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Ten Tips: How to Write Your Common App Activities List, Meet Ethan Sawyer, College Essay Guy

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We are so excited to introduce Ethan Sawyer, the College Essay Guy . On the College Essay Guy’s site, you will find all things related to college essay writing, (personal statement), tips, common app, free resources, classes and more. Stop by his site to see why you will love his site as much as I do (he’s personal, warm, empathetic and his classes are unparalleled. Also, he has a ton of FREE resources).

Here is a great starting article about the common app activities list.

10 Tips: How to Write Your Common App Activities List

You only get 150 characters: how do you make the most of them? Some tips:

1. State role and organization name in top box, so you don’t waste characters in the lower, 160 character box. Instead of: (top box) School newspaper (description box) I am the editor for the school newspaper ( And don’t repeat words!)

Try: (top box) Editor of International Column, School Newspaper (description box) Responsible for brainstorming, revising, and supervising articles by other writers for my column.

2. Emphasize tangible, measurable impact .  Whom did your activity help? How many people? How much money did you raise?

Instead of: Raised money for children in Africa. Try: Raised $3,000 to provide three uniforms and scholarships for students attending the Joseph Waweru Home School in Kenya (http://www.exop.org/home_school.html).

Instead of: Worked at a clinic doing different things. Try: Organized patient diagnosis notes, sterilized tools for surgeries, assisted with x-ray analysis.

4. To fit in more info: use lists , don’t use complete sentences , cut extra words . Instead of: I raised money to donate to a school in Ghana in Africa by selling t-shirts and bracelets. Try: Arranged advertising events, organized fundraisers, and gave presentations at school meetings.

5. Use the present tense if it’s something you still do. Instead of: I helped tour visitors around the campus and presented some information on school history and student life. Try: I give campus tours, providing info on school history, student activities, boarding life.

6. Aim for variety in your list, making sure your verbs aren’t redundant. Instead of: Instructing, helping, teaching children tennis (how are these three different?) Try: Instructing in proper technique, while imparting lessons in sportsmanship, health and integrity.

7. Include any responsibilities you had to demonstrate leadership skills . Instead of: I swim on the swim team. Try: Responsible for leading swim practices, planning fundraising events; assisting in recruiting process.

8. What if there isn’t much to say, or it was a one-time event?

Explain the significance of the activity: who did the event matter to and why? Rather than: Tutored students. Try: Provided support to fourth graders with particularly difficult math concepts.

Continue reading this list over at the College Essay Guy . In addition, be sure to check out his new course: How to Write a Personal Statement . This course includes seven videos and is 100% guaranteed. The fee is only $149.00 and if you cannot afford it, contact Ethan about his pay-what-you-can program. Yes, pay what you can.

And did I mention he has the #1 Selling College Essay Book in the country right now? Yes, he does.

About: Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and sought-after speaker. Each year he helps thousands of students and counselors through his online courses, workshops, articles, products, and books, and works privately with a small number of students. 

Raised in Spain, Ecuador, and Colombia, Ethan has studied at seventeen different schools and has worked as a teacher, curriculum writer, voice actor, motivational speaker, community organizer, and truck driver. He is a certified Myers-Briggs® specialist, and his type (ENFJ) will tell you that he will show up on time, that he’ll be excited to meet you, and that, more than anything, he is committed to—and an expert in—helping you realize your potential. 

A graduate of Northwestern University, Ethan holds an MFA from UC Irvine and two counseling certificates. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife, Veronica, and their amazing daughter, Zola.

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Common App 101: Activities List & Honors

What is the activities list, how can the activities list be used to demonstrate a hook, is the activities list important for college admissions, quality vs. quantity, common app activities list vs. uc activities list, common application, uc application, before filling out the activities list, how to fill out the common app activities list, 1. choose the ten activities you plan to include:, 2. determine the order in which you plan to list your activities:, 3. fill out the common application activities list fields:, field 1: activity type, field 2: position/leadership description (max characters: 50), weak example, strong example, field 3: organization name (max characters: 100), field 4: activity description (max characters: 150), weak examples, strong examples, good example, field 5: participation grade levels, field 6: timing of participation, field 7: hours spent per week, field 8: weeks spent per year, field 9: i intend to participate in a similar activity in college., no one will hold you to this when you get to college 😉, strong vs. weak, intern, art gallery, archival intern, jane doe’s fine art gallery, journalism/publication, head, school newspaper, staff writer (10, 11), editor-in-chief (12), the average herald, average high school, how to fill out the common application honors list, field 1: honors title, field 2: grade level, field 3: levels of recognition, example common application activities list and hook explanation, environmental, founder, the cactus swap project nyc, president, average hs green club, research intern, local university, athletics: jv or varsity, co-captain and setter, average hs girls’ varsity volleyball, community service (volunteer), volunteer and muralist, beautiful gardens nonprofit, volunteer, major urban art museum, painter and photographer, @studentname on instagram and etsy, participant, state university’s summer environmental art institute, work (paid), owner, dog-walking business, student govt./politics, class representative, average hs student government, national merit semifinalist, scholastic art & writing awards gold keys x4 (painting x2, photography, journalism), congressional award (bronze and silver medals), average hs community excellence award (2 students recognized per year), consultations, related guides.

• How to Create a Balanced College ListLearn to balance a college list effectively with this guide. Discover safety, reach, and match schools through clear examples, and get advice to develop your customized balanced college list.Read GuideA Quick Guide to Merit Scholarships

The activities list is the part of the college application—either on the Common Application , Coalition Application or the UC system application —where you can list and describe your extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities encompass a broad range of activities. Commonly listed activities include participating in school clubs, playing an instrument, playing a sport, attending pre-college summer programs, volunteering, and many others. Activities like working a part-time job, or caring for a family member also count. The activities list is an excellent opportunity to brag about your accomplishments, as well as the talents and skills that you have developed outside of the classroom along the way.

Most importantly, the activities list is one of the best places to showcase the various ways in which you have developed your hook!

At Command Education, we often emphasize the importance of establishing your “hook”— otherwise known as a passion and skill set that sets you apart. A hook is typically thought of as a well-developed record of distinctive achievements, activities, and service in one or two specific areas of interest. Instead of dabbling in a little bit of everything, we encourage our students to delve deep into activities they are particularly passionate about.

Your activities list is the key place you can demonstrate your hook to admissions officers. For example, if you are interested in the biomolecular sciences and cancer research and decide this will be your hook, you should be able to demonstrate that interest through activities like working as a professor’s research assistant at a medical school, taking related classes at a college or university, or writing about cancer research-related topics in your school newspaper.

It’s important to craft your activities list descriptions in such a way that they relate to your hook, as well as to your academic and career goals. Say you are applying to gain admission to an undergraduate business program. You could relate your experience as a tour guide and representative at your high school to marketing, or your experience working as a sales associate at a clothing store to client relationship skills! The key is to clearly demonstrate a connection between each activity and your hook.

We’ll give you more tips and tricks about crafting your activities list below, but let’s start by discussing…

Yes! While your grades and standardized test scores make up the foundation of your college application, your activities will allow you to stand out amongst the sea of applicants and could tip an application in your favor. Thus, demonstrating a strong hook through your Activities List is very important. Additionally, college admissions officers will view your extracurricular involvement as a good indicator of how well you might function as a member of your future college community , and afterwards, how you might perform in the real world, since commitment to your activities will allow you to demonstrate time management skills, drive and commitment, and a genuine interest in the world around you.

Quality is always more important than quantity when it comes to the activities you choose to add to your Activities List. Juniors and seniors can often fall into the trap of signing up for many clubs at their school—but this strategy could end up backfiring by making an application seem disingenuous. Having two to three meaningful extracurricular involvements is always better than ten activities that have no meaning to you at all. Admissions officers see thousands of applications every season, and they can easily identify resume fillers. This is not to say that you can’t join a new club as a junior or senior, you definitely can! The club should just serve to complement the hook you have been working to develop throughout your high school career.

While the Common Application Activities List and UC Activities List serve similar purposes for admissions committees, there are differences in the ways they are completed. The Common Application allows students to list 10 activities and 5 honors and awards separately, while the UC application allows students 20 spaces in total for both activities and awards.

✔️ 10 Activities ✔️ 5 Honors and Awards

✔️ 20 Activities, Honors and Awards

Beyond the number of slots for activities and awards, there are also differences in the corresponding information students must provide for each activity and award.

You’ll want to begin this process by compiling a list of all the activities that you have been involved in throughout high school. You will also want to jot down the years you’ve been involved in the activity in terms of grade levels. For example, you’ll want to write down “12th” as opposed to 2020-2021, if that’s the year you were in the 12th grade. Activities that you can include on this list are: sports, community service, employment, religious activities (such as teaching Sunday school), internships (paid or unpaid), arts, hobbies (for example, biking or stacking competitions), school clubs, academic competitions, and basically anything else that you spend time doing outside of school. Remember to include non-formalized activities if they have been meaningful to you, such as small projects you’ve been working on to improve your programming abilities, the hours you’ve poured into learning a new language on Duolingo, or the works of art you might be painting for your own enjoyment. If you spend a lot of time with your family, perhaps you take care of an ailing member, that absolutely counts as well and shows a great deal of responsibility.

Once you have an initial list of schools to research, you can begin researching each school on your list in more depth, with the aim of both narrowing down your initial list and potentially discovering additional factors that can help you identify more schools for your list.

You should strategically choose the ten activities you want to include in a way that highlights your hook! Below, we’ve included an example activities list, paired with an explanation of how it demonstrates a hook!

You should order your activities in order of personal importance to you! This will allow you to demonstrate your values to the admission officers who review your application.

Be sure to prioritize personal importance over quantity of time.

For example, you may spend 14 hours of your week attending tennis practice and taking tennis lessons, and two hours hosting a tennis clinic for elementary school students through the organization you founded. Though you devote much more time to your own practice, you may find the clinics to be much more rewarding and place this higher up on your activities list than your practices.

Let’s take it one step further. Maybe you run the camp for 35 weeks of the year, but you ran a tennis racket drive for five days in the late spring of your junior year that ended up being particularly rewarding. Even though you spend much more time running the clinics than you spent hosting the equipment drive, you place the drive further up on your activities list because it was more meaningful to you.

The Common Application will ask you to fill out 9 fields for each activity you choose to list. You do not have much space to do so, so read this guide to learn how to make the most of the characters you are allotted.

Hover over each hot spot to learn more about each field. Below, you’ll find more examples about how to make the most of each field to highlight your potential!

The 9 Fields are:

Activity Type

Begin by selecting the category the activity falls under. For any activities that fall outside the predefined categories, which are listed below, just select Other Club/Activity.

Position/ Leadership Description

Describe your title to the best of your ability here - this can be as simple as “Volunteer” or “Club Member.” However, try to get specific when you can!

Organization Name

Be as descriptive as possible within the confines of the character limit, and avoid acronyms or abbreviations if possible.

Activity Description

Make it clear what your responsibilities were and highlight your key accomplishments.

Participation Grade Levels

Check off the grades during which you were involved with the activity. If you graduated from high school and continued to participate in that activity, mark “post-graduate.”

Timing of Participation

Check off the time periods during which you participated in the activity.

Hours Spent Per Week

Roughly estimate the number of hours you devoted to an activity.

Weeks Spent Per Year

Roughly estimate the number of weeks you devoted to an activity.

I intend to participate in a similar activity in college.

Check yes or no.

Here is the list of predefined categories provided by the Common App:

If possible, add a descriptive term in front of your position. Be sure to specify whether or not your position changed over time by notating the grade levels next to the position name in parenthesis, like so: Member (9th, 10th), Vice President (11th, 12th)

Gallery Assistant (9th, 10th), Curatorial Intern (11th)

It is possible that your organization’s name takes up all of the allotted characters, but if it doesn’t, take advantage of the extra space to include relevant information. Make sure you make it clear when clubs are in association with your school when applicable. A volunteering club at Average High School simply called “Hilltop” is better referred to as “Average High School Hilltop Volunteers” or “Hilltop Volunteering Club of Average High School.” If you’re including an independent activity such as painting for local arts competitions, your title and position could read: “Artist, Self-Directed Oil Painting”

You can use acronyms and abbreviations when referring to well-known organizations like the NAACP, or if you use the same abbreviation throughout, like “LA” for “Las Angeles.” However, if it’s not obvious what the organization does from its name or abbreviation, add a little context.

School Newspaper

The Falcon, Average High School’s Student Newspaper

It is very important that your description should make clear what your specific impact or contribution is or was, as opposed to what the organization’s members did as a group. Write in present tense only if you are still involved, and past tense if your involvement in the activity has come to an end.

Use verbs that show action and ownership over an activity

Worked with a professor on a research project

Conducted university-level research

Include numbers and percentages to quantify your impact

Fundraised a few thousand dollars for…

Recruited a handful of new club members

Fundraised over $5,000…

Increased membership by 25% in…

Avoid redundancy. If you say you were the Editor of your school paper in your title, you won’t need to repeat that in the description. Rather, describe your impact as an editor.

Edited the environmental column

Proofread and fact-checked over 30 pieces about environmental issues annually

You’ll have a chance to include five formal awards you received in the “honors” section of the Common App, but the activity descriptions are the perfect place to include achievements for which you did not receive awards. You will want to provide context for awards or opportunities that are selective.

Selected to be student representative

1 of 3 student representatives selected in our class of 200 to interview and select the next head of upper school

A commonly asked question regarding this field is how to label the activities that took place in the summer. We recommend selecting the grade level preceding the summer in question. For example, if you completed a summer course the summer between freshman and sophomore years of high school, you would select 9th. If you completed an internship the summer between sophomore and junior years of high school, you would check off 10th, and so on and so forth.

If you participated during the school year and during school breaks, check off both “During school year” and “During school break.” If you participated in the activity during the school year, during the school breaks, and during the summer, check off “All year.”

It might be easier to estimate the number of hours you devote to scheduled activities like sports than activities you complete at your own leisure. For activities that are less structured, estimate the average time you devote per week. For example, you might spend 20 weeks during the school year attending your robotics club. If you usually spend 2 hours a week with this club, but have 3 weeks during the height of tournament season during which you spend 15 hours with the club, you can list your hours per week as 4 since your weekly average comes out to 3.95 hours.

The easiest way to calculate this is to first look at your school’s calendar and count the number of weeks between the first week of school and the last week of school. Then, you will want to subtract weeks during which the club didn’t meet. This usually includes holiday breaks, study and finals weeks, and sometimes, the first few weeks of the semester when clubs do not yet meet. From there, you can calculate how many weeks you participated in a sport or school-affiliated extracurricular activity.

Alternatively, some activities like sports or school plays are seasonal. If that is the case, refer to your practice or game schedule or estimate based on the semester schedule. Be sure to include weeks for preseason or tryouts and auditions in your final number!

The average school year is 36 weeks, give or take a few weeks depending on your school’s break schedule. Sports seasons can be divided into fall (September-November), Winter (November/December-February), and Spring (March-June). Remember to account for spring/winter breaks as you calculate weeks you participated.

Since your list of activities should relate to the hook you are crafting throughout your application, it probably makes sense that many of the activities you currently participate in will be activities you want to participate in while you’re in college. Unless the activity was high school-specific or if there is a good reason you wouldn’t participate in it later on, we recommend that you mark “yes.”

Here are two examples of what an activity can look like once you have filled out each of the 9 fields!

11, 12 Year 10 hr/wk, 45 wk/yr

Worked in the gallery’s archive and supervised visits

11, 12 Year 10 hr/wk, 45 wk/yr Continue

Selected, cataloged, and digitized materials from 2011 to 2018 to be housed in the contemporary art archive.

Reviewed and edited submissions for my school’s newspaper

10, 11, 12 School 5 hr/wk, 35 wk/yr Continue

Final review of 20 articles published and distributed bi-weekly. Spearheaded creating a digital paper. Increased readership by 20.

The Common Application Honors List is separate from the Activities List—it can be found under the Education Section of the Common Application. The Honors section allows you to show a snapshot of how you excelled on a local, national, or international level. Honors and awards students commonly list include: Dean’s List, Language Honors Society, National Merit, Congressional Award, Valedictorian, etc. Be sure to list the most impressive/selective honors first, followed by less selective ones.

This section allows students to enter a maximum of 5 Honors and Awards and 100 characters to describe the honor. The Honors Section will prompt you to fill out 3 fields.

Honors Title

Write the title of the award and add details when possible!

Grade Level

Check off the grade you were in when you received the award.

Level(s) of Recognition

Select the award’s level of recognition.

In 100 characters or less, you will need to describe the honors you received. With so little space, you will not be able to write in full sentences. Therefore, it will be necessary to abbreviate when possible and include only the most illuminating information. Be sure to include the following information: the name of the award, what the award was for (community service, for example), and if applicable, what place you received (1st, Bronze, etc).

In tenth grade, I received an award from the President’s Foundation for my work volunteering at an animal shelter.

Gold Medal from the President’s Foundation for volunteering 200+ hrs at animal shelters.

Select the grade level in which you won the award. Follow the same guidelines as suggested for the activities list for awards you received during the summer, selecting the year that preceded the summer!

If you are unsure which level of recognition to select, you can often determine information about the scope of the award on the award organization’s affiliate website! The larger and more diverse, the more prestigious the award; international recognition is the most prestigious type of recognition.

