Each year, more than one million students apply to more than 900 colleges and universities via the Common App system. This step-by-step guide will empower you to stand out with a story that is uniquely yours, rather than what you think admissions deans want to read.

Writing this essay can be a frustrating part of the college application process. These days, social media has increased students’ awareness of what it means to ‘brand’ themselves. I noticed youth awareness of the attention economy leaves many students discouraged by their competition. 

The pressure to “tell your story” in a way that stands out can be especially difficult for many students from equity-seeking groups. Some students feel unsure about incentives to disclose personal experiences with trauma or oppression in order to avoid being evaluated on the same metrics as students who grew up with different privileges. 

As pointed out by higher education policy analyst James Murphy, admission essays with narratives of “overcoming,” adversities align with colleges’ desire to be seen as part of the solution to inequalities. He also suggests that the United States Supreme Court’s decision to boot affirmative action from university admissions increases the number of essays focused on personal trauma. As the law currently stands, universities can consider how racial oppression shaped a student’s story, but only in the context of that students’ individual virtues or accomplishments. 

The discomfort that comes with college essay writing season is nothing new. An 1987 article in the New York Times explored how students were rising to the challenge of showing their personality in essays.

OH GOD, the essay. For months now, high school seniors have been wandering around with massive pain in their stomachs reminding them that they really must sit down and write that college-admissions essay.

Michael Winerap, New York Times, Jan. 4, 1987

In that same article, the author lamented how the social pressures of the 80s encouraged students to play it safe while also demanding “ferocious” application essays.

Sound familiar? Much has changed in the United States since the 80s, but many of these same dynamics continue playing out in college admissions today. To stand out in the sea of applications, you need to share a story that shows who you are, how you think, and what is significant to you.

Overview: Common App for College Admissions

The Common App platform is basically a hub to streamline the application process. Instead of applying to one college per platform, you can apply to more than 900 different colleges in one place.

If you are applying via the Common App system, it is important to sign up and locate all the documents you will need well ahead of your deadlines. These documents include information about your parents’ occupations and educational history, but also things like your test scores and work history. 

Once you have an account and add the specific colleges you want to apply for, the platform will also allow you to add letters of recommendation and complete each step of your application. 

What Are the Common App Prompts? 

You will write an <650 word essay on one of the following prompts: 

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.
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?
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
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?
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
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?
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.

Before you commit to a prompt, I first suggest completing stage one of my strategy. It is more important to define the story you want to tell about yourself than worry about directly responding to the prompt yet.

The standard Common App essay will be evaluated with your applications across institutions, but there are also College-Specific and Writing Supplement questions for many colleges. You can find college-specific writing requirements for each institution via College App’s Writing Requirements by College page. 

Do you want to be admitted into Yale University? You’ll have 400 words to either reflect on navigating disagreements, your relationship with a community, or an enriching personal experience.

For these sections, I suggest first making sure you have a clear idea of the school’s values so you can show how you align. Aside from that, you can apply the same overall step-by-step process that you do for the Common App essay. 

A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Stellar Common App Essay! 

Stage 1: Before You Write

Step 1: Identify Your Values and Goals 

Common App suggests asking yourself if there is anything missing from your application, and if there is any context you can share to help colleagues understand you. 

If you already have an answer to that, you can skip this first step. For the rest of you, I suggest identifying your values and goals. 

Writing this ahead of time can help you stay grounded in telling a story that aligns with your values and goals. You will also likely use this sentence. Even if you answer a Common App question that has nothing to do with your specific career path, you will have the opportunity to look forward at the end of your essay.

Values are the things that define our moral compasses and what it means to live a good life. If you know what a good life looks like for you, you can work backwards to identify your values. 

Let’s say hypothetical student Georgia wants to study nursing. Upon reflection, she realizes that her top values are compassion, security and service. She is inspired by her biology teacher, who always adapts her approach to the needs of individual students. Great! Now she can put together a strong value-focused statement about where she wants to go in life. 

Eg. “As a nurse, I aspire to reduce the risk of medical complications while ensuring each of my patients can access attentive and patient-centered care.” 

Step 2: Consider Any Boundaries You Have

If you are going to write about adversity in a way that is impactful, you will need to share a certain amount of concrete details. Choosing to disclose adversity has many benefits, including making admissions deans’ aware of circumstances that could have impacted your academic performance. However, choosing not to disclose a specific adversity will not ruin your chances of attending your dream school. 

For example, if Georgia is proud of having achieved an A- average in her last year of high school because it was a really rough time, you won’t understand what that says about her without more context. Georgia will need to share what happened that made it very difficult for her to achieve higher in school, and how she approached her studies throughout the experience. She will need to explain that her father had a life-changing injury, and what this meant for her life as she attended school. 

She will also need to demonstrate the way she thinks, showing her originality and potential for growth at college. If Georgia is not comfortable sharing the specifics of how she made decisions to navigate her adversity, she might be better off picking a different story. 

