brainstorming exercises for college essays

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Where to Begin? 6 Personal Essay Brainstorming Exercises

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The Common App publishes a list of 7 prompts each year. They ultimately ask for similar types of responses, regardless of slight alterations year-to-year. The Common App prompts provide you with a forum to write about yourself, using whatever anecdote or vehicle you wish in order to communicate something profound and genuine about yourself to adcoms.

If this feat seems daunting or spellbindingly vague to you, you are not alone. For virtually every student applying to college, the moment when you sit down to draft your personal statement is likely the first—and may end up being the only—time in your life when you are pushed to describe your entire identity succinctly and eloquently. So, where to begin?

As with any writing assignment, the best way to approach the personal essay is to brainstorm what it is you want the entire essay to communicate about you to the adcom that will be considering you for admission. Read on for 4 surprising brainstorming exercises that will lead you to an effective personal statement strategy.

1. Consider the four core questions.

When writing your personal statement, there are four questions that your essay should answer:

• “Who am I?”
• “Why am I here?”
• “What is unique about me?”
• “What matters to me?”

These questions are important because they help bring awareness to the kind of person you are and touch on things such as your personality traits, your journey throughout high school, the interests and skills that make you unique, and what’s important to you. Colleges want to understand how you became who you are, and where you’re going (successful alumni reflect well on their school, after all!).

2. Try freeform writing.

To help answer these questions and start brainstorming, freeform writing is a good place to start. Begin by writing down 3-5 aspects of your personality or experiences and spend some time constructing narratives out of these different combinations.

This process of getting some ideas on paper and seeing how they can relate to each other can help you better identify a prompt that works for you. For example, you might note that you enjoy tutoring students in STEM, and are now working with a local school to create a Women in STEM initiative in your school district. You may also have tried previous initiatives that failed. These experiences could be constructed and applied to a number of Common App prompts. You could address a specific identity or interest you have associated with STEM, discuss what you learned from your failed initiatives, explore how you challenged the lack of women in STEM programs in your school district, envision solving for the lack of women involved in the science and mathematics fields, etc.

3. Make a list of opinions you firmly hold and explain them.

This exercise requires you to think about aspects of your identity that you have actively chosen. While exercise #4 asks you to consider what parts of your identity you have struggled to overcome, this exercise asks you to consider what aspects of your identity you are most proud of—those opinions that you hold because you chose to believe in something specific of your own accord.

This is an important brainstorming exercise because it should get you thinking about things you are passionate about. Ultimately, you will want to write your personal statement about something that defines you, gets you excited, and can exhibit your ability to think and speak for yourself. So now, before you start writing, make a list of the things that you care about most, and explain why you feel that way about them.

This list can include everything from your political affiliation to your stance on McDonald’s decision in the past year to serve breakfast for longer. The point of this exercise is that there is no right or wrong way of going about it, no topic that is more worthwhile than any other so long as you are passionate about it.

4. Make a list of your character flaws.

While the ultimate goal of the personal essay is to present yourself in as positive a light as possible to adcoms, the challenge is to do so in a way that is realistic and genuine. To do this, you’ll need to do some serious thinking about what types of character flaws accompany your best traits.

There are two main reasons why we suggest that students not shy away from talking about their own shortcomings as well as their achievements. The first reason is quite simple: a personal statement that paints a picture of its writer as perfect and without flaws will come across as dishonest and unrealistic. Obviously, you want to avoid this at all costs. Second, and even more important, if you are able to write a personal statement that acknowledges your flaws and recognizes that you are imperfect, it will reflect positively on you and vouch for your maturity.

If it feels counterintuitive or scary to dwell on anything other than successes, do not fret: that is the expected reaction to this advice. But if done correctly, acknowledging that you are not perfect can add genuineness to any personal essay. So, how to discuss character flaws? There are several ways to go about this.

One way is to discuss a character flaw that you have always struggled with and worked to improve upon throughout your life. In this scenario, discussing flaws can help introduce a discussion about growth or maturation and give your personal statement a nice narrative arc. Yet another way to discuss your character flaws is to acknowledge how certain struggles or personal shortcomings have shaped your identity, allowing you to go into more detail about the ways in which you were able to better yourself by identifying a flaw in yourself and being willing to fix it.

The thinking here is that students have no difficulty remembering all of the accomplishments, productive experiences, and glowing achievements that they want to include in their personal statements. After all, it is easy to write about these things. It is much harder to force yourself to think about aspects of your identity that rankle, and to think about how these things have shaped you.

5. Reflect on your choices and why you made them.

Another brainstorming exercise that can help you think of a topic is to reflect on what choices you’ve made and why. Once you come up with a list, it will be easier to see what you value and the direction in which you can take your essay.

Think about some of these questions to get the juices flowing:

• Why are they my best friend?
• Under what circumstances did we become friends?
• When did we last fight?
• If I had to spend 10 days doing the same exercise or physical activity, what would I choose? Why?
• Say I had to pick one food, and my three closest friends or family members could only eat that food for one week. What would that food be and why?
• Say I had to start a business selling something, and I would achieve the average level of success (financially, socially, etc) within that business, what would I choose to do?
• What movie would I want to take the place of a character in and which character would I want to play? Why?
• What class or teacher did I like most, and why? What class or teacher did I dislike most, and why?
• If I had to choose between singing, doing standup comedy, or dancing in front of 18,000 people, what would I choose? Why?

6. Make a list of anecdotes, childhood memories, or stories about yourself. Then choose one and make it your “vehicle.”

Finally, you should conclude your brainstorming session by searching for a vehicle: an anecdote that you can use to frame your personal statement.

You can use anecdotes in your personal statement in a number of ways. Some students choose to open with one, others close with one, and still others will use two or three anecdotes in order to add color and rhetorical flair to the points they are trying to make about themselves. The best types of anecdotes are the ones that tell the most about you or give insight into your character.

When we help students write their personal statements, we usually begin by brainstorming a few potential anecdotes to use in your essay. But if you are wondering what the point is of using an anecdote— Why use one at all when I could save words and just talk about myself ?—it’s useful to first understand why telling a story or two makes your personal statement stronger.

Ultimately, you will want your personal statement to communicate something about your character and personality that is unique and appealing to schools. When an adcom reads your personal statement, they are looking to hear about you in general, they are looking to learn something unique or special about you (so they can differentiate you from other applicants), and they are also looking for evidence that you would be a valuable addition to their community. But the fact of the matter is that these are fairly broad and vague directives to write about if you don’t have something specific to focus on.

This is where the anecdotes come in to save the day! They help instigate a conversation about yourself, your personality, your identity, and your character while also giving you something concrete to talk about. This is why we call it a “vehicle”—it can exist in its own right, but it carries with it important information about you as well.

Now that you know what the purpose of this vehicle is, it should be a little easier to brainstorm the anecdote(s) that you choose to frame your personal statement with. If you are not yet sure what to write about in your personal statement, you can start brainstorming anecdotes from your childhood, from favorite family stories to fond memories, from hilarious vacation mishaps to particularly tender moments. Do your parents have favorite stories to tell about you? Write those into your list as well.

Once you have a collection of stories to work with, you may begin to see certain patterns forming. Perhaps all of your favorite stories take place in the same setting—a vacation home that meant a lot to you or in the classroom of your favorite teacher. Maybe, you will realize that all of your fondest memories involve a certain activity or hobby of yours. Or, alternatively, you may notice that one story from your childhood mirrors or foreshadows a like, dislike, or accomplishment that would come to fruition later in your life.

If you already know what you want to say about yourself, you can come at the same exercise from another angle: try to think of several anecdotes that could be potential vehicles for the message about yourself that you want to transmit. If you want to illustrate that you love to learn, try to think pointedly about where that love comes from or what you have done that proves this. In this case, remember that any given anecdote can reveal more than one thing about you.

It is hard to imagine all of the possible personal statements that could come out of this brainstorming session, but it is almost certain that this exercise will help you come up with several concrete points to make about yourself and provide you with a tangible way to say those things.

Final Thoughts

If after doing these six brainstorming exercises, you still don’t feel ready to write your personal statement, fear not! Writing a personal essay is daunting and won’t be done in three steps, or even three days! 

For more guidance, check out these blog posts:

How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges

How to Come Up With an Idea for a Personal Statement

How to Write the Common App Essays

Mastering the Personal Statement

5 Tips for Editing Your College Essays

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Brainstorming

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic’s potential.

Introduction

If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain’s energies into a “storm,” you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm.

Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn’t reached completion. Let’s take a look at each case:

When you’ve got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel “blank” about the topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again.

When you’ve got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that you can then arrange according to their logical relations.

Brainstorming techniques

What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm—ideas from professional writers, novice writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time brainstorming about…well, how to brainstorm.

Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others. If the technique you try first doesn’t seem to help you, move right along and try some others.

Freewriting

When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind. You don’t judge the quality of what you write and you don’t worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you can’t think of what to say, you write that down—really. The advantage of this technique is that you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were being too self-conscious.

When you freewrite you can set a time limit (“I’ll write for 15 minutes!”) and even use a kitchen timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit (“I’ll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no matter what tries to interrupt me!”) and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off, which encourages speed and freedom of thought.

The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this:

“This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all the lectures and read the book I can’t think of what to say and I’ve felt this way for four minutes now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I’ll keep thinking nothing during every minute but I’m not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don’t know what else to say about this topic and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather’s study and he smoked and he farmed and I wonder why he didn’t farm tobacco…”

When you’re done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste them into your draft or onto an “ideas” sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you don’t find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic.

Break down the topic into levels

Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm:

• the general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers”
• a specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• a single term or phrase that you sense you’re overusing in the paper. For example: If you see that you’ve written “increased the competition” about a dozen times in your “tropical fruits” paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of the main terms: “increased” and “competition.”

Listing/bulleting

In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. You can base your list on:

• the general topic
• one or more words from your particular thesis claim
• a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea.

For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time, and your specific thesis claims that “the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society,” you could brainstorm two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be easy to prove.

The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20th-century inventions as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be based on the opposite claim, and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with a decline in that society’s quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions and then compare the evidence from all four lists.

Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, …uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you’d better alter your claim to one you can prove.

3 perspectives

Looking at something from different perspectives helps you see it more completely—or at least in a completely different way, sort of like laying on the floor makes your desk look very different to you. To use this strategy, answer the questions for each of the three perspectives, then look for interesting relationships or mismatches you can explore:

• Describe it: Describe your subject in detail. What is your topic? What are its components? What are its interesting and distinguishing features? What are its puzzles? Distinguish your subject from those that are similar to it. How is your subject unlike others?
• Trace it: What is the history of your subject? How has it changed over time? Why? What are the significant events that have influenced your subject?
• Map it: What is your subject related to? What is it influenced by? How? What does it influence? How? Who has a stake in your topic? Why? What fields do you draw on for the study of your subject? Why? How has your subject been approached by others? How is their work related to yours?

Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six “sides” or approaches to the topic. Take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands:

• Describe it.
• Compare it.
• Associate it.
• Analyze it.
• Argue for and against it.

Look over what you’ve written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your topic? What interactions do you notice among the “sides”? That is, do you see patterns repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis? Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should, at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic’s complexities, if not a sharper focus on what you will do with it.

In this technique, complete the following sentence:

____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________.

In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with them.

After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come forward? What patterns or associations do you find?

Clustering/mapping/webbing:

The general idea:

This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together into a sort of “map” or “web” that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it.

To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This big vertical space allows all members room to “storm” at the same time, but you might have to copy down the results onto paper later. If you don’t have big paper at the moment, don’t worry. You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well. Watch our short videos on webbing , drawing relationships , and color coding for demonstrations.

How to do it:

• Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two or three.
• Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it, start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down, move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot down your grandpa’s name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don’t worry about the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas when the activity is over.
• Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these “loners” can also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this part, if you like. If that’s not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in order to see what goes with what.)
• There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will depend on your particular results. Let’s take an example or two in order to illustrate how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you’ve decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular “map” or “cluster set” or “web” that you produce depends on what you need. What does this map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going!

Relationship between the parts

In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet of paper:

Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or lack of patterns, that you see? For a related strategy, watch our short video on drawing relationships .

Journalistic questions

In this technique you would use the “big six” questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also record yourself or use speech-to-text if you’d rather talk out your ideas.

Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or, how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or further note-taking?

For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about “where” and “why” something happened than you know about “what” and “when,” how could you use this lack of balance to direct your research or to shape your paper? How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results?

Thinking outside the box

Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let’s say you are writing a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, “Hmmm, if I were writing about this very same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?”

For example, when discussing “culture” in your English, communications, or cultural studies course, you could incorporate the definition of “culture” that is frequently used in the biological sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those dishes are used to “culture” substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it help you write your paper if you thought of “culture” as a medium upon which certain things will grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether?

Using charts or shapes

If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put some ideas in parallel formation? In a line?

Consider purpose and audience

Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking act: purpose and audience.

What is your purpose?

What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you are writing this draft in this form. For more tips on figuring out the purpose of your assignment, see our handout on understanding assignments .

Who is your audience?

Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need. For more on audience, see our  handout on audience .

Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias

When all else fails…this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe. Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries, thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you’ll learn several things you did not know.

If you’re looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to appreciate the term’s breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow?

If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug “good” into a thesaurus search, you will be given 14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that “good” could be interpreted according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of “good.”

An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may be able to move forward with your ideas.

Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now?

Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you’ve been brainstorming about to complete your “almost ready” paper. If you’re a fan of outlining, prepare one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you’re not a fan, don’t make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there into larger sections of your paper. You don’t have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the introduction later.

We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as reorganizing drafts and argument .

Remember, once you’ve begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits you or the particular project you are working on.

How can technology help?

Need some help brainstorming? Different digital tools can help with a variety of brainstorming strategies:

Look for a text editor that has a focus mode or that is designed to promote free writing (for examples, check out FocusWriter, OmmWriter, WriteRoom, Writer the Internet Typewriter, or Cold Turkey). Eliminating visual distractions on your screen can help you free write for designated periods of time. By eliminating visual distractions on your screen, these tools help you focus on free writing for designated periods of time. If you use Microsoft Word, you might even try “Focus Mode” under the “View” tab.

Clustering/mapping. Websites and applications like Mindomo , TheBrain , and Miro allow you to create concept maps and graphic organizers. These applications often include the following features:

• Connect links, embed documents and media, and integrate notes in your concept maps
• Access your maps across devices
• Search across maps for keywords
• Convert maps into checklists and outlines
• Export maps to other file formats

Testimonials

Check out what other students and writers have tried!

Papers as Puzzles : A UNC student demonstrates a brainstorming strategy for getting started on a paper.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Allen, Roberta, and Marcia Mascolini. 1997. The Process of Writing: Composing Through Critical Thinking . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cameron, Julia. 2002. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity . New York: Putnam.

Goldberg, Natalie. 2005. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within , rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala.

Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

University of Richmond. n.d. “Main Page.” Writer’s Web. Accessed June 14, 2019. http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

College Essay Brainstorming: 4 Exercises to Think Outside the Box

Create a unique college essay with these 4 exercises. Don't miss out on crafting an impressive and memorable essay that’s sure to stand out. Dive into the world of impactful college essay topics by reading this article.

A prompt, a blank page, and a goal: to get into your top-choice university. Writing a standout college essay can be an overwhelming task! With so many other applicants vying for a limited number of spots, finding a topic that truly sets you apart from the crowd can be difficult. You have to be extra thoughtful if you're trying to write an Ivy-League-level personal statement . That's why brainstorming college essay topics is arguably the most important step of the process.But where do you startThis post will explore four exercises for brainstorming college essay topics that can help you think outside the box and find your story.

Why is brainstorming important for your college essay

Brainstorming ideas for your college essay, like the Common App personal statement , is probably the most important step in the writing process. This step allows you to generate various ideas and explore different aspects of your experiences, personality, and interests.For example, through brainstorming, you can identify the key themes and messages that you want to convey in your essay and develop a clear sense of what story you want to tell. Reflecting on your experiences, thinking about what you have learned, and understanding what has shaped you is almost more important than the writing itself!Fortunately, there are a variety of techniques and strategies that can help you pull ideas out and find inspiration for your personal statement.We'll explore some effective brainstorming methods and provide tips to help you unlock your creativity and generate unique, engaging essay topics. Then, if you still need some extra support with uncovering an idea you're confident about, Lessonpal's College Essay Writing tutors are available to help you out.

