Conquer Your College Essays Ebook

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 How to Write an Amazing Common App Essay 4

Part 1: Introduction 4
What is the Common Application? 4
Why does the Common App Essay—and other college essays—matter? 5
What are these mystical college essays, anyway? 6
The Common App Essay Prompts 6
Let’s meet our students 8
Part 2: Pre-writing 9
Brainstorming essay topics 10
Freewriting 14
Essay writing timelines: how to write your Common App personal statement if
you have six months, three months, one month, or even less 16
Part 3: Choosing your topic 18
Part 4: Writing your Common App Essay 22
What ‘type’ of essay do you have to write? 22
Outlining 24
Writing and revising: common errors 26
Full-length personal statement example 29
Part 5: Frequently asked questions 30
Chapter 2 How to Write Supplemental College Application Essays that

Grab Admissions Committees 34
Part 2: From outlining to writing 35
The 600-word essay 35
The 500-word essay 37
The 150-250-word or other very short essay 40
Part 3: Types of secondary and supplemental essays 41
The ‘why us’ essay 41
Tell us more about an extracurricular 43
Design a class/a major 44
Click here to schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation with Dr. Shemmassian

© 2018 Shemmassian Academic Consulting | All rights reserved 2
Tell us about your major 46
Diversity-in-community essay 48
Quick hits 49
Chapter 3 How to Stand Out on the Common App (and UC) Activities
Section 52
Part 1: Overview 52
Part 2: Writing strategies 53
Part 3: Advanced strategies 55
Part 4: Activities section example 56
Chapter 4 How to Write Great UC Application Essays 60

Why do UC essays matter? How much do they matter? 61
Let’s meet our students 62
Part 2: The Questions 63
Overview: the prompts 64
Choosing your questions wisely 65
Outlining your answers 66
The leadership question 68
The creativity question 70
The talent question 73
The education opportunity/barrier question 75
The personal adversity question 77
The academic passion question 79
The community question 82
The everything else question 84
The transfer student question 86
Final Thoughts 91

Chapter 1
How to Write an Amazing Common App Essay
A step-by-step guide to conquering your most important college essay
Part 1: Introduction
Applying to college: the phrase alone can instill terror in the hearts of high school seniors, and even in
those of us who have lived through the experience.
Every year, the college application process seems to get more complex, and more intense. If you’re a
student, you might be reviewing rumors and horror stories about that classmate of yours with perfect
grades and a 1500 SAT score who somehow got rejected from every Ivy League school. If you’re a
parent, you might be afraid of how much the college admissions system has changed and grown more
competitive since you were your kids’ age, or perhaps you never had to navigate this system at all.
One of many students’ and parents’ biggest fears is the sheer anonymity of the process. You, the college
applicant, have worked hard through high school, earning great grades, expanding your worldview
through extracurriculars or jobs, and contributing to your community… and now, it can seem pretty
unjust to throw yourself at the mercy of an application system that seems arbitrary, blind to your
personality, or even uncaring.
There’s good news, though.
The college application process has a logic to it—and it’s one you, the applicant, can both navigate and
trust. All those essays, all those forms, all those questions? They’re about getting you in touch with the
most authentic and vibrant version of yourself. In fact, if tackled with intelligence, reflection, and
organization, the college process can actually offer you a chance to make the admissions process about
you as a person, rather than about a distant name on a screen.
What is The Common Application?

You might be familiar with The Common Application, Common App for short, which serves as a single
application that over seven-hundred colleges, including every Ivy League school (e.g., Harvard, Yale,
Princeton) and Stanford, share. The Common App allows you to fill out things like your name,
demographics, extracurricular activities, and more, just once for every school that uses it. It is also
where you’ll encounter “The Common App Essay,” otherwise known as your personal statement (PS),
which is what this guide will focus on.
Though not every school uses the Common App—many state or public schools often have their own
systems—the work you do in writing your Common App Essay will serve you in every other component
of the process, including non-Common App schools (e.g., University of California [UC] schools) as well
as the secondary and supplemental essays that go along with the Common App. (Schools that don’t use
Common App may still ask for essays or short answers.)
Why does The Common App Essay—and other college essays—matter?
You may have heard the phrase “holistic” admissions thrown around—many universities follow this
model, which means they don’t necessarily have an ACT or SAT cutoff score, nor do they require a
certain number of AP/IB/Honors courses. Instead, they’re trying to get to know candidates as humans.
Admissions officers are people—people who would be horribly bored if their job came down just to
numbers, statistics, cutoffs, and counting up your AP and SAT and ACT scores.
In order to get into your dream school, you’ll need not only great grades and test scores but also a strong
personal statement. Why? Your Personal Statement is the single loudest ‘qualitative’ element of your
application. It brings to life the student—you!—behind your statistics and demographics. It’s the way
you communicate with the admissions committee as a person and as a potential member of the campus
community. With more people applying to colleges every year, admissions officers know they can have
their pick of bright and motivated students. In addition to seeing your talents and achievements on paper,
they need a chance to imagine what you might be like as a walking, talking human being.
Many students and parents wonder how big of a role essays play when it comes to college admissions
decisions. While the importance of college essays—which are written over a period of a few weeks or
(ideally) a few months—varies from school to school, most experts estimate that they make up for
anywhere from 10-30% of admissions decisions! In other words, your four years of schoolwork, AP, IB,
ACT, and SAT exams, community service, volunteering, etc. account only for 70-90%. These estimates

are provided not to scare you, but rather to emphasize how critical it is for you to spend at least as much
time on your college essays as would on any other high school pursuit.
Fortunately, we’re going to talk about every aspect of your personal statement in this guide, and reflect
on some of the lessons we’ve taken from over a decade of coaching students through the college
application process and getting into their dream schools.
What are these mystical college essays, anyway?
Let’s define our terms—
• Personal Statement (PS): when people refer to the personal statement, they’re talking about the
650-word Common Application Essay which all schools using the Common App will see. Your
Personal Statement is your major chance to articulate the qualitative aspects of yourself to the
admissions committee, and the admissions committee’s major chance to know you as a person.
Throughout this guide, "Common App Essay," "Common App personal statement," and "personal
statement" are used interchangeably.
• Secondary or supplemental essays: these are the essays that schools can choose to have you fill
out on top of the core Common App Essay. They might invite you to talk more about an
extracurricular activity on your resumé, or to reflect on a quote from a famous alumna/alumnus of
the college and share your thoughts. They’re wide-ranging, and we’ll be covering them in an
upcoming guide!
The Common App Essay Prompts
Here are the 2018-2019 Common App Essay Prompts (they largely stay the same from year to year)—
and we’ll address how to think about them shortly, so just lodge them in your brain for now.
1. 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.

2. 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?
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your
thinking? What was the outcome?
4. 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 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.
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a
new understanding of yourself or others.
6. 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?
7. 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.
Broad, right? You’ve got 650 free words to articulate what moves you, what excites you, what animates
or explains you.
This means your essays are not a place to restate what can already be found on your resumé, CV,
or Common App Activities Section. They’re also not a place to prove that you’ve had some major
epiphany, changed the world, seen the Truth of reality, etc, at eighteen. They can be but do not have to
be—by any means—about a major traumatic experience. They can but need not discuss family, identity,
race, gender, or class. They are a place to give the admissions committee a chance to see the you that
your friends, classmates, teachers, teammates, and family know. We’ve seen students write about the
New England Patriots, the poetry of John Keats, their grandparents’ village, their obsession with
keeping too many Google Chrome tabs open, how grilling meats represented a rite of passage, and many
more topics that range from the super-serious to the lighthearted but still meaningful.

(Note: The Common App Essay prompts are diverse enough that they allow you to write about pretty
much anything. Therefore, we encourage you to brainstorm your best stories first and then think about
which question to answer. Admissions committees have no preference for which prompt you choose.)
Let’s meet our students
Throughout this guide, we’re going to refer to a few example essays. Some of these are made up but
others are closely based on essays we have worked with students on over the past ten-plus years—and
these students successfully met their admissions goals, including getting into multiple Ivy League and
other top-tier schools. Let’s meet our students now!
Student #1: Ramya: Ramya intends to be pre-med in college, but isn’t sure if she wants to major in
biology or something else entirely. She’s spent her high school years participating in a variety of
activities. She played soccer, but wasn’t the star player. She was involved in student government,
performed in cultural shows as a dancer, and did speech events.
What’s not on Ramya's resumé? She is a rabid fan of the New England Patriots, despite living in
California for most of her life. And she’s very close to her father and has a tight-knit group of friends.
Student #2: Anita: Anita has an aptitude for English and history. She likes writing, but she’s not on the
school newspaper, nor has she ever published a piece of fiction or poetry, which makes her nervous
about calling herself a writer. She spends much of her time on mock trial—in fact she’s nationally
competitive at it—and lots of people tell her she’d make a great lawyer. But she doesn’t think she wants
to major in political science or philosophy; she may not even want to do anything associated with mock
trial in college.
What’s not on her resumé? She loves the outdoors, though she has nothing concretely extracurricular to
prove it—she’s never been a camp counselor or a Girl Scout.
Student #3: Josh: Josh isn’t sure what he wants to study. He’s a solid student, though no particular
subject gets his pulse racing. In his free time he draws comic strips, and he’s had a few on display at
various community events in his town. He plays basketball and piano.

What’s not on his resumé? Josh has a complicated relationship with piano—his parents pushed him into
it, and he’d like to quit as soon as possible. And he’s very close to his big brother, who recently left for
college. He also has a little sister, who he’s never been tight with.
Student #4: Michael: Michael lives in a small coastal town and attends a big public high school. After
school he has a job scooping ice cream, and though he’s not expected to contribute to his family’s
income, he doesn’t have much time for clubs or sports, which aren’t very important at his school. He
generally likes chemistry, but he isn’t sure what he wants to do with that. He doesn’t want to be pre-
med, and he can’t imagine being a chemist, so he’s undecided about what to major in.
What’s not on his resumé? Michael is no great surfer by competitive standards, but he learned how to
stand up on a board at a young age because his grandfather, who’s from Hawaii, taught him. His
grandfather recently passed away.
----
Part 2: Pre-writing
Of course, the terrifying part of starting any new piece of writing—whether you’re a professional,
seasoned author or a high schooler planning for college—is the spooky glare of the blank page, that
blinking cursor that doesn’t quite seem to yield to you.
One of the major challenges for many students about applying to college is knowing that they are full of
passion and potential energy which hasn’t yet been converted into kinetic energy. That can make trying
to communicate who you are as well as who you hope to become a daunting task. You might worry
about sounding generic or not sounding like yourself or not sounding “smart” or “wise” enough.
The best antidote to all of these concerns, from writer’s block to finding your voice, is to prepare
yourself emotionally and creatively well before you sit down to type out your personal statement.
Here’s how you can attack your Common App personal statement and secondary essays if you have a
few months before they’re due. We are big proponents of starting early—ideally in June. Why?

You may not be thrilled at the prospect of spending the summer before your senior year on college
applications. But getting going in June after your junior year and committing to a few exercises over the
summer will be like spring training for summer athletes. By the time you get to August, when you’re
drafting your Common App Essay and your secondary essays in full, you will be warmed up, and much
of the hardest work—that is, the reflection, figuring out what you want to say—will be done for you.
(Bonus: starting early will also give you time to hand a strong draft of your essay to the teachers from
whom you plan to request recommendation letters. If your recommenders know what you’re saying
about yourself, they can help tell the same story about you—only from a different perspective. This is
crucial because your application is a chance to offer not only the facts about you but also a narrative of
you—a sense of who you are, how you move through the world, and what you hope to become. That
means each component of your application—your Common App personal statement, your secondary
essays, your teacher recommendations, the classes you’ve taken—is a kind of episode in the story.)
But, we’ve offered some adjusted timelines lower down in case you don’t have the whole summer to
work with.
Brainstorming essay topics and working with prompts (2-3 weeks)
Review the Common App questions and identify which ones get your juices flowing. You can also use
our expanded prompts to help you brainstorm and freewrite over the summer. We’re starting with
Common App Essay Prompt #7, since it is the broad, general question. Then we’ll circle back and go
through #s 1-6.
Prompt 7. 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.
• Make a list of themes and broad topics that matter to you. What do you, your friends, and
family spend a lot of time thinking about or talking about? (Note: this is not the same as
asking for your list of extracurricular activities.) Tell the story of an important day or event in
relation to one of these topics.
• Who’s a family member who lives with you and is important to you? Think of a specific time
they helped you with something. Tell the story. What’s an important conversation you had
with them? Tell the story.

• Think of any person—family, friend, teacher, etc—who has been important to you. When did
you first meet them? Tell the story. When did you have a crucial, meaningful, or important
conversation with them? Tell the story.
• Make a list of experiences that have been important to you. These do not have to be dramatic,
tragic, traumatic, or prove that you changed the world, though they can be any of those.
Perhaps a particular summer that mattered a lot? Or an experience with friend or family
member who shaped you—it could be a specific day spent with them, or a weekend, a
summer, a year?
(Remember: Specific anecdotes are your friend when drafting your Common App personal statement.
Try to think of a story you often tell people that shows something about you. One of the best pieces of
advice we can give you—and something you’ll see reflected in all of the following prompts—is to
anchor things in anecdote or story as much as possible.)
Prompt 1. 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.
• Where did you grow up? Describe your neighborhood, town, or community. Big or small?
What makes it unlike other parts of the world? How has it affected you? What images are
important for someone who has never been to your hometown/neighborhood/community to
see? For instance, is there farmland all around you, grain silos, cows? A Chik-Fil-A every
block?
• Where is home for your parents? Does their home impact your day-to-day life? Describe the
first time you saw their home, in story form.
• Did you grow up considering another place that is not where you currently live home? Tell the
story of the first time you went there or the first time you remember going there. Was there a
particular time—a summer, or a year—when that place became important? Tell that story.
• What’s the most memorable thing about you? What do people in your community or school
know you for? Tell the story of the first time you did this thing. Tell the story of the most
meaningful time you did this thing—it might be, say, when you won a game, but it also might
be when you lost a game, or when you quit the team.

• How have you spent your summers in high school? In childhood? Tell a story of a memorable
day during a memorable summer. Where were you? Why did it matter? Does what happened
that day influence you today? How?
Prompt 2. 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?
• What major changes have you been through? A move? Changing schools? Losing a loved one
or a friend? (Avoid writing about romantic relationships and breakups in your essays, but feel
free to mine them in your freewriting.) Tell the story of the day that change occurred—the day
you moved, the first day at the new school or the last day at the old school, the day you got
bad news about a family member or a friend, etc.
• Did you ever quit an extracurricular activity or a job? Why? Tell the story of the day that
happened, and of the day you decided to quit.
• What class was hardest for you in high school? Why? Tell the story of a specific class
assignment that was difficult. Now tell the story of a specific class assignment that caused you
to have a breakthrough, or changed your mind about something.
• Have you ever been forced to try something you weren’t good at? How’d it go? Tell the story
of the day you tried it. Who encouraged you to? Where were you?
• Have you faced a disability, a mental or physical health issue, or other significant challenge
while in high school? Think of a day when you are proud of how you handled or carried
yourself in the face of this challenge. (Read more on how to write about a disability in your
college essay for additional guidance.)
Prompt 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted
your thinking? What was the outcome?
• What values did you grow up holding dear? Are they the same ones today? Tell the story of
the first time you learned about these values—say, a morning at Sunday School or a
conversation with a grandparent. If they’ve changed, tell the story of the moment (as best you
can place it) when they changed—say, in a classroom, in a conversation with a friend, etc.
• Is there a prevalent belief in your family or community with which you disagree? How did
you come to disagree? Tell the story of an argument—cordial or not—that you’ve had with

someone about this issue. Tell the story of a time you are proud of how you handled conflict
in relation to this disagreement.
• When were you wrong about something? Tell the story of how you figured out you were
wrong. Who helped you get there?
Prompt 4. 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 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.
• What class assignments have gotten you thinking hardest? Tell the story of one of them.
• What books or articles have you read that caused you to identify something wrong in the
world? What did you learn from those, and what did they/do they make you want to do? Tell
the story of reading that book/article for the first time—where were you? Who handed it to
you? Who did you discuss it with afterward? How often have you reread that meaningful book
or article?
• Is there a problem that comes up over the dinner table with your family regularly? How do
you think about solving it as a family, or individually? Tell the story of one of those dinners.
Tell the story of another dinner, if you’d like!
• What makes you angry or furious about the world? Tell the story of a time you saw
something—visually—that provoked that anger or frustration. Describe images and your
reactions.
Prompt 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal

growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• They say a piece of short fiction is about a moment after which nothing will be the same
again. Have you lived through one of those moments? What was it? Tell it the way you’d
write a short story.
• Eureka! Have you ever had a moment when everything just *clicked*? Tell the story of that
realization—set the scene, down to every image, who was or wasn’t in the room.
• Forget medals, victories, grades—what intangible, off-your-resumé quality or moment of your
life are you proudest of? Tell the story of the day that happened.

