college essay ending examples

How to End a College Essay: 10 Tactics & Strategies

How you end your college application essay can have an important impact on how your reader experiences your essay: while we’ve seen essays that are really solid even without an incredible ending (meaning: please don’t panic and add stress to an already stressful process), we’ve also seen college essays whose endings took the essay up another level.

And we think that there are clear techniques and strategies that virtually any writer can use to uplevel the conclusion section of their college application essay.

So below, we’ll offer 10 specific approaches to endings—split into 5 that you can do with little to no planning and 5 that require some planning ahead and/or rewriting—that you can use to strengthen your personal statement.

In this post, We'll cover:

How to think about college essay endings, 3 college essay endings to avoid.

• The Two Essential Qualities of An Outstanding Ending
• 10 tactics, strategies, and techniques for making your ending stand out

A. Tactics (small changes that requires less planning ahead)

• 1. Connect to your values
• 2. The bookend or callback
• 3. The road forward
• 4. Save your thesis (or your whole intro) for the end
• 5. Connect to your career

B. Strategies (may require big changes, or more planning ahead)

• 6. The “why us?” set-up
• 7. Back to the beginning, but something’s changed
• 8. The twist/reveal
• 9. The “theater of the oppressed” ending
• 10. The ellipsis ...

Okay, so think of a movie you’ve seen that you really enjoyed for most of the way through… and then the kinda boring or cliche ending lost you. Do you want to invite that movie to hang out at your college for the next few years? Probably not.

Three mistakes we see students make when it comes to ending their personal statement include thinking that you:

Should just restate the thesis (because English class)

Have to have a great ending in mind before you start

Shouldn’t worry much because the ending isn’t all that important

But we’re here to tell you that:

Yeah, probably don’t restate your thesis—in fact, many great personal statements don’t even have an explicit thesis.

You can write a great ending even after you’ve written the rest of your essay.

A great conclusion can be an essay-maker. It can take your personal statement from “pretty good” to “outstanding”

This post will show you how.

So let’s. Talk. Endings.

By the way: I’m using the term “we” instead of “I” here because I co-wrote this piece with my long-time friend, Andy Simpson. He has 15+ years experience guiding students on essays and, like me, geeks out on this stuff.

A great personal statement ending answers the question “So what?” or “Why does this matter?”

But how do you do it?

First, how not to do it.

Don’t just repeat or restate your thesis . We know, your teacher told you to (ours did too). And it might not be a bad idea for the conclusion to your AP US History or AP English Lang/Lit paper (although even there, maybe change the phrasing a little). But probably don’t do this on your personal statement. It can feel repetitive, or basic. And you are not basic.

Don’t end with a cheesy quote or something that anyone else could have written . We’re talking about quotes like, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world,” or phrases like, “I learned that everything happens for a reason,” or “I learned that I too can make a difference.” And if you’ve written a draft already, take a quick look at your last lines. Could someone else have written them? If so, a) we’re glad you’re here, and b) delete them and keep reading.

Be careful not to refer to things that you haven’t really shown earlier in the essay. Sometimes we’ll read essays that end with something like, “I’m grateful for all the lessons these experiences have taught me…”  but we don’t really know what those lessons are because the author didn’t tell us in the essay. If you refer to all the hard work you’re proud you did, for example, show us the hard work earlier in the essay.

What goes into a great ending?

The Two Essential Qualities of an Outstanding Ending

A great ending often has two qualities: surprise and inevitability . H/T Aristotle

Think about a great film ending—usually you feel some combination of “Whoah, I totally didn’t see that coming,” and “Ah, right, it probably had to end like that.”

We’re talking about The Sixth Sense , Inception , or Titanic . And totally j/k re: Titanic because that was a TERRIBLE ending—both Jack and Rose could’ve totally fit on that door. The boat sinking was a shocker, though, right? Does every great movie have both those qualities? No. And must you have both those qualities to get into a great college? No. But these are two good qualities to keep in mind as you read this post and write your essay.

10 TACTICS, STRATEGIES, AND TECHNIQUES FOR ENDING YOUR COLLEGE ESSAY

We’ll split this list into three categories:

Tactics: Things you can do once you’re pretty much done, or if you aren’t willing to rewrite your essay much.

Strategies: Things that, to make work, you kinda’ either have to have planned out ahead of time or be willing to rewrite some stuff.

Techniques : Small things you can do or apply to the tactics and strategies.

Important note: Not every personal statement ending will fit into these categories; they are just some ideas you can try based on some approaches we’ve seen work well for other students.

1. Connect to Your Values

This one is one of the easiest. It basically works like this: Look back through your essay and ask yourself, “What values am I showing?” 

Then don’t name those values too much in the body of your essay, but do name them explicitly in your conclusion. 

Here’s an example (note the values in bold ): 

Upon reflection, I found that my answer didn’t exist in books or research, but somewhere very close from the beginning—my intuition. In other words, I didn’t need an elaborate and intricate reason to prove to myself that health is an inalienable right for every human being—I needed self-reflection. So I ask again, “Does every life matter?” Yes. “Do I have solid, written proof?” No. Paul Farmer once said, “The thing about rights is that in the end you can’t prove what is a right.” To me, global health is not merely a study. It’s an attitude—a lens I use to look at the world—and it’s a statement about my commitment to health as a fundamental quality of liberty and equity .

To read the entire Does Every Life Matter essay, click here. 

Why This Ending Works

If you read the entire essay (at link above), you’ll see the author touches on a few different themes in his essay—heritage, community, moral behavior, etc.—but he doesn’t make them super explicit until the end. Once he names them at the end, we (as readers) go, “Ah, that’s what we thought you were talking about.” 

Ending with values is also a pretty good idea because a) it shows your ability to self-reflect, and b) highlights some qualities that, oh, by the way, will be useful in college and beyond. 

Heads-up that this doesn’t work quite as well if you’ve already clearly named the values earlier in the essay—in fact, it can feel repetitive. So, if you’re trying this approach, a) make sure you didn’t already explicitly name the values earlier and, if you did, b) delete or rephrase those parts of your essay so that when you name the values at the end, it won’t feel as repetitive. 

And by the way—did you notice how the whole paragraph above felt repetitive? That’s because, if you were reading carefully, we already wrote before the example, “Then don’t name those values too much in the body of your essay, but do name them explicitly in your conclusion.” So, to edit, we should cut that sentence (and that’s what we’d have you do in your essay).

You’ll find another example of this type of ending in the Makeup essay (check out the mentions of “scientific inquiry,” “voice,” “connect me with others,” and more in those last lines).

2. The Bookend or Callback

Bookending involves referring to something you’ve set up earlier in the essay. It’s something comedians do a lot and refer to as a “callback.” For a few examples, check out How Dave Chappelle Delivers a Callback starting at 1:05. (Trigger warning: There’s some adult language in that video. If you prefer, here’s the Wikipedia link explaining the same concept.)

Here’s an example of a callback in a personal statement: 

The essay begins ... 

“I have been pooped on many times. I mean this in the most literal sense possible. I have been pooped on by pigeons and possums, house finches and hawks, egrets and eastern grays. “

And the essay ends ... 

“The upshot is that I simply cannot walk away from injustice, however uncomfortable it is to confront it. I choose to act, taking a stand and exposing the truth in the most effective manner that I think is possible. And while I’m sure I will be dumped on many times, both literally and metaphorically, I won’t do the same to others.”

To read the entire “Poop, Animals, and the Environment” essay, click here.

What We Like about This Ending/Why It Works

This one is great because, on the one hand, the ending catches the reader by surprise (we didn’t see that coming!). But it also feels inevitable (because she’s calling back to something she set up at the start). That’s that surprise + inevitability we mentioned a minute ago. (Thanks, Aristotle.)

One thing that’s cool about this tactic is that you can do this once the rest of your essay is already written. And, if you do it well, it’ll feel like you planned it all along. 

If you’d like one more example, check out the Endodontics essay, whose author was pretty much done but still felt like the ending was missing something. So he went back, added the detail about “mineral white or diamond white” near the beginning, then wrote a last line that linked back to it. And yet when you read it you get the sense he’d planned his ending from the beginning.

Quick note: While you shouldn’t feel like you have to use humor, the cleverness in the endings of both the “Poop” and “Endodontics” essays mentioned above do leave a nice last impression.

3. The Road Forward

There’s something beautiful and inspiring about an open road. The sense of potential and possibility it offers. The invitation it makes.

So it can be nice to end an essay with language that feels like an open road—that ends with a sense of exploration and, maybe, a little excitement.

Here’s an example from a personal statement:

“I see a reflection of myself in the divide at the 38th parallel because I see one part isolating itself in defense to outside threats, and another part coming out to face the world as one of the fastest-developing nations. Just as my shy persona before debate and extroverted character after debate are both part of who I am, the Korean civilization is also one. And just as my parents expect much from me, the first of my family to attend college, I have grand expectations for this field of study.”

To read the entire “With Debate” essay, click here.

This conclusion opens with a nice metaphor, demonstrating both the author’s ability to think creatively and generate insight. It also reminds us of the growth we’ve seen the author go through over the course of the essay. Finally, this conclusion leaves us with a nice combo of purpose and potential—and in my experience, when an admission reader senses they may be able to help someone realize their potential, they’re usually pretty excited to do that.

Who This Might Work Well for: Students Who Have Faced Challenges

If you’ve worked through significant challenges in your life, this ending might work especially well for you. Here’s an example: 

“I know I’m not like many students my age, but I'm happy with who I am. I am the student who works on the weekends scrubbing restrooms, carrying trash bags and mopping kitchen floors. I am the student who won't give a second thought to missing a party to help my parents babysit my sisters or accompany them to a new job. I know that one day I will not take my family to a bowling alley to clean it but to enjoy it. And who knows maybe one day I will learn to bowl.”

To read the entire “Bowling” essay, click here.

This author answers “so what” by sharing how her experiences have shaped her values and sense of self. The details here, in conjunction with those in the body, give us a sense of the strong character she’s developed. And the hope and vulnerability of the final lines make us as readers hope for the same things for her.

But this is important: Please don’t think you need to force this—don’t build a hopeful tone at the end simply because you think that’s what your reader wants. Do so if it reflects your experience.

• Adrian’s Personal Statement
• The Little Porch and a Dog

4. Save Your Thesis (or Your Whole Intro) for the End

“But wait,” I hear you say, “I thought you were not supposed to put a thesis in your personal statement.”

Actually, I said don’t just repeat or restate your thesis. If you don’t state the main point of your essay in your body paragraphs, you might decide to include it at the end. 

There are two ways you can do this, and we’ll discuss them one by one:

Variation A: The “Put Your Thesis at the End” Approach

Putting your thesis at the beginning can sometimes lead to a personal statement that feels a bit too much like one of those essays in which an author builds an argument and supports it with evidence. And although it could be argued that you’re building an “argument” in your personal statement—an argument demonstrating that you’ll bring a lot of value to a college campus—this method isn’t quite the same. We’ve found that by explicitly naming their thesis at the start, then supporting it with bits of evidence, some students create a slightly less interesting story simply because the ending often isn’t all that surprising.

One way to avoid this is by delaying the thesis ‘til the end.

In the “ Hiking ” essay, for example, the author describes a few positive experiences he’s had with Boy Scouts. But he waits until the very end to share an insight that ties all the experiences together.

Check out the “Hiking” essay here.

Heads-up: The next thing we’re about to share won’t really make sense unless you read the “Hiking” essay. 

What’s neat about this personal statement is that the author touches on a few different values/sides of himself in the body paragraphs … but it’s not until the final paragraph that he claims these different sides of himself as identities. Check out that final line again: “When I'm hiking, I'm not merely a hiker ; I'm a historian , a conservationist , and a teacher all in one” (bold emphasis mine).

This ending works because, earlier in the essay, the author describes (i.e., shows us) these parts of himself through specific examples and details, then he names them (i.e., tells us) explicitly at the end of the essay. Note that if the author instead had decided to open his essay with that line, it kinda’ would’ve spoiled the ending of the movie (or, in this case, essay). The reader might’ve thought something like, “Okay, cool, guess I don’t really need to read the rest—thanks for saving me some time.” Ending with this sentence, however, creates a sense of both inevitability (since the final line pulls together the essences of the separate paragraphs, and surprise (because we didn’t think to name these different sides of him in quite this way—as identities he claims/roles he plays).

