35 College Essay Prompts and Topics

First-Year Essay Prompts:

Here is the list of some essay prompts that come across while in my college application essay prompts:

1. A student having some past or some delightful experiences will help in making their essay application realistic in college essay prompts. Some sense of reality in an essay can be the most engaging part of the application. If you think this can be you, then you should reveal that story to all.
2. The challenges faced in real-time are the obstacles for us in the present time but if we will think about the future, it is the most crucial step to our later success. Collect the incidents and situations where you faced some barrier and where you felt stuck as they will be really helpful in explaining how you became the person you are today. One’s experience is a way much better than short-term success.
3. Imagine the times when you were not comfortable with the beliefs and ideas of people and just get in-depth of that as you need to know what made you sense like that.
4. Sometimes something happens to us which makes us feel alive, so just go back and think about why it made you feel like that. Moreover, they make us feel to do and achieve something great in our lives. How that one action or reaction of someone makes you feel like heaven? How that has impacted some things in your life?
5. Recollect the times when you have done something great and you felt that you are a step closer to success or you are taking a step towards your personal growth. Go back to the times when you realized your capability and worth. Imagine the times when you started understanding your accomplishments and value.
6. Sometimes we come across some unique and winning thoughts or concepts that made us feel so relaxed and involved. Think about what makes you feel like that and what was the catchy thing in that. How do you become like when you want to know more about something?
7. Take a topic of your choice or zone and share an essay on that topic. It can be from any concept or a real incident or a fantasy or an imaginary one but it should be planned by you as that that will have a sense of belongingness and hence it will take that essay to another level in college essay prompts.

35 College Essay Prompts and Topics:

The college application essay prompts are hectic and at the same time can be interesting for some. As always for every application, we have some important points to excel in.

1) Introduce the person who has played an important role in changing your life:

In an essay explain how this person has contributed to you as a person and how that person has helped you realise self-care and self-importance as that is the most important thing one should do.

2) Any incident where you need to speak for someone as they cannot due to their inability:

In these types of essays, you need to say about a particular scene where you have spoken for someone who may be your friend as he/ she was not able. The inability can be anything maybe a lack of confidence or maybe health problems or vocal problems.
In these cases, it will be really good if you have some relevant examples for that and if not then please do not make some new story as that will impact that you are a child of gold having all qualities.

3) Any book which you want to suggest to read:

In these types of essays, it is best if you will take the example of that book which you have read as you will know all the good things and best things about that book. So it will describe you as a person about your likes or dislikes. In this, it will be amazing if you will describe why you feel like it to suggest readers to read. Describe what made you feel special about this book.

4) Tell something about the problems you faced or problems that you may want to solve:
It will check your understanding that what you think the problem is and it will check your views on what made you think that is a problem. It will check whether you are doing something to solve that problem or not, so write accordingly.

5) Depict something about a situation where you are not ok with already made beliefs :
Sometimes we start believing as our parents or people around us want us to believe but as a person, we can have our personal views on that with some facts of course. This is as college can take idea whether you have some qualities for participating in college debates. You need to depict a thing or situation where you felt like yes, that needs to be changed, it is wrong. For example like previously women were not allowed to work but now they are equal to men.

6) Tell us something about your failures and how they changed you as a person :
Many times we do something and we fail out miserably. So, you need to depict that incident where you felt like this. The best advice is to be genuine and honest as everyone has failures in their life, be confident about that and depict them clearly as it can be a great message to others having the same problem.

7) Tell us something about yourself:
While writing these types of essays, you need to stand out from other students as most of them will describe their achievements but it will be great if you write a unique thing that focuses more on your nature or your thoughts. Please ignore the mostly used topics always as they may be too boring to read for test-takers.

8) Tell something about your goals in life:
In these types of easy we mostly write about career goals or family goals but to make it more engaged and realistic, write about something you want to make or the goals which you want to fulfil like learning to swim or being a karate champion, etc. It will involve the examiner in your essay and you will get the results accordingly.

9) Choose any topic for the essay:
This is an open free ended question for you, it provides an excellent opportunity to you to choose the topic of your choice, Still, try to unique it and do not use the most repeated topics like “ my favourite food” or “ my favourite place”. You can choose unique and refreshing topics and if your topic is a different one, it will help you in getting to stand out from others in common app college essay prompts.

So, these were some most commonly asked essay prompts for college admission.

Popular College Application Essay Topics:

So many colleges accept these application forms for common app college essay prompts for getting into a good college.

1) Share your story: In these types of essays, it is recommended to write more about your skills, choices, and your love for things rather than your academic performance as they can see all your academic records in the application form.
It will be best if you describe yourself as a person like what makes you excited, what makes you feel motivated every time, and anything related to your fantasies.

2) Learning from obstacles: Everyone faces difficulties in their life whether it is big or smaller, but still, it makes some changes in our individuality as a person. In these types of essays, you can tell about your obstacles in detail and along with that, you should also tell about how you overcame that. Application checkers want to see how you solved the situation and overcame that. The focus should be on steps for overcoming the obstacles faced by you.

3) Challenging a belief: In this, the admission takers are checking you as a person as they want to check if you have some qualities for standing out from others and if you think this thought or belief could be changed. Leadership qualities, taking a stand for the right things, and many things are checked in these kinds of essays. These essay applications are there just to know more about you as an individual. It will be best if you share some realistic and genuine cases where you did this.

4) Solving a problem: Daily we have some problems around us, some problems are huge while some are ignorable. In these kinds of essays, Application checkers are looking for a person’s ability to identify a problem and the steps taken for solving it. As this will show the thinking style of the student like how he/ she thinks, what he/ she means by problem etc. They will just read your mind by your essays; they will see the person in you just by the words written.

