PROMPT: 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.

Translation: Are you self aware?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Identity: Maybe there are specific identities that you feel really speak to you, or specific talents or interests that just make you so unique. They don't really fit nicely into one of the other prompts. But it's super important to understand who you are – and it's really core to who you are.

You are asked to address the fundamental nature of how you see yourself as a person. Who are you? What are you? What makes you, well, you?

Background: Think of your roots, whatever that may be. This background can be cultural, ethnic, familial, medical, physical, economic, or just about any other set of circumstances that defines who you are as a person. College admissions people know that some people have an interesting background or story that is the source of their identity.

Admissions officers want to be able to say, “hey, I understand who this kid is and where he came from, because the kid understands this about himself and is able to communicate it in a clear, compelling fashion.” So, this essay must address your identity, however you define it.

Story: Think of your “origin story.” Some students have a story that helps define who they are. A background is something that is not really fixed in time: it’s a circumstance. A story, on the other hand, exists in time, and has a beginning, middle, and end. A story is a series of events that help shape your identity. Do you have a story that helps to explain the way you see yourself, that has helped to form you as a person? If so, this is the story at the core of this prompt.

Interest or Talent: What occupies most of your time, attention, and passion? If you are particularly driven by one interest or pursuit, and it's so integral to who you are as a person, then this is the time to tell your story of how you came into this interest or talent.

Incomplete: This word is also important. Do you write about this same topic in other parts of your application? For example, many private universities will ask a “Why This Major” supplemental essay. In that case, maybe don’t use your Common App Essay to describe why you love your intended major and how you came to into choosing your career pathway. Instead, use this as an opportunity to address a significant part of your life the other prompts don’t quite get at.

This is an opportunity to share a little bit about whatever that unique bit about you is; this is the right prompt to do that.

PROMPT: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you faced a challenge setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Translation: Are you resilient?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Obstacle / Challenge / Setback / Failure

The key word here is obstacle, along with its various synonyms that appear in the prompt: challenge, setback, failure. Very few things we achieve in life come easily on the first try. Often, something impedes our smooth movement toward our goals. Sometimes we are able to overcome the obstacle. Sometimes we are not: we fail. Thus, the first order of business in addressing this prompt is to clearly identify the goal you were trying to achieve. What was it you wanted? What was the objective? Hopes you have? Then the second order of business is to clearly identify the obstacle (or challenge or setback or failure) that rendered the achievement of your goal more difficult—or even impossible.

Admission officers really want to see your ability to identify that you do make mistakes. and see your ability to push past those mistakes and overcome and be resilient. They want to see you are self-aware enough to recognize your blind spots and areas of growth and see how you navigate past that.

Incident or Time

As with any essay, you need to tell a story. Whereas the previous prompt uses the word “story”, this prompt invites you to “recount” this process of setting a goal and having trouble meeting it. This is the story of how things did not go according to plan. Your story should have a beginning, middle, and end. But it must be brief.

Learning from the Experience

Whenever we fail—and we all do—we have to figure out how to respond to that failure. Often we gain something from the experience. Perhaps we learned a valuable lesson. Or, we redirected our energies in a new way. Perhaps we have developed a greater understanding of our own strengths and weaknesses. The key element to successfully answering this prompt is to reflect on how this failure affected you and what you did as a result of it. So, after you have told your (brief) story, you should do quite a bit of reflecting on how this experience led to personal growth or greater understanding of the world around you.

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

Translation: Will you speak up?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Questioned or Challenged

At various times in our lives, we are called upon to defend our ideals or our principles, either because others don’t share these beliefs, or because you may hold a view that is unpopular or out of the ordinary. Your story in this essay revolves around a time when you were called upon to defend your belief or idea against some countervailing force. This force could come from a particular person, a small group of people, or maybe even a very large group of people. What animates this essay, then, is the tension between your belief or idea and the beliefs or ideas of others.

Your Thinking

The “story” that is at the heart of this essay is the genesis of the tension, how you came to realize it, and how you came to a decision to do or say something in response (or not). Given that your values were under fire, did you do or say something to defend those values? Why or why not? You want to make the effort to explain your thought processes that eventually led to some sort of decision, action, or realization.

