creative college essays

Essays That Worked

The essays are a place to show us who you are and who you’ll be in our community.

It’s a chance to add depth to something that is important to you and tell the admissions committee more about your background or goals. Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked,” as nominated by our admissions committee. In each of these essays, students were able to share stories from their everyday lives to reveal something about their character, values, and life that aligned with the culture and values at Hopkins.

Read essays that worked from Transfer applicants .

Hear from the class of 2027.

These selections represent just a few examples of essays we found impressive and helpful during the past admissions cycle. We hope these essays inspire you as you prepare to compose your own personal statements. The most important thing to remember is to be original as you share your own story, thoughts, and ideas with us.

Ordering the Disorderly

Ellie’s essay skillfully uses the topic of entropy as an extended metaphor. Through it, we see reflections about who they are and who they aspire to be.

Pack Light, But Be Prepared

In Pablo’s essay, the act of packing for a pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for the way humans accumulate experiences in their life’s journey and what we can learn from them. As we join Pablo through the diverse phases of their life, we gain insights into their character and values.

Tikkun Olam

Julieta illustrates how the concept of Tikkun Olam, “a desire to help repair the world,” has shaped their passions and drives them to pursue experiences at Hopkins.

Kashvi’s essay encapsulates a heartfelt journey of self-discovery and the invaluable teachings of Rock, their 10-year-old dog. Through the lens of their companionship, Kashvi walked us through valuable lessons on responsibility, friendship, patience, and unconditional love.

Classical Reflections in Herstory

Maddie’s essay details their intellectual journey using their love of Greek classics. They incorporate details that reveal the roots of their academic interests: storytelling, literary devices, and translation. As their essay progresses, so do Maddie’s intellectual curiosities.

My Spotify Playlist

Alyssa’s essay reflects on special memories through the creative lens of Spotify playlists. They use three examples to highlight their experiences with their tennis team, finding a virtual community during the pandemic, and co-founding a nonprofit to help younger students learn about STEM.

More essays that worked

We share essays from previously admitted students—along with feedback from our admissions committee—so you can understand what made them effective and how to start crafting your own.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, what made the most creative college essays stand out.

I'm starting to brainstorm for my college essay, and I want to make it really creative and unique. Has anyone come across some examples of the most creative college essays you've seen? What made them stand out and memorable? Any tips would be appreciated!

I've come across several creative college essays that stood out for various reasons. Here are a few elements that made them memorable:

1. Unique format: Some essays deviate from the traditional essay structure and experiment with formats like writing in verse, using a screenplay format, or creating a dialogue between the student and an object or idea. This approach can make your essay visually engaging while demonstrating your ability to think outside the box.

2. Unexpected topics and angles: The most creative essays often focus on seemingly mundane experiences and showcase the writer's ability to extract profound meaning from them. For example, rather than writing about a life-changing event, you could write about your favorite pair of sneakers and the memories you associate with them, using this object to explore your personal growth.

3. Strong voice and personality: A creative essay should offer a window into the writer's mind, showcasing their unique perspective on the world. To achieve this, try using humor, anecdotes, or introspection to create an engaging narrative voice that keeps the reader hooked on your story.

4. Breaking cliches: Avoid common essay topics like overcoming adversity or detailing a service trip. Instead, look for unexpected ways to showcase your interests and achievements. For example, a student interested in environmental conservation might write about their commitment to reducing plastic waste by creating art from recycled materials.

5. Focus on a singular moment: Rather than trying to encompass your entire life or an overarching theme, get specific. Focus on a single incident, conversation, or realization that was formative for you, and explore its nuances and impact in-depth.

6. Make connections: When writing a creative essay, it's essential to connect your personal experiences, thoughts, or ideas to a broader context. This can be anything from societal issues and historical events to cultural practices and current trends. For example, you might write about how a hobby or passion led to a deeper understanding of social biases, or how an internship experience unveiled the complexities of a particular industry.

As you brainstorm ideas for your college essay, think about what makes you, your experiences, and your passions stand out. Emphasize unique aspects of your life, find creative ways to present your ideas, and remember that your essay's primary goal is to provide a glimpse into who you are as an individual.

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How to Write the “Creative Side” UC Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Creativity in a non-creative pursuit, innovation in context, avoiding a cliche essay.

The second University of California system essay prompt asks:

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

A lot of students can be scared away from this prompt. Many people, when seeing the word “creative,” automatically think of something artistic, such as theater, visual arts, or music. If those pursuits don’t apply to you, you may be intimidated by this prompt.

However, almost everyone should be able to write a response to this essay prompt, because everyone has something about them that is unique and interesting – something they do or think that makes them different from everyone around them. This prompt gives you the opportunity to talk about what makes you unique in a completely random context.

One of the most powerful ways to approach this essay is to write about how you’ve used creativity in a non-creative pursuit. This is an opportunity to think a little outside the box with how you define creativity.

You can write about a creative pursuit as something that you find yourself getting lost in. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an artistic pursuit; it can be any subject you enjoy, such as economics, science, or physics. Writing about getting into a creative flow when you’re doing something you love can make for a powerful narrative essay. You can also examine creativity in the context of problem-solving, taking the reader through how your brain works.

In writing a college essay, you are usually telling an admissions officer some combination of three things: what matters to you, how you think about the world, and how you approach situations, both mentally and emotionally. This essay prompt is a great way to open up about how your mind works.

Something about this prompt that often trips people up is the phrase “innovative thinking.” What exactly are they asking for? The best way to define this is innovation in the specific context in which you’re operating.

Nobody’s expecting you to have come up with a new economics theorem or engineering postulate. Rather, this essay asks how you might approach a problem or idea differently than the people around you. You don’t need to be innovative on a global scale. You can absolutely be innovative in the context of a class, a club, or your family, to name a few examples.

Talking about family is actually an underrated response to this prompt. If you have a difference in mindset from your parents, siblings, or extended family, that can become a great essay. If you decide to write about this, make sure you’re drawing the contrast between what you’d consider a conventional approach compared to an unconventional approach.

Another powerful version of this essay is one that subverts the expectations of the admissions officers. They expect to read about creativity in a positive context: an innovative idea leads to a positive outcome, such as a sports team working better together or a family changing their behavior. But a very powerful essay can also come from writing about an experience where you took a creative approach and it didn’t work out.

This is a great way to avoid a cliche essay. Consider the story you’re telling in your essay. Pretend you’re describing it to someone, and that when you’re 80% through, they ask, “What happens next?” Whatever the expected answer is, write the opposite. Writing about a creative approach that failed breaks the cliche and makes for a compelling read.

Where to Get Your UC “Creative Side” Essay Edited

Do you want feedback on your UC “Creative Side” essay? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Finally, if you want more information on how to write responses for the other UC essays, consider reading this breakdown of each personal insight question on CollegeVine’s blog !

25 Creative College Essay Prompts

In case that colleges don't provide creative college essay prompts we've listed 25 creative college essay prompt to help you write your best possible personal statement:

1. Describe an experience where you were unsuccessful in achieving your goal. What lessons did you learn from this experience?

2. Think back to a situation in your life where you had to decide between taking a risk and playing it safe. Which choice did you make? What was the outcome of your choice? Would you have made the same decision looking back on the experience or would you have made a different decision?

3. What movie, poem, musical composition, or novel has most influenced your life and the way that you view the world? Why?

4. Describe an experience that forever changed your life and your outlook on life.

5. Why have you chosen to spend the next four years of your life in college?

6. What do you plan on doing after you graduate from college?

7. As of right now, what do you see as your long-term goals in life?

8. If you were given the ability to change one moment in your life, would you do so? Why or why not? If so, what moment would you change and why?

9. Presuming there was only one open admission spot remaining, why should this college choose to accept your application and not that of another student?

10. What would you describe to be your most unique or special skill that differentiates you from everyone else?

11. Describe some tasks that you have accomplished over the past two years that have no connection to academic studies.

12. If you had the chance to have a 30-minute conversation with any person in human history (either living or deceased), who would be the person you choose? Why? What topics would you discuss with this person?

13. If you could be any animal in recorded history, what animal would you choose? Why?

14. If you were given the capability to travel back in time to any period in history, where would you head to and why?

15. What do you consider to be the best advice you ever received? Who gave you that advice and did you follow that advice or not?

