How to Write a College Application Essay in 2021

College admissions essays can be difficult to write, as you have to stand out for the right reasons, usually have limited experience as a high school student, and feel pressured to know your entire life trajectory. College admissions essay prompts are getting more and more individualized, meaning each essay has to be more unique. The common application posts its prompts every year at https://www.commonapp.org/apply/essay-prompts and this year's include the following:

 "1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, 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. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma — anything of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

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 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."

    Other college essay prompts can include: "Why do you want to attend our university?" "Why should we admit you/What will you contribute to our college?" or "Who inspires you?" With all these different prompts, it can be difficult to even begin the writing process. In this post, I will discuss strategies to brainstorm, deal with multiple prompts and applications, and personalize your essay, as well as what to avoid.

1. Identify Topics
2. Brainstorm
3. Write Your Essay
4. What Not to Do

IDENTIFY TOPICS

    For this article, let's assume you know where you want to apply. First, make a list in Excel/Sheets of the schools you want to apply to, the application deadline, and the prompt (including any word count minimums or maximums). If you're running behind schedule, sort by which deadline is coming up fastest and, if applicable, which colleges you have to versus want to apply to. Identify any prompts which are the same or overlap, and the main themes of each. For example, you might find that several of your essays require you to discuss a challenge you overcame. Then, make a list of these topics (in order of how many applications they pertain to), and when you start brainstorming, you'll do this for each of these topics. You'll want to give yourself 2 weeks minimum to write your essays, but more is better. If you have less than two weeks, work on them in order of which is due first.

BRAINSTORM

    When you brainstorm for an essay, if you are particularly struggling with bragging about yourself, I recommend you ask close friends and family to identify what they perceive as your strengths or talents. If you need to identify your motivations, you can take free online inventories, or quizzes which categorize you by asking you questions. The results may not 100% apply to you, but they can give you ideas based on what resonates with you. You might make a list of your core values (there are online quizzes for this, too, like https://personalvalu.es/), write out people in your life and/or celebrities you admire and write down the traits you admire about them, and identify the things you would value in a potential career (ability to work with/help people, working in groups vs independently, etc). Think outside of the box about experiences you've had; you can talk about school, work, and volunteering, but also traveling, a book you read, a strong memory from childhood, or a club like Boy/Girl Scouts or sports. Create a pool of information about yourself from which you can pull to write your essay responses. Tune your brainstorming to the specific questions asked in your applications, and particularly themes multiple questions have in common. 

WRITE YOUR ESSAY

    When you get ready to write, open a document and write the important information at the top: the college name (check the spelling), the degree you're applying for (including any minor or concentration), the word minimum/maximum, any formatting requirements, and the prompt. Then, make a bulleted outline of the points you want to hit on, based on the essay prompt. You'll want to craft the response to the prompt in a way that tells a story about yourself in which attending this college is the next logical step. If they ask about someone who inspired you, tie that in to how that inspired you to pursue a career and therefore college. 

    Do research on each college and program for each essay in order to create a few sentences that show you did do research and have a specific appreciation for that college. If you look on college admissions websites, they might have a general or department/major specific page that says "why you should attend here," which can inform you as to what that school prides themselves on. You can throw a couple of those adjectives in. Consider if that college prides themselves on their really great internship program, a rigorous or flexible curriculum, expert faculty, etc.

    Once you've written a first draft, share it and get feedback from at least two sources, preferable at least one of whom is a teacher or college grad, though one can be a friend. This way, you can get a fresh eye to look at your word choice, grammar and spelling, and make sure that you stay on topic. You can also consider reading your essay out loud to yourself to help you identify confusing wording, mistakes,  or overly long sentences. Save every essay you write for every application, as you very well might have reason to refer back to it or re-use sections for other essay applications. Don't let yourself get "stuck" on one essay response; if you write something, don't feel like you have to stick with it if it doesn't feel perfect. Don't delete it, but save it and write (a) new version(s) to see if you can come up with something that reads better.

    Most essays will expect you to identify or mention your career goal, or the reason you want a specific degree. If you don't actually know, don't freak out. Think about the options you have, look on their website (or other schools' websites) at where graduates with that degree work, and just pick a couple that appeal to you. Figure out what about it appeals to you, and focus on that. You don't have to name-drop a specific job title. Mention the sector(s) (services, communications, nonprofit, government) and job duties you'd potentially be interested in. Whatever you write now doesn't have to be what you end up doing, but it does have to fit with the rest of your essay, and align with what you wrote about your values, motivations, and experiences.

    Remember the phrase "show, not tell," and avoid listing accomplishments. You wrote those out in your resume, so instead mention what you did and demonstrate, or "show," how that impacted you and improved your academic/professional skills or contributed to the inspiration for your degree/career focus. Use your language to paint a picture. If you're having trouble beginning your essay, one recommendation that really helped me was to start in the middle of a story, as that immediately captures attention. For example, jump right into describing the location and people during a travel or volunteer experience you've had.

WHAT NOT TO DO

    There is a common misperception that you should write a sob story and talk about how many challenges and hardships you've endured. In reality, you should not go into mental health issues, traumas, or personal drama in unnecessary detail. You don't want to indicate to an admissions official that you will continue to struggle and potentially drop out in college, you don't want to make them uncomfortable, and you want to emphasize your strengths and talents. The exception to this is if an extremely difficult time or instance motivated you to pursue that degree/career path, such as if experience with mental health led you to seek a career in counseling and a psychology degree. If you have a particular life event or challenge that impacted your performance in a way you want to explain to the admissions committee, meaning to explain why it doesn't reflect on your overall ability to succeed in college in the future, you may be able to submit that as supplementary material. If there is a place to specifically submit documentation for "additional information you want the committee to know" or something similar, that is where that type of information should go. If you don't see it, consider contacting that college's admissions office.

    Don't rely heavily on a narrative that all you want to do is "change the world" or "help others." As much as this may be your true motivation, it is generic and overused, and will make your essay blend in with many other people's. I really struggled with this personally, but if this is you, I suggest you get specific and avoid flowery language to describe this passion. Maybe say instead that you want to work in the non-profit sector, work with vulnerable or marginalized populations, or talk about how much you enjoyed and were inspired by community participation/volunteerism.

    Don't worry about using extremely complex or "smart-sounding" language. Instead, focus on avoiding repetition of words/phrases, the passive voice, and slang or contractions, and improve your sentence flow and length. I recommend http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ to identify passive voice and having someone else read your paper or reading it out loud to identify repetitiveness. There are certain words you can "upgrade," like "get" with "obtain" or "achieve," or "figure out" with "identify," but don't use words you don't fully understand or that are overly pretentious; basically, unless you write it organically (without a thesaurus) and it flows naturally, don't use words with four or more syllables.

A good college essay can supplement less than perfect test scores or grades, or just be the final puzzle piece in an amazing application packet to secure your spot at a dream school. Don't forget, now that you've read this (and I'm sure, several other) article on essay writing, to actually sit down and start writing. Don't let it seem daunting and remember that whatever you write is not final. Set yourself deadlines, get organized, and write! The more actual writing and editing you do, the better position you'll find yourself in when it's time to submit. I wish you the best of luck. What's your college essay prompt or topic? Which stage of writing the essay are you stuck at? Let me know in the comments!

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    Check out my other content >> Getting Ready to Register, New Year's Resolutions?, How to Organize Your Time, Funding Your Education, Making and Saving Money in College, How to Actually Use LinkedIn as a College Student

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