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Common Application Essay Question Analysis (six choices)

by Dr. Jon Reider, Former Senior Associate Director of Admissions, Stanford University

Question #1:  Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

This point of this question is to give you a chance to reveal some part of your personality or outlook on life in terms of the way in which you responded to an experience, achievement, risk, or ethical dilemma.  Did you go to the presidential inauguration, star in a theater production, try a particularly outlandish chemistry experiment, or help a friend who wanted to join a gang?  Did you gain what you hoped, learn something valuable, succeed or fail in achieving your goal, end up proud of what you did?  Did the experience impact your life positively or negatively, or affect your aspirations for your future?  The admissions committee is interested in how you respond to situations, and what kinds of personal qualities you bring to bear when dealing with challenges.

Question #2:  Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

If you are particularly involved in or opinionated about an issue, here’s your chance to state your case and show the admissions committee how you approach a problem.  Maybe you use a wheelchair and the local theater isn’t accessible.  Perhaps the community center had to close because the city could no longer pay the utilities.  Maybe you went door to door during the national political campaign canvassing on health care, and now your cousin can’t get health insurance.  It’s possible that the melting of the polar ice caps really upsets you.  Whatever it is, the admissions evaluator will be looking for your lively explanation of the problem and your approach to the struggle for solutions.  The essay is not about the issue, but about why it’s important that you are involved in tackling it.

Question #3:  Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Thousands of applicants write about their mom or dad, or perhaps their older brother, their grandfather, or their favorite teacher or coach. All of them are okay.  You don’t have to stretch to find somebody unusual to write about.  However, it is really difficult to be original when answering this question.  If you choose it for your essay, you must approach it from a unique angle and remember that it’s going to be hard to be interesting when the admissions committee has heard hundreds of the same tales over and over again.  If you have been influenced in a truly unusual way by a really amazing person, by all means write this essay.  Just remember that the essay is about the impact the person had on you, not about the person himself. 

Question #4:  Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

This question is actually about some quality, talent, or characteristic that you possess, or some adversity you have dealt with, that is highlighted by a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work.  Remember that in describing its influence, the essay is really explaining some aspect of your own life or personality.  This is another place where it’s difficult to be original, but it can be a really fun essay to write if done well.  It is also an opportunity to sound intellectually sophisticated:  it is okay to write about Picasso or Tolstoy.  These are colleges, after all, and they value intellect.  But be careful of writing about a very familiar author like Hemingway or a character like Gatsby or Huck Finn.  It’s hard to say something new about Gatsby that hasn’t been said before.

Question #5:  A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix.  Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

Sometimes the most important thing in your life is the way in which you are different.  Since every college is looking for a diverse mix of students, this is a good place to illustrate that difference.  Did you attend high school overseas, are you fluent in a language other than English, did you grow up in a foster home?  Diversity can mean almost anything.  Are you a conservative in a liberal setting, or vice-versa? An essay from a girl who lived in a suburban Protestant community but was attacked in an alley because she was Jewish, or an essay from a boy who was the only Caucasian in a class of Asian students all the way through elementary school, and what they both learned from those experiences, can make an impressive essay.  These situations can also fit well into several of the other choices of questions, so pick the one you find flows the best.

Question #6:  Topic of your choice.

If there is truly nothing in your life that fits into one of the first five choices, and there is something else you absolutely must write about, then use this question.  However, if you take the easy way out and submit an answer that you wrote for some other college’s unique essay question, the admission committee will probably quickly pick up on that. This will not help you.  Don’t look for shortcuts.