Prompt 6. 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?
• Let’s say you’re left alone an entire weekend in your house. What do you get up to? Tell the
story of a time that’s happened—or imagine, on the page, what that would be like. Set the
scene: what rooms are you in in your house, or are you in your house at all? Where do you
go? What do you bring with you?
• What activities have you self-started—that is, what have you done without ever being told to?
Tell the story of the first day you started doing that thing.
• What do your friends come to you seeking help with? Tell the story of a time when you think
you did a great job of helping another person. Now, to make sure you stay humble, tell the
story of when that person helped you.
At the end of this brainstorming exercise, our students, Ramya, Anita, Josh, and M, will have discovered
even more things not on their resumé that can expand what all they might write about.
Freewriting (3-4 weeks)
Your job, if you’ve started this early, is not to start writing your draft immediately, or even to choose
which Common App question you plan to answer. First, you’re going to freewrite using the above
prompts as a guide—choose the ones you like, or print them out, cut them up, and put them in a hat;
each day, shake up the hat and grab one at random!
Freewriting is one of the fun parts, so the more you can do it, the better.
There are a number of ways to approach freewriting, and all of them are meant to keep you limber,
loose, and free. You want to sound authentic in your essay—which means stiffening up under pressure,
as many students do, trying to sound formal, more stereotypically “adult” or “learned.” The more you
can sound like you while freewriting, the stronger position you’ll be in when it comes to drafting the
personal statement.
1. Buy a few composition notebooks: those $1 things, available at Walmart or the like. Work in
these for the summer. No need to get precious—no fancy Moleskins here, and no laptops or
tablets unless you are physically unable to write by hand. Why? Take the cartoonist Lynda
Barry’s wise words here: “There is a kind of story that comes from hand. Writing which is

different from a tapping-on-a-keyboard-kind-of-story. For one thing, there is no delete button,
making the experience more lifelike right away. You can’t delete the things you feel unsure about
and because of this, the things you feel unsure about have a much better chance of being able to
exist long enough to reveal themselves.”
2. Set aside six minutes each morning, or a few times a week, for the period of time you’re
freewriting. Six minutes, that’s it! Put your timer on, put your pen to paper, and don’t stop
writing until the timer goes off. If you run out of things to write, write “I don’t know I’m bored I
don’t know help help I hate writing!” until new words come. What are you going to write about
during those six minutes? You can try thinking about those Common App essay prompts—they’re
so broad that they should let you in in some way: what’s my obstacle, my identity, the thing I
love? Note that Anita isn’t sitting down to write her disquisition on How my life as a mock trial
champion makes me prepared to go to law school. Instead, what might come out as she writes by
hand is… I remember the rush the first time I stood up at a mock trial tournament. I was wearing
a blazer and my mom’s heels and they were so uncomfortable. It was so overheated in the room
and I’d drunk way too much Mountain Dew. But why did I love playing this role of attorney?
Was it the theater? The chance to finally argue without getting in trouble at the dinner table? If six
minutes doesn’t work for you, or if you think you’re not getting in the zone in that amount of
time, try doing three pages in your composition notebook instead. Write in big letters and double-
space. Let your hand roam free.
3. Don’t show anyone anything you have written yet. And don’t reread it immediately. Let all
that you’ve written sit, latent, so you’re not tempted to edit it right off the bat. Why? Allowing
your writing to breathe away from you can prevent you from committing one of the cardinal sins
of personal statement-writing—but also all writing!—trying to force the story into what you think
it should be instead of what it is. To get more concrete: let’s say Michael wrote about his
grandfather teaching him to surf in answer to several of those prompts—about a crucial summer,
and an important person to him. But now he’s so excited about that that he immediately wants to
turn it into his draft. As he’s writing, he gets self-conscious, thinking: why am I writing about
surfing when I’m not a competitive surfer, and when it’s only something I do occasionally? Or
say Michael shows it to an English teacher, who gets distracted by the quality of Michaels
prose—which was meant to be free and unedited—and tells him to choose another topic, since
this one isn’t “singing” yet. Respect your process and let these things sit.

In order to have this kind of time freedom, you’ll have to start early. And if you spend your summer
warming up and training for the main event, you can start rereading your body of freewriting by the end
of July.
Essay writing timelines: how to write your Common App personal

statement if you have six months, three months, one month, or even less
In an ideal world, you can start writing and planning for your college essays the summer before your
senior year. But many students have prior commitments that make following a six-month (June-
December) timeline difficult. So here are a few adjusted timelines that can allow you to take advantage
of the brainstorming and freewriting process even if you don’t have the full six-month window.
Six months - June to December (ideal if you are applying early action or early decision anywhere):
• June: Brainstorm and work with prompts, 2-3 weeks

• July: Freewrite, 3-4 weeks
• End of July/beginning of August: Complete first draft of Common App personal statement
• Week two of August: Complete second draft (here is where the major revision work comes in)
• Weeks three-four of August: Complete third and fourth drafts
• Beginning of September: Seek feedback, if you have not already, from a trusted admissions
counselor, English teacher, or other advisor
• End of September: Complete final draft
Now you have October to complete your secondary essays. November is usually when early action/early
decision deadlines hit. So by the end of October, you will have completed your application for anywhere
you’re applying early; now you can use the last few weeks of November to complete any remaining
secondary essays for schools with December or January due dates (most regular decision deadlines)
Three months - August to October (barely making the early application/early decision deadline):
• First two weeks of August: Brainstorm and work with prompts

• Second two weeks of August: Freewrite
• First week of September: Complete first draft of Common App personal statement
• Week two of September: Complete second draft (here is where the major revision work comes in)

• Weeks three-four of September: Complete third and fourth drafts
• Beginning of October: Seek feedback, if you have not already, from a trusted admissions
counselor, English teacher, or other advisor
• Week two of October: Complete final draft
Now you have the second two weeks of October to complete your secondary essays for anywhere you
are applying early with a November due date, and the rest of November to complete any remaining
secondary essays for schools with December and January due dates (most regular decision deadlines)
One month - October to November (for regular decision schools):
• First week of October: Brainstorm and work with prompts

• Second week of October: Freewrite
• Third week of October: Complete first draft of Common App personal statement
• Last week of October: Complete second draft (here is where the major revision work comes in)
• First two weeks of November: Complete third and fourth drafts
• Mid-November, before Thanksgiving break: Seek feedback, if you have not already, from a
trusted admissions counselor, English teacher, or other advisor
• Last week of November: Complete final draft
Now you have December to complete any remaining secondary essays for schools with December and
January due dates (most regular decision deadlines)
Mega crunch time - Starting in November (in case you get started on your application really late
and are down to less than one month, use the following timeline):
• 2-4 days: Brainstorm and work with prompts

• 2-3 days: Freewrite
• 48 hours after freewriting ends: Complete first draft of Common App personal statement
• 72 hours after first draft: Complete second draft. (here is where the major revision work comes in)
In addition, seek feedback between your second and third drafts, if you have not already done so,
from a trusted admissions counselor, English teacher, or other advisor
• 48 hours after receiving feedback: Complete third draft
• 48 hours after third draft, if time permits: Complete fourth and final draft

(Note: Some elite public universities, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, have November application
deadlines, so make sure that you write down your school list, with deadlines and requirements, by the
end of September to ensure that you don’t miss anything.
----
Part 3: Choosing your topic

With all this free-written raw material in hand, it’s time to choose the right topic. What notes should
your essay hit? Here are some characteristics that a good essay topic contains:
1. Anecdote and specificity. As you saw in the prompts above, we’re big advocates of beginning
with a particular story or anecdote. This is NOT the only way to start an essay, but it’s a classic
one. Journalists call this a “lede”—it’s a hook that brings the reader into a wider topic. Your essay
will always go beyond the anecdote, but an anecdote offers a reader an easy, smooth way into
your personal statement.
A good essay topic can relate, as much as possible, to a particular anecdote, story, or even scene.
Let’s say Josh found himself writing about his siblings—his older brother who just left for
college, and his little sister who he’s spent more time with since his brother left. His essay
shouldn’t start, “I love my little sister,” but “I remember the first time my younger sister and I
connected. It was July, and our older brother had just gone to college, leaving the two of us alone
at home together for the first time.”
A good essay begins at a specific point in time and revolves around a specific event. An essay
without an anecdote or specific story is an essay TOPIC, not an essay. So pull from your
freewriting: where did you find yourself writing about a particular event, story, anecdote, or point
in time?
Another way of thinking about this is: does your potential topic contain a person (other than you),
a setting, and a beginning/middle/end? That gives you a character, a place, and a plot—all crucial
elements of an essay.

One important note is that you don’t have to start with the anecdote—it doesn’t have to be your
“lede.” That might make you formulaic. But you’ll want one to work with, to anchor the piece at
some point.
2. Tension, conflict, and opportunity to show growth. Josh might write a lovely reflection on how
close he and his brother were, or how much he likes his little sister—but that doesn’t give the
admissions committee much to work with. Why? Because your topic needs to display your ability
to grow, to show change over a period of time. If Josh has always had a perfect relationship with
his sister, well—first, no one will believe that!, and second, Josh is not really telling a story. So as
you’re identifying the right anecdote for your essay, make sure you have a point of tension—a
point where we, the reader, wonder if everything will turn out okay. For J, this might mean
beginning with a time before he and his sister were close—say, when all the siblings were in the
house and there wasn’t much time for the two to connect. Then Josh would tell us about what
changed as soon as the brother left, and in there he might find an opening anecdote.
3. A wider relevance or a ‘lesson.’ Your essay doesn’t have to demonstrate that you underwent
some great metamorphosis or epiphany as a child or teenager, but does your possible topic have a
takeaway to work with? You’re looking for something that you can put in your pocket and carry
into the future, and in an impressive and ideal world, something that the reader of the essay can
say: “wow, I like that way of thinking, and I might even return to that one day.”
Another way of thinking about this is: your essay is about how your past influences your future, or
the way you think now. Michael has settled on his grandfather teaching him to surf: That’s a
fruitful topic—not just because it contains two characters (Michael and his grandfather), but also a
place (the ocean, or, say, a surf shop), a plot (Michael couldn’t surf in the beginning, then learned
in the middle, now at the end Michael can surf and tell us about it), but also because the end
includes a lesson and a chance to spin that forward, perhaps by talking about how the sport has
taught Michael how to be calm and collected under pressure.
4. Some connection between your past, your present, and your future. It’s common to see a
student choose an important experience in their past, narrate the whole thing beautifully, but then
forget to tie it to the present. Before you even start writing, think about whether your potential
topic is influencing the way you think about the present, and, crucially, the future. Take Michael,
again. He writes beautifully about his grandfather teaching him about the waves, but he’s not a pro

surfer, and might even be going to college in the middle of the country. Does that matter? Not as
long as he tells us how surfing influences him—as he did in extracting a wider lesson.
You might be afraid of picking that mythical ‘wrong topic,’ say, the one thing every admissions officer
is secretly sick of reading about but which no one will tell you. Students often ask us: Should I not write
about a dying grandparent? About coming out? About the meaning of my name? About politics?
Here’s a secret: the success of your topic almost always lies in the delivery—so absent writing about
something flagrantly offensive, violent, or irresponsible, you’re unlikely to hit on that rumored thing the
admissions officers can’t stand.
It is good to be afraid of cliché—but one of the truisms about clichés is that they become trite because
they reiterate feelings we’ve all had. That also means that buried beneath many clichés is some
authentic, particular, and personal relationship you have to your topic. If you’re working with a teacher,
counselor, or advisor on your statement, they can help you discern whether you’re in cliché territory or
whether you’ve bypassed it to a more fruitful realm.
But wait. There is one big rule. Be humble. Don’t try so hard to sound adult, or beyond your years, that
you end up coming across as a know-it-all. It’s better to show the admissions committee that you are
capable of finding and making meaning through the experiences you’ve had as a young person, no
matter how small or limited they may seem to you. If you’ll let us wax philosophical for a moment: that
ability to make meaning from something that isn’t pompous or dramatic—and to do so without being
aggrandizing—is the stuff of great art. So you’re in a good tradition if you stick to humility and take a
deliberate and honest approach to your essays.
So now, make a list of everything that seems like a fruitful topic. From the questions and prompts,
you should find that you have 3-5 strong topic areas and stories—stuff that got you thinking and feeling,
and which produced what Hemingway called the “honest sentences” that comprise good writing. Start
with the one that moves you most—that’s your personal statement—but save all the others as fodder for
your secondaries, or as backup material in case someone you trust tells you to consider switching topics
for some reason. (Tip: the stuff that isn’t always linked to an anecdote or story but is important to you
can often be useful for those secondaries.)
Let’s find out what our sample students chose to write about.

Essay #1: Ramya on the Patriots
Ramya could try to write something about medicine. Or she could write about soccer, dance, or speech.
But none of those things seem to tell the admissions committee what they wouldn’t already know from
simply reading her list of extracurriculars.
So we decide that Ramya is going to write about the Patriots. The question is how she’s going to
demonstrate—through her football fandom—that she is a mature and thoughtful person who will be a
good member of any college’s community. An Ode to Brady won’t do the trick here—but what will is
Ramya’s thoughtful reflection on how spending time watching the Patriots at a sports bar every Sunday
with her dad has given her a relationship with her father that most of her friends have never enjoyed
with their families.
Essay #2: Anita on the outdoors + poetry
The obvious thing—and the thing most teachers and advisors told Anita to do—is write about mock
trial. It would be a good opportunity to give the admissions committee some insight into her psychology
behind the success. She took a couple of stabs at it during free-writing, though, and it didn’t flow.
So instead Anita decides to write about a wilderness solo she took in North Carolina on a school trip,
and about how it influenced her relationship with poetry.
Essay #3: Josh on piano and mistakes
We talked a lot about whether Josh would do best avoiding writing about piano—it’s the main thing on
his resumé and sometimes it can be good to show things off-resumé, as Ramya and Anita plan to. Josh
did some writing about his relationship with his sister and his brother, and that might find a home in the
secondary essays. But it became clear that Josh has an obsessive, if not always positive, relationship
with piano, and so there’s something there.
But how to write “about piano?”
We look at the themes that came up during Josh’s reflection. He found himself writing a lot about
mistakes, public performance anxiety, and the pressure to get a piece just right. Focusing in, Josh

thought about a specific piece which helped him get over some performance anxiety, so he’ll write about
learning that piece and facing the fear.
Essay #4: Michael on surfing
We’ve already referenced Michael’s essay a few times, but he’ll be writing about his grandfather
teaching him to surf and the lessons surfing has given him off the board and out of the waves.
You’ll see us return to these students’ ideas as we work through outlines.
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Part 4: Writing your Common App Essay
If you’ve spent your summer freewriting and then carefully selecting the right essay topic, you’re now in
a strong place to start writing—ideally at the end of July or early August. (Remember that if you are
applying early action or early decision to schools your deadline will come at the start of November,
whereas regular decision applications will generally have December and January deadlines.) We can’t
emphasize enough the importance of this organized pre-work, though—it’s incredibly frustrating for a
student to write an entire draft and then find that it’s just “falling flat” or “doesn’t sound like them” or
“is cliché.” Using the criteria we’ve already set out, though, you can avoid that scary feeling of having
done a lot of work that you’ve got to shelve.
What ‘type’ of essay do you have to write? (list of narrative strategies)
It’s important to remember that there are as many narrative strategies as there are television shows,
books, movies, plays, and poems. We can’t exhaustively discuss all of them, or even most, but we can
give you a few “modules” to play with.
At 650 words, each of these will be best understood as a five-paragraph essay, so a basic structure stays
the same, but the way things begin and end will not.
1. The Specific Experience Essay: This module is one of the most flexible and powerful types of
essays. It begins with a scene, memory, or anecdote, and then tells us what that scene, memory, or
anecdote continues to mean to the writer. It’s a classic, and should not be underestimated.

