At Expert Admissions, we are very lucky to have a team of counselors who are all former admissions officers. So, it’s only right to turn to their wealth of knowledge and pick their brains on what admissions offices look for when reviewing applications. You can watch video snippets of our counselors answering common questions on our Instagram and Facebook pages while our blog will group insights based on topic.
In this post, we bring you advice from our counselors as they answer frequently asked questions about the Common Application’s main essay.
What topics shouldn’t you highlight in your Common App essay? What are some common mistakes that students make?
“One of the things you really want to consider when you’re thinking about your main essay topic is not stealing thunder from the rest of your application. You have limited space in the entire application portfolio to present a full picture of who you are for 17 or 18 years—that’s not a lot of space to capture all of that. So, you can anticipate that you’ll get questions from colleges that get at your academic interests, some of the places that you’ve made a big impact, and some of the communities that are important to you. So when you’re choosing your topic for your main essay, make sure you’re not talking about one of those topics that you need to talk about in some of your supplemental essays down the line.
You also want to avoid topics that are overly done—maybe an essay about a sport or failed audition if you’re a theater student. A lot of students will also talk about how wonderful their grandmother or grandfather is, and as lovely as that is to know, it makes me want to admit grandma at the end of the day, and not the student.” – Trish Fairweather Cody, Former NYU Admissions Officer
“Sometimes students think that they have to trauma dump and that is definitely not a requirement or really what you should be doing. It’s totally valid to talk about a difficult experience. But we really want to hear about how you came through it and what you’ve done since then that’s informed your experience.
Students get freaked out because they think they want to talk about a totally unique experience and they think, I haven’t climbed Mount Everest, and the truth is, very few people who are not even 17, have climbed Mount Everest. We want to hear about something important and meaningful that you can reflect on personally.” – Tania Asnes, Head Writing Specialist
What qualities should students highlight in their Common App essay?
“The qualities to highlight in an application essay are the things that the admissions committee can’t see anywhere else in your application. They can see your test scores, your transcripts, the classes you’ve taken, the activities you’ve participated in, but they really can’t see what makes you tick. So it’s really the personal qualities that make you, you.” – Sarah Lyons, Former UChicago Admissions Officer
“The most important thing to highlight in your main essay is that you are capable of self-reflection, that you are thoughtful about your life, and the things that have happened to you and the things that you’ve done and that you are able to make something out of that. No matter what other qualities are showcased, that’s the core thing that you want to show.” – Tania Asnes, Head Writing Specialist
Does it matter which prompt you choose?
“It really doesn’t matter and in fact there’s an open-ended prompt as well. Admissions committees don’t often pay attention to which prompt you’ve selected, so as long as you’ve kept your writing focused and you’re writing about something meaningful to you, the choice of a prompt won’t really make a difference.” – Sarah Lyons, Former UChicago Admissions Officer
Is it better to write about a major achievement or something small but meaningful?
“Ideally if you have a major achievement it should also be meaningful to you. But it’s definitely a myth that you have to have a really big, impressive achievement, or have some huge life-changing experience to write about in your main college essay. The most important thing is authenticity, even when you think about what you want to share about yourself and how that connects with the college you’re applying to. So it’s important to give insight into who you are, how you think, what is meaningful to you, and a lot of different things. Something very mundane could do that and something really major could do that. It’s more about what is important to you and how it reflects who you are.” – Tova Meyer, Former Princeton Officer
Do Admissions Officers prefer a creative essay or something more straightforward?
“Keep it straightforward for sure because these essays get read really, really fast. So don’t make the admissions officer work to have to hunt to get to the key point. Make it really clear what you’re trying to say about yourself.” – Jacob Hansen, Former Harvard Admissions Officer
Do you have any editing tips for students?
“Take time away from your essay between edits. Take a shower or walk around the neighborhood. At most, take a couple days—whatever you have time for—but let your eyes be fresh when you come back to that page.
This is especially helpful when you’re feeling like you’re getting towards a final draft of something. Read it out loud because that’s how you’re going to catch an awkward turn of phrase, some other random thing that you didn’t see while it was strictly on the page.” – Tania Asnes, Head Writing Specialist
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