The most overused words in college essays, counted in 1403 essays
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The most common word family in 1403 personal statements submitted to NudgeEssay was “grow / growth”, in 44.8% of essays. The phrases most linked to lower scores were “perseverance”, “comfort zone”, “hard work”: essays using them averaged several points below essays that did not.
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Snapshot of , 1403 essays. Counted from the database, never typed. Ratings are our AI reader’s, on self-selected drafts.
How often each word appears, and how those essays scored
Share of essays containing each word or phrase at least once, most common first.
| Word or phrase | Essays | Share | Avg score with | Avg score without |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| grow / growth | 629 | 44.8% | 58.5% | 61.2% |
| I realized | 486 | 34.6% | 59.9% | 60% |
| I learned | 442 | 31.5% | 59.8% | 60.1% |
| taught me | 396 | 28.2% | 59% | 60.4% |
| challenge | 335 | 23.9% | 58.7% | 60.4% |
| passion | 209 | 14.9% | 57% | 60.5% |
| community | 206 | 14.7% | 58.8% | 60.2% |
| for the first time | 203 | 14.5% | 60.1% | 60% |
| impact | 141 | 10% | 57.6% | 60.3% |
| journey | 133 | 9.5% | 56.2% | 60.4% |
| leader / leadership | 130 | 9.3% | 59.8% | 60% |
| dream / dreams | 112 | 8% | 56.7% | 60.3% |
| navigate | 97 | 6.9% | 59.6% | 60% |
| embrace | 90 | 6.4% | 56.8% | 60.2% |
| perseverance | 74 | 5.3% | 54.5% | 60.3% |
| resilience | 69 | 4.9% | 55.7% | 60.2% |
| hard work | 63 | 4.5% | 55% | 60.2% |
| in that moment | 46 | 3.3% | 61.2% | 59.9% |
| comfort zone | 44 | 3.1% | 54.6% | 60.2% |
| at that moment | 29 | 2.1% | 58.7% | 60% |
| make a difference | 27 | 1.9% | 55.7% | 60.1% |
| the person I am today | 25 | 1.8% | 55.5% | 60.1% |
| step outside | 22 | 1.6% | 57.1% | 60% |
Literal matches, including forms like "grew" for grow. Only words in 20+ essays are shown.
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Paste your essay for a free read. It marks the lines that tell instead of show, which is where most of these words turn up.
What to do with these words
Don’t delete them on sight. Find the sentence, then ask what you actually saw or did at that moment. “It was a journey” becomes the bus, the hour, the thing you said. Telling instead of showing was one of the two most common problems our reader marked, in more than half of essays.
How these were counted
Counted from NudgeEssay’s own database on October 15, 2026 by read-only queries that return totals only: no essay text, no names, no single essay. Essays uploaded August 20, 2026 to October 15, 2026. Rules: undergraduate college essays only (graduate and law essays excluded); excludes NudgeEssay's own, admin and test accounts, and essays we reviewed from public posts; first read of each distinct essay text only (repeat uploads and re-reads of a revised draft removed, except on the revision page); any group is shown only when 20 or more essays share it.
- Every rating is NudgeEssay's AI reader's judgement, not an admissions office's.
- The essays are self-selected: people who chose to get a review. They are not all applicants.
- Most are drafts, not final submissions.
- An average score beside a group shows the two go together, not that one causes the other.
- A word count says nothing about how well the word was used.
More numbers from the same essays
- All college essay analytics, one page
- State of the college essay, all findings on one page
- Which Common App prompts students pick
- How long college essays are, and how length relates to score
- How college essays open and end
- Where college essays lose points
- College essay clichés, counted
- What memorable college essays do differently
- When students work on their college essays
- How much a revised draft improves
- College essay statistics
- The most common college essay topics
Questions
- What words are overused in college essays?
- In 1403 personal statements submitted to NudgeEssay, the most common were grow / growth (44.8%), I realized (34.6%), I learned (31.5%), taught me (28.2%), challenge (23.9%). Counts are of essays containing the word at least once.
- Should I avoid the word "passion" in my college essay?
- 14.9% of essays used it. Those essays averaged 57% of our rubric against 60.5% for essays without it. The word is rarely the problem; the sentence around it usually names a feeling instead of showing one.
- Which words are linked to lower college essay scores?
- The biggest gaps between essays with and without a word were for perseverance (54.5% vs 60.3%), comfort zone (54.6% vs 60.2%), hard work (55% vs 60.2%), the person I am today (55.5% vs 60.1%), resilience (55.7% vs 60.2%). These are associations: the words tend to appear in essays that summarize a lesson instead of showing it.
- Is "journey" a cliché in college essays?
- 9.5% of essays used it, and those averaged 56.2% against 60.4% without it.