Michael’s essay about learning to surf with his grandfather will use this structure, but so too will
Anita’s about taking a wilderness solo. Anita will use a slightly more subtle version of this, but
both essays begin with a scene: “I was eight when my grandfather first took me to the water” “The
happiest two hours I have spent were on a boulder jutting into a stream in North Carolina…”
Resolving the Specific Experience Essay requires a student to point to some kind of realization
garnered as a result of the experience. It doesn’t have to be an enormous Eureka! or epiphany, and
in fact, it can come later. Michael’s reflection on the experience of learning to surf with his
grandfather occurs over a decade after he first hit the waves. Anita’s comes during an English
class two years later when she first reads the poetry of John Keats and William Wordsworth and
realizes these writers were engaging with exactly what she experienced during her solo in the
wilderness. The trick Michael and Anita each pull off is spinning the experience forward so that it
means something for the rest of their lives. Michael writes about how he understands meditative
headspace as a result of standing on the board all those hours with his grandfather, and how his
grandfather’s legacy will always be with him. Anita goes small with her reflection: she talks about
how she learned to see art, and artful experiences, in her everyday life, and in small, quiet
moments. (This is especially good for Anita because it expands her away from just the hyper-
intense mock trial competitor she might come across as.)
2. The Patterned/Iterative Essay: This module is a little more advanced. Let’s take Josh's essay
about piano playing. He might want to open with a scene of him playing piano on stage, but that’s
a little obvious. The essay he’s going to write is actually about practice, and learning to stop
making mistakes. So what if he started each paragraph with a different mini-moment of him
playing piano and making a mistake? Paragraph 1: My first time erring on stage—I am six, and
I’m playing Chopsticks. Then he’ll introduce the theme of the essay. Paragraph #2: My second
time messing up—I am thirteen, and… etc. Then the natural place to end it is the time he almost
messes up but doesn’t, which shows us how he’s grown overtime.
3. The Circular Essay: In this essay, the writer begins with a scene or image or concept and then
will circle back to that scene or image or concept before the end of the essay in order to make
sense of the initial opening. This essay deploys suspense. Take Anita’s essay, which might open:
“I spent my happiest moments lost and alone in the wilderness. How did I get here? To understand

that, you’ll have to understand X, Y, Z about me…” and which might close: “...that’s how I found
myself, at sixteen, lost—but entirely at home in the wild.”
4. The Mini-Odyssey Essay: The last classic and powerful module is the good old problem-driven
essay. In this type of essay, our hero (you, the writer) meets a challenge in the first paragraph and
then the essay is devoted to showing us how it is solved. Let’s say Michael wanted to write not
about learning to surf from his grandfather but about learning when his grandfather was diagnosed
with terminal cancer. There’s a lot of narration that will be required for Michael to tell us about
losing his grandfather—it’s too much to cram into the first paragraph. So Michael might distribute
the narration chronologically, showing us first the bad news [the problem]—then zooming out to
reflect; then showing us how he faced it [addressing the challenge], probably failing to adequately
face it perfectly the first time, and then eventually facing it successfully [the solution].
Those are just a few more narrative possibilities for structuring your essay. Right now, we’ll focus on
Ramya’s.
Outlining
Now, taking your chosen topic, it’s time to outline it. Outlining works great for some people as a pre-
writing tactic, and we always recommend it. For others, it can be harder than simply getting down to
writing. If you’re really struggling to outline and would rather just follow the pen to a first draft, that’s
fine, but do yourself a favor and make outlining your second draft step. At some point, everyone needs
an outline, but it’s your call when to do it. Let’s follow this through with Ramya’s essay on the Patriots.
The model we’ll use for this essay is a five-paragraph, anecdote-driven essay.
By the way, this prompt helped Ramya settle on the Patriots—Describe a place or environment where
you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to
you? Ramya’s going to write about the sports bar where she watches her team play every Sunday during
football season.
1. Introduction: Anecdote/scene: Ramya has a fun advantage to her essay—it’s unexpected. The
heart of it takes place in a sports bar, and she may seem, on paper, to the admissions committee, to
be an unlikely diehard football fan. So we begin… at the bar… and Ramya sets the scene: It had
been a rough week at school—drama with my friend group, hard tests, orchestra practice,

exhausting soccer drills—but I knew where I belonged on a Sunday. At Dee's Sports Bar in San
Jose, with my dad, watching our team… She also tells us about Dee's itself, taking the chance to
show the admissions committee that she has narrative skills in just noticing things: By the end of
the football season, the staff knew what we wanted to sit… we were loyal to Dee's, just as we had
to be loyal to the Patriots, even when they seemed to be letting us down. In telling this as a story,
Ramya has given the admissions committee a human being to relate to from the jump.
2. Billboard/nutgraph/thesis paragraph: in the magazine world, they call the second paragraph in
a piece the “billboard paragraph” because it broadcasts—loud as on a billboard—what the piece is
about. Newspapers call the same thing a nutgraph, and academic papers would refer to your thesis
statement. All these point to one thing: this is where you shout, HEY! THIS IS WHAT MY
ESSAY IS ABOUT! This is where you meld the scene and characters of paragraph 1 with the
thematic concerns you’ll address for the rest of the essay. For Ramya, it goes something like this:
Dee's is where I learned to be loyal—to my team, the Patriots, from across the country—but also
to my father, to my friends, and to myself. Ramya’s essay is going to focus on loyalty: a big
theme, one that would sound terribly weak if she introduced it in the first line or even paragraph,
but one that is surprising and interesting here because she’s juxtaposed it against a unique setting
and seemingly light fare—sports at a bar. (Ramya has, at some point, assured the admissions
committee that she’s not drinking in this bar!)
3. Body paragraph #1: In this paragraph, Ramya will tell us something more about loyalty, and why
it matters. She’ll add context. So she will zoom away from Dee's and tell us that throughout high
school, she started noticing a lot of her friends getting caught up in social drama, becoming
competitive with one another, fighting about romantic situations; set against all this, as well as
bullying, depression, and other difficult parts of high school, Ramya’s loyalty to the Patriots and
Dee's served as a sanctuary—one of the things that kept her sane.
Now, it’s crucial to note that this isn’t enough for Ramya to write an essay about. “Here’s
something that is important/valuable/meaningful to me” is sometimes where students stop. Ramya
needs to advance that—to tell us something that shows maturity, shows an ability to reflect and
introspect that will come in handy in college and adulthood...
4. Body paragraph #2: ...so she uses her next paragraph to make a bigger point: what other types of
loyalty being at Dee's on a Sunday causes her to reflect on.

5. Conclusion: now, Ramya will spin the whole thing forward and point our eyes toward that
‘lesson’—the thing that she can put in her pocket, which will serve as a kind of talisman
throughout life.
Writing and revising: common errors
Most people don’t outline. And even after outlining, many people fail to follow their outline. It’s natural
that you’ll want to stray here or there, towards or away from the initial plan, but below are a
few common errors that people make when they either don’t outline or ditch the guiding hand of their
outline. As we go through some of these errors, we’ll also make a list of a few general tips and
tricks for managing some of the toughest parts of your essay, including time, scene, epiphany, change,
character, and more.
Here’s an excerpted version of how Ramya’s essay began, at first: [Ramya’s original drafts have been
very slightly modified]
As a 5’1.75” Asian girl, not many people would expect me to spend every Sunday in a bar
watching football… I was tired of streaming the games on my computer, and having it lag before
every major play.
I want to thank Dee's Sports Bar for teaching me life lessons that I will carry with me for the rest
of my life. Thank you for showing me the importance of loyalty, relationships, and laughter.
I have always been loyal to the Patriots…
It’s not a bad start, but it brings us to Common Error #1: beginning the essay by introducing oneself,
instead of introducing the story, AKA, starting too broad. Ramya begins by trying to tell us who she
is in a big, introductory, throat-clearing way, instead of choosing a specific route into who she is. It’s
sweet that she’s small, but there’s a lot in here that we don’t need: we don’t need her height, nor do we
need to know that she used to get the games in one particular way or another. We just need to know that
she’s at the bar.
She’s only got 650 words. Which leads us to Tip #1: Take refuge in the anecdote, in the specific, in
the particular: everything gets easier if you choose something specific. Many writers—of college

essays and other media—get stressed out, believing that they must convey their entire selves in an essay.
This just isn’t possible to do in the capsule of space that is your Common App personal statement. And,
it will ironically accomplish the opposite—it’ll cause your essay to look shapeless and meandering,
therefore communicating very little about you. If you instead use an individual story as a stand-in for
something larger, or for something else, your essay becomes a kind of parable or lesson that educates
your reader both about you and, hopefully, about a part of the world they’ve never previously
considered.
Now, think about the first declarative sentence Ramya makes in that initial draft: “I have always been
loyal to the Patriots.” Tip #2: Struggling to define your thesis statement? Look for your first
declarative statement! Ramya’s essay can’t be about her perpetual loyalty to the Patriots—that won’t
be enough. But the fact that her prose naturally settled on that as its first short, sharp sentence tells us
that she’s making a statement she probably believes in. Loyalty now becomes really important as a
theme. Common Error #2: Hiding your thesis statement or burying it too low. Since we know that
loyalty will have something to do with Ramya’s thesis statement, we now know we want it to arrive at
the end of the first paragraph or at the start of the first.
Here’s how Ramya’s essay began at the end of 3-4 rounds of edits and revisions:
Just before 5 pm on Sunday, October 13, 2013, I was sitting in a bar, holding on to a feeling of
optimism that was fading fast. But wait: it’s not what you think. I didn’t turn to drink; I turned to
the TV screen. The score was 27-23, and the Patriots had missed too many opportunities. With
just over a minute left to play, my dad—the man responsible for bringing me, a 15-year-old, to a
bar—dejectedly asked me if we should leave. I reminded him a true sports fan never gives up on
her team, no matter the situation. And after a miracle of a drive finished with an unforgettable
pass into the corner of the end zone by my idol, Tom Brady, a swell of elated cheering and high-
fiving from the fans in the bar ensued regardless of whether we had previously known one
another. Loyalty brought us all together.
Another Common Error (#3!) that Ramya made was: Mixing up the conclusion’s sentiment with the
billboard paragraph. Her second paragraph, in the original essay, read: “I want to thank Dee's Sports
Bar for teaching me life lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Thank you for showing
me the importance of loyalty, relationships, and laughter.” That’s a sentiment, but it’s not a thesis. And
that sentiment is fine—it may have a place at the end of the essay—but it doesn’t belong in the second

paragraph, because it doesn’t guide our reading of the rest of the essay. It isn’t strong and declarative
yet.
This was the billboard paragraph Ramya reached after a few rounds of edits:
There are a few different kinds of loyalty. Loyalty to a team, to an establishment, to other people—
even to oneself. Sitting in that bar over the last year, I feel like I’ve glimpsed them all.
A lot is working here! It’s short, clear, and leads us to—Tip #3: define your terms. Ramya wants to
talk about an abstract concept—loyalty. Many young writers wish to reflect on things like charity,
service, leadership, loyalty, friendship, kindness, morality, etc—these are big topics. But Ramya isn’t
just talking about loyalty, a word which could mean many different things to many different people.
She’s defined loyalty for the purposes of this essay, which means now we are playing in her house.
As Ramya’s original first draft moved on, it stumbled into a very Common Error #4: the curious case
of the missing lesson. Initially, Ramya’s penultimate paragraph offered a kind of ode to Dee's instead of
showing the admissions committee that she has a bigger Life Takeaway from her time spent supporting
her team—a problem we could see would happen as soon as we noticed the sentiment of “Thanks
Dee's’” occupying the place that should have been reserved for a billboard paragraph. Returning to the
outline, or making the outline partway through, would remedy that.
But don’t get stressed if your first outline feels like it’s getting away from you. Tip #4: Try a reverse
outline. Once you’ve written one draft of your essay, print it out. (By the way: Tip #5: print stuff
out! Don’t get stuck in an endless spiral of copy-and-paste—by printing out your draft, you can keep a
draft next to you and then open a new document so that you feel free to rewrite entire paragraphs, or
delete sections entirely.) Then take your printout and write out what the function of each paragraph is in
the margin. Might get a little tough, right? If you can’t answer the question what is the goal of this
paragraph? or what do I want the readers to garner from this paragraph?, then you’re probably missing
a topic sentence.
Everything we’re talking about here—writing, noticing mistakes, correcting them—will take you at least
three and as many as five or six drafts to get right. So, Tip #6: Don’t treat your early drafts like
anything close to final. That means you’re going to have to get comfortable with simply putting idea to
paper, and with cutting entire paragraphs or “points” within the essay. You’ve probably never written

anything like the personal statement before, and you have to promise yourself to be iterative—otherwise,
you’ll lock yourself into a weaker version of the essay.
As you’re iterating, try Tip #7: Read your drafts aloud so that you can tell when things feel stiff or
weak; this should sound like you. Reading aloud can help you catch things like Common Error #5:
tonal errors—sounding too formal or too glib/casual. Ramya never suffered from either of these
problems; she sounded like herself even in early drafts. But many students feel that they either have to
sound formal to the point of stuffiness (“On a Sunday afternoon, my father would pick me up from my
room and take me down to the kitchen, whereupon we would adjourn to Dee’s Sports bar…”) or
“authentically young” to the point of disrespecting the reader (“On Sundays my dad’s like, let’s go to
Dee’s Sports Bar, and I go okay so I come on down and we get going...”) When you’re staring at the
blinking cursor until your eyes cross, it can be easy to fall into one of these traps, and to write in a voice
that isn’t yours. When you read aloud, you can catch it. Tip #8: The right essay-voice is the most
polished version of your speaking-voice. You shouldn’t sound like you swallowed a Thesaurus, but
you should sound a little more formal than your text messages to your friends would.
Full-length personal statement example
Here’s what Ramya’s essay looked like, in the end:
Just before 5 pm on Sunday, October 13, 2013, I was sitting in a bar, holding on to a feeling of
optimism that was fading fast. But wait—it’s not what you think. I didn’t turn to drink—I turned to
the TV screen. The score was 27-23, and the Patriots had missed too many opportunities. With
just over a minute left to play, my dad—the man responsible for bringing me, a 15-year-old, to a
bar—dejectedly asked me if we should leave. I reminded him a true sports fan never gives up on
her team, no matter the situation. And after a miracle of a drive finished with an unforgettable
pass into the corner of the end zone by my idol, Tom Brady, a swell of elated cheering and high-
fiving from the fans in the bar ensued regardless of whether we had previously known one
another. Loyalty brought us all together.
There are a few different kinds of loyalty. Loyalty to a team, to an establishment, to other people—
even to oneself. Sitting in that bar over the last year, I feel like I’ve glimpsed them all.
As a Boston-born girl, my loyalty to the Patriots seems natural—even if it’s not so common for a
teenage Indian-American-Californian girl to be as much of a sports junkie as I am. But I’ve seen

that loyalty tested plenty of times. I’m completely invested in the Pats; I’ve been known to be
giddy when they win, and tearful when they lose. However, finding a true home to watch Patriots
games in California isn’t easy. So I owe Dee's Sports Bar a surprising amount. By the end of the
season, the staff knew what we wanted to eat, and where we wanted to sit, so the sports bar felt
like a second home.
My dad and I have a typical father-daughter relationship; I get mad when he doesn’t let me go
out, he gets mad when I neglect responsibility. But in the year since we began staking out the bar,
we’ve gotten so much closer. On the rides to and from, we talked about everything from school to
politics to pop culture. And we talk about sports as equals. My best friend once told me that
neither she nor her dad were willing to make the extra effort to find common ground. And I
realized how lucky I was: sports offers my dad and me an inexhaustible topic that we can always
turn to.
The bar also helped me figure out still another kind of loyalty—to myself. Junior year was an
emotional year, full of difficult academics and the inevitable social drama that comes with high
school. The bar showed me that I needed to look forward to something comfortable—a place with
no drama, no obligations, and a common goal... or at least, a common desperate desire for
victory. At the bar, nobody cared what I got on my last math test or which boy was asking my
friend to prom. All that matters is the game. This realization isn’t limited to just sports; I figured
out that I need a place to be completely myself—with my team and my dad. This included deciding
that I only wanted to stay friends with people who make a positive impact on my life. These were
such simple revelations, yet they made all the difference.
I have always been loyal to the New England Patriots. From my toddler days, as I sat mesmerized
in front of the screen to today, as I analyze every statistic that I can get my hands on, I love every
aspect of the team. But all of those trips to the sports bar taught me important lessons that apply
beyond football. And for that, I am grateful.
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Part 5: Frequently asked questions

There’s more that goes into applying to college than what we’ve been able to cover here, including your
grades, standardized test scores, and recommendation letters, but your essays are some of the most
important materials. They form the cornerstone of the qualitative side of your application. Get these
right and your entire application starts from strength. Good luck!
Question: What books can you recommend for writing essays like this and others?
Answer: William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is the primer for nonfiction writing basics. Strunk &
White’s Elements of Style is a very slim volume that will help you ensure you’ve dotted all your is and
crossed all your ts when it comes to grammar and syntax rules.
Question: Who should read my essays? Is there such a thing as too many readers? Too few? The
wrong readers?
Answer: Think quality, not quantity. It’s best not to hand your essay to every person who comes your
way, no matter how many smart teachers, friends, and peers you have at your disposal. Too much
feedback can confuse your sense of mission.
So how do you know who to give your essay to? The right essay editor or guide is someone who knows
something about you but isn’t your best friend or parent, and someone who you know can push you on
storytelling and language.
There is such thing as having too many readers, so we recommend asking no more than 1-3 people to
weigh in: an editor/counselor/teacher/consultant should help you with the bulk of your essay, while a
friend or parent can listen to you read it aloud at some point, or can read it without the ren pen lifted—
meaning, they’re there to make sure you sound like you, rather than intervening and writing it for you,
or writing over you. Parents who get too handsy with their kids’ essays can do their children a real
disservice; it’s clear when someone who isn’t 18 was serving as the guiding force in the essay-writing
process.
Often students want to know how to handle feedback they may disagree with. If it comes from someone
you respect, think it over seriously, but remember that this is your voice, and write the person or tell
them that you value their input but you think the essay sounds more like you if you keep it as it was.

