The Common App essay prompts are designed to demonstrate your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and help you distinguish yourself in your own voice. Your personal essay provides the opportunity for you to stand out in the crowded college admissions landscape. The key question you must answer is: What do you want the readers of your college application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores?
Choosing the Right Common App Essay Topic
Choose the prompt that best helps you answer the question above. Then write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don’t feel obligated to do so. When faced with seven prompts from which to choose, including one that allows you to write about “anything you want,” it can be difficult to select a prompt.
Start with an Outline
At Great College Advice, we encourage our students to start by outlining responses to a handful of the essay prompts. These outlines are not full drafts, rather they are bare-bones sketches of main points you will expand upon. As you read through these essay prompts, spend some time thinking about different aspects of your life. What experiences from your own personal history potentially relate to a particular prompt? As you recollect, begin to analyze what these stories say about you as a human being. Your outline should contain the two primary elements of what makes up a good Common App personal essay: the story and the reflections.
The Story Part of Your Personal Essay
You must tell your reader a story in which you are the main character. Always remember that you must be at the center of whatever you write since the goal is for the essay to provide a multi-dimensional picture of who you are beyond the basic information that is captured on the rest of the college application. For your story outline, try to give basic parameters of the story or anecdote in no more than a sentence or two.
The Reflection Part of your Personal Essay
The second component of your essay is your reflection or analysis of your story. What does the story mean? How should we, your readers, interpret it? Share the lessons you derived from your journey, and help the college admissions officer understand how this small event shows your values, your priorities, and your goals. It may seem daunting at first but remember that each of us has a unique story to tell. In fact, each of us has hundreds, even thousands of stories that make up our lives—even when we are young. Some of your personal experiences that seem, at first, to be relatively insignificant can carry great weight. They help illustrate who you are, what you care about, and where you’re headed.
For the reflections outline, make a list of bullet points that explain the meaning or moral of the story. A solid response to an essay prompt should offer several reflections or takeaways from the story. As you are developing these reflections, be as deep and introspective as you can be. These reflections are an opportunity to share with the admissions office reader your values and priorities. And these values and priorities are what will make your application more revealing and more compelling. So don’t be afraid to share!
Drafting Your Personal Essay
Once you’ve completed these outlines, you can share them with teachers, parents, peers, and your college counselor. Gradually a topic or two will rise to the top of the list, and you can begin to draft those “winners” in greater detail. As you draft, you’ll be able to assess the viability of the topic. Often, you’ll simply find that one topic flows better than another.
Finding the right topic is the hardest part of writing your college essay. But you’ll know you’re on the right track when you begin to feel your personality shine through your prose. It can be an organic process, but once you have the right topic, you’ll know it. So, enjoy the process of self-discovery as you explore the many possible essay topics that will help you present yourself in the best light to college admissions officers.
Need Help with your College Application Essays?
If you need assistance in college essay writing, please contact us for a free consultation. The team at Great College Advice has deep experience in not only aiding students with their Common App personal statement but also with college-specific supplemental essays. You and your counselor will be able to brainstorm and discuss possible ideas and responses to these essay prompts. At Great College Advice, we provide personalized college consulting focused on helping make the process of preparing, selecting, and applying to college more successful, less stressful, and more fun.
In the weeks to come, we will examine each of the prompts for the Common Application essay and provide detailed guidance for your college admissions success!