Note: To make this surprising, it was important for the author to not name these identities along the way, instead saving them for the end. 

Variation B: The “Put Your Thesis at the End” Approach

Here’s an example from a student who chose to put not just one sentence in her conclusion, but her entire intro paragraph: 

“My home is a dynamic and eclectic entity. Although I've lived in the same house in Cary, North Carolina for 10 years, I have found and carved homes and communities that are filled with and enriched by tradition, artists, researchers, and intellectuals. While I may not always live within a 5 mile radius of a Bojangle's or in close proximity to Lab 304, learning to become a more perceptive daughter and sister, to share the beauty of my heritage, and to take risks and redefine scientific and personal expectations will continue to impact my sense of home.”

To read the entire “Home” essay, click here.

Like the author of the “Hiking” essay above, this student does a nice job of pulling together the examples by zooming back to a wider frame of reference (but doing so with specific phrasing and language). Note that the author could have opened her essay with this paragraph, but doing so would have yielded a much more predictable (read: boring) essay. 

Instead, she shows images and experiences in the body paragraphs so we get to “watch the movie” of her life before she tells us what they mean to her. 

Note: In order to make this work, the author had to make sure the central topic of the essay (in this case, “home”) was super clear. She does this by repeating the word “home” at the ends of the first, second, and fourth paragraph, and in the middle of the third paragraph (she chose not to mention the word in the same place each time just to offer some variety). So if you try this one, make sure the topic/theme of your essay is clear.

5. Connect to Your Career

Quick PSA: College is not just a career conveyor belt (and colleges generally don’t see themselves that way). It’s a place where you can learn a lot about yourself and the world while, hopefully, meeting some awesome people. 

Having said that, describing in your conclusion how your experiences relate to your career can be effective for a couple reasons: 

It can be similar in effect to The Road Forward—we as readers like imagining the exploration ahead for the writer, and we may even want to help them on their journey.

Mentioning a future potential career can also set you up for one of the most common supplemental essays, the “Why us?” essay. If you take this approach, you can even think of your personal statement and the “Why us?” as effectively two parts of the same essay, where Part I (the personal statement) tells the story or stories of how you’ve arrived at your career path, while Part II (the “Why us?”) describes how you’ll make use of the specific opportunities at whatever college(s) you’re applying to. Some students structure their whole application like this, btw.

Here’s a quick example of a student who mentions his career at the end of his personal statement, which explores his long-held love of mazes and games:

“A few years ago I grew tired of working within the constraints of most internet games and I wanted to program my own, so I decided to learn the language of Scratch. With it, I created several computer games, incorporating such unordinary aspects of gameplay as the avoidance of time-travel paradoxes, and the control of "jounce," the fourth derivative of position with respect to time. Eventually, I came to realize that Scratch was too limited to implement some of my ideas, so I learned C#, and my potential expanded exponentially. I continue to study programming knowing that the more I learn, the more tools I have to express my creativity. To me, studying computer science is the next step of an evolution of boundary breaking that has been underway since my first maze.”

To read the entire “Mazes” essay, click here.

This conclusion has a few nice elements to it: It functions to bookend the essay (see above); it provides a wider frame/context for the specific details and experiences shared in the body paragraphs; and as mentioned above, it sets the author up for any “Why us?” essay he’ll write.

The “ Endodontics ” essay also ends this way, but where the “Mazes” author added the career connection near the end of his writing process, the “Endodontics” author actually planned his entire essay around the career that he mentions in his conclusion. 

Which brings us to our next point: There’s a deeper way of writing about your career ...

6. The “Why Us?” Set-Up

What it is: A conclusion that sets up nicely for a (separate) “Why us?” essay. In some cases, the personal statement is even planned around a specific program that will be discussed in a “Why us?” essay. This can work especially well if, while researching colleges, you found The Perfect Program for you—like one that basically checks all your boxes.

The key to making this strategy work is to write your personal statement in a way that does not simply replicate the content you’ll share in your “Why us?” essay. Instead, think of your personal statement as kinda’ like sharing your “origin story” (yeah, like in a comic book or Marvel movie). 

For an example of an essay that shares a budding activist’s origin story, check out the personal statement, “ The Instagram Post .” The ending reads: 

“My role model Ruth Bader Ginsburg says, “dissent[ers] speak to a future age... they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.” Retrospectively, I realize that The Post was my voice of dissent―through it, I initiated a campus-wide discussion and openly challenged the majority opinion of my school for the first time. As I aspire to become a civil rights attorney and the first Asian woman on the Supreme Court (I hope it doesn’t take that long!), I am confident that I will continue to write and speak out for justice ―for tomorrow.”

To read the entire “The Instagram Post” essay, click here.

If you read the whole personal statement, you may find the ending somewhat surprising (in that you perhaps didn’t expect at the start of the essay that the author would eventually say she wanted to become a civil rights attorney) and inevitable (because this path makes sense given the trajectory she has been on since her Instagram post).

But this is really just Part 1 of her journey. The next chapter (i.e., Part 2) is essentially what she maps out in her “Why us?” essay. 

You can read her “Why us?” essay for Michigan at this link . 

Note how the first line of her “Why us?” essay not only references the end of her personal statement, but also expands on other interests—all of which she’ll explore in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) concentration at Michigan. 

This works particularly well because she isn’t repeating too much from her personal statement; she’s expanding on it. Look at this sentence from her “Why us?” essay in particular: 

“The interdisciplinary nature of PPE perfectly suits my desire to understand human beings through different lenses. I strongly believe that social and geopolitical issues must be approached in a multidimensional context--complex relationships between individuals and communities demand equally sophisticated analyses.” 

These sentences help us understand her “why” and connects back to some of the themes and values of her personal statement, but here we get some more elevated language. Later in her “Why us?” essay, she names specific opportunities and classes in the PPE program that will help her achieve the goals she’s named.  

For another example of this type of ending, check out “ The ‘Not Black Enough’ East-Asian Influenced Bibliophile ,” which is a bit more open-ended, but still works well. To see that student’s “Why us?” essay, click here .

7. Back to the Beginning, but Something’s Changed

What it is: You link back to the person you were at the beginning of the essay and reflect on how you’ve changed. This is similar in approach and effect to bookending, but (as you’ll see if you read the full essay linked below) it takes a lot more planning ahead (whereas bookending can often be the last thing you think of). This kind of ending will inherently show growth and reflection, two nice qualities to demonstrate in your writing. 

Here’s the start of an essay that uses this strategy ...

“It was Easter and we should’ve been celebrating with our family, but my father had locked us in the house. If he wasn’t going out, neither were my mother and I.”

And here’s the ending:

“My Easter will drastically differ from past years. Rather than being locked at home, my mother and I will celebrate outdoors our rebirth and renewal.”

To read the entire “Easter” essay, click here.

By mirroring some language from the opening, you can achieve the same kind of closure that basic bookending does. But here, there’s an added element of growth, development, understanding—we see how the author has more fully stepped into themselves through the course of the narrative. There’s also a similar effect to a few of the other approaches we’ve discussed in that when we see this growth, we cheer for the writer.

8. The Twist/Reveal

What it is: You set up an expectation in the reader through the structure and focus of your essay, then pivot against that expectation in your ending. This is effective for the same reason that movies with (good) twist endings are effective—we enjoy the surprise, the revelation, the way the ending requires us to recalculate all that we’ve just seen. It also indicates a certain degree of skill and understanding as a writer, since setting up a twist that we don’t see coming isn’t easy.

Note that this is similar in effect to The Twist opening described here .

Check out the ending of this essay:

“The more I scratch off from my goals list, the more it brings me back to those days handling spatulas. Anew, I ask myself, “Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?” I want a life driven by my passions, rather than the impositions of labor. I want to explore new paths and grow within my community to eradicate the prejudicial barriers on Latinos. So yes, this IS how I want to spend the rest of my life.” 

T o read the entire “¡Ya levantate!” essay, click here.  

When the writer ends the first third of his essay with “This was the scene that ignited the question in my head: ‘Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?’ The answer was no. So I started…,” we’re expecting the rest of the essay to explore how their life has led them to an understanding of how they do want to spend the rest of their life. And they do. Sorta :). But the recall at the end and the twist in a new direction offer a satisfying reveal and require a re-evaluation of what has come before.

Note that this example also shares elements with the “Back to the Beginning, but Something’s Changed” approach.

The “Theater of the Oppressed” Ending

What it is: You put the ending of the essay in the reader’s hands. You don’t resolve it.

Check out the ending to this essay: 

“Living in a low-income immigrant household has taught me to appreciate all I’ve been given.  Testifying in court helped me grow as a person, has made me more open-minded and aware of the problems facing my community. And my involvement in the urban farm has led me to consider a career as a nutritionist. Though neither of my parents attended college, they understand that college is a key factor to a bright future and therefore have been very supportive. And though we don't yet have the house with the small porch and the dog, we're still holding out hope. I believe college can help.”

This one hits hard each time we read it. Those last lines are powerful, the culmination of a moving story. And the author leaves what happens next in the reader’s hands.

This technique is similar to a technique used by Theater of the Oppressed (hence the name), where actors onstage play out a conflict and then, instead of resolving it, pause to seek out input and ideas from the audience members. In the case of the personal statement, the “audience” is the college admission officer and the author says, in effect, “It’s up to you to help finish this story.”

Note that this kind of ending only works with certain kinds of challenges/circumstances. For another example of this strategy, check out the “ Growing Up in Lebanon ” essay: “And I look forward to becoming the first man in my family to finish college.” We know this is somewhat similar to the example above, but we imagine this strategy could work with other endings—and if you’ve seen one or written one, feel free to share it with us by emailing [email protected]. We’d love to see it.

10. The Ellipsis ...

What it is: Leave something unanswered, like an ellipsis. What’s an ellipsis? It’s the dot dot dot at the end of a sentence that looks like this: ...

You’ll find one example in the “Dead Bird” essay at this link . You’ll find another example in the “I Shot My Brother” essay at this link . 

We’re not going to post a super in-depth analysis of these two essays simply because it’ll ruin the ending of these two (very good) pieces of writing. 

But we do want to say a few things about this type of ending:  

For this type of ending to work, a) the author must create a sense of suspense so that the reader wonders—and actually cares about—what will happen next, but then stops before revealing what happens next, and b) there must be a limited set of possible paths for the reader to imagine. In other words, it can’t be completely open-ended (i.e., “anything is possible”). 

In the “Dead Bird” essay, for example, we sense that either a) she has come to a deeper understanding of the trauma she experienced, or b) she hasn’t. 

In the “I Shot My Brother” essay—and we’re going to keep it a little vague here so we don’t ruin the ending—we sense that the author’s brother is about to reveal a) good news, or b) bad news. We also sense that the author will share with his brother the essay and it will either a) turn out well, or b) turn out poorly. 

In each of these cases, though, we think we can guess how it’s going to go … and it also doesn’t really matter what happens next because already the author has gone through a major change (who they are at the end is very different from where they started).

This type of ending is really hard to pull off. We’d recommend you not obsess over using this type of ending at the expense of writing an essay that demonstrates all the skills, qualities, values, and interests that you’ll bring with you to college. 

We’re actually not sure that these two essays are necessarily the best personal statement examples because, while the authors do exhibit great sensitivity and writing ability, we’re not sure these personal statements show... the skills, qualities, values, and interests that the authors will bring with them to college as well as they might. 

Check out the “ If Ink Were Ants ” essay for a personal statement example that we believe does more clearly show great qualities…and ends with an actual ellipsis. Now, you don’t have to end yours with an actual dot dot dot, but you’ll see how the author does a nice job of setting up where she might go in the future without spelling it out explicitly. 

In short, if you use this method, we’d recommend making your ending somewhat but not completely open-ended.

A Final Word on Endings

Having said all this … do you have to write an awesome ending to get into a great college? Not necessarily. Great students get into great schools with personal statement endings that are just so-so. The “ Arab Spring in Bahrain ” essay ending, for example, is arguably just okay, and that student still got into a Very Famous School That You Have Heard of. (We don’t like to name schools, as it can lead to copycatting.

But a great ending can leave a great last impression, as you’ll see in the examples above.

So pick one and get crackin’!

