Hi-- any suggestions on how to come to with an essay topic? I’m stuck on figuring out what to write about. Maybe questions to help guide me in the right direction?
Anything helps. Thanks so so so much xx
Well…you’re really starting from scratch, aren’t you? I’d say, think about any challenges you’ve had in life and how you’ve overcome them, or maybe a job or experience you’ve had that changed your perspective. Think about what you’ve done, so far, that you really liked. What did that teach you about yourself?
You’re young so it’s not necessarily going to be earth-shattering, of course, but the essay is there to help adcoms get a feel for who you are, what you’d add to the student body for that year. If you’re good at writing humorously, run with that. If you’re talented at writing poignantly, that’s the way to go. You want the reader to be able to think “I know who this applicant is.”
OK, here’s what worked for my son:
- Day 1: Set a timer: 4 minutes per prompt. Sit at a computer, copy and paste the first Common App prompt to the top, and brainstorm. At this point, no anecdote is too far out there to be off limit; absolutely everything goes. Make a list of anything that’s ever been part of your life that could possibly apply to the prompt. Then move on to each of the other prompts.
- Day 2: Go back over what you have. Eliminate anything that took place too long ago, or that really is way out there. Extrapolate a little on what you have and how it relates to the topic.
- Day 3: Put in bullets, how the ideas you have could help "sell" your application.
-Day 4: Write a rough draft of each of the topics you have left. You don’t need an intro or conclusion, and you’re not worried about the minimum word count of 250. Just flesh out each topic.
- Day 5: Rewrite whichever essay you like best. (But keep the document in case you rethink your essay topic.)
I think that doing it on separate days, not necessarily in the same week, gives you a clear head when you go back and rethink what you have.