How to Write a Common App Essay
While your standardized test scores, your grades, and your coursework provides quantitative information, the Common App Essay offers admissions officers insights about your identity and your character. Treat this as an opportunity to show the colleges you’re applying to what makes you unique and to showcase your personality. Read on to learn how to write a Common App Essay!
What is the Common App Essay?
Just like the Common App helps simplify the college application process by letting you to apply to multiple colleges with one application, the Common App Essay lets you to write one really strong essay that will work with most of your college applications.
Since numerous universities will see your Common App Essay, write one easy that is readily accessible to a wide range of institutions and admissions committees. The exceptions are universities that have their own separate applications, such as the University of California Schools, which includes UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, etc.
By tailoring your Common App Essay topic to your interests and what makes you unique, you’ll be more likely to stand out in the crowd. For instance, if you’re only applying to Computer Science programs at some schools, it can be a good idea to focus on a less technical topic for your essay. In other words, write a topic that you love, whether it’s music, people, or your culture. You can then emphasize your interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) in supplemental essays for universities where you plan to major in a STEM field.
What Makes a Good Common App Essay?
First of all, an excellent Common App essay is deeply personal. You are relying on admissions officers to choose over another candidate which they are more likely to if they feel more connected to you. I encourage you to think what you want them to know about you that is not already reflected in your application.
High-quality essays also generally avoid cliche topics. Examples of overdone themes include an immigrant’s journey and working hard in a challenging class. While these topics are not bad, these essays do not stand out as much since many students write about these same subjects.
While, there are students who are able to pull off a unique and captivating essay about cliche topics, you are better off writing about more unique aspects of your identity.
Pay close attention to spelling and grammar. Write with a consistent tone, and use varied word choice and sentence structure.
Tips for Writing a Common App Essay
Since the Common App essay has few formal instructions and is 650 words, it can be quite daunting to organize and write a high-quality piece. Fortunately, I’ve laid out helpful tips to formulate strong, unique responses.
1. Start early and finish as soon as possible. Pay close attention to the deadline and plan when you want to start writing your Common App essay. Ideally, you should start writing your first draft in the summer before your senior year.
2. Choose a topic that you are excited about. It is much easier to write a captivating essay that you feel deeply connected to, so think about a topic that you are passionate about.
3. Write about yourself. The main point of the Common App Essay is to highlight the best version of yourself so the focus should be on you.
4. Make your main takeaway clear. Think about what you want admissions officers to learn about you through this essay.
5. Write more than one draft. Your first draft will be far from perfect, so write multiple drafts based on people’s feedback.
6. Don’t get too many people involved in your essay. Get at least one person to edit and revise your essay, with two to three people being the ideal. It is vital that your voice shines through and getting too many people involved can drown out your unique voice.
7. Brainstorm essay topics that you could potentially write based on the 2022-2023 Common App Essay Prompts.
Final Thoughts on Common App Essays
You can do it! Remember that this is an opportunity to show who you are. Choose a topic that screams YOU and stay confident.
Need help getting started? You can reach out to UPchieve coaches at anytime for all things college prep, including for help with your college essay! Request a session right now if you need any help with the topics discussed in this blog post!