Action Item: Choose one (or more) of these ending techniques and try it out. If it doesn’t work, try another.

Andrew Simpson, CEG’s Editorial Director, has worked as an educator, consultant, and curriculum writer for the past 15 years, and earned degrees from Stanford in Political Science and Drama. He feels most at home on mountain tops and in oceans.

Top Values:  Insight/Growth | Truth | Integrity

Ethan Sawyer (he/him) is the founder of College Essay Guy which means he has been eating/sleeping/breathing college essays for most of his waking hours since 2003. Each year he and his team reach more than one million students and counselors through the College Essay Guy blog, online pay-what-you-can courses, workshops, books, and one-on-one work.

Through his work he has supported, advised and counseled thousands of students through the complicated college search and application process, all while staying true to his core values of providing ease, purpose and joy in the process.

Top Values: humor, connection, family 

College Reality Check

How to Close a College Essay (With 10 Examples)

Writing a conclusion can be quite difficult because, often, it can be challenging to look for something useful or interesting to say at the end of the piece.

And even though there are easy formulas for writing conclusions, which, the school adds, can be tempting to use, it’s usually best to refrain from relying on them as they do not allow you to end your composition with a bang.

As someone who is about to write a college essay, it’s definitely a good idea to steer clear of any of those!

What you will submit together with your college application can spell the difference between going to your top-choice school and attending a second- or third-choice school.

Needless to say, it’s just as vital to carefully think about how you will jump-start your college essay as how you will wrap it up with a strong and winning conclusion .

Terrified that the conclusion you have in mind might bring your entire college application essay down and flush any admission chances to your dream school down the drain?

Below, I will give you some strategies on how to close your written submission successfully.

But first, let’s talk about this very important matter every college-bound teen, especially one whose goal is to get admitted to a selective institution of higher education, needs to know before writing a college essay…

Three Worst Options to Close a College Essay

There are numerous ways to wrap up a college essay in a way that could make those hard-to-please admissions officers reckon that you would make for a wonderful addition to the campus.

But then on the other hand, there are also things you may mistakenly commit that can weaken your application and even cause a rejection letter to be sent your way.

Needless to say, you should avoid them at all costs if getting denied is not an option!

A terrible concluding paragraph can wreak havoc on your essay no matter how flawlessly and impressively written the introduction and main body are — a single problematic part is all it takes to ruin everything.

Therefore, other than having a clear idea of how any college application essay is best closed in exchange for good news when college admissions decision time comes, it’s also a must for you to be acquainted with conclusions that are absolute no-nos.

And, of course, other than being familiar with them, you should make sure that none of them will mar your college essay.

Here are some endings to dodge whatever happens:

1. Giving a summary

When it comes to writing either an academic essay or a research paper, there’s a rule that everyone should abide by without any hesitation or doubt: the conclusion should briefly talk about the key points or arguments.

So, in other words, the written piece should end with a summarization, which is why it’s referred to as a concluding summary.

The addition of any new information or idea is considered unthinkable, although a synthesis of some of the most important matters included in the composition is welcome and, in most instances, expected.

However, it’s a completely different story if what’s being written is a college essay.

If the goal is to make sure that your college essay won’t take away from the strength of your application, refrain from restating just about everything you talked about briefly in the concluding paragraph.

Not only is it redundant and, therefore, completely unnecessary but also makes it appear as though you ran out of ideas before bringing the piece to a full stop.

A college application essay can be as short as 250 words to as long as 600 words — ending yours with a brief summary might look like you just want to meet the word count requirement, which is not the only thing that admissions officers want.

And speaking of whom, giving a summary at the end of your college essay could come across as you saying:

The admissions committee member who will read my essay might fail to completely get the point of my composition because of its complexity and innovativeness, so I should summarize it to make sure that he or she will understand everything.

Again, here’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time, which means that I am totally banking on my ability to correctly solve practically any mathematical problem there is to have a successful career as an aerospace engineer one day.

2. Using cliché transitions

First things first: no cliché should make it to your college essay or any other written piece you will write from hereon. The use of a cliché immediately extends the fact that you lack originality and, worse, sincerity as a writer.

Definitely, you don’t want your college essay to be interchangeable with someone else’s.

And that is why ending yours with something that starts with a trite transition, most especially as a way to restate everything you have talked about, is prohibited.

College admissions officers have laid their eyes on some of the most original personal compositions of junior and senior high schoolers, and it’s effortless for them to catch clichés.

In conclusion or in essence — needless to say, using such a hackneyed phrase is a disaster as it’s both resorting to the use of a cliché as well as committing one of the mortal sins of concluding a college essay, which is summarizing.

The following are some examples of cliché transitions that lead to a summary to steer clear of:

• All things considered
• As has been demonstrated
• In a nutshell
• In summation
• On a final note
• To conclude
• To make a long story short/long story short
• To put it briefly
• To wrap things up
• When all is said and done

It’s important to note that a good essay, including a college essay, uses transitions between paragraphs to maintain a logical and smooth flow of the written piece.

Without them, your submission may make it hard for the reader to get from one point to the other.

It’s not that college admissions officers are dense — it’s just that your college essay’s paragraphs are disjointed.

Found yourself in a rut and feel that starting your conclusion with a cliché transition is the way to go?

Proceed with drafting the concluding paragraph. Once you’re through, scrap the trite word or phrase you opened your conclusion with as well as the rest of the sentence and see how that works.

3. Stating hopes of acceptance

It’s no secret that you submitted a college application essay because it’s one of the various admissions requirements. And it’s no secret, too, that you completed all admissions requirements because you wanted to get accepted.

Therefore, expressing your hopes of receiving an offer to enroll is stating the obvious.

As mentioned earlier, high school teens gearing up for their postsecondary education careers are usually limited to 250 to 600 words when writing a college essay.

Needless to say, ending your composition with an entire paragraph devoted to how much you want to attend the institution is a complete waste of precious space.

Because you can submit a college essay containing only as many words, it’s of utmost importance to make the most out of the opportunity to be able to flex your thoughts, creativity, originality and superb writing skills.

There is no point squandering the word limit by your college essay’s conclusion coming across as saying:

I would really appreciate it if you could add my college application to the pile of accepted applications because I have been dreaming of earning an undergraduate degree from University X since time immemorial.

There’s nothing wrong with associating the college career you have envisioned for yourself with what you talked about in your college essay. However, there is no need to explicitly mention it or, worse, beg to be admitted to the institution.

But it’s not just the obvious fact that you want to get accepted that you should avoid mentioning.

Instead of ending with a high note, your college application might exit with a whimper if, for example, you highlighted a number of your personal skills and strengths and unique experiences and then concluding everything with something like:

Clearly, I am a hardworking individual.

It’s apparent that I would make for a great engineer because of my math skills.

5 Winning Ways to Wrap Up a College Essay

There are many different ways to ruin a perfectly remarkable college application essay with a mediocre or appalling conclusion.

It’s a good thing that there are also numerous ways to turn your written composition from one good essay into a one-of-a-kind essay with the right concluding paragraph — all you have to do is choose from some recommended ones.

You are not going to have a shortage of options when it comes to closing a college essay the right way.

Because some are simply better than the rest, which, it goes without saying, could help you ace the admissions review process, it’s important that you decide on something that suits your writing style and personality, too.

See which of these strategies in ending a college essay can give you that a-ha moment:

1. Going back to where you began

Some people call it full circling. Others refer to it as bookending.

No matter the name, one thing remains true: this particular style of closing a college application essay involves seamlessly tying the conclusion to the introduction by reintroducing a word, phrase, individual or the point of the opening paragraph.

What’s really nice about opting for this approach is that it allows you to hem your composition.

Of course, to be effective, the main body of your college essay should veer away from the introduction, to the point of making sure that the readers almost forget what you just talked about at the onset, only to suddenly remind it of them in the end.

When executed correctly, this style can give your written submission a satisfying and self-contained appeal to it.

Suppose that you opened your college essay talking about how a large rock fell on and fractured your leg in 3rd grade. A great ending to it using this particular approach would look something like this:

A rock may once have crushed my legs, causing me to spend a fraction of my childhood donning a leg cast, but, in high school, I established a rock band — and we crushed every gig on and off campus!

2. Peeking into the future

Any essay ending on a positive or hopeful note can always put a smile on the reader’s face.

Needless to say, a concluding paragraph that talks about a bright future ahead allows you to highlight your academic and career goals, giving the audience a much better idea of what sort of college student and professional you could be.

While you should refrain from ending your college application essay by talking about how much it would mean the world to you to get accepted to your dream school, you can make college admissions officers realize you’d make for a wonderful addition to the campus without blatantly doing so by mentioning your hopes and dreams.

Just take a look at this conclusion to an essay of a student applying to a college specializing in engineering:

I can’t wait to see the very first rocket ship I helped design blast off from earth, exposing the crew to the lowest G forces possible for I, as a terrible roller coaster rider, cannot stand high accelerations on the body myself.

3. Ending things with an action

As far as concluding your college application essay with an action goes, the sweeter and shorter, as a general rule of thumb, the better. But it’s also important to wrap things up at the critical moment: right after your piece’s high point.

Making admissions officers wish it hadn’t ended so soon is the main goal.

With them wanting more, they won’t be able to stop thinking about you.

And if you’re still in their mind long after they have taken a look at your application and the rest of the supporting documents, it’s not unlikely for them to want to see you on the campus instead of allow another institution to welcome you.

Here’s an example of ending your college essay with an action that can cause the reader to want more:

After taking a deep breath, I approached the lectern to the thundering applause of the audience.

4. Leaving with a dialogue

Talking about things you have personally experienced and lessons you have arduously learned in your college application essay is always nice.

After all, your piece is something that gives admissions officers a different perspective of you, as a teener who is preparing to work on an undergraduate degree, beyond your GPA, standardized test scores and extracurricular activities.

Just like what was mentioned earlier, summarizing is off-limits when it comes to concluding a college essay .

But there’s a nifty way to reiterate the main point of your composition without simply giving a recap of everything you have cited from the very beginning. And it’s by ending your college application essay with a dialogue.

In most instances, the shorter and crisper the dialogue, the better the effect. It’s like abruptly ending your submission, too.

However, closing yours with words spoken to someone keeps the reader from having to do the guesswork since your point is implied, anyway, which is a textbook connect-the-dots scenario.

Planning on highlighting in your college application essay the fact that you developed a sense of social responsibility? Here’s how you can close it without merely giving a summary:

“I will talk to you later,” I said to my best friend on the phone. “I’m currently on my way to help feed the hungry.”

5. Revealing the central idea

It’s true that the introduction is meant to give the reader an idea of the topic of the essay as well as the various points that will be made about it.

But because a college application is no ordinary essay, there are instances when your composition can make a bigger impact if you save your main point until the very end.

Execute it correctly and you can keep admissions officers gluttonously devouring the intro and main body of your personal essay until they get to the concluding paragraph, which, hopefully, would end in you getting an acceptance letter.

Needless to say, you will have to hold back what you are trying to say long enough.

But the biggest challenge that comes with disclosing the central idea last is keeping the readers engaged and interested adequately for them to keep reading until they reach the end and learn what you have been trying to say all this time.

Failure to do so may leave admissions officers eagerly wanting to reach for another application essay that would make more sense.

Giving snapshots of how you shopped for your first bicycle with your dad in 2nd grade, how you first cannonballed in the water at Bandemer Park in Ann Arbor, Michigan and how you founded a running club in your high school could end in this:

By the time I earn a bachelor’s degree in sports science, hopefully, I have also run my very first Ironman Triathlon, which would serve as an homage to some of the most important and memorable moments of my life thus far.

Read Next: How to Start a Compelling Essay About Yourself

Independent Education Consultant, Editor-in-chief. I have a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering and training in College Counseling. Member of American School Counselor Association (ASCA).

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How to End a College Essay - Strategies, Tips, & Examples

Reviewed by:

Former Admissions Committee Member, Columbia University

Reviewed: 7/3/24

Are you having trouble writing a conclusion for your college essay? Here’s how to end a college essay with expert tips and examples. 

Writing the perfect ending for your college essay is no easy feat; it can be just as challenging as starting your college essay . But don’t fear - we’ve got you covered! This complete guide will discuss everything you need to know about how to end a college application essay. Follow along for tips, examples, and more.

Let’s get started!

