*Updated July 2024*

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?

This is simply another way to discover “what you’re made out of.” It’s a cool little prompt to help that along—nothing more. Don’t get fixated on the pathway; if this leads you to a super cool insight into what makes you tick… follow it.

Now, don’t fall into the trap that most do and mask a SUCCESS story as a failure. “Oh there was that time I broke the world record at the Olympics, but I didn’t beat my personal best! Woe is me!” In other words, “I’m going to talk about my failure, but my real hope is that you take notice of that amazing achievement I mentioned!” This will backfire. (As it should.)

Challenges, setbacks, and failure need to be real. To “not win in the finals of Wimbledon” while you played in peak condition, isn’t the same as spraining your ankle before the match and entering into the arena at a major disadvantage. The first one is what it is, but the second one is a legitimate setback/challenge. Working toward a common goal and dealing with an unusually stubborn teammate is a challenge. Wanting to pursue a hobby, but needing to work and earn money to support your family because your parents are not around or unable to provide… that’s a challenge. Performing at a recital and flubbing half the piece, that’s a failure. What’s the common ingredient here?

The answer has something to do with expectations and likelihood of outcomes. It is generally expected for a finals match in a tennis grand slam to be a real contest, equally-matched, etc. Sure, one player might have slightly better odds of winning for a number of reasons, but it usually isn’t expected to be a cakewalk. Therefore, to lose a match like that isn’t really a failure, because it was understood to be a very legitimate outcome. Now, to continue with this analogy, imagine a fairytale scenario where a not-very-good player somehow makes his way to the finals (every opponent along the way had to retire due to injury, thus explaining a not-great player making it to the end). In this case, it is reasonable to expect the other guy, say a Top-10 player, to absolutely demolish this opponent who is significantly out-matched. We might consider it a real failure for the top-ranked player to lose to a Qualifier in the finals match. But not the other way around. If the Qualifier lost to, say, Roger Federer, no one would consider it a failure. Because it was expected. It was the overwhelmingly likelier outcome.

Let’s go to one of the other analogies. Let’s say you’re on the newspaper committee at school, and you’re expected to publish feature articles once a week, for every week you’re in school. Let’s say it’s a committee of three who gets to decide what subject to feature. Now let’s say that in Week 1, prior to the deadline, you want to run a story about X, but one person on the committee disagrees passionately. Let’s say that you’ve decided to adopt a “unanimous” vote protocol. And you and another person agree on Subject X, but the “contrarian” in the room says “nope, I wanna write about this other thing instead.” The process gets gummed up and you miss the deadline. Happens again, Week 2, no feature article because this one person disagrees, and prevents the process from moving forward. Can this be considered a setback or a challenge? Absolutely. Why? Because in the history of this school’s newspaper, there hasn’t been a single missed deadline, and it is generally assumed that this group of three will reach consensus after healthy debate.

Let’s switch the circumstance though, and take this idea to congress! Imagine ten different bills being debated on the floor. Can you imagine a scenario where ten different debates result in ten different stalemates? Absolutely. In fact, it’s almost expected! The more surprising outcome would be for there to be widespread agreement. So it would be a bad example of a “setback” to suggest that the bill you presented to congress, that you expected to pass, died on the floor because of a lack of consensus. See the difference? Same general idea of “disagreements” between people, but one version is a setback and the other isn’t, when you factor in that crucial variable of expectations. Let’s do one more…

If you or I have never touched a cello before, ever, and we somehow find ourselves in the spotlight at Carnegie Hall, in front of thousands of attendees, would you consider it a failure if we played a few wrong notes in our attempt at a performance? Would you consider it a failure if we played every single note incorrectly? Probably not. We might find ourselves saying, “Well, what did you expect!” But let’s switch the player. Let’s put Yo-Yo Ma in the same seat. Mister Ma is feeling healthy, and is about to perform a piece he has performed hundreds of times before flawlessly. Oh and also he is generally considered to be one of our generation’s great cello players. But on this night, Mister Ma plays half of his notes incorrectly. Just misses the notes, plays the wrong ones, bows them incoherently, whatever the case, he absolutely butchers the song, trying desperately not to. Would you consider that a failure? Yah, absolutely. Because we expect someone of Mr. Ma’s virtuosity to play… flawlessly. So a performance that betrays that expectation matters.

What does this all mean? All setbacks and challenges and failures are not created equally. An action that leads to an outcome for one person may be a failure, but for a different person it may not be a failure. As you’re combing through possible storylines here, remember to examine the expectations at the outset. And then make sure that the thing you’re considering a setback or challenge or failure somehow RUPTURED those expectations. It’s not always clear cut, but that’s a nuance that most applicants miss when approaching this type of question.

Once you’ve chosen a story that passes the test, it’s time to execute. Two major tips:

1. Write it in the present tense, as though it’s happening now. In other words, take us back to the moments, and relive them AS THEY OCCURRED. Don’t RECOUNT the events from today’s vantage point. This will force you to not get ahead of yourself. This is crucial; we want to experience the stuff as it happened. And then to experience your reactions, your highs and lows (in real time). Why? This technique helps you to deliver a more dramatic ARC. Let it hang, folks. Expose the emotions and nerves, and leave it raw.
2. When addressing the “how did it affect you” and “what did you learn” pieces of the prompt, remember to grapple with EXPECTATIONS. In almost all instances, you likely started out with a certain set of expectations that were disrupted. Identifying that disruption is usually the “X” that marks the spot of how this experience affected you. The next part – what you learned? – will write itself from there…

The most successful approaches to this essay are the most honest and revealing. Don’t hide from that ugliness, embrace it. Your ability to EXPOSE and DISCUSS unsavory aspects of your skills or personality or circumstance or whatever it is – by themselves – speaks volumes. Trust us. The mere act of ADMITTING uncomfortable things tends to have the opposite effect, and demonstrates incredible maturity. And strength. The ability to introspect and self-analyze, coupled with the desire to self-correct, are amazing attributes.

Common App Prompt 2 and Essay Modality Choice

That’s some background to unpack the concepts, but now let’s talk a bit about how you might approach the actual essay itself.

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

The majority of students see the words “obstacle, challenge, setback, or failure” and jump straight to Modality 1: The Personal Story Essay. “Let me tell you about a time when…” The prompt nudges you that way in its very wording: “recount a time when...” But, not every applicant will execute their obstacle story in a traditional fashion. Let’s explore essay genres!

