Kind of Basic Question: Anecdote

College Essays
1

I’m not exactly sure how most students go about telling their main idea for a college essay, for example: Common App

1 Asks the student to share a background, passion, etc. If I were to choose a topic then choose an anecdote, I would start by telling my anecdote, then explaining how my anecdote relates to my passion/background, but what do most students do after they explain their belief? Do they primarily focus on the anecdote and what came out from it, or their belief and how it has affected them?

2

I guess it depends. If your anecdote was meant to be illustrative (e.g. you volunteer at a hospital --> anecdote is about your interaction with a religious family --> point is to show the conflict between cultures, and how you developed a passion for ethics), then you wouldn’t return to the anecdote. Because the essay’s not about the specific experience; it’s about the passion that the anecdote just happened to kickstart. You’d just go on to explain more about the passion and what you did to grow it.

But if the anecdote is the focus of the essay (e.g. you say something to the religious family out of frustration, since you don’t understand their beliefs --> you realize that you were wrong for treating them that way, and apologize to them the next day), then the essay is about what you learned during that specific experience. So the essay would be like one long anecdote with your thoughts / beliefs interjected throughout.

3

Thanks for the help, man