How to Write Great Essays

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This section explains seven topics frequently used on college application essays. They include
a free choice topic, which is often used for exit essays. The first five come from the Com-
mon Application, which is currently accepted by over two hundred colleges and universi-
ties. Schools that have their own applications often use these same topics as well.
1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical
dilemma you have faced, and its impact on you.
The last phrase is critical: whatever you choose to write about (the “cause”), you
must show its impact upon you (the “effect”). Your experience need not be earth-
shattering; remember that small and seemingly insignificant can be better. You are
guaranteed to write an original essay if you focus on something that you alone expe-
rienced or find significance in.
Writing an essay on what it felt like to drive a car alone for the first time, for
instance, or why you enjoy preparing a favorite recipe, can show your creativity and
your willingness to see the big picture. Perhaps the cooking experience showed you
how a bunch of little steps add up to something big, or how a series of words on
paper can connect you with your ethnic heritage. In other words, readers don’t want
to know about how you took first prize in the Mozart Piano Competition. If you
want to write about piano playing, you could briefly mention the prize, but be sure
to explain how the rigors of practice, the wisdom of your teacher, and the knowl-
edge of musical composition have changed you for the better.
2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its
importance to you.
Many experts caution against writing on this topic unless the issue has had a profound
and highly personal effect on you. It lends itself to clichés (“why I want world peace”)
and can steer you away from your task, which is to reveal something about yourself.