How to End Your College Essay

After an energetic essay, it’s essential to end on a high note. Your conclusion should be clear, concise, and, most importantly - memorable. 

Here are some strategies on how to end your personal statement. 

• Circle back to the opening using a "full-circle" structure.
• Unveil the central point or revelation within your narrative.
• Consider the future implications or possibilities.
• Conclude with a decisive action or resolution.

Remember, your ending shouldn't summarize the essay, repeat points that have already been made, or taper off into nothingness. You don’t want it to just fade out–you want it to go out with a bang! Keeping it interesting at this stage can be challenging, but it can make or break a good college essay. 

Admissions expert Keisha talks about how to incorporate storytelling in your essay in our personal statement webinar : 

“Part of this is storytelling. Even in children’s stories, there’s always some sort of arc that happens. That’s what you want to take your readers on—you’re presenting us with something, there’s some sort of conflict or tension, and then there’s a resolution that comes with that."

What Makes an Essay Ending Great?

A good ending of an essay reflects your voice and personality, avoiding clichés or generic statements that lack originality. End on a positive, forward-looking note that demonstrates your excitement for the future and your readiness to take on new challenges.

You should use the ending of your essay to wrap up the story you’ve been telling so far in a cathartic and satisfying way. Think of the feeling you get when the credits roll after you’ve just seen a great movie, or when you close the cover after finishing an amazing book. That’s the feeling that you want to invoke! 

So, don’t overlook your personal statement ending. You’ll want to go out with a bang in order to be remembered by admission committees!

10 College Essay Endings Examples and Tips

Let’s go over some college application essay ending examples. Follow along to learn different powerful strategies you can use to end your college essay. If you want to explore even more essay examples, don't forget to check out our extensive College Essay Examples Database .

1. End the Essay With The Lesson Learned Statement

One of the best things you can do in your college essay is demonstrate how you can get back up after getting knocked down. Showing the admissions committee how you’ve learned and grown from a challenging life event is an excellent way to present yourself as a strong candidate. 

Think of this method as the ending of a good novel about a complex character: they’re not perfect, but they try to be better, and that’s what counts. In your college essay, you’re the main character of your story. Don’t be afraid to talk about a mistake you’ve made as long as you demonstrate (in your conclusion) that you learned something valuable.

Here’s an example of a college essay ending from a Harvard student using the “Lesson Learned” technique:

"The best thing that I took away from this experience is that I can't always control what happens to me, especially as a minor, but I can control how I handle things. In full transparency: there were still bad days and bad grades, but by taking action and adding a couple of classes into my schedule that I felt passionate about, I started feeling connected to school again. From there, my overall experience with school – and life in general – improved 100%."

Why It Works 

This is a good example because it effectively demonstrates the "Lesson Learned" technique by showcasing personal growth and resilience. 

The conclusion reflects on the experiences and challenges faced by the applicant, emphasizing the valuable lesson learned and the positive changes made as a result. It shows maturity, self-awareness, and the ability to overcome obstacles, which can leave a positive impression on admissions committees.

2. End the Essay With the Action-Packed Conclusion Method

Like you see in the movies, ending your college essay in the action can leave an impactful impression on the admissions committee. In the UMichigan example below, the student ends their essay on an ambiguous, energetic note by saying, “I never saw it coming,” as the last line. 

You can also achieve this approach by ending your essay with dialogue or a description. For example, “Hi mom, I’m not coming home just yet,” or “I picked up my brother's phone, and dialed the number.” These are examples of endings that leave you “in the action”–dropping off the reader almost mid-story, leaving them intrigued. 

Here is an example of an “action-packed” college essay ending from a UMichigan student.

"No foreign exchange trip could outdo that. I am a member of many communities based on my geography, ethnicity, interests, and talents, but the most meaningful community is the one that I never thought I would be a part of…

On that first bus ride to the Nabe, I never saw it coming.”

The example from the UMichigan student provides a strong ending to the college essay by using an "action-packed" approach. It engages the reader with an unexpected twist, creating intrigue and leaving them wanting more. 

The phrase "I never saw it coming" adds a sense of anticipation and curiosity, making the conclusion memorable. This technique effectively leaves the reader with a lasting impression, showcasing the applicant's storytelling skills and ability to capture attention.

3. End the Essay By Going Full Circle

As you may know, a “full circle” ending ties the story’s ending to the very beginning. Not to be confused with a summary, this method is an excellent way to leave a lasting impression on your reader. 

When using this technique, tie the very first sentence with the very last. Avoid over-explaining yourself, and end with a very simple recall of the beginning of the story. Keep in mind if you use this method, your “full circle” should be straightforward and seamless, regardless of the essay topic . 

Here is an example of a “Full Circle” college essay ending from a Duke student:

“So next time it rains, step outside. Close your eyes. Hear the symphony of millions of water droplets. And enjoy the moment.”

In response to the beginning: 

“The pitter patter of droplets, the sweet smell that permeates throughout the air, the dark grey clouds that fill the sky, shielding me from the otherwise intense gaze of the sun, create a landscape unparalleled by any natural beauty.”

This example of a "Full Circle" college essay ending is effective because it masterfully connects the ending to the beginning of the story. The essay begins with a vivid description of a rainy day, and the conclusion seamlessly brings the reader back to that initial scene. 

It emphasizes the importance of savoring the moment, creating a sense of reflection and unity in the narrative. This technique allows the reader to feel a sense of closure and reinforces the central theme of the essay, making it a strong and memorable conclusion.

4. End the Essay By Addressing the College 

Directly addressing your college is a popular method, as it recalls the main reason you want to attend the school. If you choose to address your school, it is imperative to do your research. You should know precisely what you find attractive about the school, what it offers, and why it speaks to you. 

Here is a college essay ending example using the “College Address” technique from a UMichigan Student:

"I want to join the University of Michigan’s legacy of innovators. I want to be part of the LSA community, studying economics and political science. I want to attend the Ford School and understand how policy in America and abroad has an effect on global poverty. I want to be involved with the Poverty Solutions Initiative, conducting groundbreaking research on the ways we can reform our financial system to better serve the lower and middle classes.”

This is a good example because it effectively utilizes the "College Address" technique. The student clearly articulates their specific intentions and aspirations related to the University of Michigan. 

They showcase a deep understanding of the university's offerings and how these align with their academic and career goals. This kind of conclusion demonstrates genuine interest and a strong connection to the school, which can leave a positive impression on admissions committees.

5. End the Essay With a Look To the Future

Admissions committees want to know how attending their school will help you on your journey. To use this method, highlight your future goals at the end of your essay. You can highlight what made you want to go to this school in the first place and what you hope to achieve moving forward. If done correctly, this can be highly impactful.

Jesse, an admissions coach from Emory University, offers the following advice about looking to the future at the end of your essay: 

"The key is to link who you are in your journey and show the admissions committee that you have an idea of who you want to be in the future. That connection is really, really important.” 

Here is a college essay ending example from a med student using the “Look To the Future” technique:

“I want to tell my peers that doctors like my grandfather are not only healers in biology but healers in the spirit by the way he made up heroic songs for the children and sang the fear out of their hearts. I want to show my peers that patients are unique individuals who have suffered and sacrificed to trust us with their health care, so we must honor their trust by providing quality treatment and empathy.

My formative experiences in pediatrics contributed to my globally conscious mindset, and I look forward to sharing these diverse insights in my medical career.”

This is a good example because it effectively ties the applicant's personal experiences and aspirations to their desire to attend the specific school. It showcases a clear passion for medicine and a genuine desire to make a positive impact on patients' lives. 

By highlighting the applicant's unique perspective gained from their experiences in pediatrics and emphasizing their commitment to providing quality care and empathy, it demonstrates a strong connection between their goals and the opportunities offered by the school. 

This kind of conclusion helps the admissions committee understand how the applicant will contribute to the school's community and align with their future ambitions.

6. End the Essay With Dialogue

This type of ending works well for narrative essays or essays written in a storytelling style. It demonstrates a strong command of storytelling techniques and good writing ability. 

Dialogue allows you to use the characters in your story to deliver your message in a unique and subtle way. You’ll want to be careful, though, as dialogue can sometimes sound clunky or unnatural. 

Here’s an example of a college essay that ends with a piece of dialogue and narrative storytelling: 

“Smiling, I open Jon’s Jansport backpack and neatly place this essay inside and a chocolate taffy with a note attached.

Twenty minutes have passed when the door abruptly opens.

‘Guess what the doctor just said?’ my brother cries, unable to hide his exhilaration. I look up and I smile too.”

Why It Works

This writer effectively uses subtext in their essay to deliver a punch with their narrative ending. Even though we don’t have the rest of the essay, we can infer several things about the story through subtext alone, and we can figure out that the doctor has delivered good news without explicitly being told. That’s good writing! 

The essay's ending also demonstrates certain characteristics about the writer; chiefly, his care and empathy for his brother. These kinds of traits are highly desirable.

7. End the Essay By Leaving It Unresolved

Unresolved endings can be incredibly impactful, but they are also difficult to get right! These kinds of endings leave the reader to imagine the next events on their own, as well as leaving the implication and main message up to interpretation (to a certain degree). 

An unresolved essay ending can work well if you’re writing an essay about something that’s painful or that you struggle with. However, remember not to lean too far toward confusion and uncertainty, as colleges still want to see motivation and grit. 

Here’s an example of a college essay with an unresolved ending:   

“The wind, the sky, the dampness of the soil on my hands whispered to me, ‘The bird is dead. Kari has passed. But you are alive.’ My breath, my heartbeat, my sweat sighed back, ‘I am alive. I am alive. I am alive.’”

This essay’s ending is incredibly poetic. Ending on the repetition “I am alive” drives home a particularly powerful punch. The writer doesn’t offer a clear-cut message or main point, and doesn’t discuss what the implications of these events are. The reader is left to read between the lines and guess what happened next. 

The subject of this essay is grief, which rarely ever feels resolved. Therefore, an unresolved ending aligns with the essay’s theme and invokes strong emotions in the reader. Be certain that your ending complements the theme of your essay as a whole. 

8. End the Essay On Your Thesis or Main Point

You may have heard the advice to include your essay’s thesis near the beginning. However, sometimes it’s more impactful to build up to your main point by knitting together stories and arguments. Ending by clearly stating the point you were trying to make can have a very powerful effect. 

However, you have to be careful to avoid redundancies. Each sentence in your essay should be meaningful and important, so be sure that you aren’t just repeating yourself in your conclusion. The goal is instead to build up to a memorable and satisfying ending. 

In our webinar on personal statement mistakes to avoid , Dartmouth grad Arianna offers advice for your conclusion: 

“Admission readers, they get a lot of applications that they're looking through, right? So, how are you going to help them remember who you are? You want to keep re-emphasizing, here's how I've developed, here's this lasting impression. In my conclusion, here are the main points as far as why you should admit me as a student to your university. Ultimately, leave that last impression and emphasize your main message and make it that much more memorable."

This essay ending from a Harvard applicant clearly articulates the thesis: 

“Paradoxically, big change can stem from the smallest adjustment in how we view the things we consider ordinary, so the next time you go to throw away a piece of cardboard, first imagine what kind of home you could build with it.”

This essay uses imagery and storytelling techniques to build up to its ending. Although offering advice in your essay can be tricky to do well, this author manages it. Ending with this simple sentence allows the reader to fully grasp and realize the writer’s point in a cathartic, satisfying way. 

9. End the Essay With the “Something’s Changed” Method

This method is a lot like the “Full Circle” method, but it emphasizes the ways in which the writer has changed as a result of the journey they’ve been on. Essays that use this ending will often call back to an opening symbol or image and then discuss how they now see things differently. 

Take a look at this Harvard essay ending that uses the “Something’s Changed” method: 

“Knowing my ancestry is an assurance that I am not the sapling I once thought I was, with no roots to hold her down in the face of a storm, rather, I am capable of paving my own path, supported by the comforting presence of my family quilt draped over my shoulders. Though this trip wouldn’t mark the conclusion of my journey of self-discovery, it would be the embarkment of something great. My journey is sure to be fruitful, teaching me that when difficulties arise, I will be able to turn to my family quilt, tracing the stitching between patches, and take comfort in the resilience and passion of those that came before me.”