16. What do you consider to be the most important political or social movement of the 20th century? Why?

17. What advice would you offer to a student just beginning his/her high school career?

18. Devise a question that is not on this college admission form and provide a complete, thoughtful answer to it.

19. Choose one quotation that defines who you are and explain why that quotation describes you so well.

20. How has the neighborhood you've grown up in molded you into the person you are today?

21. Imagine that you have written a 400-page autobiography of your life to this point. What would page 150 of that autobiography say?

22. Choose the invention that you think has had the most negative impact on our world and explain why you chose that invention.

23. If you had the ability to read other people's minds (a.k.a. telepathy), would you use this ability or not? Why?

24. Tell a story that directly or indirectly illustrates the type of person you are.

25. Describe the most embarrassing moment of your life and explain what you learned from that experience and how it has made you a better or stronger person today.

The 25 creative college essay prompts listed above should give you a starting point to write your own personal statement. The personal statement is used by most colleges to help them evaluate the type of person you are, which can help differentiate yourself from other applicants who have similar academic backgrounds to yours. By considering the 25 creative college essay prompts above, you can be more prepared to write an engaging personal statement that will let your personality shine through and will help you to be accepted into the college of your choice.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 53 stellar college essay topics to inspire you.

College Essays

feature_orange_notebook_pencil_college_essay_topics

Most colleges and universities in the United States require applicants to submit at least one essay as part of their application. But trying to figure out what college essay topics you should choose is a tricky process. There are so many potential things you could write about!

In this guide, we go over the essential qualities that make for a great college essay topic and give you 50+ college essay topics you can use for your own statement . In addition, we provide you with helpful tips for turning your college essay topic into a stellar college essay.

What Qualities Make for a Good College Essay Topic?

Regardless of what you write about in your personal statement for college , there are key features that will always make for a stand-out college essay topic.

#1: It’s Specific

First off, good college essay topics are extremely specific : you should know all the pertinent facts that have to do with the topic and be able to see how the entire essay comes together.

Specificity is essential because it’ll not only make your essay stand out from other statements, but it'll also recreate the experience for admissions officers through its realism, detail, and raw power. You want to tell a story after all, and specificity is the way to do so. Nobody wants to read a vague, bland, or boring story — not even admissions officers!

For example, an OK topic would be your experience volunteering at a cat shelter over the summer. But a better, more specific college essay topic would be how you deeply connected with an elderly cat there named Marty, and how your bond with him made you realize that you want to work with animals in the future.

Remember that specificity in your topic is what will make your essay unique and memorable . It truly is the key to making a strong statement (pun intended)!

#2: It Shows Who You Are

In addition to being specific, good college essay topics reveal to admissions officers who you are: your passions and interests, what is important to you, your best (or possibly even worst) qualities, what drives you, and so on.

The personal statement is critical because it gives schools more insight into who you are as a person and not just who you are as a student in terms of grades and classes.

By coming up with a real, honest topic, you’ll leave an unforgettable mark on admissions officers.

#3: It’s Meaningful to You

The very best college essay topics are those that hold deep meaning to their writers and have truly influenced them in some significant way.

For instance, maybe you plan to write about the first time you played Skyrim to explain how this video game revealed to you the potentially limitless worlds you could create, thereby furthering your interest in game design.

Even if the topic seems trivial, it’s OK to use it — just as long as you can effectively go into detail about why this experience or idea had such an impact on you .

Don’t give in to the temptation to choose a topic that sounds impressive but doesn’t actually hold any deep meaning for you. Admissions officers will see right through this!

Similarly, don’t try to exaggerate some event or experience from your life if it’s not all that important to you or didn’t have a substantial influence on your sense of self.

#4: It’s Unique

College essay topics that are unique are also typically the most memorable, and if there’s anything you want to be during the college application process, it’s that! Admissions officers have to sift through thousands of applications, and the essay is one of the only parts that allows them to really get a sense of who you are and what you value in life.

If your essay is trite or boring, it won’t leave much of an impression , and your application will likely get immediately tossed to the side with little chance of seeing admission.

But if your essay topic is very original and different, you’re more likely to earn that coveted second glance at your application.

What does being unique mean exactly, though? Many students assume that they must choose an extremely rare or crazy experience to talk about in their essays —but that's not necessarily what I mean by "unique." Good college essay topics can be unusual and different, yes, but they can also be unique takes on more mundane or common activities and experiences .

For instance, say you want to write an essay about the first time you went snowboarding. Instead of just describing the details of the experience and how you felt during it, you could juxtapose your emotions with a creative and humorous perspective from the snowboard itself. Or you could compare your first attempt at snowboarding with your most recent experience in a snowboarding competition. The possibilities are endless!

#5: It Clearly Answers the Question

Finally, good college essay topics will clearly and fully answer the question(s) in the prompt.

You might fail to directly answer a prompt by misinterpreting what it’s asking you to do, or by answering only part of it (e.g., answering just one out of three questions).

Therefore, make sure you take the time to come up with an essay topic that is in direct response to every question in the prompt .

Take this Coalition Application prompt as an example:

What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What's the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?

For this prompt, you’d need to answer all three questions (though it’s totally fine to focus more on one or two of them) to write a compelling and appropriate essay.

This is why we recommend reading and rereading the essay prompt ; you should know exactly what it’s asking you to do, well before you start brainstorming possible college application essay topics.

53 College Essay Topics to Get Your Brain Moving

In this section, we give you a list of 53 examples of college essay topics. Use these as jumping-off points to help you get started on your college essay and to ensure that you’re on track to coming up with a relevant and effective topic.

All college application essay topics below are categorized by essay prompt type. We’ve identified six general types of college essay prompts:

Why This College?

Change and personal growth, passions, interests, and goals, overcoming a challenge, diversity and community, solving a problem.

Note that these prompt types could overlap with one another, so you’re not necessarily limited to just one college essay topic in a single personal statement.

How a particular major or program will help you achieve your academic or professional goals
A memorable and positive interaction you had with a professor or student at the school
Something good that happened to you while visiting the campus or while on a campus tour
A certain class you want to take or a certain professor you’re excited to work with
Some piece of on-campus equipment or facility that you’re looking forward to using
Your plans to start a club at the school, possibly to raise awareness of a major issue
A study abroad or other unique program that you can’t wait to participate in
How and where you plan to volunteer in the community around the school
An incredible teacher you studied under and the positive impact they had on you
How you went from really liking something, such as a particular movie star or TV show, to not liking it at all (or vice versa)
How yours or someone else’s (change in) socioeconomic status made you more aware of poverty
A time someone said something to you that made you realize you were wrong
How your opinion on a controversial topic, such as gay marriage or DACA, has shifted over time
A documentary that made you aware of a particular social, economic, or political issue going on in the country or world
Advice you would give to your younger self about friendship, motivation, school, etc.
The steps you took in order to kick a bad or self-sabotaging habit
A juxtaposition of the first and most recent time you did something, such as dance onstage
A book you read that you credit with sparking your love of literature and/or writing
A school assignment or project that introduced you to your chosen major
A glimpse of your everyday routine and how your biggest hobby or interest fits into it
The career and (positive) impact you envision yourself having as a college graduate
A teacher or mentor who encouraged you to pursue a specific interest you had
How moving around a lot helped you develop a love of international exchange or learning languages
A special skill or talent you’ve had since you were young and that relates to your chosen major in some way, such as designing buildings with LEGO bricks
Where you see yourself in 10 or 20 years
Your biggest accomplishment so far relating to your passion (e.g., winning a gold medal for your invention at a national science competition)
A time you lost a game or competition that was really important to you
How you dealt with the loss or death of someone close to you
A time you did poorly in a class that you expected to do well in
How moving to a new school impacted your self-esteem and social life
A chronic illness you battled or are still battling
Your healing process after having your heart broken for the first time
A time you caved under peer pressure and the steps you took so that it won't happen again
How you almost gave up on learning a foreign language but stuck with it
Why you decided to become a vegetarian or vegan, and how you navigate living with a meat-eating family
What you did to overcome a particular anxiety or phobia you had (e.g., stage fright)
A history of a failed experiment you did over and over, and how you finally found a way to make it work successfully
Someone within your community whom you aspire to emulate
A family tradition you used to be embarrassed about but are now proud of
Your experience with learning English upon moving to the United States
A close friend in the LGBTQ+ community who supported you when you came out
A time you were discriminated against, how you reacted, and what you would do differently if faced with the same situation again
How you navigate your identity as a multiracial, multiethnic, and/or multilingual person
A project or volunteer effort you led to help or improve your community
A particular celebrity or role model who inspired you to come out as LGBTQ+
Your biggest challenge (and how you plan to tackle it) as a female in a male-dominated field
How you used to discriminate against your own community, and what made you change your mind and eventually take pride in who you are and/or where you come from
A program you implemented at your school in response to a known problem, such as a lack of recycling cans in the cafeteria
A time you stepped in to mediate an argument or fight between two people
An app or other tool you developed to make people’s lives easier in some way
A time you proposed a solution that worked to an ongoing problem at school, an internship, or a part-time job
The steps you took to identify and fix an error in coding for a website or program
An important social or political issue that you would fix if you had the means

How to Build a College Essay in 6 Easy Steps

Once you’ve decided on a college essay topic you want to use, it’s time to buckle down and start fleshing out your essay. These six steps will help you transform a simple college essay topic into a full-fledged personal statement.