Outcome

The decision, action, or realization you made is the outcome of the story. You want to be sure to describe the outcome. Don’t stop there, however: explain and analyze that outcome. Was the decision the right one? Did you act to defend your values, and if so, what was the result? Or, perhaps, you acted in a way that did not defend those values, and you later regretted your inability to stand up for your beliefs. Either way, you are asked in this prompt to reflect upon what you did (or did not do) to defend your beliefs or ideas, and to determine whether you would approach a similar conflict of beliefs or ideas in the same way in the future.

Paint a picture for us on how you will, essentially, advocate for your points and your beliefs – and for other students who similarly believe the same, when you get to school. Because it's always better to have a student who has a really strong point of view about the world. And those are the type of students that we want to see admitted into schools.

PROMPT: 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?”

Translation: Are you practicing gratitude?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Reflect .... "happy or thankful"

This essay is about you taking stock of your past and consider what you are grateful and thankful for. The focus on this essay are joy moments, often elicited by the generosity, care, and support from others. Unlike essays that focus on challenges, this one focuses on growth and support.

Someone has done for you .... "in a surprising way"

In some ways, this is a "tribute essay," in which you honor and thank a significant person in your life. Was there an instance that you can recall where someone did something really, really special for you? Maybe it's that someone was an organ donor for you and your family. Or maybe it's that someone gave you a really, really special gift: a family heirloom that you didn't know existed until you received it on your sixteenth birthday.

Gratitude affected or motivated you

Think about how you are a better, deeper, wiser, and more confident person because of someone else's time and support. How are you going to pay that forward? Share those opportunities in this essay – because it will allow the admissions committee who is reviewing your application to really get a sense for the fact that you are a grateful person. And, specifically, that gratitude motivates you enough for you to be giving and gracious to others in the future.

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

Translation: Can you be open-minded and flexible?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Personal Growth and Understanding

As we grow older, we find that in some situations we feel—or are treated—as children, while in other situations we feel more like adults. Sometimes this transition is subtle, as in how other adults begin to treat you with greater seriousness in restaurants, at the post office, and in other public places. Sometimes, however, this transition can seem more abrupt, as in the day you get your driver’s license or register to vote for the first time. Religion often marks this transition (first communions, bar mitzvahs), as do particular cultures (quinceañeras, debutante balls). This prompt asks you to more closely examine your own transition from childhood to adulthood. Granted, for all of us, this transition is slow and gradual (and frankly, sometimes even we are not sure we have completely transitioned to adulthood!). But no matter our age, religion, or culture, this transition is punctuated by some memorable stories—stories that you are being asked to share with your readers.

Accomplishment or Event

The transition to adulthood is marked by both accomplishments and events. An accomplishment is something that you achieved through hard work. An event, on the other hand, is a happening in which you may have been more passive, but nonetheless marks a very important milestone in your life. Some of these accomplishments and events are formal (e.g., learning Hebrew and reciting the Torah before your congregation in a ceremony before your friends and family). Some of these accomplishments and events are informal (e.g., you finally looked old enough that when you entered a restaurant with your parents, the hostess no longer gave you the kiddie menu). College admissions folks do not care so much about the exact nature of these accomplishments or events; rather they care about how you tell an interesting story about your transition to adulthood.

Realization

Unlike an accomplishment or event, a realization can have no outward manifestation that others can see or experience. You may, instead, experience some sort of internal “Aha!” moment. Your understanding changes. You see yourself—or others—in a completely new light. Perhaps you shared this realization with others, or perhaps it is one that is intensely private. But the change or transition is real, because it leads to a new and different understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Discuss

At first glance, this Common App prompt doesn’t seem to have a story at the heart of it. However, the focus is on a transition, which implies a description of “before” and “after” this event, accomplishment, or realization. So you should retell the story briefly to help your reader understand the transition. As with the other prompts, you should then go on to put this event, accomplishment, or realization into a larger context. You need to interpret this story for your reader through analysis and synthesis. By focusing your “discussion” of what happened after this event, accomplishment, or realization, you can give your reader a sense of your increasing maturity and your priorities, values, and personality.

This is the “enlightenment question.” When did you have “Aha!” moments, where your life was coasting along, and then something happens that forces you to recognize that suddenly you feel differently or think differently. We all have these “Aha!” moments from time to time, and when they do occur, we reorient ourselves in our world. This is an opportunity to share one of your “Aha!” moments.

PROMPT: 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 whom do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Translation: Are you curious?

