Decoding the Common App Essay Prompts: A Comprehensive Guide
The Common Application essay is a crucial component of the college application process. It provides students with an opportunity to showcase their personality, experiences, and aspirations beyond academic achievements. The Common App offers several prompts, each designed to elicit thoughtful and revealing responses. Understanding these prompts and crafting compelling essays is essential for making a strong impression on admissions committees. The prompts are not actually as important as you think they are. What matters is the story you want to tell. All it takes is ample time for reflection and a little writerly elbow grease to find it.
Understanding the Common App Essay Prompts
The Common App provides a selection of prompts that remain consistent from year to year. These prompts are designed to be open-ended, allowing students to interpret them in a way that best reflects their unique experiences and perspectives.
Prompt #1: The Background Essay
Prompt: 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.
This prompt is incredibly versatile, acting as a "choose-your-own-adventure" for applicants. It invites students to explore aspects of their history, personality, hobbies, or accomplishments that have significantly shaped them. The key is to identify something dynamic and specific to the individual.
Brainstorming Questions:
- What about my history or background sets me apart from my peers?
- How do I define myself? How do the people who are closest to me define me?
- What have I achieved that has been integral in molding my character and ambitions?
- What, in my seventeen years on this earth, has helped shape the person I am today?
Examples:
- A family's love of food leading to a connection with diverse cultures.
- Unique personal style, like crazy, dyed-blue hair, defining one's identity.
- An inspiring experience, like a Picasso exhibit, sparking a passion for art.
- Family traditions, like yearly trips to see extended family, revealing important values.
- Experiences with non-traditional family structures, such as having same-sex parents or being raised by siblings.
Prompt #2: The Setback Essay
Prompt: 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?
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This prompt focuses on resilience and the ability to learn from adversity. It encourages students to discuss a challenge they faced and, more importantly, the lessons they learned and how they grew as a result. The obstacles can vary widely in nature, especially with the recent additions that allow students to explore challenges and setbacks in addition to failures.
Key Considerations:
- Focus on solutions rather than dwelling on the problem.
- Showcase qualities like resilience, determination, and humility.
- Avoid challenges that seem trivial or reflect poor judgment.
- Illustrate how you learned from the experience and turned it into a positive.
Examples:
- Overcoming a lifelong battle with stuttering and gaining confidence.
- Taking on significant responsibilities due to a parent's fragile health.
- Turning setbacks in one field, like acting, into a passion for another, like screenwriting.
- Learning from a failure, such as a botched science experiment.
Prompt #3: The Challenge Essay
Prompt: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
This prompt delves into a student's ability to think critically and stand up for their beliefs. It requires reflection on a time when they questioned or challenged a belief or idea. It can be one of the hardest questions to steer in a positive, productive direction without traveling into preachy, overly didactic territory. This is also a more precarious prompt than most in that students need to carefully assess the risks of espousing beliefs that might be polarizing for the readers of their applications.
Brainstorming Questions:
- When has your opinion been unpopular?
- Why are you the kind of person who is willing to stand up for what you believe in?
- What is important to you on a fundamental level of morals and values?
- How passionate are you about the things you believe in?
Examples:
- Being openly gay in a strict religious environment and its impact on self-esteem.
- Working on a political campaign during a scandal and how you reacted.
- Challenging the perception of a genre, like horror, through research and advocacy.
Prompt #4: The Gratitude Essay
Prompt: 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?
This prompt explores the impact of gratitude on a student's life. It asks students to reflect on a time when they felt gratitude. Just as important, however, is how applicants react and respond when they are the recipients of something meaningful themselves. Students should think about times when they have felt acknowledged, heard, and seen. Moments when they have felt that swelling in their chest, as their heart grows three sizes.
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Key Questions:
- How do you like to pay it forward in your daily life?
- How (and why!) do you express gratitude and appreciation?
- What are your favorite random acts of kindness?
- Has anyone ever restored your faith in humanity? How?
- Do you believe in karma? Why?
Examples:
- A kind gesture from a stranger inspiring you to keep paying it forward.
- Receiving an unexpected gift that was particularly meaningful.
- Feeling appreciative of a public figure for their work on important issues.
Prompt #5: The Accomplishment Essay
Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
This prompt invites students to reflect on an accomplishment, event, or realization that led to personal growth. It can be a formal event or accomplishment or a very small occurrence.
Prompt #6: The Engaging Topic Essay
Prompt: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you?
This prompt allows students to showcase their intellectual curiosity and passions. It encourages them to delve into a topic that captivates them and explain why it holds such significance.
Prompt #7: The Topic of Your Choice Essay
Prompt: Share an essay on any topic of your choice.
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This prompt offers complete freedom, allowing students to write about anything they feel is important to share with the admissions committee. It provides an opportunity to showcase their personality, experiences, and aspirations.