Be sure to list your Honors and Awards in descending order of recognition, listing your international awards first, followed by national, state/regional and school.

In our example Honors section, the student has listed five awards in descending order of importance (i.e. listing awards issued by national organizations above her school-level recognitions). As with the Activities List, this student is able to use the content in this section, even within limited space, to successfully convey her academic potential, community contributions, and artistic ability.

Below, you’ll find an Example Common Application Activities List! This fictional student demonstrates a strong hook in environmental science and art. Her hook is conveyed through an impressive mix of in-school extracurriculars, out-of-school activities, summer activities, and hobbies. Not only has she pursued multiple activities in both environmental science and art, but she has also found and studied creative intersections between these fields, through painting murals at local gardens, featuring and selling her nature photography on her personal social media, and studying environmental art at a summer program. By reading her Activities List, admissions officers would be able to envision her continuing to explore these intersections as an undergraduate, as well as contributing to sustainability initiatives and artistic projects and clubs on campus.

Through this highly descriptive and well-crafted Activities List, admissions officers can glean this prospective student’s important priorities and some of her salient characteristics. This student is creatively-minded, self-driven, capable of leading groups and teams, and interested in community-building. It is clear that as a student in NYC, she has taken advantage of the extensive resources at her disposal–universities, museums, nonprofits, and even her own apartment complex–in order to contribute to her community and explore her passions from multiple angles. Lastly, the fact that this student is an accomplished student-athlete speaks to her ability to manage her time effectively and develop an impressive and diverse variety of skills.

Admissions officers always look to see whether a student’s selections for their intended majors align with their hook and Activities List, and in this case, this Activities List would best complement an intended double-major in Environmental Science and Studio Art. Because this student also has an entrepreneurial streak, she could optionally indicate a secondary interest in business if a school offers dual degrees, majors, or minors in business administration for undergraduates. It is helpful to be aware that consistency across every part of the application, from coursework and letters of recommendation to the Activities List, intended majors, and essays, is necessary for building a cohesive narrative.

10, 11, 12 Year 4 hr/wk, 52 wk/yr Continue

Build community with over 1,000 cactus-lovers in NYC. Share info about plant sales, swaps, and propagation. Hosted planting workshops at 8 schools.

10, 11, 12 School 8 hr/wk, 25 wk/yr Continue

Organized inaugural Green Week with themed activities and prizes. Convinced school admin to implement meatless Mondays. Host weekly meetings, trips.

11 Break 35 hr/wk, 8 wk/yr Continue

Collected data on health and resilience of trees in NYC saltwater marshes after flooding events. Recommended species and locations for replanting.

9, 10, 11, 12 School 16 hr/wk, 18 wk/yr Continue

Individually nominated for AVCA All-American Awards and won Average HS’s Spirit Award. Team placed 1st in division and advanced to state semifinals.

9, 10, 11, 12 Year 1 hr/wk, 26 wk/yr Continue

Create public art installations including murals and sculptures in community gardens. Designed rooftop herb garden installation for restaurant.

10 Break 6 hr/wk, 8 wk/yr Continue

Greet and direct visitors at information desk and coat check. Work shifts at gift shop and assist customers with check out and locating merchandise.

9, 10, 11, 12 Year 1 hr/wk, 52 wk/yr Continue

Create art (paintings, portrait photography, nature photography) and exhibit on personal Instagram. Sell prints and stickers with $500+ in profits.

10 Break 35 hr/wk, 3 wk/yr Continue

Studied intersections of art and environmental activism. Created multimedia portfolio of 5 works under guidance of professional artist First Last.

9, 10, 11, 12 Year 4 hr/wk, 45 wk/yr Continue

Run dog-walking service with my siblings for neighbors in apartment complex.

11, 12 Year 1 hr/wk, 36 wk/yr Continue

Elected by peers as 1 of 4 class reps. Create and print posters to promote events, design and order class spiritwear, manage social media.

Although students can often overlook or rush the Activities List, taking time to write an accurate, thoughtful, and well-ordered Activities List is essential for strategically framing your application and communicating your personal story. An outstanding Activities List should invariably help admissions officers grasp who you are, what is important to you, and how you have spent your time learning and serving others in your community during high school. Investing time and effort into this important component of the Common App will truly increase the quality of your college applications, while also being a satisfying exercise in looking back at your accomplishments and growth over the past three years!

Command Education’s experts take the guesswork out of the college admissions process.

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A Quick Guide to Merit Scholarships

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• College>Application Tips

The Common App Activities List: How to Make the Most of 150 Characters

January 27, 2017 :: Admissionado

You should think of the the Common App Activities List as a resume.

Basically, it’s an opportunity to (briefly) highlight what you have participated in outside of the classroom and how you have made an impact through your involvement. But how can you do this effectively in just 150 characters?

Here are some tips from our best MBA admissions consultants to help you pack as much punch as possible into just a couple of lines:

1. Start with an action verb

Just like Like when writing a resume , you can use “incomplete sentences” in your activity list descriptions to maximize the amount of information you’re able to fit. To do this, start each line with an action verb (rather than “I”), using the present tense if it is something that you’re still participating in (e.g., “lead”) and the past tense if you are no longer involved (e.g., “led”).

Examples of great action verbs include: led, managed, coordinated, developed, initiated, (re)designed, achieved, analyzed, authored, trained… You get the idea!

2. Avoid vague or redundant language

One of the most common mistakes that students make when working on their activities lists is that they write descriptions that are entirely too vague or repetitive.

For example, imagine that you want to describe your experience tutoring students at a local elementary school. So you write, “Helped elementary school students.” Okay, great… but you helped them to do what? Learn to play soccer? Study math concepts? Maybe instead you write, “Tutored elementary school students.” While this is a bit clearer, we already gleaned this from what you wrote beneath “Position/Leadership description and organization name”: Tutor, XYZ Elementary School.

Instead, you should write a description that actually helps the admissions committee get an idea for what you did as a tutor. How many students did you teach at a time? Were you teaching first graders or fifth graders? Were you also responsible for developing a lesson plan? Did you do an administrative work to help their primary teacher? By including answers to questions like these in your descriptions, you will give the reader a better sense of the responsibility you had in each role.

Good example: Taught math concepts to 5 fourth grade students individually, organizing weekly lesson plans and developing games to help them learn material.

3. Demonstrate leadership and impact

Wherever possible, it’s a good idea to highlight any actions you took that demonstrate leadership . (Think of things you “led” or “initiated.”) Moreover, it’s important to clearly show not only that you led but also what you accomplished as a leader.

If you “organized a fundraiser,” how much did you raise, and whom did those funds help? If you “founded a new club at school,” how many students joined, and what was your collective impact in the community? Let’s take our previous example about tutoring elementary school students.

Bad: Tutored elementary school students.

Good: Taught math concepts to five fourth grade students individually, organizing weekly lesson plans and developing games to help them learn material.

Great: Taught math concepts to five fourth grade students individually, organizing weekly lesson plans and developed games that helped improve test scores.

Now, we understand not only that you “tutored students,” but also how you went about teaching them and what you were able to accomplish as a tutor. With such detailed descriptions, the admissions committee will get a better sense of what you’re capable of and how you might be able to contribute to their campus community.

>>> Recommended Reading: What You Should Know About The 2016-17 Common App Essay Prompts

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How to Craft a Terrific Common App Activities Section

Including outstanding activities section examples.

The Common App Activities section, along with the Common App essay , letters of recommendation, and supplemental college essays , form a critical part of the “non-quantitative” portion of your application. In the Activities section, you get the chance to describe the breadth of your extracurricular life and meaningful experiences that made you a great applicant for your chosen colleges. Not only do Admissions committees consider this crucial information to help them judge the applicant’s overall suitability for their program, but it also helps you demonstrate the unique skills and knowledge that will help you become an excellent undergraduate student.

In our guide, our college essay advisors take you through the writing strategies and best practices for crafting each Common App Activities entry. We also provide three examples of expertly-crafted activities sections to help you shape your own.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 16 min read

Common app activities: overview.

If you’re a high school student applying to schools that use the Common App , you’ve definitely got questions about how to craft a killer Common App Activities section. This feature isn’t unique to undergrad school applications. Most professional and graduate school applications also ask for similar details, and in that sense, this section has a lot in common with its medical school-specific cousins like the AMCAS Work and Activities section and TMDSAS Employment and Activities section.

While not especially complicated, it’s crucial to understand the structure and specific requirements of the Common App’s Activities section. Even at this early point in your academic career, you’ve amassed a trove of quantitative and qualitative data that can impress the admissions committee. That is, you have years of grades, test scores, and other “measured” achievements, alongside more nuanced and subjective activities like extracurriculars, hobbies, and ungraded academic pursuits. The Activities section of the Common App is your chance to list and describe the important details pertaining to your life outside of academia.

Why are qualitative details so important? Well, because we’re human beings. Purely numerical metrics like grades and test scores would be enough for admissions committees if we were some sort of computer species with identical personalities, drives, and pathologies; but fortunately for us, we’re complex and diverse individuals. Application components like the Common App Activities section permit you to describe the important non-academic factors that have shaped you, and to showcase your unique strengths to the key decision-makers.

In Common App, each entry in the Activities section is structured in the following way:

Add a brief description of key actions and accomplishments, plus total hours or hours per week\/weeks per year (when applicable) ","label":"\u2022\tDescription of Activity (150 characters)","title":"Description of Activity (150 characters)"}]" code="tab1" template="BlogArticle">

Now let’s see, in greater detail, how to complete these fields.

How to Fill Out Your Common App Activities Section

Activity type.

Select the category that best matches the specific activity. The Common App Activities section category options are:

A key tip for selecting categories is ensuring you have a good variety throughout your list, and that they match the activities in question as closely as possible. For instance, an entry for a school robotics club could certainly be categorized as “Academic,” but “Robotics” is much more specific and attention-grabbing. Similarly, a student who has participated in historical research with a religious organization could potentially select either “Religious” or “Research”—the right choice is ultimately whichever category hasn’t been used for another entry, in order to maximize diversity.

You can add any “non-academic” activities in the Common App Activities section, i.e., anything that isn’t explicitly a part of your schoolwork and didn’t involve an instructor’s grade. This can include sports, clubs, hobbies, jobs, and any other applicable activities.

You can list up to 10 activities. This may sound like a lot – especially if you’ve prioritized academics throughout high school – but remember that you don’t have to add 10. You can focus on your high quality experiences, even if you have only 7 or 8. There’s also a lot of flexibility about what you can include. At the same time, we recommend telling a cohesive story with all of your application components, including the Activities section. Your entire application should demonstrate that you are the perfect fit for the colleges you’re applying to. To meet these requirements, you will have to spend a significant amount of time choosing the right activities and describing them accurately.

Limited to 50 characters, this field is straightforward but can be somewhat tricky if your activity didn’t afford you a specific description. For instance, if you volunteered for a community cleanup project then you might select the “Community Service/Volunteer” category in the Activity Type field, but this would necessitate repeating the word “volunteer” in the Position description field. Redundancy, as in most situations, is generally frowned upon in the Common App Activities section. Instead, consider “Environmental” for your category, and add “Cleanup Volunteer” as your position. Again, there’s an aspect of fine-tuning each of these fields, so be patient and don’t shy away from experimenting with different combinations of descriptors to ensure things read clearly and don’t repeat.

It's common, if you have enough space, to make some notation of activity duration in this field. If your position was simply “Intern,” you’ll have more than enough room for “Nov 20** – Dec 20**.” If you’re tight on space, your grade number can suffice as well, “11th-12th” and so on. Dates or duration won’t be vital for every entry, but in general, it’s a good idea to include them.

Organization Name

Limited to 100 characters, this is the simplest category by far. Although some activities won’t have a corresponding organization to name, most will. In general, it’s better to include activities associated with a specific organization rather than wholly self-directed experiences. Nonetheless, if you do have an important and meaningful self-directed activity to include in this section, you can simply leave this field blank or say “Not applicable” rather than “None.” For example, if you furthered your interest in mechanics by building a working model of a TV by yourself, without any guidance or supervision, this could be an impressive “self-directed” activity and when you add it, you can add “Not applicable” in the Organization Name field.

Description of Activity

This is the real meat of the Activities section and will be the most challenging, even for experienced writers. Limited to a mere 150 characters, you’ll use this space to describe the entry’s activity in some detail. This is an extremely small amount of space in which to explain important and pivotal events, so let’s turn our attention to the finer points of how to make your activity descriptions pack a punch.

Check out this infographic:

Although there are important aspects of the first three fields to consider, the most important, by far, is the activity description. Let’s discuss how to make those 150 characters sing with significance.

1. Be Concise

This may seem counter-intuitive initially, especially if you’re just fresh off writing your elegantly crafted college essay . However, the strict limitation on character counts in the Common App Activities section means that you cannot afford to abide by the normal rules of grammar and syntax. For instance, consider these two descriptions of working as a reporter on a school newspaper:

Throughout my time as a reporter for the X High School Ledger, I worked on stories that covered school charity work, musical performances, and more.

What’s essential in this description? The types of stories written, of course. Which is why “and more” is such an unfortunate ending. Admissions committees want to see what you’ve been up to, not just an implication. Contrast that with the following:

Covered school-sponsored charity drives, musical performances by band/theater classes, school clubs, and city events. I also edited peer articles.

The second description is action-packed and full of details that show the reader that the student also worked as an editor for the paper, not just a reporter.

The principle here carries for any and every entry in your Activities section—the goal is to clearly deliver as much relevant detail as possible while minimizing bland “connective tissue,” so to speak. For example, if you’re talking about your Debate Society experience, you simply do not have the space to include the details of all your most persuasive speech topics , no matter how passionate about them you are or how well they were received. Instead, you can mention how many debates you’ve participated in, any awards you’ve won, and other such quantitative details. Always choose the points that are most impactful and focus on having them read as clearly as possible without sacrificing coherence.

2. Focus on Quality by Including Quantity

It’s essential to balance both quality and quantity in your Activities section. What does this mean? Your activities themselves should be high “quality”, based on the principles for selecting activities we will describe later in this blog. And what’s even more crucial is adding a quantitative description to make these high quality entries as impactful as possible. For instance, consider these descriptions for an entry on student government:

Oversaw multiple projects to improve our school’s auditorium, as well as annual clothing drives which supported local orphanages.

How many is “multiple?” How many annual clothing drives exactly? Using numbers and other concrete quantitative notations can define the otherwise indeterminate frequency and volume of a given activity. So:

Oversaw 7 cleanup and improvement projects for our school auditorium, as well as 3 annual clothing drives to support 2 local orphanages.

Concrete, clear, and a fair bit more impactful than “multiple.”

Another tip? When describing current activities, make sure you use the present tense. For example, if you currently volunteer at a retirement home, you can add this description:

Drive patients to their medical appointments, organize monthly raffles, and assist with an ongoing digitization project, as well as janitorial tasks.

3. Avoid Redundancy

This is a simple general guideline that’s mercifully easy to implement. Simply put, if a word or piece of information is in one field of your activity entry, it probably doesn’t need to be in another. Moreover, it will likely come off as sloppy or poorly edited if there is repetition from field to field. We mentioned this in relation to the Position/Leadership description field, but it’s even more important in the activity description field.

To illustrate this, let’s go back to our entry on working for the school newspaper:

Assuming we have added “Reporter” in the Position/Leadership description field, we have no need to repeat it in the description. We can instead simply say that we “covered” specific events. Likewise, if you’re describing a part-time job, you should never include the space-wasting phrase “Worked as a ____” in your description. They already know your position and organization, so keep those 150 characters free for the important duties and accomplishments you amassed in that role.

4. Think Cohesively

It’s vital to approach your activities section as a whole, at least at the planning and organization level. By this we mean curating your activities in a way that shows development of who you are. There should also be some kind of overarching thematic connect that speaks to your passions, ambitions, and key strengths.

The ranking of activities is just as crucial as the activities you select. If your activities are all over the place thematically and in the wrong order, admissions committees will have a much harder time distinguishing you from the crowd.

Most students find that the chronological strategy works best to organize this section. Ideally, your activities have evolved and become more sophisticated or advanced over time. For instance, starting out with a beginner’s martial arts class early on, and placing in a tournament later on, and so on.

If you were student council president your senior year, for instance, you’ll want to anchor that toward the end of your activities. Similarly, for a part-time job you maintained throughout all of high school, place it at the top of your list and work toward the present as you move on. The Activities section doesn’t include a designated space for dates, but this is exactly why ordering your activities can be helpful in providing a sense of narrative and development.

However, there’s a big caveat to this: always start with the most notable activity/activities first, and then move into chronological order. Many students miss this critical instruction provided at the top of the Activities section:

“Please list your activities in the order of their importance to you.”

The logic for this is obvious: grab their attention and then finish painting your picture. Additionally, this will establish a lofty accomplishment at the outset and then provide a clear sense of the steps taken to arrive there. If your biggest achievement is a youth internship with Facebook, start there and then lay out the steps you undertook to become skilled in computer science or programming.

Let’s take the example of one of our students, Ashley, to understand how to select and rank activities.

Ashley has a passion for chess, and was President of her high school’s chess club. She also won first place in the Ohio under-18 state-level chess tournament. Additionally, she has YouTube channel about chess strategies that has over a 1000 followers. Her other key interest is in music, and she plays the harp in her high school orchestra. She also tutored students in harp-playing. She worked as a sales associate at her local indie music store and was promoted to assistant manager in her junior year. In addition to this, she’s a member of other school clubs like Nature Club, Foreign Film Club, Music Club, and so on. So, which of her activities should she pick? How should she rank them? Let’s take a look at a correct and incorrect example of the list of activities Ashley can include:

Incorrect example:

• President of High School Chess Club
• Lead Harpist in High School Orchestra
• Member of Nature Club
• Member of Foreign Film Club
• Member of High School Music Club
• Learnt Basic Mandarin in Mandarin Club7
• YouTube Channel “No Mess in Chess” with 1000+ followers

Correct example:

• 1st Place in Ohio Under-18 Chess Tournament
• Tutor at Whistles Musical Academy
• Assistant Manager at Mystery Tunes
• Sales Associate at Mystery Tunes

Can you see why the second example is a more successful example of a Common App Activities section?

The former example does not focus on her most impressive activities and simply reads like a list of clubs she participated in, or like a high school resume . She doesn’t even mention her winning first place in the state level chess competition and omits her work experiences altogether. On the surface, it seems she has ranked the activities in order of importance. But there isn’t any logic to the flow from one activity to the next. This list is not likely to stand out to the admissions committee or properly communicate Ashley’s strengths.

Need to write a high school resume as well? Check out this video for helpful tips!

The second list is well-organized, cohesive, and narratively powerful. She has included a sufficient “range” of activities to indicate her strengths, but at the same time, she’s focused on the related activities that build a clear narrative of pursuing her passions of chess and music. And while she could have listed 10 activities, and certainly had the extracurriculars to do so, she chose to focus on her 8 strongest, most thematically coherent entries, and left out the largely inconsequential activities like miscellaneous club participation. She also cleverly grouped her activities by theme while also clearly indicating her most impressive achievements right off the bat.

Now, let’s look at some more examples to understand how all these strategies should come together to create an effective and impressive Common App Activities section.

Student 1: Jessica Chen

Lead Violinist (11th-12th)

Williams High School Orchestra

Led violins in 4 concerts throughout the school year, helped direct orchestra functions, Tulsa Young Musicians Recognition (20**). 

Choir Violinist (9th-10th)

Back-up violins in rehearsals and 2 concerts throughout school year, organized multi-school orchestra mixer events, coordinator for 3 fundraisers. 

Talk Show Host (11th-Present)

“Zings with Zyna”, Local Access Television Cable Program

Scripted, hosted, edited, and directed local-politics themed talk show. Interviewed local politicians like the mayor and city council members. 

Staff Member/Performer (11th-12th)

Six Pennies Tulsa, Community Youth Theatre

Performed in 5 benefit concerts in last 2 years, organized fundraisers for Goodwill, managed and organized 6 community outreach events. 

Arts Mentor (10th-present)

Little Wonders Club, Summer Hobby Mentorship Program for Underprivileged Kids

Mentor kids in K-5 grades. Help organize annual plays, conduct choir, and provide musical and dance training (30 hrs a wk, 12 wks/yr). 

Intern (Summer 20**)

Krackles Indie Music

Wrote weekly blog posts about latest record releases, assisted with social media marketing campaigns, coordinated merchandising with advertisers (200 hours). 

Head Coach (11th-12th)

Little League Girls’ Baseball, amateur baseball league for grade 5-8 girls

Selected line-up, organized practice sessions, modeled drills and proper running techniques, coached team, coordinated practice session timings. 

Second Base (10th-12th)

Williams High School Girl’s Baseball Team

Played second base for 3 years (500+hrs). Team won district championship 2 years in a row (11th-12th). Most Improved Player (10th). 

Volunteer (Summer 20**)

Tulsa Helpers, Disaster Relief Organization

Mobilized community donations to help wildfire victims. Stitched over 30 new clothes for affected homeless. Event coordinator for 3 fundraisers.  

Student 2: Mira Reddy 

Software Development Intern (11th-12th)

Selected twice to serve as an intern dev, participating in 3-4 projects each summer focusing on research and machine learning (500+hrs). 

Founder and President (10th-12th)

Milton High School Computer Science Club

Designed and organized projects including school hardware repair, PC building workshops, and monthly Saturday speedrun contests. 

Student Teacher (Summer 20**)

STEM Minds Day Camp

Led online engineering activities for 4th and 5th grade students, designed projects, and held Q&A sessions on engineering education. 

Volunteer Medical Intern (Summer 20**)

Projects Abroad (Ghana)

Participated in community outreach focusing on nutrition and cardiac health and door-to-door canvassing for blood donation (120 hours). 

Volunteer (11th-12th)

UBC Geering Up Engineering Outreach

Co-led weekend workshops and classes for K-8 students focusing on coding and computer science (400 hours). 

Part-Time Repair Tech (11th-12th)

Motherboard Computers

Laptop and desktop computer repair for both Windows and MacOS machines, sales, and customer education. 

Reviewer (10th-12th)

On Cinema Blog

Wrote 800-1200 word analyses of current films bi-weekly, focusing mostly on fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. 

Winner (11th)

American Computer Science League All-Star Contest

School team won the ACSL’s Senior Division prize in Bit-String Flicking, and placed 3rd in the Karnaugh Maps invitational. 

Volunteer Tech (12th)

Kelowna Senior Center

Run monthly diagnostic checks, upgraded machines from Windows 8 to 10, and installed proprietary anti-virus on all systems. 

Student 3: Ben Morris 

Founder and President (11th-12th)

Biology Honors Society, George Henley High School

Organized meetings, prepared the agenda, coordinated 6 field trips to clinical settings, wrote and maintained weekly blog. 

Tutor (10th-12th)

Math Honors Society, George Henley High School

Taught trigonometry and precalculus strategies, aided school SAT prep in Math, and provided faculty with input on potential curriculum. 

Percussionist (10-12th)

George Henley High School Marching & Jazz Bands

Played various percussion instruments including snare drum, marimba, and drum set, performing 4-6 concerts per school year. 

Vice President (11th)

George Henley High School Student Council

Co-planned 5 dances, 2 school-wide community service projects, and 8 monthly charity pancake breakfasts to benefit St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. 

Butcher and Salumiere (10th-12th)

The Whole Beast Artisan Salumeria

Crafted small-batch cured and smoked meat products including uncommon items like lonzino, N’duja, and coppa di testa, (15 hrs/wk for 2 yrs). 

Host (11th-12th)

“What’s Your Beef?” Podcast

Self-made project. I interviewed my coworkers at the Whole Beast and grew to include local chefs and food makers. Produced 36 episodes in 2 yrs. 

Academic Mentor (11th-12th)

Salt Lake Community Center

Assisted K-6 students with homework and ran reading groups focusing on young adult fiction and young-reader chapter books. 

Salt Lake Public Works (Summer 20**)

Participated in repainting and rust removal projects, including bridge repair and public library beautification (200 hours). 

Intern (11th-12th)

Lay Zen Teachers Association

Drafted internal communications materials and assisted with event planning for meditation retreats in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona (12 hrs/wk, 4 wks/yr). 

Student (Summer 20**)

Utah State University Youth Engineering Intensive, Summer Program for High School Students

Participated in 200+ hours of workshops and discussions groups focused on tech and physics. Delivered 4 group projects and wrote 1 research paper. 

Looking for the top high school summer programs? Check out these lists:

Common App instructs applicants to list their activities in order of importance. Keeping this in mind, we advise you to lead with your most impressive activity. Remember, admissions committees will pay the most attention to your first few entries, so make sure they are all memorable. At the same time, if possible, try and organize your activities chronologically and group similar activities together to create a more logical flow and to show how you built your skills over time.

You can indicate the specific time period in brackets in the Position/Leadership Description field, for example: Volunteer (11th-12th) or Intern (Summer 20**).  You can also indicate the specific number of hours in the activity description field in this format: 12 hrs/wk, 4 wks/yr. Alternatively, you can simply include the total number of hours. Note that it isn’t necessary to include hours spent on each activity, but you can add it to demonstrate effort where applicable.

In that case, select the “Other Club/Activity” option and make sure to accurately describe your activity in the other fields. Tip: You can use the Organization Name field, which has an allowance of 100 characters (relatively more than might be needed for this field) to flesh out the details of your activity type, for example: Min Yeng Shao, Club to Promote and Practice Chinese Mandarin Culture.

You can add up to 10 activities, but you don’t have to add that many. The key is quality over quantity, so if you only have 7-8 significant entries, you can opt to focus on writing fantastic descriptions for those rather than including any more insignificant activities. However, try to add at least 6 activities.

Definitely! College admissions boards today prioritize diversity and inclusion in their admissions process, and part of that is acknowledging that students from diverse backgrounds often have non-traditional extracurriculars that are just as significant. For example, if, due to your socio-economic background or specific circumstances, you had to spend a lot of time helping out at home, and you couldn’t get time for too many traditional extracurriculars, then focus on what you learnt through that experience. You can be strategic while picking which aspects to focus on, so as to highlight your strengths and skills. For example, don’t just include routine chores or tasks that everyone might perform. Focus on activities that gained you specialized experience; maybe spending every afternoon babysitting your younger siblings taught you about leadership, childcare, and nursing. If you looked after your elderly relatives, you could talk about building important cultural ties and learning communication skills.

The Education section of Common App has a separate field for you to list 5 of your top honors and awards. You can include extracurricular awards here as well, but we recommend focusing on academic honors in the Education section and adding significant extracurricular achievements, such as team victories, to the Activities section.

First of all, you don’t need to write complete sentences in your activity description. Use short, crisp phrases to communicate only the most important events and achievements. You can even use abbreviations, in a limited (and logical) capacity, to save space.

If there are specific activities you feel hold a special significance in your life, and that these must be communicated to the admissions committee, then there are other avenues open to you. If appropriate, you can work this theme into your Common App essay or one or more of your supplemental essays. There’s also an Additional Information section in Common App that allows you to add an (optional) explanation of extenuating or special circumstances. Just remember that admissions committees might be put off by unnecessary or repetitive sections of your app. If you can cover the significance of a given activity in lesser space, then always go for that option.

To narrow down your list of extracurriculars, focus on three aspects. First, does it speak to your strengths, unique achievements, and talents? Second, consider how it shows you to be suitable candidate for the colleges you’re applying to. For example, if you’re applying mostly to engineering and science-oriented programs, then selecting your science, mechanics, and technology related activities makes sense. Similarly, if you’re targeting the best undergrad business schools , then adding work experience, internships, self-started projects, and entrepreneur experiences will be a priority. And finally, consider the overall coherence and flow of your activities section. What is the overarching theme of your application? Are your activities backing that theme up? These are some critical questions you should be asking yourself.

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Tips for getting started on your Common App essay

Gearing up to begin your common app essay here are some tips for getting started., 1. read prompts from previous years.

Here is a link to the '23-'24 Common App college essay prompts. These are very similar to the prompts from the last few years.

Notice that these questions prioritize reflection. In fact, the Common App essay is an exercise in talking about your character, rather than your accomplishments.

Think about the qualities of your character that stand out—what do you love about yourself? Think about adjectives: loyal, fair, kind, determined, etc. Make a list! 

As you consider everything else about your future application, think about what qualities of your character will come through from other aspects. What might your teacher recommendations share? What about your activities list? (For example: if you are proud of your ability to respond with fairness, I might learn this by seeing your participation in your school’s Honor Council).

Now, what is left? You want to make sure your essay highlights these features!

2. Start brainstorming

Here are some of my favorite exercises for brainstorming your college essay:

The College Essay Guy "Essence Objects" Exercise

The College Essay Guy "Values" Exercise

The College Essay Guy "Everything I want colleges to know about me" exercise

Take the 16 Personalities Test (based on the Myers-Briggs Indicator) and use the results to develop your list of character traits or to inspire you toward a particular question.

3. As you get to writing, consider the two main types of essays

There are really two types of Common App essays: montage and narrative.

In montage essays , the writer focuses on one big idea about who they are and what defines their character. From there, they tell stories.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when writing montage essays:

Are you a great teammate/intellectually curious human/big idea generator? 

Have you learned to be more comfortable with failure/more flexible with your thinking/more comfortable being independent in the world? 

Are you taking some “life lessons” from an impactful summer job/extracurricular activity into different aspects of your life?

In  narrative essays , the writer pens a story with an arc, lessons, learnings, and effects.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when writing a narrative essay:

What is the story you have to share? 

What will I learn about you because you tell this story? 

What did you learn because this happened? How have you changed as a person?

4. Keep this draft open

Revisit your draft often. Share it with one or two people who have offered their support. Remember, only give these people “comment” privileges (not “edit”). It is so important that your essay is your own voice.

Elise holds a BA in Political Philosophy from Williams College and an MEd in Administration & Social Policy from Harvard. She has spent the past twenty years working in top-tier independent schools.

Related Content

How to Complete the Common App Activities Section

October 3, 2022

For all of the first-class treatment applicants give to their Common App essay, the Common App Activities Section is all too often relegated to steerage. If antiquated steamship analogies do little for you, a more apropos comparison might present the essay as the mean, attention-hogging prom queen in a teen movie, and the activities list as the nice, quiet girl, who also looks like a model, but no one notices because she has glasses and wears her hair up.

You get the point—a poorly crafted activities list is one of the most common issues we encounter when working with students, even those with Ivy-caliber credentials and otherwise flawless applications. Yet, as already alluded to, this list rarely receives appropriate attention from applicants, perhaps because it, rather deceptively, appears to be a fairly rote exercise; more of a chore of filling in boxes than an opportunity to tell a unique and compelling story.

In the following article, we provide answers to the many common questions associated with the process including:

• What activities should I include on my Common App activities section?
• Which activities should go at the top of the Common App activities section?
• How do I write a description of an activity?
• What should I do if I run out of space describing an activity?
• Does a Common App activities list have to be well-written?

Our five rules articulated below will get you ready to tackle this often underestimated component of the college application process.

Common App Activities Section Rule #1: Ask—why are you including this activity?

Perhaps humans simply possess an unstoppable psychological drive to fill any blank space they see with something, anything. It would certainly explain much of the modern experience: 24-hour news, suburban sprawl, or that one drawer in your kitchen that is overflowing with useless items you can’t bring yourself to throw away (C’mon, you know that Krazy Glue dried out six years ago and what are those watch batteries even for? No one in your house has owned a watch since 2004).

A similar compulsion rears its head when students see an activities list with ten blank templates. Your first thought is, “Okay, I’m going to fill these ten spots even if I have to include the ten seconds last week when I picked up a stray Sierra Mist can off of the sidewalk and tossed it in the recycling bin. That can count as volunteer work, right?”

When it comes to your activities section, we recommend being judicious with what you include. Having fewer than ten activities is not going to hurt your chances at admission—seriously, we promise. As you start to brainstorm which activities to include on your list, begin by asking:

How do I spend my time currently?

How have i spent my time throughout high school (both in and outside of school), what have i done in the past or currently that communicates something about who i am, what i’m proud of, and what i’ve accomplished.

The activities that come to mind could include clubs, volunteer work, paid employment, athletics, or musical/artistic/theatrical pursuits. The best activities to include are ones that you’ve engaged with on a regular basis over an extended period of time. For example, volunteering at a soup kitchen for a summer or on a weekly basis through your place of worship should definitely be included; volunteering once for 45 minutes might not make the cut.

  Rule #2: Understand the order of operations 

In math, we remember the order of operations through the presumably embarrassing behavior of our Dear Aunt Sally (please excuse her). To date, no helpful mnemonic exists for the order in which you should list activities on your Common App, yet it is extremely important to master the rules of this game. One frequent move is listing your activities in pure chronological order (or straight reverse chronological order) which is highly problematic. If you were asked to succinctly tell someone a captivating version of your life you wouldn’t lead off with:

Baby/Toddler, 2002-2005 Passed meconium, cried, cried some more, mastered object-permanence, etc .

Putting your most important activities first is the way to go. This may flow in something close to a reverse chronological order since the activities that most demonstrate your passion, leadership, and abilities are likely ones that you stuck with over the years. While there may be no hard and fast set of rules telling you to address parenthesis before exponents, there is a correct thought-process to adopt while ordering your activities.

Sample thought process…

Meet Mark. He was the vice-president of his class as a freshman but became disillusioned with the seedy world of high school politics and never participated in student government again. Since his foray into public service ended at age 14, even though his title of VP was impressive, this would make a poor choice to sit atop his list, Mark next turned his attention to the mock trial and tennis teams, both of which he continued through his senior year. In fact, as a junior, his team qualified for the National High School Mock Trail Championship. Further, he plans to continue debate into college. As a senior, Mark is on the varsity tennis team—he’s not talented enough to be NCAA material but is interested in joining a club team.

As we help Mark decide how to order these three activities, let’s review some important considerations. We are looking to give preference for activities that…

• You plan to continue in college.
• Demonstrate commitment and dedication.
• You have participated in state or national-level competitions (winning something is always a huge bonus).
• Show off your leadership skills.
• Are recent.

With these rules in mind, we can determine that Mark should put Mock Trial first—it’s something he plans to continue in college, has participated in a national competition, has been involved with for three years and is still, presently doing. Tennis should come second, since he has shown dedication to the sport and may play at a club or intramural level at college. While vice president of his class was the most impressive title he ever held, it was only for one year in 9th grade, making it the clear third place entry in this activities list.

Rule #3: Use your limited space wisely

A famous, albeit likely apocryphal stor y, goes like this: Ernest Hemingway is having lunch with his buddies and bets them that he can craft a complete story in six words. He wins by scribbling six words on a napkin: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Putting aside the earth-shatteringly depressing nature of the story, it is a great example of the power of words in a limited space. Plenty of 100,000 word novels have failed to communicate as much as those six words. Hold yourself to a high standard in this regard and tighten up your sentences. Maximize the impact of what you say through the use of active verbs. Lop off extraneous words and get right to the point. Include pertinent details that make your description less generic and better highlight your achievements.

Bad Example: Money was raised by my organization when we put on a 24-hour relay leading to many donations to a charity which works to cure pediatric cancer.

Improved Example: Organized 24-hour relay, attended by 300+ community members, raised over $6,000 for pediatric cancer research.

Rule #4: Use the fields strategically  

You only have a precious 150 characters with which to demonstrate your duties and achievements with each activity. Many students make the mistake of restating (or stating for the first time), their role, the name of the organization, or the years in which they participated in the description box. The smarter move is to instead state all of this information in the 50 character “Activity Name” section. This can also be accomplished through the checkboxes provided in which to indicate your years of participation.

Avoiding redundancy will save you space and allow you to properly flesh out your description of what you actually did that is impressive. Here’s an example of a right and wrong way to execute this strategy:

Activity Name: Editor, The Muse Literary Magazine

Grades: 10-12

Wasteful Activity Description: Edited poems and works of fiction for The Muse , our high school’s literary magazine, from sophomore year to present.

As you can see, most of the 150 character space to show-off achievements was wasted with information that was already stated elsewhere.

• We already know that you were the editor from your title.
• We already know that you edited The Muse and this is your school’s lit mag.
• You already checked off that you participated in the activity from 10 th -12 th

Better Activity Description: Managed staff of seven students in creating monthly periodical; earned First Class Distinction from National Council for Teachers of English in 2018.

Common App Activities Section Rule #5: Don’t ignore the rules of writing

For whatever reason, even the sharpest applicants tend to eschew the conventions of good writing. Perhaps it is the similar character count to Twitter that seems to invite a “covfefe”-like outpouring of poor grammar, awkward syntax, and a display of weak vocabulary. Here are some key things to remember, based on errors we frequently see students make.

• Use present tense if you are currently engaged in an activity.
• Don’t get repetitive. There is no shame in Googling synonyms if you have to.
• Use your normal, intelligent-person vocabulary even if your description is in list form.
• Proofread your list carefully. It may require multiple reads to catch all of your typos in this unusual format.

College Transitions’ Final Thoughts

• Select the school-based and outside activities that say the most about who you are and how you spend your time.
• Place your activities in an order that highlights your commitment, dedication, talent, and accomplishments. Activities that you are presently engaged with and/or are planning on continuing in college should take precedence.
• Communicate as much as you can in limited space. Avoid clunky, space-eating phrases, use active verbs, and replace generic statements with specific details.
• Take full advantage of the “Activity Name” field to better utilize your space in the “Activity Description.”
• Craft and proofread this section with every bit as much care as your essay.

Follow these simple rules and, in the end, your activities list will take off its glasses, let down its hair and become the envy of the whole prom. Oh yeah, and admissions officers will like it too.

If you are looking for tips on completing the Honors Section, visit our blog: How to Complete the Honors Section of the Common App.

• Application Strategies
• College Essay

Andrew Belasco

A licensed counselor and published researcher, Andrew's experience in the field of college admissions and transition spans two decades. He has previously served as a high school counselor, consultant and author for Kaplan Test Prep, and advisor to U.S. Congress, reporting on issues related to college admissions and financial aid.

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21 Stellar Common App Essay Examples to Inspire Your College Essay

What’s covered:, what makes a good common app essay, is your common app essay strong enough.

When you begin writing your Common App essay, having an example to look at can help you understand how to effectively write your college essay so that it stands apart from others. 

These Common App essay examples demonstrate a strong writing ability and answer the prompt in a way that shows admissions officers something unique about the student. Once you’ve read some examples and are ready to get started, read our step-by-step guide for how to write a strong Common App essay.  

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our Common App essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.

It’s Personal

The point of the Common App essay is to humanize yourself to a college admissions committee. The ultimate goal is to get them to choose you over someone else! You will have a better chance of achieving this goal if the admissions committee feels personally connected to you or invested in your story. When writing your Common App essay, you should explore your feelings, worldview, values, desires, and anything else that makes you uniquely you.

It’s Not Cliché

It is pretty easy to resort to clichés in college essays. This should be actively avoided! CollegeVine has identified the immigrant’s journey, sports injuries, and overcoming a challenging course as cliché topics . If you write about one of these topics, you have to work harder to stand out, so working with a more nuanced topic is often safer and easier.

It’s Well-Done

Colleges want good writers. They want students who can articulate their thoughts clearly and concisely (and creatively!). You should be writing and rewriting your essays, perfecting them as you go. Of course, make sure that your grammar and spelling are impeccable, but also put in time crafting your tone and finding your voice. This will also make your essay more personal and will make your reader feel more connected to you!

It’s Cohesive

Compelling Common App essays tell a cohesive story. Cohesion is primarily achieved through effective introductions and conclusions , which often contribute to the establishment of a clear theme or topic. Make sure that it is clear what you are getting at, but also don’t explicitly state what you are getting at—a successful essay speaks for itself.

Common App Essay Examples

Here are the current Common App prompts. Click the links to jump to the examples for a specific prompt, or keep reading to review the examples for all the prompts.

Prompt #1 :  Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Prompt #2 :  The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Prompt #3 :  Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Prompt #4 : Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? (NOTE: We only have an example for the old prompt #4 about solving a problem, not this current one)

Prompt #5 :  Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Prompt #6 :  Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Prompt #7 :  Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of the author and subjects.

Prompt #1: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Prompt #1, example #1.

The room was silent except for the thoughts racing through my head. I led a spade from my hand and my opponent paused for a second, then played a heart. The numbers ran through my mind as I tried to consider every combination, calculating my next move. Finally, I played the ace of spades from the dummy and the rest of my clubs, securing the contract and 620 points when my partner ruffed at trick five. Next board.

It was the final of the 2015 United States Bridge Federation Under-26 Women’s Championship. The winning team would be selected to represent the United States in the world championship and my team was still in the running.

Contract bridge is a strategic and stochastic card game. Players from around the world gather at local clubs, regional events, and, in this case, national tournaments.

Going into the tournament, my team was excited; all the hours we had put into the game, from the lengthy midnight Skype sessions spent discussing boards to the coffee shop meetings spent memorizing conventions together, were about to pay off.

Halfway through, our spirits were still high, as we were only down by fourteen international match points which, out of the final total of about four hundred points, was virtually nothing and it was very feasible to catch up. Our excitement was short-lived, however, as sixty boards later, we found that we had lost the match and would not be chosen as the national team.

Initially, we were devastated. We had come so close and it seemed as if all the hours we had devoted to training had been utterly wasted. Yet as our team spent some time together reflecting upon the results, we gradually realized that the true value that we had gained wasn’t only the prospect of winning the national title, but also the time we had spent together exploring our shared passion. I chatted with the winning team and even befriended a few of them who offered us encouragement and advice.

Throughout my bridge career, although I’ve gained a respectable amount of masterpoints and awards, I’ve realized that the real reward comes from the extraordinary people I have met. I don’t need to travel cross-country to learn; every time I sit down at a table whether it be during a simple club game, a regional tournament or a national event, I find I’m always learning. 

I nod at the pair that’s always yelling at each other. They teach me the importance of sportsmanship and forgiveness.

I greet the legally blind man who can defeat most of the seeing players. He reminds me not to make excuses.

I chat with the friendly, elderly couple who, at ages ninety and ninety-two, have just gotten married two weeks ago. They teach me that it’s never too late to start anything.

I talk to the boy who’s attending Harvard and the girl who forewent college to start her own company. They show me that there is more than one path to success.

I congratulate the little kid running to his dad, excited to have won his very first masterpoints. He reminds me of the thrill of every first time and to never stop trying new things.

Just as much as I have benefitted from these life lessons, I aspire to give back to my bridge community as much as it has given me. I aspire to teach people how to play this complicated yet equally as exciting game. I aspire to never stop improving myself, both at and away from the bridge table.

Bridge has given me my roots and dared me to dream. What started as merely a hobby has become a community, a passion, a part of my identity. I aspire to live selflessly and help others reach their goals. I seek to take risks, embrace all results, even failure, and live unfettered from my own doubt.

This student draws readers in with a strong introduction. The essay starts ambiguous—“I led with a spade”—then intrigues readers by gradually revealing more information and details. This makes the reader want to keep reading (which is super important!) As the writer continues, there is a rather abrupt tone shift from suspenseful to explanatory with statements like “It was the final of the 2015 United States Bridge Federation Under-26 Women’s Championship” and “Contract bridge is a strategic and stochastic card game.” If you plan to start with an imagery-heavy, emotional, suspenseful, or dramatic introduction, you will need to transition to the content of your essay in a way that does not feel abrupt. 

You will often hear that essays need to “show, not tell.” This essay actually does both. First, the student tells readers the importance of bridge, saying “we gradually realized that the true value that we had gained wasn’t only the prospect of winning the national title, but also the time we had spent together exploring our shared passion” and “I’ve realized that the real reward comes from the extraordinary people I have met.” Then, the student shows the lessons they have learned from bridge through a series of parallel sentences: “I nod… sportsmanship and forgiveness” “I greet… not to make excuses” “I chat… it’s never too late to start anything” and so on. This latter strategy is much more effective than the former and is watered down because the student has already told us what we are supposed to get out of these sentences. Remember that your readers are intelligent and can draw their own conclusions. Avoid summarizing the moral of your story for them!

Overall, this essay is interesting and answers the prompt. We learn the importance of bridge to this student. The student has a solid grasp of language, a high-level vocabulary, and a valuable message, though they would be better off if they avoided summarizing their point and created more seamless transitions. 

Prompt #1, Example #2

Growing up, I always wanted to eat, play, visit, watch, and be it all: sloppy joes and spaetzle, Beanie Babies and Steiff, Cape Cod and the Baltic Sea, football and fussball, American and German.

My American parents relocated our young family to Berlin when I was three years old. My exposure to America was limited to holidays spent stateside and awfully dubbed Disney Channel broadcasts. As the few memories I had of living in the US faded, my affinity for Germany grew. I began to identify as “Germerican,” an ideal marriage of the two cultures. As a child, I viewed my biculturalism as a blessing. I possessed a native fluency in “Denglisch” and my family’s Halloween parties were legendary at a time when the holiday was just starting to gain popularity outside of the American Sector.

Insidiously, the magic I once felt in loving two homes was replaced by a deep-­rooted sense of rootlessness. I stopped feeling American when, while discussing World War II with my grandmother, I said “the US won.” She corrected me, insisting I use “we” when referring to the US’s actions. Before then, I hadn’t realized how directly people associated themselves with their countries. I stopped feeling German during the World Cup when my friends labeled me a “bandwagon fan” for rooting for Germany. Until that moment, my cheers had felt sincere. I wasn’t part of the “we” who won World Wars or World Cups. Caught in a twilight of foreign and familiar, I felt emotionally and psychologically disconnected from the two cultures most familiar to me.

After moving from Berlin to New York at age fifteen, my feelings of cultural homelessness thrived in my new environment. Looking and sounding American furthered my feelings of dislocation. Border patrol agents, teachers, classmates, neighbors, and relatives all “welcomed me home” to a land they could not understand was foreign to me. Americans confused me as I relied on Urban Dictionary to understand my peers, the Pledge of Allegiance seemed nationalistic, and the only thing familiar about Fahrenheit was the German after whom it was named. Too German for America and too American for Germany, I felt alienated from both. I wanted desperately to be a member of one, if not both, cultures.

During my first weeks in Scarsdale, I spent my free time googling “Berlin Family Seeks Teen” and “New Americans in Scarsdale.” The latter search proved most fruitful: I discovered Horizons, a nonprofit that empowers resettled refugees, or “New Americans,” to thrive. I started volunteering with Horizon’s children’s programs, playing with and tutoring young refugees.

It was there that I met Emily, a twelve­-year-­old Iraqi girl who lived next to Horizons. In between games and snacks, Emily would ask me questions about American life, touching on everything from Halloween to President Obama. Gradually, my confidence in my American identity grew as I recognized my ability to answer most of her questions. American culture was no longer completely foreign to me. I found myself especially qualified to work with young refugees; my experience growing up in a country other than that of my parents’ was similar enough to that of the refugee children Horizons served that I could empathize with them and offer advice. Together, we worked through conflicting allegiances, homesickness, and stretched belonging.

Forging a special, personal bond with young refugees proved a cathartic outlet for my insecurities as it taught me to value my past. My transculturalism allowed me to help young refugees integrate into American life, and, in doing so, I was able to adjust myself. Now, I have an appreciation of myself that I never felt before. “Home” isn’t the digits in a passport or ZIP code but a sense of contentedness. By helping a young refugee find comfort, happiness, and home in America, I was finally able to find those same things for myself.

Due to their endearing (and creative) use of language—with early phrases like “sloppy joes and spaetzle” as well as  “Germerican” and “Denglisch”—readers are inclined to like this writer from the get-go. Though the essay shifts from this lighthearted introduction to more serious subject matter around the third paragraph, the shift is not abrupt or jarring. This is because the student invites readers to feel the transition with them through their inclusion of various anecdotes that inspired their “feelings of cultural homelessness.” And our journey does not end there—we go back to America with the student and see how their former struggles become strengths.

Ultimately, this essay is successful due to its satisfying ending. Because readers experience the student’s struggles with them, we also feel the resolution. The conclusion of this essay is a prime example of the “Same, but Different” technique described in our article on How to End Your College Essay . As the student describes how, in the end, their complicated cultural identity still exists but transitions to a source of strength, readers are left feeling happy for the student. This means that they have formed a connection with the student, which is the ultimate goal!

Prompt #1, Example #3

“1…2…3…4 pirouettes ! New record!” My friends cheered as I landed my turns. Pleased with my progress, I gazed down at my worn-out pointe shoes. The sweltering blisters, numbing ice-baths, and draining late-night practices did not seem so bad after all. Next goal: five turns.

For as long as I can remember, ballet, in all its finesse and glamor, had kept me driven day to day. As a child, the lithe ballerinas, donning ethereal costumes as they floated across the stage, were my motivation. While others admired Messi and Adele, I idolized Carlos Acosta, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. 

As I devoted more time and energy towards my craft, I became obsessed with improving my technique. I would stretch for hours after class, forcing my leg one inch higher in an effort to mirror the Dance Magazine cover girls . I injured my feet and ruined pair after pair of pointe shoes, turning on wood, cement, and even grass to improve my balance as I spun. At competitions, the dancers with the 180-degree leg extensions, endless turns, and soaring leaps—the ones who received “Bravos!” from the roaring audience—further pushed me to refine my skills and perfect my form. I believed that, with enough determination, I would one day attain their level of perfection. Reaching the quadruple- pirouette milestone only intensified my desire to accomplish even more. 

My efforts seemed to have come to fruition two summers ago when I was accepted to dance with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at their renowned New York City summer intensive. I walked into my first session eager to learn from distinguished ballet masters and worldly dancers, already anticipating my improvement. Yet, as I danced alongside the accomplished ballerinas, I felt out of place. Despite their clean technique and professional training, they did not aim for glorious leg extensions or prodigious leaps. When they performed their turn combinations, most of them only executed two turns as I attempted four. 

“Dancers, double- pirouettes only.” 

Taken aback and confused, I wondered why our teacher expected so little from us. The other ballerinas seemed content, gracing the studio with their simple movements. 

As I grew closer with my Moscow roommates, I gradually learned that their training emphasized the history of the art form instead of stylistic tricks. Rather than show off their physical ability, their performances aimed to convey a story, one that embodied the rich culture of ballet and captured both the legacy of the dancers before them and their own artistry. As I observed my friends more intently in repertoire class, I felt the pain of the grief-stricken white swan from Swan Lake , the sass of the flirtatious Kitri from Don Quijote, and I gradually saw what I had overlooked before. My definition of talent had been molded by crowd-pleasing elements—whirring pirouettes , gravity-defying leaps, and mind-blowing leg extensions. This mindset slowly stripped me from the roots of my passion and my personal connection with ballet. 

With the Bolshoi, I learned to step back and explore the meaning behind each step and the people behind the scenes. Ballet carries history in its movements, from the societal values of the era to each choreographer’s unique flair. As I uncovered the messages behind each pirouette, kick, and jump, my appreciation for ballet grew beyond my obsession with raw athleticism and developed into a love for the art form’s emotive abilities in bridging the dancers with the audience. My journey as an artist has allowed me to see how technical execution is only the means to a greater understanding between dancer and spectator, between storyteller and listener. The elegance and complexity of ballet does not revolve around astonishing stunts but rather the evocative strength and artistry manifested in the dancer, in me. It is the combination of sentiments, history, tradition, and passion that has allowed ballet and its lessons of human connection to become my lifestyle both on and off stage.

The primary strength of this essay is the honesty and authenticity of the student’s writing. It is purposefully reflective. Intentional language creates a clear character arc that begins with an eager young ballerina and ends with the student reflecting on their past. 

Readers are easily able to picture the passion and intensity of the young dancer through the writer’s engagement with words like “obsessed,” “forcing,” and “ruined” in the second paragraph. Then, we see how intensity becomes pride as they “wondered why our teacher expected so little from us.” And ultimately, we see the writer humbled as they are exposed to the deeper meaning behind what they have worked so hard for. This arc is outstanding, and the student’s musings about ballet in the concl usion position them as vulnerable and reflective (and thus, appealing to admissions officers!)

The main weakness of this essay (though this is a stellar essay) is its formulaic beginning. While dialogue can be an effective tool for starting your essay, this student’s introduction feels a bit stilted as the dialogue does not match the overall reflective tone of the essay. Perhaps, in place of “Next goal: five turns,” the student could have posed a question or foreshadowed the growth they ultimately describe.

Prompt #1, Example #4

My paintbrush dragged a flurry of acrylic, the rich colors attaching to each groove in my canvas’s texture. The feeling was euphoric.

From a young age, painting has been my solace. Between the stress of my packed high school days filled with classes and extracurriculars, the glide of my paintbrush was my emotional outlet.

I opened a fresh canvas and began. The amalgamation of assorted colors in my palette melded harmoniously: dark and light, cool and warm, brilliant and dull. They conjoined, forming shades and surfaces sharp, smooth, and ridged. The textures of my paint strokes — powdery, glossy, jagged — gave my painting a tone, as if it had a voice of its own, sometimes shrieking, sometimes whispering.

Rough indigo blue. The repetitive upward pulls of my brush formed layers on my canvas. Staring into the deep blue, I felt transported to the bottom of the pool I swim in daily. I looked upward to see a layer of dense water between myself and the person I aspire to be, an ideal blurred by filmy ripples. Rough blue encapsulates my amorphous, conflicting identity, catalyzed by words spewed by my peers about my “oily hair” and “smelly food”. They caused my ever present disdain toward cultural assemblies; the lehenga I wore felt burdensome. My identity quivers like the indigo storm I painted — a duel between my self-deprecating, validation-seeking self, and the proud self I desire to be. My haphazard paint strokes released my internal turbulence.

Smooth orange-hued green. I laid the color in melodious strokes, forming my figure. The warmer green transitions from the rough blue — while they share elements, they also diverge. My firm brushstrokes felt like the way I felt on my first day as a media intern at KBOO, my local volunteer-driven radio station, committed to the voices of the marginalized. As a naturally introverted speaker, I was forced out of my comfort zone when tasked with documenting a KBOO art exhibition for social media, speaking with hosts to share their diverse, underrepresented backgrounds and inspirations. A rhythmic green strength soon shoved me past internal blue turbulence. My communication skills which were built by two years of Speech and Debate unleashed — I recognized that making a social change through media required amplifying unique voices and perspectives, both my own and others. The powerful green strokes that fill my canvas entrench my growth.

Bright, voluminous coral, hinted with magenta and yellow. I dabbed the color over my figure, giving my painting dimension. The paint, speckled, added depth on every inch it coated. As I moved the color in random but purposeful movements, the vitality ushered into my painting brought a smile across my face. It reminded me of the encounters I had with my cubicle-mate in my sophomore year academic autism research internship, seemingly insignificant moments in my lifelong journey that, in retrospect, wove unique threads into my tapestry. The kindness she brought into work inspired my compassion, while her stories of struggling with ADHD in the workplace bolstered my empathy towards different experiences. Our conversations added blobs of a nonuniform bright color in my painting, binding a new perspective in me.

I added in my final strokes, each contributing an element to my piece. As I scanned my canvas, I observed these elements. Detail added nuance into smaller pictures; they embodied complexities within color, texture, and hue, each individually delivering a narrative. But together, they formed a piece of art— art that could be interpreted as a whole or broken apart but still delivering as a means of communication.

I find beauty in media because of this. I can adapt a complex narrative to be deliverable, each component telling a story. Appreciating these nuances — the light, dark, smooth, and rough — has cultivated my growth mindset. My life-long painting never finishes. It is ever-expanding, absorbing the novel textures and colors I encounter daily.

This essay is distinct from others due to its melodic, lyrical form. This is primarily achieved because the student’s form follows the movements of the paintbrush that they use to scaffold their essay. As readers, we simply flow through the essay, occasionally picking up bits of information about its creator. Without even realizing it, by the end of the essay, admissions officers will know that this student is a swimmer, was in Speech and Debate, is Indian, and has had multiple internships.

A major strength of this essay is the command of language that the student demonstrates. This essay was not simply written, it was crafted. Universities are, of course, interested in the talents, goals, and interests of applicants, but an essay being well-written can be equally important. Writing skills are important because your reader will not learn about your talents, goals, and interests if they aren’t engaged in your essay, but they are also important because admissions officers know that being able to articulate your thoughts is important for success in all future careers.

While this essay is well-written, there are a few moments where it falls out of the flow and feels more like a student advertising their successes. For example, the phrases “media intern at KBOO” and “autism research internship” work better on a resume than they do in this essay. Admissions officers have a copy of your resume and can check your internship experiences after reading your essay! If you are going to use a unique writing style or narrative form, lean into it; don’t try to hybridize it with the standard college essay form. Your boldness will be attractive to admissions officers.

Readers are easily able to picture the passion and intensity of the young dancer through the writer’s engagement with words like “obsessed,” “forcing,” and “ruined” in the second paragraph. Then, we see how intensity becomes pride as they “wondered why our teacher expected so little from us.” And ultimately, we see the writer humbled as they are exposed to the deeper meaning behind what they have worked so hard for. This arc is outstanding, and the student’s musings about ballet in the conclusion position them as vulnerable and reflective (and thus, appealing to admissions officers!)

Prompt #2: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Prompt #2, example #1.

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here is a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful Common App essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

The only part of this essay that could use a bit of work is the introduction. A short introduction can be effective, but this short first paragraph feels thrown in at the last minute and like it is missing its second half. If you are keeping your introduction short, make it matter.

Prompt #2, Example #2

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This Common App essay is well-written. The student is showing the admissions officers their ability to articulate their points beautifully and creatively. It starts with vivid images like that of the “rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free.” And because the prose is flowery, the writer can get away with metaphors like “I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms” that might sound cheesy without the clear command of the English language that the writer quickly establishes.

In addition to being well-written, this essay is thematically cohesive. It begins with the simple introduction “Fire!” and ends with the following image: “When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.” This full-circle approach leaves readers satisfied and impressed.

While dialogue often comes off as cliche or trite, this student effectively incorporates their family members saying “Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” This is achieved through the apt use of the verb “taunted” to characterize the questioning and through the question’s thematic connection to the earlier image of the student as a rustic princess. Similarly, rhetorical questions can feel randomly placed in essays, but this student’s inclusion of the questions “Was I so dainty?” and “Was I that incapable?” feels perfectly justified after they establish that they were pondering their failure.

Quite simply, this essay shows how quality writing can make a simple story outstandingly compelling.

Prompt #2, Example #3

The muffled voices behind thin walls heralded trouble.

They were fighting about money.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened and it wasn’t going to be the last. It was one of those countless nights I had to spend curled up under the blanket while pretending to be asleep. My father had been unemployed for five years now, and my mother, a local kindergarten teacher, was struggling to support the family alone. Our situation was bleak: Savings had run out and my parents could no longer hide our lack of money from me. To make matters worse, I was a few weeks away from starting high school, which would inevitably lead to college, yet another financial stressor for my family.

The argument didn’t sound like it would end soon.

“Why did you spend money on that?” my mother said, with an elongated sigh.

“I had to,” my father said, decidedly.

Every fight over the years had left me in despair and the idea of going through another fight daunted me. I had looked forward to my teen years all my life, an age that allows, for the first time, more responsibility. Indeed, after this fateful night, after my fourteenth birthday, I felt a mounting responsibility to help my family, and started brainstorming.

Always being fascinated by computers, I spent my childhood burying myself under computer cabinets, experimenting with computer parts. Naturally, I wondered if my skills in this area might be marketable.

The next morning, my friend, Naba, mentioned that her computer wasn’t working. A tuk-tuk ride later, and I was at her doorstep, and her mother was leading me to her room. I was off to work: I began examining her computer, like a surgeon carefully manages his scalpels and tools. A proper diagnosis was not far from reach, as I realized a broken pin in her computer’s SATA slot. After an hour of work, and a short trip to the hardware store, I successfully fixed the computer. To my pleasant surprise, Naba’s mother drew out two fresh 500 Rupee notes. One covered the cost of the parts I bought and the other was a token of appreciation. Bidding her goodbye, I went straight back home and put one of the 500 Rupee notes inside my family’s “savings-jar.”

Later that day, I devised a plan. I told my friends to spread the word that I was available to fix computers. At first, I got only one or two calls per week. I would pick up the computer from my client’s home, fix it quickly, and return it, thus earning myself a commission. While I couldn’t market my services at a competitive price, because I wasn’t able to buy the parts wholesale, I compensated by providing convenience. All my clients had to do was call me once and the rest was taken care of. Thus, my business had the best customer service in town.

At the beginning of my junior year, after two years of expanding my business through various avenues, I started buying computer parts from hardware suppliers in bulk at a cheaper rate. My business grew exponentially after that. 

Before long, I was my town’s go-to tech person. In this journey throughout high school, I started realizing that I had to create my own opportunities and not just curl up under a blanket, seeking only comfort, as I used to. Interacting with people from all walks of life became my forte and a sense of work ethic developed in me. My business required me to be an all-rounder– have the technical skills, be an easily approachable person, and manage cash flow. Slowly becoming better at this, I even managed to sway admins of a local institution to outsource their computer hardware purchases and repairs through me. As my business upsized throughout the years, I went from being helpless to autonomous – the teenager I always aspired to be.

This essay truly feels like a story—almost making you forget you are reading a college essay. The student’s voice is strong throughout the entire essay and they are able to give us insight into their thoughts, feelings, and motivations at every step of the story. Letting the reader into personal challenges like financial struggles can be daunting in a college essay, but the way this student used that setback to establish an emotional ethos to their narrative was well done.

Because the essay is essentially just telling a story, there’s a very natural flow that makes it enjoyable and easy to read. The student establishes the conflict at the beginning, then describes their solution and how they implemented it, and finally concludes with the lessons they took away from this experience. Transitions at the beginning of paragraphs effortlessly show the passage of time and how the student has progressed through the story.

Another reason this essay is so successful is because of the abundance of details. The reader truly feels like they are hiding in the room with the student as their parents yell because of the inclusion of quotes from the argument. We understand the precision and care they have for fixing computers because of the allusion to a surgeon with their scalpel. Not only does this imagery make the story more enticing, it also helps the reader gain a deeper appreciation for the type of person this student is and the adversity they have overcome.

If there were one thing this essay could do to improve, it would be to include a resolution to the conflict from the beginning. The student tells us how this business helped them grow as a person, but we don’t ever get to find out if they were able to lessen the financial burden on their parents or if they continued to struggle despite the student working hard. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but it would be nice to return to the conflict and acknowledge the effect they had on it, especially since this prompt is all about facing challenges.

Prompt #3: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Prompt #3, example #1.

When I was younger, I was adamant that no two foods on my plate touch. As a result, I often used a second plate to prevent such an atrocity. In many ways, I learned to separate different things this way from my older brothers, Nate and Rob. Growing up, I idolized both of them. Nate was a performer, and I insisted on arriving early to his shows to secure front row seats, refusing to budge during intermission for fear of missing anything. Rob was a three-sport athlete, and I attended his games religiously, waving worn-out foam cougar paws and cheering until my voice was hoarse. My brothers were my role models. However, while each was talented, neither was interested in the other’s passion. To me, they represented two contrasting ideals of what I could become: artist or athlete. I believed I had to choose.

And for a long time, I chose athlete. I played soccer, basketball, and lacrosse and viewed myself exclusively as an athlete, believing the arts were not for me. I conveniently overlooked that since the age of five, I had been composing stories for my family for Christmas, gifts that were as much for me as them, as I loved writing. So when in tenth grade, I had the option of taking a creative writing class, I was faced with a question: could I be an athlete and a writer? After much debate, I enrolled in the class, feeling both apprehensive and excited. When I arrived on the first day of school, my teacher, Ms. Jenkins, asked us to write down our expectations for the class. After a few minutes, eraser shavings stubbornly sunbathing on my now-smudged paper, I finally wrote, “I do not expect to become a published writer from this class. I just want this to be a place where I can write freely.”

Although the purpose of the class never changed for me, on the third “submission day,” – our time to submit writing to upcoming contests and literary magazines – I faced a predicament. For the first two submission days, I had passed the time editing earlier pieces, eventually (pretty quickly) resorting to screen snake when hopelessness made the words look like hieroglyphics. I must not have been as subtle as I thought, as on the third of these days, Ms. Jenkins approached me. After shifting from excuse to excuse as to why I did not submit my writing, I finally recognized the real reason I had withheld my work: I was scared. I did not want to be different, and I did not want to challenge not only others’ perceptions of me, but also my own. I yielded to Ms. Jenkin’s pleas and sent one of my pieces to an upcoming contest.

By the time the letter came, I had already forgotten about the contest. When the flimsy white envelope arrived in the mail, I was shocked and ecstatic to learn that I had received 2nd place in a nationwide writing competition. The next morning, however, I discovered Ms. Jenkins would make an announcement to the whole school exposing me as a poet. I decided to own this identity and embrace my friends’ jokes and playful digs, and over time, they have learned to accept and respect this part of me. I have since seen more boys at my school identifying themselves as writers or artists.

I no longer see myself as an athlete and a poet independently, but rather I see these two aspects forming a single inseparable identity – me. Despite their apparent differences, these two disciplines are quite similar, as each requires creativity and devotion. I am still a poet when I am lacing up my cleats for soccer practice and still an athlete when I am building metaphors in the back of my mind – and I have realized ice cream and gummy bears taste pretty good together.

This essay is cohesive as it centers around the theme of identity and the ability for two identities to coexist simultaneously (an interesting theme!). It uses the Full Circle ending strategy as it starts with a metaphor about food touching and ends with “I have realized ice cream and gummy bears taste pretty good together.”

The main issue with this essay is that it could come off as cliché, which could be irritating for admissions officers. The story described is notably similar to High School Musical (“I decided to own this identity and embrace my friends’ jokes and playful digs, and over time, they have learned to accept and respect this part of me”) and feels slightly overstated. 

At times, this essay is also confusing. In the first paragraph, it feels like the narrative is actually going to be about separating your food (and is somehow going to relate to the older brothers?). It is not entirely clear that this is a metaphor. Also, when the writer references the third submission day and then works backward to explain what a submission day is and that there are multiple throughout the semester, the timeline gets unnecessarily confusing. Reworking the way this paragraph unfolded would have been more compelling and less distracting.

Overall, this essay was interesting but could have been more polished to be more effective.

Prompt #3, Example #2

I walked into my middle school English class, and noticed a stranger behind my teacher’s desk. “Hello,” she said. “Today I will be your substitute teacher.” I groaned internally. “Let me start off by calling roll. Ally?” “Here!” exclaimed Ally. “Jack?” “Here.” “Rachel?” “Here.” “Freddie?” “Present.” And then– “…?” The awkward pause was my cue. “It’s Jasina,” I started. “You can just call me Jas. Here.” “Oh, Jasina. That’s unique.” The word “unique” made me cringe. I slumped back in my seat. The substitute continued calling roll, and class continued as if nothing had happened. Nothing had happened. Just a typical moment in a middle school, but I hated every second of it.

My name is not impossible to pronounce. It appears challenging initially, but once you hear it, “Jas-een-a”, then you can manage it. My nickname, Jas (pronounced “Jazz”), is what most people call me anyway, so I don’t have to deal with mispronunciation often. I am thankful that my parents named me Jasina (a Hebrew name), but whenever someone hears my name for the first time, they comment, and I assume they’re making assumptions about me. “Wow, Jas is a cool name.” She must be pretty cool.“I’ve never heard the name Jasina before.” She must be from somewhere exotic. “Jas, like Jazz?” She must be musical and artsy. None of these assumptions are bad, but they all add up to the same thing: She must be unique. 

When I was little, these sentiments felt more like commands than assumptions. I thought I had to be the most unique child of all time, which was a daunting task, but I tried. I was the only kid in the second grade to color the sun red. I knew it was really yellow, but you could always tell which drawings were mine. During snack time, we could choose between apple juice and grape juice. I liked apple juice more, but if everyone else was choosing apple, then I had to choose grape. This was how I lived my life, and it was exhausting. I tried to continue this habit into middle school, but it backfired. When everyone became obsessed with things like skinny jeans and Justin Bieber and blue mascara (that was a weird trend), my resistance of the norm made me socially awkward. I couldn’t talk to people about anything because we had nothing in common. I was too different. 

After 8th grade, I moved to Georgia, and I was dreading being the odd one out among kids who had grown up together. Then I discovered that my freshman year would be Cambridge High School’s inaugural year. Since there were students coming in from 5 different schools, there was no real sense of “normal”. I panicked. If there was no normal, then how could I be unique? That’s when I realized that I had spent so much energy going against the grain that I had no idea what my true interests were or what I really cared about. 

It was time to find out. I stopped concentrating on what everyone else was doing and started to focus on myself. I joined the basketball team, I performed in the school musical, and I enrolled in Chorus, all of which were firsts for me. I took art classes, joined clubs, and did whatever I thought would make me happy. And it paid off. I was no longer socially awkward. In fact, because I was involved in so many unrelated activities, I was socially flexible. My friends and I had things in common, but there was no one who could say that I was exactly like anyone else. I had finally become my own person.

My father named me Jasina because he wanted my nickname to be “Jazz.” According to Webster, “jazz” is “music characterized by syncopated rhythms, improvisation, and deliberate distortions of pitch.” Basically, jazz is music that is off-beat and unpredictable. It cannot be strictly defined. 

That sounds about right. 

Right off the bat, this essay starts extremely strong. The description of attendance in a class with ample quotes, awkward pauses, and the student’s internal dialogue immediately puts us in the middle of the action and establishes a lot of sympathy for this student before we’ve learned anything else. 

The strength of this essay continues into the second paragraph where the use of quotes, italics, and interjections from the student continues. All of these literary tools help the student express her voice and allow the reader to understand what this student goes through on a daily basis. Rather than just telling the reader people make assumptions about her name, she shows us what these assumptions look and sound like, and exactly how they make her feel.

The essay further shows us how the student approached her name by providing concrete examples of times she’s been intentionally unique throughout her life. Describing her drawing red suns and choosing grape juice bring her personality to life and allow her to express her deviance from the “norm” in a much more engaging and visual way than simply telling the reader she would go against the grain to be different on purpose.

One part of the essay that was a bit weaker than the others was the paragraph about her in high school. Although it was still well written and did a nice job of demonstrating how she got involved in multiple groups to find her new identity, it lacked the same level of showing employed in previous paragraphs. It would have been nice to see what “socially flexible” means either through a conversation she had with her friends or an example of a time she combined her interests from different groups in a way that was uniquely her.

The essay finishes off how it started: extremely strong. Taking a step back to fully explain the origin of her name neatly brings together everything mentioned in this essay. This ending is especially successful because she never explicitly states that her personality aligns with the definition of jazz. Instead, she relies on the points she has made throughout the essay to stick in the reader’s memory so they are able to draw the connection themselves, making for a much more satisfying ending for the reader.

Prompt #4 (OLD PROMPT; NOT THE CURRENT PROMPT): Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma – anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

Prompt #4, example #1.

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” 

Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation. 

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one. 

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand. 

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself. 

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith. 

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities. 

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension. 

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities. 

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay is great because it has a strong introduction and a strong conclusion. The introduction is notably suspenseful and draws readers into the story. Because we know it is a college essay, we can assume that the student is one of the competitors, but at the same time, this introduction feels intentionally ambiguous as if the writer could be a competitor, a coach, a sibling of a competitor, or anyone else in the situation.

As we continue reading the essay, we learn that the writer is, in fact, the competitor. Readers also learn a lot about the student’s values as we hear their thoughts: “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was.” Ultimately, the conflict and inner and outer turmoil is resolved through the “Same, but Different” ending technique as the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiencing it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is a very compelling strategy!

The main weakness of this essay is that it is slightly confusing at times—how the other students found coaches feels unintentionally under-explained (a simple phrase like “through pleading and attracting sympathy” in the fourth paragraph could have served the writer well) and a dojang is never defined. Additionally, the turn of the essay or “volta” could’ve packed a bigger punch. It is put quite simply with “I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.” A more suspenseful reveal could’ve served the author well because more drama did come later.

Prompt #5: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Prompt #5, example #1.

Tears streamed down my face and my mind was paralyzed with fear. Sirens blared, but the silent panic in my own head was deafening. I was muted by shock. A few hours earlier, I had anticipated a vacation in Washington, D.C., but unexpectedly, I was rushing to the hospital behind an ambulance carrying my mother. As a fourteen-year-old from a single mother household, without a driver’s license, and seven hours from home, I was distraught over the prospect of losing the only parent I had. My fear turned into action as I made some of the bravest decisions of my life. 

Three blood transfusions later, my mother’s condition was stable, but we were still states away from home, so I coordinated with my mother’s doctors in North Carolina to schedule the emergency operation that would save her life. Throughout her surgery, I anxiously awaited any word from her surgeon, but each time I asked, I was told that there had been another complication or delay. Relying on my faith and positive attitude, I remained optimistic that my mother would survive and that I could embrace new responsibilities.

My mother had been a source of strength for me, and now I would be strong for her through her long recovery ahead. As I started high school, everyone thought the crisis was over, but it had really just started to impact my life. My mother was often fatigued, so I assumed more responsibility, juggling family duties, school, athletics, and work. I made countless trips to the neighborhood pharmacy, cooked dinner, biked to the grocery store, supported my concerned sister, and provided the loving care my mother needed to recover. I didn’t know I was capable of such maturity and resourcefulness until it was called upon. Each day was a stage in my gradual transformation from dependence to relative independence.

Throughout my mother’s health crisis, I matured by learning to put others’ needs before my own. As I worried about my mother’s health, I took nothing for granted, cherished what I had, and used my daily activities as motivation to move forward. I now take ownership over small decisions such as scheduling daily appointments and managing my time but also over major decisions involving my future, including the college admissions process. Although I have become more independent, my mother and I are inseparably close, and the realization that I almost lost her affects me daily. Each morning, I wake up ten minutes early simply to eat breakfast with my mother and spend time with her before our busy days begin. I am aware of how quickly life can change. My mother remains a guiding force in my life, but the feeling of empowerment I discovered within myself is the ultimate form of my independence. Though I thought the summer before my freshman year would be a transition from middle school to high school, it was a transformation from childhood to adulthood.

This essay feels real and tells readers a lot about the writer. To start at the beginning, the intro is 10/10. It has drama, it has emotions, and it has the reader wanting more.

And, when you keep going, you get to learn a lot about a very resilient and mature student. Through sentences like “I made countless trips to the neighborhood pharmacy, cooked dinner, biked to the grocery store, supported my concerned sister, and provided the loving care my mother needed to recover” and “Relying on my faith and positive attitude, I remained optimistic that my mother would survive and that I could embrace new responsibilities,” the reader shows us that they are aware of their resilience and maturity, but are not arrogant about it. It is simply a fact that they have proven!

Sometimes writing about adversity can feel exploitative or oddly braggy. This student backs up everything they say with anecdotes that prove and show their strength and resilience, rather than just claiming their strengths. When I read this essay, I want to cheer for its writer! And I want to be able to continue cheering for them (perhaps, if I were an admissions officer, that would make me want them at my school!).

Prompt #5, Example #2

Armed with a red pen, I slowly walked across the room to a small, isolated table with pink stools. Swinging her legs, my young student beamed and giggled at me, slamming her pencil bag on the table and bending over to pick up one of her toys. Natalie always brought some new toy with her to lessons—toys which I would sternly take away from her and place under the table until she finished her work. At the tutoring center where I work, a strict emphasis on discipline leaves no room for paper crowns or rubber chickens. 

Today, she had with her a large stuffed eagle from a museum. As she pulled out her papers, I slid the eagle to the other side of the table. She looked eagerly around, attempting to chat with other students as I impatiently called her attention to her papers. “I should name my eagle,” she chimed, waving her pencil in the air. I cringed—there was no wondering why Natalie always had to sit by herself. She was the antithesis of my academic values, and undoubtedly the greatest adversary of my teaching style.  

As the lesson progressed, Natalie became more fitful; she refused to release her feathered friend, and kept addressing the bird for help with difficult problems. We both grew increasingly more frustrated. Determined to tame this wryly, wiggling student, I stood my ground, set on converting this disobedient child to my calm, measured ways of study.  

As time slowly crept by, I noticed that despite Natalie’s cheerful tone and bright smile, the stuffed eagle was troublesomely quiet and stern-faced. Much like myself. Both the eagle and I were getting nowhere in this lesson—so we hatched a quick plan. Lifting the eagle up in the air, I started reading in my best impersonation of an eagle, squawking my way through a spelling packet. The result provided a sense of instant gratification I never knew I needed. She sang out every letter, clapped her hands at every page, and followed along with the eagle, stopping at every few letters to declare that “E is for eagle” and pet her teacher fondly on the beak.  

Despite my ostensibly dissatisfied attitude toward my students, I did not join the tutoring center simply to earn money. I had always aspired to help others achieve their fullest potential. As a young adult, I felt that it was time for me to step out of the role of a pupil and into the influential role of a teacher, naively believing that I had the maturity and skill to adapt to any situation and help these students reach their highest achievements academically. For the most part, the role of a stern-faced, strict instructor helped me get by in the workplace, and while my students never truly looked happy, I felt that it was part of the process of conditioning a child to learn. 

Ironically, my transition to adulthood was the result of a stuffed animal. It was indisputable that I always had the skill to instruct others; the only thing needed to instruct someone is knowledge of the subject. However, it was only upon being introduced to a stuffed bird in which I realized that students receive the most help not from instructors, but teachers. While almost anyone can learn material and spit it back out for someone, it takes the maturity and passion of a teacher not only to help students improve in their students, but also to motivate them and develop them into better citizens. From my young pupil and her little bird, I have undergone a change in attitude which reflects a growth in maturity and ability to improve the lives of others that I hope to implement in my future role as a student, activist, and physician. My newfound maturity taught me that the letter “e” stands for many things: empathy, experience, enthusiasm, and eagle.

In this essay, the student effectively explores their values (and how they learned them!) then identifies these values through a reflective conclusion. While the writer humbly recognizes the initial faults in their teaching style, they do not position their initial discipline or rigidity as mean or poorly intentioned—simply ineffective. This is important because, when you are discussing a transition like this, you don’t want admissions officers to think of you as having been a bad person. 

My favorite part about this essay is its subtlety. The major shift in the essay comes through the simple sentence “The result provided a sense of instant gratification I never knew I needed.” The facts of this narrative are not too complicated. Simply put, the writer was strict then learned that it’s sometimes more effective not to be strict. The complexity of this narrative comes through reflection. Notably, through the ending, the student identifies their values (which they hadn’t given a name to before): “it takes the maturity and passion of a teacher not only to help students improve in their students, but also to motivate them and develop them into better citizens.” 

The final sentence of this essay ties things up very nicely. Readers are left satisfied with the essay and convinced that its writer is a kind human with a large capacity for reflection and consideration. That is a great image to paint of yourself!

Prompt #5, Example #3

When it’s quiet, I can still hear the Friday night gossip and giggles of my friends. It’s a stark contrast from the environment I’ve known all my life, my home. My family has always been one to keep to themselves; introverts with a hard-working mentality—my father especially. He spent most of his time at work and growing up without him around, I came to be at peace with the fact that I’d probably never really get to know him. The thought didn’t bother me at the time because I felt that we were very different. He was stoic and traditional; I was trying to figure out who I was and explore my interests. His disapproval of the American music I listened to and my penchant for wearing hand-me-downs made me see him as someone who wanted to restrain my individuality. That explains why I relied heavily on my friends throughout middle and high school; they liked me for who I was. I figured I would get lonely without my friends during quarantine, but these last few months stuck at home gave me the time to make a new friend: my father. 

It was June. I had the habit of sleeping with my windows open so I wouldn’t need to set an alarm; the warmth of the sun and the sounds of the neighborhood children playing outside would wake me. One morning, however, it was not the chirping of birds or the laughter of children I awoke to, but the shrill of a saw. Through the window screen, on the grass below, my father stood cutting planks of wood. I was confused but didn’t question him—what he did with his time was none of my business. It was not until the next day, when I was attempting to work on a sculpture for an art class, that the sounds of hammering and drills became too much to ignore. Seeking answers, I trudged across my backyard towards the corner he was in. On that day, all there was to see was the foundation of what he was building; a shed. My intrigue was replaced with awe; I was impressed by the precision of his craft. Sharp corners, leveled and sturdy, I could imagine what it would look like when the walls were up and the inside filled with the tools he had spread around the yard. 

Throughout the week, when I was trying to finish my sculpture for art class—thinking about its shape and composition—I could not help but think of my father. Art has always been a creative outlet for me, an opportunity to express myself at home. For my dad, his craftsmanship was his art. I realized we were not as different as I had thought; he was an artist like me. My glue and paper were his wood and nails.

That summer, I tried to spend more time with my dad than I have in all my 18 years of life. Waking up earlier than usual so we could have our morning coffees together and pretending to like his favorite band so he’d talk to me about it, I took advantage of every opportunity I had to speak with him. In getting to know him, I’ve recognized that I get my artistry from him. 

Reflecting on past relationships, I feel I am now more open to reconnecting with people I’ve perhaps misjudged. In reconciling, I’ve realized I held some bitterness towards him all these years, and in letting that go, my heart is lighter. Our reunion has changed my perspective; instead of vilifying him for spending so much time at work, I can appreciate how hard he works to provide for our family. When I hear him tinkering away at another home project, I can smile and look forward to asking him about it later.

This is an outstanding example of the great things that can be articulated through a reflective essay. As we read the essay, we are simply thinking alongside its author—thinking about their past relationship with their father, about their time in quarantine, about aspects of themselves they think could use attention and growth. 

While we reflect, we are also centered by the student’s anecdote about the sculpture and the shed during quarantine. By centering us in real-time, the student keeps us engaged in the reflection.

The main strength here is the maturity we see on the part of its writer. The student doesn’t say “and I realized my father was the best dad in the world;” they say “and I realized my father didn’t have to be the best dad in the world for me to give him a chance.” Lots of students show themselves as motivated, curious, or compassionate in their college essays, but a reflective essay that ends with a discussion of resentment and forgiveness shows true maturity.

Prompt #5, Example #4

As a wide-eyed, naive seven-year-old, I watched my grandmother’s rough, wrinkled hands pull and knead mercilessly at white dough until the countertop was dusted in flour. She steamed small buns in bamboo baskets, and a light sweetness lingered in the air. Although the mantou looked delicious, their papery, flat taste was always an unpleasant surprise. My grandmother scolded me for failing to finish even one, and when I complained about the lack of flavor she would simply say that I would find it as I grew older. How did my adult relatives seem to enjoy this Taiwanese culinary delight while I found it so plain?

During my journey to discover the essence of mantou, I began to see myself the same way I saw the steamed bun. I believed that my writing would never evolve beyond a hobby and that my quiet nature crippled my ambitions. Ultimately, I thought I had little to offer the world. In middle school, it was easy for me to hide behind the large personalities of my friends, blending into the background and keeping my thoughts company. Although writing had become my emotional outlet, no matter how well I wrote essays, poetry, or fiction, I could not stand out in a sea of talented students. When I finally gained the confidence to submit my poetry to literary journals but was promptly rejected, I stepped back from my work to begin reading from Whitman to Dickinson, Li-Young Lee to Ocean Vuong. It was then that I realized I had been holding back a crucial ingredient–my distinct voice. 

Over time, my taste buds began to mature, as did I. Mantou can be flavored with pork and eggplant, sweetened in condensed milk, and moistened or dried by the steam’s temperature. After I ate the mantou with each of these factors in mind, I noticed its environment enhanced a delicately woven strand of sweetness beneath the taste of side dishes: the sugar I had often watched my grandmother sift into the flour. The taste was nearly untraceable, but once I grasped it I could truly begin to cherish mantou. In the same way the taste had been lost to me for years, my writer’s voice had struggled to shine through because of my self-doubt and fear of vulnerability.

As I acquired a taste for mantou, I also began to strengthen my voice through my surrounding environment. With the support of my parents, peer poets, and the guidance of Amy Tan and the Brontё sisters, I worked tirelessly to uncover my voice: a subtle strand of sweetness. Once I stopped trying to fit into a publishing material mold and infused my uninhibited passion for my Taiwanese heritage into my writing, my poem was published in a literary journal. I wrote about the blatant racism Asians endured during coronavirus, and the editor of Skipping Stones Magazine was touched by both my poem and my heartfelt letter. I opened up about being ridiculed for bringing Asian food to school at Youth Leadership Forum, providing support to younger Asian-American students who reached out with the relief of finding someone they could relate to. I embraced writing as a way to convey my struggle with cultural identity. I joined the school’s creative writing club and read my pieces in front of an audience, honing my voice into one that flourishes out loud as well.

Now, I write and speak unapologetically, falling in love with a voice that I never knew I had. It inspires passion within my communities and imparts tenacity to Asian-American youth, rooting itself deeply into everything I write. Today, my grandmother would say that I have finally unearthed the taste of mantou as I savor every bite with a newfound appreciation. I can imagine her hands shaping the dough that has become my voice, and I am eager to share it with the world.

This essay is structurally-sound, with the student’s journey learning to savor mantou and their journey trying to find their voice serving as outstanding parallels. Additionally, as they describe the journey to find a voice in their writing, they definitely show off their voice! The clear introduction provides a great image and draws us in with an intriguing question. Additionally, their little inserts like “a strand of sweetness” and “falling in love with a voice that I never knew I had” work very well.

When the student describes their first published poem, however, their writing gets a little more stilted. This is a common error students make when writing about their achievements. If this student is writing about the craft that goes into writing, we should hear the details of the craft that went into the poem, instead of simply learning that they “opened up about being ridiculed for bringing Asian food to school at Youth Leadership Forum.” This is interesting information but would be stronger if it were supplemented by descriptions of the voice they created, comparisons to the styles of other poets, and analysis of their stylistic choices. This would make the essay feel more cohesive, centering entirely around concepts of voice and style.

Prompt #6: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Note: We don’t have a stellar example for this prompt, so instead, we’re sharing a couple examples that need improvement, and what can be done to make the essays more engaging. 

Prompt #6, Example #1

What factors shape the depth and allure of a literary character? This is the exact question I asked myself as my eyes riveted on the white pages covered with little black letters.

I was reading my old novels. I’ve written three novels and many short stories. Each of them repetitively portrayed the hero as intelligent and funny, and the antagonists as cold and manipulative. I came to the appalling realization that my characters were flat, neither exciting nor original. They just didn’t stand out! 

As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Vice and virtue are to the artist material to an art.’ Their mixing makes a novel addictive because its plot is rich with turnarounds and its characters more engaging. In his famous work The Picture of Dorian Gray , Wilde deconstructs the psyche of his characters. He brilliantly plays with the protagonist’s youthful appearance and the decaying portrait to build a truly unique idiosyncratic identity. The persona of Dorian Gray is so complicated a psychologist could analyze it for hours on end!

Inspired by this character, It was my turn to explore good and evil into characters to make my stories more enthralling. I skillfully played with vice and virtue, separating, merging them… My latest novel is the fruit of this exercise. I chose to set it in 20th century London. Its opium dens and exclusive salons; middle-class workers, peasants and politicians breathed the same newly industrialized air; modernity in Blackfriars bridge and tradition in St Paul’s Cathedral; all of these contrasts set the perfect environment for my characters to grow. Following Laclos’ Valmont, Maupassant’s Georges Duroy and Duffy’s Myra Hindley, I played with those contrasts to present an intricate character, truly creative – unlike my previous ones. Insanity, religion, depravity and love are merged into each character, reflecting Edwardian London. As I reflected on my work, I realized vice and virtue altogether made them more human and credible. These characters stood out, they were interesting, I even wanted to know more about them! 

After rewriting, erasing, typing, and thinking countless times, I realized writing is a unique exercise. Nothing is definite when you are holding a fountain pen, hearing its screeching sound on the white paper and watching the ebony ink forming letters. When I wasn’t too happy about a change I made in my story, I simply erased and rewrote it. Everything I imagined could happen: white pages are the only place the mouse eats the cat or the world is taken by a zombie attack! 

This exact exercise of diversifying my characters satisfied my relentless curiosity. Asking myself ‘how could this character be if she had lost her parents in a maritime tragedy?’ allowed me to view the world from different perspectives (some very dissimilar to my own) and considering how each character would react to different situations brought them to life. As I was writing, I was aiming to change the usual narratives I had previously traversed. I loved experimenting with countless personality traits in my characters – minutes flowing, my hand dancing on the paper as my mind was singing words coming alive….

There were times where my hand just stopped writing and my mind stopped raging. I tried thinking differently, changing a character’s background, the story, the setting. I was inspired by Zola, A.Carter, Fitzgerald, the Brontë sisters… I could observe the different reactions of their characters, and reflect on mine theoretically. But it was only part one of the work: I then had to write, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes frantically, always leading to fresh ideas – I was exploring the practical, trying, erasing and rewriting. Both theory and practice are required to gain intellectual independence and experience, in writing and more globally: before I can change a character, I have to understand it. Before we can change the world, we have to understand it.

The main strength of this essay is the authenticity of the topic the student chose. They aren’t making anything up or stretching the truth. Writing is something that captivates them, and that captivation shines through—particularly through their fourth paragraph (where they geek out over specific plots and characters) and their fifth paragraph (where they joyfully describe how writing has no limitations). Admissions officers want to see this passion and intensity in applicants! The fact that this student has already written three novels also shows dedication and is impressive.

The main weakness of this essay is its structure. Ironically, it is not super captivating. The essay would have been more compelling if the student utilized a “anecdote – answer – reflection” structure. This student’s current introduction involves a reflective question, citations about their past writing experience, then their thoughts on Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. Instead, this student could’ve provided one cohesive (and powerful!) image of them being frustrated with their own writing then being inspired by Dorian Gray. This would look something like:

“I stayed up three nights in a row studying my own writing—bored by my own writing. The only thing more painful than seeing failure in the fruits of your labor is not seeing a path for improvement. I had written three novels and numerous short stories, and all I could come up with was funny and intelligent heroes going up against cold and manipulative villains. What kind of writer was so consistently cliche? On the third night, I wandered over to my bookshelf. Mrs. Dalloway caught my eye (it has such a beautiful cover). I flipped through. Then, I grabbed Giovanni’s Room . I was so obsessed with my shortcomings that I couldn’t even focus long enough to see what these authors were doing right. I picked up The Picture of Dorian Gray and decided to just start reading. By the end of the night, I was captivated.”

An introduction like this would flow nicely into the student describing their experience with Dorian Gray then, because of that experience, describing how they have altered their approach to writing. The conclusion of this essay would then be this student’s time for reflection. Instead of repeating content about their passion—“I then had to write, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes frantically” and “I was exploring the practical, trying, erasing and rewriting”—, the student could dedicate their conclusion to reflecting on the reasons that writing is so captivating or the ways that (until the day they die) writers will always be perfecting their craft.

This essay is a great example of how important it is to pick a topic that truly excites you. It also illustrates how important it is to effectively structure that excitement.

Prompt #6, Example #2

Astonished by the crashing sound of waves in my ear, I was convinced this magical shell actually held the sound of the big blue sea — my six-year-old self was heartbroken when I couldn’t take the thirty-dollar artificial shell from SeaWorld’s gift shop . It distinctly reminded me of the awestruck feeling I had when I witnessed the churning waves of a windy night by the ocean the previous weekend; I lost track of time gazing at the distant moonlit border dividing our world from the ever-growing black void. Turning to my mom, I inquired curiously, “Can we go to the place where the water ends one day?”

She explained to me I could never reach the end of the ocean because the harsh line I had seen was actually an illusion called the horizon —  there was no material end to the ocean. For a mind as young as mine was, the idea of infinity was incomprehensible. As my infatuation with the ocean continued to grow, I finally understood that regardless of how far I travel, the horizon is unattainable because it’s not a physical limit. This idea is why the ocean captivates me — no matter how much you discover, there is always more to explore. 

Learning about and exploring the ocean provided an escape from one reality into another; though we are on the same planet, it’s an entirely separate world. Through elementary and middle school, I devoted vast amounts of my free time to learning about simpler concepts like a dolphin’s ability to echolocate and coral reef ecosystems. I rented countless documentaries and constantly checked out books from my local library — my all-time favorite was an episode of the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey titled “The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth.” This episode remained memorable because it was centered around the impacts of fossil fuels on marine animals; it was the first time I’d learned about the impending crisis we are faced with due to the human mistreatment of our planet.

Prior to viewing that episode, I relied on the ocean as an outlet — I fueled all of my emotions into studying marine organisms. Once I learned of its grave future, I delved into the world of environmental activism. This path was much more disheartening than studying echolocation — inevitable death due to climate change took a toll on my mental health. I attended two climate strikes in November of my sophomore year. Following the strikes, I joined Sunrise Movement Sacramento, a youth-led climate justice organization advocating for the Green New Deal. While analyzing legislation and organizing protests were significant takeaways from my experience with climate activism, they were not the most important. I became an organizer because of my love for the ocean and I remain an organizer because of my passion for dissolving the disproportionalities marginalized groups face due to the sacrificing of people’s livelihood for the sake of profit. The more I learned about our modern society, the more hopeless I grew that I could see any significant change within my lifetime.

However, this hopelessness comes in waves; every day, I remind myself of the moment I discovered the horizon. Or the moment I first dove into the beautiful waters of the Hawaiian coast and immediately was surrounded by breathtaking seas of magnificent creatures and coral gardens — life felt ethereal and beautiful. I remind myself that like the ocean, the vast majority of the universe has yet to be discovered; that distant border holds infinite opportunity to learn. In a universe as vast as ours, and life as rare as ours, individuals still choose to prioritize avarice over our planet. Despite this grave individualism, the ocean reminds me every day there is hope in the fight for a better world. Though I will never discover every inch of the ocean’s floor, I will forever envision and reach for new horizons.

Sometimes the path to a great essay is taking something normal and using it to show admissions officers who you are and what you value—that is precisely this student’s approach! Finding the ocean fascinating is not unique to this student. Tons of kids (and adults, too!) are obsessed with the ocean. What this student does is take things a step further as they explain their curiosity about the ocean in relation to their pain about the destruction of the environment. This capacity for reflection is great!

This student shows a good control of language through their thematic centering on ocean and horizons that carries through their essay—with ”this hopelessness comes in waves” and “I will forever envision and reach for new horizons.” The details provided throughout are also effective at keeping readers engaged—things like “ my six-year-old self was heartbroken when I couldn’t take the thirty-dollar artificial shell from SeaWorld’s gift shop” and “ my all-time favorite was an episode of the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey titled “The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth.”

The main weakness of this essay is the lack of reflection when the student discusses environmental activism. There’s reflection on the student’s connection to the ocean and horizons at the beginning and at the end, but when the student discusses activism, the tone shifts from focusing on their internal thoughts to their external actions. Remember, a lot of students write about environmental activism, but not a lot of students write about an emotional connection to the ocean as an impetus for environmental activism. This student would stand out more to admissions officers if they had dug into questions of what the ocean means to them (and says about them) in the paragraphs beginning “Learning about and exploring the ocean…” and “Prior to viewing that episode.”

Prompt #7: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Prompt #7, example #1.

Scalding hot water cascades over me, crashing to the ground in a familiar, soothing rhythm. Steam rises to the ceiling as dried sweat and soap suds swirl down the drain. The water hisses as it hits my skin, far above the safe temperature for a shower. The pressure is perfect on my tired muscles, easing the aches and bruises from a rough bout of sparring and the tension from a long, stressful day. The noise from my overactive mind dies away, fading into music, lyrics floating through my head. Black streaks stripe the inside of my left arm, remnants of the penned reminders of homework, money owed and forms due. 

It lacks the same dynamism and controlled intensity of sparring on the mat at taekwondo or the warm tenderness of a tight hug from my father, but it’s still a cocoon of safety as the water washes away the day’s burdens. As long as the hot water is running, the rest of the world ceases to exist, shrinking to me, myself and I. The shower curtain closes me off from the hectic world spinning around me. 

Much like the baths of Blanche DuBois, my hot showers are a means of cleansing and purifying (though I’m mostly just ridding myself of the germs from children at work sneezing on me). In the midst of a hot shower, there is no impending exam to study for, no newspaper deadline to meet, no paycheck to deposit. It is simply complete and utter peace, a safe haven. The steam clears my mind even as it clouds my mirror. 

Creativity thrives in the tub, breathing life into tales of dragons and warrior princesses that evolve only in my head, never making their way to paper but appeasing the childlike dreamer and wannabe author in me all the same. That one calculus problem that has seemed unsolvable since second period clicks into place as I realize the obvious solution. The perfect concluding sentence to my literary analysis essay writes itself (causing me to abruptly end my shower in a mad dash to the computer before I forget it entirely).  

Ever since I was old enough to start taking showers unaided, I began hogging all the hot water in the house, a source of great frustration to my parents. Many of my early showers were rudely cut short by an unholy banging on the bathroom door and an order to “stop wasting water and come eat dinner before it gets cold.” After a decade of trudging up the stairs every evening to put an end to my water-wasting, my parents finally gave in, leaving me to my (expensive) showers. I imagine someday, when paying the water bill is in my hands, my showers will be shorter, but today is not that day (nor, hopefully, will the next four years be that day). 

Showers are better than any ibuprofen, the perfect panacea for life’s daily ailments. Headaches magically disappear as long as the water runs, though they typically return in full force afterward. The runny nose and itchy eyes courtesy of summertime allergies recede. Showers alleviate even the stomachache from a guacamole-induced lack of self-control. 

Honestly though, the best part about a hot shower is neither its medicinal abilities nor its blissful temporary isolation or even the heavenly warmth seeped deep into my bones. The best part is that these little moments of pure, uninhibited contentedness are a daily occurrence. No matter how stressful the day, showers ensure I always have something to look forward to. They are small moments, true, but important nonetheless, because it is the little things in life that matter; the big moments are too rare, too fleeting to make anyone truly happy. Wherever I am in the world, whatever fate chooses to throw at me, I know I can always find my peace at the end of the day behind the shower curtain.

This essay is relatable yet personal! The writer makes themself supremely human through discussing the universal subject of showering. That being said, an essay about showering could easily turn boring while still being relatable. This writer keeps its relatable moments interesting and fun through vivid descriptions of common feelings including “causing me to abruptly end my shower in a mad dash to the computer before I forget it entirely” and “the stomachache from a guacamole-induced lack of self-control.”

While describing a universal feeling, this student also cleverly and intentionally mentions small facts about their life through simple phrases like “I’m mostly just ridding myself of the germs from children at work sneezing on me” and “the childlike dreamer and wannabe author in me.” To put it simply, though we are talking about a shower, we learn about so much more!

And, at the end, the student lets us know that that is exactly why they love showers. Showers are more than meets the eye! With this insightful and reflective ending (“the big moments are too rare, too fleeting to make anyone truly happy”), readers learn about this student’s capacity for reflection, which is an important capacity as you enter college.

The one major error that this writer commits is that of using a trite transition. The inclusion of “Honestly though” at the beginning of this student’s ending detracts from what they are trying to say and sticks out in their writing.

Prompt #7, Example #2

Steam whooshed from the pot as I unveiled my newest creation: duck-peppercorn-chestnut dumplings. The spicy, hearty aroma swirled into the kitchen, mingling with the smell of fresh dough. Grinning, I grabbed a plump dumpling with chopsticks, blew carefully, and fed it into the waiting mouth of my little sister. Her eyes widening, she vigorously nodded and held up five stubby fingers. I did a little happy dance in celebration and pulled my notebook out of my apron pocket. Duck-peppercorn-chestnut: five stars.

In my household, dumplings are a far cry from the classic pork and cabbage. Our menu boasts everything from the savory lamb-bamboo shoot-watercress to the sweet and crispy apple-cinnamon-date. A few years ago, my sister claimed she was sick of eating the same flavors over and over. Refusing to let her disavow our family staple, I took her complaint as a challenge to make the tastiest and most unconventional dumplings to satisfy her. With her as my taste tester and Mum in charge of dough, I spent months experimenting with dozens of odd ingredient combinations. 

During those days spent covered in flour, my dumplings often reminded me of myself—a hybrid of ingredients that don’t usually go together. I am the product of three distinct worlds: the suburbs of Boston, the rural Chinese village of [location removed], and the coastal city of [location removed]. At school, I am both the STEM nerd with lightning-fast mental math and the artistic plant mom obsessed with funky earrings. I love all that is elegant, from Chinese calligraphy to the rolling notes of the Gourd flute, yet I can be very not elegant, like when my sister and I make homemade slime. When I’m on the streets, marching for women’s rights and climate action, I’m loud, bellowing from the bottom of my gut. In the painting studio, though, I don’t speak unless spoken to, and hours can slip by like minutes. I’m loud and quiet. Elegant and messy. Nerdy and artistic. Suburban, rustic, and metropolitan.

While I’m full of odd combinations, they are only seemingly contradictory. Just as barbeque pork and pineapple can combine beautifully in a dumpling wrapper, different facets of my identity also converge. After my tenth-grade summer, when I spent six weeks studying design at art school and another three researching the brain at Harvard Med, I began asking myself: What if I mixed art and neuroscience together? That fall, I collaborated with my school’s art museum for an independent research project, exploring two questions: How are aesthetic experiences processed in the brain? And how can neuroscience help museums design exhibits that maximize visitor engagement? I combed through studies with results from tightly controlled experiments, and I spent days gathering my own qualitative data by observing museum visitors and asking them questions. With the help of my artistic skills, I could identify the visual and spatial elements of the exhibits that best held visitors’ attention. 

By synergizing two of the ingredients that make me who I am—art and neuroscience—I realized I shouldn’t see the different sides of myself as separate. I learned to instead seek the intersections between aspects of my identity. Since then, I have mixed art with activism to voice my opinions nonverbally, created Spotify playlists with both Chinese and western pop, and written flute compositions using music theory and math. In the future, by continuing to combine my interests, I want to find my niche in the world. I can make a positive impact on society without having to choose just one passion. As of now, my dream is to be a neuroscientist who designs art therapy treatments for mental health patients. Who knows though? Maybe my calling is to be a dim sum chef who teaches pottery on the side. I don’t know where I’ll go, but one thing’s for sure—being a standard pork and cabbage dumpling is definitely not my style.

This essay is outstanding because the student seems likable and authentic. With the first image of the student’s little sister vigorously nodding and holding up “five stubby fingers,” we find ourselves intrigued by the student’s daily life. They additionally show the importance of family, culture, and creativity in their life—these are great things to highlight in your essay!

After the introduction, the student uses their weird dumpling anecdote to transition to a discussion of their unique intersections. This is achieved smoothly because weirdness/uniqueness is the focus of both of these topics. Additionally, the comparison is not awkward because dumplings are used as more than just a transition, but rather are the through-line of the essay—the student weaves in little phrases like “Just as barbeque pork and pineapple can combine beautifully in a dumpling wrapper,” “By synergizing two of the ingredients that make me who I am,” and “being a standard pork and cabbage dumpling is definitely not my style.” This gives the essay its cohesive feel.

Authenticity comes through in this essay as the student recognizes that they don’t know what the future holds. They just know what kind of a person they are—a passionate one! 

One change that would improve this student’s essay would be focusing on fewer intersections in their third and last paragraph. The student mentions STEM, music, family activities, activism, and painting, which makes it feel like a distraction in middle of the essay. Focus on the most important things you want to show admissions officers—you can sit at intersections, but you can’t be interested in everything.

Prompt #7, Example #3

“Everyone follow me!” I smiled at five wide-eyed skaters before pushing off into a spiral. I glanced behind me hopefully, only to see my students standing frozen like statues, the fear in their eyes as clear as the ice they swayed on. “Come on!” I said encouragingly, but the only response I elicited was the slow shake of their heads. My first day as a Learn-to-Skate coach was not going as planned. 

But amid my frustration, I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater. At seven, I had been fascinated by Olympic performers who executed thrilling high jumps and dizzying spins with apparent ease, and I dreamed to one day do the same. My first few months on skates, however, sent these hopes crashing down: my attempts at slaloms and toe-loops were shadowed by a stubborn fear of falling, which even the helmet, elbow pads, and two pairs of mittens I had armed myself with couldn’t mitigate. Nonetheless, my coach remained unfailingly optimistic, motivating me through my worst spills and teaching me to find opportunities in failures. With his encouragement, I learned to push aside my fears and attack each jump with calm and confidence; it’s the hope that I can help others do the same that now inspires me to coach. 

I remember the day a frustrated staff member directed Oliver, a particularly hesitant young skater, toward me, hoping that my patience and steady encouragement might help him improve. Having stood in Oliver’s skates not much earlier myself, I completely empathized with his worries but also saw within him the potential to overcome his fears and succeed. 

To alleviate his anxiety, I held Oliver’s hand as we inched around the rink, cheering him on at every turn. I soon found though, that this only increased his fear of gliding on his own, so I changed my approach, making lessons as exciting as possible in hopes that he would catch the skating bug and take off. In the weeks that followed, we held relay races, played “freeze-skate” and “ice-potato”, and raced through obstacle courses; gradually, with each slip and subsequent success, his fear began to abate. I watched Oliver’s eyes widen in excitement with every skill he learned, and not long after, he earned his first skating badge. Together we celebrated this milestone, his ecstasy fueling my excitement and his pride mirroring my own. At that moment, I was both teacher and student, his progress instilling in me the importance of patience and a positive attitude. 

It’s been more than ten years since I bundled up and stepped onto the ice for the first time. Since then, my tolerance for the cold has remained stubbornly low, but the rest of me has certainly changed. In sharing my passion for skating, I have found a wonderful community of eager athletes, loving parents, and dedicated coaches from whom I have learned invaluable lessons and wisdom. My fellow staffers have been with me, both as friends and colleagues, and the relationships I’ve formed have given me far more poise, confidence, and appreciation for others. Likewise, my relationships with parents have given me an even greater gratitude for the role they play: no one goes to the rink without a parent behind the wheel! 

Since that first lesson, I have mentored dozens of children, and over the years, witnessed tentative steps transform into powerful glides and tears give way to delighted grins. What I have shared with my students has been among the greatest joys of my life, something I will cherish forever. It’s funny: when I began skating, what pushed me through the early morning practices was the prospect of winning an Olympic medal. Now, what excites me is the chance to work with my students, to help them grow, and to give back to the sport that has brought me so much happiness. 

A major strength of this essay comes in its narrative organization. When reading this first paragraph, we feel for the young skaters and understand their fear—skating sounds scary! Then, because the writer sets us up to feel this empathy, the transition to the second paragraph where the student describes their empathy for the young skaters is particularly powerful. It’s like we are all in it together! The student’s empathy for the young skaters also serves as an outstanding, seamless transition to the applicant discussing their personal journey with skating: “I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater.”

This essay positions the applicant as a grounded and caring individual. They are caring towards the young skaters—changing their teaching style to try to help the young skaters and feeling the young skaters’ emotions with them—but they are also appreciative to those who helped them as they reference their fellow staffers and parents. This shows great maturity—a favorable quality in the eyes of an admissions officer.

At the end of the essay, we know a lot about this student and are convinced that they would be a good addition to a college campus!

Prompt #7, Example #4

Flipping past dozens of colorful entries in my journal, I arrive at the final blank sheet. I press my pen lightly to the page, barely scratching its surface to create a series of loops stringing together into sentences. Emotions spill out, and with their release, I feel lightness in my chest. The stream of thoughts slows as I reach the bottom of the page, and I gently close the cover of the worn book: another journal finished.

I add the journal to the stack of eleven books on my nightstand. Struck by the bittersweet sensation of closing a chapter of my life, I grab the notebook at the bottom of the pile to reminisce.

“I want to make a flying mushen to fly in space and your in it” – October 2008

Pulling back the cover of my first Tinkerbell-themed diary, the prompt “My Hopes and Dreams” captures my attention. Though “machine” is misspelled in my scribbled response, I see the beginnings of my past obsession with outer space. At the age of five, I tore through novels about the solar system, experimented with rockets built from plastic straws, and rented Space Shuttle films from Blockbuster to satisfy my curiosities. While I chased down answers to questions as limitless as the universe, I fell in love with learning. Eight journals later, the same relentless curiosity brought me to an airplane descending on San Francisco Bay.

“I wish I had infinite sunsets” – July 2019

I reach for the charcoal notepad near the top of the pile and open to the first page: my flight to the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes. While I was excited to explore bioengineering, anxiety twisted in my stomach as I imagined my destination, unsure of whether I could overcome my shyness and connect with others.

With each new conversation, the sweat on my palms became less noticeable, and I met students from 23 different countries. Many of the moments where I challenged myself socially revolved around the third story deck of the Jerry house. A strange medley of English, Arabic, and Mandarin filled the summer air as my friends and I gathered there every evening, and dialogues at sunset soon became moments of bliss. In our conversations about cultural differences, the possibility of an afterlife, and the plausibility of far-fetched conspiracy theories, I learned to voice my opinion. As I was introduced to different viewpoints, these moments challenged my understanding of the world around me. In my final entries from California, I find excitement to learn from others and increased confidence, a tool that would later allow me to impact my community.

“The beauty in a tower of cans” – June 2020

Returning my gaze to the stack of journals, I stretch to take the floral-patterned book sitting on top. I flip through, eventually finding the beginnings of the organization I created during the outbreak of COVID-19. Since then, Door-to-Door Deliveries has woven its way through my entries and into reality, allowing me to aid high-risk populations through free grocery delivery.

With the confidence I gained the summer before, I took action when seeing others in need rather than letting my shyness hold me back. I reached out to local churches and senior centers to spread word of our services and interacted with customers through our website and social media pages. To further expand our impact, we held two food drives, and I mustered the courage to ask for donations door-to-door. In a tower of canned donations, I saw the value of reaching out to help others and realized my own potential to impact the world around me.

I delicately close the journal in my hands, smiling softly as the memories reappear, one after another. Reaching under my bed, I pull out a fresh notebook and open to its first sheet. I lightly press my pen to the page, “And so begins the next chapter…”

The structuring of this essay makes it easy and enjoyable to read. The student effectively organizes their various life experiences around their tower of journals, which centers the reader and makes the different stories easy to follow. Additionally, the student engages quotes from their journals—and unique formatting of the quotes—to signal that they are moving in time and show us which memory we should follow them to.

Thematically, the student uses the idea of shyness to connect the different memories they draw out of their journals. As the student describes their experiences overcoming shyness at the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes and Door-to-Door Deliveries, this essay can be read as an Overcoming Obstacles essay.

At the end of this essay, readers are fully convinced that this student is dedicated (they have committed to journaling every day), thoughtful (journaling is a thoughtful process and, in the essay, the student reflects thoughtfully on the past), and motivated (they flew across the country for a summer program and started a business). These are definitely qualities admissions officers are looking for in applicants!

Prompt #7, Example #5

“We’re ready for take-off!” 

The tires hit the tarmac and began to accelerate, and I just realized what I had signed up for. For 24 hours straight, I strapped myself into a broken-down SUV whereas others chose the luxury of soaring through the skies for a mere two hours. Especially with my motion sickness and driving anxiety, I would call myself crazy too.

To say I have always remained in my comfort zone is an understatement. Did I always order chicken fingers and fries at a restaurant? Yup! Sounds like me. Did I always create a color-coded itinerary just for a day trip? Guilty as charged. Did I always carry a first-aid kit at all times? Of course! I would make even an ambulance look unprepared. And yet here I was, choosing 1,000 miles of misery from Las Vegas to Seattle despite every bone in my body telling me not to.

The sunlight blinded my eyes and a wave of nausea swept over me. Was it too late to say I forgot my calculator? It was only ten minutes in, and I was certain that the trip was going to be a disaster. I simply hoped that our pre-drive prayer was not stuck in God’s voicemail box. 

All of a sudden, I noticed brightly colored rocks in the distance, ones I had been dying to see for years. Their fluorescence popped amongst the magnificent winding hills as the sunset became romantic in hue. The desert glistened with mirages of deep blue water unlike anything I had ever seen. Nevada was home, but home always seemed to be just desert and casinos. For once, I looked forward to endless desert outside my window rather than a sea of clouds.

I never realized how little I discovered of the world beyond home. For years I complained about how there was nothing to do or discover outside. Not once did I set out to prove myself wrong. Instead, I chose a daily routine of homework at the kitchen table and late-night TV. However, as summer vacation ended, I decided to set my stubbornness aside and finally give this drive back home a chance. Little did I know that it would turn out to be my favorite trip of all time. 

As we drove along, the world chose to prove me wrong when I discovered Heaven on Earth along Shasta Lake. I stood out of the sunroof, surrounded by lush green mountains and fog. I extended my arms out and felt a sense of flight that no plane could ever take me on. As the water vapor kissed my face, I floated into a dreamland I never wanted to leave. I didn’t have to go to great lengths to discover the beauty of the world; it was right in front of me.  From this moment on, comfort and convenience would no longer be my best friends. Rather than only looking for famous travel destinations or following carefully mapped-out routes, I would let curiosity lead the way. 

Since then, my daily life has been anything but routine. I’m proud to boast of my family’s homemade kombucha attempts, of flights purchased and taken in one day, and of a home flooded with knick-knacks from thrifting trips. Every day I set out to try something new, see a different perspective, and go beyond normal. Whether it is by trying a new recipe using taro, making a risky fashion choice with wide-legged pants, or listening to a new music genre in Spanish, I always act with curiosity first.

Over the years, I have devoted my time towards learning Swedish, building computers, and swimming. Although my accent is horrid, some computers almost broke, and even a starfish would outswim me, I continue to enjoy activities I once criticized. For me, there is no enjoyment without some risk. Nobody I know is a kazoo-playing, boogie-board loving, boba connoisseur like me.

This essay is an Overcoming Challenges story that centers around a single anecdote. The structure works nicely as the student describes what they were like before their road trip, what happened on the road trip, and what they were like after. 

The most major improvement that this essay needs is better-communicated authenticity. At the beginning, it feels a bit gimmicky. The student describes their preparedness, particularly the fact that they always carry a first aid kit, and it’s not super believable. Then, when they write “Was it too late to say I forgot my calculator?” it feels like we are in a sitcom and the student is that funny obsessive kid. Sitcom characters don’t feel real and you want to make yourself appear profoundly real.

On a similar note, the narrative arc of this essay isn’t entirely believable. The student describes a large personality and value shift but doesn’t describe any struggles that accompany the shift. A quick shift like that is far from easy. On the other hand, if the immediacy of the shift was easy, they could write about moments after their shift in mindset when they have felt troubled by residual desires to stay in their comfort zone, instead of writing “I always act with curiosity first.”

The greatest strength of this essay is the paragraphs beginning “I never realized how little…” and “As we drove along…” The fixation on comfort seems much more believable when it involves “homework at the kitchen table and late-night TV.” The descriptions of the drive provide beautiful, evocative imagery. And it’s topped off with some nice reflection! Digging into this great portion of the essay would make this an even stronger essay!

Want to see more examples? Check out this post with 16 strong essay examples from top schools , including common supplemental essay questions.

At selective schools, your essays account for around 25% of your admissions decision. That’s more than grades (20%) and test scores (15%), and almost as much as extracurriculars (30%). Why is this? Most students applying to top schools will have stellar academics and extracurriculars. Your essays are your chance to stand out and humanize your application.

That’s why it’s vital that your essays are engaging, and present you as someone who would enrich the campus community.

Before submitting your application, you should have someone else review your essays. It’s even better if that person doesn’t know you personally, as they can best tell whether your personality shines through your essay. 

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!

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• Emily Spriggs
• Oct 15, 2021

Level up your Common App Activities List with The College Essay Guy

Click on the video image to play

USA Application Guru Ethan Sawyer has just released a new video on up=leveling your Common App Activities list.

In this video he covers:

Why strong verbs are key + where to find my Epic List of Activities List Verbs

How the BEABIES exercise can help you remember stuff you did

How to bring more variety into your descriptions (if you've already written them)

Tips for the Awards and Honors section

If you are applying via Common App this year, or considering applying to the USA in the future, this is well worth a watch.

Subscribe to his channel to receive updates whenever he releases new content

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How to Write Your Common App Activities List

This is a guest blog post written by Ethan Sawyer,  The College Essay Guy . Ethan helps students write amazing college essays by offering free resources, one-on-one essay sessions, online webinars, and in-person workshops.  We encourage you to learn more about  The College Essay Guy  and check out the original post !

1. State role and organization name in top box, so you don’t waste characters in the lower, 160 character box. Instead of: (top box) School newspaper (description box) I am the editor for the school newspaper ( And don’t repeat words!)

Try: (top box) Editor of International Column, School Newspaper (description box) Responsible for brainstorming, revising, and supervising articles by other writers for my column.

2. Emphasize tangible, measurable impact .  Whom did your activity help? How many people? How much money did you raise?

Instead of: Raised money for children in Africa. Try: Raised $3,000 to provide three uniforms and scholarships for students attending the Joseph Waweru Home School in Kenya (http://www.exop.org/home_school.html).

3. Use active verbs  to explain what you actually did (list your tasks). Instead of: Worked at a clinic doing different things. Try: Organized patient diagnosis notes, sterilized tools for surgeries, assisted with x-ray analysis.

4. To fit in more info:  use lists ,  don’t use complete sentences ,  cut extra words . Instead of: I raised money to donate to a school in Ghana in Africa by selling t-shirts and bracelets. Try: Arranged advertising events, organized fundraisers, and gave presentations at school meetings.

5.  Use the present tense  if it’s something you still do. Instead of: I helped tour visitors around the campus and presented some information on school history and student life. Try: I give campus tours, providing info on school history, student activities, boarding life.

6. Aim for  variety  in your list, making sure your verbs aren’t redundant. Instead of: Instructing, helping, teaching children tennis (how are these three different?) Try: Instructing in proper technique, while imparting lessons in sportsmanship, health and integrity.

7. Include  any responsibilities you had  to  demonstrate leadership skills . Instead of: I swim on the swim team. Try: Responsible for leading swim practices, planning fundraising events; assisting in recruiting process.

8. What if there isn’t much to say, or it was a one-time event? Explain the significance of the activity: who did the event matter to and why? Rather than: Tutored students. Try: Provided support to fourth graders with particularly difficult math concepts.

9. Avoid extreme language . Instead of: to help all those in need (or) to end poverty in the world Try: to help those in need (or) to aid in the fight against global poverty

10. Use bigger words.  Instead of: “Come up with” (or) “told people about” Try: Develop, brainstorm (or) advertised, marketed

Here are some examples: 

Important: list them in descending level of importance.

Editor of International Column, School Newspaper Responsible for brainstorming, revising, and supervising articles by other writers for my column.

Intern at Children’s Institute Otis Booth Campus Brainstormed ideas for after school programs for teens,created surveys,presented data to supervisor

Intern at Department of Cardiovascular Disease Organized patient diagnosis notes, sterilized tools for surgeries, assisted with x-ray analysis.

Worked as assistant at Ye-In Dental Clinic Helped with patient registration, sterilized tools for surgeries, assisted with surgical processes.

Speech and Debate Academic All-American Award, NFL Tournament Qualifier (’11, ’12), Rupe Scholar, Stanford Invitational Semi-finalist, Harker Invitational Semi-finalist

Korean Compassion: Korean-to-English Letter Translator Translated letters sent by supporters to impoverished children in Asian and African countries.

Junior Researcher at Benetti Sport Inc. Conducted surveys to research youth interests, contributed ideas for future products.

Math Tutor at Sippican Elementary School Using card games and quizzes to simplify concepts, taught basic math skills to third graders.

School Tour Guide – International Guiding Staff I tour visitors around campus, while presenting school history, student activities, boarding life.

Global Partner for International Orientation I help new international students with registration and adjustment to the new school environment.

Click here for 10 Tips on Writing Your UC Activities List

Click here for a Brief Guide to Writing Your Common App “Additional Info” Section

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