They’re here (well, they’ve been out since January, but let’s be real – you probably haven’t looked at them yet). The Common App, the most popular application for colleges, has announced the essay prompts for the 2022-2023 application season. Students who use the Common App must choose one of these prompts for their essay. Most of the questions are aimed at getting to know the student in a way that test scores and grades can’t.
In this blog series, we’ll go through each prompt on our blog and discuss what they’re really asking, as well as how you might want to approach each one; we’ll also discuss some general tips and guidelines for these essays. But first, let’s compare this year’s prompts to the prompts the Common App used last year.
Common App 2022-2023 Prompts vs. Common App 2021-2022 Prompts
This year’s prompts are exactly the same as last year’s, and students can still choose to answer the optional COVID-19 impact question in addition to the essays. That means there is a total of eight (8) different options, seven (7) of which are intended to be full essays and the last (The COVID question) is only intended to provide you with an opportunity to explain the personal impact of COVID-19 on your life. One of the essay options is an “anti-prompt” that basically asks the student to respond to whatever they want.
No matter what essay you pick, your writing should follow the old writing adage of “show, don’t tell.” We’ve got tips, though, for each one.
Today we’ll start with the first prompt.
Prompt #1: What are they asking?
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.
This prompt is asking about your passions and sense of self, along with some insight into what you might want to study (or at least learn a lot more about). It doesn’t matter if you’re a world-class ballerina or just really into electronic music, a first-generation refugee or fifth-generation legacy, or what. The prompt wants to know about you, and there’s no hierarchy of backgrounds, identities, interests, or talents. That’s the beauty of writing: If you can write about something in an interesting way, you can interest the reader.
Some students find this prompt challenging because any interest, background, identity, or talent that is a big part of who they are is so important that distilling it into a short essay seems impossible. They end up writing broadly and vaguely using sweeping statements. That is not the best strategy, though of course, there are exceptions to every rule with writing (it’s what makes people love writing in English so much!).
If you’ve seen the Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit (And you should – it’s really good), you know that the first episode opens with Beth at a chess tournament. The first few minutes show her struggling to get ready for the game before she arrives at her match. It’s clear that despite her personal struggles, she’s extraordinarily talented. But what’s powerful is how the viewer sees this – how boring would it have been if some narrator just said “Beth was really good at chess” ?! You wouldn’t have gotten to see her internal struggles or the way the rest of the world just vanished when she sat down to play.
Prompt #1: Ideas to Get Started
We’ve got some other suggestions for this prompt.
- Try thinking of key moments, especially related to things like big competitions (whether you won or lost), moments when you began to understand your identity, built, made, or achieved something you were really proud of, the effort you’ve undergone to learn something new, or so on.
- Try to imagine yourself without this aspect of who you are. What would you do? What would be different? Then consider how much of who you are has already been shaped by it.
- Interview someone who knows you well, like a teammate, coach, or family member, and ask them about, well, you, and particularly, the aspect of yourself you’ll write about in this question. But be strategic. Ask them what you’d be like without this passion, talent, or identity. Ask them to describe some anecdotes that you might not have thought were significant at the time. This next step is important, though: Don’t you dare take those anecdotes, write them down and pat yourself on the back for finishing your essay! Do some journaling about what these people said about you: Do you agree with what they said? Did it bring up other memories?
These ideas should get you started brainstorming if you want to work with the first Common App essay prompt. Let us know if this helped, and tune in next time when we go over the second prompt!
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