Guides
How to End a College Essay: 4 Ways to Leave a Strong Impression
Author:
Martin Buckley
Feb 28, 2025
7 min
You’ve done most of the hard work. You’ve crafted a powerful introduction. You backed up your main point with enough arguments in the main body. You’re at the finish line; now, all you need to do is tie it all up in the conclusion.
Easier said than done, right?
Spoiler: a phrase like “in conclusion” or a summary of your main body isn’t what makes for a good conclusion. Here’s how to end a college essay — and make a lasting impression on your reader.
Does College Essay Conclusion Really Matter?
Of course, it does! For one, settling for a boring conclusion that just reiterates your main body or uses one cliché on top of another means missing an opportunity to make your essay memorable. That’s not to mention that a run-of-the-mill conclusion may simply undermine the overall essay quality.
Complete with an attention-grasping clincher, a powerful essay conclusion, on the other hand, can make sure your essay stays with the reader for a long while after they finish reading it.
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How to End Your College Essay: 4 Winning Strategies
Forget about summarizing your main body or using famous quotes. Here are the four strategies to write an impactful conclusion.
1. Revisit the Introduction
When you write a college essay ending, your first option is to make the essay go full circle by linking your conclusion to the introduction.
Be warned, though: we’re not advocating for reiterating your thesis in slightly different words here. No, we’re suggesting building up on a theme or story you mentioned in the introduction and referring to it in the conclusion.
This method is also known as the sandwich method. For example, let’s imagine you started your college essay describing how challenging it was for you to learn French. You can end your college essay like this to bring it full circle:
That’s how I learned that I could overcome most of the struggles during my final year the same way I managed to learn French despite the rough start. I had to plow through with my sheer power of will instead of waiting for motivation to strike me.
2. Ask Yourself, “Now What?”
Think about the future — and how everything you’ve written so far fits into it. How will the events described in your essay impact your life in the years to come?
Be careful, though: it’s easy to slide into cliché endings here. Avoiding it requires some self-reflection. Great forward-looking endings are specific to your life journey, making them more authentic. Avoid overly dramatic or embellished language, too.
Here’s how to write and not to write this kind of ending:
- DO: Social changes aren’t made by loners. So, as a hopeful graduate of your Social Studies, I am enthusiastic about bringing them forth with hard day-to-day work in the local government.
- DON’T: I believe that graduating from your Social Studies program will help me make an impact on the world around me.
3. Go for a Last-Minute Reveal
This approach is like a plot twist at the end of a TV show episode. It can either surprise your readers and leave them wanting more — or disappoint them with a predictable twist or one out of nowhere.
So, if you use this tactic for the ending of your college essay, make sure the reveal is properly set up in the main body. One way to do it is by putting your main point — your thesis — in the introduction when you start writing the first draft and then removing it once you get to writing the conclusion.
This strategy has another perk: if you don’t reveal your main point at the beginning, you’re building suspense with seemingly unrelated events or points throughout the text.
Here’s how you can use this strategy for an essay that describes the author’s experiences with painting throughout their life in several snapshots:
I may have started painting to meet first my mother’s and then my school’s expectations, but I’ve come to consider it part of my own identity. I can’t imagine my life without watercolors and acrylics, without brush strokes and canvases, without the rush of experimenting with mediums and techniques. Painting helped me discover my creative side, and there’s no going back now.
4. Close with an Action
Finally, you can decide to end your essay mid-action, giving it a cliffhanger feel. That can mean describing a scene with an actual action in it, incorporating dialogue, or writing about an event.
Such endings, much like TV show episode cliffhangers, should leave the reader wanting to find out more about what happened next. Here’s what it can look like in an essay about the author’s leadership experience:
Last week, when I had to captain my volleyball team during the state championship, the previously usual anxiety and trembling didn’t make themselves known. I cheered on my teammates, riled them up with a few words on how we could beat the opponents, and led the team into the court, smiling, my mind at ease.
4 Clichés to Steer Clear Of
High school English essays may have taught you to sum up your main body in the conclusion or end the text with a famous quote. Yet, those tactics make for a poor college essay conclusion.
Here are the four common mistakes you should avoid:
| Mistake | How to avoid |
| Summing up your key points | Don’t reiterate the key points you’ve made in the main body or paraphrase your thesis. Don’t start with phrases like “to sum up” and “in conclusion”. |
| Stating the obvious | Read your drafted conclusion; if you can react to it with a “no duh”, it’s too obvious. Don’t state how you hope to be accepted in an admissions essay — it’s a given. |
| Using a famous quote | When in doubt, don’t use quotes at all.<br>Prioritize expressing your thoughts in your own words. |
| Begging for admission | Avoid drilling down how much you want to attend the college with phrases like “I hope you accept my application”. |
What If I Want to Submit a Video Response?
Some colleges require a written essay, while others allow you to choose between a video presentation and an essay.
If video is an option in your case and you’d prefer it, keep in mind that you’ll still have to write the essay. The difference is that you’ll use it as a speech outline. (Do not read it on camera!)
The four strategies and mistakes to avoid described above also apply to video responses.
In Closing
You should give your conclusion as much thought as the introduction or the main body — if not more. Craft it well, and your essay will finish on a memorable, impactful note.
To ace your essay’s conclusion, think of your text as a story and look for the most powerful way to wrap it up possible.
Struggling with crafting a powerful conclusion? Consider turning to a professional college essay writer!
Sources
Testa, M. (2025, January 08). How to End a College Admissions Essay | 4 Winning Strategies. Scribbr. Retrieved January 13, 2025, from https://www.scribbr.com/college-essay/conclusion-college-essay