This essay began with the writer discussing their family tree and their desire to learn more about their ancestry. Bringing this image back to the end is similar to the “Full Circle” ending, but it’s different now. The writer has learned that their ancestry looks more like a patchwork quilt than a tree. 

The writer effectively calls back to the opening image of their essay while also demonstrating a willingness to grow, learn, and change by adjusting their image and talking about what they’ve learned. 

10. End the Essay By Showing You’ve Learned What Not to Do

Admissions committees are unimpressed by clichéd and generic conclusions that fail to demonstrate an applicant's individuality or genuine interest in the institution. Unfortunately, many students fall into the trap of providing vague recaps of their academic journey without adding any unique insights or future aspirations. 

Below is an example of such an unimpressive conclusion:

"In conclusion, I've learned a lot throughout my life, and I hope to continue learning in college. College will be a new chapter for me, and I'm excited to see where it takes me. I'm looking forward to the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead, and I can't wait to grow as a person. College is the next step in my journey, and I'm ready to embrace it with open arms."

Why It Doesn't Work

This is a bad example because it's overly generic and doesn't offer any specific insights or compelling reasons why the applicant is interested in the college. It simply states the obvious without adding any depth or uniqueness to the conclusion. 

Admissions committees are looking for applicants to stand out and showcase their genuine enthusiasm for the institution, which this conclusion fails to do. So, make sure to avoid essay topics that don’t genuinely excite you.

If you want 190+ examples of good college essays , we’ve got you covered. Learn how to craft the perfect college essay from introduction to conclusion and everything in between.

For more essay advice and one-on-one application support , work with one of our college counselors! They'll guide you through each step and help you create an application that boosts your chances of acceptance.

​​3 College Essay Endings to Avoid

You want your essay to have an impactful ending - but these methods may have the opposite impact. Now that you know some effective ways to end your college essay, let’s go over some methods to avoid. 

1. The Summary

Remember that you’re writing a college essay, not a high school assignment you need to scrape through. Avoid simply summarizing the points you made during your essay. This method can come off as lazy and ultimately leave a negative impression on the admissions committee–or no impression at all. Instead, end the essay on a high note, with a point of action, or with your future goals. 

Our expert, Keisha, offers further insight : 

"When you’re starting with the intro, make sure you’re grabbing us right from the beginning and leading us through the body. The conclusion is wrapping up everything that you wanted us to say. We’re not just regurgitating what is on the resume; we already know what’s on the resume."

2. The Famous Quote

Some students start their college essays with one, and some end it with one. Neither is a good idea. Avoid using a famous quote anywhere in your essay, as it can give the impression that you don’t know what to write. The admissions committee wants to get to know you–they already know the famous quotes.

Unless you’ve done thorough research and are quoting someone affiliated with the school, you should avoid quotes altogether in your college essay.

3. The Needy Student

In your college essay conclusion, avoid begging for admission. You don’t want to come off as desperate in your essay. Saying things like “Please consider me” or “I really want to attend” doesn’t say anything about you and doesn’t read smoothly. Instead, demonstrate who you are and how you’ve learned and grown in your life. Focus on you, not them!

If you’re struggling to come up with an effective ending for your college essay, our experts are ready to help. With a personalized approach, our team can help you, and tons of other students, create an incredible essay! 

“I got paired with the perfect advisor who studied what I’m interested in; he helped me come up with ideas and made essay writing so much easier.” - Isabel, accepted at Loyola University

Tips and Strategies on How to Approach Essay’s Conclusion

When it comes to nailing your college essay's conclusion, here are some practical tips to keep in mind:

• Tip #1 - Sum It Up : Your conclusion should be a neat little bow that wraps up your essay. Summarize the key points you've made throughout, but don't just regurgitate what you've already said. Instead, try to offer a fresh perspective or insight that ties everything together in a meaningful way.
• Tip #2 - Look Ahead : Your conclusion is also a great opportunity to connect your past experiences with your future goals. Show the admissions committee how attending their college fits into your grand plan. They want to see that you have a clear vision for your future and that their institution plays a key role in helping you achieve it.
• Tip #3 - Get Personal : Don't be afraid to get specific and personal in your conclusion. Use vivid anecdotes and details to make your writing come alive. The more authentic and genuine you can be, the more likely you are to leave a lasting impression on your reader.
• Tip #4 - Show Your Growth : Admissions committees love to see how you've grown and changed as a result of your experiences. Use your conclusion to reflect on the lessons you've learned and how you've matured. This shows that you're self-aware and ready to tackle the challenges of college life.
• Tip #5 - Get Creative : Don’t be afraid to implement storytelling techniques or use poetic language, especially if you’re more artistically inclined. Think of ways to set yourself apart in your writing. 
• Tip #6 - Be Original : Your essay should always keep you as the central focus. Try to avoid using quotes or writing too much about other people or events--they might take the focus off of you and your personal growth. 
• Tip #7 - End With a Bang : Your final sentence should be like a mic drop moment. Leave your reader with something to think about, whether it's a thought-provoking question, a powerful quote, or a call to action. The key is to end on a strong, confident note that leaves a lasting impression.

Your college essay's conclusion is your chance to make a final pitch. It should reinforce your suitability for the college and leave a strong, positive impression on the admissions committee. So, take your time and craft it carefully—it's worth the effort.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

No matter what essay ending you choose to use, there are still some common pitfalls that students often fall into. Be sure to avoid these mistakes when you’re concluding your essay!

Not Proofreading 

This is a simple mistake and so easy to avoid! To ensure that you come across as professional and competent, proofread several times to eliminate any spelling or grammar errors. 

Ending Too Abruptly

It’s easy to overlook your essay’s conclusion, especially if you tend to be an over-writer. But make sure you don’t reduce the essay to just a sentence or two. Be sure to put some thought into your ending and make it meaningful instead of just dropping off at the end. 

Not Answering “So What?”

You should make sure that everything in your essay leads up to your conclusion--it’s your grand finale! Most of all, your essay conclusion should answer the question, “So what?” Regardless of the style or format you go with, make sure your conclusion wraps up the rest of your essay neatly and tells the reader why the story matters. 

Access 190+ sample college essays here

FAQs: How to End a College Essay

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about how to end a college application essay.

1. How Do You Conclude a College Essay?

The end of your college essay should be strong, clear, and impactful. You can talk about your future goals, end in a moment of action, talk about what you’ve learned, or go full circle. Whatever method you choose, make sure to avoid summarizing your essay.

2. What Is a Good Closing Sentence?

A good closing sentence on your college essay is impactful, meaningful, and makes the reader think. You’ll want to ensure the reader remembers your essay, so conclude with something unique that ends your story with a bang.

3. What Words Can You Use to End an Essay?

Avoid saying “to conclude,” “to summarize,” or “finally.” Your essay should end on a high note, like the ending of a movie. Think of moving sentences such as “I never saw it coming,” “I’ll always remember what happened,” or “I’ve learned so much since then.”

Final Thoughts

By following our tips, you should be on track to write a stellar college essay with an impactful ending. Think of what you’ve learned, what you’ll do in the future, and where you can end the story that would leave a lasting impression. 

If you’re still having a hard time ending your college essay, you can always contact an expert or counselor to help guide you through the process. 

Good luck with your essay!

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How to End a College Essay – With Examples

June 16, 2023

Figuring out how to end a college essay can feel like the difference between success and failure. Common scenario: You’ve done the heavy lifting of brainstorming, developing, and revising your Common App essay, but now you sit and stare at the cursor pulsing on your screen, like a stress tick in your eye. What to say that you haven’t already said? How to tie it all together without sounding tired and stressed? It is true that your conclusion serves as a sort of benchmark for the strength of your overall essay. If your conclusion feels impossible to write after several attempts, this might be a sign that you need to go back and look over the strength or purpose of your essay overall.

The good news is, your final paragraph doesn’t need to be a graveyard of redundancy, clichés and tired summary! And even better, you have options about how to end a college essay. It doesn’t have to be formulaic or look like a friend’s conclusion. Amidst a dizzying array of “do’s and “don’ts,” here is a list of three straightforward options, along with examples, for how to successfully (and relatively painlessly) end your college essay.

Option 1: Save something for the end

It might be helpful to think of your essay like this: You are a tailor cutting a garment from a beautiful piece of fabric. You have plenty of fabric to work with because you are approaching your overall essay as a process: brainstorming, writing, revision, repeat. The writing process is cyclical. You begin with an idea, which leads you to another, and before you know it, you’re approaching your original idea from a different angle. In the midst of this process, you will unearth images, memories, meaningful moments, memorable things people in your life have said, and so on. When this happens, intentionally tuck away 1-2 of these items with the idea that you can use them to craft your final paragraph. Following are some examples of students who tried to save something for the end:

Strong Example:

Shortly before her death, my grandmother gave me a string of pearls. Whenever I look at these tiny treasures from the sea, I am reminded that despite our complex relationship, we made many meaningful memories together. Each pearl reminds me of an event, or place: Her 80th birthday party; deep sea diving in Florida; impromptu singing lessons around her piano. Along with the memories, the pearls are a symbol of her finest qualities—qualities she passed on to me: tenacity, loyalty, belief in the deep goodness of humanity—and a touchable reminder that I am in part who I am because of her.

This is a strong example  because the student chose a concrete image—an image that we can imagine seeing or touching—and uses it to deepen his reflection on his relationship with his grandmother. Images are memorable, so this reflection will echo longer in the reader’s mind; this is a classic example of showing AND telling.

How to End a College Essay (Continued)

Weak example:.

Travel is a great way to learn about the world and ourselves. My family would go on amazing trips together, and thinking back on those trips is a really good reminder of all the special memories I have made with them. One time we went to Columbia as a family, and it was very special to me. I tried so many different foods and met so many new people. I even got to use some of the Spanish I learned in school on this trip.  This trip really increased my passion for traveling. Having the opportunity to learn in a different setting while getting to experience new cultures is something I am really looking forward to during college.

This is a weak example  because it does feel as if the student ran out of gas at the end. Notice the use of general adjectives such as amazing and special , and the fact that while a specific place is mentioned—Columbia—nothing specific is said about the country, or the family’s experience there. What foods did the student try? What, besides getting to speak Spanish, made the trip special? There are golden opportunities in this example for where the writer could have invoked one of the five senses—taste, touch, smell, site, or sound—and did not.

Option 2: Leave the reader with a thought to keep the conversation going

You can choose to end your college essay by saying something about your story or topic that you did not feel you had the opportunity to say before.  Sometimes, at the end of an essay on a difficult or complex subject, you feel unable to just “wrap things up” like a pretty Christmas present. Is something still ambiguous for you? Does something still haunt you? Did you hold something back? Tell the reader about it. If it helps, imagine that you are having a conversation with a broader audience than an admissions counselor. If it helps, imagine that your audience is a friend, teacher, or family member.

The ideology behind color blindness doesn’t make you progressive, it makes you a coward. Talking about race should not be controversial. I shouldn’t be petrified to talk about racism to a group of white people . Petrified because I’ll most likely be shut down condescendingly like a parent scolding their child. I shouldn’t worry over the natural curls of my hair because it will seem ghetto and unprofessional.

Nor should I get excited when I see a movie that has at least one black person in a somewhat lead role. I should not have to read white literature, learn white history, and speak white English , but spend only one week learning about slavery. I shouldn’t have to read articles calling Edris Elba “too street” to play James Bond and Viola Davis “less classically beautiful.” So, why is it so hard to talk about racism? What about it make your spine tingle and the hairs on your skin raise?

This is a strong example because, wow! There is a lot of passion and specificity in this student’s reflection on race and racism. From her own curls, to literature and pop culture, this writer is not only giving her audience a piece of her mind, she is putting the ball in the reader’s court with that final question.

Also, think of it like this: What if this writer has hit upon the heart of her paper in her conclusion? What if, by “getting it all out,” she found a way to strengthen her thesis, and her overall purpose for her essay? In the lovely book on creative nonfiction called Tell it Slant , one writer describes the writing process this way: “The essayist attempts to surround a something—a subject, a mood, a problematic irritation, by coming at it from at all angles, wheeling and diving like a hawk, each seemingly digressive spiral actually taking us closer to the heart of the matter.” Trust your writing process, even if feels like you keep circling back to your starting point.

