All the essay prompts for the Common App ask you to provide evidence of how you have grown during your high school years. One particular prompt, the personal growth prompt, makes this request more explicit. Here you are asked to look at your personal circumstances or point of view and then provide evidence on how you have changed due to some accomplishment, event, or realization.
Here’s how the prompt is worded on the Common App: Discuss an accomplishment or event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
The best Common App essays show how you have grown as a person over time and how you reflect on that personal growth. Great news: Common App essay prompt 5 makes it easy for you to do just that! On its surface, this prompt seems to be asking about a specific moment in your life. But really, this prompt wants a before-and-after. Tell the college admissions officers about one way you’ve grown as a person, demonstrate that you are aware of that period of personal growth, and be able to reflect on it in a mature way. If you can do all that, you’re well on your way to writing a strong Common App personal essay!
Briefly Explain Your Story
At first glance, this prompt doesn’t seem to have a story at the heart of it. However, the focus is on a transition, which implies a description of “before” and “after” this event, accomplishment, or realization. So, you should retell the story briefly to help your reader understand the transition. But it must also be interesting for the reader. You don’t need to think of a story that is heroic or grandiose. While an “accomplishment” might bring about personal growth, sometimes the most mundane events or off-handed conversations can lead us to reevaluate ourselves or the world around us.
Catalyst that Sparked Personal Growth and Understanding
The story is not the heart of your essay–it is the pivot between how you thought or felt before the accomplishment, event, or realization, and how you thought or felt after it. You need to define the transitional moment so that your reader can visualize this change. As we grow older, we find that in some situations we feel—or are treated—as children, while in other situations we feel more like adults. Sometimes this transition is subtle, as in how other adults begin to treat you with greater seriousness in restaurants and other public places. Sometimes, however, this transition can seem more abrupt, as in the day you get your driver’s license or register to vote for the first time. Religion often marks this transition (first communions, bar mitzvahs), as do particular cultures (Quinceanera, debutante balls). This prompt asks you to examine more closely your own transition from childhood to adulthood.
Accomplishments or Events
The transition to adulthood is marked by both accomplishments and events. An accomplishment is something that you achieved through hard work. An event, on the other hand, is a happening in which you may have been more passive but nonetheless marks a very important milestone in your life. Some of these accomplishments and events are formal (e.g., learning Hebrew and reciting the Torah before your congregation in a ceremony before your friends and family) or informal. College admissions officers do not care so much about the exact nature of these accomplishments or events. Rather they care about how you tell an interesting story about your transition to adulthood.
Realization
Unlike an accomplishment or event, a realization can have no outward manifestation that others can see or experience. You may, instead, experience some sort of internal “Aha!” moment where your understanding changes. You see yourself—or others—in a completely new light. Perhaps you shared this realization with others, or perhaps it is one that is intensely private. But the change or transition is real, because it leads to a new and different understanding of yourself and the world around you.
Reflect on How You Have Grown
The real meat of your personal growth Common App essay is your reflection based on this brief anecdote from your life. By thinking deeply about what happened after this event, accomplishment, or realization, you can give your reader a sense of your increasing maturity and your priorities, values, and personality. High school is a time in life when we make great strides on the road from childhood to adulthood. This road is punctuated with various moments that lead us to reflect on how we are growing and changing. The personal growth prompt invites you to identify one of these important moments and then discuss this growth and change. College admissions officers want to understand the “real you” underneath all the academic and other data on your college application. This prompt is a great way to show them who you really are.
Additional Resources for Common App Essay Prompt 5
In this informative video, Great College Advice provides more details on how to tackle the personal growth essay prompt.
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