College Application FAQ: The Common App Essay
Alyssa the SAT Expert has heard tons of parents’ questions about applying to college. In this video, she walks you through some of the most common ones!
Can your student use one essay for all of their applications?
Here’s how to write a great essay, based on what admissions officers want to see.
While your essay is important, it’s far from the most important aspect of your application!
Frequently Asked Questions About Applying to College - Parents’ Edition: The Common App Essay
Question: If my student uses the Common Application, can they use the same essay for all schools?
Short answer: YES. That’s totally acceptable.
More About the Common App Essay
The Common App has been using the same essay prompts for a few years now - you can find a list of them here. You’ll find that most of them are about some experience that you’ve had that changed you.
Pro tip: if you’re ever asked (in an application) to write about yourself, show a time that you either
Learned something
OR
Fundamentally were changed.
What you want to do is to lay out the time
before the change
THE CHANGE ITSELF
after the change.
Tips for writing your essay:
Don’t be too self-congratulatory: Nobody is flawless, and admissions officers are well aware of that. There’s no need to portray yourself as the perfect person to gain admission!
Be honest! Talk about what’s really true to you. If you are dishonest, college admissions officers will smell that fakeness - that’s what’ll really get your essay thrown in the reject pile. They’re looking for genuine people who are true to themselves.
Remember that your admission is based 75% on your GPA and 25% on your SAT/ACT score. A LOT of it is based on cumulative GPA (cumulative GPA = freshman to junior year). If you’re someone who still has chances to change that, CHANGE IT! Do an extra credit project. Make up a test. Anything that’ll help your GPA even a little bit!
Colleges are looking for an upward trajectory. If you had a not-so-great freshman year, or your sophomore year GPA could have been better, as long as you are showing improvement, you’ve got what colleges are looking for.
Know that people want you to succeed! They’re not looking for what’s wrong with your application - they’re looking for reasons to root for you. So give them those reasons! If you can show them a part of you through the essay that’s really honest and genuine, admissions officers WILL buy into it.
But again - colleges get a TON of applications. And they often have no choice but to put applications into piles of numbers (decided 75% by GPA, 25% by test scores). So your essay will matter only AFTER you’ve made it out of the reject pile. Same with extracurriculars and recommendation letters. At that point, they’re looking for hints into who you really are. The more you can show them that - share that piece of you with them - the more they can accept you as a person rather than you as a set of numbers.
