You will need a compelling subject, a direct and powerful narrative, impeccable grammar and a memorable style. You will then have full access to the site's tools and content. Check out News from Campus, featuring current events and fascinating stories from college and university publications around the U.S.! This question does not replace the personal essay question and is entirely optional: Look at each topic and ask yourself what personal experiences come to mind. How can I go one step deeper? This guide will go over the details of all seven current prompts, but first let's talk about some overall advice. In the next part of this special blog series we will look at the Common Apps first essay prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. 3. If you're uncertain what you want to write about, think about challenges you've faced, a problem you solved or want to solve, or your major intellectual passions. What was the outcome? Now ask yourself- are any of these stories representative of my larger, most valuable qualities? (Fun fact: most adults feel they have more maturing to do, too!) Now, you do not have to write the next great American essay collection. Your response needs to show that you got something out of your challenge or failure and that you've learned skills you can apply to other situations. What are your values? The perfect essay topic showcases your personality, passions and/or ambitions without trying to do too much at once. However, you'll want to demonstrate some of the same qualities that colleges are looking for in all college essays: things like academic passion, maturity, resourcefulness, and persistence. Whats it REALLY like to apply to college? What does it show about me? Writing The Common App Essay Conclusion . The first is to talk about a time you questioned a person or group on an idea of theirs. If you just dash something off thoughtlessly, admissions officers will recognize that and consider it evidence that you aren't really interested in their school. Here are examples of schools that do not require the Common App essay (note that some may require a school-specific writing supplement instead): If you're applying to more than one or two schools through the Common App, you'll almost certainly need to write a response to the Common App prompts. For example, if you want to write about the role of music in your life, tell us a story about when music was particularly meaningful, or challenging, or impactful for you. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. Though you might write an essay in any tone, from comedy to drama, you ultimately want to choose a topic that is specific enough that you can tell us about it in an essay thats fairly short. So many If you take on this question, you must show how you grew from the experience and, ideally, how you incorporated what you learned into other endeavors. If you say you love black holes but actually hate them and tortured yourself with astronomy books in the library for a weekend to glean enough knowledge to write your essay, your lack of enthusiasm will definitely come through. Think small: When writing the Common Application essay, too many students feel compelled to try and squeeze their entire life story into 650 words. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. 2. We can help. What's important is to tell your storyand no one can tell you what that means because it's unique to you. The key is that whatever you write about needs to be genuinely important to you personally, not just something you think will look good to the admissions committee. Which financial aid award is best? Get the latest articles and test prep tips! Check out our advice on getting organized, how to make your college applications stand out, and what to do when decisions arrive. For example, say I wanted to write about my summer job with the Parks Department. That doesnt mean you need some kind of incredible experience or story; all you need is something meaningful to you and to capture how much it means to you in your writing. Pretty much any topic you're really interested in and passionate about could make a good essay here, just as long as you can put can put an intellectual spin on it and demonstrate that you've gone out of your way to learn about the topic. In short: when and how have you grown as a person? This prompt helps admissions officers see both what you care about and how you solve problems. Almost any topic could theoretically make a good essay about personal growth, but it's important that the overall message conveys maturity. Use the Compare Awards tool to see which college offers the best deal. No matter what your subject, serious, uplifting, sentimental or pithy, your essay should aim to entertain. Your login details do not match our records. The first version could be written by almost anyone; the second version has a specific perspectiveit's also intriguing and makes you want to know more. Some students achieve entertainment value by being controversial. It is best to write a common app essay in word or google documents. but the Common App prompts can be helpful starting points. As Yale Admissions says, "It doesn't matter which topics you choose, as long as they are meaningful to you. Will you get in? What topics can you write about effectively? As you go back through your essay to edit, every step of the way ask yourself, "So what?" It's better if you can pick out something smaller and more individual, like helping your team rally after a particularly rough loss or laboring over a specific article to make sure you got every detail right. Get admissions news, essay tips and deals on CEA products and services. As such, I would recommend sending your essay to schools even if they don't explicitly require it. Want to build the best possible college application? You are required to write one personal essay for the Common App (plus any supplementary essays required by individual schools more on that later), and the length must be 650 words or less. How can you choose a Common App essay topic that will reveal the true you? Learn how to navigate the twists and turns of the college application process. No matter how tempting it might be, stick to the word limit. Colleges want curious, persistent, articulate, and self-aware students. But then I