What makes college essays different from normal essays What's the point

First, let's start by changing our thinking. Instead of viewing the college essay as an obstacle, view it as a tool!Some application components, such as SAT and ACT scores or grades, provide a quantitative snapshot of a student's academic abilities.On the other hand, the personal statement (and other essays) serves as a way for students to showcase a piece of themselves that isn't shown elsewhere.In effect, the essay helps college admissions officers gain insight into who the student is beyond their academic achievements and extracurricular activities.Also, a well-written college essay can demonstrate what a student would contribute to the university community.

The Spongebob effect

A great example of a creative, insightful essay surfaced recently. One high schooler, Kalissa Persaud, went viral on Tik Tok for her college essay about Spongebob ! You might be thinking that a personal statement about Spongebob sounds immature...but think again.By using Spongebob as a lens to explore her childhood memories, Kalissa provided a glimpse into her aspirations and who she is beyond her academic achievements. And it paid off with admission to top schools like UCLA![embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@kalissapersaud/video/7195725368974921006[/embed]Kalissa's essay about Spongebob is an excellent demonstration of how seemingly silly topics can actually be ways to stand out. Hers was unconventional, well-written, and showcased her voice and personality, which is exactly what you want to do.

Exercises to get started with college essay brainstorming

1. freewriting.

Freewriting is a great exercise to get started with brainstorming for your college essay. To do this exercise, first pick a life experience (i.e. a volunteer experience, a sports team involvement, a life event, etc.). Then, set a timer for 10 minutes and write continuously - without stopping or editing. Write down anything that comes to mind, even if it seems unimportant.The goal is to keep writing and see where your thoughts take you. This exercise can help you uncover new ideas and insights about yourself that you may not have considered before. Once you have finished, review what you have written and look for any themes to use as a starting point for your essay.For example, Topic: Volunteering at a local animal shelter "I remember the first time I walked into the animal shelter. The smell of disinfectant and wet fur hit me as soon as I stepped through the door. I was nervous, unsure of what to expect, but excited to be there.The woman at the front desk greeted me with a warm smile and asked if I was there to volunteer. I nodded, feeling a bit intimidated by her confidence and enthusiasm. She handed me a clipboard with a volunteer agreement and told me to read it over and sign it before she took me on a tour of the facility.As I walked through the rows of cages, I felt my heart break for each animal I saw. Dogs barked and whined, and cats meowed and hissed. Some animals were friendly and eager for attention, while others cowered in fear at the back of their cages. I wondered what their stories were, how they had ended up here. I made a mental note to ask one of the staff members about their history."The key to this exercise is to keep going to get your ideas out! Let your fingers write or type without worrying about editing.

2. Brainstorming with friends

Brainstorming with friends can be a great way to generate ideas for your college essay. Gather a group of trusted friends or family members and ask them to help you develop topics or themes you can write about.It may feel awkward at first, but ask them to share what they admire about you, what they view as your accomplishments, or what their favorite memories with you are. Friends often notice things about you that you don't see yourself!You can also ask them for feedback on your initial ideas or get their opinions on what they think would make a great essay topic.Overall, brainstorming with others can help you gain new insights you may not have thought of.

3. Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a visual technique that involves creating a diagram to organize information and ideas.To start a mind map for brainstorming college essay topics, write a central topic in the middle of a piece of paper and draw a circle around it.Then, draw branches extending from the circle and write related sub-topics or ideas on each branch. Keep branching out and adding details until you have a comprehensive map of ideas to draw from.

Mind mapping can help you identify connections and relationships between aspects of your life and can also help you visualize your thought process.

4. Exploring topics through other writing prompts

Using writing prompts other than the actual essay prompt can be a great way to jumpstart your brainstorming process! You can find writing prompts online, in books, or from a teacher or mentor.Some prompts might ask you to reflect on a specific experience or challenge, while others might ask to imagine a hypothetical scenario or consider a philosophical question.Responding to these prompts allows you to generate ideas and explore different aspects of your identity, values, and interests that could be relevant to your college essay.

The big picture

Brainstorming exercises can be challenging, but with the right tools and exercises, it can also be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. The exercises mentioned, such as freewriting, brainstorming with friends, mind mapping, and using writing prompts, can help students tap into their creativity.Also, seeking assistance from a writing tutor can provide valuable guidance and feedback throughout the essay writing process. Lessonpal offers writing tutors specializing in college essay writing , providing students with the necessary support to craft an impressive and memorable essay.

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Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

So, you’ve read and re-read the academic writing assignment that you received from your professor, and now you’re staring at a blank page.

Does your mind feel as blank as the page? Are you Frozen by fear? Rubbing your eyes with exhaustion?

Whether you’re writing an essay for a community college in Boston, Massachusetts or a university in New England, USA, you need to start somewhere. Brainstorming means you use your imagination and prior knowledge to collect thoughts. After gathering a great quantity of ideas, you select the highest quality ideas.

Filling that empty white document can feel like leaping into unknown icy water. Brainstorming is the way to warm up for a deep dive into the EAP topic.

Brainstorming begins with simple questions. What do you know about the topic? What do you want to learn about the topic?

As you brainstorm, you journey farther down the academic writing quest. How do you narrow down a topic into a thesis? How do you gather the examples and evidence necessary for an academic essay?

Here are EAP brainstorming strategies to jumpstart the engine of your creativity.

Brainstorming tip #1: Freewriting

Do you have no ideas? Or the opposite problem—too many ideas?

Freewriting means what it sounds like—you’re free to write whatever comes to mind. The point is not to make it perfect—not even necessarily to make it good—but just to put thoughts on paper—no rules, no revising. You can even write about how you don’t know what to write about.

The only limit you should set for yourself is that you write for a specific period of time—let’s say 30 minutes—or for a specific number of pages—let’s say 2 pages. Non-stop activity gets the juices flowing, and a concrete goal gives you satisfaction. Here’s an example of freewriting:

This essay is supposed to be about the Boston Tea Party but I don’t know anything about US history except that the American Revolution happened a long time ago (when???) somewhere in Massachusetts or maybe I’m wrong. I can’t think of anything else to say and now the clock says two minutes, I’ll keep babbling anyway. Boston, MA, politics, tea. My grandmother used to make tea when I stopped by after my English courses. But that’s not useful for this essay. Or maybe there’s a connection. Hmmm… I remember the professor talked about the taxes in the New English states (colonies?) and my grandmother used to complain about paying high taxes at the market and…

Freewriting stimulates your brain the same way physical exercise wakes up your mind.

Brainstorming tip #2: Making a Cube

Draw a cube in your notebook. Each of the six sides has a task:

Side 2: Compare the topic.

Side 3: Connect the topic.

Side 4: Classify the topic.

Side 5: Argue for or against the topic.

Side 6: Personalize the topic.

Instead of those 6 tasks, you could replace those verbs with other academic tasks: apply, analyze, question, connect, define, classify, associate, or explain cause and effect—whichever inspire ideas.

Imagine your topic is attending university in the U.S. Next to each point on the cube, you would write words and phrases inspired by the verb at hand:

Side 1: Describe: Exciting, difficult, expensive, growing opportunities, expensive, valuable.

Side 2: Compare: Different from my country. USA = more essay writing, dorms with roommates, critical thinking, fewer standardized exams and lectures, smaller classes.

Side 3: Connect: student visa policies, US immigration law, IELTS, TOEFL iBT, travel restrictions from covid-19, globalization means more English at work.

Side 4: Classify: community colleges (Holyoke, Greenfield), state universities (UMASS Boston), private ivy league (Harvard) graduate schools, MBA, BA, MFA programs.  

Side 5: Argue for : opens doors, better jobs, international workplace, investment in future, social networking, broadens horizons.

Side 6: Personalize: my cousin > engineering degree, MIT internship, campus resources help with culture shock (which worries me.) IELTS stresses me out!!!!  Way to avoid?

This brainy approach works if you like approaching topics from different angles.

Brainstorming tip #3: Clustering

When you cluster, you draw bubbles and connect words and concepts associated with the topic—anything that comes to mind.

This visual method works when you have a lot of random thoughts and you are trying to “see” connections.

Brainstorming tip #4: Bulleting

With this technique, you make bulleted lists with concepts, terms, and ideas. This can help you narrow down from the first list to a second list. The list on the left contains general bullet points, while the list on the right expands on a single bullet to delve deeper.

This method works great if you’re an orderly person who likes making lists.

Brainstorming tip #5: Venn Diagram

  The famous Venn diagram technique works well for brainstorming differences and similarities between two topics. You draw two intersecting circles and write the qualities they share in the middle where the circles intersect and the qualities that are unique in the left and right spaces. For example, let’s say you’re brainstorming differences and similarities between two cities in Massachusetts, Boston and Northampton.

This famous brainstorming method is used in the academic and business worlds because it so clearly shows differences and similarities.

To analyze relationships among three topics, you can make a Venn diagram with three circles. The 3-circle helps visualize and understand complex connections. You brainstorm three basic questions. Which qualities are unique to each? Which traits do any two topics have in common? Which similarities are shared by all three topics?

Brainstorming tip #6: Tree diagram

Imagine you’re brainstorming different types of schools in US higher education.

Tree diagrams are perfect for brainstorming classification essays. You could also draw tree diagrams to brainstorm effects, starting with a cause at the top and branching off into increasingly specific downstream effects. Pretty cool, huh?

Brainstorming tip #7: Journalist Dice

Dice aren’t just toys for games and gambling–they can be a tool for writing. Rolling journalist dice is a stimulating way to flesh out narrative essays. Each side of the die corresponds to one of the 6 question words. To make the game fun, roll a die, and write down one answer the question every time you roll. Roll at least a dozen times to write down a variety of details and ideas.

In addition to building a narrative essay, this brainstorming technique can help you develop a compelling story for your college application essay. For the tired and uninspired writer, the game element of rolling dice makes the writing process more engaging and enjoyable. 

Brainstorming tip #8: T diagram

This method works well if you like thinking in terms of opposites.  Can you say “On the one hand” and “On the other hand”? 

What’s next in the writing process?

After your fast and furious brainstorm, the next step is to create an outline. When you outline, you pick your best and brightest ideas. Then you begin organizing them into a coherent, linear argument. You select and sort supporting points, evidence, examples, and elaboration. To learn more about outlining, click here for the next article in our academic writing series. 

The best way to improve your writing is to join an academic or business English course. With guidance from an expert instructor and feedback from a community of peers, you can master the art of academic writing.

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College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start

Bonus Material: College Essay Brainstorming Questions  

The college essay is an extremely important component of your college application. Yes, college admissions officers do care about standardized test scores, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation.

All of these application components can help officers assess a student’s academic and professional potential (and much more).

The college application essay, however, gives students a chance to share their unique voice with an admissions officer. It’s like a brief interview, where students can give officers a powerful glimpse of who they are outside of their application in roughly 650 words.

So what do you say in those 650 words? How do you pick the right essay topic?

It’s all about the brainstorming process. In general, the more time you can devote to gathering potential essay topics  before  you start writing, the better. Gathering this material can also be helpful for writing supplemental essays down the road.

In this post, we provide actionable tips for guiding your college essay brainstorming process. After reading this article, students will be well poised to gather topics and eventually select the “right” essay topic .

We also give students access to 30 free college essay brainstorming questions to get started. Grab these below.

Download College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Here’s what we cover:

The Importance of College Essay Brainstorming

• 8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips
• Bonus : 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

We define the college essay as a “demonstration of character, values, and/or voice.” It is an introspective, personal essay that (ideally) adds significant value to a student’s overall application.

Many students are not well-versed in writing this kind of essay. Indeed, most students are familiar with the concept of the academic essay, with its neat five paragraphs. Very few have had a lot of time in high school classrooms to write deeply reflective pieces, and concise ones at that. (Remember: you only have 650 words or fewer to craft your response!)

That’s why brainstorming is so essential  to the college essay writing process. It’s your key to pinpointing the right topic, which we define as one with the potential to generate an essay that aligns with these 7 winning qualities .

It can also be valuable for gathering potential topics for supplemental essay responses, which many competitive colleges require.

For these very reasons, we spend a significant amount of time brainstorming in our college essay mentoring programs and summer workshops. Students who are able to gather a lot of material in this time tend to have an easier job down the road choosing the right topic, creating an outline, and eventually writing that first draft.

What’s more, they might surprise themselves in what they are able to pull from their many life experiences! It’s not uncommon for an essay student to choose a certain topic they never would have considered prior to brainstorming.

The tips outlined in the next section reflect this great value of brainstorming, and are the same we offer our college essay students at the start of their process.

8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips

Don’t let that blank page intimidate you! Follow these tips to guide your brainstorming process and remember that this stage should and will take time.

1. Know the standards

Students should feel very comfortable with colleges’ general expectations for the essay  before  they start brainstorming. If you haven’t done so already, please check out the following PrepMaven posts:

• What is the College Essay?

7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

• 11 College Essays That Worked
• What College Admissions Officers Look For

It can also be helpful to review the Common Application’s essay prompts . While students don’t necessarily have to respond to a  specific  prompt, these provide insight into the type of essay colleges are seeking.

2. No topic is “too small” (but some are “too big”)

Students only have 650 words (or fewer) to write their essays. That’s not a lot of space! For this reason, don’t shy away from seemingly “small” topics as you brainstorm.

One student who earned Ivy League acceptance, for example, wrote about her passion for hot sauce in her college essay!

On the same note, if you come up with “big” topics, such as cultural identity, a long-term extracurricular activity, or a religious belief, do your best to highlight specific components of these topics, or one representative experience. The best college essays don’t say everything there is to say about such large topics. Rather, they focus skillfully on one smaller component of a potentially bigger picture.

3. Write down all the details for every topic

When you land upon a topic, mine it for details. Write down everything you can think of about that experience, idea, or memory. Many of our students like to use bulleted lists in a Google Doc for doing this.

It’s important to squeeze out every possible detail so that you can fully assess a topic’s potential! In many cases, such details will become college essay topics themselves.

4. Work by category

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the possible topics out there–and don’t worry, this is common–gather ideas by category. Here are some sample category examples:

• Travel experiences
• Extracurricular activities
• Family life
• Culture and heritage
• Interests and hobbies
• Challenges (non-academic)

Categories can help you build a general portrait of who you are, at least to start. Once you have a few ideas per category, start diving deeper into those ideas and generating further details about each one.

5. Ask the right questions

It is often easier for students to generate a rich pool of potential topics by answering questions designed to encourage deep reflection and introspection. Of course, this begs the question: what should I be asking myself?

Take a look at these 30 questions  we ask our students in our college essay workshops and mentorship programs at the beginning of their process.

Once you’ve answered these questions fully and to the best of your ability, you’ll be poised for essay topic selection.

6. Keep it to yourself, mostly

Many college essay students risk writing about what their parents, friends, or teachers want them to write about. Others risk writing “what colleges want to hear.” Yet authenticity is one of the most important qualities of a successful college essay!

That’s why we encourage students to brainstorm independently. You are the only one in the world most familiar with your life experiences, after all! Consult family members, friends, or mentors only once you are further along in the essay writing process, or if you need clarification on the details of a specific experience. This will ensure you gather topics that are true to you first and foremost.

7. Maintain orderly notes

Brainstorming can be messy. Establish a system early on for maintaining orderly notes! Some tools that can come in handy:

• Bulleted or numbered lists
• Index cards
• Color-coding (digital or manual)
• Google Docs

8. Consider takeaways for each topic

As you compile topics, save time and start thinking in terms of “takeaways” for each. This will allow you to assess a topic’s potential for demonstrating your character, values, and/or voice.

Ask yourself for each topic : What values does this showcase? What does this say about me specifically? What meaningful reflections does it invite? What aspect of my voice is apparent here?

Download 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

You can jumpstart your college essay brainstorming process right now by downloading our college essay brainstorming questions.

With this free download, you’ll get:

• 30 of the best brainstorming questions we ask our students
• Guidance for next steps

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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College admissions

Course: college admissions   >   unit 4.