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

An obvious choice, and for an obstacle story, not a bad one, because it is inherently about you and when executed correctly, can’t really be compared apples-to-apples to another applicant. (When executed correctly.) Setback stories are great opportunities for students who have killer scores and generally seem to have everything going for them. If these students crow about how great they are, then the pressure they’re putting on the reader is to push back and wonder “Oh, really? We’ll just see about that” and purely based on human psychology, we will take that dare and find ways to knock you down a peg. Flip it though and something wild happens. If you’re a kid that is crushing it in every dimension, but you spend your precious essay bullets on something where you discovered a humbling lesson, or learned something, thus exposing a vulnerability or a chink in the armor, and you’re conveying an appreciation for how much more you have to learn, we readers will have the opposite reaction and shout “But look at how much you have going for you already! Your humility impresses me!”

This is also a great choice if you just have an unbelievably compelling setback or obstacle story that has molded you, defines you, inspires you, plagues you…. Something. If you have one of those, and the take away from the essay is that anyone with these insights is mature, self-aware, thoughtful, and therefore capable of future greatness, could be a winner.

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

Another interesting choice if your main thrust (seemingly) is to talk about a goal you have, and yet, your focused on a setback. A cool utilization of these two concepts could be that a setback gave birth to the ambition itself, or gave rise to the fighting spirit that propels you forward. In either case, you can talk about your goals, but highlight the learning from the obstacle story instead. It’s a neat way to couch an obstacle story, which can sometimes get folks out of trouble when it seems like a pity grab, or too forced an effort to seem like a particular setback was a bigger deal than it truly was. This can be more of a Little Engine That Could tale where we find ourselves rooting for you to succeed at that damn goal, despite this setback story that you’ve chosen to focus on.

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

The nakedly soapbox rant or rave piece can sometimes work, if it’s exceptionally compelling, or hilarious, or simply wildly unique and fresh. 9 out of 10 times, though, it’s grating, presumptuous, and off-putting. Or, potentially compelling, but too controversial. But, all of those can find success through the setback angle. Getting the balance right is tricky, In order to answer the question which is to feature most prominently your setback, what you’re ultimately doing is slickly conveying a point of view that if left on its own might be controversial and dicey. I’m going to tell you about a time when this thing happened and I ran into a setback. Insert all the detail which includes glimpses of your controversial, bold, interesting, unique point of view… but, you’re not asking the viewer to accept or agree with any aspect of it, rather, you’re focusing the story on something you experienced that set you back that not directly related to your views, but becomes the central thrust of the piece. Then you talk about how you learned something that is personal, and has everything to do with your maturing, development, etc. and no longer just a diatribe. If you nail the execution, the adcom will catch a glimpse at the way your unique mind works (fearless, brave, interesting), while not being forced to ‘respond’ to a controversial point of view (or, whatever the challenge w that perspective might have been).

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

You’ll hear us talk about how much we hate this essay choice, and that’s only true when it’s genuinely only about ‘the achievement’ itself. If the thrust of the essay is about a setback, then an impressive achievement can take a backseat, and absolutely be a great way to convey an interesting ‘win’ without making it a question about ‘but was this really that good a win though’? Because you’ve made it all about a setback and your learnings from that setback. Execution is key. If it looks like you’re just trying to slide in references to the ‘win’ it’ll die an instant death. It has to be a heavy lean in on the obstacle, and be sincere about that. The achievement, if incidental, can then emerge with greater strength than it would have had it just been a resume bullet, or the main feature of a different essay.

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

Not the greatest choice for a setback essay, unless the execution is just so bizarre and chaotic and insane that it can work. We leave this for the truly bold and exceptionally talented and whimsical, and in their hands, anything is possible.

*Updated July 2024*

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Love this prompt.

Imagine looking at a video of an average-looking person, on an average day, with average build… jogging. A perfectly unremarkable jog by most standards. Just a person, out there in the park, jogging. Imagine you were asked, what do you think of that person’s jogging? You might answer, “Uh, it looks perfectly average to me. Fine? Unremarkable? Nothing out of the ordinary. No real comment one way or another. ” And in one sense, you might be right.

But imagine if you then found out that that person was born with a congenital ailment, and was told they’d never be able to walk normally, let alone jog or run, due to the limitations of their legs and joints. And the person, through willpower, and dedication, managed to defy the odds, surprise everyone in the medical establishment, by one day developing the ability to not only walk, but jog.

… Let’s ask it again: “What do you think of that person’s jogging?”

Seems a bit different now, doesn’t it? Any answer short of “amazing” is hard to imagine. Let’s examine it. What changed your conclusion? Not the ‘picture,’ but rather, the context.

Back to Common App Essay Question #3. Before we can appreciate your questioning/challenging a belief or idea, we need context first. Setup. Background. Establish the status quo. Establish the normal. Establish the circumstances particular to your story.

Let’s look at another example. Say the coach of the high school basketball team is known to be incredibly tough, borderline mean. But ultimately respected and revered. Parents, teachers, students, and players all agree that while the coach can be tough, his intentions are sound and his methodology, while challenging to endure, is ultimately more effective than others’ who have come before him. If, under those circumstances, you were to take a stand against the coach somehow, it may beg the question, is this an act of short-sightedness? Immaturity? Etc.

Let’s replay the scenario. Let’s suppose a different coach were also incredibly tough, borderline mean, but not respected by everyone. Universally disliked in fact. But no one said anything because he had influence (somehow) over the principal, and over teachers. If under those circumstances, you were to defy this coach and take a stand – where others had the exact same instinct, but lacked the courage to do so – now all of a sudden, you’re a hero of the people.

“Standing up to the coach!” is incomplete without context. See the difference? See how pivotal the background is to our ability to assess the situation? Context is the first essential component for a great answer to this essay prompt.

There’s another key aspect though. The most compelling version of challenging a prevailing belief or idea includes some element of inconvenience to the challenger. Some potential cost.

When Copernicus challenged the belief that the sun revolves around the Earth, he was taking a huge risk positing that. (Want proof? Homeboy ended up in jail for suggesting it!) That risk made his taking that particular stance that much more compelling. Let’s look at the opposite scenario. Everyone thinks Simone Biles is going to dominate the gymnastics scene at the Olympics. But you take a bold stance and declare “Not me!” Um, want a cookie? Congrats I guess for being contrary? But also, no one cares about what you think about who’s going to take Gold in the Olympics? Take home point: being a contrarian for its own sake isn’t all that cool, and can backfire and make you seem childish, performative, etc.

