When I was a senior in high school, I hated the college essay. I was angered by the very idea of it -- how was I supposed to describe myself in 500 words or less? How was someone going to get to know me in 500 words? It wasn't possible! I felt doomed.

For a couple of weeks, every idea I tried -- I drafted, and I hated it. The trash bin on my computer was filling up.

The Common App Essay prompts have changed since I was applying nearly two decades ago, but they still remain a rather similar variation.

Here are the prompts for 2024-2025:

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. 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?
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.

If I imagine myself as a high school senior, I can imagine myself answering...

Track and ballet are so meaningful to me that I should include them. But I wasn't planning on running track in college, and I'd also recently shifted from years of intensive ballet training to trying a completely new style, hip hop, so that I could still dance, but ultimately stay focused and healthy on competing in track and field. So -- that one was out.

I could think of a number of lessons I'd learned from obstacles I'd encountered - but all of them felt ordinary and maybe even a little childish.

The rest of the prompts, as I imagine 17 year old me, I imagine myself struggling to come up with answers for too.

Eventually, I did write my personal essay.

I chose the "choose your own prompt" option and I re-lived a moment in my high school's band room when one of my friends was practicing a piece she had composed to apply to Berklee College of Music, and a male classmate that I'd known since grade school, but wasn't particularly close with, came in and joined us.

I don't have the essay anymore, and I don't remember exactly what I revealed about myself in it, but I do remember describing what I could hear, what I could see, and what I felt as my friend played the piano. And I remember including the dialogue between myself and the classmate that had joined us, and weaving in my thoughts about what he was saying as I illustrated our conversation.

That essay probably would've worked for prompt 3, 4, or 7. And despite not having much guidance on how to write the essay, somehow what I did simply because I had no other choice seems to be in line with what I've seen in successful essays both in my own students AND when we look at the essays from Johns Hopkins' Essays That Worked.

When it comes to writing the Common App Essay, or your College Essay:

Don't just respond to the question, you want to pick a moment that will allow you to show your answer to the question in the prompt, and illustrate that moment in writing.

For example, say I choose 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?

I could answer the prompt by explaining in 650 words or less:

My parents have often emphasized the importance of doing things when conditions aren't the best because then when the conditions are good, or ideal, I can perform even better. This has been emphasized, too, by my ballet teachers and my track and field coaches, who would push us to continue rehearsing even as our blisters bled, and who had us out running rain, snow, or shine. Who had us pushing a car across an icy parking lot in the winter, who would tell us how to warm up, keep our bodies warm, and stay calm in preparation for a relay race that would run in the pouring rain. These workouts were hard, and grueling, and uncomfortable. While pushing through them, I often felt frustrated with the adults in my life, but there was also a lot of fun that I had with my teammates doing ridiculous things together as we worked out.

Probably one of the most challenging obstacles I had encountered was when my coaches wanted to see if we could switch up the events we were running in order to see if we could earn enough points to win the state championship. This switch up giving up my individual 300m race to run an additional relay race. Since the relays run back to back towards the end of the meet, that would mean I would go from having over an hour of recovery time to less than 20 minutes.

Due to the strengths of my other teammates, my coaches had me be the first runner to try doing back to back relays, meaning I was alone in my short recovery time. I was scared, exhausted, and overwhelmed. I was mad at my coaches for making me do it - and do it alone. Despite the fact that I had never fully caught my breath after my first 200m run, and I felt terrified at running an awful 400m just minutes later, not only did I run well, but also I demonstrated the first race was actually a meaningful warm up for the second race, and eventually I and my fellow relay teammates wound up running some of our best times like this.

Being pushed to do something uncomfortable in less than ideal conditions helped me to learn what I was capable of, and I learned that I can do hard things, I learned how important it is to do hard things in hard conditions because you can't control how things are going to be when it's time for a race, a match, or a performance. (426 words)

But how different is it if you read an essay like this:

My nose was so dry my throat hurt. My heart felt like it was igniting a fire that spread across my chest with every breath. I gasped to catch my breath after sprinting the anchor leg of the 4x200m relay, and I saw my 4x400m teammates enter the stadium as I hopped down from the indoor track.

The lights were dim, and I could see the the reflection of streetlights glittering in rain puddles and drops on car windows beyond the indoor stadium's doors. As I stumble my way to my teammates, I startle at the sound of the gun going off for the first heat of the 4x400m. The thundering of spiked feet rolls past me as the first runners disappear down the straight.

"I can't do this," I say to my dad, who's on the other side of the stanchion rope separating the runners for the next race from the crowd of supporters. He pushes an open gatorade into my hands and I take a sip.

"Yes, you can."

"My heart is beating out of my chest, I'm getting sick, I still haven't caught my breath from my last race -- there's no way I can do this." He twists the cap onto the gatorade and tucks it under his arm, and then leans in to give me a sideways hug.

"You can do this, even if it's not your best time. Consider it practice -- conditioning, for states."

I jump up and shake my legs, hoping that'll shake off some of my nerves, but I can' t help shivering. "Dad, I feel sick." We step forward together, but separate, as my teammates look to me, nervous. We were always anxious as we lined up to race, but this felt even worse.

"So, you run today when you're sick - and you'll know you can run even faster when you aren't feeling sick." He had a point.

"Okay," I conceded.

As soon as our heat started, I was even more locked in watching my teammates make their laps and handoffs ahead of me. When it was my turn to anchor again, all I could see was Sara booking it down the straight, tired, but her hand pushing the baton forward to me. Running my two laps felt awful, but it didn't feel that different from when I had run my other 400 meters in the past. I held back to conserve my energy on the first lap, but stayed up with the girls in the front. I slowly started to gain speed after the third corner, and allowed myself to fly off the final curve and give it everything I had left down the final straight. My entire body was burning by the end, lactic acid filling my legs. But we won! And to my surprise, my split was consistent with all my past runs.

That day I learned what I was capable of, and I learned that I can do hard things. I learned how important it is to challenge myself in hard conditions because you can't control how things are going to be when it's time for a race, a match, or a performance, and trying your best even when the time or weather isn't right can help you gain confidence that you'll do even better when the conditions finally are perfect. (553 words)

Now, I wrote that in 35 minutes as I came up with my idea for this blog post, so it's certainly not perfect and could use some revision.

But how is the second essay different from my initial response?

• it shows that I'm an athlete
• it shows the experience of having little recovery time
• it shows that I'm not feeling well
• it shows my dad is there for me
• it shows what running feels like to me and what I think of it (hard, but familiar, manageable)
• it shows the challenge I faced
• it reveals what I learned

It is also...

• More engaging to read
• Gives you a sense of my voice, and thereby reveals a little bit more of who I am "in between the lines"

Being able to show about yourself in creative writing leaves a more lasting impression on your reader, and will help you stand out amongst an ocean of college applicants.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the essays that Johns Hopkins University has published from applicants that they've felt worked so well they're offering them to you as model College Essays to inspire you for yours!

But if you want a clearer step by step on how to write your college essay, at a high level you can:

1. Pick a prompt, and decide on a moment or memory that you can try to recreate in writing to show your answer to the prompt
2. Start with a hook that captures your reader's interest and sets up the initial "things" you want to show about yourself
3. Then - be clear on the beginning, middle, and end of your "story" - your memory - and you want to craft a brief paragraph or two for each of these 3 moments (the beginning, the middle, and the end)
4. Finally - wrap it all up with your "final message" or "conclusion" - this is the one time in your personal essay where it's okay to tell those things you were trying to show about yourself, and to make sure your answer to the prompt question is clearly stated efficiently.

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