Speaking up for others is important. For example, after the death of George Floyd, Americans showed their support by protesting. Professional athletes have showed their support for the Black community by taking a knee during the national anthem, and regular people spread of awareness on social media. These are all crucial steps to the end of racial injustice in America. I learned that using your voice can make enormous impacts. In the future I’d really like to show my support in protests, by taking part in them, for these injustices.

This is a weak example because while it does mention several specifics, such as protests after the death of George Floyd, and professional athletes “taking the knee,” there isn’t enough of a connection between these examples and the writer. The details in this paragraph could really have been written by anyone (and those are the kind of conclusions you want to avoid writing at all costs!). In the sentence, for example, where the writer says, “I learned that using your voice can make enormous impacts,” s/he misses the opportunity to personalize this learning experience. Even if s/he did not have the opportunity to protest, etc., s/he could have delved deeper into his/her reactions and emotions to the events mentioned, or event discussed what they wished they’d have done to speak up.

Option 3: Don’t try to be fancy

Are you the kind of person who prefers facts and figures over emotions and descriptions? Do you dislike talking about yourself? Do you prefer taking apart machines to playing Wordle? Then this option is for you. When ending your college essay, being clear is better than being fancy. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to write well. It just means that you can choose to focus more on being straightforward—describing a process, ending with a clear purpose for the future—than being colorful or edgy. The most important thing about the whole college essay writing process, after all, is about showing your authenticity.

It took time and patience, but by observing how various students worked and how I could best help them, I became an effective and efficient Homework Coach. Because I volunteered longer than anyone else, I became the lead Homework Coach. I passed on my hard-won knowledge about developing teaching strategies to the tutors in training so they too could be successful in teaching a variety of subjects. I enjoyed my time helping others and even received a community service award from the President of the United States. Going forward, I plan to continue using my skills as a tutor to help friends and classmates with their homework.

This is a strong example because the student clearly describes a learning experience, what he took from it, and what he hopes to do with it in the future. The writer is obviously proud of his accomplishments, but does not feel the need to “dress them up” by using fancy vocabulary, clichés or empty adjectives.

Which brings me to this point: You don’t need be the daughter of a professional clown, or have ridden an alpaca ten miles to school in order to have something worthwhile to say. Hard work speaks for itself, and often, being authentically you starts with acknowledging day-to-day life lessons and everyday accomplishments.

Weak Example

I started working as a lifeguard at my community pool as a skinny 16-year-old. I remember my first day like it was yesterday. It was 90 degrees, and my red Nike one-piece felt like a melting popsicle as I watched others having fun and cooling off in the water. I remember that there was a mom there with a set of twin toddlers, and I nervously kept an eye on them. Being a lifeguard is all about responsibility and teamwork. My lifeguard team has an outstanding record of keeping swimmers safe. As a student majoring in business, I know that having teamwork skills will be very important, especially because I will probably have to work with a team when I begin my career as well.

This is a weak example because the writer strays from her focus of being a lifeguard, and what she learned about responsibility and teamwork. The reflective, narrative details about the heat, the swimsuit, and the mom with twins, not to mention the cliché “I remember…like it was yesterday,” detract from her overall purpose. Don’t get me wrong: using narrative details to talk about life lessons is not a wrong approach; however, focus first on clarity and your overall purpose for writing.

How to End a College Essay – Final Thoughts

Remember, when ending your college essay, you have options! Consider trying each of these 3 approaches and see which you like best. And as you think about and brainstorm your essays, check out these links, too:

• How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example ;
• 2023-2024 Common App Essay Prompts
• Why this College Essay—7 Tips for Success
• College Essay

Charity Gingerich

With a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing, Charity has served as an English and creative writing lecturer at several universities. Charity has received many awards for her work, including the Russell MacDonald Creative Writing Award,  Tennessee Williams Scholarship in Poetry, and The Hopper Poetry Prize. Her writing has been featured in FIELD, The Kenyon Review, and Indiana Review, among others.

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How to end a college essay

How to end your college application essay (with examples).

Bonus Material: PrepMaven’s 30 College Essays That Worked

We’ve all been there: you’ve just about finished creating a brilliant, gripping piece of writing. All that’s left is to wrap it up with the perfect ending…but how do you give your essay the kind of ending that sticks with the reader, that wraps everything up neatly?

With college application essays, the stakes are even higher: the right ending can ensure you stand out from the thousands of other applicants and wow admissions officers. 

At PrepMaven, we’ve helped thousands of students do just that: create compelling, memorable admissions essays that land them acceptances at top-tier universities. 

In this post, we’ll specifically break down how to put those finishing touches on your Common App essay (or any other personal essay), providing examples so you can see exactly how each technique works. 

You can also feel free to hit the button below to download a free collection of 30 successful essays that worked, many of which provide great examples of these very strategies. 

Download 30 College Essays That Worked

Jump to section: Necessary elements of a college essay ending Reflect Connect to your narrative Look ahead to college 3 specific ways to end your college essay (with examples!)   The full-circle callback   The return with a difference   The statement of purpose Next Steps

Necessary elements of a college essay ending

In this section of the post, we’ll cover the beats that every college essay ending should hit to be maximally successful. Later, we’ll show you specific tricks for ending the essay–structures that you can easily integrate into your own writing. If you’d like to jump there, click here: specific ways to end your college essay .

Regardless of which specific technique you use to wrap up your essay, though, it should still help you accomplish the key things we list below. The fact is, college admissions counselors are really looking for pretty specific things in these essays. 

Whatever the structure, tone, or style of your admissions essay, you should be sure that the conclusion does all of the following:

Connect to your narrative

Look ahead to college.

If you’ve read our other posts on how to structure your application essay or how to start it , you probably already know a big part of your personal statement should involve a story. 

But it can’t be just a story: just as important is an element of reflection, which is best developed at the conclusion of your essay. 

What do we mean by reflection? Simply put, you need to think through the story you’ve laid out throughout the entire essay and articulate what it says about you, why it matters. In essence, the reflection is your answer to the question, “So what?”

For example, if you write an essay about giving up professional dance, your reflection might be about how that choice led you to view dance differently, perhaps as something that you can value independently regardless of whether you pursue it as a career. You might then expand that reflection to other elements of your life: did that changed viewpoint also apply to how you view academics, the arts, or other extracurriculars? 

Or say you wrote an essay about overcoming an obstacle to your education. Your reflection might then touch on how this process shaped your thinking, altered how you view challenges, or led you to develop a particular approach to academics and schoolwork. 

The key here is that you really show us the process of you thinking through the important changes/lessons/etc. at play in your essay. It’s not enough to just say, “This is important because X.” Admissions committees want to see you actually think through this. Real realizations don’t usually happen in an instant: you should question and consider, laying your thoughts out on paper. 

Rhetorical questions are often a great way to do this, as is narrating the thought process you underwent while overcoming the obstacle, learning the lesson, or whatever your story might be. 

A suggestion we often give our students is to read over the story you’ve written, and ask yourself what it means to you, what lessons you can take from it. As you ask and answer those questions, put those onto the page and work through them in writing. You can always clean it up and make it more presentable later. 

Below, we’ve selected the conclusion from Essay 2 in our collection of   30 Essays that Worked . In that essay, the writer spends most of the intro and body discussing their love for hot sauce and all things spicy, as well as how they’ve pursued that passion. Take a look at how they end their essay:

I’m not sure what it is about spiciness that intrigues me. Maybe my fungiform papillae are mapped out in a geography uniquely designed to appreciate bold seasonings. Maybe these taste buds are especially receptive to the intricacies of the savors and zests that they observe. Or maybe it’s simply my burning sense of curiosity. My desire to challenge myself, to stimulate my mind, to experience the fullness of life in all of its varieties and flavors.

In that example, the student doesn’t just tell us “the lesson.” Instead, we get to see them actively working through what the story they’ve told means and why it matters by offering potential ways it’s shaped them. Notice that it’s perfectly okay for the student not to have one clear “answer;” it actually works even better, in this case, that the student is wondering, thinking, still figuring things out. 

That’s reflection, and every good college application essay does it in one form or another. 

Who, on paper, are you? We know–it’s a brutal question to try to answer. That’s what these essays are all about, though, and these college essay conclusions are the perfect place to tie everything together. 

Now, this doesn’t mean you should try to cram elements of your resume or transcript into the end of your essay–please don’t! When we say the conclusion should “connect to your narrative,” we mean that you should write it while bearing in mind the other aspects of your application the admissions committee will be looking at. 

So, the conclusion of your college essay should work to connect the story and reflection you’ve developed with the broader picture of you as a college applicant. In a way, this goes hand in hand with reflection: you want your conclusion to tie all these threads together, explaining why this all matters in the context of college applications. 

You might, as in the above “hot sauce” essay example, allude to an element of your personality/mentality that your personal statement exemplifies. In that example, we can clearly see the writer showing off some scientific knowledge (“fungiform papillae”) while also highlighting their “curiosity” and desire to challenge themselves. 

This helps the reader see what this whole story is meant to tell us about the applicant, connecting to who they are and what they’re looking for. 

Or, you might connect this reflection to your academic goals. Or else you could connect elements of your story and reflection to some passion evident in the rest of your application. Often, the best essays involve a mix of all of these connections, but there’s no “right” or “wrong” connection to make, so long as it develops convincingly from the story you’ve told. 

There are numerous ways to go here, and it doesn’t have to be super heavy-handed or to take up much real estate. Simply bear in mind that these essays gain an additional sense of balance when they resonate with other elements of your broader high school narrative. 

Though it’s true these college essays are, in part, ways to demonstrate your writing skills and ability to respond concisely to a complicated essay prompt, their primary purpose is to show a college admissions counselor why you’re a good fit for their college. 

So, a strong college essay ending should draw strong connections to your future as (hopefully) a college student. As with the previous point, this is one that you don’t need to go over the top with! Don’t take away from your story by suddenly telling us how smart you are and what great grades you’ll get. 

Instead, you might want to suggest how the experiences you write about have prepared you for college–or, even better, how they’ve shaped what you hope to get out of the next four years. 

Generally, this is a small and subtle part of your conclusion: it might be a sentence, or it might even be the kind of thing that you imply without stating directly. The idea is that a college admissions officer reading your essay will walk away with some idea of why you’d be a good fit for college in general. 

In the example we quoted above, the essay does this fairly subtly: by describing their desire to challenge themselves and stimulate their mind, the writer is clearly alluding to the exact kinds of things college is for, even if they don’t come right out and say it. 

A successful college conclusion will contain all three of these elements. You can find thirty fantastic examples of such conclusions in the sample college essays below.

Read on for 3 specific techniques to end your college admissions essay. 

3 Specific ways to end your college essay (with examples!)

Each of the essay endings we cover below is designed to help your essay develop a sense of closure while simultaneously accomplishing all of those tricky things it needs to do to wow admissions officers. 

While all of these endings have been proven to work countless times, how you incorporate them and which you choose matters–a lot!

Because every student’s essay is (or at least should be) unique, we recommend getting a trusted advisor to offer guidance on how to wrap up your essay. You can get paired up with one of our expert tutors quickly by contacting us here . 

Now, for the techniques. 

The full-circle callback

This is probably the most classic ending structure for college essays, and with good reasons. The premise is simple: your essay’s conclusion will return to the image, story, or idea that your essay began with. 

Take a look at the below example, which includes just the first and last paragraphs of Essay 12 from our collection of 30 essays that worked . In this essay, the writer uses a discussion of food to explore their integration into American society as a Russian immigrant. 

“So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.” – Franz Kafka […] So, Kafka, I hope that next time a memorable quote comes to mind, you think before you speak. Because when peanut butter cleaves to the roof of my mouth, I think about what it means “to cleave:” both to adhere closely to and to divide, as if by a cutting blow, especially along a natural weakness. And I think about my dual identity, how the Russian side and American side simultaneously force each other apart and bring each other together. I think about my past, feeling a little ashamed, and about my present and future, asking how I can create harmony between these two sides of me. That, Kafka, does not sound like solved questions to me. This student started with a quote from Kafka (a risky move, but check out our post on “ How to start your college essay ” to see why it was a good choice in this case). After spending the majority of the essay exploring how American and Russian foods can serve as a shorthand for their relationship to their Russian-American identity, this author ends with a final paragraph that returns to the Kafka quote and continues to work through it. 

Why does it work?