Question: Does my essay have to be about something that happened in high school? How far back
can I go?
Answer: Your essay can draw on whatever moves you, regardless of when the anecdote, event, or
inciting incident you’re writing about occurred. However, what matters most, in terms of timeline, is
that you show your readers how the event not only influences you now but will continue to inflect your
thinking about yourself and the world as the years roll on.
Question: I feel like I don't have enough space to write everything I want. What should I do?
Answer: This is totally normal! But feeling that you have more to say than you can fit is often a result of
insufficient paring-down—that is, you probably haven’t chosen the right specific prompt to get your
personal statement into particular, small territory. That’s the key: your job is to find the right question to
answer, using all the prewriting tips and tricks and exercises we’ve outlined here. With the right
question, you can use your Common App Essay as a window into who you are, rather than feeling
burdened by the belief that you must communicate your ‘whole self’ in your application. You can’t box
yourself up and hand your soul to the admission committee—but you can use those 650 words to give
them some insight into some of the most important parts of you.
Question: Is there such thing as being too BELOW the word limit?
Answer: Since you only have 650 words to express the intangible parts of yourself, we always
recommend using as much of the word limit as possible. If you’re well below that limit, it’s worth
asking yourself why your personal statement is so short. Check it against the outlines we’ve worked
through in this post. Have you used your five-paragraph essay fully? Has your essay demonstrated
change over time, or personal growth? Perhaps you’ve told a story but forgotten to reflect on it. The
important thing is to ensure that you’ve fully inhabited each ‘element’ of the successful Common App
Essay, as noted in this guide. Doing so will bring you close to the sensible word limit.
Question: Should I explain bad grades in my essays?
Answer: Many students have the instinct to explain themselves, including any failings or perceived
failings, while writing their applications. There are a number of ways you can offer the admissions
committee context for something you think went ‘wrong’ in high school, whether that’s low grades,
imperfect attendance, or something else. Your recommenders might have a chance to write something

about it in their letters, if they were in a position to see you during or after the rough period. You can
also write about something going wrong in your personal statement if it has narrative energy; that is to
say—if it would make a good essay regardless of whether or not it explained away a failing, go ahead
and write about it. An example might be an essay that discussed a student’s home life, say their parents’
difficult divorce during their freshman year. If the student had something introspective to say about the
divorce, she might add a line or two that explains that her grades suffered during the incident, but she’d
want to conclude the essay by not only showing how she righted things in the years after, but also how
what she learned from the difficult period will influence her in the future.
It’s crucial to avoid sounding defensive about your weak spots in your application. If you have
something that you think makes you seem a less-than-ideal applicant, turn it into your strength by
explaining what you learned from it.
Colleges will sometimes also have a place to offer additional information or context about hardships you
might have faced during high school. This is another place you could consider explaining or adding
context for bad grades or the like. Even here, it’s important to not simply state, “I had bad grades but
improved them.” A better explanation provides context and explains what specifically helped you turn
things around, for example: “During my freshman year, as my parents went through a difficult divorce, I
became distracted and stressed, and my grades suffered as a result. I was able to work with my teachers
over the summer after my freshman year, however, and attended summer school to make up for weak
performance. My family also repaired itself after a few years and time in family therapy. Though I regret
my poor grades from ninth grade, I am proud that I was able to improve quickly as a sophomore, and
that I developed both stronger study habits and tactics for dealing with emotional stress as a result.” The
second answer is specific and also demonstrates maturity gained thanks to a difficult period.

Chapter 2
How to Write Supplemental College Application
Essays that Grab Admissions Committees
Learn how to impress admissions committees through any school-
specific essay prompt
If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably finished the most challenging part of your college
application process, the Common App Essay (a.k.a. personal statement). In that case, major
congratulations are in order!
Now it’s time to address the various supplemental (a.k.a. secondary) essays that schools like Harvard,
Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and many others will ask you to fill out. Whereas some universities will ask
you to complete one additional essay, other schools, will ask you to complete multiple essays. In
addition, the essay lengths will vary from school to school and from prompt to prompt.
Some students think they should treat their personal statement as the main “essay question” on the test,
whereas they consider the supplemental essays as “short answer” questions. While it’s true that your
personal statement almost always allows you the most space to share an aspect of who you are, it’s
important that you treat your supplementals with the same rigor.
The admissions committees use your secondary essays to augment the story they have assembled about
you as a candidate from your Common App Essay and your recommendations. They are looking for
more details that confirm what they’ve heard about you, expand on that, and neither contradict nor
repeat what they’ve already learned from your personal statement.
Let’s replace the “essay question” and “short answer” analogy we hear from students a lot with an
interview analogy. Your Common App Essay is the initial answer you get to give the interviewer when

they say, “Tell me about yourself.” You deliver that with excellent posture and careful word choice.
Now, as the interview continues, and the questions become things like, “Why would you like to attend
our school?” and “What’s your favorite snack?” and “Can you elaborate more on your favorite
extracurricular?” you don’t want to kick off your shoes, slouch in your chair, and develop a sudden
drawl as you respond to your interviewer.
Realizing that the supplemental essays, which range in length from 25 characters to 650 or more words,
are, well, still essays, and still require outlining, planning, and editing, some students can freeze up.
You’ve just completed a mammoth task of squeezing yourself into your personal statement. The good
news is that the skills and rhythms you developed while writing your personal statement remain
applicable for, your supplemental essays. If you haven’t worked through our step-by-step guide to
writing your Common App Essay, go do that now, and you’ll be well-prepared for your supplemental
essays shortly.
----
Part 2: From outlining to writing
In preparing for your Common App Essay, you left some material you “on the cutting room floor,” so to
speak—meaning you probably thought about topics or experiences that moved you but weren’t “the
one” for your personal statement. Now is your chance to make use of that excess!
The exercises and prompts we used to prepare for the Common App personal statement can serve as
excellent grounding for addressing the many types of questions that come up in the supplemental essays.
The difference is how you’ll make use of them in the supplemental essays that are generally shorter.
Here’s a general strategy for approaching essays of varying lengths. We’ll shortly tackle examples of the
essays themselves by subject matter:
The 650-word essay
In this essay, a college may simply give you a chance to write another Common App-style personal
statement.

Example
Princeton University: In addition to the essay you have written for the Common Application, please
write an essay of about 500 words (no more than 650 words and no fewer than 250 words). Using one of
the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event, or experience that helped you define
one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. Please do not repeat, in full or
in part, the essay you wrote for the Common Application.
1. Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.

2. “One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex
causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics,
Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the
Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University.
3. “Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as
we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are
meaningful.” Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy and director of the Behrman
Undergraduate Society of Fellows, Princeton University.
4. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting
point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed
how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your
essay.
Strategies for this essay
It’s the personal statement 2.0—so rinse, lather, repeat! Go through your materials from your pre-
writing phase while writing your Common App Essay, and the list of topics you made originally, and
choose the one that almost made the cut for your personal statement but didn’t. Outline it with the same
rigor and attention that you gave the Common App!
This means you’re using your traditional five-paragraph essay tools. You’ll need an intro paragraph with
a lede or hook of some sort, a billboard paragraph, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. You will
likely want to follow our personal statement model of linking your essay to at least one anecdote or
specific story.

The 500-word essay
Example
Rice University: The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily
influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal
perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (500)
With just 500 words to work with here, we might want to think slightly smaller or more contained than a
five-paragraph essay revolving around an anecdote or personal experience. Instead, let’s think in terms
of the following units:
• A topic or thesis statement that unites the question with your personal experience.
• Some “evidence,” drawing on personal history, that supports the thesis statement.
• The one-line zinger that ensures the committee knows you read the question and are answering it.
Here they are again, with examples based on our student Ramya, whom you met during the personal-
statement-writing process:
A topic or thesis statement that unites the question with your personal experience
Ramya came up with a number of things that make her uniquely “her,” and which her friends, family,
teachers, and counselors would all recognize as her. She’s planning on studying medicine but is a rabid
sports fan, loves football and soccer, and is also a loyal friend. Ramya is also Indian-American and
comes from a small town in California where being Asian does not actually make her a minority. So
while some students might choose to write about race or identity or other things we ‘traditionally’ think
of when thinking of ‘diversity,’ Ramya’s mind doesn’t go there. Instead, she thinks about… Harry
Potter. Hold that thought.
Here’s what she thought about when asked to consider what made her different:

I grew up in a community full of ambitious people, all of whom were told to be leaders. What
makes me unlike them? I’m not the one who stands up at the front of the room to try to run things.
I’m the one who makes them run, behind the scenes. In fact, I’m the dependable one, the loyal
one...
Ramya's personal experience has shown her that this makes her different.
So, what about Harry Potter? Here’s how Ramya articulates this to her readers:
I was raised on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. As a kid, I remember friends choosing which
house they thought they’d be sorted into: brave in Gryffindor, smart in Ravenclaw, ambitious in
Slytherin, and… everyone else in Hufflepuff. Rowling says Hufflepuffs are the ‘loyal and true.’ But
when friends and I talked about landing up as a badger, it seemed like we were doomed.
Some “evidence,” drawing on personal history, that supports the thesis statement
Now, just as we used anecdotes and set scenes for readers while writing the personal statement, we want
to do something similar here. But we don’t have time for Ramya to walk us through the room where her
heart pounded as she revealed herself to be a Hufflepuff. We have to move more efficiently this time,
without sacrificing specificity.
One way to do that is by writing in a list, as Ramya did here:
Strangely, though, as we got older, it was exactly my Hufflepuff qualities that my friend group
seemed to depend on the most. ‘You might belong in Hufflepuff,’ the Sorting Hat sings, ‘where
they are just and loyal.’ Hufflepuffs are ‘patient,’ ‘true,’ and ‘unafraid of toil.’ It’s not a thrilling
description! No bravery, no promises of ruling the world here. But those words all seemed to
describe me.
During my junior year, I found my friends turning to me after the loss of a classmate. We needed
people to organize an assembly, a memorial, and a charity in the classmate’s name. My school
was going through a difficult time, and everyone was trying to contribute in their way. But we
were all young and new to grief, which meant we didn’t always know how to get things right.
Some people were quick to speak or write about the classmate, believing that someone had to take

a ‘leadership’ role. Others felt uncomfortable and tried to move on past it entirely. I was quiet, as
I often am, but when I saw how many ways people were trying to respond, I realized we didn’t
need another ‘leader’ to step in. We needed loyal followers and patient workers to follow through
on the many initiatives that people were trying to start in the wake of this classmate’s passing.
The one-line zinger that ensures the committee knows you read the question and are answering it
Because many essays are like opening a door to a larger conversation, it can be easy to wander through
the door and begin pacing around the interesting room you have discovered on the other side. But don’t
forget your manners! At some point you have to make sure you acknowledge that a specific door was
opened. Leaving that metaphor before we wring it dry: in plain terms, remember that, unlike in the case
of the personal statement, the supplemental essays often ask a specific question that you need to ensure
you’ve answered. So make sure your concluding statement or one of your last few lines gets into that.
This Rice essay has Ramya musing on what makes her ‘different’ (her Hufflepuff-ness) and has sent her
into anecdotal territory, remembering her classmate’s loss. But she has to bring it home, and answer that
question specifically, not just introduce the committee to something quirky and distinctive about her.
Here’s how she does it:
If there’s one thing I, and the generation of kids who grew up on Rowling’s series, learned from
those books, it’s that you need all types of people, represented by all four houses. My personality,
as a loyal, heads-down, sometimes quiet, Hufflepuff, often made me think of myself as ‘boring’
when I was younger. But for the past year, I’ve seen how it can be a strength, not just to me, but
also to the community I belong to.
I am applying to Rice early because it feels like a strong community. From the residential college
system to the tight-knit campus, I can see myself giving my best Hufflepuff qualities to my
classmates and peers during intramural sports tournaments, late-night study sessions, and more—
in the face of both everyday trials and larger, scarier moments in life.
Ramya has done a double-whammy here, telling us not only about what the community gets from her
unique qualities, but also slipping in an answer to the ‘Why Rice’ question that she’ll soon have one
more chance to respond to in full.

The 150-250-word or other very short essay
Example
USC: Describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests at USC. Please feel free to address your
first- and second-choice major selections. (250 word limit)
With a short amount of space to work with, we’re going to need extremely taut and clear sentences. This
essay doesn’t need the fancy flourish of anecdotal hooks or ledes; in fact, you can’t back into this essay
through narrative. Clarity and direct responses to this kind of question will win you the game.
The components of a successful answer to an essay of this length:
• A topic sentence that explicitly answers the question that has been asked
• Evidence supporting the conclusion (in this case, that neuroscience is the right major for Josh)
• A dash of introspection to finish the day
Here’s what Josh, our pianist and soccer player, wrote:
I hope to double-major in neuroscience and cinema and media studies at USC. Though I
eventually may want to attend medical school, I want to use the liberal arts curriculum at USC to
explore multiple disciplines as an undergraduate. The combination of neuroscience and cinema
studies might seem surprising to some, but together the two majors form a tribute to the reason I
love science at all. My elementary and middle schools did not have strong STEM programs, and
so my teachers, seeing a student enthusiastic about science, used to put on science documentaries
when I had finished the homework. Watching Stephen Hawking, Oliver Sacks, and Neil deGrasse
Tyson, I discovered things that could not have reached me from just the textbook. My hope is to
use half my time at USC to take courses that prepare me for a career in neuroscience while
spending the other half in classrooms that teach documentary filmmaking and production. I hope
to intern at least one summer at a production company specializing in science documentaries, and
to do a senior project that might eventually see screen time, either online or on the silver screen.

Whether or not I go on to make films as a career, I know that learning how to communicate
complicated ideas to the public will serve me well as a scientist.
Josh’s essay is successful for a number of reasons, but particularly because it not only answers the
question (how will you pursue your interests) through mention of particular types of classes he’d like to
take, summer internships he’d like to pursue, and his eventual goals with both majors. It’s also excellent
because it’s tailored to USC, the asking school; like Ramya’s Rice essay, it serves as an additional mini
essay proving Josh’s knowledge of and passion about the school.
----
Part 3: Types of secondary and supplemental essays
While you can face a number of different types of questions when tackling your secondary and
supplemental essays, there are certain prompts and certain “genres” of prompts that come up again and
again. It’s a good idea to be aware of the general types of secondary essays that can come up. (The
University of Chicago is famous for coming up with new prompts, inspired by its current students, each
year, and a full list of their past essays is available here.).
You’ll notice that many of these secondaries touch on things that you scribbled about way back during
your pre-writing phase, while others may ask you to do some thinking about the qualities of the specific
college to which you are applying.
We’ve broken down the wild sea of supplemental essays into a few particular types of questions and
come up with some strategies for you to approach the next phase of your application with!
The ‘why us’ essay
Some colleges will ask you to explain why you’d like to attend X university.
Examples
Barnard College: What factors influenced your decision to apply to Barnard College and why do you
think the College would be a good match for you? (100-250 words)

Davidson College: Why Davidson? (250-300 Suggested Word Limit)
Dartmouth College: 100 words or less: While arguing a Dartmouth-related case before the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1818, Daniel Webster, Class of 1801, uttered this memorable line: ''It is, Sir…a small
college. And yet, there are those who love it!'' As you seek admission to the Class of 2022, what aspects
of the College’s program, community, or campus environment attract your interest?
Strategies for addressing the ‘why us’ essay
• Work backward. Think about what your big dream is—what or who you hope to become—and
identify a few specific things about each college you’re applying to, asking yourself how each one
of those is going to help you get there.
• Have a ‘mini-thesis’ for each school rather than having a general list of qualities the school
meets for you. Anita, our humanities-oriented student, writes that she’s interested in studying
history, and includes a tidbit in her “Why Yale” essay from the campus tour she was able to take,
about how Yale’s architects were so obsessed with the past that they built the campus to look even
older than it is. This jives with her own interest and the fact that Yale has one of the best history
departments in the country.
• Go beyond the website, and be specific. Don’t restate the “About Barnard” section of the
Barnard brochure to the admissions committee—they already know why they offer you a great
opportunity. Talk about your experiences with the college you’re applying to—did you visit and
hear something from a tour guide, admissions officer, student, or professor? If you couldn’t visit,
did you do some online research that got you in touch with some of the Big Themes a tour guide
or info session would hit? Is there a particular class you’ve heard of that’s legendary on campus?
A tradition at the school? An alumna/alumnus of the college whose work has inspired you?
Here’s an example of a great ‘why us’ essay, responding to Yale’s prompt: What is it about Yale that
has led you to apply? (125 words or less). Our mock trial champion from our Common App personal
Essay guide, Anita, was admitted to Yale.
I hope to study history or English, and Yale's departments in both are some of the best in the
world. I am drawn to the interdisciplinary humanities offerings, including the Directed Studies
program and the Humanities major. A writer, I also hope to work on the Yale Daily News or the
Globalist. But it isn't just the caliber of academics that draws me to Yale. It's also the sense that

the campus itself is comprised of history and knowledge. From Sterling Memorial Library,
literally constructed as a cathedral to knowledge, to the buildings the architects poured acid on to
make them look older, I felt a sense of almost ancient respect for intellect when I visited.
Anita’s essay is extremely specific, citing history, English, a freshman academic program, a particular
major, two campus publications she wants to write for, and two facts she learned on her campus tour
(which you could also get from watching a number of YouTube videos or speaking with local alumni or
meeting admissions officers at a local college fair, if you’re not able to visit schools). But it’s also
successful because it has a thesis that conveys a dual passion: a personal passion for her own academic
interests, and a passion for the school. She converges her personal plans with the spirit of Yale, and that
shows the admissions officers that she’s a natural fit.
Tell us more about an extracurricular
Some colleges will simply ask for you to elaborate further on an extracurricular activity or class you’ve
already mentioned on your Common App Activities List. This is the only time you should elaborate
further on something already in your application.
Standard example
Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was
particularly meaningful to you. (About 150 words)
Strategies for addressing the extracurricular essay
• Choose an activity that means something to you, or that could benefit from being livened up
by your prose. Anita our mock trial champion,chose to write about a wilderness solo. But now
would be a good time for her to talk about mock trial—the thing the admissions committee will
already know her for, but which now she can add some humanity to, without making it the only
thing that defines her.
• Don’t write about the same thing you’ve written your Common App Essay on! Josh, who
chose piano for his personal statement, will need to pick something else.