• Writing a strong college admissions essay
• Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

• How formal should the tone of your college essay be?
• Taking your college essay to the next level
• Sample essay 1 with admissions feedback
• Sample essay 2 with admissions feedback
• Student story: Admissions essay about a formative experience
• Student story: Admissions essay about personal identity
• Student story: Admissions essay about community impact
• Student story: Admissions essay about a past mistake
• Student story: Admissions essay about a meaningful poem
• Writing tips and techniques for your college essay

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Video transcript

How to Brainstorm Your College Essay Topic

The college essay is perhaps the most challenging—and intimidating—part of the college application process. Staring at a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer screen) can feel overwhelming. You might think you have nothing to write about or nothing new and exciting to offer. If you’re wondering just how to brainstorm your college essay topic, then keep reading!

Here’s the good news: You are uniquely you, and you have stories to tell that nobody else can write. If you can uncover one of those stories, you’ve found your perfect college essay topic.

The process of considering what makes you unique, reflecting, and trying on different ideas until you find “The One” is called brainstorming . In this article, you’ll find useful tips , ideas, and exercises to help you brainstorm your way to a great college essay topic.

What makes a great college essay topic?

First, let’s talk about what makes a great topic for your essay. Remember that most of your application is made up of impersonal numbers: your GPA, your SAT/ACT scores, your class rank, etc. Admissions officers will also see a list of your activities and accomplishments. But when it comes to showcasing who you are as an individual, the essay is your big chance to make an impression.

With that in mind, a great topic is one that:

• Offers insight into who you are as a person

Admissions officers suggest students should “write about a specific experience, hobby or quirk that reveals something personal, like how they think, what they value, or what their strengths are.” Think of your college essay topic as a window or lens that admissions officers can use to get a glimpse into who you are and how you think.

On the other hand, your topic does NOT have to be:

• About something extremely extraordinary

In fact, admissions officers say that sometimes the most ordinary topics make the most memorable essays. These include topics like fly-fishing, a student’s commute to and from school, and even a family’s dining room table. So, shift your focus from trying to impress or trying to be extraordinary. Instead, try to zoom in on a slice of your life that reveals something important about you.

Wait—do I even get to choose my college essay topic?

Good question. The Common Application and most individual college applications give you a few prompts to choose from. However, these prompts are so broad and open-ended that you still have the freedom to write about almost anything .

For instance, the current Common App prompts ask you about your background, identity, talents, interests, obstacles you’ve faced, problems you’ve solved, events or realizations from your life, and more. And if you can’t manage to make your topic idea fit into those categories, the final prompt is: “Share an essay on any topic of your choice.”

Of course, before you begin brainstorming, look over the prompts you’ve been provided. See how specific or broad they are. Are there any guidelines you need to keep in mind as you brainstorm your topic? Go from there.

How to Brainstorm a College Essay Topic That’s Right for You

Brainstorming is a very personal and very creative endeavor. What sparks inspiration for you may not spark inspiration for someone else, and vice versa. So, read through the ideas, questions, and exercises for brainstorming your college essay topic below, and choose a few that appeal to you.

Keep going until you land on a topic idea that gets you inspired and excited. If you’re excited about your college essay topic, your passion and personality will naturally shine through.

1. Free Write About Yourself

On the top of a piece of paper or a Word document, write the question, “Who am I?” Set a timer for three minutes, and write until the timer goes off. Don’t second guess or edit. Write anything that comes to mind. Remember that no one else will read your college essay topic brainstorm.

Writing freely without overthinking is an important way to unleash your ideas. What would someone need to know in order to really know about you?

2. Explore Your Home

Take a tour of your home. Look closely at the objects in each room. Which objects are especially meaningful to you? As you look around your house, do any important or interesting memories come to you? Is there anything special or unique about your home that catches your eye?

Find photos, scrapbooks, and old journals or diaries if possible. If you come across any significant memories, jot them down or free write about them for a few minutes. Make a note of anything that inspires you.

3. Listen to a Playlist of Your Favorite Songs

Make a playlist of around 10 songs that you love. These can be songs you loved at different points in your life, or they can be your 10 favorites right now.

Often, our favorite songs resonate with us because we relate them to a memory, a feeling, or a core value. And music in general is an excellent source of inspiration. As you listen to your songs, does anything meaningful come to mind?

Do you think of a special person, place, or event in your life? Did a particular song help you through a challenging time in your life? Do you think your favorite songs say anything important about you? As with the previous exercise, record or free write about anything that catches your attention.

4. Ask Your Friends and Family

Sometimes, it’s hard to think or write objectively about ourselves—after all, we’re a little too close to the subject. It’s helpful to ask your friends or family members for ideas and inspiration too.

Ask questions like:

• If you had to describe me in three words, what words would you use?

Ultimately, you need to choose a college essay topic that appeals to you. But gaining some perspective from the people who love you might get your ideas flowing.

5. Reflect on Highs and Lows

Good college essays show maturity, reflection, and growth. They demonstrate your ability to think about the events that have happened to you, the lessons you have learned, and the impact these events have had on who you are as an individual. Often, we can find great stories of growth in the best and worst moments of our lives.

Think about the following:

• When did you first feel like you were no longer a child? Why did you feel that way? How do you think you’ve changed from your childhood self, and why?

Some of these answers might feel too personal. That’s OK—remember, your brainstorm is for your eyes only. You don’t have to share anything with admissions officers that makes you uncomfortable, but reflecting on the most important moments in your life can help you come up with some excellent material.

6. List Your Top 5 Traits

It’s tough to describe ourselves in a few words, especially because all of us are complex. But if you had to choose just five defining characteristics or traits to describe yourself, what words would you use?

First, list your five words. Then, try to trace your characteristics back to defining experiences or events. For example, if you’re curious , how do you think your curiosity began? Did anyone in your life influence you to be curious? Can you think of the first time or the most recent time that you exhibited curiosity?

Sometimes, a story that highlights one of your key personal traits can make an excellent college essay. Whether it’s an example of how you’ve displayed that trait, or an “origin story” of how you developed that characteristic, you’ll show admissions officers an important piece of who you are.

7. Think About Places

Essays about place, even one as simple as a dining room table, also make a compelling college essay topic. See if you have any meaningful “place” stories by answering the following questions:

• Are any of your favorite memories associated with a specific place? Which memories? Describe the place in detail.

Remember that no matter what you write about, you are ultimately the star of your essay. So, if you choose to write about a place, consider what this place means to you, how it has impacted you, and what it can tell readers about your personality, beliefs, and values.

8. Think About People

Similarly, you may choose to write about an influential person in your life. But the bulk of the essay should focus on how this person has impacted you and how you have changed or grown as a result of your interactions with this person.

Answer these questions:

• Who is someone in your life who is very different from you? How have you navigated those differences? What have you learned in the process?

Again, your essay shouldn’t simply describe another person. The admissions officers want to know more about you . But if you have a compelling story about an important person, and if that story provides meaningful insight into you, then you might have a stellar topic on your hands.

9. Answer Questions About Yourself

You’re probably thinking that you’ve already answered a lot of questions about yourself. But here are some more that might spark inspiration for the right college essay topic:

• What are you most curious about?

You don’t need to answer all of these questions. But if a few of them speak to you, start writing and see what emerges.

Remember that it’s important to “zoom in” on your ideas. So, don’t write an essay about all the traditions you’ve grown up with. Write about one tradition and a specific memory associated with it. The more you zoom in, the more detailed you can get. The more details you include, the more your essay becomes one that only you could write.

10. Write a Hook

If you’re still having trouble getting started, focus on writing a strong hook . What’s an interesting first sentence about you that could really grab a reader’s attention?

Here’s an example of a good hook : “I first got into politics the day the cafeteria outlawed creamed corn.”

Doesn’t that sentence make you want to know more? Imagine being a college admissions officer, slogging through essay after essay, many of them very similar. Many of the essays sound stiff, full of high-level vocabulary words but lacking in personality. Then you get to an essay about how creamed corn sparked a student’s interest in politics. Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air?

Try writing a few interesting hooks. One might hook you too, and before you know it, you’ll have written a whole first draft!

Next Step: Narrow Down Your College Essay Topic Ideas

Let’s say you’ve completed several of these exercises, and now you have a list of ideas. What’s the next step?

Narrow down your college essay topics like this:

• Does your top idea speak to you enough to run with it? If so, get going! If you’re stuck between 2-3 top choices, outline a beginning, middle, and end for each topic idea. List several specific sensory details you would include. Now, which idea speaks to you the most? Which provides the strongest and most compelling narrative? That’s your topic!

Once you’ve decided on a topic, it’s time to tell your story. Remember to focus on being honest, authentic, and very much you . Zoom in as much as possible, and give clear details that bring your story to life. Show a character arc—who you were at the beginning, how you grew and changed, and who you are now. Feel free to use personality and humor. The admissions officers want to hear your voice!

Final Thoughts: How to Brainstorm Your College Essay Topic

It’s hard to come up with a college essay topic that’s unique, exciting, and impressive. So, take that mindset and throw it far, far away.

Now, approach your college essay with the goal of helping admissions officers get to know the real you. If you’re authentic and write about something that’s meaningful to you, your essay will naturally stand out.

Complete several exercises to brainstorm your college essay topic without editing yourself . Eventually, you’ll find a topic that gets you excited. It’ll be a topic that accurately represents you and that makes you want to think, write, or talk about it more.

That passion, enthusiasm, and authenticity will shine through to admissions officers and make your essay truly memorable. I hope these tips on how to brainstorm your college essay topic were helpful. Good luck and happy writing!

Jason Patel is the founder of Transizion , a college counseling and career services company that provides mentorship and consulting on college applications, college essays, resumes, cover letters, interviews, and finding jobs and internships. Jason’s work has been cited in The Washington Post, BBC, NBC News, Forbes, Fast Company, Bustle, Inc., Fox Business, and other great outlets. Transizion donates a portion of profits to underserved students and veterans in of college prep and career development assistance. Jason is a Brazilian Jiujitsu martial artist, outdoorsman, and avid reader. You can find more content on his blog and YouTube channel.

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How should I start brainstorming topics for my college essay?

Most colleges provide open-ended prompts. Using the topic as inspiration, think about critical milestones or essential lessons you learned during your academic career. Tell stories about real-life experiences that have shaped the person you are. Write them down to brainstorm ideas. Choose stories that highlight your best traits.

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > 25 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

25 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you’re in the process of starting your college essay, you know how hard it is to come up with a good topic.

Should you go the lighthearted, humorous route? Or should you reveal something serious about yourself? Of all your experiences, how do you know the best one to write about? 

Worse, how do you know if your idea is cliche? Or, alternatively, what if you’ve tried too hard to be unique?

And with all the conflicting advice out there about what should and shouldn’t be in a college essay, the process gets even more confusing.

But there’s a foolproof method to cut through the noise and find a college essay topic that’s right for you.

It all starts with a brainstorming exercise.

Let’s get into it.

What is brainstorming?

Have you ever tried to turn nothing into something? It’s almost like writing defies the laws of physics. But that’s what you have to do when you come up with a topic.

Brainstorming helps you get there. It is a type of pre-writing process. We call it a “brainstorm” because it’s a way to corral the thought tornado that’s spinning out of control in your brain.

Like its counterpart “free writing,” brainstorming is a place for anything and everything. It’s a chance for you to do a brain dump and get your thoughts on to paper.

Brainstorming is the main way writers go from no ideas to lots of ideas in a short amount of time. It also saves you time and effort in the long run because it helps you weed out all the bad ideas before you waste your time trying to write an essay around them.

When you brainstorming, you’ve got two goals: 1) identify the thoughts that come to you, and 2) write them down. Some people do image-based mind maps, others create linear outlines, and others have their own individual processes altogether.

Today, your brainstorming process will consist of answering some pointed questions to get you thinking about the best college essay topics for you.

How do you brainstorm a college essay?

Brainstorming your college essay is an essential step because your essay topic determines how much an admissions officer is able to learn about you.

Picture yourself as an admissions officer. You’ve already read 25 applications today, and now you’re on your 26th. You flip to the essay, and you see immediately that it’s an essay about winning a soccer tournament. You’ve already read three essays about soccer tournaments today. Hopeful, you proceed through the essay. To your dismay, the essay’s message—that hard work and determination will get you far in life—is almost exactly the same as the previous three. The soccer essays start to blend together, and you can’t quite remember whose is whose.

That’s the problem with overused, cliche, and surface-level topics. They aren’t interesting or memorable. Because they remain on the surface of who you are, they don’t tell an admissions officer the information they need to know to admit you.

Instead, we believe that all college essays should revolve around one of your core strengths.

A core strength is an inherent and positive trait, talent, or characteristic that shapes how you live in the world.

Here are a few examples:

• Social intelligence
• Intellectual curiosity
• Passion for justice
• Positive outlook

Whether your strength is your wisdom, entrepreneurial spirit, compassion, or problem-solving skills, your college essay should reflect a strength that makes you you.

Because the purpose of a college essay is to help you get admitted to college. (If you need a refresher on the ins and outs of college essays, look to our How to Write a College Essay guide.) Writing an essay that speaks to your strengths gives admissions officers more reasons to admit you.

A strengths-based essay will help them get to know the real you, and they’ll be able to envision how your strengths will contribute to their college community. It’s all about crafting a cohesive application narrative .

So when it comes to brainstorming, you need to think of topic ideas that accomplish two tasks:

Showcase one (or two) of your core strengths.

Give admissions officers meaningful and vulnerable insight into who you are.

Much easier said than done, right? That’s where brainstorming comes in.

Brainstorming relieves the pressure of getting it right the first time. It helps you compile and sort through all your memories, experiences, strengths, and values until you find one that works.

Let’s talk about the college essay brainstorming exercise.

Brainstorming Exercise Breakdown

To help you brainstorm college essay topic ideas that are strengths-based and meaningful, we’ve put together a list of questions.

These questions come from some of the most common college essay topics. They aren’t essay prompts, and they’re not intended to be the question from which you write your final college essay.

Instead, they are leading questions that will get you thinking about what strengths you have and how they show up in your life. You’ll be able to use your answers as a starting point to find your topic and write your first draft.

Feel free to copy and paste these questions into a word processor and answer each of them in turn. Or answer only the ones that call to you the most. Write down as much or as little as you want for each, but try to focus on concrete experiences and genuine reflections.

We’ll go over a couple of examples, but let’s first look at the questions.

25 Brainstorming Questions

• What are your biggest strengths? Why?
• If you could only choose one topic to talk about for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• Have you traveled? If so, what did you do or learn?
• If you could choose any meal to represent you, what would it be and why?
• What is the most interesting part of your daily life?
• Describe a time when you felt inexperienced at something.
• Is there a question about the universe that keeps you up at night?
• Where do you feel most at home?
• What’s the most sensory experience you’ve ever had?
• Have you had a job? What was your most memorable experience? What did you learn?
• What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you?
• Write about a time when you felt out of place.
• Are there any social issues you’re passionate about? If so, what have you done to contribute to the cause?
• Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”
• Write about your most memorable classroom experience.
• Describe a time when you felt like you genuinely helped someone.
• What would your friends say is your greatest strength? What would your family say is your greatest strength?
• What role do you play when working in a group or team?
• What’s the most profound thing that’s happened to you?
• Are you a leader? If so, how, when, and in what parts of your life?
• What about yourself makes you proud?
• Explain the hardest problem you’ve ever solved.
• Picture yourself at 90 years old, nice and wrinkly. What would your 90-year-old self say about who you are today?
• What are three things you know to be true?
• What motivates you?

Is your brain storming yet?

To take your answers a step further, you can also ask yourself a bonus follow-up question. For each question you answer, consider this: How does what you’ve written here connect to one of your core strengths? Which core strength is it?

Brainstorm Example

Now on to the examples. Notice how each response has an associated core strength. The question responses are free-form. Not every idea they include will be usable, and grammar and organization don’t matter at all. Each response includes good sensory details and lots of ideas about what comes to mind for each question.

#14) Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”

Core strength: Creativity

I feel most creative when I play my cello. I love practicing and listening to my metronome and trying to figure out the difficult passages. It’s like a mixture of science and art. Playing in an orchestra really moves me because of the way the music comes alive and you can feel everyone’s art coming together to make new art. But my solo recitals are my favorite. I love being on stage in front of a crowd and getting to share my art with them, especially when I come up with a creative take on a classic piece. I used to hate recitals but ever since I changed my perspective from fear of failure to making art, I’ve learned to enjoy them more.

#8) Where do you feel most at home?

