Although you can find sample college essays on the internet, you cannot use them word-for-word; the reader of your essay should have a good idea of your understanding. This means that you should be creative and come across genuine in the essay, rather than portray yourself as a monotonous robot that can simply regurgitate information. Your work should be expressive and informative, giving an insight into your deep understanding of your subject.

The sample college essays available online can provide you a solid foundation that will help you build your essay. If you are undertaking a course that involves creative rather than technical writing, you tend to have a greater flexibility in the style of the essay, although the content is equally as important as style and flow. A well written piece of work that follows a college essay format but fails to demonstrate knowledge of the subject will not earn top grades. Similarly, if you stray off subject or make unfounded assumptions and shallow conclusions, the results will not be impressive. Using sample college essays can help you gauge how your line of thought compares with those of fellow or former students.

There are a variety of college essay formats available online that will show you examples of how to base and structure your essay. If you are not confident in your writing ability and think that some help from internet sample essays will be very beneficial, then you should not be afraid of basing it on the formats available. You should, however, be very careful and never copy the format and content of any sample college paper exactly – not just because of plagiarism laws, but because you want to come across as a creative and innovative student. Moreover, you should take note that sample college essays are for guidance and an aid to study, not something for you to copy and not do the work yourself.