Openings and endings
How to start and end a college essay
Updated October 16, 2026
Readers decide quickly whether an essay is going to be specific or generic, and they remember the last lines best. The opening and ending carry more weight than their word count suggests.
Neither needs to be clever. Both need to be yours.
Openings that work
- Start inside a moment: a specific time, place and action, with the context to follow.
- Start with a detail only you would notice.
- Start with a question you were genuinely trying to answer at the time.
- Start with a line of dialogue, if it says something only that person would say.
Openings to avoid
- A dictionary definition.
- A famous quotation.
- "Ever since I was young" or "I have always been passionate about".
- A sweeping statement about society or the world.
- Your thesis, stated before the reader has a reason to care.
Endings that work
- Return to the opening image, changed by everything in between. Use this only if something has really changed.
- Look forward: what you do now, or want to do, because of what the essay showed.
- End on a specific action or detail that carries the meaning, rather than explaining it again.
Endings to avoid
- A moral that could end any essay: hard work, never giving up, being yourself.
- "And that is why I want to attend your college". The essay goes to every college on your list.
- Summarizing what the reader just read.
A quick test
Cover your first paragraph. Does the essay still make sense? If it does, your real opening is probably your second paragraph. Now cover your last paragraph. If nothing is lost, the essay ended one paragraph earlier than you thought.
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