How to write a college essay, step by step

What the essay is actually for

Admissions readers already know what you have done. Your transcript and activities list tell them. The essay tells them how you think: what you notice, what you care about, how you make decisions and what you do when things go wrong. A reader should finish it feeling they have met a particular person.

So the question to keep asking is not "is this impressive?" but "what does this show about me that nothing else in my application does?"

The process, step by step

1. 1Collect material. Spend an afternoon listing objects, habits, decisions and disagreements that matter to you. Our brainstorming guide has the exercises.
2. 2Pick one story and one moment. Not a season or a year: the single scene where something happened or changed.
3. 3Choose the prompt last. Most good stories fit two or three of the seven prompts, and prompt 7 accepts anything.
4. 4Outline in four beats: the moment, just enough context, the turn, and what it means now.
5. 5Write a fast first draft at any length. Do not edit while you write.
6. 6Find the crux line: the sentence that says plainly what the story means. If there is not one, that is your next job.
7. 7Revise from big to small: structure first, then specifics, then voice, then grammar and length.
8. 8Read it aloud, check it is between 250 and 650 words, and have one person who knows you read it.

A simple outline that works

• The opening: drop the reader into a specific moment, image or question. Two or three sentences.
• The context: only what the reader needs to follow the story. This is usually the part to cut hardest.
• The turn: the decision, realization or change. Slow down here and give it the most detail.
• The reflection: what you understand now that you did not before, and how it shows up in what you do.
• The ending: look forward or widen out. Do not summarize the essay or restate a lesson.

How to write the hook

Forget clever. The strongest openings are specific: a place, an object, a line someone said, a moment already in motion. A reader should be inside your story by the end of the second sentence.

Openings to avoid are the ones that could start anyone's essay: a dictionary definition, a famous quotation, "Ever since I was young", or a sentence announcing what the essay will be about. Our guide to starting and ending an essay has more on this.

How to end it

End on something that shows the change is real: what you do now, what you are still figuring out, or a return to the opening image that now means something different. An ending that tells the reader what you learned in one tidy sentence usually undoes the work of the essay before it.

What makes an essay stand out

• Reflection: more of the essay is about what you thought than about what happened.
• Specific detail: names, places, objects and actions only you could write.
• Your real voice: it sounds like you talking at your most thoughtful, not like a speech.
• Focus: one story told well, rather than several told quickly.
• Honesty: a doubt, a mistake or a small moment of humor makes a person feel real.

Mistakes that cost the most

• Writing a résumé in prose that repeats your activities list.
• Spending most of the essay on someone else, such as a grandparent, coach or patient.
• A lesson that could end any essay: resilience, hard work, stepping out of your comfort zone.
• Vocabulary that sounds impressive but not like you.
• Letting a tool or another person write sentences for you. Common App asks you to affirm the essay is your own work.

Questions