500 Words or Less

At La Costa Canyon High School each year, high school seniors begin the college application process, a highly anticipated and rather daunting landmark in any teenager’s life. After seeking out potential college options, seniors must submit transcripts, standardized test scores, lists of extracurricular activities and accomplishments, alongside a personal statement-- otherwise known as “the college essay.”

Despite its horrid reputation, the personal statement is simply the opportunity for students to show who they are, what they’ve done, what they can do in words beyond their GPAs and SAT scores. The personal statement is meant to be a self-reflective, creative masterpiece that a student is truly proud to send to universities. Essentially, the personal statement is a chance to dig deep and brag about what makes you you without judgement.

However, to many seniors’ dismay, each college has its own unique prompt and requirements for their personal statement ranging from very specific to “write whatever you want.” This means that many students end up writing two, three, even four or more essays sent to various schools.
500 Words or Less compiles a collection of personal statements for college applications, reflecting upon the multi-dimensional lives of the seniors in Miss Monahan’s AP English Literature classes from La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad, California. Each essay is

accompanied by the students college of choice as well as the schools he/she was admitted to. In hopes to aid future college applicants, we have included in our book tips on writing personal statements as well as insight from our teacher, Miss Monahan.

As a class, we hope that future college-bound seniors will be able to learn from techniques used in our essays and will enable the student to have a clearer prospect of what each school is specifically looking for.