Okay, so I’ve read conflicting views EVERYWHERE including here on CC. Do CommonApp/colleges allow self-plagiarism in admission essays or not?
“plagiarism: the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own” (OED)
Definitionally there is no such thing as ‘self-plagiarism’.
Willing to bet that the majority of students who apply to multiple colleges that require similar essays recycle material. Is that what you mean?
Have seen posters asking if they can use something they wrote for another purpose. Is that what you mean?
By other threads you are applying Harvard SCEA, and are not sure whether to present yourself as well-round or as having a ‘spike/hook’ (side note, spike and hook are different things: a spike is something that stands out as your best thing; a hook is something you have that they want, there are only a few hooks and they get to decide what is a hook & the relative importance of each hook). Together that says to me that you are an ‘unhooked’ candidate applying for something with a 90+% rejection rate.
If you wrote something in the past that was so wondrous that you want to re-use it, why are you not confident that you can write something at least as wondrous now, with the added benefit of whatever learning and growing you have done in the meantime? It is 9 months until that essay is due- people grow whole humans in that time!
Tbh, the Harvard students that I know/have known are the kind who are constantly pushing themselves to do more, better. Is that you? if so, don’t sell yourself short by popping in an old piece of writing. Even if it won a prize.
@collegemom3717 hmm. I see your point. What I meant was, can I recycle essay material for colleges, as in, use what I wrote for one college, change it to fit another college’s prompt and submit it. That’s fine. Right?
About the spike/hook situation, thanks for explaining the difference. Okay, so I do have a spike, but I do not have a hook. I was wondering whether either way is better suited because I’ve read mixed opinions everywhere
Yes, you can use your own material for essays and you can recycle it.
yes…pretty much everybody recycles- even at grad school level. You have a story to tell, you highlight different aspects of it depending on the specific school, what you are interested in at that place, etc.
fwiw, go ahead and write essays now (I am guessing that you already are), then put it away & come back in 3 months. Rewrite, put it away, come back 3 months later. A month before deadline take it out and make your final revisions. Save a copy of your first version for comparison- it is a fun way to see how you, and your thinking, have evolved over the year 
as for spike/no spike- the opinions are all over the place because there is no single answer. Some of both get in, and some of both are rejected. Be your own truest self. At the end of the day that is all anybody has.
@collegemom3717 Thanks! I’ll do that! Could you please PM me, I have a couple of questions regarding essays but can’t send PMs yet lol
Self plagiarism is generally used only in cases in which you reuse your own material which has been already published elsewhere without proper attribution.
So this would only be true if somebody uses an essay which they wrote, and which was published in, say, a magazine, without properly attributing it. It is not properly “plagiarism”, as @collegemom3717 correctly states, but it is prohibited on college essays, and in publications.
However, using the same essay for multiple applications, using an essay which was submitted for homework, or even using an essay which was posted on your own blog is permitted (since “published” means having been published by others after being reviewed, not simply posted in public). However, the last case can get a person in trouble with most anti-plagiarism software.
@MWolf Okayyy. That’s something I didn’t know. Thanks for the info!