Application autobiography

Don’t Just Expand Your Resume

When you’re considering how to write an autobiography for a college application, you may think about other autobiographies that you’ve read.

Typical autobiographies might begin with the day you were born, who your parents and other family members are, and what your childhood was like. This is not the direction you should take when writing an autobiography for a college application.

Application autobiography

Instead, you’ll need to choose a focus to build your essay around.

Choose a Focus

Think about one aspect of your life that has affected you more than anything else. For example, have changes in your family structure over the years (e.g., divorce, adoption, remarried parent, additional siblings) affected you enormously?

Can you divide your life into several sections based on two or three life-changing episodes? Has a friend, a mentor, or an experience truly changed the course of your life? Have your career aspirat