Tips - Common App Main Personal Essay

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Below is a discussion of the Common Application Main Essay topics as they existed for many years up to and including 2012. Even though the Common App has changed its questions for 2013 (see this site for 2013 changes), we are keeping these questions posted because (1) there is a large overlap between the old questions and the new; (2) something resembling these questions may show up as supplementals; and (3) the writing principles contained herein remain highly relevant.

The first several old Main Essay suggestions are essentially the same as the ones for preceding two links, so please read those before proceeding to the next set of comments.

1. Topic 1: Influential experience

This topic often yields fine personal statements, for the very simple and logical reason that an account of an intensely felt private experience will inevitably be—by definition—personal. Nearly all the tips enumerated in the section of Essay Tips for Personal Statements and Common App Short Answer (e.g., the need for storytelling, sensory detail and sincerity, etc.) also apply to this topic, so please refer to those sections above.

2. Topic 2: Issue of local, national, or international concern

The weakness of Topic 2—or at least of most student responses to Topic 2—is that so much space must be devoted to the (inevitably impersonal) facts and details of the “issue of personal, local, national, or international concern” that not enough space is left over to showcase the student’s involvement or concern with the issue.

However, that does not mean that you can’t write about this topic. You certainly can—but you must not forget to include yourself in the narrative. You must be “in the movie,” so to speak.

For instance, an essay concerned about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would be vastly improved if the student also writes about how she volunteered for two weeks in Louisiana scrubbing pelicans or laying booms in the water to protect the estuaries;

an essay on with Native American education would be greatly deepened by an account of relevant family history or time spent living on a reservation;

an essay about the potential hazards of rapidly proliferating modern technology would have much more impact if anchored, say, in the student’s summer working with an uncle, the organic farmer and beekeeper, whose beehive populations are collapsing because a nearby giant cell tower is disorienting and maddening the bees….

Bottom line: put yourself in the story.

3. Topic 3: Influential Person

As with Topic 2, it is possible that you could run into the same problem of displaced essay attention with this one. Therefore, if you decide to write about an influential person, you absolutely must put yourself prominently in the story. After all, it is YOU who will be applying to the college—not your grandmother, big sister, or track coach (as much as we love them).

Naturally, a good part of the essay will be about your significant person, but the rest of the story must be about you—will have to be about you, in fact, because for you to prove that the person has been influential in your life, you have to be in the story all along, receiving and being formed by that influence. To return to our movie analogy, think of this essay is as a film with two big stars sharing the spotlight, neither overpowering the other.

In the simplest terms, this essay must contain You, the Person, and the Influence.

4. Topic 4: A character in fiction, a historical figure or creative work

The weakness of some responses to this topic is that they appear more as book reviews, biographical encomiums, or aesthetic discussions than as personal essays. At root, they often fail to tell a personal story—and a personal story, again, is the whole point of these essays.

The best responses to this topic—and I have seen fine ones—always include a personal narrative. For instance, a former student’s essay about Death of a Salesman devoted at least half the space to the season he had directed and acted in the play, so his essay was as much about his experience in the theatre as it was about Arthur Miller’s drama.

Another student wrote about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but not simply as a music fan, but as a violinist in a symphony orchestra, appearing onstage and performing the gloriously ecstatic music herself—again, she delivered a personal experience, not just a music review.

5. Topic 5: Importance of Diversity

A weakness that many of my students have perceived—and all of these students have been laudably “diverse” in one way or another—is that the essay is too narrowly tied to the theme of diversity, and therefore all responses will arrive at the same foregone conclusion—i.e., that “diversity is important.”

This outcome is inevitable because the writer is forced to arrive at that conclusion by the question itself: “Describe…an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.” Ironically, then, it turns out that many students find this topic does not permit responses that are diverse enough to be surprising or interesting.

With that said, I should add that you can write very interesting responses to this topic, but the only way to do that is to tell—out of your own personal experience—a very interesting story or anecdote that is so vivid and memorable in its originality and details that it will rescue your essay from the predictable sameness that usually afflicts essays on this otherwise well-intended topic.

Note: You will find that many supplemental essays also address the theme of diversity, so it might be wise to save your best stories about diversity for supplementals and tell a different story altogether in the personal statement.

6. Topic 6: Topic of your choice

Topic 6 promises boundless freedom—or terrifying paralysis—or, to some applicants, what looks like an easy way out. Some frazzled teens, squeezed by deadline pressure, are tempted to pick Topic 6 and then upload any old thing from their hard drives—e.g., some tepid essay about the attractions of X College (school name changed of course); their sister’s old University of Chicago essay (slightly altered); or some random history paper from 10th grade on the French Revolution.

But this kind of shortcut leads nowhere. More than likely, this cut-and-paste job will be recognized for what it is: a recycled essay, a re-gifted present, a week-old slice of pizza, and will create a very poor impression. This temptation must be avoided.

On the other hand, if you have a brilliant idea for a truly original and engaging personal essay, and that essay will not fit into any of the rather wide categories of Topics 1 though 5, then go for it, my friend.