Core strength: Compassion

I feel most at home in my grandma’s kitchen. It always smells of freshly-baked bread, and everything has a slight but permanent dusting of flour. I feel at home there because that’s where I learned to do my favorite hobby: baking. My grandma taught me everything I know about how to bake. Nothing says “home” like a warm chocolate chip cookie with a little bit of sea salt. My grandma is my favorite person and she’s always inspired me. Now that she’s unable to bake for herself, I bake for her. Her kitchen is my office. I know every inch of the kitchen like the back of my hand. I’m learning new baking tricks on YouTube, and I tell her all about them when I visit after school. She’s taught and given me so much, so I just want to return the favor.

See how easy that was? They’re quick answers that are rich with description and ideas. When you write your own, it’ll be the kindling for your college essay.

When you’re ready, go through each question that calls to you and write down exactly what comes to mind. From there, you’ll have a list of topics to choose from.

Key Takeways

Now it’s your turn. Copy and paste the questions to get started. We use a similar brainstorming process with all the students we work with, and it’s a surefire way to find the right college essay topic for you. Once your brainstorm is done, check out the college essay writing guide or the Essay Academy to transform your brainstorm from a rough topic to a full-blown essay.

Liked that? Try this next.

The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

12 Common App Essay Examples (Graded by Former Admissions Officers)

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

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6 Writing Exercises for Personal Statement Brainstorming

July 16, 2020

The idea of writing a personal statement can be scary for a lot of students. It’s a major component of your college application and can often be the only time the admissions committee gets to read your writing. Somehow, within the span of 650 words maximum, you’re supposed to showcase your personality, writing ability, and overall growth by responding to one of several open-ended prompts. But don’t worry, we’re here to help you. This blog contains 6 writing exercises to get you started with personal statement brainstorming .

What is the Personal Statement? 

Whether you’re applying using the Common App, Coalition App, or a school specific app, it’s likely you’ll need a personal statement. (The UC and Texas application systems a different story)

For the purposes of this blog post, we’ll be concentrating on personal statement brainstorming specifically for the Common App . The Common App gives you 7 potential prompts to choose from which haven’t changed in the past few years. Why? Because they’re vague and open to interpretation, meaning they give students a LOT of leeway about what to discuss. The last prompt lets you write about anything in case your idea doesn’t fit into one of the other categories, so this essay is completely open to any story you want to tell. Let’s take a look…

The Prompts:

• 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.
• 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?
• Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
• 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.
• Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• 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?
• 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.

What Do These Prompts Want You to Achieve?

It’s valuable that the prompts push you to reflect because the best personal statements showcase your voice and passion. These prompts sound like big questions, but they are trying to push you. 

Each prompt gives you the chance to showcase and reflect upon a specific time in your life. A strong personal statement showcases your voice and passion. An excellent personal statement does that AND demonstrates a moment of personal growth. That doesn’t mean you have to pick something entirely unusual or a huge event — sometimes it’s the smallest and most mundane of moments that shape our understanding of ourselves, from a conversation with a stranger to the routine act of making a favorite sandwich. Ultimately, the best personal statements will end with you (mentally and emotionally) in a different place than where you started. 

How Do I Get Started?

So now you know what you’re supposed to achieve with the personal statement… but how do you come up with a topic? Sitting down and staring at the blank page and blinking cursor isn’t going to help you craft your essay. First you need to brainstorm. Here are 6  writing exercises for personal statement brainstorming that can help you get your creativity going.

Writing Exercise 1: Create an Idea Bank . 

You can find inspiration for your personal statement anywhere at any time. Keep a journal, open Word document, notebook, or note on your phone where you write down any anecdotes or thoughts regarding important moments or events in your life. This will give you potential material for a great personal statement.

You can start this as early as freshman year! Remember, your personal statement should focus on a moment of growth during high school -- if something formative happened to you when you were younger, it’s okay to mention that and use it in the framework of your essay, but colleges want to know what you’re like NOW. Jot down any and all thoughts that come to mind in your idea bank, and you can later take a step back and consider which topics best showcase who you are.

Writing Exercise 2:  Reflective Writing Experiment

Writing reflectively is hard. Thinking about what you’ve done, why you did it, what it meant to you, and what you might change can be difficult. You need to get in the habit of being able to think deeply about your interests and experiences. As you think about personal statement brainstorming , start getting in that mode by responding to some more general prompts. Write a paragraph or more in response to a question and see where it takes you. 

Here are some prompts to get you started:

• What are the high school moments that are most memorable to you? Why?
• Is there something you spend a lot of time thinking about? If so, how have you explored that interest? 
• How do you spend your free time?
• How have you grown in the past year?
• What’s your favorite memory? Why?
• Was there a particular incident that shaped your perspective?

Writing Exercise 3:  Word Association

Start generating a list of potential topics. Don’t limit yourself or set any expectations about finding the “perfect” topic. This is meant to get you to start thinking about all the things that make you YOU. What’s important to you? Why? When you think about yourself and what makes you unique, what comes to mind? Write it down. The personal statement helps convey the perspective that only you can bring — take advantage of it.

Writing Exercise 4:  Work Backwards

This might sound counterintuitive, but you need to think about your application holistically and see what’s missing. What do you want the admissions committee to know about you from looking at your activities, honors, essays, and the rest of your application? Are you someone who loves physical activity and consistently played three varsity level sports while also volunteering at your library? Are you a talented artist who hopes to explore other fields in college? 

As part of personal statement brainstorming , think about what you want the application committee to know about you, and then figure out where there are gaps. If you’re that sports enthusiast who hasn’t had the chance to talk about the importance of volunteering in an essay yet, maybe the personal statement is where you focus on your love of community service (so long as you have the experiences to back it up!). Don’t invent a brand new interest for the purposes of your personal statement; think about what you’ve already introduced and use it as a place to expand on that experience. Just remember -- the personal statement should not be a regurgitation of your activity list. Instead, it’s a time to think about what your interests and experiences say about you. 

Writing Exercise 5: The Mind Map -

If you’re more of a visual learner, this might be the right fit for you. Mind mapping helps you think of the big picture. Start with thinking about a topic, and then envision how the essay will play out -- write down how each idea might link to the previous. 

For example, your topic might be that you want to go into medicine… but how does that turn into an essay?

Want to be pre-med ---> hope to help people ---> times I’ve done that -- volunteering at a clinic; working in a hospice, organizing a fundraising drive for that hospice 

And so on. You can map out a potential personal statement without having to commit to an actual topic. Instead, you can map out several potential essays and pick the most interesting and unique one.

Writing Exercise 6: Your Stories from Every day Life

As you continue exploring topics, think about if there's one or two stories that you tell everyone about yourself. Write it down. Then take a look. What have you highlighted? What did you leave out? Is this an accurate portrayal of yourself? This exercise can help you narrow down what matters to you — what you see as a core component of yourself. You can use this exercise to determine which parts of you are significant enough for the personal statement.

Once you’ve completed your personal statement brainstorming session, you’ve hopefully got a list of potential topics. So start writing! You’ll need to revise and produce multiple drafts. Get as many people to give you feedback as possible -- your friends, family, and teachers. You might also need to write multiple versions to see which idea is the best for your personal statement. Although the editing and polishing are important steps, the brainstorming process is what gets your essay started. Good luck!

Tags : Personal Statement , personal statement brainstorming , common application essays , essay writing , essay brainstorming , writing exercises

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Brainstorming for College Essays

Introduction

As the number of college applications submitted each year continues to grow exponentially and competition stiffens among the thousands of high- achieving students seeking admission, it has become increasingly important for applications to illustrate a complete, holistic picture of themselves. That has put a great deal of emphasis on the essays, which indeed, are vital pieces of the puzzle. While your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities begin to show who you are on paper, the personal statement essay and other supplemental essays bring you into three-dimensional form for college admissions officers. The essays are your chance to make your voice heard and if executed properly, will help colleges determine whether you are a good fit for their university.

Please Note: This guide is intended to help you brainstorm and begin writing your college essays. This is a part part detailed guide. This is the first part, the other three parts are below:

• Part 2: The Perfect College Essay Structure
• Part 3: Sample College Essays
• Part 4:  Supplemental College Essays

Through exercises, worksheets, and discussions of sample essays, my hope is that by the end of this course, you will have in-depth knowledge of what colleges want to see in your essays, at least one or two (and hopefully more) essay ideas, and a solid start to your first draft.

To get the most out of this course, take your time with the exercises and the overall process. A large part of writing a successful essay is self-exploration and self-reflection. Another large part is understanding that an outstanding application essay requires thought, patience, lots of rewriting, and more rewriting. But most of all, you can and should have fun with this. You get to write about you and the things that interest and move you.

Enjoy the process!

2020 Common App Essay Prompts

The Common Application, known as the Common App ( commonapp.org ), is accepted by close to 900 schools, and will likely be the main tool you use for applying to schools. It allows you to compile all your information in one  place and easily disseminate it to the colleges of your choice. Other alternatives include the Coalition Application and applying directly using the school’s own application, but for this course, we will focus on the more popular Common App. Once you’ve written the essay for the Common App, it can be easily adapted to fit other applications.

On the essay portion of the Common App, you will be required by most colleges to answer one of the prompts in 650 words or less.

The 2020-2021 Common Application Essay Prompts are: ‍

• 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.
• 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?
• Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea.What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
• Describe a problem you solved or a problem you like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is 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.
• Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• 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?
• Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Which prompt should you choose?

Unless bells and whistles went off when you read a particular prompt because you’re certain you have the perfect story that fits it, then don’t worry about choosing just yet. It’s best to start with your brainstorming and then decide if you have an idea that matches a prompt. Meanwhile, the Common App gave students a gift when they added prompt number seven a few years ago, allowing you to submit any kind of essay on any topic. So, if your idea does not accurately and completely answer a certain prompt (which it must do), then play it safe and choose the last “freebie” option.

What are colleges looking for in your essay?

Before beginning your brainstorming and drafting, it’s important that you have a clear understanding of what kinds of things you should be communicating through your essay. The college admissions officers reading your essay can learn a lot about you through your words, overall theme, and depth of thought. The story you choose to tell is merely the backdrop and framework for a bigger picture. Your ultimate objective is to create a portrait of yourself in 650 words or less that shows your persona, unique aspects of your character, and why and how you will contribute to a university community.

For example, your essay can show colleges that you are:

• Intellectually curious about the world you live in Introspective
• Someone who takes initiative Motivated
• Hard working Creative Compassionate
• Someone who will contribute ideas, service, collaborative efforts, leadership
• Someone who brings a unique perspective or cultural experience An innovator
• Someone who loves to learn (even beyond school subjects) Committed (to a cause, to family, to friends, a belief, etc.) Able to adapt to new environments, overcome challenges

While these are the types of qualities colleges often want to see in students, this is not an exhaustive list and it doesn’t mean that you should fabricate or embellish information to fit into one of these categories.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOU TO DO IN YOUR ESSAY IS TO BE AUTHENTIC! ! Colleges want to know who you are and that you’ve taken the time to personally reflect on who you are and who you desire to be.

So let’s start with an exercise that will help you with that reflection process and uncover some of your personal qualities that could shine through in your essay.

Worksheet 1:  Self-Exploration

Part 2: Ask 2 other people (a parent, relative, or friend) for 3 adjectives they would use to describe some of your character/personality traits. Record them below

Worksheet 2: Self-Exploration

For this next section, set aside at least 30 minutes when you will be undisturbed and can give your full attention to contemplating each question. Remember to answer genuinely and not from the perspective of what you “think” colleges want to hear. Take your time and write as much as you can to fully answer the questions. Sometimes the best nuggets/ideas/revelations come toward the end after you’ve gotten some of your initial thoughts down on paper. Use a separate paper or document to record your answers if needed.

• What do you love to do so much that when you’re doing it, you lose track of time?
• How are you unique or different in some way? Maybe you have a unique perspective, belong to a certain culture or group, or have a unique hobby.
• What moves you? What makes you angry? Or joyful? Why?
• What do you want colleges to know about you that they won’t find on the rest of the application?
• What is your superpower? What superpower do you wish you had?
• What is your ultimate goal in getting a college education? (be honest)
• What/how would you contribute to a college community? (think broadly here – could be a diverse perspective, cultural tradition, friendship, collaboration, leadership, new ideas, school spirit, etc.)
• What positive impact do you hope to have on others/society?

Worksheet 3: Creating Your Personal Purpose Statement

Now, using your adjectives from Worksheet 1 and the answers in Worksheet 2, let’s create a Personal Purpose Statement. You can actually create more than one statement if you feel you can’t narrow yourself down to one. The idea is to loosely define the kind of person you are and what you hope to achieve. It can serve as a guiding vision of what you want to communicate through your essay.

Complete the following statement:

I am a _____________, ______________, and _______________ person who loves _________________ and hopes to make a difference/impact by _______________.

Example: I am a kind, outgoing, and funny person who loves to make people laugh and hopes to make a difference/impact by creating uplifting comedic productions and/or therapies that will help people heal from trauma

In this example, the student might decide that their essay should display their sense of humor because that’s one of their unique personality traits. Maybe they can talk about how humor has healed them in some way. Keep in mind that your essay should “show” rather then “tell.” So you wouldn’t just say, “I’m funny and make people laugh.” You’d write an essay that perhaps make the reader chuckle or talks about a humorous situation or a time you made someone laugh or did something silly.

This Personal Purpose Statement can serve as an anchor for you as you move through the essay process. Return to it often to make sure you are communicating these core ideas in your essays. You may even want to check your overall application to review if it is reflecting these important qualities. 

Ideas For Your Essay

Again, make sure you have some quiet time and space without distractions. For this exercise, refer back to your Personal Purpose Statement from Worksheet 3. You may want to have Worksheets 1 and 2 on hand as well for added inspiration.

The next step is to come up with some stories/personal experiences that relate to your Personal Purpose Statement since these are the main things you want the colleges to know about you. Below you’ll find some questions to help guide you in brainstorming and mining your memory for ideas. It can also be helpful to ask family members for stories they might remember about you. Keep in mind you want to be honest and vulnerable and while you may reference things from your childhood, colleges are interested mainly in events that have impacted you during or just before your high school years.

Using our previous sample statement, “I am a kind, outgoing, and funny person who loves to make people laugh and hopes to make a difference/impact by creating uplifting comedic productions and/or therapies that will help people heal from trauma,” the student should think of personal experiences that demonstrate that they are kind, outgoing, or funny, as well as events and people that inspired them. For instance, maybe they’ve volunteered cheering up young children who are ill. In this case, they could tell a story about a certain child they interacted with who had a particular impact on them.

Okay, your turn.

Answer the following questions based on your Personal Purpose Statement:

Note: If you don’t have an answer directly related to your statement, answer the question anyway as best as you can. Every bit of information is helpful!

• What stories or experiences have I had that demonstrate the adjectives that describe me in my statement?
• Do I have any interests, hobbies, passions that relate to the statement? Is there a moment when I was doing those things that changed me, made me think differently, learn something, or choose to be or do things a certain way?
• What led me to know that this was how I wanted to make an impact? Try to zero in on the smaller moments or feelings that might have influenced you – hearing a friend’s personal story, a dog licking you in the face, some hurtful words you never forgot.
• Is there a person who inspired me to be this way or helped me know I wanted to pursue a certain path?
• What has been my greatest challenge/obstacle and how did I overcome it? Did it help create who I am or was I able to get through it because of who I am?
• What have I learned about myself over the last five years? What have I proven to myself? How did my personal characteristics contribute to this or were they created or changed somehow? Is there a story that demonstrates this?
• What have been my biggest accomplishments (not necessarily academic or school related)? What did they teach me? Is there a story you can use without bragging about the accomplishment that shows how you were transformed in some way? For instance, maybe you started a club to help homeless people. Tell us about how you befriended “Joe” and how he gave you a whole new perspective on homelessness.
• Have my family, culture, traditions, or identity contributed some way to my understanding of myself and the world, and/or who I want to be in the world? How?

Additional Brainstorming

Not every student has a story about a challenge, obstacle, or moment that changed them. If this is you, do not worry, because everyone does indeed have some kind of story to tell about themselves. Sometimes it’s challenging to think and talk about yourself, or you may think you don’t have something “interesting” to share (you do!). Often you just need to keep exploring. Some of the best ideas come when you least expect it – like when you’re taking a shower, or playing a sport, or doing chores.

So use the previous and following questions to get you started thinking, then put them away for a couple days and see if any inspirations come. Come back and review the questions again with a fresh mind. You can do this as many times as you need. Take your time and write down EVERY idea, even if you think it’s not a great one. You’ll end up with a good list that will be helpful for your supplemental essays as well.