A cool way to see if your version works is “does it pass the inconvenience test”? Without the inconvenience, it won’t weigh as much. If you challenge the idea today that the sun revolves around the Earth, no one will care. Why? Because it’s the popularly-held belief. It isn’t “inconvenient” to you in any way to hazard the theory that it’s the other way around. How does the inconvenience test work? Ask yourself this: What did you stand to lose if things didn’t go your way? If you stood to lose something, but you acted in spite of that risk… now we’re getting somewhere.

One Approach to Common App Prompt 3

Step 1 is to set the stage. Establish the “normal.” Or, establish the “before” picture. Create an itch in your reader by making us feel what you felt. If you do this correctly, we will develop the same desire to spring into action the way that you did.

But go slow, don’t get ahead of yourself. Consider how this situation looked from other angles. Try to see it the way others saw it—others for whom it was reasonable not to challenge in some way. Explain that rationale, if you can. (This is a muscle “smart people” use … walking ‘around’ a problem, trying to develop a 360 ̊ view.)

Then, after you’ve established the “normal,” now reveal some kind of dilemma. Something giving you pause about acting/challenging. There must have been some cost, otherwise (as we suggested earlier) it won’t make for much of a challenge story. Explain what you stood to lose. Reputation? Respect from some people? Breaking a promise? Hurting the feelings of someone along the way? Something else? Walk us through the inner dialogue:

1. “Here’s why I should challenge this thing.” (Your Reason for Challenging)
2. “But I’m afraid XY and Z might happen if I do.” (The Cost)
3. “But I’m willing to risk all that, because I feel more strongly about X than Y.” (The Tilting Factor)

Walk us through the actual act of “challenging” the belief/idea. Take us through it in real-time (as though it were happening now), and let us hear your thought process while it’s all happening. (This is a neat writer’s trick, writing in the present tense for this kind of material.)

Which brings us to the final section, the outcome. Part of it is simply what you’d expect on the face of it, “how did it literally turn out”? Just so we get a sense of the facts. But then, there’s another layer, the one we’re really interested in. The deeper reflections:

• Would you do the same thing again?
• Would you approach it differently?
• Did it indeed come at a cost, and was it worth it?

It’s okay if the answer of whether you’d do it again is “no.” Maybe you were impulsive and acted hastily. Maybe you didn’t act impulsively enough. Maybe time has taught you a lesson that casts this experience in a different light. Patting yourself on the back for handling the situation perfectly the first time around isn’t necessarily the most impressive response. In fact, it can be somewhat predictable. Ideally, there’s something you’ve learned along the way that imbues this moment from your past with richer insight. Bring it. Let’s see that you’re someone who matures. And grows. Life is gonna grow more (not less) complex. Show us here – in this reflective moment – that you can wrap your head around these complexities, such that the next time you meet a challenge, you’ll be that much better equipped to battle it.

Common App Prompt 3 and Essay Modality Choice

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

The majority of students see the words “tell us about a time” and jump straight to Modality 1: The Personal Story Essay. But, as always, not every applicant will execute their obstacle story in a traditional fashion. Let’s explore essay genres!

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

In this instance, we actually like the option of a straightforward connection between “tell me about a time when” and … doing exactly that. If your ingredients are operating at the ‘varsity’ level. Meaning, if the stakes aren’t all that high, if your actual story isn’t that compelling ultimately, the straightforward telling will expose those weaknesses fast. So, choose this modality if you’ve got the goods.

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

If your ‘challenge’ story on its own is somehow missing something (let’s say falls short of our standard for Modality 1 in that it’s just not as sizzling as other essays we’re reading or have read), but you’re able to couch it in the context of something that propels you forward toward a goal or ambition, that can be an interesting option. Because you’ve taken the pressure of the coolness of the ‘challenge’ itself and placed it more on how this episode was part of an ‘origin story’ or sorts, where you developed a drive toward something. If executed correctly, we’ll get all the strains we need to get around the circumstances of your going against the status quo, taking the stand you took, seeing what you had to risk, but then the focus pivots toward serving a different purpose which is what you’re hoping to achieve in the future. Depends on execution, but can be an interesting option, depending on the story you’re considering telling.

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

A dangerous game, this one! But, for the right idea and the right intentions, a potentially great choice. If you’re looking to sound off on a topic, mounting a high horse and preaching loudly with a clenched fist, in a kind of ‘why are you yelling’ kind of way, and in order to satisfy the prompt you talk about a time you bucked convention as a badge of honor, but it’s merely in service of just getting to get on a soapbox, it is likely going to die a quick death. There are risks that are worth taking, but this isn’t an example of a smart one. There is a way to be bold, and to be controversial, but a polemic in a college application essay isn’t the way to do it.

But, if you’re measured, mature, thoughtful, and have something cool to say, it can absolutely be a perfect opportunity to couple a story about a time you challenged a belief or idea with your unique take on a topic of the day (or, simply one that has significance for you).

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

We generally don’t recommend this, ever, and it may be especially true here. Well, not entirely. If your true motive is to draw attention to a conventional achievement (an award, some kind of victory/win, etc.), crowing about a time you challenged an idea within that frame is likely to smack of arrogance, self-importance, a host of undesirable things.

The one exception to this is kind of a twist on the concept of what an ‘achievement’ essay might be. If, for example, you achieved something that might otherwise be considered impressive (spectacular, even), but instead of drawing attention the ‘achievement’ itself, but rather your victory was in the challenging of an existing belief or idea, now we might be getting into ‘mature’ ‘this is an interesting person’ territory. It’s just so predictable and, frankly, ‘basic’ for a high school student to be excited about the blue ribbon. But the cooler student isn’t so concerned with that ribbon so much as the ‘act of defiance’ or the ‘ruffling of the status quo’ that for them has far reaching implications. Check in with us here, this could be an exception to the ‘avoid the achievement essay’ advice we usually give. Depending on your angle, and the choices you make in highlighting certain elements and downplaying others, this can work.

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

This one is also not necessarily the greatest choice for this particular prompt, since it’s likely to create some tension between form versus function. Wildcard essays are generally suited for more open-ended prompts, and less so specific ones. This one we’d generally caution against, but hey, if you have an insane and awesome angle, pitch it and let’s see whatcha got.

*Updated July 2024*

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

If there’s one phrase to focus on in this prompt, it’s: “in a surprising way.”

The easiest thing to do is imagine things others have done for you that may have made you happy or thankful. A gift. A helping hand. A shoulder to cry on. A laugh. There are lots of things people do regularly that can elicit feelings of gratitude in you, the recipient. But what does it mean for such a gesture to have surprised you?

