Why You Shouldn’t Ignore the Common App Prompts

We’re almost embarrassed by this week’s blog. Why would we need to tell you to read the Common App prompts before you write your college essay?

The reason is simple: students often come to us with drafts of their essays already written, and when we ask which prompt they’re responding to, they shrug and say they didn’t realize they had to respond to one.

This happens so frequently that we began to suspect something strange was going on — and then we discovered that some of the most popular college essay websites explicitly suggest: “don’t read Common App prompts.” They even go so far as to suggest that if you’ve already read the prompts, you should erase them from your memory. Responding to a prompt is stifling, they say, and it interferes with your authentic voice.

This is extremely misguided advice, and it pushes students in the wrong direction every time. Here are three reasons why ignoring the prompts leads students to submit mediocre essays.

Most Students Have Never Written a Personal Essay Before

The college essay will almost certainly be the first personal essay you’ll ever write. You’ve obviously written analytical essays in your English and History classes in high school, and it’s possible you’ve dabbled in creative writing. But it’s unlikely you’ve ever been asked to write an essay reflecting on your personal development or your values.

That’s why you can’t just pick up a pen and expect your authentic voice to start flowing. It’s almost like expecting you to speak a foreign language without ever having studied it. Advisors who tell you to “be true to yourself” and “write from the heart” may sound like they’re giving good advice, but in practice they’re underestimating the difficulty of writing a college essay, leaving you feeling lost and defeated.

The truth is that personal essay writing is a unique form of writing that takes a lot of practice to get right. To do it seriously, you’ll need guidance to get your ideas flowing — and the best place to start is the Common App prompts.

The Common App Prompts Reveal What Colleges Want to Know

If the first thing you do is read the Common App prompts, you’ll be in good shape. The prompts are doing you a favor by showing you what admissions officers want to learn about you. Taken together, they encourage you to explore challenges you’ve encountered, realizations you’ve had, and events that were important to you. There are also prompts that allow you to talk about ideas you’re interested in and people who have influenced you.

All of the prompts are worded carefully to help you structure your response. For example, one reads: “Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.” What’s great about this deceptively simple sentence is it tells you the three things you need to do in your response: first, tell a story about something specific; second, reflect on how it changed you; and third, describe what you learned about yourself in the process. A good response will address all three of these elements, probably in that order.

Above all, the prompts make it clear that admissions officers are interested not only in your life stories, but in the way you interpret these stories. Over the years, we’ve often come across Common App essays that contained no personal reflection whatsoever. Sometimes the ideas behind these essays were extremely clever and the writing was strong — but without this essential ingredient, the essays ultimately amounted to weak submissions.

By providing seven prompts, colleges aren’t restricting your voice — they’re teaching you about the genre of personal essays before you start writing and preventing you from making classic mistakes.

Designing Your Own Prompt Usually Leads Students in the Wrong Direction

The final Common App prompt allows you to share an essay on a topic of your choice, and presumably this is why some college essay websites tell students not to read the prompts.

Unfortunately, we’ve found that the vast majority of students who come up with their own topics don’t end up writing compelling essays. It can be done, of course, and every now and then a clever essay goes viral that focuses on a minor issue in an entertaining way. But most students are better served by doing the difficult work of responding to one of the other prompts.

When students invent their own prompts, they often drift toward essays that focus on quirky or entertaining topics rather than meaningful reflection. One student writes about the contents of their backpack; another constructs an elaborate metaphor comparing their life to a chess game; a third writes a humorous essay about their obsession with breakfast cereal. These essays may seem creative on the surface, but they usually end up being descriptive rather than reflective. Students become so focused on executing a clever idea that they never stop to interpret what the experience reveals about them.

So if you do come up with your own topic, at least read the Common App prompts first! Otherwise you won’t have any idea what admissions committees are after in asking you to write a personal essay.

The Common App prompts are barely 200 words long, but they help you understand what colleges are looking for. If you find yourself wondering, “Should I read the Common App prompts?” we would answer with a resounding yes. Reading the prompts won’t stifle your authentic voice; it will help you find it.

This article is part of the College Essay Misconceptions Series, which examines the most common myths about college essay advice.

If you’re working on your own college essay and want one-on-one guidance, learn more about our college essay coaching.