• What’s your favorite movie? Book? Podcast? Show? Why?
• What’s hanging on the walls in your bedroom? What’s on your shelves?
• What’s your favorite app? Video game? Why?
• Where is your favorite place to hang out?
• Is there a special place you visit on a regular basis?
• What is something you learned/taught yourself just for the fun of it?
• What is something about you that few people know? (Maybe you love watching horror movies or have a collection of sports memorabilia or spend every afternoon baking with your grandmother….)
• What’s your favorite kind of music?
• What’s your favorite thing to do with your friends?
• What fictional character would you love to spend the day with?
• What real-life person, dead or alive, would you love to spend the day with?
• If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be?
• What is your least favorite activity?
• What’s one of your fondest memories?
• List a couple of times where you failed at something and a couple of times you succeeded.

Some Ideas You Could Work With

Review your answers on both sections and list at least 3 ideas you could use for your essay:, the power of storytelling.

The best essays rely on one of the most natural, but powerful, techniques storytelling. Everyone has stories. You tell stories all the time when you talk about something that happened to you today. You listen to your family’s stories. You have stories that stick with you because they are especially memorable.

Often stories, especially in books and movies, follow the classic Hero’s Journey, which basically takes the character from an ordinary life, through a challenge or obstacle, and then through some transformation. This is a great reference point when thinking about how you might tell one of your own stories in an essay. In addition, you can find some great inspiration on storytelling on “The Moth” podcast or at themoth.org, which hosts storytelling competitions around the world. Watch some of the storytellers and see how they use description and detail, build interest and suspense, and then tie it all together so the story has a clear purpose and message.

Ultimately, what makes stories such an effective device in your essay is that they “show” rather than “tell.” You don’t want to say in your essay, “I’m funny. I like to make people laugh.” By telling a story that shows your sense of humor and how you felt making another person laugh, you make that point in a much more meaningful way.

Keep this in mind as you begin to explore further for the story or stories you can showcase in your essay.

Developing Your Ideas

Time to dive in! Let’s pick an idea and start coming up with some details that you could use in the essay. This process should help you get a feeling about whether you have enough material to work with on a certain topic/theme. Remember this is a trial-and-error process, so you may switch directions several times before finding the essay you want to write. In addition, as you spend some initial time fleshing out your topic here, pay attention to how you feel about the subject. This essay should be something you will enjoy writing.

See ”Example Answers” following this questionnaire if you need a little more help.

Answer the following questions to help you elaborate on the idea:

• How does this story illustrate what you want colleges to know about you?
• List at least 3 points you can make with this story:
• Write at least a paragraph summarizing your main story/theme.
• Describe some of the background leading up to the story.
• Zoom in on some details. Pretend you are taking a photograph of a moment from this story. Describe it in detail. Who was there? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? What are the images, colors, environment in the scene?
• What was the major turning point/highlight in the story?
• Discuss in more detail the outcome and how it impacted you. What did you learn? How were you changed?
• What is the life lesson? How will use this going forward? Is there something in this story that helps guide you in the way you will approach your life in college?

Example Answers

Here are some sample answers that our sample student might come up with. Remember the student’s personal purpose statement is, “I am a kind, outgoing, and funny person who loves to make people laugh and hopes to make a difference/impact by creating uplifting comedic productions and/or therapies that will help people heal from trauma.” Main Idea/Story/Theme: Volunteering at All Children’s Hospital – How Jill’s laughter healed me and made me realize what I wanted to do for others

1. How does this story illustrate what you want colleges to know about you?

• I believe laughter and comedy are healing
• I’m a kind person, volunteering/spending my free time with Jill, other kids
• I’ve done research on laughter as a healing medicine
• I have a goal to expand comedy programs/therapies in hospitals

2. List at least 3 points you can make with this story:

• Comedy is a valuable artform
• Healing modalities don’t always need to medicinal or serious
• I would contribute to a college by living this philosophy/perhaps creating similar programs

3. Write at least a paragraph summarizing your main story/theme (doesn’t have to be perfectly written at this point; these are just notes). The summer after my freshman year, I joined a couple of friends in the Healing Hearts program. We visited sick children twice a week. They wanted us to read to them, keep them company, play games. I met Jill on my second visit. She was 7 years old and had a rare lung disease. We didn’t even talk about that much. Mainly, she told me about what a pain it was to be poked and prodded and tested all the time. She just wanted to be a normal kid playing with her friends at home. That part of me that just wants to see people smile kicked in. I started coming up with jokes, books, and other things that I thought would entertain Jill. That one day, Jill finally broke out into an all-out giggling attack I saw her so differently. She was, if even for a moment, not feeling or thinking about pain or being sick. She looked completely different too. Then I got caught up in the laughing too and I felt it too. Relief. It clicked right then. Maybe I had always wanted to make people laugh because it made me feel better when they were happy. Was that selfish? As we kept laughing, I realized we were giving each other a mutual gift. Laughter is contagious. I also started wondering about its real healing effects.

4. Describe some of the background leading up to the story. ‍ I’ve always loved watching a good comedy, stand-up comedians and making people laugh. When someone isn’t happy, it becomes my mission to turn their frown upside down. I never really understood the power of humor, however, until ironically, I started what some would consider a very sad volunteer job spending time with young children who have major and sometimes life-threatening diseases. Even my mom tried to talk me out of doing it, thinking I’d end up depressed.

5. Zoom in on some details. Pretend you are taking a photograph of a moment from this story. Describe it in detail. Who was there? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? What are the images, colors, environment in the scene? Moment with Jill laughing. Sitting in her room which was drab white and gray. Only color was from a few pretty pictures she had drawn that were hanging on the wall. Her mom was sitting in the corner reading a book on her kindle. I had brought my own joke book that day, determined to get her to laugh. The jokes kept bombing though. She’d chuckle politely. Then the nurse came in to check on her. She took her temperature and blood pressure, said a few words to the mom, and left. Jill rolled her eyes. Then I rolled my eyes dramatically. Jill rolled her eyes and this went back and forth a few times until I just crossed my eyes and pretended to pass out on the floor. Jill started to laugh so much I saw tears forming in her eyes. I started laughing too and then I snorted. That was it. We both lost it. Even her mother couldn’t help but laugh too.

6. What was the major turning point/highlight in the story? Jill transformed before my eyes when she was laughing. This little girl who always looked sad and in pain was suddenly light and free. I witnessed the power of a good laugh and felt it for myself as well.

7. Discuss in more detail the outcome and how it impacted you. What did you learn? How were you changed? I wanted to investigate and learn if there was any real data to support laughter being healing. I did a research paper and found some interesting studies (can give some stats). It also made me realize this was something I would always participate in, whether as a volunteer or hopefully as more of a career.

8. What is the life lesson? ‍ How will use this going forward? Is there something in this story that helps guide you in the way you will approach your life in college? I will definitely pack my sense of humor and my desire to make others smile when I go to college. There’s plenty of seriousness in the world. I prefer to see the brighter side.

What Makes A Good Essay?

As mentioned previously, a good college admissions essay is authentic, reveals something about the student that can’t be found in the rest of the application, and shows that the student is introspective and self-aware.Remember that the admissions officers are reading hundreds of essays, so at the minimum, you want to submit a well written, well-thought-out essay that is error-free. At best, you are hoping to give them an interesting essay that holds their attention and is memorable for them. Don’t let that intimidate you. As an essay advisor who has read countless essays, I never tire of reading the fascinating stories students share. Everyone has a story to tell and there are infinite ways to weave your own personal tale and introduce yourself to the reader.

Some of the basic elements that comprise a “good” essay are:

• An attention-getting opening line or paragraph (the “hook”), which we will discuss in more detail later
• A strong conclusion
• Conversational tone – this essay is not a research paper or literature essay with a strict structure. Think of it as a blog entry.
• Clean writing, meaning there are no spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors (make sure your essay is proofread several times by different people before you submit it)
• Overall, it flows well and makes sense
• Accurate word count (you don’t have to be exact, but don’t go over or way under)
• If answering a prompt, make sure your essay stays focused on the subject of the prompt
• It’s written in your voice, meaning it sounds like you (readers can tell when parents, advisors, or teachers have helped a little too much)

What Makes A Bad Essay?

I’d love to say there are no bad essays, but there are occasions where students veer off track. here are some common pitfalls you should avoid:.

Don’t brag about yourself or your accomplishments. Example: Here’s a line from one student’s first draft: “Even though I was one of the smarter kids in the highest class…” Now, even though the student was trying to make a point about how shy they were, this line comes across as boastful. Stay away from these kinds of statements or find a way to say it that doesn’t sound like you are bragging. Exceptions would be if it is part of a bigger story in which the actions or outcomes are revealing something about your character or a lesson learned. Along the same lines, don’t list your accomplishments in your essay. That’s what the other parts of the application are for. Don’t use words or ideas that don’t sound like you. It’s nice to stretch yourself a bit in your writing, using synonyms to avoid repetitive words and showing that you have a wide vocabulary. But some students get caught up in impressing the readers and sprinkle their essays with complicated words they don’t even understand. Again, admissions officers read right through that. Be yourself! Don’t rush through the essay writing. It will show. Don’t get too cutesy. There’s a fine line between originality/creativity and trying so hard to be different that it misses the mark. Don’t use too many clichés. For instance, “life is hard,” “you don’t appreciate things until you lose them,” “every cloud has a silver lining.” Communicate these things in your own original thoughts and words. I would add that using quotes at the opening of essays is also cliché if not executed properly. Don’t use profanity, discuss bodily functions in too much detail, or overshare about personal situations, such as your sex life. (Yep, people do these things.)

There are also some topics that are best to avoid if possible, mainly because they are overused or not well-executed. The caveat here is that I have seen some exceptional essays on these subjects so don’t get discouraged if you want to tackle one of these. Just make sure your essay has a personal twist and demonstrates an insightful, mature view of how you were affected and changed.

Some of these “tricky” topics include:

• Sports stories . A lot of students tell the common story about a great victory or defeat. Not only is it overused, but students also fall into the trap of giving more of a play by-play account, rather than speaking about themselves and their emotions and perspectives. If you’re going to use an athletic experience, make sure it tells something about you as an individual – how you were transformed, what you learned, how it affected who you are today.
• Personal tragedy stories . Again, you may have a poignant story to share about loss, illness, grief and those do make for some compelling, heartfelt essays. If you choose to write about it, make sure to focus mainly on the personal growth and transformation you experienced as a result of the tragedy. The mistake students sometimes make is getting bogged down in the minute details of the event. You’ll want to give no more than 25 percent of the essay to relaying the tragic details and spend the rest of your word count letting the reader know what role this tragedy played in your life on a broad scale and perhaps, how it influenced you to a certain path.
• Volunteer/mission/community service experience. This has just been done too many times. But if you have a unique twist that covers more than “it opened my eyes to things I never knew,” then go for it. Maybe you made a lifelong connection or chose a career because of it.
• Writing about a person who has influenced you . The biggest pitfall here is spending too much time talking about the other person so the reader learns more about the person you’re writing about than they do about you. This type of essay is successful when you show how that person influenced your values or character and how that’s being expressed in your life.
• I’m going to add Covid-19 to the list this year as no doubt, thousands will write about this issue. Keep in mind that the Common App has added space for a brief optional response on this topic (see Part VI for more on this). My fear is that on the personal statement, admissions officers’ eyes may begin to glaze over when they see another Covid-19 essay. On the other hand, I do think there will be some powerful stories that emerge from this shared global experience. If you have a compelling personal story related to the pandemic that truly changed/impacted your life, thinking, or life path in some way – and requires more than the 250 words you’re being allotted on the Covid-19 essay – then just make sure to tell it in a way that focuses mostly on your unique experience/ transformation. Similarly to the personal tragedy subject, you shouldn’t spend time talking about details that everyone is already familiar with; focus on the impact it had on you.

What makes an essay stand out from the rest?

The French phrase, je ne sais quoi , comes to mind when trying to answer this question. It means, “an indefinable, elusive quality, especially a pleasing one.” Often, it’s difficult to pinpoint what makes an essay special or memorable; it just has that je ne sais quoi and you know it when you read it.

That said, there are some common elements that are typically found in outstanding essays:

• Creativity/originality – something new that the reader hasn’t seen a hundred times
• Compelling storytelling
• They evoke emotions, perhaps inspire
• Show depth of thought
• Include vivid descriptions and details

The good news is that you don’t have to be a master writer, have experienced an earth-shattering experience, or have all life’s answers to create an excellent essay that the reader will appreciate. Simply being willing to be vulnerable and share honestly goes a long way. And some of the best essays I’ve read are based on simple, everyday stories and experiences. The following section has a few exemplar essays with comments following each to point out what makes them successful.

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20 Brainstorming Ideas For College Essays

Why? Because I’m working on essays with several seniors right now and, for the most part, it’s a painful process for them. Between homework and assignments for school, activities, and sports, it’s hard to find time to write your essay .

And while it’s hard to sit down and turn that blank piece of paper into something poetic, it’s ten times harder if you don’t even know what you want to write about. Sure, you have the Common App essay prompts to work off of, but which one is going to help you write the essay which will propel your application from good to great?

If this is you and you’re having a tough time just getting some ideas on paper, here are a few prompts to get your creative juices flowing:

• What is your favorite subject and why?
• How do you spend your time outside of school?
• What are your most unique talents?
• What is important to you?
• How has a moment in your life inspired you to be a different person?
• What is a life lesson that you’ve learned (especially if you learned it the hard way)?
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What is the most unusual thing you’ve ever done?
• What is the most interesting place you’ve ever visited or travelled to?
• What is an accomplishment or achievement you are most proud of?
• What is an obstacle or challenge you have had to overcome?
• Who is someone in your life you are inspired by and why?
• What jobs have you held and what have you liked and disliked about them?
• How are you different from your friends or classmates?
• What is your relationship like with your family (think immediate and non-immediate family)?
• How would your best friend describe you?
• How would your parents describe you?
• How would your brother or sister (if you have either) describe you?
• If you had a “do-over” in your life, what is something you would do differently and why?

Some of these prompts require you to dig a little deeper than others, but at the end of the day they are all designed to do one thing: get you thinking about yourself. Because that’s what your essay is for; an opportunity to tell admissions counselors about awesome and wonderful you.

If you have questions about writing your college essay or would like some help getting unstuck from writer’s block, use the comment box below or email me directly at [email protected] . I would love to hear from you!

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Getting Started: Essay Brainstorming

Gain the tools you need to identify strong essay topics for your general and supplemental college essays.

Webinar Transcription

2021-09-01 Getting Started Essay Brainstorming

[00:00:00] So, hi everyone. Welcome to the CollegeAdvisor’s webinar on Getting Started Essay Brainstorming. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start off with a presentation. Then answer your questions in a live Q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides and you can start submitting your questions in the Q and a tab.

Um, next, uh, let’s get you to meet her presenter. I’m gonna, you can’t see her video right now. She actually has a flash flood, but she’s still gonna be with us via audio. Um, yeah, if you want to give a quick introduction to me. Hi, everyone. Sorry about my virtual presence. Um, I tried to connect with the camera, but it didn’t work out unfortunately, but my name is Tamara.

Um, I graduated from Georgetown university, um, in 2019. Um, and I majored in international history at the school for in service. Um, I’ve since gone on to complete a master’s degree in human rights as well. And I’ve been with c CollegeAdvisor for about a year. [00:01:00] Um, prior to that, I also worked in college advising with another company for about two years.

Okay. Alright.

Okay. So the subject of. Our webinar today is, um, getting started with your essay brainstorming. Um, so I’m just going to go through some of the more common essay types that you will encounter, um, and, um, share some examples. Um, and, um, I will ask Lily to let me know if my audio is not, um, cooperating. So my apologies in advance.

Um, so one of the. As Izzy you will encounter is the common app essay, which is also commonly referred to as your personal statements. Um, your personal essay, they’re kind of different ways to, to talk about it, depending on who you ask. Uh, but this is going to be the major essay that you will write, um, that the majority of universities will ask of you.

Um, it will be 650 words. Um, [00:02:00] and if you are applying to a school that uses the common app, um, you will have seven prompts to choose from, and you can find this from online. Um, they. Sometimes vary year to year, but for the most part, they stayed pretty consistent for the last four or five years. Um, at least for as long as I’ve been in this, uh, college advising space, um, you will also have supplemental essays for some university.

