Tips for Brainstorming & Writing Common App Essays
Having Trouble Getting Started on Your Common App Essays?
• Click here for advice on brainstorming and finding a topic.
Want Some Advice on Writing an Outstanding Common App Essay that Expresses Your Best Self?
• Click here for general tips on writing common app essays.
Need Guidance in Understanding and Responding to a Specific Common App Essay Question?
• Click here for specific tips on each common application essay prompt.
Getting Started
1. The prompts are your friends: you can learn from them what any good college essay will accomplish. Are you stuck deciding on a prompt, finding a topic, or figuring out what to say about a topic you have in mind? Try rereading all the prompts again with an open mind, paying attention to what you can learn from them all, especially from ones you don’t choose. Several prompts have phrases that would apply to any good college essay. For example, every good essay will:
• “share your story,” adding something “the application would be incomplete without”(#1)
• show yourself learning from your experiences, especially with an eye for what is “fundamental to future success” (#2).
• focus on something that has "affected or motivated you,” (#4), especially something that sparks “personal growth” and a “new understanding of yourself or others” (#5) or that you find so “engaging” that it “captivates you” (#6).
2. To see hidden possibilities for essays, read between the lines of the prompts. To fully grasp the various possibilities for responses within each prompt, pay attention to its logical structure, especially when it says “and” or “or.” Most of the prompts are actually two separate essay prompts mashed together into one. If you disentangle the two basic paths for an essay you will be able to foresee the possibilities within each, as well as possibilities for essays that connect these two paths into one essay. (For an explanation of the logical structure of each prompt, click here.)
3. Get to know yourself well. Before you can express yourself, you need to know yourself. A good college essay draw from a period of genuine self-reflection and self-reckoning on your behalf. That can’t be ‘gamed’ – if you fake it, you’ll likely fail to write a genuine essay. Think long and hard about what excites and motivates you, what you strongly value. Think of a moment or time in your life when you showed your greatest strengths, when you lived by your own values and triumphed in the face of difficulty. Consider what qualities you have that allowed you to triumph. Consider how these qualities will serve you well in the future, at college and after college.
4. Don’t Self-Censor When Brainstorming. In thinking through possible topics, and how to express themselves, many people initially dismiss their best ideas. Often what will in fact make a great essay topic and showcase your best qualities will initially strike you as too insignificant or only significant to you. Other times you’ll brainstorm details of your life that are less flattering to you or that are too personal to reveal in a college essay. Either way, don’t censor yourself when brainstorming. (A work of self-expression like a college essay can be compared to an iceberg: only the tip of the iceberg will be visible, but it must be buoyed up by the much greater mass of ice that remains unseen under the surface.) You should have much more brainstorming material than you actually use in the essay.
5. Get Help. Most people are not good at posing penetrating, difficult questions to themselves about who they are and what they value, let alone answering these questions in a brief but outstanding essay. Most people need these kinds of questions and challenges posed to them by someone else. (This is of course one of the main reasons why we have college.) So you should seek the help of someone who has experience helping students plan their college essay and the time to give you as you work through brainstorming and then writing multiple drafts. (For personalized, professional essay help, click here.)
General Tips on Writing Common App Essays
1. Foremost, a college essay should convey your best personal qualities. As recent news reports reveal, selective colleges give great weight to an applicant’s personal qualities, especially as they are expressed in the personal statement and supplemental essays. Personal qualities are character traits or “virtues” like compassion, responsibility, thoughtfulness, or creativity. These are sometimes rated as equal in importance to an applicant’s GPA, extra-curriculars, or test scores. To read what deans and directors have said about the personal qualities they seek in applicants, click here.
2. The college essay is not primarily a writing exercise, but an exercise in self-expression. Of course, your final version of your essay should be thoroughly edited, but as you are crafting the essay it is more important to focus on communicating something genuine and outstanding about yourself than it is to focus on refining your language. Beware of polishing what is not yet gold. It is also a good idea to set aside any nagging thoughts about staying within the word limit when you are in the initial writing stages – it is better to get your ideas out on paper and then cut back if you need to later.
3. Express yourself by showing not telling. Instead of directly telling your reader what your good personal qualities are, show them these qualities. Craft a self-portrait, usually some moment in time or period in your life, in which the reader can see you manifesting these personal qualities in the way that you live, in how you respond to the situation and how you grow from it.