In part, people just love a full-circle ending, the idea that something ends up back where it began. 

Specifically, this ending helps the student tick off all three of our boxes for what a conclusion must do: 

• They reflect (by thinking further about the quote and even the specific word “cleave”)
• They connect to their narrative (by bringing it back to their own identity)
• They look ahead (by highlighting their desire to create harmony in the future)

Check, check, check–plus, they come up with a clever enough one-liner at the end, slamming poor Kafka for a perhaps hyperbolic quote. 

The Return with a difference

This one is quite similar to the full-circle callback, but shouldn’t be confused with it. With this ending technique, you do indeed return to whatever you began your personal statement with. The emphasis, however, is on some significant change or perspective shift. The below example, once again taken from Essay 18 in our collection of 30 college essays that worked, makes what we mean more clear: 

I first encountered Naruto Uzumaki when I was seven and was immediately captivated by his story. An orphan navigating the world alone, without guidance or love, Naruto was misunderstood and often despised, deemed a threat by his village. Although my loving and supportive family was intact, I sympathized with Naruto. Even more, I appreciated his grit and audacity, thrilled by the way he managed to rewrite his own narrative, forging a new path and transforming himself into a hero.    […] Today, I am the protagonist of my own story. Hard work, baby steps, large leaps, occasional setbacks, countless revisions and refinements- all are essential to my journey of discovery. Ranging from unraveling the mystery of dark gravity, to writing a handful of papers that scrape a few flakes off the mountain of the unknown, my narrative is evolving; I am a work in progress and a champion of insight, advancement, and positive change. 

This essay starts by describing the appeal of Naruto’s story to the writer. When the writer concludes by saying that “I am the protagonist of my own story,” it’s clearly a reference to that initial introduction. 

The focus, however, is on the difference or shift: the author is no longer primarily captivated by Naruto’s story; instead, they’re excited to be carving out their own. It’s a return, but with a (big) difference, and that difference is precisely what allows this conclusion to succeed in hitting each of those key elements: 

• It reflects (highlighting the theme of discovery and the hard work that it took to get to this point)
• It connects to the broader narrative (making reference to this student’s interests in science and research)
• It looks ahead to college (emphasizing the continued growth this student looks forward to)

It isn’t a coincidence that essays using the four techniques we’re outlining here succeed so well in capturing the key elements of an application essay conclusion. While these techniques can’t guarantee success, they certainly set you up for it: the structure of each of these methods makes it much easier to give college admissions counselors exactly what they’re looking for. 

The Direct Appeal

Compared to the previous techniques, this one is a lot more direct. It involves finishing your essay by directly addressing how the story you’ve been telling has shaped your future desires, often by articulating some goal you plan to accomplish or by highlighting the importance of college. 

You might think of it as leaning much more heavily on the “look forward to college” element of the conclusion. This ending technique can be risky, and really depends on how effectively you’ve been able to convey your story up to this point. 

Whereas the other ending techniques we’ve mentioned can, in general, only help the overall quality of your essay, this one can backfire. It tends to work best for essays that highlight some particular struggle you’ve overcome, or some injustice you plan to address. 

Take a look at an excerpt from Essay 29, which discusses the writer’s experiences as lower-income student attending an expensive private school, for a good use of the direct appeal: 30 college essays that worked : 

    Today, the drug-ravaged apartments of Southern Trace are transformed. Gentrified shortly after we moved, they boast a different crowd—Lisa and Linda have since been priced out of their homes and evicted. Heroin-addicts are replaced by “prettier” middle-class families; police rarely need visit their homes. Though dysfunctional, my childhood neighborhood was a community—people wrought with problems but filled with compassion, with beauty. But where was their voice when developers began to renovate? Who was there to listen? This community is an intrinsic part of me: I want to be their voice. And, with my understanding of the socioeconomic palette, maybe I can provide the canvas to blend the world of my childhood with the privileged society of Cincinnati Hills.  

Although this essay actually combines a few of our ending techniques (returning to something discussed in the introduction), it’s a great example of when a direct appeal works. This student shows a nuanced understanding of a complex socioeconomic issue that hits close to home. Their “pitch” at the end of this essay is simple: “I want to be their voice.” 

In this particular essay, the direct appeal works because it feels honest, like it comes from a real place (though you’ll have to read the entire essay to really see that). In terms of our 3 criteria, it easily fits the bill: 

• It reflects on this student’s “dysfunctional” neighborhood and how those issues shaped the student’s viewpoint. 
• It connects to their broader narrative, both by highlighting their own identity and their “understanding of the socioeconomic palate.”
• It looks ahead to college, clearly articulating how the student’s long term goal–fighting for economically marginal communities–is an outcome of this story and a motivation for them to attend college. 

This is a perfect example of the direct appeal in action. In another, weaker essay, however, simply saying something like “I want to be their voice” might not work at all. If the actual story were weaker, if the student’s background were less carefully explained, it might have simply come off as preachy or presumptuous. 

The techniques we’ve outlined here will take you far. But, as always when the stakes are this high, we really recommend getting a professional opinion on your college essays. Our college essay tutors aren’t just fantastic writers: they’re expert editors who can ensure that you don’t miss anything in your own essays. Get paired with one quickly by reaching out to us here . 

In the meantime, click the link below and check out our collection of 30 sample essays, which include the full text of all the examples used above. 

Mike is a PhD candidate studying English literature at Duke University. Mike is an expert test prep tutor (SAT/ACT/LSAT) and college essay consultant. Nearly all of Mike’s SAT/ACT students score in the top 5% of test takers; many even score above 1500 on the SAT. His college essay students routinely earn admission into their top-choice schools, including Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth. And his LSAT students have been accepted In into the top law schools in the country, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Law.

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How to End a College Essay: The Do’s and Don’ts

Last Updated: July 22, 2024 Fact Checked

Strategies to End Your College Essay

• Things to Avoid

How Do You End a College Admissions Essay Effectively?

Expert interview.

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Sophie Burkholder, BA . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,515 times.

Deadlines are whizzing by, primary-colored pennants are waving, and keyboards are clicking and clacking…it’s college admissions season! Beyond the test scores and grade point averages, your personal statement is your one chance to show colleges who you are—and for some reason, wrapping up that essay can be the hardest part. We spoke to expert academic tutor and educational consultant Alexander Ruiz to give you strategies for concluding your college essay, along with the examples included in this comprehensive guide to college essay conclusions.

Things You Should Know

• End your college essay by returning to an idea or image you included in your intro or as your hook. This callback satisfies your reader with a full-circle effect.
• Look to the future to conclude your college essay on a positive and hopeful note. Describe your goals and the impact you’ll have on the world.
• Finish your college essay with a lesson learned. After sharing life experiences, describe what you’ve learned and how they’ve prepared you for your next step.

Ask the wikiHow College Coach

• As expert educational consultant Alexander Ruiz explains, universities are “trying to understand ‘How do you see that you fit within our school?’ Even though the prompt is asking ‘Why did you choose the school?’, it really is truly asking ‘How do you fit within the student body? How do you fit within our campus?’”
• Example of a “college address” conclusion: I want to be part of the long legacy of civil rights activists and leaders, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have studied within the walls of Boston University. I’ve planted the seeds of this work through my two years of volunteering and campaigning in local elections. If admitted to your globally renowned Political Science program, I will be thrilled to grow my skills in Public Policy Analysis and ultimately serve the dynamic and deserving communities of Greater Boston.

• Example of a “full circle” conclusion: This year was a challenge in many ways. But I know that when I drive across those state lines again next fall, I’ll be looking back at the swirling blues and grays of the Boise sky, already anxiously awaiting the next time I get to come back home.
• Example intro hook for above conclusion: As my parents drove us across the Idaho state line, I looked out at the cloud-covered sky and thought: Well, this sure doesn’t look like home.

• Example of a “lesson learned” conclusion: Having the opportunity to travel around Latin America—bouncing between coastal towns like Sayulita and sprawling cities like Buenos Aires—I learned the importance of understanding other cultures and their perspectives. In expanding the limits of my physical world, I also had the opportunity to expand my worldview.

• Example of a “look forward” conclusion: When my great-great-grandchildren fasten their shoes with a futuristic version of Velcro and head down the road to school, they will do so with excitement and purpose. They’ll look forward to the day’s tasks of digging in the garden for Biology, journaling on their socio-emotional well-being in Health class, and debating the issues of their times in Social Studies. An education system built around students, their needs, and their futures—as a hopeful member of your teaching college, that is a future I am enthusiastic to have a hand in.

• Example of a “last-minute reveal” conclusion: After multiple paragraphs of stories from swim meets throughout the writer’s life, they conclude with, I wasn’t just swimming to beat the stopwatch hanging around my coach’s neck. I was swimming because it gave me freedom, a place to reflect, and an ability to push back against even the strongest currents.
• This strategy is difficult to pull off, as our instinct is to put our thesis right at the top. However, when it comes to college admissions, academic tutor Alexander Ruiz warns against “the five-paragraph format, the intro, body, body, body, conclusion.”
• As Ruiz continues to explain, “When it comes to telling your story and sharing how valuable your experience will be to a school, [the five-paragraph format] is not going to be able to portray that in a way that's going to be very attractive. So I think that one of the main mistakes that people make is saying these quantitative measures are going to speak for themselves, and they don't put enough work into being able to tell their story in their essays.”

• Example of a “plot twist” conclusion: Every law office I interned at over the past four years, despite their intensity, was instrumental in shaping my path and who I am. They prepared me for college and a career and gave me a clear view of what I wanted to do: not study law. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of learning about the inner workings of our legal system, but now I want to put that knowledge toward my true passion: helping foster kids via a social services career.

• Example of a thought-question conclusion: After all, with no other world to compare ours to, who are we to say a better world isn’t possible?
• Example of a “call to action” conclusion: Now that I’ve spent some thousand-odd words advocating for voter rights, voter registration, and rattling off anecdotes of my door-to-door campaigning, I just have one question left: are you registered to vote?

Things to Avoid in Your College Essay Conclusion

• Don’t: In conclusion, my family’s struggle with poverty over the past five years taught me much about resilience.
• Do: Tonight, my dad will put food on the table, as he always manages to. My mom will kiss him on the cheek as soon as she walks in the door from work, sighing as she finally sits down for the day. Despite all the challenges of the last five years, I’ve watched my parents overcome every obstacle with resilience and grit—and what I’ve learned from them is something I wouldn’t give up for the world.

• Don’t: I’m a hard worker.
• Do: Juggling rigorous academics with grueling morning soccer practices has taught me the value of hard work and discipline.
• Don’t: Climate change is a problem.
• Do: My generation is already suffering the real-time effects of climate change, like our snow days turning to smoke days as wildfires burn around our homes.

• Don’t: Please consider me.
• Do: As shown by the four years I volunteered at my local children’s hospital, community service is a priority for me in my future personal and professional life. Seeing what your university does for its surrounding neighborhood and the people there, I feel confident I would be a natural fit at your school.

• Don’t: You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
• Do: In my wildest dreams, I never imagined I would be the lead in my senior play. Cut to now, and I’m singing my heart out to an applauding audience of parents and peers. From this moment forward, I will always understand and uphold the value of betting on yourself, even when you don’t know the outcome.
• Don’t: College will help me reach my dreams.
• Do: I’m enthusiastic about starting my next chapter—attending a school that will help me grow, learn, and take my next step toward my dream of becoming a doctor.

Expert Q&A

Reader videos.

Share a quick video tip and help bring articles to life with your friendly advice. Your insights could make a real difference and help millions of people!

• Be specific in your essay—admissions officers want to hear about you and your life, so tell details about who you are and your experiences. [10] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Be authentic—admissions officers have read enough college essays to know when someone is phoning it in. Be true to yourself, write how you speak, and let your personality shine through. [11] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Show enthusiasm—if you’re talking about the school or your future, show excitement for what the next four years will hold for you. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about preparing for graduation, check out our in-depth interview with Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. .

• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conclusions/
• ↑ https://www.collegeessayadvisors.com/write-amazing-closing-line/
• ↑ https://essaypro.com/blog/how-to-write-a-conclusion
• ↑ https://students.tippie.uiowa.edu/sites/students.tippie.uiowa.edu/files/2022-05/effective_claims.pdf
• ↑ https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/how-to-write-your-best-college-application-essay-493692/

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How to End a College Essay: Strategies and Examples

Writing a college essay takes skill, but making a strong college essay conclusion is often the most important part. A great ending can make a big impact on your readers and bring your main ideas together. This guide will walk you through four strategies that will help you create impactful conclusions that resonate with your audience.