So this will be questions that are specific to the college you are applying to. In addition, usually to your common app essay, um, they will vary in length anywhere between 150 words to 500 words, sometimes more, um, and prompts will also vary. Uh, but there’s some common themes that I will touch on later in the webinar.

And lastly, you might also come across additional essays if you are applying for merit scholarships. So this could be or scholarships that are specific to a college or private scholarships. Um, in any case, if you’re applying to those, um, there would likely be at least one additional essay you will have to write okay.

Onto the next [00:03:00] slide, on the personal statement versus supplemental. So for your personal statement, um, this is going to be, um, you can think of it as a, sort of a big picture essay about who you are. Um, what are some important characteristics or values that you hold? Um, and the college admissions panel or reader will really look to this essay to better understand sort of how you tick what’s important to you.

You know, these could be a variety of different aspects of your personality. It could be talking about a value. So for example, um, if you are someone who is really passionate about community service or for whom family, um, is very important, that’s, those are examples of values. Um, you could also use your personal statement to share a pivotal event or experience in your life.

So, uh, for instance, if you’ve moved to town schools or in countries, um, during high school, right before high school, that could be a pivotal experience that you choose to, um, write your essay about. [00:04:00] Um, you could also write about, um, any aspect of your identity, so that could be cultural identity, spiritual, religious identity, ethnic identity.

Um, it could be your identity as an athlete, as a musician. Um, so anything that you deem to be an identity is kind of a valid example of what you could share in your essay. Um, In terms of supplemental essays. Um, as I mentioned, there will be a variety of questions, um, that you will encounter, but some common themes include your motivation for applying to a particular college or a particular major.

So, you know, they will ask you, for instance, why are you applying to hail? Why are you applying to the university of Maryland? So why do you choose us as opposed to all the other colleges that are out there? And similarly, why are you wanting to study biology, math, English, whatever it may be. Um, what compelled you to choose this, this subject?

These lessons could also ask you about your general qualifications. So prior interest in the major you’re planning to choose or an experience in a subject, um, extracurricular experience, [00:05:00] personal experience, um, you could also see some supplemental essays that, um, ask you about your plans for the future.

So those could be kind of first to medium term plans for examples. What clubs would you join? How, um, how will you get involved in your, in your community, what your study, um, and it could be more long-term plans. So kind of, how do you see this degree contributing to your future career, um, and where you see yourself after college, and finally, um, how would you touch on this, but, um, how will you contribute to the campus?

Community is a prompt that is very common. Um, and it can take a variety of different angles. Sometimes it will look at it from the angle of diversity. So sort of what unique, um, experiences or identities do you bring to campus that will. Um, enrich the experience for everyone who attends and it could be more sort of straightforward.

Um, as I mentioned, how do you plan to get involved, um, on campus, beyond just attending classes? [00:06:00] Great. All right. Next slide. On examples of supplemental essay prompts. So, um, let me just go through now, some of the examples that I mentioned and share a little bit more detail about, um, what those will be and how you could approach them, um, if, or rather when you encounter those, when you apply to college.

So the first one is I mentioned is why do you want to attend a specific school? Um, and I try to include. Uh, an example from a real university from 2021, not all colleges have updated all of their supplemental essay prompts for this admission cycle, but the majority of them have, so these are up to date.

So an example of a why school XSA is one from duke. So as you can see on the slide, um, it asks you to share why you consider duke a good match and then asked you if there’s anything particular about Dick’s offerings that attracts you. So this is a very classic example of the way that the separate question would be formulated.

[00:07:00] Obviously then Haim will differ, but the essence of it will be the same. And we’re asking you to provide specifics specific details about that university that appealed to you. So not just to say that it’s a great school, but to provide examples of how the school is a good match for you. The second question in a very similar vein is why do you want to study a specific major?

So say you want to be, you want to major in history, which is what I majored in. Um, you will want to, uh, justify your interests. Now it’s important to remember that when you’re asked about your majors, it’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule that you will major in what you say, you plan on majoring in and that’s okay, no one will hold you to this.

But when you do apply, you need to have some sort of explanation justification as to why you’re interested in the subject matter. So this admission cycle, according to the Mellon, asks you to explain what passionate inspiration led you to bloody to [00:08:00] choose this area of study. I’m getting a message that there is an issue with the audio potentially.

Um, Lily, can you hear me okay? Yeah. I’m your audio cut out for like a second, but we can still hear you. So I will continue that case. Um, I think we can continue to the next slide. All right. Um, but on the next slide, fantastic. Um, so, uh, another common prompt, as I mentioned, we’ll ask you about your extracurricular activities, um, extracurricular activities, um, as broadly defined as you can think.

So it doesn’t necessarily mean a school club. It can mean an activity that you engage in outside of school. So maybe in your community, maybe you’re helping out in a family business. Um, maybe you’re helping out with siblings or, or supporting your family in some way. Maybe you have a job. So all of those are examples of extracurricular activity.

So don’t just think, you know, um, afterschool newspaper or a school sport, [00:09:00] um, at MIT and example of this type of question, um, as you can see on the slide is. Tell him tell him about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. So that’s kind of a fun twist on extracurricular activity. Um, taking it even beyond sort of the realm of what do I do?

Um, that’s an addition to my schoolwork too. What do I do for fun specifically? So that can be anything from, you know, having your own beauty, YouTube channel or knitting, any sort of hobby. Um, you can discuss in a type of question, some of them are going to be more straightforward where they will ask you to discuss, uh, extracurricular activity in school or outside of school.

But, um, sometimes you get more flexibility, um, next prompt or an example of a supplemental prompt, um, is how will you contribute to your campus community? Um, and. UNC this coming cycle, um, is asking you how you could [00:10:00] actually, what you would actually change, how you would better your community and why it’s important to you and how will you work to sort of implement it.

And the idea behind these questions is to assess, um, that you have, that you’re a team player that you and or that you have leadership skills and that you have clear ideas about issues that are important to you, whether that’s in your hometown or on your future campus, which will become your home community for four years.

And that you’re able to articulate why something is meaningful and important to you and, um, how you would want to work to prove it, essentially, which is. Which is how UNC phrases it. Um, and the last category is a fun one. So this is going to be your creative prompts or a grab bag. Uh, it’s hard to summarize what you will come across here simply because, you know, by nature of this category, um, it can vary, but these are the ones, the prompts that will ask you to be a little more creative, to have a little bit more fun with it.

Um, university of [00:11:00] Chicago is infamous for their essay prompts because they’re always quite funky. Um, one, um, infamous example is what’s so easy about PI. Um, I applied to the university of Chicago back in 2015. When I applied to colleges, I to this day, cannot frankly tell you where they get some of these questions and why they asked them, but they’re always very fun and engaging, and they kind of get your creative juices flowing, which is a welcome change of pace.

After, you know, you’ll have turned out many why college X, a supplemental. And another, uh, creative prompt. It’s a little bit less say more conventional is from GW. Um, which asks you, you know, if you could change the course of history, what would you change? Um, they used to have a fun prompt asking you what historical figures it would have dinner with.

Um, I remember it because I, when I applied, I, I chose that one as my supplemental essay prompts. Um, I think we can go to the next slide [00:12:00] now. Yeah. Great. So that was a great overview of a few different, like really common essay prompts that you might be seeing and also the different I see that you should be planning for.

Um, so next I have a question for every in the audience. Um, so just to have a, uh, do a quick check-in, have you guys started brainstorming for your college equities and you guys can let us know in the poll, um, if you started for your personal statement or your supplemental essays or your scholarship essays, um, and then also it’s totally okay.

If you haven’t started yet, um, this webinar will help you basically figure out how to get started. Um, and also answer any questions that you guys might have about getting. All right. So I’m looking at the pool so far. It looks like a lot of people are kissing me. Haven’t studied yet, but they planned, you’ve seen just great.

Um, or they’ve already certain their personal statement, which is also awesome. So I’ll leave the poll open for a few more seconds before I get back to,

okay. Uh, I’m going to close the poll and then I’ll put you on the next slide.[00:13:00]

All right. Um, so next, uh, next site is Wednesday essay brands. Great. So it sounds like the majority of our listeners are starting to think about brainstorming, but maybe having actually kind of sat down to, to get that writing started, which is totally okay. You’re in a good place in the application cycle.

Um, so, um, in terms of pacing and, and timelines, uh, you’re going to want to start when you start your essay brainstorming, you’re always going to want to start with your personal statement or your common app essay as it’s going to be most likely the longest essay you write, you will send that essay out to the majority, if not all schools that you apply to.

So you want to devote more time to it and you want to start with it rather. Um, and so on the personal statement, you want to start early. Um, as I mentioned, this is an essay. It is a little bit more focused on who you are, your identity and your personality, um, which are presumably [00:14:00] something you’re already quite familiar with.

Um, They likely will not change in the next one to three months between now and sort of your college essay deadlines, so you can already get started on it. So then rather than later, uh, the common app application, um, has opened, it opened August 1st, the essay prompts are available, so you can freely begin up restarting process.

Um, today, tomorrow after this webinar, um, w generally speaking though, to the pay thing, the summer between your junior and senior year is, is a good time to start reflecting and planning your personal statement essay. Um, so if you’re a rising senior and you’re getting started now, it’s September 1st, um, you’re in a good place if you’re a rising junior or sophomore, and you’re trying to figure out, you know, if you should already hurry up and get started, don’t worry.

You still have some time to go a year or two. Uh, but the summer before senior year, um, is a good place. Both place to begin brainstorming now on supplemental essays. Um, there is [00:15:00] a few, a few pointers for deciding when to get started. So first of all, uh, if you’ve already completed your personal statement, you’ve, you’ve done your brainstorming.

You’ve already written it. Um, the next sort of logical step is to, to move on to your supplemental essays. Um, if you have any, um, Overall, you want to know you would have a pretty good idea of what colleges you want to apply to. So you want to have your list of colleges ready. It doesn’t have to be 100% done, but you want to have a good sense of some of the schools you’re going to be applying to because supplemental essays will of course depend on the school and you might be hearing thunder.

My background, I apologize. There’s there’s a lot going on outside today. Um, now for supplemental essays, prompts are not posted consistently. So when these prompts are shared, will really vary by school. Most of them we’ll try to get them out around July, August. So by the time the common app opens, especially if they’re a common app school, they want to have their prompts updated.

But almost always nearly all colleges will [00:16:00] hop their prompts updated before the end of summer. So that’s the end of your rising senior summer. Um, so you already have them on hand. Um, but I also don’t recommend you trying to brainstorm your supplemental essays for all colleges at the same time. Um, I really encourage you to pick one college, work on it, do your brainstorming, do your writing, and then move on to the next one.

You will see some common themes across supplemental essays, and you will be able to kind of reuse and recycle and adopt. Uh, but you don’t want to overwhelm your brain and sort of try to plan everything out all at once. Um, my next slide is on brainstorming strategies. So this, these strategies are useful for all essays.

Um, common app supplements. Um, obviously some of the points may not apply depending on what the question is asking, but these are some good rules of thumb. So first start is, you know, if you’re really kind of. Um, sitting in front of a blank, blank sheet of paper or in 2021, a blank screen, most likely, um, [00:17:00] some of the exercises that you can do to sort of get your creative juices flowing, um, is number one, you could just write out some adjectives that you think best describes you.

So these can be adjectives that you yourself would use. Um, you can pull your friends, your parents, your siblings, um, ask them for, you know, top two, top three adjectives they would use and write them all out. Good, bad. I mean, you don’t want to say anything negative about yourself, overtly negative about yourself in an essay, but for brainstorming purposes, you want to go get all of it down on the page.

Another good strategy is to make a list of your interests. So these can be school, subject interests. So you really like math, maybe you really hate physics. Um, these can be strong likes or strong dislikes, um, but focus more on your likes and your interests and things that drive you and inspire you. Um, and you can also pull from your extracurricular activities and your hobbies, anything you do on your own time, for fun to just write out some things you enjoy doing [00:18:00] so they can be activities.

So for example, you like skiing or they can be, um, more about skills. So maybe you enjoy languages and learning new languages. You may not be in a language club, but that might be something that excites you. And that works for you. And had this strategy is to think back to your whole life, but really the last three to four years of your life to see if there were any really key events or moments, maybe you won, maybe you’re an athlete and you won an important competition.

Um, maybe as I mentioned, um, at an early age, during an earlier slide, you know, you moved to another town or another school, um, and it was a big pivotal moment, um, because it exposed you to a new community. You made new friends, et cetera. Uh, maybe you had an important milestone in a relationship or a friendship.

And this is something I can touch on. Um, a little bit more. I think it’s a common question. I get about essays in, in QA, you know, about topics not to write on, but, [00:19:00] um, so there’s some caveats to writing about your relationships with your friends or your family members or your siblings. Um, but, um, for your brainstorming, you know, it’s a good idea to, to visit revisit those as well.

Um, and finally, you can also talk about finding a new passion or an interest, you know, um, through an activity or on your own time, that can also be a formative experience. Um, as I mentioned before, you want to, you want to talk to your best friend, your siblings, your parents want to brainstorm with them because sometimes things that you maybe wouldn’t, um, necessarily.

Think about yourself or maybe it would be so obvious that you wouldn’t even think to put them down on a page or things that stand out to people who know you best. Um, so it’s a good idea to consult them. You can also ask your teachers, um, you know, anyone your work with you’re close with. Um, and finally, a more common out personal statement.

Specific strategy is to take a look at the prompts, the common app prompts, and really pick one or two. So rather [00:20:00] than trying to brainstorm for every single of the seven prompts that are out there, pick one or two that stand out to you as either interesting or perplexing or provoking, um, or that very clearly speak to you as, oh, I know exactly.

You know what I would say to this question and then make a little draft outline. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy or formal, just bullet points about, you know, what, how would you answer this question? What story would you tell if, for example, a friend of yours, you know, At a sleepover asked you this question, which is not a very likely scenario, but in a kind of, not a too formal settings.

How would you answer this question? The next slide is on brainstorming to get started on writing specifically. So one of the big, uh, fear is that, you know, my, my own students, my own clients that I request asked me about is sort of, well, what if I don’t know how to get started? So this is, this is your [00:21:00] classic writer’s blog situation where you, you’ve kind of done your homework, you’ve done your research, you know, where you want to apply, but when it’s time, time comes to start writing you kind of freeze.

Um, and as kind of cliche, as it may sound a really good strategy for, for writing is to, to just start writing. Um, and these can be nonsensical strings of words. They can be bullet points. They can be, um, Numbered lists, whatever works for you, but, uh, start mapping out, um, some kind of structure for your, for your essay.

Um, try, try trying to answer the question. Um, you can use some of the brainstorming strategies I mentioned to get you started kind of in that, in that writing, get to get you in that writing mindset. Um, this also allows you the strategy of kind of putting everything down in paper. It allows you to get some of them, you know, chatter out of the way and [00:22:00] make room for more creative ideas.

So what that means is, you know, maybe the first couple of ideas you have for answering the prompt are a little bit silly or a little bit too general. Uh, but by writing them out, which will allow your brain to sort of shift its attention away from those and to dig a little bit more deeper into, um, other answers that you might have for any given prompt.

Okay. These allergies, these brainstorming strategies allow you to, um, reflect a little bit on your life as well, which is not something we get to do often or to everyday life. We tend to kind of go through it and just do things. And we don’t necessarily think about why we do them or what motivates us. Um, so kind of get yourself in that creative, um, rather reflective mindset and start thinking about, okay, what are some, some key highlights from my past couple of years in high school, um, that I would want someone to know about.

Um, and my last, um, last point that [00:23:00] I do want to stress is that there is such a thing as overthinking your essays. So if you spend too much time in this brainstorming stage, um, where, you know, you’re mapping and remapping and outlining and making extended outlines of every single, um, essay prompt questions, Um, you, you risk getting stuck there because of course you’re never going to get a perfect answer.

Um, none of us are perfect. Um, you want to do your best, you want to put your best foot forward, but you also don’t want to get so stuck in the brainstorming that you can never bring yourself to actually sit down and start writing, you know, full sentences, full paragraphs and answering a question. Great.

Um, my next slide is on how to brainstorm to write better essays. So, um, some of the most important points to keep in mind, um, for writing strong essays, um, is to make sure, first of all, that you have, um, a sense of a narrative that you’re [00:24:00] trying to put forward on the page so that you’re not just stating a series of facts.

