What You Can Do Now To Prepare For College Essays
Elton Lin
There’s a better chunk of the year until college application deadlines start knocking at the door, but there’s still plenty that college-hopefuls can do now to prepare for one of the heftier parts of applications: the college essay. Writing and polishing a perfect essay that reflects who you are, both as a prospective student and as a human being, can be a time-consuming and daunting task. An essay like that means a lot of rethinking and revising in your future, but there’s no need to cram all the work into the last few months before the deadline—you can start brainstorming and working on them now. Whether it’s the Common App essay or the supplementary essay of your dream college, here are some of the most common essay topics you’ll come across, along with tips for preparing for each one:
The Challenge Essay
This type of essay question asks you to share an experience in which you faced difficulty or failure, and to explain how you grew from the experience. Maybe you struggled with a setback in a hobby you're passionate about or you failed repeatedly while chasing a goal. Maybe your challenge had to do with societal perceptions that stood in your way. No doubt you’ve gone through many challenges over the course of your life so far, so there’s no need to actively look for a new hard experience—but which struggle, exactly, should you write about?
Do some self-reflection. This essay is all about genuine personal growth, which is going to require you to be vulnerable and honest with yourself. Brainstorm the experiences that were most formative for you, and dissect the thoughts and feelings that were running through your head at the time. The experience you decide to write about doesn’t need shock value or a grand setting; the most down-to-earth struggle can come to life in your college essay if it truly changed you.
Think of something unique to you. Look back on your struggles and find a few that are deeply meaningful and special for you. The more personal and stand-apart the challenge, the better. It might be tempting to talk about a varsity sports game that didn’t go along its planned trajectory, an overseas charity trip where you toughed it out and gained a new appreciation for your own life, or an immigration tale about your struggles with identity. While these are all genuine, heartfelt stories, these are also stories that college admissions boards have heard time and time again, because these are relatively common hardships. Again, this is about you, not society—if you can imagine your story as a New York Times article or documentary that you’ve consumed before, colleges have definitely consumed them too, and they’ll come out of your essay not seeing much difference between you and your peers who struggled in the same way.
This isn’t to say these topics are off-limits. Often these types of challenge stories hold a great amount of intimate truth and hardship—but you need to set it apart from other essays like this. Put your own, unequivocally individual voice into it. Think of the clichéd moral of this story and sidestep it. What is something you learned from the experience that is specific to you and almost no one else?
Don't force yourself into a conventional success story. As you’re brainstorming, give some thought to the struggles you’ve had that never really came to fruition. Colleges don't need to see a "happily ever after." They want to see growth, even if that growth means you learned from your failure but never quite reached your goal. Colleges aren’t invested in the plot of your struggle, but rather how the protagonist (that’s you!) developed along the way, so think about your stories that didn’t necessarily get tied up in a nice bow at the end.
The Major Essay
Another common essay topic asks you to delve into your chosen college major, if you've already decided. Sometimes this essay is phrased more like an “interest essay,” asking you to explain a passion of yours, intellectual or otherwise, and why you want to keep pursuing it in college. “Why is this the major you’ve chosen? What about your passion do you find so interesting?” Unlike the challenge essay, there are some more concrete things you can do to prepare for the major essay:
Classes are important, but consider your extracurriculars first. Let’s say you plan to major in Biology in college. It may seem natural to write about your positive experiences in Anatomy and AP Biology as proof of your enthusiasm for the subject, but your high school course load isn’t really of interest to college admissions boards—in your college essay, that is. Admissions boards already see your high school transcript, and they don’t need you to delve into your engagement with school lab work to prove your interest in biology. Taking biology courses as an intended college biology major is more of a given than a point of interest.
Instead, think along the lines of your extracurriculars. How do you spend your time outside of the classroom pursuing your academic interests? Even better, are there any extracurriculars in which you make use of your academic interest, rather than just exploring it further? For example, a student with an interest in computer science could write about their coding club, which is a valid option. But writing about tutoring younger students in coding or the larger robotics project team they work with shows a deeper application of their interests.
