<p>I'm applying for '12. Are essay prompts even up yet? When do you reccomend starting essays?</p>
<p>most essay prompts dont change too much year to year. it would be a good idea for you to go onto each school's website. if you are applying for uc's i know for a fact the essays are the same every year so you could easily start writing those soon. if the colleges you are interested in us commonapp.com you could write the essay for that as well. i wish i had started my essays early. it would have made senior year a lot more fun if i hadnt procrastinated. good luck!</p>
<p>No, essay prompts for '12 aren't up yet. Some schools don't change the essays, others modify them, and others change them completely. However, even if the prompts were up, it wouldn't be well-advised to start on the essays yet. I'm in the class of '08 and two schools have told me to have my completed applications in by 1 September 2007 because since I interviewed as a junior, they will give me a decision before EA I even opens up. They gave me applications right there, before the '08 ones are released. I want as many applications to be entirely turned in before school starts my senior year as possible.</p>
<p>However, I am NOT starting the essays yet, not even half a year before my applications go in. In six months, my outlook on things will have changed, another huge event may have changed my life, my writing will have improved and matured. I will start the essays about two months before my applications go in.</p>
<p>You should start your essay the day before its due. In all seriousness, the pressure that you will face will force you to write a masterpiece. Out of desperation, you will revise your essay the whole day. The only result will be a work of art :)</p>
<p>My AP English teacher is having us do our college essays over the summer before Senior year, and she's going to help us perfect them before they're submitted.</p>
<p>I don't know about the common application, if those essays stay the same every year, but you could always write that essay early and continue to revise it. You know how it is: you re-read the paper you wrote a week ago and realise that you could've made it so much better. I say, just keep working on them and by the time you send them in, they'll be perfecto.</p>
<p>I say start the essays when you feel most compelled to. As Carpe Aeturnum said, over a couple of months, your outlook can change. Events happen that shape our lives all that time, and that's what colleges want to know. Maybe what might be best for you to do now is, instead of actually writing the essay, keep a journal with responses to simulated essay prompts. After a while, you may choose something that you've written in a particual entry, or actually make the final product a compilation of different entries.</p>
<p>Dude...you are so behind the curve. To get into HPYSCKEMOSICJJEMKL you should have started first sem. of 9th grade at the latest. guess it's community college for you</p>