Common App Prompts and How to Write a Killer Essay

Common App Essay Prompts

The Common App is one of the biggest parts of your college application. But, the essay writing prompts provided can be vague and intimidating to students who aren’t sure what to write about or are stumped when it comes to brainstorming. In this guide, we’ll go over each prompt with tips on how to write your essay, plus sample essays to give you inspiration.

If you’re not sure if you’ll need to write a Common App essay, check which schools use the Common App.

Here are the 7 Common App essay prompts you can choose from for your application:

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.



Common App Essay Prompts Samples and Writing Tips

Let’s dive into these 7 Common App essay prompts, including tips on how to approach these prompts and how to write a college essay, and examples of essays written in response to these prompts. Don’t forget to start brainstorming for your Common App activities section, too!

Common App Essay Prompt #1

Prompt 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.

This first Common App essay prompt can be a little confusing, because it is quite vague and open. But what this prompt is essentially asking, what is most meaningful to YOU? It’s asking you to personalize this question to you own personal experiences and background.

For instance, you can discuss your family, culture, community, language, achievements or history. Think about any experiences you have that stand out or that you consider to be life-changing.

Keep in mind these life-changing experiences don’t need to be “huge” or impressive. You don’t need to be an Olympic-level athlete to make an impression on a college essay. Maybe your life-changing moment was winning a high school dance competition, because it affirmed your passion for the art of dance and was the end of a meaningful journey to become a great dancer.

While college essay tips can help you structure and organize your response to this prompt, the key here is to do some brainstorming and self-reflection.

This prompt boils down to: what is most meaningful and important to you, and why?

Common App Essay Prompt #2

Prompt 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?

We all face obstacles, setbacks and disappointments in our lives. Just as we all experience triumphs and overcome those obstacles. College admissions committees want to know: what adversity have you overcome in your life?

Once again, these obstacles can be big or small. Maybe you’re the first person in your family to apply to college, and there were several significant hurdles you needed to meet. Or your adversity was of a more personal nature, where you’ve struggled with social anxiety and meeting new people.

It can be any obstacle that was significant or meaningful to you. The purpose of this essay is to discuss how you overcame it. In some cases, your setback might a challenge you are still struggling with or one that hasn’t been resolved yet. This is great, too. In your essay, discuss how you have worked on this problem so far and what you’re doing now to resolve it.

Common App Essay Prompt #3

Prompt 3: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Again, this prompt can be open to some interpretation. The belief or idea that you questioned or challenged can be a belief that you yourself have, or a belief held by someone else.

To get started, think about the people in your sphere of influence. Your parents, your family, your friends, your teachers, your co-workers. Even your idols or mentors, anyone you look up to or admire. What are beliefs or opinions they have that disagree with, that changed your perspective or made you think twice about your own beliefs?

You can probably think of a specific incident or conversation that made you think differently about a person or idea. Tap a little deeper into this experience. Again, it can be a small idea that was changed or a larger belief. For example, you discovered that a classmate everyone else avoided for being weird or different was actually someone you befriended. Or you met someone who changed the way you see yourself.

This prompt is about self-awareness, self-growth and self-reflection. It will demand that you think about what it is that you believe and why. 

Here are some more sample college essays to get started!

Common App Essay Prompt #4

Prompt 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?

This is the “gratitude prompt”. The key words in this prompt as “gratitude”, “surprising” and “motivation”. It’s asking you to write about a specific experience or situation in which an act of kindness or gratitude surprised you or was unexpected. The second part of this prompt asks how this experience motivated you or affected you.

First, think about any positive memories you have where someone expressed kindness or gratitude towards you. Think about your family, friends, teachers or even a stranger who helped you out on a tough day or in a hard situation. Why was the action surprising? How did it make you feel? Did it inspire you to pass on a small act of kindness or good feeling? How?

Common App Essay Prompt #5

Prompt 5: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Personal growth comes in many forms. Think about the meaningful experiences where you had that “a-ha!” moment or sudden realization. What were the circumstances surrounding it? What sparked your realization?

What did you do after having this realization? How did it change your thinking or behavior? What did you do to maintain this personal growth or share it with others?

For this essay prompt you’ll need a good hook to reel your reader in. If you’re not sure how to start a college essay, look at some college essay introduction examples to spark some inspiration.

Common App Essay Prompt #6

Prompt 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?

Think about your biggest interests or passions. How did it start? What do you love about it? What does it say about you or how has it shaped you? For the last part of this prompt, think about how you have developed this interest or learned more about it. What specific steps did you take to expand your passion. Did you take classes? Find a mentor? Take on a new challenge? Take your reader on a journey through your passion from the first spark to your present experience with it.

Common App Essay Prompt #7

Prompt 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.

This prompt has a couple of different options for you. You can either submit an essay you’ve already written, provided it fits the word count and intent of the Common App essay, or you can write a response to a different personal essay prompt.

If you choose to submit an essay you’ve already written and save yourself some work on your application, just be sure it is under 650 words and is a personal essay. Your essay needs to reveal something about yourself and be specific to you, it can’t be a strong essay you wrote on just any topic. You might think about submitting a personal essay you wrote that won an award or that you were very proud of. Just make sure it is personal to you!

If you want to write an essay in response to a different prompt or write your own essay prompt and response, the same rules apply. Include the prompt with your essay and make sure your essay is still personal and revealing of who you are and what motivates you.

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Your friends at BeMo

BeMo Academic Consulting

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