started to wonder if I could use what I'd learned to do the whole thing faster. These prompts elicit some of the most personal responses, which can make for great essays but also feel too revealing to many students. Avoid anything sweeping or general: for example, "How I plan to solve world hunger" is probably not going to work. Use the EFC and Net Price calculators to estimate your financial aid and college costs. For prompt 5, you need to clarify how you moved from childhood to adulthood and what that means to both you and others. You can write about anything for this one! Lots of people have tried out for a school play, for example, but each had their own particular experience of doing so. A college essay is not a resumeit's the best opportunity to show off your unique personality to admissions committees. Many colleges include short answer questions or essay How to Write the Common App Essay. If you have friends or siblings who applied in past years, don't assume that you can take the exact same approaches they did. Then, in writing his essay, he might focus on telling a story about how a man he met while volunteering at a homeless shelter inspired his idea to hire men and women living in shelters to work as liaisons in public spaces like libraries and parks to help homeless people get access to the services they need. No essay is complete without addressing both sides of the topic. Make a list of all the ways you might respond to the top three prompts that call your attention. Welcome to our overview of the Common App essay prompts for this 2019-2020 application season. Recount an incident or time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. Remember that the most important thing is that your essay is about you. To avoid seeing this pop-up again, we invite you to register - it's FREE! Much like Prompt 3, this question likely either appeals to you or doesn't. Do you value your leadership abilities or your determination to overcome challenges? Learn how to find scholarships you are eligible for, create winning scholarship applications, and watch out for scholarships scams. Is there something you do or love, or something that happened to you, that isn't reflected elsewhere in your application but that you feel is vital to your personal story? Sign up for free instructional videos, guides, worksheets and more! Registered users can choose to never see this message. The best topics are usually the narrowest ones: essays focused on a single interaction, a single phrase, or a single object. In the first sentence, we understand that you enjoyed certain activities. Never put off tomorrow what you can do today. There are two ways to approach this question. Real life happens here! Writing a compelling essay is a process, and the best writing can often be plucked from our stream-of-consciousness efforts. Who's getting financial aid and how do you compare? The word limit is like this barbed wireyou shouldn't cross it, no matter how tempted you are. Try to use them for good and not for evil. Talk over your ideas with a family member or friend. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. If Nothing Else, Entertain: Imagine youre a college essay reader at an upstanding academic institution and it is your job to read dozens of essays a day, every day, for weeks on end. These essays are often boring and derivative because the writer doesn't really have anything to say on the topic and assumes it'll speak for itself. You can always cut what doesnt work and it is much easier to work with an overabundance of words and ideas than nothing at all. Pick your topic accordingly. You should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any content contained on the CollegeData website without consulting with your parents, high school counselors, admissions representatives or other college counseling professionals. Although not every school in the US requires an essay as part of their application, the Common Application has traditionally required you to submit a blanket personal statement. What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? If you would like your essay reviewed by an expert so you can feel confident when submitting your college application, get your essay reviewed by Crimson. A personal story is the key to a successful Common App essay. Can you question someone else's beliefs without belittling them? Your essay should illustrate something about you beyond what's in the rest of your application. Tuition is only part of the cost of college. If you want your essay to be of the highest level, you should brainstorm. Just remember that it needs to showcase a deeper quality of yours. To live well at college, you'll need to manage your money wisely. These are all things you can consider touching on in your essay. You don't have room to tell your whole life story! Get professional help from PrepScholar. Moreover, colleges interpret the questions generouslythey're more concerned with learning something interesting about you than with whether your topic perfectly fits the question. Pay Your Way has advice to help you pay for college and get more financial aid. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn from the experience? Your essay might touch on themes such as personal responsibility and your role in the world and your community. First, it means that you genuinely care about the topic and want to write your college essay on itno one ever wrote a great essay on a topic that they felt they had to write about. CollegeData is committed to helping students and families make the right decisions about college, just like you. View real financial aid awards and see how much students like you received at any college. Before we dig into the nitty-gritty of the individual prompts, let's quickly go over the logistics of the Common App essay and some general tips to keep in mind. For example, say a student, Tommy, wanted to solve the problem of homelessness. Some are able to describe events in such detail that a reader simply must get to the end of the essay. Describing a failure and what you learned from it is much simpler than trying to clarify why an event is a vital part of your identity. How do you find the right colleges for you? This question is really about showing admissions officers how your background has