Step 1: Write Down All the Details

Once you’ve chosen a general topic to write about, get out a piece of paper and get to work on creating a list of all the key details you could include in your essay . These could be things such as the following:

Emotions you felt at the time
Names, places, and/or numbers
Dialogue, or what you or someone else said
A specific anecdote, example, or experience
Descriptions of how things looked, felt, or seemed

If you can only come up with a few details, then it’s probably best to revisit the list of college essay topics above and choose a different one that you can write more extensively on.

Good college essay topics are typically those that:

You remember well (so nothing that happened when you were really young)
You're excited to write about
You're not embarrassed or uncomfortable to share with others
You believe will make you positively stand out from other applicants

Step 2: Figure Out Your Focus and Approach

Once you have all your major details laid out, start to figure out how you could arrange them in a way that makes sense and will be most effective.

It’s important here to really narrow your focus: you don’t need to (and shouldn’t!) discuss every single aspect of your trip to visit family in Indonesia when you were 16. Rather, zero in on a particular anecdote or experience and explain why and how it impacted you.

Alternatively, you could write about multiple experiences while weaving them together with a clear, meaningful theme or concept , such as how your math teacher helped you overcome your struggle with geometry over the course of an entire school year. In this case, you could mention a few specific times she tutored you and most strongly supported you in your studies.

There’s no one right way to approach your college essay, so play around to see what approaches might work well for the topic you’ve chosen.

If you’re really unsure about how to approach your essay, think about what part of your topic was or is most meaningful and memorable to you, and go from there.

Step 3: Structure Your Narrative

Beginning: Don’t just spout off a ton of background information here—you want to hook your reader, so try to start in the middle of the action , such as with a meaningful conversation you had or a strong emotion you felt. It could also be a single anecdote if you plan to center your essay around a specific theme or idea.
Middle: Here’s where you start to flesh out what you’ve established in the opening. Provide more details about the experience (if a single anecdote) or delve into the various times your theme or idea became most important to you. Use imagery and sensory details to put the reader in your shoes.
End: It’s time to bring it all together. Finish describing the anecdote or theme your essay centers around and explain how it relates to you now , what you’ve learned or gained from it, and how it has influenced your goals.

Step 4: Write a Rough Draft

By now you should have all your major details and an outline for your essay written down; these two things will make it easy for you to convert your notes into a rough draft.

At this stage of the writing process, don’t worry too much about vocabulary or grammar and just focus on getting out all your ideas so that they form the general shape of an essay . It’s OK if you’re a little over the essay's word limit — as you edit, you’ll most likely make some cuts to irrelevant and ineffective parts anyway.

If at any point you get stuck and have no idea what to write, revisit steps 1-3 to see whether there are any important details or ideas you might be omitting or not elaborating on enough to get your overall point across to admissions officers.

Step 5: Edit, Revise, and Proofread

Sections that are too wordy and don’t say anything important
Irrelevant details that don’t enhance your essay or the point you're trying to make
Parts that seem to drag or that feel incredibly boring or redundant
Areas that are vague and unclear and would benefit from more detail
Phrases or sections that are awkwardly placed and should be moved around
Areas that feel unconvincing, inauthentic, or exaggerated

Start paying closer attention to your word choice/vocabulary and grammar at this time, too. It’s perfectly normal to edit and revise your college essay several times before asking for feedback, so keep working with it until you feel it’s pretty close to its final iteration.

This step will likely take the longest amount of time — at least several weeks, if not months — so really put effort into fixing up your essay. Once you’re satisfied, do a final proofread to ensure that it’s technically correct.

Step 6: Get Feedback and Tweak as Needed

After you’ve overhauled your rough draft and made it into a near-final draft, give your essay to somebody you trust , such as a teacher or parent, and have them look it over for technical errors and offer you feedback on its content and overall structure.

Use this feedback to make any last-minute changes or edits. If necessary, repeat steps 5 and 6. You want to be extra sure that your essay is perfect before you submit it to colleges!

Recap: From College Essay Topics to Great College Essays

Many different kinds of college application essay topics can get you into a great college. But this doesn’t make it any easier to choose the best topic for you .

In general, the best college essay topics have the following qualities :

They’re specific
They show who you are
They’re meaningful to you
They’re unique
They clearly answer the question

If you ever need help coming up with an idea of what to write for your essay, just refer to the list of 53 examples of college essay topics above to get your brain juices flowing.

Once you’ve got an essay topic picked out, follow these six steps for turning your topic into an unforgettable personal statement :

Write down all the details
Figure out your focus and approach
Structure your narrative
Write a rough draft
Edit, revise, and proofread
Get feedback and tweak as needed

And with that, I wish you the best of luck on your college essays!

What’s Next?

Writing a college essay is no simple task. Get expert college essay tips with our guides on how to come up with great college essay ideas and how to write a college essay, step by step .

You can also check out this huge list of college essay prompts to get a feel for what types of questions you'll be expected to answer on your applications.

Want to see examples of college essays that absolutely rocked? You're in luck because we've got a collection of 100+ real college essay examples right here on our blog!

Want to write the perfect college application essay? We can help. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will help you craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay to proudly submit to colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now:

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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08 May , 2021

Are You Making These Mistakes in Your Essay?

Most typical mistakes in a college essay

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100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle & High School – 2024

April 15, 2024

creative writing prompts for high school and middle school teens

Some high school students dream of writing for a living, perhaps pursuing an English major in college, or even attending a creative writing MFA program later on. For other students, creative writing can be useful for school assignments, in English and other subjects, and also for preparing their Common App essays . In a less goal-oriented sense, daily freewriting in a journal can be a healthy life practice for many high schoolers. Not sure where to start? Continue reading for 100 creative writing prompts for middle school and high school students. These middle/high school writing prompts offer inspiration for getting started with writing in a number of genres and styles.

Click here to view the 35 Best Colleges for Creative Writing .

What are Creative Writing Prompts?

Similar to how an academic essay prompt provides a jumping-off point for forming and organizing an argument, creative writing prompts are points of initiation for writing a story, poem, or creative essay. Prompts can be useful for writers of all ages, helping many to get past writer’s block and just start (often one of the most difficult parts of a writing process).

Writing prompts come in a variety of forms. Sometimes they are phrases used to begin sentences. Other times they are questions, more like academic essay prompts Writing prompts can also involve objects such as photographs, or activities such as walking. Below, you will find high school writing prompts that use memories, objects, senses (smell/taste/touch), abstract ideas , and even songs as jumping-off points for creative writing. These prompts can be used to write in a variety of forms, from short stories to creative essays, to poems.

How to use Creative Writing Prompts

Before we get started with the list, are a few tips when using creative writing prompts:

Experiment with different formats : Prose is great, but there’s no need to limit yourself to full sentences, at least at first. A piece of creative writing can begin with a poem, or a dialogue, or even a list. You can always bring it back to prose later if needed.

Interpret the prompt broadly : The point of a creative writing prompt is not to answer it “correctly” or “precisely.” You might begin with the prompt, but then your ideas could take you in a completely different direction. The words in the prompt also don’t need to open your poem or essay, but could appear somewhere in the middle.

Switch up/pile up the prompts : Try using two or three prompts and combine them, or weave between them. Perhaps choose a main prompt, and a different “sub-prompt.” For example, your main prompt might be “write about being in transit from one place to another,” and within that prompt, you might use the prompt to “describe a physical sensation,” and/or one the dialogue prompts. This could be a fun way to find complexity as you write.

Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Students (Continued)

Write first, edit later : While you’re first getting started with a prompt, leave the typos and bad grammar. Obsessing over details can take away from your flow of thoughts. You will inevitably make many fixes when you go back through to edit.

Write consistently : It often becomes easier to write when it’s a practice , rather than a once-in-a-while kind of activity. For some, it’s useful to write daily. Others find time to write every few days, or every weekend. Sometimes, a word-count goal can help (100 words a day, 2,000 words a month, etc.). If you set a goal, make sure it’s realistic. Start small and build from there, rather than starting with an unachievable goal and quickly giving up.

100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Teens

Here are some prompts for getting started with your creative writing. These are organized by method, rather than genre, so they can inspire writing in a variety of forms. Pick and choose the ones that work best for you, and enjoy!

Prompts using memories

Begin each sentence or group of sentences with the phrase, “I remember…”
Describe a family ritual.
Choose an event in your life, and write about it from the perspective of someone else who was there.
Pick a pathway you take on a regular basis (to school, or to a friend’s house). Describe five landmarks that you remember from this pathway.
Write about your house or apartment using a memory from each room.
Write an imaginary history of the previous people who lived in your house or apartment.
Write about an ancestor based on stories you’ve heard from relatives.
What’s your earliest memory?
Who was your first friend?
Write a letter to someone you haven’t seen since childhood.
Write about yourself now from the perspective of yourself twenty, or eighty, years from now.
Write about the best month of the year.
Write about the worst day of the year.
Rant about something that has always annoyed you.
Write about the hottest or coldest day you can remember.
Visualize a fleeting moment in your life and as though it’s a photograph, and time yourself 5 minutes to write every detail you can remember about the scene.
Draw out a timeline of your life so far. Then choose three years to write about, as though you were writing for a history book.
Write about a historical event in the first person, as though you remember it.
Write about a memory of being in transit from one place to another.

Objects and photographs as creative writing prompts

Describe the first object you see in the room. What importance does it have in your life? What memories do you have with this object? What might it symbolize?
Pick up an object, and spend some time holding it/examining it. Write about how it looks, feels, and smells. Write about the material that it’s made from.
Choose a favorite family photograph. What could someone know just by looking at the photograph? What’s secretly happening in the photograph?
Choose a photograph and tell the story of this photograph from the perspective of someone or something in it.
Write about a color by describing three objects that are that color.
Tell the story of a piece of trash.
Tell the story of a pair of shoes.
Tell the story of your oldest piece of clothing.

Senses and observations as creative writing prompts

Describe a sound you hear in the room or outside. Choose the first sound you notice. What are its qualities? It’s rhythms? What other sounds does it remind you of?
Describe a physical sensation you feel right now, in as much detail as possible.
Listen to a conversation and write down a phrase that you hear someone say. Start a free-write with this phrase.
Write about a food by describing its qualities, but don’t say what it is.
Describe a flavor (salty, sweet, bitter, etc.) to someone who has never tasted it before.
Narrate your day through tastes you tasted.
Narrate your day through sounds you heard.
Narrate your day through physical sensations you felt.
Describe in detail the physical process of doing an action you consider simple or mundane, like walking or lying down or chopping vegetables.
Write about the sensation of doing an action you consider physically demanding or tiring, like running or lifting heavy boxes.
Describe something that gives you goosebumps.
Write a story that involves drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day.
Write a story that involves entering a warm house from a cold snowy day.
Describe someone’s facial features in as much detail as possible.

Songs, books, and other art

Choose a song quote, write it down, and free-write from there.
Choose a song, and write a story in which that song is playing in the car.
Choose a song, and write to the rhythm of that song.
Choose a character from a book, and describe an event in your life from the perspective of that character.
Go to a library and write down 10 book titles that catch your eye. Free-write for 5 minutes beginning with each one.
Go to a library and open to random book pages, and write down 5 sentences that catch your attention. Use those sentences as prompts and free-write for 5-minutes with each.
Choose a piece of abstract artwork. Jot down 10 words that come to mind from the painting or drawing, and free-write for 2 minutes based on each word.
Find a picture of a dramatic Renaissance painting online. Tell a story about what’s going on in the painting that has nothing to do with what the artist intended.
Write about your day in five acts, like a Shakespearean play. If your day were a play, what would be the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution?
Narrate a complicated book or film plot using only short sentences.
Read a short poem. Then write a poem that could be a “sister” or “cousin” of that poem.

Abstract ideas as creative writing prompts

Write about an experience that demonstrates an abstract idea, such as “love” or “home” or “freedom” or “loss” without ever using the word itself.
Write a list of ways to say “hello” without actually saying “hello.”
Write a list of ways to say “I love you” without actually saying “I love you.”
Do you believe in ghosts? Describe a ghost.
Invent a mode of time travel.
Glass half-full/half-empty: Write about an event or situation with a positive outlook. Then write about it with a miserable outlook.
Free-write beginning with “my religion is…” (what comes next can have as much or as little to do with organized religion as you’d like).
Free-write beginning with “my gender is…” (what comes next can have as much or as little to do with common ideas of gender as you’d like).
Write about a person or character that is “good” and one that is “evil.” Then write about the “evil” in the good character and the “good” in the evil character.
Write like you’re telling a secret.
Describe a moment of beauty you witnessed. What makes something beautiful?

Prompts for playing with narrative and character

Begin writing with the phrase, “It all started when…”
Tell a story from the middle of the most dramatic part.
Write a story that begins with the ending.
Begin a story but give it 5 possible endings.
Write a list of ways to dramatically quit a terrible job.
Write about a character breaking a social rule or ritual (i.e., walking backwards, sitting on the floor of a restaurant, wearing a ballgown to the grocery store). What are the ramifications?
You are sent to the principal’s office. Justify your bad behavior.
Re-write a well-known fairytale but set it in your school.
Write your own version of the TV show trope where someone gets stuck in an elevator with a stranger, or a secret love interest, or a nemesis.
Imagine a day where you said everything you were thinking, and write about it.
Write about a scenario in which you have too much of a good thing.
Write about a scenario in which money can buy happiness.
Invent a bank or museum heist.
Invent a superhero, including an origin story.
Write using the form of the scientific method (question, hypothesis, test, analyze data conclusion).
Write using the form of a recipe.

Middle School & High School Creative writing prompts for playing with fact vs. fiction

Write something you know for sure is true, and then, “but maybe it isn’t.” Then explain why that thing may not be true.
Write a statement and contradict that statement. Then do it again.
Draft an email with an outlandish excuse as to why you didn’t do your homework or why you need an extension.
Write about your morning routine, and make it sound extravagant/luxurious (even if it isn’t).
You’ve just won an award for doing a very mundane and simple task. Write your acceptance speech.
Write about a non-athletic event as though it were a sports game.
Write about the most complicated way to complete a simple task.
Write a brief history of your life, and exaggerate everything.
Write about your day, but lie about some things.
Tell the story of your birth.
Choose a historical event and write an alternative outcome.
Write about a day in the life of a famous person in history.
Read an instructional manual, and change three instructions to include some kind of magical or otherwise impossible element.

Prompts for starting with dialogue

Write a texting conversation between two friends who haven’t spoken in years.
Write a texting conversation between two friends who speak every day and know each other better than anyone.
Watch two people on the street having a conversation, and imagine the conversation they’re having. Write it down.
Write an overheard conversation behind a closed door that you shouldn’t be listening to.
Write a conversation between two characters arguing about contradicting memories of what happened.
You have a difficult decision to make. Write a conversation about it with yourself.
Write a conversation with a total lack of communication.
Write a job interview gone badly.

Final Thoughts – Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School

Hopefully you have found several of these creative writing prompts helpful. Remember that when writing creatively, especially on your own, you can mix, match, and change prompts. For more on writing for high school students, check out the following articles:

College Application Essay Topics to Avoid
160 Good Argumentative Essay Topics
150 Good Persuasive Speech Topics
Good Transition Words for Essays
High School Success

Sarah Mininsohn

With a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sarah is a writer, educator, and artist. She served as a graduate instructor at the University of Illinois, a tutor at St Peter’s School in Philadelphia, and an academic writing tutor and thesis mentor at Wesleyan’s Writing Workshop.

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Two Creative Writing Fellows Win Whiting Awards

Ada Zhang and Gothataone Moeng will use the funding to work on their next writing projects.