Here’s another of Anita’s essays, this one about her mock trial activities. Remember that mock trial is
one of Anita’s most obviously impressive activities. She’s nationally competitive, and it will come up in
her counselor and teacher recommendations and her national wins will show up on her resumé and lists
of awards. But she hasn’t written about it yet. Her job is not to summarize her wins—her recommenders
and CV will do that for her—but to tell the admissions committee something they can’t get from other
portions of her application.
I spend several Saturdays a semester in front of a room full of people, acting out a story. It is one
of the greatest adrenaline rushes I can think of. My role: I am an attorney, for a few hours. My
motivation: simple. To win the case.
I’m not in the drama club. I’ve never been on a proper stage. I almost threw up as an eighth-
grader at theater camp when I had to improvise a scene. And yet, I thrive as a member of the
mock trial team. That’s because when my job is to make sense of a series of arguments, to cross-
examine my way to the heart of the trial, and to articulate a clear and powerful closing statement,
I am inhabiting my best self. I am Atticus Finch and Clarence Darrow, and, most importantly, me.
Design a class/a major
Some colleges, especially those with a liberal arts foundation, will ask you to come up with a seminar or
even reimagine an entire department.
Example
The University of Chicago: Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a
removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops!
Describe your new intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus
within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages
and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History... a full list of unmodified majors ready for
your editor’s eye is available here: collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/majors - Inspired by Josh Kaufman,
Class of 2018
Boston College: Boston College strives to provide an undergraduate learning experience emphasizing
the liberal arts, quality teaching, personal formation, and engagement of critical issues. If you had the

opportunity to create your own college course, what enduring question or contemporary problem would
you address and why?
This should be tons of fun—a way of getting to hear you geek out and be creative; it’s a chance for you
to show your excitement at the chance to get a broad and varied education. The important thing here is
to convey excitement for the reason the college is asking you to do this at all: you’re going to get a
chance to study somewhere where your intellectual curiosity is valued.
Here’s Ramya’s essay in answer to Emory’s prompt:
Emory University: If you could create an academic course that is in the Emory University spirit of
collaboration, creativity, entrepreneurship and inquiry, what would it be? What impact would the course
have on you and your classmates’ educational experience? (500)
Why do I love chocolate while my brother gags at the scent of it? Why are some people more
attracted to Italian food than Mexican food? Why do we like some foods during the summer, and
others during the fall? Can we predict what people might find enjoyable based on their
background and attitudes? As an avid foodie, I have always wondered what it is that attracts each
person to different tastes.
These are a few of the questions we would answer in my Freshman Seminar class on “Food for
Thought.”
We would purchase, cook, and taste foods from all around the world and observe the neurological
effects that each has. While there is common knowledge of the basic proteins, carbohydrates, and
fats, along with how a good balance should be struck in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, this
new class would focus on the subtle differences in types of signals emitted by the brain when
different foods are consumed. Students would be exposed to the theory and practice of
neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI and PET scans. We would identify neurotransmitters
emitted as a result of the food ingested and study if different parts of the brain “light up” in
response to different foods.

Along with creating a brain-food map, students would learn how to use statistically sound
methods to study how variables such as a subject’s ethnic background, age, gender, and social
attitudes such as open mindedness, correlate with the subject’s likes and dislikes.
This class will also address cultural elements of food. When eating foods from around the world,
in order to fully appreciate the dish as a whole, it is important to understand the context
surrounding what lands on our plates. We would read short stories or passages and watch
excerpts of popular film focused on food from the countries whose cuisine we are testing. Cooking
and tasting food together are great ways to bring people together, as seen in many movies such as
Ratatouille and The Hundred-Foot Journey.
Not only would this class be informative, but it would also be an engaging, hands-on experience,
and would provide freshmen with two valuable experiences during their first year at college—
forming community and rethinking their fundamental approaches to academics by introducing
them to interdisciplinary thought. “Food for Thought” would expose freshmen to an integrated
approach to science while providing a fun environment for freshmen to get to know each other. At
the end of the class, all students would have a better understanding of neuroscience as well as an
appreciation for different cultures and their unique foods.
Sign us up for Ramya’s class! This is such a vibrant essay for a number of reasons. She’s truly thrown
herself into imagining an interdisciplinary topic that converges a fun, light part of her personality—
food—with something already on her application—her interest in medicine and neuroscience. She’s also
made a few expert moves here, whether consciously or not. By pointing to the “valuable experiences”
students need freshman year, she has indicated to the admissions committee that she understands that
being a part of Emory involves both community and academics. That’s the kind of person you want on
your campus!
Tell us about your major
Some schools may ask you to apply to a specific professional school or track or having declared a major.
Others may ask you to indicate an initial preference. Still others may expect no prior thought about
majors.
Example

Cornell University: Why are you drawn to studying the major you have selected? Please discuss how
your interests and related experiences have influenced your choice. Specifically, how will an education
from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and Cornell University help you achieve
your academic goals? (Please limit your response to 650 words.)
Brown University: Why are you drawn to the area(s) of study you indicated earlier in this application?
If you are "undecided" or not sure which Brown concentrations match your interests, consider describing
more generally the academic topics or modes of thought that engage you currently. (150 word limit)
USC: Describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests at USC. Please feel free to address your
first- and second-choice major selections. (250 word limit)
This is one essay hiding two in it—it’s a ‘why us?’ essay combined with an essay that wants you to state
where you see yourself in 5-10 years.
• First, apply the same strategies you did for the ‘why us’ essay (specifics!)—go to the website
of the undergraduate program or major you’re applying to/indicating interest in, and look at
student or alumni profiles. Is there anyone who makes you say, “yeah, I’d love to do that”? Write
about them. Is there a summer program, a particular class, an internship, or anything else
associated with this program that attracts you?
• Second, talk about where you want to be in 5-10 years. Imagine your dream job and tell the
admissions committee how this particular program or major might help you reach it. This is a time
when you can and should be specific—because you’re not committing to the story you’re writing
down. You’re just demonstrating that you’ve thought about it and have a passion or vocation
pulling you in one direction or another.
We’ve shown you one example of a response to USC’s question above. Here’s another example, this
one in response to Brown’s prompt, from our student Josh, who isn’t sure what he wants to study. But
he’s generally interested in international affairs and global political issues.
I am interested in studying International Relations or East Asian Studies. My mother is Chinese

and my father is American. When they met, their two countries could not have been more distant.

But today, China and America have to increasingly understand one another, economically,
politically, and culturally. I am able to stand at the crossroads of these two countries, and I hope
to use my time at Brown to learn Mandarin and to study abroad in China. I am also excited about
the East Asian Studies requirement to engage with countries beyond China; learning about
migratory patterns and cultural conversations in the region and studying Korea and Japan will
help me crystallize my sense of the region.
Diversity-in-community essay
An essay that asks you what you bring to the college community can seem like it’s asking for you to
explain the ways in which you bring “diversity” to the community. You can answer in terms of your
identity—gender, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, or otherwise—but you do not need to. Really, essays
like this are asking for you to identify one way in which you’re different, and the way you make that
difference a boon to others around you.
Examples
Rice University: The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily
influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal
perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (500)
Duke University: Optional essay: Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that
embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our
community stronger. If you'd like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you've had to help us
understand you better-perhaps related to a community you belong to or your family or cultural
background-we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our
best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke. (250 word limit)
Strategies for these essays
Go back to your pre-written prompts and think about what you noticed made you different, and unlike
your peers. You’re often looking for something intangible to others but tangible to you. Think about
what you wrote about your parents or siblings, your hometown or community.

We’ve given you Ramya’s response to this above, but here’s another essay, from Michael responding to
the Duke prompt, who wrote about surfing with his grandfather for the personal statement. Though
Michael has included his grandfather in his application already, he takes a different angle on him for this
optional essay so it does not feel redundant. Especially because this is a non-required answer, that
repetition is fine.
I was born and raised in a small town in southern California and attended a big public high
school. Here, everyone is racially mixed-up. Black, Asian, Hapa, Hispanic, and other
combinations mingle in our loud school hallways. I never had much of a reason to think about my
ethnic heritage until recently. My maternal grandfather is Hawaiian, and he married a ‘haole,’ or
a white person. My paternal grandparents are white Californians. I look almost entirely white,
and I get to move through the world feeling like any old white guy. But when my grandfather got
sick and eventually passed away at the end of high school, I became interested in that part of my
background.
I learned about the state’s history and the colonial presence that white people had. I also learned
how many people in Hawaii now serve in the Armed Forces. This is a complicated history, and
one I am interested in exploring more in college. Though I don’t know if I will ever live in Hawaii
long-term, I want to study history or anthropology to write about this part of American history,
which I never knew about growing up. I think this cultural background could bring something
unique to the Duke community. I also think it can contribute to conversations about social justice,
which are big in my high school, but which entirely white people sometimes struggle to contribute
to. My sense of containing multiple racial identities now will shape me and the school I attend.
Quick hits
Some universities ask for your “short takes” on a number of things, limiting your response to 35 words
or so.
Example
Yale University: Yale’s residential colleges regularly host intimate conversations with guests
representing a wide range of experiences and accomplishments. What person, past or present, would you
invite to speak? What question would you ask?

Princeton University:
• Two adjectives your friends would use to describe you:

• Your favorite word:
USC:
• What is your favorite snack?

• What TV show will you binge watch next?
Strategy for these ‘essays’
Be authentic, original, and don’t overthink it. You might even have someone else read them aloud to you
and answer instinctively. This is a chance for you to sound like the you your friends and family know
and love. If you’re flexing here, trust us, the admissions officers will roll their eyes. They can smell it.
----
Part 4: Frequently asked questions
Question: How much of a ‘theme’ do I need to convey across my Common App personal statement
and supplementary essays?
Answer: You want to offer one round story about yourself, while also giving the admissions committee
an opportunity to discover you anew each time: first in your Common App Essay, then in your
recommendations, and finally in your supplementary essays. Stating major contradictions or trying to
span too much—for example, saying you want to study English, biology, Chinese, and public health—
might confuse things. Everyone is more complex and multivalent than they can seem on paper, but
remember to keep sounding related notes without ringing the same bell over and over.
Question: Are supplementary essays the place to explain away bad grades or holes in my academic
record?
Answer: Some schools will give you a chance to elaborate on splotches on your transcript or weak
points. If they don’t, remember that you have the chance to engage with your weak spots in any number
of these supplementary essays, as long as you write narratively. Say your STEM grades were weak

freshman and sophomore year. You might talk about how your middle school didn’t have a strong math
or science program and when you switched to a good high school, you weren’t prepared. Then you’d
want to explain what you did to improve them and how that taught you a lesson going forward.
It’s important to note, though, that it is rarely the right choice to talk about your bad grades in your
essays. More often, you should try to be impressive on your own terms rather than risk seeming
defensive.
Question: Many supplemental essays seem to want me to ‘loosen up.’ Is there such thing as going
too casual?
Answer: Take your cue from the tone of the question. The Princeton essay we responded to in this post,
for instance, has a serious tone and is basically an invitation to write another personal statement. But the
short-takes, or Stanford’s prompt to write a letter to your first college roommate, are asking you to be
creative, and that might mean more casual. But it probably means something more like “sound like
you.” In any case, be deliberate and try not to slip too much into generational patois.
Question: I’m applying to the University of California, which asks for 350-word essays, or another
school system with short word counts on the essays. Can I use those as supplemental responses?
Can I use my supplemental essays for the other schools?
Answer: Yes, definitely. It’s always a good idea to reuse your material as much as possible. You don’t
have to reinvent yourself for every application. You’re presenting the same self at a slightly different
angle based on the questions a given school chooses to ask you.
Always remember, though, that any essays you reuse across schools will probably have to be at least a
little bit modified so that they directly answer the question that was asked. The question from the
University of California that asks, ‘What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you
developed and demonstrated that talent over time?’ is not the same question as ‘Please briefly elaborate
on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you.’
But your answer might be the same or similar. Your greatest talent or skill might be mock trial or soccer;
perhaps you’ve written about mock trial for the extracurricular supplemental essay. The trick now is to
make sure you’re answering the ‘over time’ element of the UC question. Your job isn’t just to say you
did mock trial and why you liked it; you will also need to explain something about its arc and change in
your life over a period of months or years.

Chapter 3
How to Stand Out on the Common App (and
UC) Activities Section
Share your accomplishments in a way that shines
Part 1: Overview
In addition to the dreaded 650-word personal statement and college-specific supplemental essays, you
will have to complete the Common App Activities section.
Whereas the personal statement will show college admissions committees who you are, the Common
App Activities section will allow colleges to understand what you have done and are doing outside of
the classroom, offering one of your best opportunities to stand out among other applicants.
Without college essays and extracurricular activities lists, colleges would be limited to grades, class
rank, and ACT and SAT scores to make their admissions decisions. Given that so many students with
strong numbers apply to college each year, it’s important for you to use the Activities section to develop
an application theme, that is, your “it factor” and specialties.
Before we get into writing tips and sample extracurricular descriptions, let’s go over a few Activities
section basics:
What qualifies as an activity?
According to Common App, “activities may include arts, athletics, clubs, employment, personal
commitments, and other pursuits.” In other words, pretty much anything pursued outside the classroom
qualifies as an activity.

How many activities can be listed?
You may list up to 10 activities.
What are the word or character limits for each activity?
Common App sets the following limits for each activity:
• Position/Leadership description and organization name, if applicable: 50 characters

• Activity description, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received, etc.:
150 characters
As you can see, there is very limited space offered for each activity, so we’ll be discussing how to
maximize the impact of each entry below.
What other information does Common App collect for each activity?
Common App requests the following information for each activity:
• Activity type (e.g., Art, Athletics, Community Service, Debate/Speech, Foreign Language,
Research, Social Justice, Work)
• Participation grade levels (9, 10, 11, 12, Post-graduate)
• Timing of participation (During school year, During school break, All year)
• Hours spent per week
• Weeks spent per year
• Whether or not you intend to participate in a similar activity in college (Yes/No)
----
Part 2: Writing Strategies
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s discuss some proven approaches to completing a strong
Activities section:
1. Include role and organization name in the top box

The first three fields for each Activity on Common App look like this:
After selecting an Activity type from the drop-down menu, you should describe your
position and organization name in the corresponding box. That way, you can use the full 150-character
limit for the activity description box.
For example, rather than writing “Student Council” or “President”, you should write “President, Student
Council”.
2. Do not repeat words from the position description box in the activity description box
Continuing with the student council president example: Instead of writing, “As president of the student
body, I was responsible for…”, you should write, “Responsible for meeting agendas, liaising with
administration, and implementing school initiatives, such as free textbooks for low-income families.”
3. Focus on quantifiable and significant impact
Many applicants undersell their achievements because they don’t get specific enough about their
contributions. For example, rather than write something like, “Organized food can drive for local
families”, you should write, “Collected over 10,000 cans and provided Thanksgiving meals for 500

families in greater Cleveland.” With details like that, your impact will be unquestionable to admissions
committees.
4. List tasks and avoid complete sentences to make room for more detail
Colleges understand that you do not have enough space to provide in-depth descriptions of each activity.
Therefore, rather than write, for example, “At the hospital, I transported patients with physical
disabilities on wheelchairs…”, you should write, “Transported patients on wheelchairs, provided meals
and blankets, assembled gift baskets, and attended grand rounds.”
5. Describe current activities using present tense
For instance, rather than, “I tutored seventh graders in science”, you should write, “I help seventh
graders master challenging science concepts.”
----
Part 3: Advanced Strategies