So if, for example, you’re writing about a formative. Formative experience like moving to a new country. Um, I use this example often because that’s what I wrote one of my essays about, because that’s, that was my experience. Um, so if you’re writing about that, um, you want to make sure that there’s an overarching point or seem to, or message to your essay.

So you’re not just saying, you know, when I was 14, I moved to another country. Um, and then I went to a new school, um, had learned, um, to study a new language and it was difficult. Um, you know, I’m, I’m really simplifying here, but you want to make sure that there’s kind of a takeaway, right? So you want to ask the sub that, so what question, so what this happened to you, but what does it mean?

What did it, um, make you feel? What does make you think, uh, was kind of a person, did it make you to have had this experience? Um, [00:25:00] it helps to have a narrative because it allows you to. Not get stuck in the middle of your writing process, because you can always reference back to your main message, or you can almost think of it as a thesis statement.

If that’s something that you’ve learned in high school, you know, to register the statement for each essay in social studies or English, um, you can always reference back to that main message. Um, if at any point you get stuck and ask yourself, okay, is what I’m writing right now are the examples of providing right now contributing to that main message or are they heading to it or are they taking me on a tangent in a completely different direction?

Um, and not helping me to get my main point of. Um, another important aspect of essay writing is to make sure that, you know, I told you not to over-prepare, but you still want to prepare, um, you want to have sort of a grab bag of examples, um, for different types of [00:26:00] questions. Um, you saw some of those different questions you might encounter earlier.

Um, so you want to have, rather than writing about one example over and over again, um, maybe you write about a sports injury, for example, um, as a formative experience, or it’s an important moment in your high school career. Um, you don’t want to just write about that example for every question that you receive, because one you’ll get tired, you’ll get tired and you’ll get sloppy and you’ll run out of details to share and to.

When you apply to colleges, it is very likely that you will write more than one essay per college. So you will have your personal statement and one to two to three to four supplemental essays and one your essays to be a coherent package. So you want them to tell a big overarching story about who you are as an applicant.

Um, and so if every one of your essay talks about the same one or two examples, [00:27:00] activities, life events, then you know, your reader’s going to get bored and they’re not going to glean anything new about you. Um, and they’re going to move on to the next applicant. So think of every essay in an application as a sort of one part of a big hole, right?

So if one essay talks about, um, an important value that you hold in another one, add to that by talking about, um, an interesting fashion that you have, and another one talks about maybe your family and. Formative experience your family. So you want each essay to reveal a new sort of sight of you, um, as opposed to hammering kind of the same point over and over again.

Um, so I think, I think we’re through to the end of this slide. Um, yeah. Um, after this section, as soon as he tells me a bit more about smell for on personal experiences when it comes to the essay brainstorming process, um, before we actually get to that section, I have one last question for you [00:28:00] guys. Um, so just to gauge how prepared everyone feels, um, my question is how prepared do you feel about the college application process?

Um, so you guys can let us know in the polls sort of where you are right now. Um, and also it’s totally okay if you don’t feel prepared, um, this webinar will help you guys basically, um, just, just know what to do next for the essay branching process. So that way, if you’re getting started now with your college apps, you can really just go into.

Um, all right, so it looks like maybe a third of you guys are feeling not prepared, but you’re also feeling ready for anything just, okay. Um, and then the other three are also feeling prepared, but it has some questions. So as a reminder, you can start dropping questions now in the Q and a section, and you don’t have to wait until the QA starts.

Um, and then we’ll be sucking your questions, um, throughout the second half of the webinar. Right? So I’ll give you guys a few more seconds. I, before I close the poll,

um, back to you tomorrow on how you have been shunned for your college. [00:29:00] So, um, I already alluded a little bit to some of the topics that I wrote about when I was applying. So I applied in 2015, which was more than six years ago, which is crazy to imagine. Um, and I. Was a first-generation student in my family to go to college in the United States.

So my family is from Russia and we immigrated when I was in middle school. So I was the first one to go through the American college applications process. Um, and I didn’t really know how to approach it at all. You know, maybe I Googled around, I’m not even sure at this point. Um, I talked to my friends, um, some of whom had older siblings or parents who went to college in the U S um, so, you know, their information was usually also outdated.

Um, and then I figured out sort of what goes into an application and I pulled up my essays and I just started writing. So my common app, I looked at the prompts and I thought, you know, first prompt, um, prompt number one, which has not changed since 2015, [00:30:00] um, was easiest for me to respond to. And I took it and basically I just sat down and I started writing whatever came to me.

Um, I also definitely have this idea in mind. And that there sort of the quote unquote right. Or best ways to write an essay, sort of what I was trying to get into the mind of an admissions officer and say, what type of student would they want to admit to this school? Um, and what type of essay would that type of student.

Right. And I was trying to sort of cater to that imagined need, um, and to write in a way that I felt they would like, and of course I had no actual conception of what they wanted to see or what they would like or who else would apply together with me to the universities I was applying to. But I was trying to do that anyway, because I was anxious and stressed and I wanted to get into college.

And that felt like a good idea at the time. Um, and [00:31:00] in keeping with that theme, um, I was always trying to, you know, I didn’t lie or invent anything on my applications, but I was trying to take what I experienced and sort of fit into that mold of what is a good college essay or what is an essay that a top ranking university would expect from me.

Um, so rather than just reflecting on what were my takeaways from any given experience? So one supplemental essay I wrote, I remember it was about, um, my quality paper or school newspaper at that point. Uh, although I did newspaper in college as well with going this paper and my involvement in it and why I was passionate about it.

Um, and I distinctly remember, um, you know, trying to essentially make myself sound more impressive than I felt that I was as opposed to just being authentic and, and writing about why I liked writing, why I like taking photos, um, what my newspaper community gave me. Um, so, [00:32:00] you know, that last bullet point really summarizes it really well.

I was kind of trying to fit myself to their college as opposed to simply speaking about my own experiences in an authentic way. Um, and what’s even a bigger do not do is I know that I had a few top choices in mind. And so when I was writing my essays, I was really writing almost all of my essays to those top choices, even when those essays were going to other universities, maybe my safety schools, which is definitely not, um, not as strategy I endorse in retrospect.

Um, and with that, we’ll move on to the next slide.

Go ahead. Yes. So this is, um, I told you what I did and how I’m going to tell you, um, how to do better than 2015 tomorrow. Um, you know, all that said I did get into Georgetown, so, you know, I did something right. But, um, I think that the asset rating [00:33:00] process was much more stressful for me than maybe you needed to have been.

Um, if I had known, um, how to approach it better. So, as I mentioned before, one of the most important things that you can do when you’re planning your essays is to really start with where your eye, um, in your own experiences. So not trying to do what your friends are doing, not trying to do what your friends, older siblings did, uh, not trying to do what Google or college confidential tells you to do, but to just reflect on your own lived experiences, um, and try to pull out a few key moments and key themes in your own.

Um, you don’t want to be organized. So, you know, you don’t want your essays to be kind of a very confusing collection of everything that’s ever happened to you. That was important. Um, you want to make sure that you identify some themes, um, that I mentioned before. So, um, some common themes that I, I come across with my own students, um, include, but are not limited to writing about giving back to your community, [00:34:00] um, community service, how your identity or your faith informs your desire to give back to your community.

Um, writing about, um, perseverance or endurance in the context of a particular experience in extracurricular, in a sport, um, in a challenging academic course. Um, those are just some kind of ideas for what could be a theme that you could organize your, your thoughts around. Um, and of course, you know, you’ll, you’ll come up with your own themes.

Um, the possibilities are endless. I just want to give some concrete examples. Um, As I mentioned before, before you start writing, you want to figure out what is your narrative? What is the main story you were trying to tell and what angle you want to tell it from? Um, so going back to that newspaper example, um, you know, if the story that I want to tell is that I’m really passionate about uncovering the truth.

Um, if we’re going to speak about journalism, um, there is a few ways that you can approach that, right? You can approach it, um, by describing [00:35:00] an interesting story that you had to write for that newspaper and why that inspired you to want to pursue journalism as a major or potentially as a PA a career, or you can write about it from the angle of community.

So how being part of the newspaper helped you find a community of like-minded students and, and connect with them. So, you know, you’re talking about the same activity, the same ultimate main theme, but you’re tackling it from different directions. Um, as you’ve done all that, then you want to look at the prompts and see.

If you’re given the choice as with the common app, you’re given seven prompts. If you’re given the choice to pick one, you pick one that best fits with the seat you already identified for your story, right? Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes your supplemental essay question is what it is, and you have to find your best way to answer it.

But if you’re given some options, which you often are, you pick one that debt sort of resonates with you, the most resonates with you and with your narrative. Um, and as I [00:36:00] mentioned before, if you only have one prompt, um, you want to focus on your experience. You don’t want to try to guess what the admissions officer’s going to one, because there’s so many factors that go into their decisions that it’s absolutely impossible to ever predict or game out what they will want from a successful applicant.

Um, it’s a nightmare to try to do so. And I have to literally do not recommend trying, um, ultimately. You, you want to get into university because it is excited about you as an applicant, um, and authentic applicant, right? So you don’t want to try to tell them what they want to hear.

Right. I’m on the next slide. And, um, this is, I can’t really can’t stress that point enough. This is my main, if you take one thing away from this webinar, this is the one you will never be able to guess what a college wants or what are the best type of applicant is for any given college or for colleges in [00:37:00] general.

Um, so really just focused on, on reflecting and on, on figuring out the best, the best story that fits who you are and on what experiences you’ve had because experienced admissions officers are always going to know if you’re. Trying to impress them either by using really kind of Sansi pompous language or by kind of overstressing, maybe your importance, um, as a member of a particular school club, or really just doing anything to, to impress them.

Right. Impress them too much, too hard. Um, similarly they will always know for lying. Um, if you’re trying to invent experiences that you didn’t live because you think they’ll sound more impressive, um, you will not be able to write about them. Well, and any reader who’s, you know, had multiple years of experience reading these types of essays and your reader will know, um, they will know, and they will not.

Oh, that’d be a good outcome [00:38:00] for your application. Um, and finally, I think I eluded to this before admissions is kind of like dating. If a college doesn’t want you for who you are, then you’re, you’re better off without it. And you know, it wasn’t meant to be so really if you approach it with that kind of mentality, there are so many colleges out there and you are going to be able to find one that matches your interests, uh, matches your preferences and, and is what you need.

And that is also just as excited about you as your. Yeah, thanks Tamara for that great overview on brainstorming essays and also the essay writing process. Um, so that’s the end of the presentation part of our webinar. Um, just as a reminder, you can download the slides if you go to on the handouts tab and now we’re going to move on to the live Q and a.

Um, so for this section, I’ll read through the questions that you guys submitted in the QA tab. Um, and if for any questions that are selected, I’ll paste them into the public chats. You can see them and then I’ll read them out loud before tomorrow. Cause you guys can answer. Um, if you guys have any troubles submitting to the QA, you can also send [00:39:00] me a private and a chat message with your question.

Um, all right, so let’s go on the first question. Um, I just lost the question. Give me one second. All right. So the first question that we have is how do I make a college essay stand out?

That’s a good question. That is a fantastic question. Um, so you know, there’s a few things, some are a little bit more technical and kind of. Um, yeah, technical I’m detail oriented in somewhere a little bit more big picture. So in terms of technical questions, I mean, first and foremost, you want to make sure that it’s well-written, that is proof-read that there’s no grammatical errors that it’s well structured and it may not sound like something that would make it stand out.

But, um, it’s almost the opposite, right? If those things are not mad, if those boxes are not checked, it will stand out in a bad way. So you want to make sure that your kind of style grammar and flow are laid out, [00:40:00] um, and clear and well done. Um, other than that, um, in terms of big picture kind of setting yourself apart from other applicants, it’s it’s, as I mentioned before, it’s, it’s really trying to find something that is unique to you.

And I recognize in saying that. A lot of you who are here in this webinar, and a lot of other students, your age are going to have similar experiences on paper. So you will be playing similar sports. You will be, you know, in the same school clubs because many schools have the same clubs. Um, and so it can feel really stressful to try to figure out a way to be unique in that context.

But remember, you may be in a club with 20 other people, and they’re all going to have the same club on their resume, and they’re going to write about it potentially, but how w what you took away from that club, how you participated in it and what [00:41:00] conclusions you drew and how you developed as a person is going to be unique to you.

So really trying to bring it back to that idea of authenticity, um, and speaking, um, I mean, really speaking from the card and, and sharing the experiences that you know were impactful to you, as opposed to what others may think should have been impacted. Um, my next question is, are there any bad essay topics?

Can your essay be too political? That is a great question. Um, and it’s a question I get every year. Um, well, it’s really two questions. So in terms of bad essay topics, there are a few topics that are not recommended. Um, mostly because they are either overdone and too general or are so difficult to execute well that it’s usually best not to attempt them.

So some of those examples include writing about topics that are too personal. So, um, [00:42:00] things like, um, divorcing a family or a bad break. I am so sorry. This was a flood warning message. I don’t know if you’ve heard the beep. So. Right. So a divorce and family, a bad breakup with group, significant other, um, or a bad fight with a best friend.

Those are very intensely personal. And I don’t want to take away from the, you know, the difficulty of such an experience, but when it comes to writing college essays, um, you do want to remember you’re writing for a stranger, um, and 600 words or less. It’s really hard to convey some of the intricacies of these kinds of more personal subjects, and it can make a reader show uncomfortable.

Um, it can come off as oversharing. So you want to make sure that you’re picking topics that, um, yes. Speak to two formative experiences, but sort of keeping in mind your audience and who you’re writing for and why you writing. Um, can they be too political? Um, [00:43:00] That is, that is a great question. And especially, you know, in the last few years, uh, in, uh, are quite polarized political environment, um, it can be stressful to try to navigate that side of things.

And, um, I think if I’m not mistaking, there should be, um, a few good blog posts on our, on our CollegeAdvisor blog that touch exactly on the question. Um, but I will say now that if you write about something political, you want to make sure you’re writing about it because through a lens, through a personal lens, right?

So you’re not just stating a political opinion, but maybe you’re explaining why a particular issue is important to you. And you’ve worked really hard to advocate, um, for that issue and how that was impactful for you, how you grew as a person. Um, you know, did you mean. New people through this [00:44:00] political engagement.

Did you learn something or realize something that you didn’t realize before? So really bringing it back to that personal lens, right. As opposed to just a pining on a hot button issue, that’s kind of in the news cycle at any given moment. Great. Um, a few questions before we take a quick break. Um, next question is, should you include or avoid dialogue in your narrative?

Um, for that, I would say, honestly, it’s completely up to you. Um, it depends on who you are as a writer and sort of what you’re trying to do with your essay. Um, if it feels right, if you feel that it would add value to what you’re trying to say and get your message across better, by all means do it. I’ve had students who wrote a lot of dialogues students who wrote no dialogue, um, and both groups have been successful, um, in admissions.

So it’s really about. Um, another question, how long does it take to write an essay? Oh, that will be really [00:45:00] dependent on, uh, as well, uh, some on your process, really. So for some students, you know, they’ll spend a lot of time brainstorming. Um, and then when they sit down to write, it will be really smooth sailing for others.

Um, they will take time to edit and rewrite and copy edit. It depends on, you know, how strong of a writer you are. Also. It depends on whether you like writing or not quite frankly, because maybe you’re someone who’s really into physics, math, and those are the subjects you’ve been pursuing for four years, really.

And when you have to sit down and suddenly write, you know, these pages and pages of texts, when you combine all of the essays together, you know, that might be slow going for you. So it’s really, really hard to get an estimate. Um, I. Quantitative metric I can give is on average, my students for any given essay, they usually go through about 2, 3, 4 drafts of an essay [00:46:00] before they’re satisfied with it.

But how much time those drafts take really depends on the person. Okay, great. And before we get back to QA and I also do, and I tell you guys more about how you can get help and also more about CollegeAdvisor. Um, so I’m going to send out, um, a offer and if you guys can go and click the link and learn more about CollegeAdvisor, um, and how to get one-on-one help.

So if you want to work one-on-one with an advisor and we have a ton of advisors here on over 155, um, of both advisors who are current students or alumni from colleges and also former admissions officers. Um, so you can click the link if you want to sign up for free consultation. Um, all you have to do is click on the green chat button at the bottom of the screen.

