Common App Essay Prompts
According to the 2022/2023 Common Application, the common app essays topics are as follows:
- Background Essay: 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.
- Challenge Essay: 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?
- Belief Essay: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
- Gratitude Essay: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
- Accomplishment Essay: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
- Topic Essay: 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?
- Create-Your-Own Essay: 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.
Importance of Individuality
These types of essay prompts are fairly common, common enough that most applicants will be writing their essays based on something similar. What will make you stand out from the crowd is your personality, your individuality. When writing an application essay, it is more important that it be something that is true to you, to your life and experiences, than it is that you exactly follow the prompt.
Look at these prompts and let them inspire you. Think about your life, your struggles, your goals, and put that unique experience into your essay. That will do more to impress the admissions officer than an essay that, while it follows the prompt exactly, isn’t true to your life and reveals nothing of who you are.