1. List activities in order of importance and impressiveness
Admissions committees will better remember activities listed earlier, so you should lead with your most
impactful and meaningful ones. Moreover, by capturing admissions committees’ positive attention early
on, they will review the rest of your Activities list more favorably.
2. Make activities sound as impressive as possible
Dr. Cal Newport first popularized the concept of the failed simulation effect, defined as follows:
“Accomplishments that are hard to explain can be much more impressive than accomplishments that are
simply hard to do.” Therefore, within each activity’s description, you should describe accomplishments
that are hardest to explain. For example, if you blog about mental health and had an opportunity to meet
with a local city councilperson to develop a mental health awareness initiative in your county, you
should mention that. (see other examples in our article published on NBC’s Parent Toolkit) It’s

important to note, however, that you should never fabricate or exaggerate achievements and activities
for the sake of impressiveness.
3. Chunk related activities together to develop a theme
College admissions committees look not only for activities in which you have participated for a number
of years, but also for groups of related activities. For example, let’s compare the following students’
activities:
Student 1
• High school basketball team captain

• Model United Nations award winner
• Piano club president
• Elementary school English tutor
Student 2
• High school basketball team member

• Youth basketball team coach
• Organized local basketball tournament for kids with special needs
• Interned with local professional basketball team’s analytics department
Clearly, Student 2 passes the failed simulation effect test while also demonstrating significant impact
and achievement through a single area—basketball. On the other hand, Student 1 lists unrelated
activities that make them seem well-rounded, but nothing particularly stands out. Collectively, Student
2’s activities will be more memorable and seem more impressive than Student 1’s.
----
Part 4: Activities Section Example
Intern, Google Virtual Reality (VR)

Coded VR environments for various software prototypes, some of which were featured at the 2017
Consumer Electronics Show.
Founder and President, Code for Community
Organize coding camps for middle and high schoolers from inner-city Chicago whose schools do not
offer computer science classes.
President, Coding Club
Major projects include developing software for school to track student grades, assignments, and parent
communications.
Assistant Instructor, Tae Kwon Do
Train 5- to 6-year-old martial arts students to develop proper technique and instill confidence.
Tae Kwon Do
Achieved black belt at age 16 and currently training for state tournament.
Writing Peer Counselor, The Hamilton School
Supported high school students with all forms of writing, including in-class assignments, AP exam
essays, and school newspaper articles.
Math Tutor, The Hamilton School
Support struggling middle and high school students with Algebra 1 and 2, Geometry, Precalculus, and
Calculus.
President, Cru Club

Host monthly speaking events with athletes, principals, etc. for 80 students from all over Chicago to
help them discover aspects of their purpose.
Customer Service Representative, Elegant Cleaners
.Greeted customers, processed orders and payments, and returned clothing items.
Waitress, Blue Ribbon Diner
Took customer orders, served food and drinks, and processed payments.
----
Part 5: Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How does the Common App Activities section differ from the University of California
(UC) Activities section?
Answer: The Common App and UC Activities sections differ in three noteworthy ways:
1. Number of activities: The UC application allows students to list up to 30 activities vs. the
Common App’s 10-activity allowance.
2. Categories: The UC application asks that students enter up to 5 activities in each of the following
categories: Coursework other than A-G, Educational Prep Programs, Volunteer & Community
Service, Work Experience, Awards & Honors, and Extracurricular Activities
3. Character count: Whereas Common App allows 150 characters for each activity description, the
UC application allows 160 characters for each activity description.
Because the UC application allows for more entries and a higher character count than Common App, it’s
advisable that you complete the UC Activities section first. Then, you should choose your 10 most
meaningful activities for Common App and cut enough characters to get below Common App’s 150-
character-per-entry limit.

Question: How should summer jobs and activities be listed?
Answer: Summer jobs and activities should be listed with your rising grade. For example, if you have
already completed 10th grade, you should list your activity with the 11th grade.
Question: What should I do if my activity type is not listed in the drop-down menu?
Answer: You can select “other club/activity” from the drop-down menu and describe the activity further
in the position/leadership box.
Question: Is it a problem if I have fewer than 10 activities to list?
Answer: Not necessarily. College admissions committees value long-term commitments to activities vs.
a long list of activities to which an applicant devoted less time and effort.
Question: Should I list my honors and awards in the Activities section?
Answer: No. There is a separate section on the Common App that allows you to list up to 5 honors and
awards.

Chapter 4
How to Write Great UC Application Essays
A step-by-step guide to conquering every personal insight question to
get into your dream school
Whether you’re a California resident or not, you may have considered University of California
(UC) schools—and for good reasons. In addition to being the nation’s best public university system
overall, the UC system includes several elite schools that may be a better option than private schools for
competitive applicants due to their prestige, diversity, and value, like UC
Berkeley and UCLA. Educating nearly quarter of a million undergraduates, UCs are a home for
California residents, out-of-state attendees, and international students alike.
Given their attractiveness, admission is competitive, ranging from 16 percent for UCLA and 17 percent
for UC Berkeley to about 36 percent for UC Irvineand 51 percent for UC Santa Cruz (all numbers for
the fall 2017-entering class). And every year, it gets tougher to make the cut for some of the most
sought-after campuses like UCLA, which sat at 18 percent in 2014-2015 and has been sinking since.
But it’s worth the effort to apply to UC schools. Why? Filling out one application allows you to apply to
every UC school.
You can think of the campuses according to the following tiers, based on their US News & World
Report rankings. Seven of the nine undergraduate campuses (UCSF and UC Hastings offer graduate
degrees only) rank in the top 100 schools, with six of nine in the top 50:
Tier 1: UC Berkeley (#21), UCLA (#21), UC San Diego (#42 in the latest rankings, with UC
Santa Barbara supplanting it—but San Diego has historically appeared higher)

Tier 2: UC Santa Barbara (#37), UC Irvine (#42), UC Davis (#46)
Tier 3: UC Santa Cruz (#81), UC Riverside (#124), UC Merced (#165)
If you’re already filling out the Common Application, that means you’ll write a personal statement,
complete the Activities section, and assemble supplemental essays for several schools. If you’re also
applying to the UCs, you might consider ordering your process this way:
1. Write your Common App personal statement

2. Shorten you Common App PS for one UC essay, if applicable
3. Write remaining UC essays and fill out the UC Activities section (which is longer than
the Common App Activities section)
4. Repurpose your UC Activities list for Common App Activities and your remaining UC essays
for Common App supplemental essays
However it would be a mistake to treat the UC application as another set of supplemental essays, or as
small fry now after tackling your 650-word personal statement. Here’s how we recommend planning
and then executing the essays that comprise your application to the University of California.
Why do UC essays matter? How much do they matter?
Over the past decade, as the University of California received more applications—200,000 freshman and
transfer applications for the 2016 class—the admissions committees found themselves unable to make
difficult calls on students based solely on test scores and GPAs. That’s why, in 2017, the UC system
switched to new “personal insight questions.” They are, in other words, an opportunity for you to show
who you are beyond your scores; that’s why the committees dreamed these up, and it’s why spending
time to craft these essays will go a long way.
These questions are also a chance to show more sides of yourself than students could in previous years
when applying to UC schools, when there were fewer questions asking for longer answers.
The UCs follow holistic admissions, like many private universities, which means their ranking system
takes into account a number of qualitative aspects of your life—whether or not you’ve made the most of
the opportunities you’ve been given, the level of your extracurricular involvement, and other “big

picture” elements. While holistic admissions can be frustrating to those of us on the outside, leaving us
to question what exactly gets weighed behind the scenes, there is one certainty: your essays matter—
some folks estimate they account for up to 30% of admissions decisions—when a university tells us its
process is qualitative and subjective.
Let’s meet our students
As we move through this guide to acing your UC application, we’ll be following a few students who
successfully made it to Tier 1 UC campuses. These students are or are based closely on several of the
applicants with whom we have worked over the past decade-plus.
Student #1: Arman. Arman, a generalist, has strong grades, earning a 4.0 with high honor roll. He
participates in academic team events, and is also physically active, playing intramural basketball and
coaching younger children in YMCA after-school activities. He’s not sure what he’d like to major in,
but he’s worked at a law office over the summer and is interested in cultural studies and education.
What’s not on his resumé? Arman comes from a mixed ethnic background—he’s Mexican-American
and Armenian-American—and both cultures have informed his childhood, sometimes complementing
one another, and other times colliding.
Student #2: Maria. Maria is passionate about the environment, having grown up in California during
the drought. From her AP Environmental Science class to the various recycling and water-saving
initiatives she’s volunteered on in her small Central Valley town in the northern part of the state, she’s
learned what she likes and hopes to study. She also plays tennis and has danced since she was small.
What’s not on her resumé? She’s never pursued it in a formal extracurricular fashion, but Maria loves
art, and does pottery and ceramic work here and there on weekends.
Student #3: Karan. Karan, an international applicant, is interested in the arts. He likes reading and
cinema, and might want to study anything from Art History to English to French film. He moved around
a lot so his extracurriculars are inconsistent, but he has made some short films on YouTube and has
competed in parliamentary debate.

What’s not on his resumé? Karan’s lived in three countries: India, the U.A.E., and Canada. Due to the
constant geographic instability and the need to always chase the next visa, he’s never felt quite at home
in any of those environments.
Student #4: Denise. Denise, a transfer applicant, has always been interested in technology. Though her
large public high school did not have much in the way of computer science courses, she got herself
accepted to STEM summer programs, where her passions were confirmed. She wants to be closer to the
tech world, though she isn’t sure what she’d like to study—STEM, business, or some intersection of the
two.
What’s not on her resumé? Denise was raised by a single father and her family has not had an easy time
financially for many years.
Student #5: Nadia. Nadia is passionate about politics and political advocacy. An enthusiastic
competitor on the statewide mock trial and debate circuits, she has taken every class at her large public
high school related to government and speech possible. She’s also interested in international relations
and law school.
What’s not on her resumé? Nadia struggled with low self-esteem and physical and cyberbullying when
she was younger. Her older siblings often had to intervene to keep things from getting out of hand. This
is often still on her mind.
----
Part 2: The Questions

As we’ve said, there is only one application required to be considered by all the UC campuses. Eight
essay prompts (which the UC application calls “personal insight questions”) are offered. You answer
four; there is no right answer about which ones you choose. You only have 350 words to answer each
question.
This is not quite like your Common App. The Common App gives you the chance to make one single,
bold, loud statement—a 650-word personal statement—and to embellish that essay with more
information in the Activities section and, in some cases, in supplemental essays. The UC application, by

contrast, gives you four chances to make smaller statements. This means you’ll want to think about
coherency and consistency, but also about avoiding repetitiveness.
The disadvantage, here, is that you may not be able to tell a single story in all its glory, as you can
theoretically do in the Common App. But the advantage is that you have multiple chances and multiple
angles to express yourself. In many ways, the UC application can feel “truer to life,” since so few of us
have a single story or experience that defines us but are rather comprised of many smaller ones.
Thinking about the UC application in those terms can lift some students out of the funk that comes from
the sense that you need to express your whole self to an admissions committee in order to get in.
Overview: The Prompts
Here are the most recent University of California freshman application essay questions:
1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced
others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.
2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving,
original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your
creative side.
3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated
that talent over time?
4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to
overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to
overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this
interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand
out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?
Choosing your questions wisely
Some students have the impulse to try to parcel out what they feel is their Single Important Story across
several essays, since they have only 350 words instead of 650. We suggest not thinking of the UC
application in these terms. Instead, try to offer four pieces of yourself that, when placed together, add up
to make a whole.
So how do you choose which four pieces to use—or, more directly, how do you choose which four
questions to answer of the eight offered? It’s not about picking one question to describe the four
extracurricular activities you’ve participated in, or one question that explains your major, another that
explains your personal life, and two for extracurricular activities. There’s no formula. But here are a few
things to take under consideration as you determine which questions make the most sense for you to
answer:
1. Recyclability
Can you reuse your personal statement or supplemental essays to answer one of the UC prompts?
• Does the phrasing of any of these questions remind you of the prompt you responded to on your
Common App personal statement? (e.g. #4 and #5, ‘an educational barrier’ and ‘significant
challenge’ recall this Common App prompt—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?)
• Does the phrasing of any of these questions remind you of a Common App supplemental essay, or
have you written something that answers the question already? (e.g. perhaps #2, which asks you to
describe the way in which you are creative, might overlap with this supplemental question from
Rice University—The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are

heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What
personal perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice?—if you wrote about
intellectual or academic creativity, as Maria did)
2. Repetitiveness vs. Coherency
Perhaps you want the admissions committee to know about your experience navigating a large high
school with few academic opportunities. You might see a chance to explain this in either Question #4
(which we’ll call the educational opportunity/barrier question) and Question #5 (which we’ll call the
personal adversity question).
There’s no reason you can’t answer both. But you’ll need to be able to articulate a separate goal for each
answer. Drawing up a separate mini-outline for each question (which we’ll explain more shortly) will
help you determine whether you’re truly writing two different essays about related topics, or repeating
yourself without adding new information or angles on the original.
3. Most importantly: which questions speak to you?
Your heart might not start to thud faster at every single one of these questions. But there’s likely one
“buzzword” that popped out to you. Creativity. Leadership. Community. Challenge. Figure out which
question contained that lucky buzzword, and work on answering that one first. That will put you in a
positive headspace for continuing to the other questions that may not come quite as naturally.
Outlining your answers
While 350 words isn’t very long—about three paragraphs—it’s still long enough that you may benefit
from outlining your essay in advance. The good news is that most 350-word, three-paragraph essays
follow a standard structure. Some students treat their UC essays as short-answer questions, which might
imply that you don’t need an outline. Try to avoid that by, instead, treating them as highly-condensed
essay questions.
We’ll get into some specific examples shortly as we go question-by-question, but for now, keep this
basic model of the three-paragraph, tripartite essay in mind:

Paragraph 1: Hook (and thesis statement)
In this paragraph, the writer hooks us, with an image, a brief anecdote, or a snappy sentence or two. But
there’s little time to linger.
By the end of the paragraph, the writer clearly articulates their thesis statement, which will guide us
through the next two-thirds of the essay.
In an essay this short, the thesis statement does not always come at the end of the first paragraph.
Sometimes the first two paragraphs are taken up by captivating narration of an event, and the thesis
comes in the conclusion, in the successful thematic and narrative tying-up of the essay. But when
outlining and planning your essay, it’s a good idea to be certain about what the thesis is, and to try to
begin to convey it—either outright, or hinting at it—by the end of the first paragraph. We’ll see some
examples of it appearing in the first, second, and third paragraphs below.
Paragraph 2: Examples, illustrations, and a sense of change/growth overtime
In this paragraph, the writer brings in specific illustrations of the thesis statement, and, crucially, must
convey a sense of time, change, and/or growth. Like many college essays, the UC questions ask
applicants to reflect on a significant moment in order to demonstrate introspection and analytical insight.
Change is often crucial to that. Usually you are not the same on one side of a major life experience as
you are on the other.
Paragraph 3: Conclusions, including a sense of how the essay topic will influence the writer now
and into the future
And, as with many good essays, this paragraph should try to lead the reader to a sense of closure,
conveying a lesson and a sense of what has been learned and gained from the experience.
As we’ve said, there is only one application required to be considered by all the UC campuses. Eight
essay prompts (which the UC application calls “personal insight questions”) are offered. You answer
four; there is no right answer about which ones you choose. You only have 350 words to answer each
question.

This is not quite like your Common App. The Common App gives you the chance to make one single,
bold, loud statement—a 650-word personal statement—and to embellish that essay with more
information in the Activities section and, in some cases, in supplemental essays. The UC application, by
contrast, gives you four chances to make smaller statements. This means you’ll want to think about
coherency and consistency, but also about avoiding repetitiveness.
The disadvantage, here, is that you may not be able to tell a single story in all its glory, as you can
theoretically do in the Common App. But the advantage is that you have multiple chances and multiple
angles to express yourself. In many ways, the UC application can feel “truer to life,” since so few of us
have a single story or experience that defines us but are rather comprised of many smaller ones.
Thinking about the UC application in those terms can lift some students out of the funk that comes from
the sense that you need to express your whole self to an admissions committee in order to get in.
The Leadership Question
Here, again, is Question #1, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about it:
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced
others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.
Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor
to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an
event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience.
What were your responsibilities?
Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did
you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an
organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities.
For example, do you help out or take care of your family?
Let’s use Arman’s essay as an example:

I exclaimed, “You’re too lazy for your own good!” In the moment, it seemed like a perfect way to
motivate my best friend, Serj. I was trying to get him to the gym. He’d asked me to hold him
accountable as his workout partner. But as soon as those words slipped out, I saw in Serj’s
posture, wide eyes, and flared nostrils that I had made a huge mistake.
This exchange had been a long time coming. For months I had texted Serj one hour before our
scheduled gym sessions. Still, Serj canceled on me frequently. When he did show up, he seemed
happy—but that was rare. I’d been lifting weights for three years, and I know how great you can
feel because of it. But by yelling at Serj, I was not convincing him of the benefits of being active. I
was shaming him. Five gut-wrenching seconds after I delivered my stinging honesty, I apologized.
But we hardly spoke for two weeks. Eventually he accepted my apology, even thanking me for
pushing him to be active. I knew, though, that I would have to earn his trust again as a workout
partner.
That day, I discovered honesty’s best friend: empathy. I thought telling Serj the cold truth about
his behavior would finally help him see that he was wrong to blow off the gym. But my honesty
was my subjective opinion. When I later talked to Serj, I learned about the fears that had kept him
from self-motivation—he had never been athletic, and he found it hard to believe that putting
himself through a physical ordeal would be useful. He was already berating himself enough in his
head. I didn’t need to do it for him. Since that experience, I have exercised more empathy when
asked to lead. When coaching elementary school kids at sports camps, I praise their effort first
before delivering criticism. Children are glad to retry any drill—but I know it’s in part because
I’ve imagined, first, how scary it is to try something new, and I’ve acknowledged that first.
We can reverse-outline Arman’s essay to see how it’s working:
Paragraph 1: He has a hook—him yelling at his best friend, and then he provides brief context,
just enough to inform us without derailing us.
There’s not much of a big ‘thesis’ statement when you first glance at that paragraph, but when we
look closer, we see that there is one sentence that will drive us through the next two paragraphs: “I
had made a huge mistake.” That’s enough here.