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Topic, Idea, or Concept

This Common App prompt gives you broad latitude to discuss pretty much anything you’d like to discuss. However, it’s important to remember that colleges and universities are places where the focus is academic and intellectual. It would be entirely possible to write an essay on something as seemingly silly as “Hello, Kitty” or model airplanes or even on multiplayer computer games (my students have written successful essays on all three of these topics in the past). Notice, however, that the prompt does not use the word “activity.” As we will see, certain activities are related to the topic, idea, or concept, but the prompt asks you to keep your description focused on the academic or intellectual foundations that underlie the things you do. Your chosen focus for this essay could be just about anything, but what matters is the thought that may lead to the activity—and not on the activity itself.

Learn More

Even as you get excited about the social aspects of college, don’t forget that the primary focus is on learning. This phrase also keeps the focus on an intellectual or academic plane. Colleges and universities are communities of learners, first and foremost. This is your opportunity to demonstrate that this is your first priority in going to college.

Engaging and Captivating

The topic, idea, or concept you choose implies some sort of action that demonstrates your interest. What do you do to activate or express your interest? The prompt sets a high bar: you find this interest so appealing that you sometimes get lost in it. And this is your story for this particular prompt: give an anecdote that demonstrates the depth of your interest, that shows the reader that you can become completely engrossed and lose track of time.

Why

This word is the key to the essay. You need to justify—in some way—your devotion to this particular idea, topic, or concept. If you have chosen the right subject for your essay, your level of interest is so high that it is infectious. Your aim, then, is to explain the reasons for your interest, and to convey the reasons for that interest to your reader. You will have done your job well if your reader comes away with a newfound appreciation for an idea, topic, or concept that she has never considered to be so engaging or captivating. Share your enthusiasm by explaining the why behind your interest.

The most critical part is consider: “Whom do you turn to, or what do you turn to, when you want to learn more?” That's a signal to the admissions committee that it's something you're truly passionate about and engaged in, because you are continuously learning and pursuing it.

It showcases what it's really like to be inside of your brain. You can jokingly think of it as the “wet your pants” Common App essay prompt: you become so engrossed in something that you forget to meet your own most basic needs. Colleges love to hear about what occupies your mind–after all, colleges are places where you expand and train your mind. This prompt offers an opportunity to talk about the ideas that excite you.

PROMPT: 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.

Important words from this prompt are highlighted in order of importance:

Your Choice

The nice thing about this Common App prompt is that the admissions folks leave the choice of topic entirely to you. And therein lies some of the danger of deviating from the other prompts. You are free—and encouraged—to go beyond the limitations of these other prompts, but at the same time, you want to consider the fundamental commonalities found in the above prompts.

–Ideas and Concepts

Your college essay should represent you as a student and as a learner. Not every topic has to be entirely serious, but you should consider whether your chosen topic has any intellectual or academic depth.

–Transitions

The heart of many of these prompts is some sort of change in your mindset, perspective, or understanding. Admissions folks are looking for young people who have made some sort of transition that demonstrates their maturity, depth of thought, or newfound ability to see the world in a new light.

–A Story

You must have some sort of anecdote animating your essay that helps your reader to see your point. This is where you will “show” your reader your fundamental point. You are the main character of this essay in which you can demonstrate aspects of your personality, your values, and your point of view.

–Analysis and Reflection

Every other Common App prompt requires you to dig underneath the surface, to go beyond superficialities and to uncover the important truths at the center of your story. It is not enough to tell your reader the story: you must demonstrate the fundamental importance of the story to you. The story is the vehicle to convey a deeper understanding of you as a person.

Already Written

Some colleges encourage the submission of essays you have written as part of a class or other assignment. These essays may represent you very well as a student and demonstrate some of your intellectual abilities and academic depth. If you choose to submit an academic paper, it is sometimes best to do so as an additional or supplemental essay to your application. In some cases, you may have written some sort of personal essay or narrative as part of a creative writing assignment. If this personal memoir has most of the elements described above, it could be an excellent college essay.

So just be aware that while a lot of students gravitate towards this particular prompt, because it means, in some ways, you can copy and paste an essay that you've written previously into this framework, the reality is that it is such an open-ended topic that you want to make sure you're really getting the valuable points across. Be mindful about that. Sometimes people get themselves into a little bit of hot water – because it's so open-ended – that they end up writing about anything, and it may not be necessarily reflective of sharing who you are and what you can bring to a university.