And then if you write in the word consultation, alight, you know that we’ll come back to you and it we’ll be able to help you set up your free competition. Yeah, this is a really great resource. Um, he worked with people like Tamara, um, who really know a lot about, um, project missions and the essay writing process.

So especially if you didn’t get your answer, um, insert into QA on [00:47:00] today on puzzles, they’re a great place to find some answers and get some help. Um, right. So back to the Q and a, um, the next question that we had was how do I make sure my essay doesn’t sound sad and attention seeking? That’s that’s a really good question, uh, as well.

And I think the biggest tip there, um, I know I mentioned, um, a few topics that, you know, might be a little bit too personal to write about, but, um, it, regardless of what you just write about, what you want to keep in mind is, um, you don’t want to just stop at sort of telling the reader what happened to you, right?

So if you just lay out the situation, it is true that you run the risk of coming off as. Um, what, what was the question side and efficiency? Can you re you run a risk of, of coming off in a less favorable light, but you want to take it that one step further and say, okay, so this happened to me where I lived this experience and how has it [00:48:00] made me better or stronger or more resilient resilience.

So what did it add to me that I can talk about in a more positive light? And it doesn’t need to be that you had some challenging experience. Um, you don’t need to force yourself to pretend that you’re okay with it or to kind of brush it off as, oh, this hardest thing happened to me, but it’s fine. Uh, that’s not at all what I’m suggesting you do, but it’s more about kind of what, how has.

Helps you grow as a person, right? So if you take it that extra step forward, then you won’t come off as sad or attention seeking. You will come off as a resilient person who is able to take things that come at them and, um, and turn them around to, to evolve and grow. Great. Um, next question we have is how can we create an attention grabbing hook?

Um, that’s a really hard question to [00:49:00] answer broadly kind of in a webinar without, um, having some idea of what you’re writing about. Um, a few common strategies. Um, so let me, let me share two, uh, kind of off the top of my head one, um, is going back to that dialogue question is to kind of start off with aligned from a dialogue you’re having or something that was said to you.

If it’s really attention grabbing, if it really gets at the heart of what you’re writing about. And the second, which is really an extension of the first is to start in the moment. Right. So if you’re describing an event or situation to, to open your essay by putting the reader, just dropping them in that situation, what was it like to be there?

What did it smell like? What did it sound like? What did it feel like to be you in that moment in time? So, you know, there are ways to do that poorly. Um, so you want to be careful that you don’t, uh, disorient the [00:50:00] reader too much, but starting with that kind of in the action hook, uh, can help them to, to stay engaged with, with your essay as you then kind of zoom out and start to give a little bit more analysis of what’s going on.

Okay. Um, our next question is a little bit similar. It’s how should I start my essay? I heard I’ve heard that you can start off with a story and then end with that story. I just know that coats are good to start off with. Um, what are some other good things. Oh, you stole a whole of my good examples. You’ve already listed all of them, so you’re already in a good place.

Um, so we mentioned a quote, um, mentioned story. Um, you know, there is really as many ways to start an essay as there are people who write those essays. Um, I’m trying to think back to some of the essays I recently edited. And a lot of them do start either with a quote or a story is a very common [00:51:00] refrain.

Um, yeah, tomorrow I think I’ll be jumping here. Um, it can also be super helpful to see examples and just see how they end up starting, um, like their first sentences. Um, like sometimes you can also create a first sentence that sort of want to hear. Yes. So if there’s some kind of contradiction or just something that sounds really intense, Um, I know one that I’ve heard from years back was, um, every time I walk into a Starbucks, I use a different name on from there.

You sort of just want to hear what the rest of the story will be. Um, and so you can, you can sort of, I guess, create something where if you read the first sentence, it’s gonna make me be intrigued and angry, but to hear the rest of the story for thank you, Lily. That was much better answer. Yeah, no worries.

Um, okay. The next question you have just to keep going through, um, someone asks, how should I tweak my essay to cater to different colleges? Um, for example, like a public school, if she’s a religious school so for your main comment, FSA, um, you know, you will send one essay out to all [00:52:00] schools. So there you won’t be making any tweaks.

Um, especially if you’re going through the common app platform, you won’t physically be able to make tweaks. Um, That, when it comes to supplemental essays, um, the best advice you can give there is to really do your research with each university. So, you know, you want to see if there were some really important values or messages that are on the website of the university.

So you can frame your answers around those values. So here, I’m thinking of Georgetown, my Alma mater, uh, it’s a Jesuit university, um, and they have a few kind of big mottos, if you will. One of which is men and women for others. So they’re really big on community service and giving back to the community, um, and using your education to improve the world around you.

Right? So, um, when you go on their website, those Jesuit values are kind of plastered everywhere on many pages. So it’s kind of very clear what the focus and ethos of a university is when you go on their websites. So to tweak your [00:53:00] essay, to cater to different colleges, you, you really do your research. You see.

Well, the university’s values are what interesting offerings. They may have unique academic or extracurricular offerings. And then when you write the supplemental essays, you kind of, you try to work that into your responses. Great. Next question is any advice for students who need help putting their unique voice in the personal statement?

I just put my voice in other essays, but for my college, I see. I can’t. Okay. Um, here, you know, I’d be interested to see, you know, what you mean by other essays, but, um, I can definitely still, still answer your question. Um, you, you want to start with examples, right? So I know it’s, it’s, it’s challenging or rather I make it maybe sound simpler than it is, but you want to start with a few very concrete examples of, of moments in your life that speak to.[00:54:00]

Moments in your life, which you reacted in a way that’s really unique to you, right? So you want to, you want to take things that actually happen and build from there. But when you’re talking about the actual writing style, um, if you wanting to make sure that your voice comes across and you’re not coming off as sort of formulaic or robotics, uh, one of the best devices I can give you is to share your writing with a trusted friend or a teacher who already have seen some of the schools.

You mentioned you you’re able to put your voice across another essay. So people who have seen your other work and who kind of understand, um, what it is that you’re aspiring to do with your college essay and to get a second pair of eyes on, on the text, um, and see if they can give you any guidance or advice and help you to, to put your essay together in a more way, in a way that’s more unique, unique to you and reflective of your voice.

Okay. Um, my next question is what advice would you give to people who are not great writers. [00:55:00] Um, plan, organize and proofread. I’ve had a number of students for whom writing is not kind of natural skill is not something that comes easily. It’s something that’s hard work and takes a lot of patience and practice and that’s totally okay.

And, you know, do be mindful that college admissions officers don’t expect everyone. Who’s, who’s applying to college to be sort of connects, you know, having way, not at all. Um, but, um, if. Sure. Writing something you struggle with. You want to set aside ample time to make sure you plan and organize your thoughts very clearly that you know what story you’re telling, what is your main point, how you’re getting from point a to point B to point C and then you’ll want to leave a lot of time for editing.

So your first draft may not be so great. Your second draft may not be so great, but, um, if you put in the work, um, and potentially seek support from teachers or friends or parents, and you revise continuously, you will see that, you know, [00:56:00] between even your first and third draft, there will be a lot of improvement, but you want to make sure you give yourself the time to do that.

And you don’t procrastinate until the last minute, especially if you know that writing is something that’s a challenge for you. Great. Um, my next question is should credentials be included in our essays? And if so, how long. Um, I assumed by credentials, you mean sort of your big achievements, um, in your academic career or your extracurriculars?

Um, you can definitely mention them if they’re relevant to the story or to the point you’re trying to make. So you don’t want to write sort of a cover letter, right? The types you would do when you apply for a job. So you don’t want to just list off multiple achievements. Um, Um, mostly connect them, you know, with, with some freezes and call it a day.

Um, if you’re going to mention a credential, there needs to be context in which it’s relevant, right? So maybe it was a very hard earned credential. Maybe there was a challenge you to overcome in order to [00:57:00] acquire it, or maybe that credential speaks to your role as a leader, um, or to a particular skill that you have.

And that case, of course you can and should mention it, but you don’t want to just overload your essay with, you know, president of this club, co president of this other club. Um, if it doesn’t serve a greater purpose, um, in your story, um, our next question that we have is, is there such a thing as being too reflective?

I know that when I first heard it answering a prompt, it came off as a rant or therapy session. How can I avoid this? So, um, One way they can, uh, that can help. Um, one strategy that can help is, um, what I mentioned earlier, which is maybe giving yourself the space to kind of ramble on paper, um, and get it all out at first.

Um, as opposed to trying to filter it or, or force yourself to be immediately, you know, very well structured, but once you’ve done, so going back through and highlighting or pulling out [00:58:00] pieces of information that are most, um, most important and most telling rights. So, and kind of getting rid of some of the additional noise, um, so organization, so you want to make sure that your everything get on paper.

Um, thing gets restructured organized in a little bit more of a, of a kosher way. And as I mentioned before, when you’re treating. Your topics and your answer is you do want to ask yourself a question of, you know, in my, is what I’m sharing a little bit too personal, um, knowing that this is going to be a stranger reading this for two, three minutes at most.

Um, yeah. Am I giving them too much information, um, that they don’t need to know essentially? Um, probably just a few more questions before we wrap up on next question is what are some good ways to show and not tell? Interesting. That’s a great question. And one, I get every day of my work as a [00:59:00] CollegeAdvisor.

Um, so the first thing you want to make sure to do, or rather not to do is not to explain. So think of it as sort of. Uh, uh, reading or writing an instruction manual, right? You do this, then you do this and then you do this, this happened, this happened. And then this happened, um, that’s an example of telling.

Um, so you can tell the reader, um, being, um, being the president of this club made me more appreciative of diverse opinions, or you can tell them an anecdote in which a club member had a very unconventional idea about how to fundraise for an upcoming event. And you were not sure about it, but you decided to give it a go and here you’re kind of describing what the idea is [01:00:00] and what you were doing and how you were setting it up.

And then the outcome ultimately was so successful and everyone was so happy that you realized, wow, I should really give my, my teammates more room to improvise or to share, to share their ideas. Right. So. Simply saying that without, without giving the detail and without putting the reader sort of in your, in your shoes, in the room with you, you would be telling, but, but that additional level of, of, of, of detail and of sort of sensory examples, right?

What was it like to be there? What did it feel like? Um, that’s, that’s what makes for a good show. Don’t tell essay or paragraph, for example. Great. Alright, thanks commissioner. It looks like we’re at the end of our webinar time. Um, yeah, big, thank you Tamara, for telling me so much write essay, brainstorming, essay writing, and then also answering all of all of everyone’s questions.

Um, looking ahead at the [01:01:00] calendar, when you guys leave, you guys will be connected to a landing page that has all of our September webinars on. So if you look at this page, our next overnight, it’s going to be the ultimate guide to supplemental essays. So if you guys come to the future webinars, a lot of them are gonna be focused on essay writing.

Um, you know, we hope that you found this helpful and I’ll let you see what a few more in the future. All right, everyone have a great night. Thank you everyone. Have a great night.

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Brainstorming the College Essay: A Self-Paced Workshop

What are the components of a college application.

• Completed application form
• High school transcript
• Standardized test scores (if required)
• Letters of recommendation
• Interview (if recommended or required)
• Student activities list/resume
• Application fee (application fee waivers may be available)
• Essay or personal statement

Some students get nervous just thinking about it!

Tips for Getting Started

Take a minute to reflect:

• How are you feeling about applying to colleges?
• What are you most looking forward to?
• What are you most concerned about?

When you think about it, most of the application components have already been determined by your past experiences. You simply submit a record of the past. Nevertheless, your essay or personal statement is one component of the process you can still shape to inform the admissions committee.

You can write a personal essay that makes you shine! Your test scores and grades may be similar to other applicants, but your essay has the capacity to make you stand out from the crowd.

By telling a personal story about a meaningful experience in a carefully crafted, thoughtful essay. The exercises in this workshop will help guide you in the process.

College Essays Are Different From High School Essays

• High school essays demonstrate knowledge while college essays demonstrate who you are.
• College essays speak directly to the admissions committee in your own voice. The writing should sound like you, using a first person point of view.
• College essays show the admissions committee your unique, individual personality and view of the world and help them understand you and what you will bring to campus.

Source: 5 Ways College Application Essays and High School Essays Are Different

College Essay Tips: How to Tell a Unique Story to Admissions

View the YouTube video, “How to Tell a Unique Story to Admissions”, for advice on how to tell your story in a memorable way!  

College Essay Tips | How to Tell a Unique Story to Admissions  

Next, reflect carefully and think critically about yourself:

• What have you experienced that brought you out of your comfort zone and forced you to grow?
• How did you navigate that path?
• What were you thinking? Feeling?
• What did you do?
• How did it change you as a person?
• What did you learn about yourself that you didn’t already know?

Then, write an essay to show (not tell) that story…

in a memorable way…by recounting your story…

from a first person perspective.

Brainstorming Essay Topics

First, use this brainstorming exercise to help you come up with possible essay topics. Jodi Walder-Biesanz of College Admission Coach, LLC has created the College Application Essay Brainstorming Worksheet . Use this worksheet to help you brainstorm essay ideas. 

Now, watch this video from Khan Academy, Brainstorming tips for your college essay (video) for more brainstorming tips! 

Use this Free Personality Test to get to know yourself.

(Note: Test results are informational only and you may get different results when retaking the test. Use the test only as a tool to get to know yourself a little better.)

For further inspiration, use the positive personality traits from this list of 638 Primary Personality Traits .

• First, select the positive traits that you would use to describe yourself. 
• Revisit your adjectives and choose three to five that best describe yourself. 
• Now, begin telling stories about the time you displayed those character traits. 
• Your stories should help you choose an essay topic that is “so you”.

As you begin writing your essay, remember to:

     ✔ Be yourself

     ✔ Be memorable

     ✔ Find your voice!

What does it mean to “Find your voice”?

In the end, after reading your essay, your family and friends should think,

“That’s so you!”  If they don’t, you might want to rethink it and find a better story to tell. 

For examples of voice, see Voice: Definitions and Examples

Some Tips Before You Begin Writing

• Write about something that is important to you.
• Describe your experience and what you learned from it.
• Start early and write several drafts.
• Do not contradict or repeat other parts of your application.
• Be sure to answer the question being asked.
• Have at least one other person edit your essay.
• Triple check before submitting.

Other Helpful Essay Writing Resources  

✔  Story2 College , uses a step by step writing process to help you communicate your story.  It is free to use (in a limited capacity) and is a good tool for students who have trouble putting their thoughts into writing.

✔  The admissions committee at Johns Hopkins University shares  JHU Essays That Worked , meaning the essays successfully revealed the students’ character and values.  Reading the sample essays may help you understand the type of writing used in college essays.

Good luck brainstorming your college essay!

We value your feedback and ask you to complete our program survey. The survey can be found at www.ccplonline.org/survey

For Further Reading

CCPL has many resources to guide you in writing your college essay.  Below you will find a sample of these resources.  To find more options, go to Charles County Public Library – Engage, Discover & Learn   and search for “college essays”.

College Prep: Writing a Strong Essay with Leigh Ann Chow is a two hour online course that can be accessed through CCPL’s online learning resource,  Learning Library Account Login | Formerly Lynda Library .  It is presented by an experienced high school English teacher and includes many useful exercises to guide students through the essay-writing process. 

Click on the titles below to access the COSMOS Catalog and place the following items on hold for pickup at your local library branch. 

College Essay Essentials by Ethan Sawyer

So you’re a high school senior given the task of writing a 650-word personal statement for your college application. Do you tell the story of your life, or a story from your life? Do you choose a single moment? If so, which one? The options seem endless. Lucky for you, they’re not. College counselor Ethan Sawyer (aka The College Essay Guy) will show you that there are only four (really, four!) types of college admission essays

On Writing the College Application Essay by Harry Bauld

Offers tips on how to write meaningful essays for college admission applications. Includes sample essays.

I’m Applying to College: Now What? by Angela Erikson

Resource list.

• 5 Ways College Application Essays and High School Essays Are Different | The Princeton Review
• 638 Primary Personality Traits
• Brainstorming Tips for Your College Essay | Khan Academy
• College Admission Essay Brainstorming Worksheet | College Admissions Coach, LLC.
• College Essay Tips: How to Tell a Unique Story to Admissions | College Essay Advisors (YouTube video)
• Crafting an Unforgettable College Essay | The Princeton Review
• Essays That Worked | John Hopkins University
• Free Personality Test |16 Personalities
• Learn How To Write Powerful College Essays That Connect With Admissions Officers | Story2 College
• Voice | Literary Terms

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