Believe me, everyone has more than one interesting story to tell. Have a personal conversation with yourself to sort out what you are willing to disclose, and what you are not. 

Step 3: Identify the Story You Want to Tell

A story is not a topic nor a series of events. You can define stories many ways, but I find it most helpful to use a focus statement to identify when I have a story: “someone doing something for a reason, but _____.” 

Let’s say Georgia decided she did not want to share the difficulties of being a caregiver to her father after his life-changing injury. For whatever reason, she made that call. What sort of story can she tell instead? 

Georgia can start with the sentence she wrote about her goals earlier. Her future goals will demand attention to detail, empathy for others and a high level of responsibility. She can reflect on the range of experiences where she has shown potential in these areas. The key will be to pick a story from her life that shows these traits and their significance in her life. 

While brainstorming, Georgia can write a bunch of focus statements: 

Eg. “Georgia is fascinated by how the human body works because it represents the wonders of life, but is choosing to focus on hands-on healthcare because it is a more immediate and tangible way to help people than research.” 

Eg. “Georgia shared recipes that fit her strict diet at the health club because she values promoting longevity, but a club member taught her that wellness also means enjoying some indulgences in life.” 

Eg. “Georgia expected to be able to debate her uncle into getting vaccinated, but his explanation of his personal reasons taught her that seeking to understand others is the first step to exploring change.” 

You’ll notice that since we are focusing on the significance these moments had in Georgia’s life, they nearly all include changes to the way she understands herself or others. You do not necessarily need to show personal growth in your essay, but it is a great way to show how you think, your values, and your potential for future growth in university. 

Focus statements that show a moment of growth are excellent, especially if you feel like you do not have competitive accomplishments or a heroic narrative to share. 

Another story tool you can use to help you check you have an interesting personal narrative is a wants/needs character statement: 

Eg. “Georgia wants to understand how the human body works, but she needs to understand how people work in order to create the greatest possible impact on others’ health.”

Eg. “Georgia wants everyone to eat healthy, but needs to develop a sense of balance in her approach to nutrition.” 

Eg. “Georgia wants to change her uncle’s mind about the vaccine, but she needs to learn how to approach personal health decisions with non-judgment.” 

Step 4: Pick Your Prompt

Now, Georgia can pick a prompt that will let her share the full significance of her story. Each of the focus and wants/needs statements could apply to multiple prompts! At this stage, she should commit to the story that gives her the best opportunity to show her strengths and pick a prompt that will fit her framing most naturally. 

If she wants to focus on how she re-evaluated her approach to talking about vaccines with her uncle, she could choose prompt 3 (reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea). However, if she wanted to focus on her fascination with how people make medical decisions, she might be better off picking prompt 6 (describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time). 

Stage 2: While You Write

Step 5: Craft a Strong Structure

In general, I suggest starting with a 1-2 sentence hook to immerse the committee into your story. Remember, you don’t have to tell a story in chronological order! You can jump straight into the moment that is most interesting to you for the hook. Just be clear about if the following sentences happened before or after your hook. 

Then, set up the context for the story. What was happening before you had the interesting experience you are sharing? Importantly, how did you think about X at the beginning of your story? 

Next, you should describe what happened, and why you made the choices you did as you responded to the situation. Remember, showing humility is not a bad thing. If you would have done something differently in hindsight, that is okay to note!

Describing the moment when you changed or did something to change the situation is key. You should prioritize explaining how this change happened in detail. 

Contrast how you think about X now that you have experienced the key moment of change in your story. This is also where you can look forward. You can even revise the values and goals statement we made at the beginning to seamlessly transition to how you will apply this experience to your future! 

Step 6: Edit Your Common App Essay

No piece of writing is perfect without revisions. Here are my top tips for editing your Common App essay: 

• If you identify vague statements about learning “the importance of Y,” I suggest going back to revise a more developed significance analysis. For example, I could strengthen “I learned the importance of challenging learning experiences,” into a much stronger statement about why this lesson was significant to me. “I learned that occasionally feeling inadequate is a natural part of lifelong learning, and accepting that as part of the process was essential for me to resist imposter syndrome.” 
• Make sure you have at least one sentence directly addressing the exact language of the prompt. You can check this by having a friend read you the prompt out loud, and saying the sentence to them. Ask them, “did I directly answer your question?”
• If you are not 100 per cent sure you are using the right word to express your meaning, use simple language. Using a thesaurus to elevate your writing is great in high school essays, but we need to prioritize clarity and denseness here. 
• If you find yourself writing in long flowery sentences, read key sentences aloud without the context of your paragraph. If the action or idea you are describing is unclear without the context of the full paragraph, I suggest rewriting it based on how you would explain it out loud to a parent. 
• Do not fear short sentences. Do not fear long sentences either, but approach them with caution. The more complex your sentence structures, the more work you need to do to check that there are no fragmented ideas. 
• Check each sentence has a subject, verb and complete idea. If you struggle to check this, re-write in active voice with your subject (noun doing action) before your verb (the action) in each sentence.

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