There can often be significant pressure around the crafting of the Common App essay, which requires students to embrace introspection and storytelling – often new skills for them! This month, expert college counselor Sam Harris shares her insights on how to prepare for this process in a low pressure way.
One of the most surprising books I’ve read is The Noble Hustle by Colson Whitehead. Better known for his fiction, which tackles truly serious topics like American slavery (The Underground Railroad) and institutional abuse (The Nickel Boys), this text is a memoir in which Whitehead recounts and reflects on his assignment by an online publication to enter the World Series of Poker (spoiler alert: he doesn’t win). Everything about this book was surprising to me when I first picked it up: the genre, the circumstance, and most of all, the tone. It’s truly funny.
I was thrilled by these surprises, but they seem to have frustrated others. One online review judges the memoir as a “complete waste of time” and says that Whitehead seems “Hell-bent [sic] on turning his WSOP experience into some weird philosophical journey.” Recently, when thinking about the Common App essay, I also think about The Noble Hustle and about this review in particular. In the best way possible, isn’t this exactly what successful students should be doing in their college essay?
The Common App personal essay is a 650-word essay submitted to every university a student applies to via that platform. For many students, and especially international applicants, the style of writing is very different to what they will have produced for class or exams, and it has little in common with more traditional academic writing like the UCAS personal statement, for example. A good Common App personal essay uses an anecdote to illustrate a student’s personal development and qualities, and the writing is always self-reflective.
Some of the best Common App essays I’ve read are—exactly as described in this negative review—essays that take an experience in a student’s life thus far and explain, often in a philosophical way, how this has been an important part of their journey. I’ve read incredible essays from students in recent cycles that master this approach; one student explored the value of patience and the joy that passing on his cultural traditions brought him through a story about teaching Belot, a popular card game, to a younger relative; another reflected on his realization that the name he had been given at birth represented a real compromise between his parents who came from two different religious backgrounds.
This sort of writing is undoubtedly hard! More reluctant students have even called it “cringey.” There are a few things I’d recommend students do, however, to prepare themselves to jump wholeheartedly into the essay writing process ahead of beginning. For our current cohort of applicants, these are things to be doing now, but all the better if you can start these habits even farther in advance.
Reading more in general seems to be common advice to all students looking to improve, however for the Common App essay, it’s especially useful to read more within the genre of personal essay and memoir specifically. Familiarizing yourself with the balance between narrative and reflection and seeing the wide variety of life events that writers focus on is great preparation for writing the Common App essay.
Even if you’re a reluctant reader, I think there’s something out there for everyone within the genre. Looking for something funny? Try David Sedaris. Want to explore how to write in a nuanced way about your racial or cultural identity? The Good Immigrant is a fantastic collection of personal essays. For students who really can’t bear the thought of reading in their free time, I do think podcasts have their place. You can frequently find examples of strong personal narrative woven into segments of This American Life or the Moth Radio Hour, for example.
A really valuable task is to practice this style of reflective writing to become more comfortable with the tone before you face the importance of the Common App essay. I often encourage students who feel that personal writing is daunting to set aside time each week to write for no reader other than themselves. Doing something like writing regular diary entries can be extremely beneficial to practicing the tone of the Common App essay, and it encourages you to note down and reflect on past experiences. No one ever needs to read this content!
Even jotting down a few sentences each week can help to build more of a muscle for self-reflection and can make transitioning from the academic style of writing often required in school to the introspective narrative encouraged by the Common App essay prompts much easier. This is also a good way to explore the types of stories and topics that resonate with you and could help spark ideas down the line when formal brainstorming for the Common App essay begins.
Another important part of the essay writing process will be honing and revising your essay—in many cases the first draft of your Common App essay will look very different from the final submitted draft! As part of the editing process, it’s important that you have someone you feel happy sharing this personal narrative with, not only so they can advise you on grammar and structure but also so they can help you with your self-reflection and exploration of the message or messages you want your writing to convey.
This is definitely a part of the process where more is not more! A trusted editor following the process alongside you is key, but getting advice from a handful of different readers tends to complicate things. Your teacher, parent, older sibling, school counselor, friend, etc. will all have different things to say about how they think you ought to improve a draft—and you may not feel comfortable sharing your writing with each of them!
The Common App essay is one of the most significant pieces of writing students will produce in their time in high school, and taking these steps to prepare can help to take some of the pressure off when facing this task. The personal nature of these essays is, in my opinion, a huge advantage of the US admissions system, and it’s one of the elements of the application process that I enjoy most. I’m excited to see what “weird philosophical journey” my students will go on—and take me on alongside them—this application cycle. Please do reach out if you want to join us.