A pair of writing fellows with the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing in the UW–Madison Department of English were selected to receive prestigious Whiting Awards for their fiction work.

Ada Zhang, the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow, and Gothataone Moeng, the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow, received their awards — and the $50,000 stipend that accompanies them — at a ceremony held Wednesday, April 10n New York City.

This year’s ceremony represented the 39 th year of the New York-based Whiting Foundation supporting writers, editors and educators. The awards are designed to “recognize excellence and promise in a spectrum of emerging talent, giving most winners the chance to devote themselves full time to their own writing, or to take bold new risks in their work.”

Moeng was honored for Call and Response , her series of nine short stories about women in the villages and cities of Moeng’s native Botswana.

“I am very interested in the inner lives of women — their ambitions, their secret desires, how they navigate their familial, platonic and romantic relationships living in the contemporary world but in a culture that is also still steeped in traditional customs,” says Moeng, who also spent time in Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program before coming to UW. “I wrote most of the stories during my MFA program and writers’ residencies here in the United States, and always struggled with the question of how to accurately depict the complexity of a culture that my peers in workshop did not know.”

Gothataone Moeng

Zhang was honored for The Sorrows of Others , a collection of short stories that delves into the loneliness and longings of characters young and old, set in China and the United States.

“The book is a record of the questions I asked throughout my twenties,” says Zhang, who graduated from the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. “What makes a family? How does the self emerge? To whom do we owe love, and how do we give love freely? The biggest challenge I faced was just that I was young, to writing and life. My skills were never enough for my vision. I felt always just short of the story I was trying to tell.”

Moeng and Zhang are the eighth and ninth UW creative writing fellows to win a Whiting Award, according to Amy Quan Barry, UW–Madison’s Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English. Both winners will complete their UW fellowships at the end of the 2023–24 academic year, and both plan to use their award money to prepare for their next writing project.

“Being part of the UW Creative Writing Program has meant everything to me,” says Zhang. “Of course, I’m grateful for the time to write, especially since I’m at the beginning of a new project. I’m also deeply grateful to my colleagues in the department, who have been so supportive and fun.”

Moeng echoes that sentiment.

“I have had an instructive year of what it means to be a working writer and a teaching artist, and I have survived a midwestern winter,” she jokes.

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MFA Alum Spotlight Interview With Emily Strasser

Emily Strasser photo side by side photo of Half-Life Book Cover

In Emily Strasser’s debut book Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History , she delves into the secretive history of her grandfather’s work with the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The book required vulnerability and conversations that were long overdue. Strasser sifts through her family’s memories and travels the world in order to rebuild the story that no one wanted to tell. Now, the book has won the 2024 Reed Prize in Environmental Writing from the Southern Environmental Law Center and is a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award.

Emily is an alum of the University MFA program where she spent time researching and writing Half-Life. Her work has also appeared in Catapult, Ploughshares, Guernica, Colorado Review, The Bitter Southerner, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , and more. She received an AWP Intro Award and was a McKnight fellow among many other accomplishments.

Impressed by her work and recent award, I invited Emily for a Spotlight Series interview:

Hannah Karau: Emily, it’s nice to have you here. Thank you very much again. So your book Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History just won the Reed Environmental Writing Award and is a Minnesota Book Award finalist! Huge congratulations for that. The book is quickly gathering prestige. Can you tell me about the writing process and how it felt to divulge into those secret histories?

Emily Strasser: Yeah, thank you. This book took me about 10 years to write. It was very intensive and took a lot of research. So the book traces my journey to reckon with the legacy of my grandfather's work building nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is a secret city built by the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb.

It involved me learning about a lot of things that I knew nothing about. I did not study science at all, so I had to learn about nuclear weaponry, World War Two history, physics, all kinds of things. I traveled widely: I went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I went to the Nevada test site outside of Las Vegas, where they would test the nuclear weapons. I also spent a lot of time in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where my grandfather had lived and worked, and did a lot of archival research. So it's both deeply personal and has a much wider scope than that. I did a bulk of that work over my time in the MFA.

Then you asked about what it was like to divulge these hidden histories. So for a little bit of context, this was not a story that my family spoke much about. And in many ways, this history is still sort of suppressed nationally. Oak Ridge was built as a secret project and was a secret during World War Two. Of course, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was no longer hidden, but there's still a culture of secrecy around it and a lack of national reckoning about it. I was also divulging and exploring some more personal, family secrets around mental illness. So yeah, it was quite vulnerable to publish a book that was both so personal and so political. And I think I was able to write it because I tricked myself into thinking no one would ever read it. I mean, I did have readers along the way. I had my MFA colleagues, I had friends and family who read it, editors, people like that. But it wasn't until I had a publisher secured that I was gripped by the pure terror of what would happen when real people who have real connections to this history read this book. I felt quite vulnerable, but the response has been quite lovely.

I’ve gotten to hear from a lot of people who have personal connections to this history or who have their own family secrets that they are interested in that they have shaped the textures of their lives. People resonate with the book in a variety of ways. So my worst fears about its publication have not yet come to pass.

HK: I'm glad that the response was better than you were expecting. I think it’s normal to have fears about publishing personal things. So it's really good when that goes better than planned. I'm curious, you said it took 10 years. Wow! How much time during your MFA did you have to go traveling, researching, and meeting people?

ES: Well, a great thing about the MFA program at the U—I don't know about all of them—is that there are opportunities for research funding. There are lots of pots of money both within the program itself and within the university at large. So I applied to a lot of different grants and I was able to go both to the Nevada Test Site and to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They both happened while I was in the MFA program over the summer. I applied to some grants that were external to the university as well, but there are opportunities within the program.

HK: Awesome. All right. So you have a lot of other great accomplishments to your name as well. The McKnight and Olivia B O'Connor fellowships, writing in Best American Essays , the AWP Intro Award and plenty more. How have these successes impacted your life and writing since?

ES: Yeah, of course, winning awards is lovely validation, especially when you're working on something very hard for a very long time. And it's solo work often, so it's always nice to be recognized. But it can be a bit of a double edged sword, like you never want to be writing for the sake of getting recognition because you're always going to have moments when you don't win the thing. For everything that I've won, I've not won ten other things that I applied for.

I think it's important for people to know that it is a game of numbers. It's a game of a lot of things. Looking at a list of people's successes, you can think “Oh, it's easy.” I just don't want people to be discouraged if they haven't yet gained external recognition. There is the element that it resonated with people, and it resonated with people who have the power to confer some honor. It’s wonderful when that happens, but also it's so random. Like who are the people who have that power?

It's important not to let awards and recognition be the driving force. You know, for one example, I won the Ploughshares emerging writers award with an essay in 2015, and then later it was an honorable mention for Best American essays . I had submitted that essay to that same contest, or different contests, like three or four years in a row. I revised it between submitting each time because I knew that it could get better, and it got better, and eventually it won. And then agents started contacting me based on that essay, but it took persistence.

HK: That’s so encouraging!

ES: If you believe in it, you know, keep at it.

HK: That's really great, Emily. So to take a turn here, as an alum of the University of Minnesota MFA program, can you share what parts of the program have been most beneficial to your writing career so far?

ES: Sure. I think the biggest thing was time and space to write. Not all MFA programs are funded, so some of them you have to pay for. The University of Minnesota MFA is funded, which means that you teach undergraduate classes or some people get a fellowship instead. So I did teach the whole time in exchange for tuition and a small stipend. It’s not a lot of money, but people manage to make it work, or they do side hustles and make it work. That is a huge gift to have.

It’s three years—a lot of MFA programs are only two years—where your main job is reading and writing. I’d say that's the biggest benefit. But certainly, the mentorship I gained there was huge and also developing a great writing community. I'm still friends with a lot of the people in my MFA program, and they're still people who will read my work, you know, and who I exchange work with now. Those are the biggest things, then we already mentioned research funding, but that was super helpful, too.

HK: Awesome. That's really good to hear, too—that that community outlasts the MFA program. It’s great that you really get to keep up with those people and keep having those writer friends.

ES: Yeah! The cohorts are small, and a lot of people move for the program, so when you come and you don't know anyone in the city you have built-in friends.

HK: So You form friendships quickly. You can't help but get close to them. So now that you've been done with school for a bit, and you're doing quite well in your field, what advice would you give to writers who are beginning their career and who may be interested in an MFA?