Careful. There are two versions of this, and only one of them will count for this essay.

Version 1 – A gesture you weren’t expecting, but one you already regard as a nice/positive thing, that pleasantly surprises you.

Example:

• You are stuck in a tricky interpersonal conflict and would kill to have someone work it through with you. You can’t ask your friends, or your favorite aunt, because it’s personal, they’re busy, you don’t want to burden them. But, they volunteer anyway. Wow! You’re so, so, so grateful. “Happy.” “Thankful.” And surprised that they would give their time and soul to you so generously.

Nope. Doesn’t count.

Version 2 – A gesture you weren’t expecting to be happy about, or grateful for, but… found yourself reacting that way. Your happiness and thankfulness was the thing that surprised you. (Bingo.)

Example:

• Leave me alone, Mom. I do not want to talk to you. If you force this conversation I will resent you for it, and be even unhappier than I am now. Understood? (Mom sidesteps your warning, engages in a conversation with you anyway.) And you’re poised to be angry about it. However, a weight lifts. And you feel happier, despite your expectation for the opposite reaction.

Your reaction of happiness is the surprising element here, not the gesture. Now let’s examine why this would be interesting, and how to write about it. A change from something (A) to something else (B) can show many things: growth (obvious), but also increased self-awareness (that you were able to detect and talk about that change). Either way, your ability to identify this “surprise” goes to one of the most important traits any college applicant can have maturity. That’s why the Common App offers this prompt.

First things first, you need to find a time when your reaction (of happiness/gratefulness) came as a surprise to you. You were expecting to feel the opposite, or at least something wildly different, but didn’t. Generate a list. Now, what reaction were you EXPECTING to have originally, and why? Make a sincere case here. Meaning, go back in time to this “Previous You” and explain why you expected NOT to be happy/thankful for whatever was about to come your way. Sell it. Sincerely, thoughtfully. Really… sell it. After reading this paragraph(s), we should not only understand why you expected NOT to be happy about the upcoming gesture, but perhaps buy into your argument fully.

But then, a thing happens, that causes a surprising response. It must (by definition) be something that happened on an unconscious level, without your brain’s permission. After all, if your body listened to your mind, you wouldn’t have been thankful, remember? That’s the premise, here. So, unconsciously, emotionally, viscerally, you feel some kind of positive, happy, grateful emotion. And this confuses your brain. It’s tempting to dwell on the thing the “other person/people in this story” did or said. And yes, we will need the appropriate detail, but we don’t need all that much.

What we want to dwell on is that cognitive dissonance between your happy response, and your brain feeling CONFUSED by that reaction. Explain what you were feeling, and walk us through the CONFUSION. What did THAT feel like? What questions were you all of a sudden asking? What assumptions did this ruffle? What ELSE might you be wrong about if Action X, that was supposed to lead to a not happy or neutral response, instead leads to a POSITIVE one? You may not have been aware of it in the moment (or perhaps you were), but there was a dialogue happening that led you to CHANGE your mind. We wanna see that dialogue play out on the page, right here. That’s the secret to unlocking this essay.

Now do some analysis on what this revelation propelled you to do, or not do, afterward. Did it lead simply to a change in the way you perceive certain input? Did it propel you to take any kind of action? What changed as a result of this “new you”? Give us some examples. This doesn’t need to be a big thing, folks. It doesn’t need to be that you went from “not wanting to solve world hunger, to having a revelatory new mission in life to solve world hunger.” The differentiator here is going to be your thoughtful analysis of what changed, and why that mattered to you.

You can consider this kind of structure to get your juices flowing on a first draft:

• Situation/Setup. Explain what your expectations were, and why you were pretty confident that if any of the following kinds of things were to play out in XYZ way, you weren’t gonna be all to thrilled about it.
• Then, someone did something, and your REACTION surprised you. Very quickly and efficiently, tell us about the thing, but don’t dwell. Dwell instead on your reaction, and why this was nothing like how you were expecting to react.
• Now, give us that dialogue between your brain and this NEW REACTION it was trying to process. The “what else does this change, if this is how I reacted here” inner dialogue.
• Now explain why any of this matters. What happens now, on account of this episode, that is fundamentally different from how it would have played out had this not happened? And why do we prefer this SECOND version? Where’s the value in it for you?

Common App Prompt 4 and Essay Modality Choice

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

Despite our wind up of not jumping straight into Modality 1, here we may actually recommend Modality 1 (ha!). Why? The nature of the question tugs at something deeply personal, unintellectual, visceral. Anything other than a straight telling of this story runs the risk of “form over function,” detracting from the sincerity of the piece. It’s not that it can’t be done, but if you have a strong ‘surprised when’ story, and you’re able to really lean into some of the advice above about conveying all the emotions and experiences faithfully, this may be the choice modality.

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

This one’s also possible but just be careful about balance. Remember that the ultimate objective is for your target school to learn something about you that makes them eager to admit you. That won’t ever happen because of goals you have at age 17. It’ll happen because of traits you telegraph at age 17 that promise big, exciting, important things later in life, however those goals end up evolving. See the difference? Your goals are likely to change. But the traits you bring to the table will hopefully stay with you, and develop.

So. If you’re going to tell a story about how something that surprised you led to a particular future goal or aspiration, just make sure to get the balance right of exploring the change, and the ‘why’ of your motivation, less so the what. In many ways, the question is teeing you up for a blend of Modalities 1 & 2. But our recommendation would be to aim for a starting balance of 85/15 (what changed and why that matters/goal).

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

Bad fit. This Modality is a choice for students looking to persuade their audience, or to sound off (thoughtfully) on a hot topic, or a topic of significance to the author. The prompt here is not a great match, and would muddy the broth. Steer clear.

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

Not going to dwell too much, steer clear. These don’t go together at all.

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

In the right hands, this could work. But … honestly, it might be better executed under the ‘choose your own topic’ and let the surprise element be there, but not necessarily be the focal point. We’re only suggesting this as a possibility to let your mind wander a bit to what this could even look like, if for no other reason than to force the question “what’s a wildcard essay”?

*Updated July 2024*

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

This one is tricky because first drafts for this type of prompt end up being ridiculously predictable. [We read hundreds (thousands) of these each year from the world’s sharpest high-schoolers, true story.] Students (and – ahem – parents) who gravitate toward this essay tend to see those words “discuss an accomplishment” and Bang, starter pistol goes off, and it’s a race to “how quickly can we talk about that thing we achieved that we think is going to be our ticket to Harvard.” In fact, and as always, forgive the brazen tone here, but no college cares about any high-schooler’s accomplishments to-date. A lick. Whatsoever. Nada. Achievements say very little. It’s that second part of the prompt – the part most folks didn’t even read because they got so excited by “Discuss an accomplishment” – that separates the contenders from the commoners.