1. Writing a Memorable College Essay Conclusion

The conclusion of your essay is your last chance to strengthen your main points and leave a lasting impression. A well-written ending can make your whole essay better and more memorable.

Successful Essay Ending Examples

Here are some great ways to end an essay:

• Share a thoughtful idea that connects to your main point, giving a sense of closure and understanding.
• Quickly go over your main points, showing them in a new way.
• Discuss why your topic matters beyond just your essay.
• Link back to your introduction, making your writing feel complete.

Example: 

"When I started looking into how music affects the brain, I didn't know I'd find a connection to my grandmother's struggle with Alzheimer's. I learned that songs people know well can often bring back memories for patients, even when they have trouble talking. This discovery changed how I see music's power and gave me a new way to connect with my grandmother. When we hum her favorite songs together, I see hints of recognition in her eyes, reminding me that sometimes, big scientific ideas can have very personal effects."

Common Mistakes in Ending an Essay

Avoid these problems when writing your college essay conclusion:

• Adding new ideas: Your conclusion should bring together existing points, not introduce new information.
• Just repeating your main point: While it's important to remind readers of your main idea, simply saying it again word-for-word doesn't work well.
• Using overused phrases: Don't use expressions like "In conclusion" or "To sum up."
• Stopping too suddenly: Make sure your conclusion gives a feeling of completion and doesn't leave readers hanging.

Aithor's advanced language model can help you write compelling conclusions that avoid these common mistakes and enhance the overall impact of your essay.

2. Thought-Provoking Questions: A Powerful Way to End an Essay

Ending an essay with a question that makes people think can get your readers interested and encourage them to keep thinking about your topic. This approach leaves a strong impression and can make your essay more memorable.

"After looking at how social media changes how we see ourselves, we're left with an important question: Can we find a way to share our lives online while still living them fully offline? Maybe the answer isn't choosing between the online and real worlds, but learning how to connect well in both."

When using this method, make sure your question is:

• Related to your essay's main topic
• Open-ended, encouraging deeper thought
• Not easy to answer with just "yes" or "no"

3. How to End Your College Essay with a Call to Action

A call to action (CTA) in your conclusion can encourage your readers to do something based on the ideas you've talked about. This works well for essays about social issues, environmental problems, or personal growth topics.

"In this essay, we've looked at the problem of plastic in our oceans. Now, it's time to help fix it. Start by replacing one single-use plastic item you use every day with something you can use again. It could be as simple as using a reusable water bottle or bringing your own bags to the store. Tell your friends and family what you're doing. By taking these small steps, we're not just making less waste; we're starting a chain reaction that can lead to cleaner oceans and a healthier planet."

When writing a CTA for your college essay conclusion, make sure it's:

• Clear and easy to write
• Directly related to your essay's main points
• Something your readers can actually do

Aithor can assist you in writing perfect calls to action that connect with your readers and fit well with your essay's content.

4. Personal Anecdotes: An Engaging Essay Ending

Ending an essay with a personal story can help your readers feel connected to you and strengthen your main message. This approach makes your writing more relatable and human.

"Last summer, I helped at a local animal shelter. One day, they brought in an older, scruffy dog named Max. For weeks, people passed him by, always choosing younger, cuter puppies instead. I started spending extra time with Max, and slowly, his playful side came out. When a family finally took him home, the happiness on their faces – and Max's wagging tail – showed me how important it is to give every living thing a chance. This taught me more about patience, unfair judgments, and the power of second chances than any book ever could."

When using a personal story to end your college essay:

• Make sure it relates to your main topic
• Keep it short and powerful
• Use clear language to paint a picture for your readers

Tips on How to End a College Essay

To write a strong conclusion, think about these extra tips on how to end a college essay:

• Wrap up your main points clearly while suggesting how they might apply to other things or future ideas to keep your readers thinking.
• Make sure your conclusion sounds like the rest of your essay for a smooth, polished finish.
• Don't weaken your arguments by sounding unsure in your conclusion.
• Be extra careful with grammar and punctuation in your conclusion, as it's the last thing your readers will remember.
• Write your conclusion to connect with your specific readers, whether they're college admissions staff, teachers, or other students.
• Write a short and powerful conclusion that drives your main points home without repeating too much or using too many words.

Remember, your conclusion is your last chance to make a strong impression. Take your time to write it carefully, making sure it ties together your main points and shows why your essay matters.

For those wondering how to end a reflection paper, Aithor can help you improve your college essay conclusion, making sure it's polished, powerful, and fits your specific needs. This top writing tool can help you refine your essay ending examples and give you guidance on how to end a reflection paper or any other type of school writing.

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How to End a College Essay?

Every college essay reaches a critical juncture: the conclusion. It's that pivotal moment where you have the chance to leave a lasting impact on your reader. Yet, many students find themselves unsure of how to end a college essay. In this article, we'll dive into the essential strategies for crafting a strong ending to your college essay. From summarizing key points to leaving a memorable final thought, we'll explore techniques to help you end your college paper on a high note, ensuring your message resonates long after the last sentence. If you need urgent assistance, our experts can write an essay for me overnight.

How to End Your College Essay?

Take a look at some examples of how college application essays can be effectively wrapped up. Follow along to learn different strong strategies you can use to conclude your college paper, including college essay conclusion examples.

Lessons Learned

Description: Summarize the main points of your paper and reflect on the lessons or insights gained from your exploration. This reflection should demonstrate personal growth or understanding resulting from the research or analysis conducted.

Through my research on climate change, I've learned the importance of individual action in combating environmental degradation. While the problem may seem daunting, every small step towards sustainability can make a difference. Recognizing the interconnectedness of our actions and their impact on the planet has inspired me to advocate for greener policies and practices in my community.

Why It Works?

This ending strategy provides closure by tying together the college paper's key themes and demonstrating personal growth or understanding. It leaves a lasting impression on the audience by reinforcing the significance of the content and encouraging reflection on its broader implications.

Thought-Provoking Question

Pose an ending question that encourages further reflection or invites the students to consider the broader implications of the topic. This question should prompt listeners to engage critically with the material presented in the college paper and continue thinking about its relevance beyond the ending.

As we confront the challenges of globalization, we must ask ourselves: What responsibilities do we have towards those in less privileged nations? How can we ensure equitable outcomes in a globalized world?

By engaging curiosity, this ending strategy encourages deeper thought and invites them to consider ideas from different perspectives. It fosters continued engagement with the topic even after the composition has ended.

Full Circle

The full circle conclusion technique involves revisiting a theme, idea, or anecdote that was introduced in the introduction and reflecting on its significance in light of the discussion. This ending technique aims to provide closure by bringing the narrative journey to a satisfying end, reinforcing the central message or argument.

Returning to the image of the bustling café where our journey began, I am reminded of the profound impact of human connection. Through our exploration of social psychology, we've uncovered how our interactions shape our understanding of self and others. Just as the café buzzes with life, so does our world teem with opportunities for meaningful connection and understanding.

The full circle ending technique creates a sense of unity and coherence in your assignment. By revisiting the introduction, you demonstrate how your thoughts have evolved or solidified over the course of your writing. This technique also provides the audience with a satisfying sense of closure, leaving them with a clear understanding of the central message and its relevance to the broader context.

Address Your Reader

Directly engage with your teachers, acknowledging their potential thoughts, feelings, or reactions to your writing. This approach humanizes your writing and connects you and your audience.

As you consider the implications of artificial intelligence on our society, you may find yourself grappling with the balance between technological advancement and ethical considerations. Your insights and perspectives are crucial as we navigate this complex terrain together.

You create a sense of intimacy and connection by speaking directly to the listener in the end. This technique encourages reflection and invites the reader to relate their own experiences or perspectives to the content, fostering a deeper engagement.

Call to Action

Encourage the audience to take specific action or consider a particular viewpoint based on the arguments presented in your composition. This can involve suggesting further research, advocating for a specific cause, or challenging interlocutors to reconsider their beliefs.

In light of the evidence presented, it's imperative that we reevaluate our approach to conservation efforts. I urge you to join me in supporting initiatives to preserve our natural resources and protect vulnerable ecosystems for future generations.

A call to action motivates peers to engage with the essay's content beyond the conclusion actively. Such an ending empowers them to become agents of change and reinforces the importance of the college paper's message in real-world contexts.

Powerful Quotation or Anecdote

Conclude your document with a compelling quotation or anecdote that encapsulates the essence of your argument or leaves a lasting impression. This technique evokes emotion, emphasizes key themes, or provides a memorable takeaway.

As Albert Einstein once said, 'The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.' Let us heed these words and take action to address the pressing challenges of our time.

In this ending, you add depth and resonance to your conclusion by incorporating a powerful quotation or anecdote. This technique leaves a strong impression on the reader, reinforcing the significance of your argument and inspiring further reflection.

Don’t Know How to End Your College Essay?

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Avoid These Three College Essay Endings

Not all endings are created equal, and certain approaches can detract from the overall impact of your writing. Let’s analyze the three types of college paper endings you should avoid. By steering clear of these common pitfalls, you can ensure that your college essay conclusion resonates with readers and reinforces the strength of your argument.

The Cliché Wrap-Up

Ending your manuscript with a cliché or trite statement that adds little value or insight to your overall message. This could include phrases like "In conclusion" or "To sum up," followed by a generic restatement of your thesis.

Cliché endings can leave a weak impression and fail to provide closure or highlight the significance of your essay. They suggest a lack of originality and critical thinking, undermining the impact of your writing.

The New Information Dump

Introducing new information or ideas at the end that were not previously addressed in the college paper's body. This can confuse the reader and disrupt the flow of your argument.

Your conclusion should summarize and synthesize your essay's key points, not introduce fresh material. Introducing new information at the end can leave the feeling of being disoriented and detract from the clarity and coherence of your essay.

The Abrupt Ending

Ending your essay abruptly without providing a sense of closure or resolution. This can leave the audience feeling unsatisfied and diminish the impact of your essay's message.

A strong ending is essential for leaving a lasting impression and reinforcing the significance of your argument. An abrupt ending can leave the feeling of being disconnected and may lead them to question the completeness or coherence of your essay.

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Useful Tips for Writing a College Essay Conclusion

Writing a compelling conclusion for your college essay is crucial as it leaves a lasting impression. Here are some useful tips to craft an effective ending:

Revisit the Thesis Statement

• Remind the main argument or thesis statement you presented in your introduction. Summarize how you've supported this thesis throughout your essay’s ending.

Avoid Introducing New Ideas

• Your conclusion should not introduce new information or arguments. Instead, focus on tying together the points you've already made in the body paragraphs.

Reflect on the Significance

• Reflect on the broader significance or implications of your argument. Why does your topic matter? What larger lessons can be drawn from your analysis?

Provide Closure

• Offer a sense of closure to your essay by bringing your discussion to a satisfying end. You can do this by circling back to the opening anecdote or returning to a key metaphor or image.

Leave a Lasting Impression

• Aim to leave the reader with something to think about. This could be a thought-provoking question, a call to action, or an ending memorable quote.

Connect to the Real World

• Connect your essay's topic to real-world applications or current events. Show how your argument is relevant beyond the confines of your essay.

Maintain Consistency in Tone

• Ensure that the tone of your conclusion matches the tone of the rest of your essay. If your essay is serious and formal, your ending should be too.

Keep it Concise

• Your conclusion should be concise and to the point. Avoid rambling endings or introducing unnecessary information.

Consider the Essay's Purpose

• Think about the purpose of your essay and tailor your conclusion accordingly. If you're writing a persuasive essay, for example, your ending should reinforce your argument and encourage action.

Revise and Edit

• Finally, take the time to revise and edit your ending to ensure clarity, coherence, and effectiveness. Check for grammar and spelling errors, and make sure your ideas flow smoothly.

By following these ending tips, you can write a strong and memorable conclusion that effectively wraps up your college essay and leaves a lasting impression on your reader. In case you’re too overloaded with assignments, you can always drop us a line, saying, ‘ write my college essay for me ,’ and our skilled writers will help you immediately.