ES: Yeah, I think MFAs are great, especially if they're funded. I wouldn't advise anyone to go into debt to get an MFA. It's not a degree that has any guarantee of financial payoff. In fact, it has more of a guarantee of financial insecurity if you decide to pursue the career of being a writer. So take that for what it's worth.

I took a few years between undergrad and grad school, and I'm really glad I did. It helped. I was interested in an MFA when I graduated, but I decided not to apply right away. And I think it helped to make me more focused and dedicated when I got there. It also gave me a little bit more life experience. It can be hard if you've been in school so long, to just go straight to more school. And if the reason you're going is because you're not sure what to do next. You're gonna bring a different level of motivation and dedication, than if you're sure that you want to be writing in a serious way. Some of my colleagues did come straight from school, and they're amazing writers, and they were very dedicated, so I'm not trying to say anything negative about their paths. But for me, it was really good that I took the time in between and it kept me motivated and focused.

HK: Yeah, I think you're right that with it being a degree that doesn't necessarily guarantee financial stability, that it is a good idea to be 100% Sure.

ES: And that said, people do different things after the MFA. Because nobody has full time writing without another job. Unless you're–

HK: Stephen King or something?

ES: Stephen King, exactly. But some of them are high school teachers, or managing nonprofits or teaching college courses, like there's a lot of different things, and people manage to keep up a writing life in a lot of different ways.

HK: Yeah, there's still plenty you can do. So back to you, Half-Life has been out for almost a year. Can you tell me about your next writing project, or the next big thing that you're working on or thinking about?

ES: So it's still early stages, I'll say that. Half-Life took me so long that I was really tired when I finished. They also don't tell you that when a book comes out, the writer has a lot of work to do as far as publicity, which is not something that I like to do, or that I'm good at. So it takes a lot out of me. Although things like doing events have become easier than it was at the very beginning. So I'm grateful for that.

Anyway, I'm only in the early stages. But I'm working on essays broadly linked by climate grief. And I won't go deep into it, because it's very much a baby. But I will say that I'm excited to work on it. I'm not envisioning this as like a single narrative, the way that Half-Life was. I think I need to shift my pace a little bit to working on essays that can be kind of published one off or finished more quickly than a whole book.

HK: No, that makes sense. And I think that's a good and interesting topic. I know it's a baby project, but can you tell me a little bit more about grief over climate change?

ES: Yeah, so it spurred from my own experience a few years ago of reading something that really touched my heart and kind of blew me wide open. My thinking went to sort of a transcendent place of a lot of gratitude for my life and the beauty of the world, and also a place of deep despair about, what if it's too late, you know? And that sent me on a journey of reading and seeking out spiritual frameworks for thinking about climate grief. So it will be sort of circling around those experiences and picking up different threads related to that.

HK: Very cool. Thank you for that. I think that's all the questions I have for you, but I really appreciate your time and thoughtful answers! And the insight on your upcoming work, of course. Good luck with the final round of the MN Book Awards as well!

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Professional essay help: 24/7 service.

College essay is a chance to tell your story to a complete stranger. Why some colleges demand it to be included in the application? First of all, amount of people wanting to to be admitted is several times bigger than amount of places. Scores, grades, academic achievements, extracurricular activities are important. They are the primary factor to select the best candidates. That's why committee sets talented ones apart from others by reading their works.

"How is going to read what I write ? My essay is useless thing" - consider several people. This where they are wrong. Admission officers study and compare every single work that they receive. What should be there to catch their attention with guarantee?

Personality and soul. You don't have to seem intelligent to impress readers. Just be yourself.

Subject that really matters to you. Honesty is a key to success.

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Heartland Review Press to host creative writing workshop

Published on Apr 15, 2024

The Heartland Review Press invites high school and college students to register for a creative writing workshop with local poet Jan LaPerle. The workshop is 6 to 8 p.m. April 30 at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, James S. Owen Building, room 131.

Jan LaPerle’s publications include “Maybe the Land Sings Back” (Galileo Press, 2022), “It Would be Quiet” (Prime Mincer Press, 2013), an e-chap of flash fiction, “Hush” (Sundress Publications, 2012), and a story in verse, “A Pretty Place to Mourn” (BlazeVOX, 2014). She lives in Elizabethtown with her husband Clay and daughter Winnie. LaPerle will retire from the U.S. Army this year.

The workshop has 25 seats. Students will create an original work that will be considered for publication in ECTC’s literary journal The Heartland Review. A registration fee of $20 will support similar future events for the college and community. To register, visit ectc.us/creative-writing-workshop .

For more information, contact Mick Kennedy at [email protected] .

Ava Moreci ‘25 (CCS Writing & Literature) receives an inaugural 2023-2024 M. Garren Tinney Travel Award

Ucsb undergraduate writers are inspired to pursue writing-related travel opportunities thanks to m. garren tinney memorial fund.

The Writing Program in the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) recently announced the inaugural 2023-2024 M. Garren Tinney Travel Award Recipients: Ava Moreci ‘25 (CCS Writing & Literature) and Jackie Jauregui ‘25 (L&S Spanish). Elora Shaw ’25 (L&S Psychological and Brain Sciences, Biological Anthropology) received an Honorable Mention. Thanks to the M. Garren Tinney Memorial Fund established in June 2023 in loving memory of M. Garren Tinney ‘01 (L&S English), talented students each year receive an award to support travel related to their writing.

Ava will use her award to attend the Puget Sound Bird Festival in Edmonds, Washington that attracts scholars, writers, and communities of birdwatchers for writing and research development in the areas of birds, nature writing, and climate change. Jackie will participate in ieiMedia's Berlin Project, a three-week journalism intensive program in Berlin, Germany led by professionals with storied careers.

Michael "Garren" Tinney ‘01 (L&S English)

The College of Creative Studies (CCS) congratulates both recipients!

For more information:

“2023-2024 M. Garren Tinney Travel Award Recipients Announced,” UCSB Writing Program, Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, April 17, 2024

“ Writing Program names inaugural M. Garren Tinney Fellows ,” UCSB The Current, January 24, 2024

“Inaugural 2023-2024 M. Garren Tinney Writing Fellows,” UCSB Writing Program, Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, January 19, 2024

For inquiries and to make a gift in loving memory of Garren to the M. Garren Tinney Memorial Fund, contact Venilde Jeronimo ([email protected]). Gifts to this Fund can also be made online.

Russia's Shoigu Says Tank Production Is Booming

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu inspects production facility for tanks and armoured vehicles in the Omsk region, Russia, in this handout picture published April 19, 2024. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that the country was ramping up manufacturing of tanks and heavy flamethrower systems, but more work was needed to increase production of tank protection equipment.

Shoigu's ministry published video showing him touring a tank factory in the Siberian city of Omsk and meeting workers, whom he praised for exceeding production targets.

"The Omsk plant is fulfilling the programme - I can say it is even over-fulfilling the programme," Shoigu was shown telling officials. "The issues and tasks that we decided on during our last visit have almost all been resolved."

Building new tanks is a necessity for Russia because of heavy equipment losses in the first two years of the war in Ukraine. The International Institute for Strategic Studies said in February that Russia had lost more than 3,000 tanks there, the equivalent of its entire active inventory before the war, and was having to pull old ones out of storage to replace them.

Shoigu ordered factory heads to increase production of tank protection equipment and said beefing up supplies to tank repair brigades was a key area of focus.

"Now we need to significantly increase the additional kits that we need to put on those vehicles that are in combat," he said.

Photos You Should See - April 2024

TOPSHOT - Marine One with US President Joe Biden onboard takes off from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 16, 2024. Biden is travelling to Scranton, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Drew ANGERER / AFP) (Photo by DREW ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images)

The Latest Photos From Ukraine

A woman walks backdropped by bas-relief sculptures depicting war scenes in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Shoigu's visit comes as Russian forces are pummelling the strategically important Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar with artillery, drone and air strikes. Kyiv says Moscow wants to take the town by May 9, the date when Russia commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Omsk personnel told Shoigu that the factory had increased production of "Solntsepek" heavy flamethrower systems by 2.5 times and that the next shipment of a new model of the T-80BVM main battle tank was ready to be sent to the front.

Factory heads told the defence minister they had hired an additional 1,200 staff since last year and were working around the clock in two shifts to expand production capacity.

Shoigu also spotlighted the production of anti-drone systems. Kyiv has mounted frequent drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure since the start of the year, hitting some major oil refineries across the world's second largest oil exporter and sending up oil prices.

(Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Exploring the creative traditions of wooden Omsk

Omsk. Alexander Solomonovich Kabalkina house, Duma Street 3. Main facade. Photo: September 18, 1999

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky developed a complex process for vivid color photography. His vision of photography as a form of education and enlightenment was demonstrated with special clarity through his images of architectural monuments in the historic sites throughout the Russian heartland.

Shchadrinsk. Construction of standardized log buildings for a railroad station complex. Photo: Summer 1912

In June 1912, Prokudin-Gorsky ventured into western Siberia as part of a commission to document the Kama-Tobolsk Waterway, a link between the European and Asian sides of the Ural Mountains. The town of Tyumen served as his launching point for productive journeys that included Shadrinsk (current population 68,000), established in 1662 on the Iset River.

The area around Shadrinsk had been settled in the mid-17th century by peasants given allotments of state lands, which they would cultivate and return a grain levy to the state. Authorities in Moscow wanted to attract settlers to these newly acquired vast open territories, whose rich soil was ideal for agriculture.

By the time of Prokudin-Gorsky’s visit, the town had several enterprises, including a ceramics factory and a population of some 15,000. His photographs of Shadrinsk include the rapid construction of pine log buildings for a railroad station complex – part of a secondary rail line built in 1911-1913. The partially completed buildings show an efficient use of standardized design, with measured log stacks in the foreground. Tall, spindly pine trees complete the picture.

Omsk’s early role

Omsk. Western Siberian Division of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, Museum Street 3. Photo: September 15, 1999

In a broader context, these photographs reflect the expansion of Russia’s rail system within a triangle bounded by Ekaterinburg (on the Asian side of central Ural Mountains), Chelyabinsk (in the southern Urals) and Omsk (in western Siberia). Rail construction greatly increased the importance of Omsk as a transportation center on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Although Prokudin-Gorsky did not reach Omsk, I visited there in the late summer of 1999.

Alexander Solomonovich Kabalkina house, Duma Street 3. Corner view. Photo: September 18, 1999

Omsk (current population around 1,110,000) was founded in 1716 as a fort on the middle reaches of the Irtysh River. During the 18th century its primary purpose was to protect Russia’s southern border and establish authority over the aboriginal steppe peoples.

I. F. Mashinsky house, Pushkin Street 26. Note brick firewall on right side. Photo: September 18, 1999

Although administratively subordinate to Tobolsk throughout the 18th century, Omsk gained increasing power in the 19th century. From 1808 until 1917, Omsk served as the headquarters of all Siberian Cossack troops and, in 1822, a separate Omsk Province was formed.

N. Abdulmanov house, Marshal Zhukov Street 95. Wooden structure on brick ground floor. Right: D. V. Proskuriakov house (now mosque). Photo: September 18, 1999

During the latter part of the 19th century, Omsk began a period of heady expansion, as the town became a transportation center for Russia’s vast interior. Regular steamboat service along the Irtysh River to Tobolsk began in 1862.

Railroad revolution & wooden legacy

Wooden house, Michurin Street 48. Entrance porch in "Modern Style" (Art Nouveau). Photo: September 18, 1999

But, it was the railroads that made Omsk a boomtown. In 1894-95 Omsk was linked by the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Chelyabinsk in the west and Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) in the east. In 1913, another rail line was completed from Omsk to Tyumen in what would become the new Siberian mainline. By the beginning of the 20th century, the population of Omsk had tripled, to over 60,000 inhabitants.

Wooden house, Michurin Street 48. Windows with "Modern Style" shutters and capped with Nordic style dragon figures. Photo: September 18, 1999

This development as a transportation nexus led to a surge in the city’s commercial district. What had formerly been a provincial garrison town consisting primarily of wooden structures punctuated with large churches, now became a preeminent site for banks, educational institutions, industry and retail trade in Siberia.

Yankelevich house, Post Office Street 37 & Uchebnaya Street 16. Note "Modern Style" shutters. Photo: September 18, 1999

Even during this rapid development, however, wooden buildings remained a major part of the urban fabric. Some of the log structures were of considerable size and designed by accomplished architects, such as the building for the Western Siberian Division of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, constructed in 1896-1899 by architect Iliodor Khvorinov.

Log house near Tara Street. Note decorative fretwork on cornice. Foreground: entrance to storage cellar. Photo: September 15, 1999

Branches of the Geographic Society served as important intellectual centers in the provinces, yet Omsk was unusual in its log building, which demonstrated a deep connection to Russian tradition. Less costly to construct, the wooden Geographic Society building also proved eminently functional, serving in much its original purpose when I photographed it a century after its completion. The hewn log walls fastened at the end with a trapezoidal interlocking joint. Periodically, the exterior has been covered in plank siding (as at present), but I was fortunate to see the log construction in its original state.

More than just wooden housing

Log house, Thirty Years of Komsomol Street 42. Neoclassical detailing. Tin roof added late Soviet period. Photo: September 18, 1999

In Omsk, as elsewhere in the Russian provinces, the main role for wooden architecture at the turn of the 20th century was to provide housing. Sometimes the log walls were clad with plank siding and in other cases they were left exposed. To lessen the danger from fire – that curse of Russian towns – many of the buildings had a wall of brick on the right side – the brandmauer, or “fire wall”.

Wooden house, Tara Street 50. Right: log wall of storage shed. Photo: September 15, 1999

Wooden dwellings could range from the relatively simple to large multi-family dwellings. One of the most imposing is the mansion, built in 1911 on what was then known as Duma (City Council) Street for A. S. Kabalkin, a prominent member of the legal profession.

Wooden house, Tara Street 50. Shuttered window, decorative fretwork on facade. Photo: September 15, 1999

The Kabalkin mansion displays an assured sense of design in which the unclad dark log walls contrast with the light color of simple window surrounds for an aesthetic effect. The left corner is punctuated with a bay turret that dominates the area. When I photographed, the lots around had been cleared, which gave an unobstructed view of the organic plasticity of the structure. This approach to design was intended to create a unified work of art from all perspectives, a characteristic of the so-called Modern Style (the Russian equivalent of Art Nouveau) that flourished at the turn of the 20th century.

‘Modern mansions’

Log house, Tara Street 20. Photo: September 15, 1999

Other log mansions of similar scale include the I.F. Mashinsky house (Pushkin Street 26) and the N. Abdulmanov house (Marshal Zhukov Street 95), both of which are crowned with Beaux Arts style domes. The latter house, built by a local Moslem merchant, shows the common technique of elevating the main floor of a log house over a brick ground story.

Log house, Tara Street 42. Note ornamental window pediments & brick firewall (right). Photo: September 15, 1999

The Modern Style also appears in the exuberant decorative detailing of smaller houses with sweeping curvilinear flourishes throughout the main façade. An excellent example is the house at 48 Michurin Street with its Art Nouveau doorway. and window surrounds crowned with dragon motifs in an imitation Nordic style (Norwegian stave churches). Unfortunately, the house and lot have been poorly maintained.

V. I. Viatkin house, Red Dawns Street 16 & Uchebnaya Street. Note ornamental window pediments. Photo: September 18, 1999

The delightful decorative flourishes of some wooden houses show an eclectic mixture of Modern with elaborate fretwork details. Window surrounds are often crowned with elaborate flourishes that include a lacework of fretwork or carved wood.

Proskuriakova house, Red Dawns Street 31. Note wrought iron porch & ornamental window pediments. Photo: September 18, 1999

Other examples, such as the V.I. Viatkin house (Red Dawns Street 16) have a rich yet precise application of neoclassical details. And regardless of the façade style, I found delicately detailed wrought iron porches, exemplified at the Proskuriakova house (Red Dawns Street 31).

Log house with dome, Post Office Street 39. Photo: September 18, 1999

One of the most playful decorative expressions is the Philip Shtumfp house (Valikhanov Street 10), built at the turn of the 20th century for a prominent agronomist, entrepreneur and civic activist. Its turrets, complicated roof line, and ornamental window surrounds hark back to a traditional “folk” style launched by the artist Ivan Ropet in the 1870s.

Wooden apartments & Jewish influence

Philip Shtumfp house (Valikhanov Street 10), built at turn of 20th century for a prominent agronomist, entrepreneur, and civic activist. Photo: September 19, 1999

Omsk also had examples of refined “constructivist” log apartment buildings built throughout Russia as a relatively inexpensive means to address housing needs in the early Soviet period. The apartment building at Tara Street 32 (now demolished) showed a restrained but elegant design with window shafts for stairwells above the entrances.

