a comfortable song like Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” just barely plays over the sound of tires on asphalt. For some reason, this is my favorite way for a movie to begin. I guess I like not knowing who the boy is in the car, but knowing that whoever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s going somewhere.
I don’t sit alone because I’m a recluse. Quite the contrary, I thrive when I’m around other people, and my best friends are all on the team. But, the bus has become the only place where I don’t feel obligated to be working; it is a sanctuary for my thoughts, my imagination. In the passing fields my mind builds an entire metropolis and focuses in like a camera swooping down from a crane on a single boy, suitcase in hand, gawking at the intensity of a hundred-plus story steel mountain. It’s his first time in the city and…
Tree. The stick structure derails my train of thought and I am back on the bus. The interruption reminds me subtly that what I see through this transparent, glassed screen is only a figment. There is no reality out there in what I see…at least not yet.
On the bus, over the chatter of my teammates, my thoughts and my ideas may be fleeting and incomplete but they’re enough to compel me to keep looking out the window. Someday, that’s what I’ll call my production studio: BUS WINDOW REVELATIONS. It will be a tribute to all those days where, past the water-splotched glass, I would see the two lovers finally reuniting, the once ambitious politician sitting at his desk crying tears of defeat, or the quiet resolve of an old man on his deathbed in the shadows of a mourning family. This is my imagination. This is my dream. This is who I am. I am reflected in the pane and I am reflected in movies behind it.
I like to think that I’m a lot like those movie beginnings. The credits roll like a silent “thank you” to all those who have put hard work into making me, but here the end of their work only becomes the beginning of my story. I’m that boy in the car. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I like that he’s going somewhere. And for now, on the bus, I’m content to stare out the window, iPod in hand, and let the revelations come with each passing tree.
Essay Analysis:
This essay separates itself from other essays with its special theme and unique style. Noah captures a short period of time by eloquently describing his surroundings and aligning them with his inner dialogue.
We travel with the writer, he reminds us during his self-reflection that he is still on the bus. Grammatically, he shows great skill in enabling us to travel through the present outside and the present inside, never confusing which is which.
The repetition of going somewhere is synonymous with his career goals. He seems ambitious and thoughtful in his writing.
In addition, it is strange for a high school student to want to be alone and to not seek constant validation from his peers. That alone says something about his personality, and that he is mature beyond his years. This type of character demonstration can be a positive technique for writers of any type of essay.
Overall, this essay is original and unique and does not try to take on too much. Noah mentions his accomplishments, but doesn’t stress them too much, because the essay is more about his uniqueness, aspirations and character, which are conveyed colorfully and skillfully in his exceptional writing style.
