Writing your Common Application essays (2025) can feel really intimidating. It’s your chance to speak directly to admissions officers, not just as a student with grades and test scores, but as a real person with a story.
ChatGPT may do your school work, but you’ll still have to write your Common App essay yourself. Admissions officers read thousands of essays. They can spot a generic, over-edited, or artificially generated response from a mile away. What they really care about is your authenticity: your thoughts, your experiences, and your ability to reflect on them with heart and honesty.
We’re going to walk you through the 2025–2026 Common App essay prompts, help you understand what each one is really asking, and share tips on how to choose the right prompt for you. You don’t need to be a “perfect writer.” You just need to be yourself. We’ll help you do that in the best possible way.
You’re only required to complete ONE of the following essays. The maximum word count for these essays is 650 words each. You can be a little under but get as close as you can to 650 without going over. Don’t forget to edit and re-edit your essay because all of your universities will read it.
Our Comments on Common Application Essays 2025-2026 #1
Essay Prompt 1: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Only choose this question if there is something really unusual about you that has changed or made your life what it is. Examples of unusual things would include you:
- and your family fled a country at war
- are a person of multiple cultures (mixed race isn’t really enough, you need to have experienced extremes of your mixed cultures)
- raised your younger siblings because you were born to a single mother
- created an app that you were able to sell and made a bunch of money
- are a world-renowned concert pianist or something similar
It’s not enough to be different, though. You need to have a compelling story to go with your differentness. Tell a clear, moving story that has a beginning, middle, and end. Discuss why this background, identity, etc. is so important that it needed to be mentioned in your application and hint at how it will allow you to contribute to your accepted university.
At the end of the essay, you should directly connect this quality about yourself to your academic goals and what you can offer.
Our Comments on 2025-2026 Essay Prompt #2
Essay Prompt 2: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
You read this question and your first response was to think of a tiny failure that suggests you are so perfect that you rarely fail, right? Wrong. This type of response is classic and everyone knows what you’re doing. A great answer to this question shows real vulnerability.
When we sit down with students to outline an answer to this question, we ask about an EPIC FAIL and, afterwards, when their parents, siblings, friends, or teachers ripped them a new butt hole. We want THAT experience.
What happened? Specifically, what did you do that caused you to fail (you’ve got to own it and take responsibility for your actions)? Your response? What did you think about? Did you learn something? Were you able to apologize, fix the failure, or was the moment gone?
No matter how epic the fail, be sure to end on a happy, positive note (not something like going to university will redeem me). The best essays will reference the first part of the question and demonstrate (not just discuss) how the lessons from that failure made you successful later.
A common example (so don’t use this one) would be that you didn’t study at all for a class, then failed it, and didn’t pass the 10th grade. That experience was a wake-up call that led you to start studying hard and reach your academic potential. Eventually, you graduated in the top 5% of your high school class.
Our Comments on 2025-2026 Essay Prompt #3
Essay Prompt 3: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
This essay has the potential to be a great one if you have a strong idea that you were taught by your parents, adults that were in a position of trust (pastor, youth group leader, teacher, etc.), or friends that turned out to be wrong.
If you choose a story in which you questioned your friends or went against peer pressure, the belief or idea (basically the situation) needs to be bigger than a petty disagreement.
A good story would be something like you spent a year bullying a kid with your friends and then you realized it was wrong and then protected him. A great story ends with you losing all your friends instead of the kid you bullied. I’d watch that movie…wouldn’t you?
Don’t forget this essay needs to be 650 words, so don’t just write the facts. Set the scene! Tell a great story and explain your thought process. Keep in mind that you should reveal what prompted you to act and the new beliefs or ideas that were formed because you challenged the original idea. A strong conclusion will answer whether you would make the same decision again and why.
Our Comments on 2025-2026 Essay Prompt #4
Essay Prompt 4: Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma — anything of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
There are two options for this question: one problem that you have solved or one that you would like to solve. Since you’re applying to university, you, hopefully, are already intellectually curious. We suggest you choose this essay if you can readily identify an intellectual challenge or research query related to your CHOSEN major that you would like to solve. (Don’t pick the other option…it’s way too complicated!)
For example, if you want to major in math, choose a theorem or real world application of a mathematical concept that you want to solve. At the very least, you should want to know about it. Be sure to give all the “juicy” details of who created this theorem, how it works, and the shortcomings. You should also explain why this theorem interests you and how you would go about exploring it or finding a solution.
If you’re an IB student that had to do an investigation for SL/HL Math, you’ve got the perfect beginnings of your Common App essay!
Our Comments Common Application Essays 2025-2026 #5
Essay Prompt 5: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
Boy does the Common App love storytelling! This essay is another one begging you for a great, reflective story. If you choose this essay, you should think about a FIRST in your life. Was there a moment that was a classic coming-of-age or right of passage? Examples include:
- The first time you took a trip by yourself
- Your first job
- A walkabout or right of passage ceremony in your culture (the weirder the better–as long as it’s true)
No matter what you write about, tell a great story and, as always, explain why this was important.
Our Comments on 2025-2026 Essay Prompt #6
Essay Prompt 6: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
Wow…this essay has the potential to be a powerful exploration of your intellectual curiosity or…
An egghead treatise on an uninteresting subject.
If you choose to write this essay, be sure to consider these suggestions for:
- Science-based essays: eliminate jargon, define all essential vocabulary, and write it for a normal person (like a 12 year old) to understand
- Math essays: explain without calculations, break each concept down, describe the real world applications of the mathematical idea
- Political or international issues: stay away from extreme political opinions, back up all your ideas with statistics (facts and examples do well also), be specific
Don’t forget the other parts of this question! Explain why this topic intrigues you. Ideally, you will give real examples to back your reasons up. Make sure you have an intellectual mentor that you mention turning to for more information. The internet cannot be your mentor. =(
Our Comments on 2024-2025 Essay Prompt #7
Essay Prompt 7: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
We don’t ever recommend that students pick this option. Dumping an essay you wrote somewhere else for some other purpose is likely to lead to you not to be accepted to any university. The Common App, by definition, will shorten the work required to apply to universities. There’s no point in being SUPER lazy and not writing an essay that they will all accept. It will be worth writing…
And give you the best chances of getting in.
Ready to Make Your Common App Essay Shine?
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