Growth.

What’s so special about growth? Well, simply put, evidence of growth here, at this stage of a student’s life, is an incredible indicator for future growth. And that’s what college applications are all about, folks. It’s not a contest over who scored highest on yesterday’s SAT, or whose GPA was most impressive these past four years. It’s a contest over whose performances and experiences thus far suggest (to the admissions committee) who among these applicants has the greatest chance of future success. Once you understand that concept, it’s going to be a game-changer for how you approach your college applications.

Okay, back to the issue at hand. Growth. New understanding. The key issue here is. . . “delta.” As in: ∆. Change. Difference. From X to Y. Beforehand I was this, Afterwards I became that. Before I saw it this way, afterward I saw it that way. Without that kind of an arc, the “accomplishment” is worthless. Worthless!

When in your life did something change for you? Here are some examples:

• I used to believe this. Then XYZ happened. And that belief changed.
• I used to think THIS about myself. Then XYZ happened. And my understanding of myself changed.
• I used to think I was limited in X realm. Then I set out to accomplish Y, even though I knew there was a better-than-not chance I would fail. But I didn’t. And I learned Z about my limits. And more than that, I realized that I was thinking about my own limits all wrong.
• I used to believe with every fiber in my body that PERSON X was XYZ (nasty, lovely, mean, brilliant, hateful, special, etc.). But then THIS happened. And that belief was shaken. I realized that PERSON X was in fact ABC.

These are meant to just get the juices flowing for the “pattern” of how you can turn inward to source some great potential stories. It’s all about “I used to X, but now I Y.” This essay is about the journey you went through to get from X to Y. The journey. We don’t even care that much about where you end up. We don’t care about the “what” at all, in fact. We care about your ability to introspect and examine the elements at play. We care about how you’re grappling with those elements, and what you’re choosing to do with them. We care about that gear-churning. It’s going to tell us that “this is a future CEO.” Or, “this is a future innovator.” Why? Because all successful people share an ability to field new, challenging inputs and find a way to process it in ways that lead to positive outcomes. At the core of it all is a skill or talent that can be ‘encoded’ through a proven ability to adapt. Hence, this question.

The tricky part with an essay like this is remembering what it was like to “not know” what you know today. It’s hard. Really hard. Do you remember what it was like before you knew the alphabet? Impossible, right? Well, luckily it won’t be quite as hard. But you’ll have to train yourself to allow yourself to “regress” a little, and return to a time when your views on something (or someone) were a little different, and less developed than they may be today. Sure, maybe your views today are better, and you’ve worked hard to wean yourself OFF of that old way of viewing things. But for this essay, you’ll need to bring that OLD SELF back. Such that we can really understand where things started, in order to fully appreciate how drastically they’ve changed.

If you’re at all able, try to write in first person and in the present tense when describing that ‘before’ picture. How the world looked to you before you changed. Writing in the present tense will force you not to get ahead of yourself, because you’ll have a natural tendency to graft your modern-day knowledge onto your earlier self. Don’t, if you can help it. You can always finesse later drafts and adjust tenses and the writing style to bring out the most from the content, but initially, just focus on letting your pen fly. Embrace your Past You. Take us through the thing that changed it all. And show us how you struggled, coughed, sputtered, and uncomfortably went from Past You to Present You.

Common App Prompt 5 and Essay Modality Choice

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

Modality 1 is well-aligned with Common App Prompt 5. Change stories are often best told earnestly, and in a straightforward manner, in order to throw the focus onto the change itself, which is the star of the show here. More precisely, a student’s ability to change, to adapt, and to introspect and demonstrate an awareness of the forces at play.

For the straightforward narrative, a great starting point might go something like this:

• Starting Point. This is what the ‘before’ picture looked like. Remember to inhabit the version of your lived experiences and beliefs and understanding prior to the change moment. In order to sell this, you need to recall what it was like to see the world this way, and more specifically, how and why it made sense to you then.
• The Change Element. What was it that happened that caused a ripple in that understanding of things? Was it an event? Or a person? Or something else? All we need is to tell it as simply and clearly as possible.
• Cognitive Dissonance. Now, we need to understand why this created a conflict, where something you once thought or felt was in tension with things after this ‘change element’ occurred. What two ideas could no longer go together? This is the heart of the essay, watching you express your inner dialogue onto the page. We want to see how you process things, how you analyze, comprehend, mediate, etc.
• What changed, and why is ‘new way’ an improvement from the old way? What are you better able to do now, compared to before? Express this in a way that makes it easy to imagine you applying this principle to future curveballs. (This is the whole point.)

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

For some students, it is possible that one of the better ways of understanding who they are is through hearing them articulate where they want to go, and why. In the case of Common App Prompt 5, this may be a great choice if the student’s aspiration is motivated by a profound change of heart. Something happened that shook things, or ignited something that was course-altering, or brought ‘the future’ into sharp focus.

Balance is key. It is always tempting in a modality focusing on the words ‘goals/aspirations’ to literally focus on the merits of the goals and aspirations. Not in this case. Here, this is merely an anchor point, but the real star of the show continues to be the ‘how these goals came into being.’ You can spend 80% of your essay on what came before, what changed, and why it sent you on a mission toward a thing. And then merely 20% on the goal itself, but only to the extent that it further reveals something about what makes you uniquely you. One effective stress test here is to imagine that several others might share your exact goal, in fact, assume it fully. This would mean that if you rested your ‘argument’ on the merits of the goal itself, the mere existence of others writing about the same thing would cancel its potency instantly. And so, the focus needs to be elsewhere. It has to be on why you arrived at your goal, and what it means about who you are. Done correctly, this might convince us that you are the person most likely to achieve this goal, compared to others, which is the kind of reaction that would move the admissions decision needle.

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

Could be a great choice. Some students wish to express their hot take on a hot topic, but do so … in an undisciplined manner. The result is often a piece that reveals a kind of immaturity, and too much over-eagerness to sound off. This isn’t really the space for that, adcoms aren’t interested in being lectured. Or worse, hearing about a quirky take on a thing that, while quirky and possibly entertaining, fails to reveal something about the student that is compelling.