4. “Zoom in” to particular details, and “zoom out” for broader meaning. College essays ask you to reflect on broad themes like why something is meaningful to you or how you grew as a person. This requires you to ‘zoom out’ and consider the ‘big picture’ in terms of who you are and where you want to go in life. But often it is concrete, particular moments or events in our lives that can best communicate to others who we really are and our best personal qualities. It is a good idea, at least in the brainstorming stage, to try to think of a concrete moment in time in which you were at your best, then describe every aspect of it, including what it felt like, what things looked like, sounded like, etc.
5. Make each word your own, but get experienced help. The task of thinking through these questions and writing outstanding responses is best done by talking with someone else, especially someone with experience and skill in doing so and the time to work through multiple sessions of brainstorming and multiple drafts of writing. If this is not the kind of personal attention your school’s college counselors provide, you should find another professional to work with. Don’t try to go through this process alone, but beware of the help you’ll likely get. Many applicants make the mistake of letting their parents or others “help” them by writing substantial portions of their essays for them. (As other experts have warned, these plagiaristic interventions are easily spotted and can jeopardize and applicant’s chances of acceptance.) For one-on-one advice and guidance in writing your college essays, click here.
Specific Tips for Each Common App Essay Prompt
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• Two Paths: You could write an essay about some aspect of who you are, your “background” or “identity.” Or you could write an essay about some aspect of what you do, some “interest” or “talent” that you have. Note that it is also possible to bridge these two, e.g., showing how something in your background contributes to a talent or interest you pursue.
• Regardless of which path you take, the key word here is “meaningful.” Show how this identity or interest is meaningful to your life, “so meaningful” that your application “would be incomplete without it.” In other words, the key to writing this essay to show how this identity or interest shapes your life and gives it meaning.
• When thinking through a “background” or “identity,” take these words broadly. They could include broad things like nationality, ethnicity, or gender but also more particular things like communities you are a part of, or some role you have within your family life or among friends.
• Likewise, when thinking through an “interest” or “talent,” take these words broadly. Perhaps the most obvious choice would be to write about one of your extra-curricular activities and what it means for you. But also consider that an “interest” could also include many other things, e.g., an academic interest, an ethical cause you belief in, or some goal you have for your future. A “talent” could be your skill in something like sports, music, or art, but it could also be an academic skill, a social skill, or a professional skill.
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: genuineness, depth, creativity, responsibility, compassion, thoughtfulness.
2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
• Two paths: The most obvious response to this prompt would be an essay about how you handled an obstacle in the sense of a “failure” or “setback,” i.e., something bad. But you could also write an essay about a “challenge” that was not something bad, per se, only difficult and challenging. Likewise, the most obvious path would be to write an essay about successfully overcoming some setback or challenge and what you learned. Potentially, though, you could also write about a setback or challenge that you did not successfully overcome, but that you learned from anyway.
• There is nothing wrong in admitting your faults and failures, assuming they can be an occasion for showcasing your best qualities. (This prompt is not a trick to get you to let down your guard and confess to things admissions officers can then hold against you.) In fact, colleges greatly worry about the fragility of students who have never failed before and may not handle failure well. The key here is always to show a more significant success and triumph within this experience of failure in that you’ve experienced personal growth and established a solid foundation for “later success” by addressing this failure responsibly.
•Remember that this essay should not be an appeal to pity on the basis of what you’ve suffered. What will impress your reader is not the severity of the obstacles you faced but the strength of character you show in facing or overcoming it. It is generally a good idea to avoid writing about traumatic life-events such as death, major illness, or divorce within your family. These may be greatly significant to your life, but they often won’t work as a vehicle for showing your best qualities.
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: perseverance (including grit and resilience), responsibility, creativity, thoughtfulness.
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
• Two paths: The most obvious path would be to write about how you changed your mind about some significant belief or idea that you yourself held. But you could instead write about how you challenged a belief or idea held by others or by an institution (e.g. challenging some policy of your school.) Likewise, the most obvious path would be to write about successfully changing some belief or idea. But it is also compatible with the prompt to have the “outcome” be that the belief or idea remained unchanged.
• Regardless of which path you take, the key will be to show your personal qualities as someone who questions and challenges accepted ideas (your own or others.) As always, who you show yourself to be in this time of questioning is much more important the external circumstances of what this belief was or what prompted you to challenge it. So you should always present one “outcome” of this process as some form of self-growth or self-realization.
• Feel free to read “belief” or “idea” quite broadly. It could be a political, moral, or religious belief. It could be an academic, scientific or artistic idea or standard. It could be some assumption within social customs or traditions. It could also be some belief you have about yourself.
• Note the progression built into this prompt: the past (something prompted your questioning), the present (a time when you questioned), and the future (the outcome of your questioning).
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: Thoughtfulness, integrity, honesty, intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, perseverance.