shaped you. Apply for a 1st Financial Bank USA student credit card. You're writing it anyways, and it's the best way for the school to get to know you as a person. Its all in the details:What is the difference between these two sentences? Good topics will be specific and have a clearly explained impact on your perspective. Score our Exclusive Video Brainstorming Guide and more. Can you learn and grow from your experiences? For prompt 1, it's absolutely vital that your topic be something genuinely meaningful to you. Write first, edit later:When it comes to writing, we are almost always our own worst critics. What prompted your thinking? The 2020-2021 Common App Prompts have been released and its time to slay the beast that is the 650-word Common Application essay. What makes an essay memorable is often the sum of the little things. Were reviewing each prompt, discussing the pros and cons, and deciphering what its actually saying. One student saw trying out for the role of Hamlet as the culmination of many years of study and hard work and was devastated not to get it, while another was simply proud to have overcome her nerves enough to try out for the chorus line in West Side Story. Then, spend some time jotting ideas in your notebook with thoughts on specific moments in your life that you could write about. In the second, yes, we know you like fishing but we also understand your commitment to an activity you engaged in every day and recognize that your fishing trips are a social effort. So no submitting your rhetorical close-reading of the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" you wrote for AP English! However, you also need to "explain its significance to you." Over the past five years, she has worked with almost a hundred students and written about pop culture for a wide range of publications. In general, I would avoid these kinds of topics unless you have a highly compelling story. How do you face setbacks? Use the College Match college search engine to find the right colleges for you. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. You need to clarify why this story is so important that you couldn't leave it off your application. In this guide, I'll cover everything you need to know about the essay. It's asking you to talk about something you did or something that happened that caused you to grow or mature as a person. Also, keep in mind that most people who work at colleges are liberal, so if you have a conservative viewpoint, you'll need to tread more carefully. You'll have to search for the best topic, just like this bird is searching for food. Avoid unprofessional things like hashtags and smiley faces. It's not enough to simply tell a story about my feud with a raccoon that kept destroying all the progress I made repairing a bench; I would need to make it clear what that experience ;shows about my character (perseverance) and explain what it ;taught me (that there are some things in life you simply can't control). It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemmaanything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. See who got in, who's applying, and how you compare! Check out CollegeDatas Blog for all things college life, including tips on how to balance your academic and social life, manage your money wisely, and navigate the ups and downs college admissions, and engaging, informative quizzes to help you prepare, apply, and pay for college! This, friends, is impossible. U.S. colleges use both quantitative and qualitative measures to judge your college applications. The point of a personal statement is to, well, make a personal statement, that is to say, tell the reader something about yourself. (Seriously, though, what is wrong with you!?) Study abroad programs are not all created equal. Admissions essay readers know it too, and expect you to think out of the box without using phrases like think out of the box. So strike those tired sentences from your essay and do it now. Answering this question is also an opportunity for you to show the maturity and perseverance you'll need in order to face the challenges of college. It's also worth noting that because of the way this system is set up, you could theoretically send a different essay to each school. Editing is an important part of the essay-writing process, after all! For more background on college essays and tips for crafting a great one, check out our complete explanation of the basics of the personal statement. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. For that reason alone, the application process is competitive, and U.S. college Admissions Officers often ask students to go through long and involved application processes. You certainly can do it, however; just make sure to have a compelling and concrete explanation for why this problem is important to you and how you came upon the solution you're proposing. Want to write the perfect college application essay? In general, I'd advise shooting for an essay between 500 and 650 words long. Log in so the pop-up will no longer appear. If they don't speak to you, don't feel compelled to answer them. The Common App Essay (or personal statement) is a 650-word essay that all schools using the Common App will see. Upon solving one problem, I had immediately moved onto the next one, as I do with most things in life. (These prompts are unchanged from the 2019-20 application We disclaim all liability for actions you take or fail to take based on any content on the CollegeData website. They want you to show that you have a genuine love for the pursuit of knowledge. Your intellectual curiosity or your artistic talent? Try to write about a topic you haven't talked about elsewhere, or take a different angle on it. Treat these breakdowns as jumping-off points to help you start brainstorming, not the final word in how you need to approach the essay. On a similar note, you should take the essay seriously: it's an important part of your application and worth investing the time in to get right. Like Prompt 1, this one is very general. Common App Personal Essay. Did you undertake extra study? Focus on writing a single great personal statement. Admissions Officers want to know what kind of person youll be on their campus, beyond your scores and academics, and essays are their best shot at getting