Here, we have an opportunity to take a unique take on a thing, but couch it with a ‘change’ story. It gives you the opportunity to spend some time explaining where this unique came from, how you started, and why you ended up here. Now, we get ‘the take’ but also (and more importantly) insights into who you are as a student. If you can manage the balance correctly, this could be the perfect way to talk about something controversial, or completely silly, but underneath it all is a serious engagement with the before and after story inside you that undergirds the whole thing. Application gold.

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

This is another great way to potentially consider the ‘Amazing Achievements’ essay––usually we say steer clear. When we say steer clear, it is always in an effort to compel students not to have the focus be on the achievement itself, because there will always be someone with a better or cooler version of that achievement, and then you look weak if you put all your eggs into that one thing.

If, however, you’re talking about an achievement in a more glancing, incidental manner, and the *real* story is about a profound change that enabled that achievement, now we have something. Execution here is key, and it begins with a crucial reckoning––not for the faint of heart.

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

Tough to comment on here, because by definition the Wildcard Essay has no rules, and talented students can pull off, well, ‘wild’ things. It is possible to do, couldn’t tell you what it might look like, but, it’s not for the meek! Possible, and if you’re brave, go for it. Let’s see what it looks like.

*Updated July 2024*

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?

Ooh, this is a tasty one. But it’s also a little dangerous. Lots of applicants will get very excited about running wild on something they find engaging, but their reasons for why it’s engaging (or captivating) somehow fall flat. Unlike some of the other ones, the actual content here does matter. You *can* tell us about a passion that strikes us as … uninteresting. Or it’s a passion that feels obviously written to impress. Or, it’s something *you* think is uncommon, but isn’t, and your unawareness of that can almost serve as a strike against you. So, yes, on the one hand the open-endedness does create some opportunity here, but at the same time, that same open-endedness comes with risk.

Our recommendation: if you’re feeling inspired, take a huge swing and try to sell us on it. But be open to the possibility that it may not be your best essay topic choice. In other words, realize there’s a very good chance we’ll say “valiant effort, friend! But your winning hand resides with a different idea, approach, etc.” If you’re cool with that, we’ll cheer you on with gusto. No shame in taking a swing.

So, what’s the secret to passing Admissionado’s test for a cool topic here? (Because our test is the same as the Adcom’s test, naturally.) Hard to say in a practical, actionable way, but let’s at least outline two categories that your version may fall under:

• Category 1: The topic, idea, or concept isn’t all that cool on its own, but the reaction it causes in *you* is endearing, inspiring, funny, cool, makes us smile and go ‘this kid’s awesome.’
• Category 2: The topic, idea, or concept is actually cool. Something we haven’t considered, has a new-ness, or freshness, or ‘wait, I just learned something’ quality to it. If you can pull this off, it can be killer––remember our refrain that knocking the reader off balance in the right way is always a win!

It’s a worthwhile exercise to see which of those two your versions fits best with, and then sculpt from there. If someone else may also choose ‘your thing’ as ‘their thing,’ then it’s likely Category 1. For Category 1 essays, you’ll want to make sure you’re not trying to sell the author on ‘the thing’ as the cool part. The cool part is *your reaction* to it. And here’s where it gets more interesting. In order for that to be cool, we need to dig a little deeper into who were you *before* you encountered ‘the thing’ and then how that encounter short-circuited you in the best of ways, and made you discover that this was the thing you never knew you needed more than anything in life itself. The focus is key. Showcasing an awareness that the real ‘story’ is the profoundness factor how ‘the thing’ altered you in key ways, not on selling us on the coolness of ‘the thing.’

If, however, ‘the thing’ is likely to *not* be something anyone else would ever think to choose, now the focus can be more about the thing, and what it reveals about what makes you tick. It would be as if you’re explaining who you are *through* your reaction to ‘this thing.’ It’s a subtle but crucial distinction. Your reasons for being fascinated by ‘this thing’ should explain something about why you’re unique. A worthwhile exercise here is to imagine others being exposed to ‘this thing’ but *not* reacting to it the way you did, and hazarding an explanation for why you think that’s the case. What is it about you that made you react the way you did, where others didn’t/wouldn’t. If you can posit a guess there, it is likely to accomplish something meaningful.

Now let’s zoom in on that end part, “What or who (whom! Damnit CommonApp!) do you turn to when you want to learn more?” The coolness here has less to do with what or whom it is, and more *how* you’re utilizing that person or thing. “It’s not the tool, it’s the carpenter.” Not quite the way that expression is normally used, but the idea here has more to do with how you approach resources at your disposal. We wanna see evidence that you are a cloth-wringer, you’re the person that juices the orange until it’s bone dry. In our SPARC™ formulation, this is ‘C’ dimension: ‘Creates.’ Another way of saying ‘Resourcefulness.’ You know how folks in other cultures don’t just use the fine cuts of meat and then toss the animal carcass away forever, but instead, find ways to use every single part of the animal? Meat for food. Hide for furniture coverings. Wool for cloth. Etc., etc. “Cloth-wringer.” We want to see evidence of that kind of ingenuity in you, when driven by a passion. Where do you turn, and how do you wield that thing to your advantage? Thinking of it that way will help you worry less about “talking about your grandma” because you think it’s going to be inspirational to hear about that, and more, how you learned Spanish because that’s the only language your grandma knows, and that’s what it took to hear her stories about the great depression because that era fascinates you, and you weren’t satisfied with the history books version. That’s… cloth-wringing. This is your opportunity to showcase how, when motivated, you exploit resources available to you to further your engagement with a topic or interest.

So pick a killer topic (that’s passes the Admissionado cooooooolness test), and show us you can wring cloth until it’s so dry it’s a fire hazard…

Common App Prompt 6 and Essay Modality Choice

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

The majority of students see the words “Reflect on” and jump straight to Modality 1: The Personal Story Essay. But, as always, not every applicant will execute their obstacle story in a traditional fashion. Let’s explore essay genres!

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

Modality 1 aligns well with The Personal Story Essay. Depending on which ‘category’ your version falls into (see above), your organization may be a touch different.

Category 1: Common topic, idea, concept (‘the thing’); Unusual Reaction!

• Explain what an expected reaction to ‘the thing’ would be. Establish the status quo.
• Now explain what your reaction is.
• Next explain what the difference is, and what it is about you that gives rise *to* that difference.
• Finally, show us how you wring the cloth on opportunities to deepen your engagement with ‘the thing.’

Category 2: Unexpected topic, idea, concept (‘the thing’); Therefore, Unusual Reaction!