Supplemental Essays: Showcasing Specific Interests
Many colleges require supplemental essays in addition to the Common App essay. These essays provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their specific interest in the institution and elaborate on aspects of their background or aspirations that align with the college's values and mission.
American University
American University students are described as passionate changemakers. The prompt asks applicants to describe a belief, hobby, idea, issue, or topic about which they’re excited.
Amherst College
Amherst College offers three options for its supplementary writing requirement:
- Option A: Choose one of the provided quotations and respond to the question posed.
- Option B: Submit a graded paper from your junior or senior year that represents your writing skills and analytical abilities.
- Option C: (For A2A program applicants only) Use your A2A Writing Supplement essay.
Babson College
Babson's prompts focus on entrepreneurial mindset and community engagement:
- Discuss your interest in business, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and Babson specifically.
- Share something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s) that speaks to your commitment to promoting access, connection, or understanding across differences and/or how you will contribute to and learn from Babson’s collaborative community.
Barnard College
Barnard College asks students to choose a woman-historical, fictional, contemporary, or personally significant-whose views differ from their own and imagine a conversation with her.
Bentley University
Bentley University's optional supplemental essays allow students to demonstrate their interest and share more information about themselves. Prompts focus on Bentley’s core values (Caring, Collaboration, Diversity, Honesty, Impact, Learning, and Respect) and blending business with the arts and sciences.
Boston College
Boston College's prompts explore traditions, personal stories, and Jesuit values:
- Tell us about a meaningful tradition in your family or community.
- Discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story.
- If you could add a fourth “Be” to Boston College’s Jesuit mission (“be attentive, be reflective, be loving”), what would it be and why?
Boston University
Boston University's prompt asks students to reflect on a social or community issue that deeply resonates with them and what excites them most about being a student at BU.
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College's prompt is related to the values of the college.
Brandeis University
Brandeis University's prompt asks what excites you the most about being an international student.
Brown University
Brown University's prompts explore academic interests, personal background, and sources of joy:
- Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might pursue them at Brown.
- Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community.
- Tell us about something that brings you joy.
Brown | RISD Dual Degree Program
The Brown | RISD Dual Degree Program asks applicants to describe how the specific blend of RISD’s experimental, immersive art and design program and Brown’s wide-ranging courses and curricula could constitute an optimal undergraduate education for them.
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College asks why are you interested in Bryn Mawr?
Bucknell University
Bucknell University prompt asks to explain your interest in your first-choice major/undecided status and your second-choice major (should you opt to list one) and why you would choose Bucknell University to pursue your interest(s).
Caltech
Caltech's prompts delve into STEM interests, creativity, and personal circumstances:
- Why did you choose your proposed area of interest?
- Talk to us about whatever STEM rabbit hole you have found yourself falling into.
- Tell us how you initially found your interest and passion for science or for a particular STEM topic, and how you have pursued or developed your interest or passion over the last few years.
- How have you been a creator, inventor, or innovator in your own life?
Chapman University
Chapman University's prompt asks what excites you about attending Chapman University specifically?
Clark University
Clark University's prompts focus on community impact and values:
- Share a story of a community that has impacted you the most and how it will influence your time as a member of the Clark community.
- Share a story of how you’ve worked with others to make a positive impact.
Colgate University
Colgate University's prompts focus on engaging with individuals from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, races, ethnicities, religions, and perspectives during the course of their educational and social experiences.
College of Charleston
College of Charleston prompt asks to share something about yourself that is important for us to consider as we learn more about you.
University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin applicants should respond to the following essay and/or short answer prompts to apply to UT. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. Think of all the activities - both in and outside of school - that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why?
General Tips for Writing Compelling Essays
- Start Early: Give yourself ample time to brainstorm, draft, and revise your essays.
- Be Authentic: Write in your own voice and let your personality shine through.
- Tell a Story: Engage the reader with a compelling narrative that showcases your experiences and insights.
- Show, Don't Tell: Use vivid language and specific examples to illustrate your points.
- Proofread Carefully: Ensure your essays are free of grammatical errors and typos.
- Seek Feedback: Ask teachers, counselors, or trusted friends to review your essays and provide constructive criticism.
Coalition Application Essay Prompts
The Coalition Application offers its own set of essay prompts, providing another avenue for students to share their stories.
- Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
- What interests or excites you? How does it shape who you are now or who you might become in the future?
- Describe a time when you had a positive impact on others. What were the challenges? What were the rewards?
- Has there been a time when an idea or belief of yours was questioned? How did you respond? What did you learn?
- What success have you achieved or obstacle have you faced?
Overcoming Writer's Block
Many students find the college essay writing process daunting. Here are some tips for overcoming writer's block:
- Brainstorm: Generate a list of potential topics and experiences.
- Freewrite: Write without worrying about grammar or structure to get your ideas flowing.
- Talk It Out: Discuss your ideas with someone you trust.
- Take a Break: Step away from the essay and return to it with fresh eyes.
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