What do you think of when you hear the word “community”? Does a specific organization, group, team, or even class pop into your mind? Or maybe it’s a feeling — a sense of closeness, support, and reciprocal care. The coolest thing about community, though, is that there isn’t one kind of community. Communities come in all shapes and sizes, and what one person looks for in a community (let’s say, loudly supporting cheerleaders) might be the exact opposite of what someone else is looking for (bookworms with that quite kind of confidence). No matter who the community is comprised of or why it has come together, though, communities all have one thing in common: they bring people together.
If you’re reading this post, it’s probably because you’ve been supported by a community in your life in ways that have shaped your trajectory. As you’ve been brainstorming what to write your college essay about, perhaps you keep coming back to a particular place or group of people, and probably an experience that involves one or both of those things. That experience, and that community, may be the perfect source of inspiration for your acceptance-winning college essay.
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How to Write About Community
If you think you want to write an essay about community, or story that is grounded within a community, there are a few things that you need to focus on as you get started.
Identify the key factors:
The key factors in your essay are:
what traits or characteristics you want to convey to readers
what community you are going to focus on
what story you want to tell
If this sounds complicated, take it step by step. You can start from any of these three things to start. For example, if you pick the community first, you can then decide on what traits you want to convey and what story will accomplish that. If you pick the traits first, then you can go from there to a community and story. You get the picture.
Craft the narrative arc: All college essays should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This may sound obvious, but most of the college essays that come across our desks (before we work on them) don’t actually have this. They start somewhere, drift around a bit, and then end up exactly where they started. This is dissatisfying for the reader, which isn’t the feeling you want to be conjuring up.
Of course, though, it’s worth noting that the beginning, middle, and end don’t need to map perfectly onto the introduction, climax, and conclusion of a story. You can start a story with the conclusion and then work backward. You could start with the most high-octane part, backtrack the to beginning, and then end with the resolution. There are so many options, so it’s all about picking the one that best matches the story you have to tell.
Write vignettes: In writing, vignettes are precise, bounded, and often small moments that often involve vividly detailed writing. They can stand alone, but can also be combined with other moments and exploration to craft narratively rich essays. One you have your community, story, and traits locked down, you should write 1-2 vignettes that could be used in your essay to highlight a particular moment or feeling.
Once you have one or two vignettes, it’s a matter of stringing them together to form a cohesive essay.
Write an ending: Your essay doesn’t need to end at the end of your story. It can end at the end, or the beginning. It can also end in the middle, but you shouldn’t end somewhere new unless the essay clearly builds upon somewhere you’ve already been.
Most importantly, have fun with it. What you want to convey, more than anything else really, is that you are a loving and community-minded person. Giving yourself some leeway to be cunning, clever, and creative only bolsters this presentation of yourself.
Community makes people feel close, so remember that your essay should pull the reader in close to you, too.
Writing college essays is tough. Send us an email if you’re struggling with where to start.