4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
Two Paths: Note that the prompt asks you to reflect on something that has made you happy or has made you thankful. What’s the distinction? Not everything that you are thankful for now made you happy at first. For example, what benefits us most and what we are eventually most grateful for are often things like constructive criticism and other forms of negative feedback that may have hurt at first. So essays responding to this prompt could either trace gratitude for some surprise benefit that made you happy immediately or gratitude for something that seemed painful at first but later, to your surprise, turned out to be beneficial.
• Whether or not this thing made you happy or thankful at first, it is the thankfulness or gratitude that should be the focus here. Specifically, your essay should be about how this sense of gratitude “affected or motivated you.” In other words, you’ll need to show how this gratitude manifests itself in your life now and going forward. For example, this gratitude might now shape your values or the way that you think about things, in a reorientation of your goals and efforts, or in some new form of service or creative effort motivated by this gratitude.
• Note that the prompt calls you to reflect specifically about “something that someone has done for you.” You might be grateful for many other things in your life, such as talents you were naturally blessed with or chance opportunities that benefited you greatly. But this prompt is about gratitude toward other people in particular. The more you can portray this relationship of gratitude in a personal and genuine way, the stronger your essay will be.
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: gratitude, thoughtfulness, perseverance, depth, genuineness
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• Two paths: You could write an essay about something you did, an “accomplishment,” that has sparked personal growth and a realization about yourself or others. Or you could write an essay about something you experienced, an “event,” that prompted personal growth and realization. Potentially, you could instead focus on a “period of personal growth” and realization you’ve had that was prompted by something other than an accomplishment or an event.
• If you choose to write about an event that you experienced rather than an accomplishment, bear in in mind that your essay should not portray you in an entirely passive role. You will need to include some active portrait of yourself (e.g., reacting, learning, or growing) in the face of what happened to you; show the reader how you handled yourself and the situation. (A purely passive self-portrait could never express the personal qualities you’ll need to convey in the essay.)
• It is generally a good idea to avoid focusing on major life tragedies (e.g. disease, death, or divorce in your family, or a mental health crisis.) Sadly, such things are often the most significant events in a young person’s life, and they often lead to personal growth. But unless you can muster the reflective distance to think critically about these events and how you responded, they may be too private and personal to make a good focus for your college essay.
• If you’re writing about an accomplishment, bear in mind that what will impress your reader is not so much the greatness of the accomplishment but the greatness of the personal growth and realization that it sparked. It may be a good idea to portray the challenges, difficulties, and setbacks that you encountered on the path to this accomplishment.
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: perseverance, responsibility, compassion, creativity, thoughtfulness.
6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
• Two Paths: The last segment of the prompt, “what or who do you turn to” indicates two possible paths for an essay. One kind of essay would be about your passion for a topic and a teacher (broadly understood) who inspires and feeds this passion. Another kind of essay would be about your passion for a topic and some other kind of sources you draw from in feeding this passion yourself.
•There seems to be no workable difference between a “topic”, an “idea,” and a “concept.” They simply indicate that what you write about should both “captivate you” and prompt some kind of passion for learning more about it. The prompt lends itself most readily to writing about any kind of scholarly or academic interest, but an ethical or personal interest might also make you want to learn more.
•This prompt asks you to show your passion for learning, the intellectual curiosity and drive at the heart of being a good student. The requires self-reflection about a passion you have, specifically a passion for learning.
•The phrase “so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time” should be read loosely, as any topic, idea or concept that “captivates you,” i.e. captures your attention and concern to the extent that you immerse yourself in it completely.
• Personal qualities that could be conveyed in a response: depth, thoughtfulness (esp. intellectual curiosity), perseverance, creativity.
7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
• For many applicants, the newly added ‘open question’ is a welcome option since it relieves all stress about needing to ‘answer the question.’ But it is a good idea to read through the prompts carefully and learn from them especially if you are not going to follow any of them. As explained in detail here, they each contain useful clues about what any good college essay should do.
• Beware of thinking that because you can write on any topic, any piece of writing you’ve done will suffice for a college essay. Regardless of topic, any good college essay will be self-expressive, letting readers know something important about who you are, your personal qualities. It will contain a self-portrait that is consistent with the rest of the application and yet say something new, something about yourself that can’t be learned from the rest of your application.
• You might be tempted to submit a paper or writing assignment from school, especially one that has been graded highly by a teacher. But consider whether this piece of writing accomplishes what a college essay needs to do: to show who you are, your personal qualities. (The instinct to use a piece of writing that a responsible adult can read carefully and approved of is correct, which is why having an essay coach is essential.) For more information on personalized, professional essay help, click here.