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Writing a compelling Common App essay can be a challenging task, but it’s a great opportunity to showcase your unique story. This post is here to give you some essential strategies for drafting the Common App essay right from understanding the prompt to crafting a narrative that reflects your authentic voice. Whether you’re brainstorming ideas or editing your final draft, these tips are here to guide you through every step of the process!
How To Write A Common App Essay Draft
Choosing and Understanding the Prompt
Read all the prompts carefully and choose the one that resonates the most with you. The essay prompts can be found here.
Recognize the themes or topics that the prompt that you chose is encouraging you to explore, such as identity, challenges, or personal growth.
Think about what the prompt is asking you and how your lived experiences will help you answer the prompts.
For example, if the prompt asks you to discuss an aspect of your identity or background that has shaped you, you could talk about an aspect of your cultural, religious, or gender identity and how it has impacted you.
Getting Your Thoughts Together
Consider multiple types of experiences that allow you to answer the prompt. These can be in the form of academic, personal, or extracurricular stories. You should keep at least 2-3 options before narrowing it down further.
Jot down ideas that come to mind when thinking about the experiences that you might like to write about. This can be in the form of words, phrases or sentences. Do this for all types of experiences (academic, personal, extracurricular, etc.).
Create a mind map for each type of experience. Find common links and themes between the ideas you have jotted down. At this point, there may be a certain topic that you find is easier to write about than others. It is advisable to continue drafting your essay based on the topic you can write the most about.
For more tips on brainstorming, check out this post here.
Crafting a Narrative
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and use your mindmap to freewrite as much as you can. You should aim to have a rough draft of the introduction by the end of the 10-15 minutes.
Start the introduction off strong with a captivating hook. For more information about hooks, check this post out here.
Your essay should have one central theme or focus. You should provide examples and anecdotes that link to the central theme.
Structuring the Essay
You should create an essay outline consisting of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Set more free-writing timers to write the body and conclusion. Make sure to take breaks in between to avoid feeling burnt out.
See this post for tips on some introduction strategies you can use, and this post for tips on how to format an introduction.
Some introduction examples can be found here.
Check this post out for some conclusion starters, and this post for tips on how to format a conclusion.
Some conclusion examples can be found here.
Ensure you have a smooth transition between paragraphs and that all ideas are connected to the main theme.
Ensure you stay within the word limit of 250-650 words. It is recommended to write around 500 words for your first draft so that there is room for adding anything extra during the editing and review process.
Revising and Editing
Make multiple edits to your draft before the final submission.
Share your essay with a teacher or mentor for constructive criticism on how to improve.
Edit your essay for clarity and conciseness. Remove any repetitive words and shorten run-on sentences.
Carefully check for any language errors, ensuring your essay is sounds professional. Use a spellchecker to be completely sure your essay is free from errors.
We hope that this guide has helped you identify some points to keep in mind when drafting your Common App essay. Good luck with your college applications!
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