5) Personal Growth: In this, it will be checked whether the student is eager to learn from mistakes, to check if the student is comfortable adapting to some change. Describe these kinds of essays stating about your rewards or failures and also how you improved yourself from these achievements or failures. As human being needs to update themselves at various points in their lives because change is a part of life. So the more the person can adapt to changes, the more strong the person is than those who don’t adapt.

6) Why do you need admission to this school? : In these kinds of essays, generally, students say about the prestige and reputation in the market, but this is not what admission takers are looking for. You should be genuine and honest about why you want to join this school like because this school is near to my house or in this school you will get the opportunities like sports, music, etc. As these things only will make you different from others.

7) Describe something about your favourite person: Most of the students will take some eminent personalities like Amitabh Bacchan, Rishi Kapoor, etc. But no, it is not required; please make an example of those personalities with whom you relate or whose personal experiences inspire you. It will be amazing if you will describe the changes you made in yourself by getting inspired by your personality.

These were the most popular topics which are generally given for common app college essay prompts.

Creative College Essay Prompts:

Creative college essays prompt are useful as colleges need some lines about students appearing for admission. Generally, colleges provide samples for students to write it nicely. But if not, then these college essay prompts can help you in writing the best content explaining you. Below is a list of some examples of it:

1. Tell that invention that you think is helping in diminishing the country instead of helping in growth and also explain what made you think that?

This question will check your state of mind, and your ability to think on your own to change something for the country.

2) Explain the nature or kind of person you are through a story.
This will check how well you can explain yourself through an essay.

3) What is the best quote which inspired you? Explain how?

This will check if some quote engaged you or motivated you and hence changed you as an individual.

4) Imagine if you can go to a previous time and change something, what will you change and why?

This will check your idea process. What made you think like that?

5) Suppose you have to add another question to the college application form, so what would be that question? Please explain it with answers.

This is just a very basic and easy question, in this, you need to think in deep, and just write whatever you feel to write.

6) Who has given you the best suggestion in your life? How has that changed you as a person?

This will check if you are a kind of a person who gets motivated by someone and hence included some new traits in yourself.

7) Which animal do you want to become if you were given the opportunity in history?

This is a free-ended question, just be honest while answering this kind of question. Also, do not use the most common names of animals which everyone will choose.

8) What made you choose this college only for the rest 4 years of your life? Explain with facts.

In these kinds of essays, admission takers are looking for a genuine reason for choosing the college. It will be best if you will be super honest here.

9) Is there any incident that made you change your thoughts or beliefs? Explain.

You as a person will be checked by these kinds of questions.

10) Share the bad experience of you where you failed in achieving your goal.
Many a time we get failed, the admission takers are checking for the honesty and acceptance nature of a person.
This will show that you accept both the good things as well as the bad things in your life.

11) Suppose there is a situation where you have an option of either taking a risk or not taking a risk. Which option would you choose and why?

Be super honest in these situations, as they are looking for that only.

12) What are your plans after completing graduation from college?

This will check your future planning skills and the kind of person you are.

13) Everyone has some dull moments in their life? What was that moment which you want to change? Explain Why?

This will check how you dealt with that weakest phase in life.
The above examples were the most commonly asked essay prompts for application. These prompts will also help you in case you need to choose your topic, so you can easily choose. There are more essay college app essay prompt examples.

Personal Insight Questions:

In these questions, the admission seeker is looking for more information about you. It will check your perspective, ideas, nature, and the kind of person you are. It is recommended to be super honest while answering these questions.
There are a total of 8 questions and you need to attempt any four questions out of it. In this case, you can choose any four out of them but it is recommended to prefer those which happened to you. As genuine stories is a way better than cooked stories.

Points to be Noted while Choosing Any Four:

a) Each question is equal. There are no marks for the kind of topic you choose. It completely depends on you. Admission takers will not provide any extra marks for the topic they choose. So, please feel free to choose any questions.
b) No procedure or method needs to be followed while writing these topics as they are looking for you. Describe yourself according to the topic with honesty.
c) Sometimes, while giving common app college essay prompts, we feel like writing about something that is not related to the topic assigned to us. In that case, an additional comment option is there where you can pass a message you want to convey.
This will help the application checker to know more clearly about you.

The 8 questions which are asked for checking the personal insight of a person are:

1) What changes you have made in your school to make it a better one?
You can write about the things like what change you made and what made you think of that. Also, you can mention how many people worked with you for applying this change in school.
2) Why do you think you will be selected for this application process?
These kinds of questions are checking your inner confidence and skills. Before appearing for this application, you can also visit the college’s website and learn more about their cultural environment which will help you in answering the relevant answers to explain the question.

3) Which is your favourite subject and how you are working more on that subject?

They are just checking your keen interest of you in a particular field and analyzing what steps are taken to get in more depth into it.

4) What was the biggest challenge you faced and explain how you managed to get out of it?

This will check your skills to face and deal with challenges as challenges will always be there in each part of life.
It will check how strong you are as a person.

5) Some skills we have in us since birth like a patient in nature or helpful etc. Which is the best skill you have?

Have some faith and confidence in yourself and tell the skill in which you think you have a keen interest.
This will give an idea to admission takers of the kind of skills you are having and they will allow you to work more on that skill to get the best out of it.

6) What talent do you think you have? What steps you are taking for working more on it?

This is to recognize your interest and hobbies. Whatever you think you love to do, just explain it.

7) Tell us about a situation where you have to lead the cause and solve it.

This will check your leadership skills to solve a problem and skills to influence people for a good cause.

8) Various opportunities are given to students in schools like debate competitions, talent hunts, etc. Tell us where you participated in these extracurricular activities.
This is just to know more about you. You can tell if you have participated in any of these activities.