Log apartment building, Tara Street 32. Built in early Soviet period; now demolished. Photo: September 15, 1999

In addition to family dwellings, I also photographed a large 19th-century wooden building that served as a barracks and military hospital. The survival of this building, visible from the street on an active military base, was wholly unexpected.

In conclusion, one of the best examples of wooden architecture in Omsk is the so-called Soldiers Synagogue (Marshal Zhukov Street 53), built in 1855 for a community of “cantonists”, soldiers taken at an early age from Jewish communities during the reign of Nicholas I to serve in the army throughout the empire. At the end of a long period of schooling and service, they were allowed to remain in their place of service without restrictions that existed in the Pale of Settlement.

Wooden army building (barracks, hospital). Photo: September 18, 1999

In 1854, the Omsk community of 178 registered Jews chose a rabbi and gathered the funds to erect a beautiful wooden synagogue decorated in a “Moorish” style. Miraculously, the building has survived as a national landmark, despite the difficulties imposed on the community during the Soviet period. Closed in the early 1920s, the building was long used as the House of Sanitary Education.

Omsk Synagogue Known as "Soldiers Synagogue," built in 1855. Side facade with "Moorish" window detailing. Photo: September 18, 1999

Another synagogue, built in 1873, served the Jewish community for some decades, but it was destroyed by fire and razed in the 1970s. This left the community without a formal place of worship until 1991, when the Soldiers Synagogue was returned as a house of worship to the Or Hadash (“New Light”) community.

Damaged by fire in 1995, the synagogue was carefully restored, with plank siding, with “Moorish” crowns for the upper windows and an ornamental cornice. Another example of a log house of worship is the Hodja Akhmed Mosque (Marshal Zhukov Street 97), originally the house of D.V. Proskuriakov.

Hodja Akhmed Mosque (Marshal Zhukov Street 97). Photo: September 18, 1999

As in other Siberian cities, wooden architecture provided a special charm to the historic center of Omsk, but in recent decades the number of these structures has steadily decreased under the pressures of urban development and inadequate maintenance. Photographs can at least remind one of this page in Russian urban history.

In the early 20th century, Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky developed a complex process for color photography. Between 1903 and 1916, he traveled through the Russian Empire and took over 2,000 photographs with the process, which involved three exposures on a glass plate. In August 1918, he left Russia and ultimately resettled in France where he was reunited with a large part of his collection of glass negatives, as well as 13 albums of contact prints. After his death in Paris in 1944, his heirs sold the collection to the Library of Congress. In the early 21st century, the Library digitized the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection and made it freely available to the global public. A few Russian websites now have versions of the collection. In 1986, architectural historian and photographer William Brumfield organized the first exhibit of Prokudin-Gorsky photographs at the Library of Congress. Over a period of work in Russia beginning in 1970, Brumfield has photographed most of the sites visited by Prokudin-Gorsky. This series of articles juxtaposes Prokudin-Gorsky’s views of architectural monuments with photographs taken by Brumfield decades later.

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Omsk State Medical University Russia 2024-25: Fees, Ranking, Admission, Courses, Eligibility etc.

Omsk State Medical University located in the city of Omsk, Siberia, is one of the leading medical universities to pursue MBBS in Russia. It was founded in 1920 as the Medical Faculty of the Siberian Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Zoology. Omsk State Medical University Russia offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs in various fields of medicine, including General medicine, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Pharmacy and preventive medicine.

This article provides information about Omsk State Medical University, mainly for Indian students, such as Faculties, courses offered, admission process, eligibility criteria, fee structure, Ranking in Russia etc.

[Page Index]

College summary.

Before we complete the college summary, let us look at the major details of Omsk State Medical University Russia .

Wants to Study MBBS Abroad from a top Country with low tution Fees? Subscribe Now!

Affiliation and Recognition

The Omsk State Medical University is one of the biggest medical universities in Russia, and it is affiliated and recognized by various Medical Councils such as:

National Medical Commission of India (NMC).
Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
World Health Organization (WHO).

Omsk State Medical University Consists of five faculties. Here we have listed below:

Faculty of General Medicine
Faculty of Pediatrics
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Preventive Medicine
Faculty of Pharmacy

Student Life

Student life at Omsk State Medical University as follows:

Omsk State Medical University emphasizes the importance of incorporating physical training into the daily routine.
The university provides well-equipped gyms, ski centres, and a sports and recreation centre for its students.
The campus life at Omsk State Medical University is truly captivating. It boasts all the essential modern facilities including auditoriums, cafes, libraries, gymnasiums, clinical labs, and much more.

Courses Offered

Omsk State Medical University Russia Courses offer quality medical programs under highly qualified faculty and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Omsk State Medical University is famous for its undergraduate medical programs. If you want more details about the MBBS course.

Why study at the Omsk State Medical University Russia?

The medium of instruction at the University is English.
There are good dormitory facilities for local as well as international students.
Omsk has creative groups for regional, national and international competitions and thus is a world of opportunities and activities for students.
Omsk State University has 22 specialized sports clubs, including five fitness centres, two large gyms and an Olympic sports complex with a pool.

Admission Procedure

If you want to take Omsk State Medical University admission to Russia in 2024, you must qualify for the National Eligibility Entrance Exam (NEET) for Indian students.

Eligibility Criteria

In this section, all the students check the eligibility criteria of Omsk State Medical University Russia.

Graphical Representation of Eligibility Criteria

Omsk State Medical University Eligibility Criteria

Documents Required

Before admission to Omsk State Medical University Russia, please do not forget to carry all these related documents.

Passport (Minimum 18 months validity).
10th Certificate & Mark sheet.
12th Certificate & Mark sheet.
Birth Certificate.
10 passport-size Photographs
Official Invitation letter from the Medical University of Russia.
Authorization of all documents from the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.
Legalization of all documents from the Russian Embassy.
Bank receipt of 1st year of Omsk State Medical University MBBS fees (required for some universities).
HIV test documents.

Fee Structure 2024-25

In this section, all the MBBS students get information about the Omsk State Medical University fees structure in 2024. Check all the relevant queries regarding fees following this page: Low fees for MBBS Colleges in Russia .

Ranking 2024-25

According to EduRank, the Omsk State Medical University ranking in Russia and all over the world ranking:

MBBS Syllabus

The comprehensive syllabus for studying MBBS at Omsk State Medical University is as follows:

Advantages of MBBS in Russia

About Omsk City

Omsk City is located on the Irtysh River in the southwestern Siberia region. It is Russia’s seventh-largest city.
In 1782, Omsk was granted town status.
The main and important economy of the city involves agriculture and the retail sectors.
Omsk City has a humid continental climate based on the constantly changing weather swing. Omsk experiences more than 300 sunny days in a year.
Major road, rail, and air hub pathways connect Omsk. Metro, trolleybuses, trams, and shared taxis are also available in the city of Omsk.
Some of the city’s main attractions are the Omsk Drama Theatre, Green Island, Central Vrubel Museum of Fine Arts, etc.
The city’s famous foods are Okroshka, Shanxi, Pelmeni, Kurnik, Mors, Bird Cherry cake, etc.

Temperature

Contact Details

Omsk State Medical University Russia (OSMU Russia) Address: Ulitsa Lenina, 12, Omsk, Omsk Oblast, Russia, 644099 Official Website: http://omsk-osma.ru/

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

When is summer vacation starting at omsk state medical university russia.

The summer vacation starts from 1st July to 31st August at the Omsk State Medical University.

What type of food is available at the hostel?

Indian food is available at the hostel. All types of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food are available at the hostel, and in Russia, there is a wide variety of milk products and fruits.

How is the classroom environment at Omsk State Medical University Russia?

At Omsk State University, the teacher-student ratio of 1:10 gives students a more attentive and personal learning environment.

Which facilities does the university provide for students’ physical fitness?

The university provides well-equipped gyms, sports and recreation centres, and physical fitness ski centres.

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About Manish Verma

Hello, I'm Manish Verma, with a year of expertise in MBBS and Ayush courses. I have detailed knowledge of various colleges' fee structures, cutoffs, and intake procedures. If you're looking for insights or assistance in pursuing MBBS or BAMS courses, feel free to comment below—I'm here to help!