• Explain how others typically react to ‘the thing.’ And be convincing that this is not just an acceptable but justifiable, expected response. See if you can sell ‘the other side’ (!). Establish the status quo.
• Now explain what your reaction is.
• Next explain what the difference is, and what it is about you that gives rise *to* that difference.
• Finally, show us how you wring the cloth on opportunities to deepen your engagement with ‘the thing.’

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

If the endpoint of all this is that you are legitimately inspired to pursue this potentially as a major life goal, then you can and should still follow the general contours of the organization laid out above (Modality 1 approach). But, with perhaps a fifth bullet that spends a bit of time articulating why this might be more than just a ‘teenage’ hobby. The most effective way to really nail this is to focus less on ‘markers’ of what the goal is (job titles, subject areas) but something deeper and more root-level. Example: “I’m obsessed with Non-Linear Algebra, and …:

{Now, we need to fill in the future goals piece}

Weak Version: … therefore want to study math and be a mathematician. (Sure, maybe.)

Strong Version: … therefore want to commit myself to a career path that is predicated on solving complex problems, in whatever form they may present themselves.

What makes that second example stronger is that it’s less limiting, less focused on the ‘math’ aspect of ‘math’ and more on the ‘root-level’ nature of problem solving. That is scalable. You can go into the arts or finance with that as your compass, and find ways to have an illustrious career in either case. Much much cooler. The closer you can get to identifying what the ‘root’ is to your interests, the better off you’ll be, not just for the purposes of college applications, but… as a rudder for life itself!

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

This one could work here, but remember the two categories above, so that you get the balancing act right. We need to understand why this topic, idea, or concept activates something in you. As long as you’re aware of where the focus should be (the uniqueness of the activating agent, versus the uniqueness of the effect a more common agent has on you), you’ll be okay. In many ways, to answer this question correctly *is* to explain your unique take on a thing, so, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll end up hooking into this Modality whether you intend to or not.

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

As always, the achievements essay works only when the focus isn’t on the achievement itself but on something else. In this case, it can be about the spark that led you to pursue something (in which you achieved something noteworthy). But the achievement shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting. It would have to be about the manner in which the ‘thing’ ignites something in you that led to your achievement. In other words, the explanation for why you achieved this thing you’re telling us about should have more to do with your unusual passion for the thing, rather than dedication, talent, etc. Generally, we’d recommend avoiding this because more often than not, this modality is in tension with the true nature of the question which is almost asking “describe a topic, idea, or concept’ that you find so engaging that the idea of achievement is rendered irrelevant, because the achievement is measure by your interest in the thing rather than some tangible outcome.”

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

As is usually the case here, all depends on how a student approaches it. This one may fly because the ‘rules-less’ nature of the Wildcard Essay is conducive to a story/piece that ultimately tells of a fixation, passion, magnet. Hard to say more because so much rests on the unpredictable nature of how a creative student chooses to render it.

*Updated July 2024*

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.

This may seem like a golden opportunity. “What could go wrong, if it’s my own answer to my own question?!”

Answer? Lots.

But rather than go through all the ways in this could go sideways, let’s skin it the other way, and try to examine what approach would work WELL for this type of open-ended- come-what-may prompt. The first thing that springs to mind is something deeply, deeply personal. A story about dealing with a tough issue. An experience that haunts you. An experience that changed everything. A family member whom you’ve had to take care of, robbing you of your childhood. A family member whom you’ve had to take care of, opening you up to a world you would have otherwise never known. You get the idea. We talked about this earlier, but a good litmus test for this particular approach is how hard/easy it is to write about. If it’s easy, it may not be the greatest topic (it might be, there are always exceptions). But generally, the harder it is to bring yourself to write about it, the better the chances it has “electric” potential.

What else could it be though? Another angle could be something flat out humorous. A rant. A soapbox session. A “thank you letter to Howard Taft.” (Why would anyone… I’m already interested – see how that works?) This could be a chance for the witty ones among you to tee off here. And there are no rules for what you can or can’t do. As long as it’s genuinely funny/witty. If it isn’t, don’t be married to it; it’s okay to junk an idea that simply isn’t working well. Have the courage to try, but have the sense to kick it to the curb if another tack works better.

Here’s another approach (and bear with us): the… unclassifiable approach, because, by definition… no one could have predicted it, perhaps because it isn’t a thing. This is for the real visionaries among you to “paint” with this open canvas somehow. Now, this is a huge risk/reward play. If you produce something truly artful and inspiring and “difficult to comprehend in a way that great abstract art makes the viewer work” then… kudos. If, on the other hand, it’s just hacky, allow yourself to take a mulligan and try something else. Have someone you TRUST, who isn’t afraid to tell you that the thing you produced is “garbage” without hurting your feelings, look at it. And tell it to you straight. Every now and again, someone produces a “not quite an essay but rather an… I don’t know what this is” that’s SO GOOD, it hurts. If you have it in you? Go for it. You can always try another approach if it ain’t achieving lift off.

Honestly, there are too many possibilities yet to cover, for how you can approach this question with (deliberately) infinite possibilities. The key is that it has to fulfill all of the following: It has to:

• Engage your reader (if it’s self-indulgent, Strike 1)
• Demonstrate thoughtfulness (if it feels like something you could have slapped together in a few hours, not gonna fly)
• Show evidence that you really cared about what you were doing, and that you seem like someone who has a deep potential for losing yourself in a passion (Why? Because that kid is gonna grab life by the horns and hook into the next passion, and the next, and the next…)
• Show a kind of maturity (intellectual OR emotional) that’s unusual for kids your age
• Be so winning somehow (whether through humor, or somehow else), that we just can’t help but wanna meet you

Any combination of those things, and this prompt could be the way to go. And you’d be in good company because year over year something like ~70% of applicants choose this prompt, give or take. But don’t force this one. If a fantastic response occurs to you immediately when scanning the other prompts, at least do yourself a favor and take a stab at it. Get one down on paper. You can always take a swing at this one after that. If, on the other hand, nothing lights anything up when scanning the other prompts, but there’s this thing you wanna do in this space, there’s your green light to waste no time in taking a stab. Don’t worry at all about what it is, just transfer that energy to the page as quickly and completely as you can. Then, we can work that hunk of clay into something brilliant. But get it all out first.

No matter what, for Common App Prompt 7, this is where Admissionado’s Essay Modalities comes into play.

Common App Prompt 7 and Essay Modality Choice

We go into depth in this post here about Essay Modalities and how, in our opinion, they play perhaps the most crucial part in the essay writing process for college applications. We’ll assume you’ve glanced at that (if you haven’t, take a gander and then come back!), and so we’ll resist explanations and dive straight in.