Use your summers wisely. On the note of extracurriculars, start planning your summer to make space for those extracurriculars. Once again, classes aren’t the best option here; while summer classes can give students college credit or teach them subjects that their high school may not offer, other summer programs offer unique developmental experiences and should take priority. What is something you can do over the summer that will take your interests to new levels? Summer experiences like research programs or retreats can help you develop your own interests, and also give you concrete details to back up your passion when you write your major college essay.
Dig deep into your motivations. Really ask yourself—why do you have your heart set on this major? It’s admirable to just generally enjoy your intended major subject, but colleges are looking for something more than that. Maybe it fulfills some kind of desire for you or you have a grander goal in mind, or perhaps you’re excited to see how innovations in your field develop and you want to be a part of that process. Whether deeply personal or more community-minded, find the reason that you want to major in this subject and frame your major essay around that mindset.
The Community Essay
This is a common question that can come in various forms, such as “What is a community you feel that you belong to, and what have your experiences been in it?” “How has your community shaped your perspective?” “What is an experience you’ve had in the community you call home that you’re excited to bring to our diverse student body?” By applying to a college, you’re also applying to join a new community, and colleges want to know how you place yourself in your community and greater society right now. You have the opportunity to share just that in your community-based essay.
Consider what your community has done for you. It’s always a good mental exercise to think about your place in a larger human society. How has your home and how have your peers influenced you to become the person you are today? Think about moments when you’ve really felt like a puzzle piece in a bigger picture, when people have helped you through all kinds of struggles, or when you’ve put in your hard work to better the people around you.
Now do something for your community. After you’ve taken stock of who you are and what means the most to you about your communities, think of something you can do for the people around you. Locate the needs of your community, even those of your most immediate one, such as your high school student body, your home street, or your family. Maybe there are a lot of kids in your local elementary school who are having difficulty with certain subjects—tutor them, or start a tutoring program if there isn’t one. Maybe small businesses are struggling to keep up with new technology, and you happen to have a background in computer science that could help out. Maybe the teachers at school are lacking in supplies, and you want to raise money to help out. Do something genuine to you, that speaks to you, and that helps others.
Additionally, aim for something that’s somewhat lasting. It’s both logistically and ethically effective to start or contribute to a community project that will last beyond your involvement in it. You want your deed for the community to have a lifetime and purpose beyond being a nice thing to write on your college essay.
The “Why Us?” Essay
The motivation for this type of essay is straightforward: colleges want to know why you want them to be your home for the next four years. A good “why us?” essay can signal to colleges that you’re not just applying to their college as an easy side-application (“might as well”), or that you’re not treating them as just one desired college of many. Colleges want to know why you think of their school as special, as the one for you, and the “why us?” essay is the perfect place to express that.
Do your research. Delve into the college websites and forums and really figure out what makes this particular college tick. What are some unique programs, activities, and traditions that this college calls its own and that its student body takes pride in? What are the college’s specialties? This will give you the material you need to show that you have a vested interest in the college. Also, while name-dropping clubs or professors is never a bad thing, it’s too easy to find a few proper nouns on a college website and call it a day, and colleges know that. Show that you know exactly what you’re talking about beyond the headline of a news article.
Link it to yourself. Here’s the thing—colleges know they’re great. They don’t need you to write a “why us?” essay that only sings the institution’s praises. Colleges want to know why you want to attend their school, and that means talking about yourself in relation to the college. How do its specific programs appeal to your personal interests? What can you see yourself bringing to the college that no one else has yet? What are the experiences that you can get at this college in particular, and why are you so eager to be given the opportunity to have them? This is a love letter from you to the college, and you want them to know just why the two of you would work well together.
Don’t wait until college applications are just around the corner! These tips will help you prepare for the different kinds of common college essay topics starting right now. Feel free to reach out to us for a free consultation if you want to know the best steps to take to start preparing now!