Paragraph 2: You could say paragraph #2 is all about offering more context for how we reached
this emotionally climactic moment that served as the hook.
But it’s also doing the work we mentioned above, of demonstrating change. Note that Arman isn’t
showing change or growth overtime by saying “on day one of working out we did this, on day two
that…” etc. Instead, he’s demonstrating a sense of change and growth through reflection and
retrospection. We can tell that he has grown since the mistake because he acknowledges why it
was a mistake (‘shaming him’). The paragraph also mentions an apology, which is a sign of
change.
Paragraph 3: Lastly, the essay begins its final paragraph with a very clear lesson that is an
elaboration on the thesis in the first paragraph: ‘I discovered honesty’s best friend: empathy.’ Now
we can read the previous paragraphs through that lens.
Even better, paragraph three does two more things with its conclusion: First, it resolves the
original conflict and we learn what happened with Serj. And second, it actually uses a personal
story to discuss extracurricular activities, but without being heavy-handed. It spins out the lesson
with Serj to something that is already listed on Arman’s activity list, coaching kids’ sports.
One key takeaway from Arman’s essay is its careful balance of humility and reflection. When students
see the word ‘leader,’ they can often begin to brag about themselves and their accomplishments. But
your activity list can contain all the big wins and important titles under your belt. The essay is a chance
for you to humanize those, and to demonstrate introspection. Arman does that by showing how he made
a mistake and corrected for it.
Arman also avoids getting bogged down in abstract concepts, another pitfall of questions that ask about
‘leadership’ and ‘community.’ In fact, Arman doesn’t even use the word “leader” until the final
paragraph—that’s a major show of strength. It demonstrates that he understands how he is answering the
question—by discussing two intangibles of leadership, honesty and empathy. He earns the right to talk
about honesty and empathy because he’s writing only about his own experience for two paragraphs, so
by the time he touches on those big, abstract words, he’s already filled them with his own meaning.
The Creativity Question

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving,
original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express
your creative side.
Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is
important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a
problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?
How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your
creativity relate to your major or a future career?
Let’s use Maria’s essay as an example:
For twelve years, I have spent my weekends and summers making ceramics and painting at the
community center, and when I need to relieve stress, I often sketch. These might seem like private
acts of self-expression. But they have impacted the way I solve problems, particularly in my
sustainability work. I’m passionate about the environment, and a few years ago, I realized many
of my classmates didn’t understand how to live with the lowest impact on the environment. With
the help of a science teacher, I founded the Water Conservation Club and set out to engage my
peers. Art proved invaluable in these projects.
The first initiative we tried was a calendar initiative for elementary school students. I visited
classrooms, talked about recycling, environmentalism, and clean energy, and then asked first,
second, and third-graders to draw pictures of how they could live more sustainably. Their
drawings showed them picking up trash, saving water, even going on a hiking trip with their
families instead of flying across the country for vacations. With the children’s parents’ okay, we
turned their drawings into calendar art, and sold the calendars, raising over $1,000 for
TreePeople’s Drought Defense Challenge, which hopes to tackle California’s 6-year drought. I’ve
visited those classrooms and found that those students are still engaged. Their parents arranged a
carpool, they use leftover water to water the class plants, and recycle paper and plastic.

The second initiative was a children’s book I wrote and illustrated, called It’s Just One Drop. It
followed an anthropomorphized water drop walking around town, seeing the different ways
people waste water, which affected his reservoir home. The community members eventually
realize their wrongdoings and work to conserve water through taking shorter showers, turning the
sink water off, and doing full loads of laundry. Although the book hasn’t been published yet, I’ve
used it to teach preschoolers the importance of water conservation.
In either case, I could have talked to classrooms using a chalkboard or a PowerPoint. But
bringing my proclivity for art into the picture helped me reach young people who might otherwise
have glazed over.
How is Maria’s essay working? It’s not quite like Arman’s, or like the standard model we outlined
above, but that’s just fine. She reached this structure organically, with her first draft, and it can serve as
another model for how to answer these questions.
Paragraph 1: Maria explains that she loves art (which answers ‘how she expresses her creative
side’) and offers a clear thesis statement about how art helps her solve non-artistic problems. The
thesis statement is especially strong because she’s not talking about art applying to non-artistic
problems in the abstract—she specifically tells us she’s going to discuss her environmentalism
work.
Paragraphs 2 and 3: Both of these serve as the body paragraphs that give two different examples
of Maria’s artistic inclinations empowering her to do better work on sustainability.
Paragraph 4: Maria doesn’t need much of a conclusion here, because it’s pretty clear how art has
helped her deal with non-artistic problems. She also doesn’t need a whole lot of emotional
introspection for this essay. All she needs is to remind us that without her art habit, those would
have been more boring projects. Maria could also talk about her prospective major or how she
wants to leverage art in it, but when she reached this version of the essay, it read as complete and
fulfilled in its own right.
A good application would have some answers that read like Arman’s—introspective, personal,
emotional—and some like Maria’s—efficient, clear, interested in communicating her skills and
activities. But too many like Maria’s will make a student sound cold and summarical, whereas too many

like Arman’s might make the admissions committee forget that he is a student who can accomplish tasks
and get things done.
The Talent Question
What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and
demonstrated that talent over time?
Things to consider: If there’s a talent or skill that you’re proud of, this is the time to share it. You
don’t necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you
did and you want to talk about it, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you?
Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your
talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how
do they fit into your schedule?
Let’s take a look at Denise’s essay on this topic:
The first time I touched a computer, I didn’t know it was a computer. That is to say: I am of the
generation that never had to think much about technology, because it’s always been available to
us. But one day in middle school I asked my father how it worked. “How what works?” he asked.
“The phone,” I said, pointing to his cell phone. And then I realized my question applied to the
other devices I’d taken for granted—the computer, streaming videos, apps. That summer, my dad
found out about a free program at a local university on Saturdays. It would teach you the basics
about computers, including how to code.
Ever since, I have been learning about coding as much as I could. My high school does not have a
computer science class, but I petitioned my school to let me enroll in a few classes on technology
and society, including intro to computer science, at a community college. I have also used
resources like General Assembly to self-teach. I came to love working with computers and coding
because each problem I had to solve goes toward building something. The reward doesn’t always

come quickly—there are bugs to fix and many ways you can break what you are trying to build.
But when it does, it’s visible.
I also studied design and graphics on my own and used the combination of these skills to create
websites for friends, family, and local businesses. While it is not a formal extracurricular activity,
it is my after-school job.
It would be funny to call coding a “talent.” It has never felt like it came naturally, but through
sweat and frustration. Perhaps my talent is my interest in computers, the same thing that caused
me to ask “How does it work?” when I was younger is now what causes me to ask “How can I
make this work?”
Denise’s essay is built in the following manner, which may now be familiar to you!:
Paragraph 1: A hook, though it’s a mild hook. She begins by telling us a bit about what she got
to take for granted as a young person, then points out that she pushed against the grain of truly
taking it for granted. It’s an expert humble-brag.
There’s no clear thesis statement in this paragraph in the sense that Denise doesn’t say “My talent
is coding.” Rather, there’s an implied thesis emerging at the end of the essay, when she tells us
that her “talent” is a combination of determination (“sweat and frustration”) and curiosity (“how
can I make this work?”). That’s an awesome way to redefine the prompt on her own terms.
Paragraphs 2 and 3: This section shows the growth and change we look for in the middle of an
essay. It’s very concrete, telling us everything Denise did to get herself an education in
technology.
Paragraph 4: In the concluding paragraph, Denise makes sure we don’t get lost in the weeds that
paragraphs 2-3 brought us into. She’s at risk of allowing us to forget that she’s supposed to be
talking about her talent in an introspective way if she doesn’t do this. But in the first sentence of
the paragraph (“It would be funny to call coding a ‘talent.’”) she reminds us of the essay’s topic
while also subverting it. It’s another great humble brag—in telling us that she doesn’t believe it
came innately, she’s humble, but she’s just intelligently chronicled (the brag!) all the ways she

worked hard to get to this place. Again, here she could choose to add, “therefore I wish to study
computer science in California,” but it’s implied in this strong essay.
The Educational Opportunity/Barrier Question
Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked
to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your
educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an
honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an
occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few.
If you choose to write about educational barriers you’ve faced, how did you overcome or strive to
overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this
challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?
Let’s take see what Karan wrote on this topic:
The summer after ninth grade, I had the chance to attend a pre-college program in North
Carolina. It was a special opportunity because I had never before been to the United States, and I
knew I wanted to go to college in the U.S. I have grown up around the world, in India, the U.A.E.,
and Canada. But this program had a few spots for international students, and I was selected to
attend. Students took a college-level course for three weeks. I chose to enroll in a class called
‘Philosophy in Literature and Film.’ The focus, for my session, was philosophies of technology
and science.
Over those weeks, I read thinkers and writers and watched films and listened to music by artists I
had never heard of, from Philip K. Dick to Jean Baudrillard to Kraftwerk. I learned to think about
art as what my professor called an “anxious condition”—the way society expresses its concerns,
about politics, the future, and, in the case of our class, technology.

As the product of a school system where math and science are prized above the humanities, I had
to convince my parents that studying philosophy in books and movies was a good way to spend the
summer, and I came back personally certain that it had been. I could now see big themes and
meaning in popular culture and in the books I read. And before, I was unsure of how to integrate
my interest in things other people thought of as abstract: religion, philosophy, history, books, and
film. My summer class showed me that ideas like religion and philosophy can serve as lenses to
analyse the past and popular culture, or as the material that we use in writing books or making
films.
I would like to continue this journey of interdisciplinary study in college, possibly becoming a
professor. The program I attended marked the beginning of my certainty about this path.
Karan’s essay has a few things going for it, namely that it’s written in a readable and informational style
both on the structural and the sentence level, which is to his advantage because he’s discussing complex
ideas, including critical theory, philosophy, and more. Let’s break it down:
Paragraph 1: This paragraph is all about the who-what-when-where-why. Karan tells us what the
program was, how he came to attend it, when he went, and crucially tells us why it mattered to
him (‘a special opportunity’). The ‘thesis’ for this essay will come later, and that’s fine, because
the opener is very clear.
Paragraph 2: This paragraph demonstrates more specifics about the program. It’s really
important that Karan does this, because otherwise the admissions committee might think he
doesn’t remember much of what he learned in class. He gives just enough information—three
names and one phrase used by the professor—to show that he was mentally present and, more
importantly, intellectually moved by the course.
Paragraph 3: Now we get into the meat of why what Karan learned mattered to him—that
change and growth. He gives several specific takeaways: he discovered the value of the
humanities, and learned about what interdisciplinary study means. Again, his concreteness while
discussing abstract topics works to his advantage.

Paragraph 4: Karan concludes efficiently and tells us that the summer has shaped his
professional ambitions. That clearly answers the question about how he took advantage of the
opportunity.
There are a few other small things Karan did that are worth noticing. He paid attention—consciously or
subconsciously—to the language in the question, which differentiated between opportunities and
barriers. He chose to write about an opportunity, which implies privilege; his parents may have paid for
this program. But because he acknowledges it as a ‘special opportunity’ and says he ‘had the chance’ to
go, he doesn’t come across as entitled, but in fact, grateful.
The Personal Adversity Question
Here, again, is Question #5, with notes from the UC Admissions website about how to think about
it:
Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to
overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your
community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk
about any obstacles you’ve faced and what you’ve learned from the experience. Did you have
support from someone else or did you handle it alone?
If you’re currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that
affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, “How has my life changed at
home, at my school, with my friends or with my family?”
Here is Maria’s response to this question:
It was October my junior year, when my mom learned she had breast cancer. It was terrifying. I
couldn’t eat or sleep. I went to school exhausted, helped with errands, and tried to juggle classes
and extracurriculars. My energy began to drop, as did my grades.

Unexpectedly, it was tennis that helped me overcome this academically and personally
challenging period. Since I was six, my dream was to win a tennis tournament. But I struggled
with the pressure of competition. I foreshadowed my loss prior to a match, allowing nerves take
over. My body trembled; it was difficult to breathe. By the end of middle school, my losses
outweighed my wins, and I no longer believed in myself.
But shortly after my mother received her news, I began to work with a new coach—Dusan Vemic,
Novak Djokovic’s former assistant coach. Novak’s positive mindset had encouraged and inspired
me at some of my lowest points, so working with Dusan seemed like fate. I explained my anxieties,
hoping he could fix them. He simply said, “Make the most of every moment and focus on yourself.
This is how you win.”
The advice was almost annoyingly simple. And yet, his Zen-like philosophy emanated every time
he watched from the sidelines. It turned out that he wasn’t trying to get me to win. He was trying
to get me to enjoy tennis as I had not been able to for years. I won more, though not a whole
tournament.
More importantly, I took the new perspective off the court, to AP English, my toughest class, when
my mind would always wander to my mom. It took me tremendous effort to write essays and
comprehend the material. I was so scattered that my teacher advised me to drop the class. But
Dusan’s meditative philosophy helped. I stayed in the class, focused on each step, gradually
improving, ultimately earning a 4 on the AP exam. When school was out, I got my reward: I could
come home and sit next to my mom, and just be with her for a while.
Maria successfully handles three challenges in this question by wrapping them into one: her mother’s
illness, a difficulty with AP English, and struggles with tennis. Her key idea comes in an unexpected
place, right in the middle of the essay. But because she braids the whole piece around Dusan’s
philosophy, this essay works. Let’s look closer:
Paragraph 1: She introduces us to the major challenge (the hook), her mother’s diagnosis. But
then she quickly and clearly articulates how that manifested to her—low energy, exhaustion.
Paragraph 2: This paragraph has a clear thesis statement—tennis helped her—and then backs
into a bit of context about tennis, which is necessary for us to understand the rest of the essay. It

also articulates a goal—winning a tournament—which in this case ends up being a red herring.
It’s not what the essay is about, but it tells us what Maria thought life might be geared toward at
the time.
Paragraphs 3 and 4: In these paragraphs we see growth and change. A change literally occurs in
that a new character enters Maria’s life in paragraph 3, her tennis coach; in paragraph 4, he gives
her advice which goes on to affect her life.
Paragraph 5: This concluding paragraph very clearly (though not heavy-handedly) ties up all
three challenges, telling us how the tennis philosophy served her through her school troubles.
Maria might have reached the end of a draft and realized that she didn’t have a great resolution for
her mother’s diagnosis. It’s such a big, existentially challenging question to try to tackle in 350
words. That’s why the brevity of her final line works so well: it acknowledges that she can’t fix
that, but, using that Zen-like philosophy of her coach, admits that the best she can do at this point
in time is to spend time with her sick mother, and that’s pretty good.
One of the toughest things about answering the Challenge Question is the risk of cliché. Often when we
are facing major challenges—illness, grief, loss, anxiety, etc—we are dealing with emotions beyond the
scope of language. That means that the language we use to talk about it, with other people, with
therapists, and in an essay, can sound like platitudes. “Just be in the moment” is, in a vacuum, a pretty
cheesy lesson, no matter how much truth is contained in it.
Maria does a good job here of acknowledging that the words her coach gave her were not enough. She
characterizes his words (‘Zen-like philosophy’) and interprets them for us, telling us they weren’t about
getting her to win but about giving her another kind of strength. It doesn’t matter if she’s gotten her
coach’s intention right—what matters is that the admissions committee sees how Maria internalized
those words, which would be cliché on their own, and made them into something particular and healing
for her circumstance.
The Academic Passion Question

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this
interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.
Things to consider: Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area,
something that they just can’t get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further
that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you
have had inside and outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment,
summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs — and what you have
gained from your involvement.
Has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or future career? Have
you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, AP, IB, college or
university work)? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do
that?
Nadia has a strong response to this question that we will use as an example:
The academic subject from which I draw the most inspiration is US Government and Politics. My
interest in understanding the process through which our country’s government affects every
individual stems from observing the material I learned in the classroom applied in a real world
setting.
My interest in the subject encouraged me to enroll in the Advanced Placement course. One of the
topics discussed that spoke to me most is the power of political participation. Inspired by this
particular lesson, I practiced my activism by applying for an internship at the office of my
district’s congressman, Matt Dababneh. There, I spent four months answering phone calls, filing
papers, and reading letters, and learned the importance of community relations, social skills, and
organizational skills needed to thrive in politics.
Following the completion of my internship, I continued my community involvement by joining my

school’s student council, where I was selected by the administration to become class
representative. My duties were similar to that of my internship, where I addressed complaints
from students and moderated them directly to the administration. One example was when a group
of students approached me regarding the lack of a mock trial class at our school. I gathered

signatures, wrote a letter of request, and took the matter to the principal. My community
participation led the school to offer a mock trial class to all middle and high school students.
At the University of California, I intend to pursue a major in Political Science to further my

understanding of politics and the impact of each individual on policymaking. Furthermore, I am
compelled to participate in student government upon my acceptance to UC schools in order to
exercise my interests in a much larger and diverse community of students.
Nadia’s essay is short, efficient, and gets to the point—but it gets the job done. A word like “passion”
can sometimes cause us to entertain flights of fancy, trying to convey something about the ineffable
reasons we find poetry transcendent, or our abstract dreams of becoming a doctor in the wake of a
grandparent’s death. Sometimes it is the right choice to use dramatic language to talk about a dramatic
issue. But Nadia’s approach matches her personality. She’s a get-things-done kind of person. She
developed an interest in politics, and went about chasing that career.
We can look more closely, still:
Paragraph 1: This is an example of an essay that opens with its thesis statement. Nadia doesn’t
fuss about with a hook. She could—another student might open with the day they first saw the
California state capitol—but her essay is just fine without that, because it’s clear and
communicative. She also tells us that her interest stemmed from the intersection of theory and
real-life application, which means that we can expect her essay to discuss the real-life application
of politics.
Paragraphs 2 and 3: And indeed it does! Off the bat, Nadia tells us about working for Dababneh
in paragraph 2, and in the ensuing paragraph, about her student council work. Giving us two
different experiences is great because it shows a pattern of interest in the subject. It’s even better
that Nadia draws a through-line—she talks about her experience at the Congressman’s office
influencing her run for student government. That tells the admissions committee not only that
there was change and growth, that key quality the middle of the essay must convey, but also that
Nadia is aware of that change and growth and can make narrative sense of it.
Paragraph 4: Nadia concludes with a natural spin-it-forward take. At UC, she plans on
continuing with these interests, and she knows exactly how.