Recall, these are the five main Essay Modalities:

• The Personal Story Essay
• The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me…
• The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay
• The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay
• The Wildcard Essay

Whereas for Common App Prompts 1-6, you’re given a starting point (literally a ‘prompt’), here, the open-ended-ness gives you a blank canvas. You can use our Essay Modality framework to be an alternative way to think about prompts. Look at the five modalities, and see if any of those ignite something off the bat. Anything tickled?

More typically, students have a rough sense of what they want to write about, and don’t necessarily wish to shoehorn it into what can be the limitations of one of the Common App prompts. The Common App’s M.O. isn’t to constrict, but rather, to stoke ideas. So if you don’t need stoking, but feel constricted by the other prompts, come here to Prompt 7 and start fleshing out. Get a sense of what it is you’re itching to say, and possibly even say it (in a rough draft, or bulleted/freestyle format). But then check-in (on your own, or with a smart mentor––(singular!), and see if you can figure out what it is your freestyle draft is truly about. What is it you’re trying to get across, and why? Without over-intellectualizing it, if you’re able to distill it to a purpose, along the lines of “I want the reader to…”:

• Be surprised by this *new* aspect of me, that the rest of my application will fall short of conveying
• Understand this aspect of me better; the rest of the app hints at it, but this space allows me to author it more personally

It’s likely one of those two things, and this exercise can help you identify which of the two it is. Once you have a sense of whether you’re trying to surprise, versus elaborate on, it can then help you (and us) reverse-engineer it in a way that will help you find the best possible way to execute that piece.

You can over-engineer it by over-outlining, and being overly in touch with what the end goal is. Don’t do that. Get a high-level sense of it, but then let that simply be a compass that points you generally in the right direction, and then, surrender to the rumbling passion and intensity that functions optimally at an unconscious level, and let the pen fly.

The Personal Story Essay (Modality 1)

If you’re telling a story about something, there’s a reason you’re telling it. There’s something you wish to get across. Do it. But make sure you’re suppressing the impulse to impress a random reader. Instead, pretend you’ll stuff this piece in a time capsule and then dig it up 50 years from now. That future reader (the older you) already knows you, duh. And that future version of you doesn’t need to be sold artificially on what motivates you and why. Instead, that future version of you will simply want to know what you’re thinking about *today* and what you understand the world to be *today* and how you react to things *today* and would kill to read your story about a thing given who you are *today.* If you can shut off the ‘the reader at Stanford will be impressed by this’ you will create distance between you and 95% of your competition. Most students try to imagine what will impress an ‘Ivy League’ reader, and be wrong about it 100% of the time. Think about it: when you read something you wrote in crayon about when you were six years old, do you ever say “wow, this is the work of a genius.” Or do you roll your eyes and struggle to remember what it was like to be SO YOUNG and CHILD-LIKE! Well, amplify that by a thousand, and that’s what adults think when they read things written by 17 years olds WHO ARE TRYING TO IMPRESS THE READER.

So don’t. It’ll be uncomfortable but lean into it. Just write it for yourself, and watch what happens. Don’t try to impress, just tell it in the most play-by-play manner imaginable, not marveling at why it’s so cool, but rather why you thought what you thought when you thought it. Once we have that clay to mold, we can start molding.

The Goals/Aspirations Essay → This is What Inspires Me… (Modality 2)

If you’re trying to sell us on why your goal is cool, it’s likely dead on arrival. If however you’re explaining who you are by way of expressing your future goals, better. The key here is to convey something that teaches us about what propels you toward the goal, not the goal itself.

The ‘My (Unique) Take on a Thing’ Essay (Modality 3)

Aha. Bumped and set. Match made in heaven between Prompt 7 and Modality 3. This is your chance to have some fun, whether you’re soapboxing, or doing a ‘Seinfeld, have you ever noticed’ bit, or anything in between. There’s a way to make this essay sing, so long as you reveal something about your own journey within the context of something you have a take on. If it’s all ‘take,’ it’s just a diatribe or a comedy act without substance. If you tap into ‘journey’ and grapple with some kind of change element that changed you from A to B, or inciting incident that sparked a unique realization, now we may have something. As long as we’re focused on the author, learning something about who that author is and what makes them tick, and less focused on the ‘take,’ we’re heading toward something potentially crackling.

The ‘Amazing Achievements’ Essay (Modality 4)

If you go this route, you’ll simply want to focus your story on some other thing, and have your achievement serve only as the ‘occasion’ necessary to tell the story about that other thing. You won first place in some fancy competition? Cool. Don’t worry about the first place aspect, worry more about the fact that this was the time learned about humility. Or understood what grit meant. Or you worked in a lab somewhere and the work you did led to something cool, like a published paper, or some other impressive outcome? Cool, leave aside that outcome, but tell us what you realized through this experience what it must have been like for your great grandmother to have endured what she endured back in her home country, and how that gave you a new perspective. Or you were chosen to represent your state in some kind of national contest? Awesome, talk about how this experience forced you to grapple with finding your real voice, and shake the one that had relied so heavily on others. You get the idea. An achievement essay that throws the spotlight on the achievement is almost sure to be a loser, unless the achievement is so marvelous as to make our jaws drop. In our tenure of reading thousands of college application essays, we have yet to read one of these that’s good enough to not need a focal point elsewhere.

The Wildcard Essay (Modality 5)

Not for everyone, but for the right person, can be solid gold. You need both an interesting target, and the ‘risk index’ and talent to be able to pull it off. The Wildcard Essay tends to favor not just the bold, but the bold and skilled-with-the-pen. If you’re already a great writer, and have a cheeky, quirky way about you, and have trafficked in off-the-wall writing explorations, this may be a great option to consider. If you can pull it off (and remember, few can), the attempt at the Wildcard Essay on its own can be a differentiator. But in order to nail this, you’ll need a trusted reader who can tell you if it’s working or not. And there’s no shame in reconsidering if it’s not working. Going for it, and falling short, isn’t all that commendable here, there aren’t any points for effort. We’ve read essays about beards that were Harvard-worthy (true story). We’ve read essays that broke all the rules of grammar, and led to readers with tears in their eyes (Stanford-worthy, true story). We’ve read essays that seemed to not be about anything, and weren’t even really essays, but taught us everything we needed to know about the author––in a way that led us to wanting to meet this person, and get to know them better: the golden chalice of reactions. Go for it if you feel like taking a risk, but don’t get too married to it in case it’s not quite going to work.