Essay Questions!Answered
Hi everyone! I'm going to be a Senior in High School this Fall, and I'm trying to get ahead with preparing for admissions. I've set up a Common App account, and I think it's time I start working on the essay, I just don't even know where to begin. I'm just wondering about what I should maybe write about, how long it should be, etc. My first thought was to write about how I was able to basically turn my entire high school experience around by changing my perspective and putting myself out there, but that feels very broad. Any thoughts are appreciated :) Thank you so much!
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5 answers
I suggest watching some College Essay Guy on YouTube. He gives good advice and creative practices and strategies to get you going. Common App essay prompts usually tend to stay the same, so you can always look those up on a trusted website. I would say to not focus on the prompt too much because then you lose yourself trying to stay in the narrative.
There are several ways to approach writing the personal statement. I'm going to list the two that I used last year to get started.
1. Take a look at all of the Common App prompts and see which ones look interesting. Try to come up with multiple ideas for each of the prompts, writing down whatever comes to mind. You can flesh out the ideas as much as you want, whether you only write a few words or a paragraph. From here you can choose one of your ideas and begin developing it into your essay.
2. The second way to approach the essay is to ignore the prompts altogether. Sometimes, the best essays are formed without looking at the prompts because some students get caught up in making sure their essay fits in the guidelines. You can prompt yourself with some general questions like these: Do you have any unique talents? What are some challenges you've overcome? What interests you in the world? Have you ever failed at something that mattered a lot to you? The answers to these questions can be developed into essays that'll fit into any of the prompts. If you start here and worry about prompts later, this gives you the freedom to write about a topic without constraint.
My advice would be to first start gathering ideas for your essay, and then have it drafted by the end of the summer, and finalize it sometime in October. Also, as far as length, a good rule of thumb is to aim for at least 500 words.
Hope this is helpful!
On their website the common app provides questions in which you have to write your essay from, so definitely start there. You have plenty of time to write this essay, so I would pick 3 of the questions and write rough drafts of an essay, and pick the one you feel the most confident in, and enhance it! Hope this helps, good luck!:)
You can look at the essay topics for specific colleges to get an idea!
The first step to writing a great Common App essay is to read examples of great essays. Reading will inspire your writing and will help you find a fitting topic for your essay. This blog post will give you a few ideas. After that, you can follow these tips to get started with essay drafts.
I would recommend writing about a different topic than your high school experience, since it is a common topic and it can be challenging to make such an essay stand out. Hope this helps!
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