THE COMMON APPLICATION PERSONAL ESSAY

The CommonApp personal essay provides seven prompts and limits students to a 650 word limit. Based on the personal essay you submit, college admissions officers will use your writing to help decide if you’re a good fit or not for their campus. How should a high school senior begin their writing process?

First, and most important, know that you’re not writing to impress your college admissions reader. Instead, you want to give your admissions reader what they’re looking for by showing them who you are. The job of a college admissions officer is to know how, and where, you will fit at their school next fall. The best way to help them? Tell your reader exactly who you are and what you’re passionate about.

No one expects 17- and 18-year-olds to have received a Pulitzer Prize for their writing or to have already solved the problem of climate change. Instead, college admissions readers want to know: What do you love? What are you fascinated by? What do you care about? What makes you laugh? What do you spend most of your time doing and why? Has some experience, big or small, changed the way you think about the world? How do you refocus, or come back to yourself, in the midst of distraction?

Simple topics for your personal essay are usually best, because they allow you to be, and sound, most like yourself. Tell your reader a story. Explain to them in detail what an experience felt like. Develop your thought process on the page after you were confronted with a problem. Share a decision you faced and what you chose to do. Be direct and be authentic. College admissions readers know exactly how teenagers write, and they also know the sorts of experiences that teenagers have probably had. Keep your topic simple and begin your essay by writing from your own experience.

If you’d like help beginning or revising your CommonApp personal essay, e-mail me: michelle@samaracollegeadvising.com