As is the case with many of these responses, we wouldn’t want all of Nadia’s essays to read exactly like
this. We’d want her to have a little bit more personal introspection in at least one of the others, even if
that doesn’t come naturally to her. But this essay is spot-on in answering the question honestly and with
good energy.
The Community Question
What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place —
like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure
you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your
community?
Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit
others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your
community?
We’re going to turn to Nadia again, here:
For most of my childhood, I was overweight. I was bullied by my classmates, who pushed and
shoved me and called me “fatso” and “blimp.” When I was fourteen, I began eating healthier and
exercising. It took two years to shed not only the weight but also the pain that had come with
being a pariah. I did not want anyone else to suffer from the physical and mental pain that I
endured as an overweight child.
In order to spread awareness about childhood obesity, I co-founded the Healthy Kids club, which
organizes fundraisers and invites guest speakers to educate students about early-onset heart
disease and diabetes, as well as how these diseases follow into adulthood and worsen with age.
We worked to get healthier snacks in school, successfully banning certain junk foods like chips

and soda, and regularly met with cafeteria staff to ensure health conscientious items remain on
the menu.
In my junior year, we registered the organization as a 501c (3) nonprofit. Working with other
schools in the Los Angeles area, we initiated a program called “An Apple a Day Fades it Away”,
where we visited schools, handed out apples, and presented elementary school students with
activity-filled days of education about the critical role healthy eating plays in lifelong health.
My own experience led me to found the group, and continues to inform our presentations. At each
session with young people, I tell my own story. The ability to show students pictures of myself
from five years ago, not being able to play sports or participate in PE due to asthma, and now the
captain of a varsity team, means I can connect with students on a personal level. As I depart for
college, I will ensure that the Healthy Kids Foundation remains a presence in my high school
hallways, and I hope to create a chapter of it at the University of California, where I can draw on
college students to serve as volunteers, spreading the message in even more communities.
Nadia’s doing a lot well here. Notice that in this essay, she did get pretty personal, which makes that
hyper-efficient academics question more tenable.
Talking about her own vulnerability also serves another purpose: it gives her humility in a question that
might often invite a sense of savior-like arrogance. Most of us, at eighteen, haven’t solved a major
problem in the world; we might have put in some respectable work in our communities, though, and this
question gives students a chance to articulate that.
Getting this question right requires a sense of scope and scale—students should be able to talk about a
major issue they care about, and then explain how they’ve addressed it in their own communities,
without pretending that they’ve solved the root cause of that entire issue. In other words, you should try
to tap into a global issue and address how you dealt with it locally.
We’ll take a look at the play-by-play to see how Nadia’s achieving this effect:
Paragraph 1: Here, Nadia does have a hook—her own pain, frustration, and change—and by the
end of the paragraph, she’s made the personal public, turning her pain into a force for larger good.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: These paragraphs document and detail what Nadia did in the group. Her
trademark efficiency is back here. She’s clear about her accomplishments, which is a breath of
fresh air for admissions officers, who often see vagueness when young people try to categorize
what exactly they do with their extracurriculars.
Paragraph 4: Nadia concludes this by returning to her personal story, which bookends the essay
nicely, and then she also does what she did in the academics question, spinning her interest
forward.
The Everything Else Question
Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you
stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?
Things to consider: If there’s anything you want us to know about you, but didn’t find a question
or place in the application to tell us, now’s your chance. What have you not shared with us that
will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better?
From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Don’t be afraid
to brag a little.
For this last essay, let’s return to Arman:
I grew up in an insular ethnocultural community that is very proud of its “pure” heritage. As a
biracial Mexican-American and Armenian individual attending an Armenian private school with
“full Armenians” my entire life, I have often felt like an outsider. For example, I have heard many
Armenians express serious disapproval about Armenians like my mother marrying odars, that is,
foreigners. Unfortunately, this way of thinking insults my proud Mexican-American heritage, and
leads me to wonder whether I am a disgrace or even a burden to my community. This thought
process extends to my relationships with others. I am often wondering if race plays into how
people interact with me.

Of course, I’ve experienced many occasions when Armenians wanted to learn about me or
become friends initially based on my biracial status. But the bad has sometimes outweighed the
good, causing my confidence to plummet.
I hope to develop a more positive self-concept at the University of California through interactions
with diverse students and by studying my two heritages in a way I cannot in high school. Through
ethnic studies classes—many of which were pioneered at UC schools—and extracurricular
groups, I think I can have more conversations about race that have not been possible in my life
thus far. By learning from professors and other student leaders, I will be able to facilitate
complex, yet necessary conversations about race for others, in turn, so that members of my
college community feel integrated and appreciated for their differences.
Arman uses this essay to talk about exactly what isn’t on his resumé. In another one of his essays, the
Academic Passion question (Question #6), he did discuss his interest in cultural studies and global
identities. But he hasn’t had a chance to discuss this element of his personal life yet, so here it goes. It’s
a good way to make use of Question #8.
You might also take advantage of Question #8 to adapt your Common App PS, if you haven’t already
been able to shorten and reuse that. This is a chance to communicate what hasn’t already found a home.
For one last time, let’s break down Arman’s essay:
Paragraph 1: Arman is primarily interested in communicating something personal as clearly as

possible here, so he doesn’t mess around with a hook, but instead moves quickly to his thesis: ‘I
have often felt like an outsider.’ He uses the rest of this question to provide informational context
for a reader who doesn’t know what it was like to grow up Armenian-American and Mexican-
American.
Paragraph 2: This is a middle paragraph that doesn’t quite show the “change and growth” we’ve
been talking about, but it still works. In this case, Arman has set up one concept—his outsider
status—in paragraph 1, and he uses paragraph 2 to briefly caveat it, acknowledging what his
reader might be thinking. (“Is that really always the case?”) But he quickly moves it back to his
territory.

Paragraph 3: Now, Arman spins things forward, and in a very rich manner. He not only says “I
want to go to the University of California to pursue xyz,” but demonstrates that he has fully
imagined how his life can change intellectually and personally from attending a UC school. He
also shows that he knows something about the UC system, referencing its diversity and academic
history.
It’s a short essay, well below word count, but it answers the question with intelligence and flourish, so
hats off!
The Transfer Student Question
Students applying to transfer to the University of California must answer three of seven questions—the
question list is the same as the above, minus the “Academic Passion” question. There is, for the fourth
response, one required question all transfer applicants must address. Here it is:
Please describe how you have prepared for your intended major, including your readiness to
succeed in your upper-division courses once you enroll at the university.
Things to consider: How did your interest in your major develop? Do you have any experience
related to your major outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships and
employment, or participation in student organizations and activities? If you haven’t had
experience in the field, consider including experience in the classroom. This may include working
with faculty or doing research projects.
If you’re applying to multiple campuses with a different major at each campus, think about
approaching the topic from a broader perspective, or find a common thread among the majors
you’ve chosen.
Let’s see how Denise handled this question:
I have spent my first two years at Foothill Community College in Los Altos, California, learning
about the technology industry, which is in our backyard. It has been an education both in and out
of the classroom. In the classroom, I have focused on computer science, while out of the

classroom I have completed internships to learn more about Silicon Valley, where I hope to make
my career.
My computer science courses have prepared me technically for a career in the industry. From my
class in IT systems to my honors distinctions as a Cisco securities technician and as a VMWare
certified professional, I have the skills to find work at a technology company (as I did as an intern
last summer at a software firm in San Jose). My hope is that by transferring to the University of
California, I can add to these competencies a larger sense of the technology world, by learning
about advancements across fields from virtual reality to artificial intelligence.
I have also prepared to pursue a second major in business at the University of California. I have
taken courses in basic business law, where I learned more about the regulations technology
companies are subject to, and in marketing, where I practiced explaining complicated scientific
ideas to lay people and learned more about the psychology behind getting users’ attention and
keeping it. In addition to my tech internship at the software firm last summer, I have also
continued working with that company’s marketing department part-time. I interview companies
who use this firm’s software and write up case-studies about their use-cases, which the company
then uses to get more clients. All this has trained me to understand the day-to-day workings of
businesses. I look forward to learning more about international business trends at the University
of California, and to attending public talks led by business leaders around the state.
Denise tackles this question in three neat paragraphs:
Paragraph 1: She ties together her two interests, in computer science and business, and also
states that she’s worked on them in and out of the classroom.
Paragraph 2: She devotes this paragraph to talking about technology. Her resumé and GPA are
both a little stronger on business matters, but she’s articulated a clear interest in technology, which
makes this paragraph ring authentically. It also recalls her other essay about her talent, and keeps a
consistent picture.
Paragraph 3: Denise then does the same thing in her business paragraph. In both paragraphs, she
makes sure to spin things forward, making it clear that she has goals that will be much more easily
achieved if she can attend the University of California.

Part 3: Frequently Asked Questions
Question: How should I think about the activities section? Can I copy and paste my Common App
activities?
Answer: Take a look at our Common App Activities Section guide for general help with tackling
extracurriculars. You’ll notice that the UC application lets students go longer, listing up to 30 activities,
whereas the Common App won’t let you write down more than 10 activities. The UC application also
divides things into categories, including Coursework other than A-G, Educational Prep Programs,
Volunteer & Community Service, Work Experience, Awards & Honors, and Extracurricular Activities.
Because the UC application allows for more entries—and a higher character count, 160 as opposed to
150—than Common App, we suggest writing the UC list first, then figuring out what your top 10 most
important or meaningful activities are and cutting those down to size for the Common App.
Question: Should I apply to all the UCs? How should I choose, if I’m not applying to all of them?
Answer: The University of California makes it easy to apply to its campuses; all you have to do is click
the boxes next to schools’ names. We advise you to apply to all the schools you’re even remotely
interested in f you have the financial resources to pay each application fee.
To choose which schools to apply to, research introductions to the campus provided by the university
admissions offices, try to visit, watch YouTube videos of campus tours, and speak with current students
and alumni about their college experience. Those will give you a good sense of the qualitative elements
that distinguish campuses from one another.
Question: I’m an out-of-state student. Do I stand a chance of getting in?
Answer: You do, but it’s harder. Each campus has different demographics. At UC Berkeley, about 60
percent of freshmen in the fall of 2017 were in-state students, whereas at UC Riverside, 88 percent were.
Out-of-state applicants must have a 3.4 GPA or above, and never earn less than a C grade. You can find
more information about the differences between applying as an in-state versus out-of-state student here,
from the admissions office.

Question: I’m an international student. Should I apply to the UC system?
Answer: The University of California is a popular choice for international students for many reasons.
These are big research schools, and some of the best in the world. Though international students make
up a small percentage of UC students across all campuses—just over six percent—it’s still worth
applying to as many of the campuses as you can.
Question: I attend a competitive high school in California—does this ruin my shot at getting into
the highest ranked UCs (e.g. UC Berkeley; UCLA)?
Answer: There are longstanding questions among California residents about how the UCs make their
decisions. There have been reports, for instance, about capping out-of-state admits to keep things from
being too competitive for in-state students. We’ve also heard that UC schools prefer to admit
international students because they pay full tuition. Nevertheless, one thing college counselors seem to
agree on: UCs, even the ‘lower-tiered’ ones, make for very competitive safety schools.
In general, college admissions are getting more competitive because more people are applying to
college. This is the case for in- and out-of-state applicants. But it seems like the UCs have responded to
public criticism a few years ago by holding out-of-state applicants to high standards (requiring a
baseline of a 3.4 GPA), and trying to give spots to more Californians.
Overall, though, students who attend better schools with more resources are expected to achieve higher
academically and extracurricularly than their counterparts at schools with fewer AP classes,
extracurriculars, etc. Holistic admissions means students are evaluated within their own context, based
on whether or not they took full advantage of what was available to them. Many students from
competitive public and private high schools across the state get in each year, so it's certainly possible to
get into a Tier 1 UC regardless of where you attended high school.
Question: Does my declared major matter for getting into one UC or another?
Answer: Admissions committees don’t expect your major to stay stable between what you put on your
application and what you end up studying, so in many cases you aren’t applying for admission to a
particular department. The exceptions are engineering, which requires a separate application at UC
Berkeley (and applying as an undeclared major as an engineer is very competitive); arts & architecture,
engineering and applied science, nursing, and theater/film/television at UCLA; and dance, music,

engineering and creative studies at UCSB. But if you feel strongly about one course of study or another,
you might consider making that a topic or a mention in one of your essay responses. The admissions
committee is looking for a clear story across your four essays, so if you’re interested in biology and
medicine but write two essays about your high school English class, you might also want to balance that
with an answer that explains your interest in medicine, or even how your love of reading dovetails with
your interest in biology and medicine.

Final Thoughts
The college application process is a long and tedious one, but your child doesn’t have to navigate it
alone. We have helped hundreds of applicants get into their top-choice schools for over ten years, and it
would be our privilege to help your child do the same.
Therefore, I would love to hear from you. If you have questions about anything covered in this guide or
your child’s admissions journey, please email me at shirag@shemmassianconsulting.com or schedule a
complimentary 30-minute consultation with me by clicking here.
Best of luck!
Sincerely,
Shirag Shemmassian, Ph.D.

(818) 389-7347
Acknowledgments
Sanjena Sathian
GoOnWrite


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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 How to Write an Amazing Common App Essay 4

Chapter 2 How to Write Supplemental College Application Essays that

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Chapter 4 How to Write Great UC Application Essays 60

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There’s good news, though.

What is The Common Application?

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Why does The Common App Essay—and other college essays—matter?

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What are these mystical college essays, anyway?

Let’s define our terms—

The Common App Essay Prompts

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Let’s meet our students

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Brainstorming essay topics and working with prompts (2-3 weeks)

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Prompt 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal

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Freewriting (3-4 weeks)

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Essay writing timelines: how to write your Common App personal

• June: Brainstorm and work with prompts, 2-3 weeks

• First two weeks of August: Brainstorm and work with prompts

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One month - October to November (for regular decision schools):

• First week of October: Brainstorm and work with prompts

• 2-4 days: Brainstorm and work with prompts

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Part 3: Choosing your topic

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Essay #2: Anita on the outdoors + poetry

Essay #3: Josh on piano and mistakes

But how to write “about piano?”

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Essay #4: Michael on surfing

You’ll see us return to these students’ ideas as we work through outlines.

What ‘type’ of essay do you have to write? (list of narrative strategies)

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Writing and revising: common errors

I have always been loyal to the Patriots…

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Full-length personal statement example

Here’s what Ramya’s essay looked like, in the end:

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Part 5: Frequently asked questions

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Question: Should I explain bad grades in my essays?