to know you. 4 Tips For Finding Your Best Common App Essay Topic. Getting a Good Start As a Transfer Student. If you enroll in an introductory US literature, you might end up reading James Baldwins essays in Notes of a Native Son, about being black and the civil rights movements in the 1940s and 1950s; Joan Didions essays in The White Album, on her depression and the politics of California in the 1960s and 1970s; or Gloria Anzaldas Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, about her sexuality and growing up on the US -Mexico border. A little laughter never hurts either. You must aim for 500-600 words when writing a common app essay. Are you interested in applying for a 1st Financial Bank USA student credit card? It is almost always better to think small first. Our latest BridgeU guide enables your teachers and counselors to help students write a truly individual & original Common App essay. The first part is very straightforward: how have you or would you solve a problem? Many students believe that they should write about resume-padding activities that look especially impressive, such as volunteering abroad. It's asking you to describe a challenge or obstacle you faced or a time you failed, and how you dealt with it. Academics are important, but college is also about learning to find a balance between your academic and social life, and exploring opportunities to learn and grow beyond the classroom. When you apply to college, planning and attention to detail really matter! Will I be accepted, waitlisted, deferred, or denied? We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their Were content and grammar snobs, so we find clichs to be extra unappealing, but we also have enough confidence in your creativity to know that you can do better. You've Been Admitted to College! In reality, you can write about any topic you think will best represent you (in another part of this series you will see prompt 7 allows you complete freedom to write what you choose!) In either case, you need to explain why you decided the belief should be challenged, what you actually didif your story is just that someone gave you a new piece of information and you changed your mind, you should probably find a different topicand how you feel about your actions in hindsight. Any kind of problem ("no matter the scale") is fineit just has to be important to you. Whats that, you ask? Most students have an experience or interest that will work for either Prompt 2, Prompt 4, or Prompt 6. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. In addition, try to avoid generic and broad topics: you don't want your essay to feel as though it could've been written by any student. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Finally, you want to avoid coming off as petty or inflexible, especially if you're writing about a controversial topic. I'd start with a story about how my parents worried I read too much as a kid, give some specific examples of things I've learned from particular books, and talk about how my enthusiasm for reading was so extreme it sometimes interfered with my actual life (like the time I tripped and fell because I couldn't be bothered to put down my book long enough to walk from my room to the kitchen). Explore Colleges can guide you through the college search process. What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? If you cant easily narrow it down to a punchy description, you probably need to alter or simplify your essay. 1st Financial Bank believes students who pick colleges wisely will also want to learn how to use credit cards wisely. The task with the Common App essay is to figure out how to talk about yourself in fewer than 650 words. Then this prompt could be a good one for you. My friends and I woke up early every morning to catch bass on Lake Michigan, cooking our spoils with herbs picked from a local farm. Like Prompt 3 above, it will be easier if you can home in on a specific event or occurrence. Then I would tie it all together by explaining how my love of reading has taught me to look for ideas in unexpected places. Hole yourself up in the library? Have you already received your Personal Invitation to apply for a Student Credit Card? You accomplish this self-branding by choosing a creative topic (or a creative twist on a common topic), and writing about it with enough detail to burn an image of yourself in the readers brain. So many students want and expect themselves to produce pure, uninhibited brilliance the first time their fingers hit the keys, but that is almost never the way good essay writing works. Youll write just one Common App essay for all the schools to which you are applying, so focus the months that you have to prepare the best essay you can about one topic. 5. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points, How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. Your Personal Statement is your best chance to share qualitative, personal aspects of yourself with the admissions committee so that they may get to know you beyond your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars. The information contained on the CollegeData website is for general informational purposes only and may not apply to you or your situation. You'll face a lot of challenges in college, both academic and social. After reading this, you should have a lot of ideas for your own essays and directions to write a really strong personal statement. Download our mobile app to help you organize and remember them. Its not possible to capture your entire personality in a single essay, so the key is choosing to capture one or a couple elements that differentiate you from your peers. For example, if I were writing an essay on this topic, I would probably write about my life-long obsession with books. you'll have as a college student, you'll need to keep track of your college money and learn how to manage your money wisely. Though you might choose to write about an academic topic, ultimately your goal is to have the reader understand more about your values, your thoughts, and your experiences outside the classroom. However, colleges also want to see that you're open minded and able to be fair and kind toward those who have different beliefs than you do. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure.