<p>I guess if you are reading this, you are thinking college essay. So I may be preaching to the choir...but when is best time to start essay, AND did you brainstorm a big list or hit on an idea immediately?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I am a '13 so I vividly recall the essay-writing.</p>
<p>I’ve found the only essays I can write under pressure are intellectual/research essays. This is NOT what the Common App is all about, and so I brainstormed over the summer and wrote the essays in late August. I could be as freethinking and creative as I wanted, with the guarantee that I could always edit later. I took a pretty difficult courseload senior year and would not have been able to produce a fine piece of writing FROM SCRATCH in the middle of the school year. However, I did edit my essay throughout the fall semester, so this is not to say that once you finish it over the summer you have to leave it untouched until you submit it.</p>
<p>Finding a topic is hard because it’s so easy. Often, the best topics are staring you right in the face. What makes you unique? What defines your outlook on life? What could you write about that no one else could? Who do you have a special relationship with? (and I don’t mean bf/gf) What has been a meaningful moment in your life? Beware of the last topic because many times people use the same experiences (mission trips, etc.) so make sure it’s unique.</p>
<p>^True dat. I remember my primary personal essay went through like five major structure/tone/content shifts before it came to its present form. This took on the order of multiple months. But another one of my personal essays came to be from midnight to 1 AM some random night and basically stayed in its original form. Yet another was at a nice middle ground (it was a story, so it was easy to write, but it needed some revisions to fit length requirements, among other things, which were more difficult). You never know which scenario will play out, so start well in advance. </p>
<p>And yeah, I also found that the “why engineering” type essays were pretty easy to write. Those things took me like a day and stayed in pretty much their original form. The “why ____” essays took a while to think of, but once I got the proper idea it was pretty easy.</p>