Attention Juniors: The Common Application Essay Questions for Next Year’s Application

The Common Application has just announced that the essay questions for the 2012-2013 application will be the same as this past year. This is good news, because you can start thinking about what you want to write for these essays any time from now on.

• A.  SHORT ANSWER:

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below or on an attached sheet.  (1000 characters with spaces maximum.)

• B.  PERSONAL ESSAY:

1. Please write an essay (250-500 words) on a topic of your choice or one of the options listed below. This personal essay helps us to become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores and other objective data.  It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself.
2. Your Common Application essay should be the same for all colleges. Do not customize it in any way for individual colleges. Colleges that want customized essay responses will ask for them on a supplement form.

• C.  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Please upload a document here if you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application. (No word count)

Application essay writing should first start with the question you are answering and also pay close attention to the character and/or word count you are given. College admissions people are very picky about your answering their specific questions and following their directions. In a future blog piece, I will tell you how to collect personal stories that will make great content for your application essays, as well as step-by-step directions for how to make essay writing easy, effective and even fun.

Sophomores and freshmen should know that there will be a completely new Common Application, including new essay questions, beginning 2013-2014.

I also posted a college admissions to do list for Juniors so be sure to check that out. And please let me know if I can help create a to do list for something specifically related to College Admissions.  You can find adMISSION POSSIBLE on Facebook and on Twitter at @admissposs.